Who do you trust?

Hands folded, eyes closed. Say the prayer. Eat the mush. Too fatigue-ridden to remember how many days, weeks, maybe months it had been since the book was cracked. By then, everyone had left. No biggie. It's just legwork. Legwork had led to a cult; a cult that liked praying and eating mush. A few tattoos, a new haircut, and The Last Starfighter molted into a cultist. Cults are powerful, some cults are even Labyrinths. The slow blade penetrates the shield. Deeper. Slower. Get. The. Answers.

Answers with a Question Mark? It had been a long time. Maybe a year. Maybe more. Who can remember? This time it was a bag lady. Answers. Questions. A Plan. A Plan with questions, quiet questions, questions you don't ask, don't say out loud. Some questions are like a drop of blood, falling into water. The drop disappears, but the water is tainted.

Don't drink the water, yo.

Sleepless nights. Tattoos itched, tattoos that were gone now, ink made water, squeezed out of the skin. Questions itched. Maybe We would know. No. Bloody waters are where Smiley's People swim. A Secret can be kept by three, but only if one of the three is dead. Everyone wonders who they are. Sometimes, you're defined by other people. Who you believe. Who you love. Who you can look in the eye. Right, Valentine? The eyes that always brought the headaches, he could look into. Had looked into. They weren't fen water eyes.

Dark waters run deep.

A place for everything, and everything in it's place. Preparation is A Thing. Watch this hand, not that hand. Are you watching closely? This hand is The Plan, and that's the Illusion. Everything in it's place, like Answers fit to Questions. There's no more itching. Somewhere in the night, an owl hooted.

Everything will change. Everything has changed. Some things, you can't undo. Everything that can't be undone, should be True.

It was... perfect. A. Perfect. Illusion. Play along. Until the opportunity comes. A look he'd never seen on that face. This time, the face was young. Young, and wrong. Someone had to stop it. Stop him. Was it fear? Hard to see, from the blood. Fingers spun the razor sharp card, an arm arced back down. The Killing Joke. It's a joke, get it, because of who they were, where everything had started, where everything would end. When everything would change. A rustle of wind, a strong hand catching an arm before... Before. Feathers, falling.

A name, to go with owl feathers. A ripple of Primal energy, undoing what was done.

Answers.

Everything had changed.

Don't open your eyes you won't like what you see --
The devils of truth steal the souls of the free.
-- Nine Inch Nails