Many rocks were thrown.

My aim during the contract was not as good as I wanted it to be. The image of Ronald McDonald pinned on a tree trunk was pummelled beyond recognition after my training, but I realized that I would need to practice on moving subjects instead. That’s why I decided that, from now on, I could allocate some of my specimens (sometimes my experiments create… mutations that must be disposed of) to a special training site in the yard. Surely no one would suspect a thing. It was normal to see someone pelting rocks at what looked like gelatinous cubes sliming around.

The only issue was that I could not find enough rocks in the yard, so I used my cracked vials instead. The next problem was that I now had glass shards in my yard. At least it was meant for open air operations anyway. Note to self: do not walk around barefoot. Maybe I’ll make those cool spray-on shoes that a certain Flint Lockwood had created.

On the creation of the power, Nondestructive "Testing":

All this talk about supernatural stuff has gotten me very hungry. For knowledge, of course, I wouldn't go around just eating whatever I find on the floor. 

...Or would I? 

I'm an avid believer in the concept of the 5 Minute Rule---wait, was it seconds or minutes? That doesn't matter. I generally just enjoy eating, why else would I be making food from scratch? It hits very different when it comes from hours or even months of my own hard work, though most of the time I have to stick with grocery store food instead. It's like a dessert except there's a very real chance that the ice cream I've made out of curtains doesn't taste good at all. In that case I ask my friends if they want to try it.

Okay, I have gotten sick from eating random things before, but the fact that I'm still alive is a testament to the potential that I have towards the ultimate breakthrough. If I can just figure out where all this supernatural stuff comes from, without destroying any evidence of its existence, they won't judge me anymore. Maybe there's a secret recipe somewhere too.

Sometimes I wonder what could've been.

I don't think about it often, I've chosen not to because it does nothing to help me in the long run. Maybe I shouldn't care that she was famous or that she'd just been trying to live out an idyllic farm life or that I wouldn't have been shot if we'd done everything differently. Something my parents would say to this is that "you should've known, Delphi" and the very mention of that name would haunt me, because I don't, I didn't know, and I wish I knew. They've always been into mythology, much like one of my friends who went to university for it, but it's quite unfair to compare your child with someone imbued with the power of some deity out there. I wish I'd been more prepared, I wish I could've just swung a rifle back at her and dislodged something enough to incapacitate her. Because truthfully I do still want to know, at least, why. 

Though she'd probably have killed us anyway because there's no way someone normal would keep all those... things. There's no reason to tell us even if we asked politely.

I'm the one to talk about normalcy.

This time around I've just been more exhausted too, considering I had spent most of a day just cleaning the lab that doubled as my home. Looking back at my journal I could almost see the exasperation, and in a way it scares me too. Most of the time, I've been beaten half to death and shot and I couldn't really do much about it. It says something when I'm happy eating unripe corn in the middle of nowhere. At least that doesn't require as much movement, though the gunshot did hurt---it still does, and the doctors kept asking if I wanted to press charges; how do I break it to them? I just told them it was a malfunction when I was cleaning my pistol instead, which they weren't the most qualified to question. At the time it felt like I was in my dreams all over again; helpless, in the dark both metaphorically and literally, moving as if I'm submerged. Whatever I tried, I didn't immediately see or hear the results and it scared me even though the fumes of piranha solution burned at my sinuses. Who knew if I was already dead. I couldn't tell you what that would feel like, but it sure would be terrifying if one's brain really still keeps running for ten minutes after the fact. 

Ten minutes can feel like such an eternity when you're being battered with a bent rifle.

In my endless frustration I always find it feasible to just turn off my brain for a while and hit things. There's a rage room just a few blocks over that a friend had recommended to me a while ago, and there's finally a valid reason for me to go. At first it was slightly awkward because it was just me in a room and I still had the slightest inkling that this would be devastating if footage of Delphyrion throwing things around in murderous rage gets onto the Internet, but soon I remembered that the waiver did included a non-disclosure clause on the company's part as long as I don't break any rules. 

It made me feel good, exhilarated, even. Back in school I would hate PE class because I was horrible at it, though I feel like each object I destroy boosts my confidence that I can in fact do harm even if I can't serve a volleyball. I realize that confidence is more than half of what it takes to win a fight. I can totally body a bear right now (I cannot, but the thought is what matters). I just need to believe.

And so there I go, throwing glass at the scarred walls. It all shatters and crashes down and it reminds me of that time I had to dispose of all the broken glass from my experiments. It's somewhat symbolic of all the work I've done, not that there's any reason to keep it unless I can somehow melt all of it and reshape it into something else.

