Mercedes was sort of “traded” for a new job. I guess I was kinda asking to get jumped, wandering around a new city, not knowing the language, not looking like a local, driving like I’m drunk and making a dumbass of myself. Still kinda surprised me, but what paranoid psychopath is constantly waiting and ready to get jumped?

These dudes stopped me, conned me, and I barely got a hit in before they got their lucky shot and knocked my ass flat. They must’ve seen something they liked (hopefully the magicy lookin bat skills) cuz I woke up in this tiny little room and kinda processed things before they came n got me, brought me to someone who looked important and stereotypically intimidating, with an excessive amount of lion tattoo, and had us talk. Stereotypical Gang Leader Guy introduced himself as Tao and speaks alright English. He told me that everyone there does, but not everyone will bother to talk to me, so I gotta watch my mouth. But since then, everyone’s been suspiciously nice. Lots of white guy dreads and gold teeth.

We talked and he made me demonstrate what his guys were talking about; Tao thinks he’s got me under his thumb as some sorta pet power from above freak of nature, which I guess he kinda does… but all the time he’s talking, I can feel the finger I’m missing start to itch. Nothing I could do about it… I had to stay or I felt like they’d all turn on me. Fucking sucked, feeling it get worse over the next few days until I could convince them I needed to borrow a car. Let Tao put a kid/parent style tracker app on my phone and I was fucking gone, looking for those tribal skeleton dudes. Best shot I had.

Two days of driving later and skeleton dudes tell me I gotta help them destroy Big Oil so my whitebread ass can earn their help, which was understandable. Back to the derrick we JUST fixed, lit up in its own product, terrified some assholes, and I’m out back to the dunes for shamanistic ritual time.

I… honestly can’t describe what they did to me. Black Panther type “drink this and get buried” thing. I don’t ever want to get buried again. Gonna fucking sever something again, the ground is too… solid. But the motherfuckers really did it. I can’t feel the rats anymore, not even that phantom limb shit. And I can kinda see people’s outlines moving before they do now- not anything useful, but what IS is the new intuitive sense of what people are saying, even if I don’t know the language. That shit is cool, like my third eye’s been opened. I can do so much goddamn eavesdropping now…

Dear Diary,

Back in Surrey, again. More and more people have caught glimpses of me, and I’ve had to hide from the police a few times. I saw a man with binoculars way off one time when I was grabbing eggs from a pigeon’s nest, looking right at me. He brought out a camera, and I hid. I climbed down the tree and moved away to make him leave. He seemed disappointed…

Another time, a bunch of drunk teenagers came near one of the ruins I like, talking about urban legends. Bloody Mary (there’s not even a bathroom out here), the Big Grey Man (hmm), someone hit his friend because he said something about the Loch Ness Monster, and then one of them started talking about me. ME. I have to get better at hiding… I don’t think they had a name for me, just “the girl in the woods.” I feel like Bigfoot. It’s not that I don’t like scaring mean people sometimes, but it’s weird knowing people are trying to watch me. I’m glad my place in the hill is a little farther away from where I usually hung out.

Speaking of lakes and monsters, I fixed my fear of water. I’ve been scared of it since the first Contract, and really, I don’t know why. It’s annoying being hesitant every time I get near the rivers or lakes. I like the rain. It cleans everything, I mean, now that I have a good shelter I can keep what I want to keep  keep dry what I want to keep dry, and at least get the dirt off my clothes and sometimes the unicorns.