-Everything you care about will change-

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I went to my first funeral today.

One of the Hexagon doctors had an unfortunate 'accident' and took a tumble down the stairs. Three of his sides were crushed in and he died from blood loss. Slant told me about it gleefully while constructing a new room for my house. I knew that Hexagon. He was one of my many doctors.

I used this fact to get permission to attend his funeral. I felt guilty and yet content at his passing. I remember him. I bit him when he manhandled me as an infant. I hated him so much back then. It didn't mean I wanted him dead though. His wife and daughter were at the funeral along with many family friends. I felt very out of place.

Slant said that the doctor was keeping records of Unnatural shapes that he's examined. They had sent an agent to steal those files but the doctor saw them and had to be silenced.

I sat quietly through the funeral as the shapes talked about the doctor's accomplishments. Finally we got one final look at the body before the Funeral workers carried off the coffin. I was surprised. There were flowers laid out on the body covering the broken parts of his frame. He was also white, his vibrant color drained away. So shapes lose their colors when they died. That explains how no one at Waste Disposal has noticed the bodies tossed among the garbage.

The coffin was elaborate, his family had plenty of money saved up to afford the funeral costs. I watched the Funeral workers carry the coffin off. Did they bury them somewhere? I've never seen a graveyard before. Did they cremate? I felt all weird inside. Sad, guilty and unsure. Someone was dead. Killed by the people I'm working with.

I am supporting a group of fanatics and murderers. For a cause that I won't even know will pan out. Most of their plans are just information gathering and long term ideas involving our children. How many years will this take? The hopeless reality threatened to overwhelm me and I had to hurriedly leave before anyone sees me break down.

I want Will. I want to hold him. I want to hear his voice. I miss him so much. Bled was my guard right now. He wouldn't stop me from going to see him. It'll just be for a little while. No one has to know about it. I just needed to see him again. I had to see with my own eye that he's doing ok.

I walk down familiar streets towards my parents house. Bled is following behind me. "Where are you going?"

"To see my brother."

"You know you're not supposed to."

"I don't give a fuck. Are you going to stop me?" I hiss.

"If I want to keep my job, yes. You NEED me for getting around without scrutiny. I have to stop you. If the Council finds out I didn't..."

"Fuck the council. Fuck you too." I power walked down the street and I can hear Bled's hurried footsteps running after me. "Kid! Please! Think of what you're doing! We can't afford to screw up at this point!"

"The only reason I joined this group is for my brother's sake. All I want is to see him again. I don't know how long this rebellion will take. What's the point of it all if I can't even talk to him?"

"Don't be so hasty! You could ruin this for everyone!" Bled grabs my arm. "Your good behavior has already gotten the council to only require one guard on you at a time. If you act up now they'll just make it even harder for you!"

I grit my eye/mouth angrily but I can see where he's coming from. Doesn't mean I have to like it. I'm just gonna have to sneak out at night like that first time. Why is everything so STUPID?!

Bled sees me back down and sighs in relief. "Look kid. There's a lot riding on you. We can't let anything ruin all the progress you've already made for us. You have a Research position. This is huge. Its the highest level area we've EVER been able to get an agent into. Also, I hear the guys in construction were hoping you could draw them up a blueprint for some kind of weapon. I've seen some of your ideas, they could be useful."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get some sketches for a ballista or something."

"Ballista?"

"Like a giant slingshot that can shoot arrows or boulders."

"Where do you come up with this stuff?"

I shrug, already sulkily heading back home. I need to grab my scooter and get back to work. The 'break' I received to attend the funeral was for the whole day but if I can't go visit Will then I may as well work.

---

I sigh and put down my pencil. The team of engineers I was given for my research were arguing over the blueprint. The problem here is that I can make all the drawings I want, but I don't know enough about mechanical engineering to put in all the necessary details on actually putting together a giant farming robot.

I can build a crude catapult, I can craft a working bow and there's the simple wheeled things but anything more complicated is kind of a bust. I'm an artist not an engineer. Watching Myth Busters means I know how it works but that doesn't mean I know how to build that stuff.

So far we've figured out how to make the tires into a proper shape for tilling the soil as it rolls by but we were having trouble with getting the arms to work correctly. That's not even mentioning the 'Death Ray' that I continue to insist is necessary.

"Ugh. I'm gonna go for a walk, clear my head a little so I can focus better." I tell them as I leave the room. They're not even paying attention to me. Bled isn't here today so its just me and Tripod.

I was just walking the halls randomly when I noticed it. The coffin from the funeral. What was it doing here in the Research center? I look to see which hallway we were in.

