July 9th, 2018
I am now unemployed, seeing that my boss is having a closed casket funeral. Apparently, Jason took out loans in the company's name to gamble. Slots were his bane, supposedly. So much so that he would gamble on shady online sites, the kind of sites that thrive off of getting people addicted, and sending debt collectors to take whatever they can. Heirlooms, cars, houses. Businesses are no different, apparently. Property value took a hit from the bloodstains and bullet holes, but I'm sure they'll figure it out. That cheap fuck Jason had the bathroom tiled in the same stuff you'd find in the kitchen of a fast food joint. He got the tile for pennies on the dollar, and decided to use it. If you've ever been near those tiles, you'd know that some things don't quite leave it. Be it blood or grease, you'll still know something happened there, even if you can't quite put you're finger on it.
I didn’t see the rest of his body. But I did see the pool of his blood and a few miscellaneous chunks. That smell, and that goddamn cold is probably gonna stay in my head until the day I die. Klara’s impersonator was dead. Damn strider was turned to Swiss cheese by silver shot, courtesy of the folks at CDAM. I don’t envy their job in the slightest. The salary is tempting, but the mortality rate is probably why the government can pay them so much. 60% odds say that they’ll die by the end of their first year. 70% by the second year. I would be thanking them, but it’s a bit hard to do that when they shoot you and the monsters and don’t even apologize. Hurt like a bitch too. Still hurts. But on the bright side I have about 12 grams of silver inside of me. That’s worth about… $1,100 now since silver’s in high demand. Shit kills most monsters, so I might hold onto a bullet for safe keeping.
I’ve been looking at jobs online. Safe to say, there are a lot of open positions. Probably for a reason. There are some classics; fast food, gas station attendants, and other service jobs. But I’ll be damned if I die at a Nevaco in the sticks. That’s gotta be like going to hell with same-day express shipping. Park ranger is definitively out. And working as a mailman is asking for a Lamp Lady to snatch your ass. I got a few months or so of unemployment as a cushion, so I’ll just coast for now and see what comes my way.
Sleeping is difficult now. Every bump or sudden sound and I’m awake again. I would like to think that I’m not that shaken up. That I’m fine, that I looked death in the eyes and was unimpressed. But that’s a lie. I can’t even watch a video where someone is chewing, without my mind replaying what happened on Saturday. The crunching, it still sits with me, haunting me. It echoes, bouncing between my ears like an ASMR video that’s too loud. And I can’t even have a cold glass of water without thinking about what that thing did. I would go to my therapist, but my job’s insurance was paying for the whole thing. So now I don’t have enough cash to talk to Sharron, not for a while. Since I can't talk with her, I'll just continue doing what she recommended. Reciting basing information is boring, but I've noticed that I do feel a bit calmer when writing. I think that's a good sign, all things considered. So I'll write something until I can finally go to sleep.
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The 20th century psychologist and philosopher Eduardo Crespo is most famous for his seminal work "Agency, and Her Stride". Due to the extreme accuracy of his assessments and predictions, it is suspected that Crespo was one of the few documented cases of an aberration before the Fall in 2001. In his works, he defined five main concepts; causality, causal significance, agency, anomaly, and 'stride'. Causality encompasses the material world, while causal significance describes how impactful said thing in a given environment is. Crespo defined agency as "having causal significance, and the ability to exert said significance onto one's environment". Knives have relatively high causal significance; they exist in a stat that can alter the world at large, but usually can't stab or slash someone on their own. Individuals can take on objects, positions of power, and skills to amplify their own agency. Robbing someone bare handed is difficult, for example. But robbing someone at knife or gun point is vastly easier, because the robber has the ability to exert their power onto the robbed party, be it threats or violence.
There are individuals that have vast amounts of influence. Politicians that can wage wars across the planet from the comfort of their office. Crime lords that can make families disappear in a night. Celebrities that draw crowds to worship them like gods. These individuals who have harnessed the agency of others for their own gain are considered anomalies. Immediately, you can think of many anomalies, but in regards to the total human population, they're a tiny fraction.
In the world's natural causality, this is where the totem pole ends. Anomalies are at the highest tier of power, so to speak. But if an individual could wage war from across the planet, slaughter whole neighborhoods in a night, or compel others to give their agency to it; they would exist on a higher tier. "Wielding godlike power, their very strides would alter the world, and control causality to an absurd degree". This quote from 1963 perfectly predicted the existence and broad properties of striders. And thus, Eduardo Crespo is immortalized as one of the most important thinkers of the 21st century.
Most likely, the cult I delivered to a few months ago had a strider at the center of it. It would explain the whole head turning thing. The mimicking bitch from the bathroom was definitively a strider too. And since I lived near Ground Zero for so long, I have technically become a strider as well. I didn't get any cool superpowers. I just got bad luck and a body to withstand it, so that I have to endure more misfortune. I don't gamble. I learned that lesson the hard way.