Actually, that's a good idea. 

How about a phone made out of uranium glass? There were problems with sending messages back and forth between people during the contract.

I felt the world shift.

I could hardly keep my balance at the airport terminals; my body was littered in bug bites and my clothes were still sopping wet, though it meant no one wanted to sit beside me. I might have collapsed the moment I got past the TSA and ended up in the hospital, but I hardly remember any of it. Part of me believes it was all a bad dream, because there's no way I could've been in a hypercube.

Then again, the keychain on my backpack screams otherwise. I still get a weird headache when I see it. Their perception could never allow them to "see" nor recall the full truth. It should stay this way.

Maybe it's the lack of sleep I'm getting nowadays. There's always a falling sensation. I keep waking up in a cold sweat, unable to fall asleep again, and for the rest of the day I get a lingering sense of sadness coming from nowhere at all. Surely it's not the dreams, otherwise I'd actually remember them. That is pretty weird, because I usually do recall what my brain has come up with in my sleep. I just can't shake it away with the usual activities - if anything everything has simply become bland. I've gotten bored of video games and books. Is this what they mean by "growing up"? That sucks. Though, it could be that missing my right hand has just sapped away all my attention as I tried endlessly to draw it back. My left hand is stable enough from all the experiments I've done, but the hand never quite looks right on the portrait and I want to make it look better but beyond my awareness I've just started doodling elsewhere even though I was never an artist -

In my reveries I've drawn in two figures that replace the people in the portrait. They face forward, one obviously too young to fit in beside two adults who are well past 20. Ah.

That happened, didn't it.

Fuck.

Is that why my breathing's been so irregular nowadays? Sometimes I feel like my lungs are being crushed, but other times I just can't stop breathing - it's not even the awkwardness of being aware that I'm alive and functioning. It's painful, the way my airways contract and dilate and force me to breathe quicker; I can't even pinpoint an exact trigger besides, I don't know, a fight-or-flight response simply from sitting down in front of my laptop. My coffee has been sitting at the back of the cupboards for weeks now, because the caffeine simply makes everything ten times worse. Sometimes I get the inkling that this isn't how it should be, but what could I do about it? Nothing I've tried seems to help. Maybe I'm not the problem.

I concluded that until I get this figured out, I'd just... not go outside. It's a lot safer in the confines of my lab, where everything is where it should be, no random doors leading me to a room full of bugs. The walls are a pure white - surgical enough to keep me alive. I've kept everything in here so sterile that nothing can grow at all - so much for the specimens, but that's a small cost in the grand scale of things. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm sure I've experienced something like this before - some sort of invisible grief that I am awfully nonchalant about - but I've got everything under control. This time is different, I'm sure of it.

Delphyrion tries his best, but he can only handle so much before he realizes not even his "best" would ever be enough. They need more than this. They know that. They've just been lying to themselves over and over and

Over the past... uncertain amount of time, I feel like there's been a fundamental change. The atmosphere here is different even though I'm still the only person who ever traverses around the shelves and counters lined with chemicals and equipment. There's an itch deep in my bones as if they've been rearranged, and though I swear I'm not going insane from this isolation it certainly has made me realize how much time I do spend around people, even if I'm not necessarily interacting with them. I guess I've just never seen them, and even if I did, could I really call us "close"? Even looking in the mirror makes me realize I've just never really been... perceptive. I can't recognize myself. Since when has this been happening? Who is this grey-haired psychopath?

I shudder.

These thoughts spiral too deep into the depths of who knows what for me to follow them. Just a few steps and I'm already submerged in neck-deep waters. It's so much easier to just... do chemistry again. I can do that. It gives me answers. If it goes wrong I know I've made a mistake. No ambiguity there. It's all on paper for me to build upon. I haven't uploaded in months, have I? I should get started on that. It's almost natural, the way I fall into the routine of working and working and researching and testing and working and I don't even need to eat because who needs to do that? A minute in my Schrodinger's Chef backpack and even a rock can come out looking absolutely delightful, taste notwithstanding. Nevermind the food poisoning when it fails, it's just a one-in-ten chance and I'm still alive so surely this is fine because it can't be helped 

I've gotten far more work done than I ever would have. I've even invented a new durable substance to use as armor. It feels like my own Renaissance and it feels exhilarating, who knew I could publish one video per day? Back to the way it was, before everything went wrong. It doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt at all, I'm not tired at all. The commenters seem awfully concerned but they're generally happy and they should be happy because why should they worry over some adult they barely know? They're getting content from me, that's all they need to think about, there's no face behind these videos, don't need to see it, even I haven't looked in a while and I don't feel the need to because I'm fine. I've been getting messages too, but I just don't understand why Cassiopeia should be so concerned. She doesn't need to know what happened; she doesn't even have a reason to believe anything did happen, and even if she does, why would it have anything to do with me? 

