We could use your blood to paint this house red

*A radio turns on. Then another radio. And another, and another, until there are a thousand radios whispering and howling into the open air. No one turns them on. They turn themselves on. Vague Radio Host Powers™ turn them on, possibly. After all, this is something that Kevin needs everyone to hear.*

Look around you, Strex. Look inside you, Strex. See what you have created, Strex. Know what you have made us into, Strex. We believe in a Smiling God. But that doesn't mean we have to love him.

F-fuck this place. I h-hate it here. You're. Not. Welcome!

It's said that if you open the average zoo animal's cage, there's a good chance it will just stare at you and then ignore the open door completely. Ye gods, but I wish I could do that right now. But the open door is in my mind, and all the memories are coming through.

Desert Bluffs wasn't so different from Night Vale, once upon a time. I can't tell you how long ago, because the drugs they filled us with made it kind of hazy and time isn't real anyway. But then StrexCorp came, and they took over everything, and people who didn't sell out started to disappear.

We noticed, we fought back, and that just made it worse. There were literal cubical drones, hordes of people with identical black eyes, and when we managed to . . . stop . . . those they opened a portal that turned night into day with a light that was the power of a sinister Smiling God.

That light made things fade. Things like defiance and memory, weapons and supplies. For a while everything was translucent, reality was burning away in the second sun. When it stopped everyone who had been out in it had black eyes and broken smiles.

I remember these things. I forgot for so long, but without the meds I remember now.

I remember being the last to fall. I remember my last farewell, speaking through the glowing night to the brainwashed and the broken. I remember when a man who looked almost like I do now killed poor Vanessa so horribly.

I remember that the first thing they had me do, once I had been brought into the light, was kill my family. It was a very effective measure to keep me from wanting to be rescued. Without them to keep me blind and happy I would remember that, and who wants to remember something like that?

So they made me loyal, and I spoke with their voice, so the town spoke with their voice. Because I was the town's Voice, after all. I kept the town in thrall, as they kept me in thrall, as that horrible light k-kept us all in . . . oh, no, I can't do this. I'm sorry.

And now, the weather.

I really don't think I can do this anymore. The things I did for them, the murders, the sacrifice, the rituals . . .  there's always been rains of blood in Desert Bluffs, but only because Strex was experimenting with time travel. Not to mention the things we did to make lunch breaks shorter, or how the StrexPets were made, or--oh gods.

*There's a good five minutes of muffled sobbing, and then:*

C-can I have my meds back, please? Th-thank you.


Today's proverb: Technically, you catch more flies with vinegar than with honey. Oh well.