Logbook entry

Letter to Lucilla #1: The Ghost of Cussings Past

01 Jun 2022Cycronos
My dearest Lucilla,

it´s been a while, since I´ve written to you, and you´re probably having a million questions right now. Let me answer the big three first:
Yes, I am alive (kinda..)
Yes, this is indeed me, and not just some sick joke (I wish..)
Yes, I did escape from Purgatory (the place istelf, but apparently not its reach..)
I´ll give you a moment to let that sink in.
Now, I know that your sharp mind has already found numerous reasons, as to why these lines could not possibly have been written by the man you knew as Andresius Arminius Agerius Vastus, nor the nameless slave that went by CY-8AO.
Choice of words, syntax, general composition and the overall feel are all wrong. And parantheses? Andresius despised them. „The sign of an inferior mind that couldn´t think two thoughts at once, even if its life depended on it“. That´s what he called them.
Also „no one ever escapes from Purgatory“, right?
Well, as it turns out, all of the above is true, both you and I are right. As all good things in life, so is this existence, that, for the first time in two decades I call my own again, a delicious paradox.
Now that sounded like Andresius, didn´t it? Alas, this is about as much as he and I have in common these days. It´s funny how quickly a persona that´s been maintained way beyond its expiration date crumbles to dust, once you´re no longer strapped to a polygraph and a pain enhancer when forced to write monthly letters, telling of your „progress“ towards „wisdom“.
Leave it to the Imperials to turn even a lifeline into an instrument of torture. And yes, that´s what you were to me. A lifeline that kept me limping on for twenty years, despite the fact that being allowed to only recount the banalities of the previous month was sheer hell to my highly trained mind. The hope, that´s what got to me the most. The hope that maybe next month finally something interesting would happen, that I would finally be allowed to flex my atrophied mental muscles again and have something stimulating to write about. Well, it did, though not on Purgatory, but I digress.
Whatever the oh so well-meaning Doctores concocted over the last 20 years had such a lasting effect, that Andresius Arminius Agerius Vastus is now mutilated beyond all recognition.
My hair is all white, thanks to the chemical removal of all the pigments in my follicles. That was one of the first things they did, it marks all purgatoryan slaves as what they are. As if the „un-naming“ wasn´t enough.
I´m now clinically obsessed with cleanliness, courtesy of being allowed to wear only white and getting shockwhip-lashes for ever smudge. Gods, even the HUD of my little Eagle is almost all white, despite its glare hurting my eyes, such is my aversion to color now.
My once athletic frame has gotten weak and frail, my cheeks are hollow, my eyeballs sunken, my mouth a constant frown, thanks to lasting nerve damage from the aforementioned shock-whips.
And my mind...my beautiful beloved mind, the product of centuries of eugenics and a lifetime of intense training, the one thing that defined me more than anything else...
It´s nothing but a shadow of its former self. I now have trouble deciphering something as simple as hexcode, can you imagine that?
But it doesn´t stop there. Oh no, the bastards were even more thorough, if you can believe it.
From what I can tell, there´s barely a trace of my house left on the Galweb. Human memory is fleeting, sure, entire families can be forgotten in less than a decade, but to erase them almost completely from the net, the entitiy that is supposed to never forget? Now that is a true show of power if ever I´ve seen one.
My parents supposedly died in some unspecified accident a couple years ago, my cousins vanished without a trace and I myself was allegedly never born. The only thing that marks my existence is a gravestone for the victims of some expedition, that lists me as „A.A.A.Vastus“. Probably one of the first things they did, when they had me declared dead, and I´m sure soon even this last vestige will be gone, same as every trace I´ve been able to leave since my escape.
Yes, you heard right. Every system that´s not directly under the purview of the Pilot´s Federation is „cleansed“ of my existence after a few days. (Yes, yes, I know „PILOT`S FEDERATION???“ I´ll get there, bear with me) I did say that I apparently didn´t escape Purgatory´s reach, didn´t I?
„Cycronos“ is a data-set inside of a very limited number of machines, nothing more. I exist only in living memory, and those who have seen me have a snowball´s chance in hell to prove it.
Gravestone, no past, a few reported, unsubstantiated sightings...does that remind you of something?
That´s right, I am a ghost.
And unless ghosts suddenly started counting as „someone“ the saying holds true:
No-one escapes from Purgatory. And no-one did.
Again, leave it to the Imperials to turn someone into truly no-one. And for what? For calling the wrong person a „fucking cunt“ to her face.
No-one should have that kind of power or be that vengeful.
Given time, that might hold true as well.

Are you starting to believe me now, dearest?

Eternally yours

Cycronos
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