I've always been like this. Hasn't she noticed? But maybe all Delphyrion wanted was for someone to call him out on his bullshit.

Just a man who's failed to grow up time and time again.

Is it really right for me to just keep going like this?

It feels... unfair.

But that's life.

It is what it is

But I'm tired

I'm tired

So, so tired

I just want to sleep

I don't want to get up

No, I have to publish videos

That's how it's always been and I'm not going to let it change

It's all I have

This semblance of a routine

Why can't things just be normal

WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL

I remember when I could breathe

Good times

Okay, maybe I'm unable to sleep because I just end up crying into my pillow in the darkness but what does that have to do with anything? Why should that make me less than, as if I'm inferior just because some lives were lost over my inability to talk to people? I'm a science YouTuber, for fuck's sake, not a vlogger, not a celebrity, and I'll be damned if I have to connect my name or face to my channel in the future. I never even wanted to take over McDonald's - it was just a stupid excuse for me to keep going on these stupid "contracts" that have somehow turned out to be social experiments for antisocial powertrippers. Did people think that Delphyrion Arcanis fucking wanted to replace Ronald McDonald? What would I even do with the title, knowing I'll just become one of those kinds of people who thinks they're above hands-on experimentation? Not to mention the negative attention from paparazzi - god forbid anyone let me get close to even one of them because I have a very good use for my Dihydrogen Monoxide. Noise suppression can do so much especially when I'm in an enclosed lab space with access to guns and tubs of piranha solution. 

Not to mention the hierarchy and how many more people would then be vying for my position. In the context of eternity, of course I want to leave a mark, even if I'm not there to see the punchline, but to hell with bettering future generations and passing on the torch. Forget being a CEO or an official of any kind. I don't want to leave a legacy that someone could just take over willy-nilly. The channel and my research ends with me and no one is going to change that. No one can replace Delphyrion Arcanis and I'll make sure of it if it destroys the world. It doesn't deserve anything more.

Delirious? I'm not delirious. I've just reached enlightenment and no one will convince me otherwise. He knows. Can't you just let him live in his delusion? Can't you just let them be happy?

Though I guess it does get a little lonely here.

It's for the best.

I swear.

Believe me.

Please.

I'm sorry

There is a silent breath in the breeze.

It speaks of happiness and horrors, of lessons and lies, of everything I could possibly imagine, promised too carelessly with words that hold no weight in the context of time. I don't know how I continue to handle it. I don't know how far I've come, how far I'll go, how far gone I’ve been since what may have been 25 years or more. The white box of the lab stifles me yet provides a comfort unlike any other. It's so easy to lose myself in the monochrome, just stare into blank space, the canvas I could never bear to fill. 

The doomed portrait stands tall in the centre, staring down, disappointed. They, of all people, should know that we were never meant to have company. I sneer as I sit before it in a chair I'd salvaged from a previous experiment - tried to make it into fries. I remember. From my second Contract: the mushroom one. We do what's necessary. It's disgusting but it's true. I wonder how many times I can paint over this before it inevitably peels off. I wonder what effect that would have on me. I don't want to test it out so I put on a layer of varnish, and now it shines and glimmers. I'm getting better at the fine movement it requires, but does it look like a professional’s made this piece anymore? Not really. Or rather it looks like a child has scribbled all over it. 

It's me. I'm the child. Shocker. 

I sometimes wonder how the other two would've coped if either of them survived instead. Probably wouldn't spare Delphyrion a thought. I laugh. That's how it's always been.

Doesn't matter. 

It was never about them - it was the fact that I couldn't do anything. I didn't do anything. It's a wonder how I made it through. But I made it through. That's got to be worth something. I have been given time. And if I don't make the most of it there wouldn't have been any point and there should always be a point to what I do no matter how inefficient as long as it matters to me as long as it makes sense for me, for the person called Delphyrion, because what else am I if I'm pointless-

It feels like time and space isn't… real anymore. 

I think about it all the time.

I think too much.

This must be some kind of joke.

Fucking hypercube. I found some doodles from my university days. Was amazed. Was terrified. Still am? How different am I from back then? Do I want to think that I've changed? Or is it too tragic to think about everything I've gained and lost and all the chances he's squandered? When had they become so hateable? Sure, he didn't have much of a presence before any of this but he wasn't actively abhorred.