This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

Six hard weeks in the Reef. Scorn, Hive, and horrors enough. I still prefer the open Shore to the Glykon, but it's earning its keep. We crossed the belt and anchored our gravity off Phobos: an old Cabal base still holding an operational tether. I volunteered to clear the base of Taken. Get out a bit. Didn't even get a fireteam together before we realized the damn things were docile.

Against the anomaly, our little serpent ship was a worm, a speck, like a distant star you squish between your fingers. The bottomless pit where Mars used to be fills every starboard porthole. Crew stand in the viewing chamber for hours. Some get dragged out. The immensity of it, a planet-wide fathom of hissing dark… boundless, and us: planted on the edge of reason… It defies you.

Calus docked with us yesterday, his Scribe not but two steps behind him. Perused the stock. Picked out the first one for what they're calling communion.

They brought something on board. Scorn haven't shut up since. Qinziq is getting it ready in the viewing chamber.

Gilly's eyeing it too; looking through portholes. I hear him at night, whispering:

"It's the same… all the way through. You were right, Katabasis: it's all just a cage, a prison, but so much bigger than we thought."

What are we doing here?

FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: You can rest midway above the turbine grinder. The noise covers your moments.