Waste Disposal

You know what? I'm not even surprised at this point. I turn to Tripod and point at it. "What's this coffin doing here?" He's just as confused as I am. "A...coffin?" I go up and grab onto his sides. "Hey. What happens to dead bodies after the funeral?"

"T-they get taken by the Funeral workers..." Tripod has turned pale as he stares at the box. "But what happens to it?" I ask.

"I...I don't know..." He seemed distressed. Fuck. I need to actually investigate the Waste Disposal rooms. Bled's not here though...but...I look up at Tripod's eye.

"Do you want to find out?"

He shudders and looks around fearfully. "B-but we can't..."

"Have you ever lost a family member?" I ask. He stares at me. "Y-yes...my mother..." He says quietly. I gesture at the coffin angrily. "Don't you want to know what they did with her?!"

He looks around the hallway and after realizing theres no one here but us he gazes at me, scared but there's a trace of firmness. "Y-yes." He says.

We both start down the hallway towards one of the doors the leads into the Waste research rooms. My heart would be racing if I had one in the conventional sense. What happens to the waste? I know its turned into fertilizer along with the bodies that the rebellion disposes of...but does this mean that ALL dead bodies are disposed of in such a way?!

And no one knew about this?! No one questioned it?! We open a door and carefully look inside. The first thing I noticed is the noise. These doors were surprisingly well sound proofed. There was a screeching, metallic grinding noise. I looked to see a lot of workers dumping stuff into a large machine.

The sound is horrendously loud. We could probably sneak into the room and no one would hear us coming. The machine grinded up the items tossed in and drops the pieces onto a conveyer belt leading to yet another grinder. I watched in horrified fascination. The grinding process went through another 3 times until everything became a powder. That powder was then deposited into a large vat of water that churned it all up, mixing everything together.

I saw workers from the Agriculture department coming by with large barrels that they filled with the liquid. There it was. The fertilizer that we used for crops. Besides me I can feel Tripod shaking in horror. He suddenly grabs me and points at the 1st grinder. I look over and feel my stomach drop (if I had one) as I see them throw in the body of my former doctor. Proof that our people were using our dead as fertilizer along with our trash, purposely. No wonder they don't question any bodies they find.

Tripod is so scared. He's shaking all over and I couldn't help but feel bad. He's not prepared for this. At least I already knew about the dead bodies that end up here. I just didn't know there had ALWAYS been dead bodies in here. I was turning to grab him and lead him back out when I spotted it. At the end of the machine with the valve the workers used to fill the barrels, they were bringing up a tray full of cartons. Very familiar cartons.

Milk cartons.

I turned to shove Tripod out of the room. I slammed the door behind us and ran, grabbing him by the hand and dragging the two of us out of that hallway. Shit. Shit. Shit. It wasn't JUST fertilizer. It was food as well.

So many letters and numbers. Long chemical chains. So many of them. Listed right on the side of the carton. I wasn't sure what to think. It should upset me more but...they're already dead so why not use them for nutrients? It's practical, even if It's fucked up. Sometimes I think I'm TOO pragmatic. My thoughts raced even as Tripod and I ran down the hall. I have to tell people. This was...this was BIG! We finally stop in the hallway for Mechanical research, panting and shaking.

"Shit." I gasp as I leaned against a wall. "Fuck." I say as I slid down the wall to slump over on the ground. If the situation wasn't so serious I wanted to shout 'Soylent green is people!' Because what other response could I have? Well I suppose I can also shout 'the dumplings are made of foetus!' But it might make Tripod more upset.

"T-that was...was that real?!" Tripod was crying and he sounded so scared. I reach out to squeeze his hand. He clings to me tightly as he cries. "They j-just threw that body in there! Like it was NOTHING!" He sobs.

Fuck. How many people knew about this? The shapes in there were from the upper echelons. Is this why the higher class shapes always get properly cooked meals?! I've been drinking milk all this time. Hell, our children are fed our trash and dead this entire time.

Tripod is starting to panic. I pat him on the back "Breathe. Just breathe."

"Nnngh-t-they really just..."

"Just breathe. In and out. You're shaking." I rubbed his back. I had to inform the rebellion.

.....also I was hungry again.

Mother fucker!

---

I stared at the carton of milk. Am I bad person if I'm gonna drink it anyway? I shrug and tip it back into my eye. They're already dead and I'm starving. I was actually more disturbed by the idea that our trash was going in here too. Ew, drinking ground up dead people is one thing, drinking trash is just gross.

I am well aware my priorities are somewhat fucked up.

Slant was pacing back and forth muttering in horror at the news I just gave him. He looks up at me in disgust. "You're still drinking that...horrid thing?!"

