DEMA

The Outside

July 1st, 3001
I'm already bored.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this one before.
I've got a long night, I'll tape my eyes.
So I don't fall asleep again.
Crying out.
Sahlo Folina.

I stared at the meal I had just payed an inordinate amount of money for, the processed artificial plate of food stared at me, and I my hunger willed me to eat it, but I felt almost guilty for consuming something I had paid so much for.
Jenna put her hand on mine, "You're so quiet... Everything okay?" she asked.
I managed to nod my head, fake a smile, and utter a pathetic sounding "Yes."
The reality was that I had been suffering a migraine all day, my eyes just wanted to close and be inveloped in sweet, smooth darkness.
The speakers in the restraunt were playing an incredibly annoying radio song that was burning my ears like fire.
BlurryFace had been whispering to me lately, and it was keeping me awake, and stressing me out.
I was worried about the meeting that keons had organized for tommorow, he had gathered around one hundred people who were fans of our show, and wanted to join FPE.
I was worried about what would happen if Nico found out about all of this, the bigger the operation the harder it is to hide.
"Hello? Earth to Clancy!?" Jenna waved a hand in front of my face and I zipped back into reality.
"Oh sorry... I was... Daydreaming I guess" I told her.
"Are you really alright Clancy? You're even more pale than usual."
I shook my head, "In all honesty, I have a cracking headache that is making my head feel like it's about to split in two, and I'm extremely tired and stressed."
She looked guilty, "I'm sorry" she said, "I shouldn't have dragged you out here."
"No, no, I wanted to come" I assured her, "Anyway, the food is good."
The food was nothing Compared to joshes cooking, but I didn't mention it, pushing the thoughts from my mind.
I just wished I could enjoy a meal out with Jenna without being a complete misery guts.
Yet a misery guts is who Jenna chose to date.

July 2nd, 3001
I've got a long drive, I'll tape my eyes.
So I don't fall asleep again.
Singing out.
Up and down.
They're nodding.
Heads are moving up and down.
You got it.
Everybody stand in line.
One by one, take a hit, join the club.
Kids will try to take my vibes.
Or am I on the outside?

Today is the day.
Myself, Jenna, Ned, Juniper and Rozi made our way down to the address Keons had given us, excitement and fear buzzing around the group.
The building we arrived at was a vast, and largely out of use shopping mall.
Keons met us at the entrence, and gave us each a mask to cover our faces, with holes only for the mouth and eyes, and then sunglasses over that.
"It's best to conceal your identities for now, at least until we figure out who and who isn't to be trusted" he told us, before showing us to the meeting place.
We found ourselves in a large hall that must have been a store of some sort at some point, but was now being used by Keons as a lecture hall, fitted with a stage and a projector for the slid show Juniper had put together.
There were over a hundred people seated in the hall, most of them looked very young, but there were still ten or twelve who looked to be in their thirties and forties.
Keons switched on the projector, and we began our presentation.
I did most of the speaking, the others told me I had a certain charismatic flair to the way I spoke, which I belived.
This was the first time the people heard me speak without a distortion over my voice, and I wondered how many people recognized it from my announcement from almost a year ago.
Our presentation consisted of FPE telling the people here what we stood for, the goals we had, and what joining would entail, along with the truth about the history of Dema and Trench.
After the presentation, the people could sign their names on a peice of paper if they wanted to join, and if they didn't want to join, they had sign a document stating that they wouldn't utter a single word about was said in this room.
Every single person joined.
All one-hundred and twenty one of them.

July 9th, 3001
I am a Megalodon, the oceans feeling like a pond.
Swimming like a beast, underneath they'll be clinging on.
Meteoric rise, in prehistoric times.
Now that meteor is coming.
I am Megatron, cogs I'm stepping on.
Then the little cogs got together, start a renaissance.
Switched it up on me, fuel efficiency.
On fumes I am running, running, running.

It's been raining these past few days.
The muggy July heat has slightly subsided as the previously unbroken blue sky is filled with vast and magnificent cumulus clouds that regularly decided to go dark and expell thirty minutes of rain down to earth.
Between the showers, FPE was hard at work.
Now that our group consisted of one hundred and twenty six people, including ourselves, we felt quite important.
The others put a lot of emphasis on the fact that I was the most important of all, and in the beginning I relished in it.
Yet, as time went on, a familiar feeling started to creep in.
My status, as once again, some kind of savior symbol, remained me of my early days in Trench.
I looked back at the niavity I had about me back then, how the pressure of having to live up to some prophecy I knew nothing about but had the lives of so many people resting on it was one of the most overwhelming feelings I had ever experienced.
And I was starting to feel like that again.
How do I tell them that I am not a savoir, or a god, or anything of the like, but simply a man, a man who shares the same goal, and is not much diffrent from them on in the inside.
Not really.
BlurryFace appeared, throwing me off gaurd like a jab in the sides, and bringing back that pain in my head that appeared whenever he was around.
It starts out with a sharp sting, but then becomes dull and lumbering, a wringing in my ears that all accumulates to feeling like a mix between a migraine and a concussion.
BlurryFace reminds me that I am different to all of the ordinary people I am attempting to relate to.
I have a darkness inside of me, a darkness I cannot quell.
BlurryFace is part of me, and I am part of BlurryFace, one cannot exist wihtout the other.
I am a murderer who has committed the whorst sins on this earth with my own hands.
I don't deserve anything I have right now.
And I'm still a prisoner, no matter how free I try to make myself in my own head.
I'm still inside the walls.
"GET OUT" I yelled at BlurryFace, and he scurried back into the dark corners and crevices of my head.
He has been weak and quiet lately, perhaps he doesn't enjoy the summer weather, or I've just gotten better at shutting him out.
I fear, however, that he is starting to re-gain his strength, and I have a horrible feeling, that somthing terrible is just around the corner.
If I want to keep BlurryFace away I need to stop thinking of the Banditos.
Everytime I think of them, or their camp, I am reminded of my horrible sins.
I have managed to block the Banditos from my mind, they rarely pop back up.
When I imagine them, their faces are vague, mere suggestions.
The time I spent with Josh and the Banditos feels like another lifetime entirely.
And I'm okay with that.
The more it fades from my memory the less pain I feel and the more room I have in my heart for Jenna and Mulberry street.
The Banditos revolution failed.
They tried to attack Dema from the outside, and they couldn't do it.
We however, are going to take Dema from the inside out.
We're untouchable, and I belive with our numbers, we'll easily be able to overpower Nico and the other bishops.
The more I write, the more a new surge of hope is starting to swell inside me.
Clancy.
A rebel, a revolutionary, a savior.

I'm on the outside in the summer heat.
You can pay the cover charge, I'm in the street.
Little do they know that they can't touch me.
I'm vibing.