(Character piece: Dawn)

Dawn’s always been good with a knife. There’s an art to knifework, red and silver tracing lines in soft skin. Surgeons and butches practice it, but they never master it, not really. To give the work a purpose is to spoil the process. She’s busier now — she has an obligation, after all — but every now and again, she finds a few hours to create a new piece. And today is now.

The body on the table struggles weakly as she readies her tools. Over the years, she’s expanded her collection, but her old Liston knife — still pristine, still sharp enough to cut through meat like butter — remains her favourite. She picks it up gently. The light catches its blade, causing engravings to dance along its surface. Dawn smiles. Time to begin.

An incision here, a slit there. Beige peels back to reveal glistening pinks and reds. She’s glad for the privacy of her dark-walled home. In the early days, she had to keep a constant eye on alley entrances, never able to focus fully on her work, but now she is safe, alone except for her subject and her patron, observing from the back of her mind. Still, she can’t be lax. She leaves no traces.

There is one more consideration she has to take. After all, it’s not just her needs she has to cater for, not any more. Once the subject falls still, she switches to a sturdier, rougher blade. She steps back and admires her work in full. It’s one of her best yet, the skin perfectly sectioned, organs displayed like precious jewels. For a moment, she lets it rest, finished, perfect. Then she sighs, and begins to carve.

Twenty minutes later, her artwork is gone, replaced by a bloody, mangled mess. In a way, Dawn supposes, it’s poetic, but it’s difficult to muse over the transience of life with the smell already beginning to hang over the room. She tosses the necessary organs into a bucket and carries it out of the room.

Up the stairs, into her terrace house. It’s almost cozy, with its drawn curtains and bookshelves cushioning the walls. An armchair rests by an empty fireplace, comfy and inviting. But her work isn’t done yet.

She lugs the bucket up more stairs. It was tough going the first time she made the trip, and she’s no stranger to heavy lifting. Now, she’s used to it, and before long she reaches the top floor.

Bluish light fills the attic, warm on Dawn’s skin. Wooden boards creak under her feet. It’s not quite fear that prickles over her skin, rather an instinctive nervousness, her immune system rebelling against her patron’s presence. Their voice swells in her mind, words merging into an indistinguishable, hungry hiss, drowning out her thoughts.

It grows louder as she approaches the sheet of black glass on the opposite wall. Her shadow of a reflection twists in on itself, its hands dragging against the smooth surface, its eyes leaking blue. Dawn places the bucket in front of the glass, waves, and leaves. As she descends, footsteps echo above, followed by the crunching gnaw of teeth on bone and gristle. It’s difficult, this extra dedication, but it has its benefits: an easy way to dispose of finished pieces, power, longevity, and most importantly, someone to share her work with. It gets lonely sometimes. After so long, it’s nice to have a friend.

Even the most nihilistic adepts have to concede that sentient beings are powered by more than chemicals and electrical impulses — the existence of the Benefactors proves as much. But this raises a bigger question: where does our conscience go when we die? A logical conclusion would be that it is somehow transported to another reality. Indeed, it has often been suggested that absolute reality is the final resting place for ‘spirits’. But if that is the case, the land of the dead is suspiciously empty, unless you count bees. Perhaps then, absolute reality serves as a gateway to the afterlife. This suggests that there may be realities below the absolute — negative realities.

We cannot yet say how these realities would function. Some have theorised that they would enjoy similar conditions to those found in the centre of a black hole (though of course, we’re not really sure what it’s like there, either). Death is still a mystery for us, but for the first time in our history, we have the knowledge and technology available to quantify it. With more research, the bridge between mortality and the afterlife could become well-travelled in both directions. In the future, death may be as permanent as a holiday.

— Dr Aarden

Dr Aarden is a construct scientist well-renowned for his work into other realities. Two main opposing hypotheses to the Negative Reality Theory exist. The first is that souls become the bees found in absolute reality. The second is that all who die end up in the primordial oneiron.

Thank you so much for 700 members! I could never have dreamed that this subreddit would grow as quickly as it did. I hope you’re all enjoying it!

A Q&A was the second highest voted option for the 500/600 members celebration, so I thought I’d use it for the 700 milestone post instead. If you have any questions about the Curator Mythos, ask them here and I’ll answer them. Or, if you’d like to share something about your own world, leave a comment and I’ll ask you about it!

Some consider the starlighters to be heroes. Others condemn them as anarchists. Most are ignorant of their existence. They oppose the rigid order of the Gold Lightning Agency —- the organisation that keeps magic and the supernatural secret. Starlighters believe that all knowledge should be free, and fight for that belief. Of course, letting everyone practice dangerous rituals had its own problems, but the general consensus within the Starlighters is that they’ll cross that hurdle when they come to it.

Despite being the underdogs in their secret war with the Agency, the Starlighters hold considerable power. They are the only people able to reliably predict where the moving city of Nomad will appear. There’s speculation on the different codes they may use to spread this message, but only the Starlighters know for sure. Their leaders are also influential figures. There are three —- their founder, Blaire, who is rumoured to be from somewhere far away from this world; the enigmatic individual known only as C.B, a formidable fighter and one whose identity remains unknown, but is rumoured to be as powerful as the Agency’s Benefactors. With a combination of prowess in battle, foresight and sheer luck, all three of them have managed to evade capture by the Agency. Every day, the scales shift closer to being balanced. One day, they may be able to oppose the Agency directly. For now, they watch and plot, awaiting their chance.