"Look, you drank this too when you were younger. It's gross sure, but I'm famished." At least now I knew what the files meant by -Processed- so that's one mystery crossed off my list of what the hell is going on. The remaining list is still absurdly long.

"How can you be so calm about this?! It's disgusting!" Slant frantically waves his arms around.

"Panicking doesn't help anyone. We need to think carefully about what to do with this knowledge." I say between sips. I'd like to drink until I feel full but I keep getting that tingling 'stuffed' feeling when I drink too much. Like my stomach can't hold it all and I have to wait and 'digest' a bit first. It makes sense, I'm only so big, I only have so much volume inside me. Even if I don't seem to have a stomach?

"...You're right but I still feel sick." Slant grumbles. He sits down and rubs around his eye. "We have to tell the people. I'll put out a note in the trash for it. Maybe one of the others can figure out something."

I hum in agreement while stroking my bricks. Ugh, drank too much. I feel bloated. I can feel the chemical chains inside me slowly breaking down. I hate it when I overeat. I get all uncomfortable and I have trouble moving around as my bricks strain to keep it all in. I groan as I carefully lower myself onto a chair.

"What's wrong? Are you sick? I told you not to drink that stuff!"

"No. Just drank too much. I feel like I'm gonna explode. This was not a good idea..." I moaned painfully.

He manages a bit of nervous laughter, clearly still stressed but trying to pull himself together. I rub at my bricks. I think I'm actually bulging, yeah, note to self, don't drink two cartons of milk in a row. No matter how hungry I'm feeling. Had this problem back as a human when I try to finish all my food because I was taught not to leave a single grain of rice behind. It was fine with general meals but most restaurants in America had servings not meant for someone my size. I would try to finish them anyway and just end up with stomach pains.

"Well I doubt you'll be able to move for a while. Just rest here while I spread the news. You did good today kid. This was really important information you got for us."

I groan as I slump back in my chair. "Oh yeah, can you check on my guard? I don't think he's doing ok after learning the truth." I left Tripod outside, watching my house like he always does. He seemed like he was calming down during our walk back to my house. I'm still worried though.

Slant nods and leaves, closing the door behind him. I try to stand up and walk a little, maybe some movement will help me digest faster. My bricks felt warm. Uncomfortably so. How much energy is being generated inside me right now? Human digestion produces heat as the acids break the substances apart into a liquid solution to be absorbed by the intestines. But Shapes break everything back into their base forms and feed on just the energy inherent within the bonds. The amount of energy that provides must be immense.

Bonded atoms have less energy than individuals. Meaning the longer the chain I break down, the more energy is released as it gets closer to being just base elements, which produces heat. That would explain why I feel like a furnace right now. Normally, energy must be used to break the bond between the atoms but my body just strips that bond right out, taking all the released energy for my own.

I ponder about my weirdass biology as I walk slowly around my kitchen. There's the stove I haven't used since coming here. For lack of anything to do I flick it on. It's a stovetop with a metal coil that slowly heats up. I've seen Orange cook before, the stove never goes above 100 Celsius though. It was strange to me since I'm used to cooking at much higher temperatures as a human.

Machines are pretty cool. This world doesn't have electricity in the same sense as I knew it. We don't have lights because there is no darkness. Everything's white with black outlines. Things like my refrigerator or the stove aren't powered by outlets or batteries. They're powered by me. By us. The churning energy inside us produced by our own biology can be transferred into machines to make them run. Just put my hand on the 'Power' slot and I can see the energy bar filling up. The fridge stores my power and it slowly gets used up over time so I just need to recharge it now and then to keep it working.

It's pretty frickin' cool if I do say so myself. Playing with the stove did more than just ease my boredom, it leeches off a bit of the excess energy from me over-eating. Sure this means I'll be hungry again as soon as I'm done digesting but by this point I'm used to being in a constant state of 'I could go for a snack'. Speaking of snacks, I've never seen popcorn in this world. The stoves don't heat up enough to make it.

Now that I think of it, I've never seen a fire in this world. All the stoves are 'electric' and don't heat up all that much. Even the Waste Disposal room only had grinders, no flame. They don't burn their trash, just grind it up and mix with water in a twisted gross recycling process. If I think about it more deeply I can understand why there is no fire.

It's too dangerous.

Almost all food is made of CHO. When we digest food we release Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen out into the air through the seams in our bricks. There's so much Carbon dust built up we need workers doing a sweep every week just to gather it up and dispose of it. If we add this fact to the sheer amount of Hydrogen there must be in the air...

Hydrogen is incredibly reactive and combustible. Oxygen may not be combustible but it's a necessary requirement for keeping a flame alive. Carbon BURNS and so long as there's any Oxygen nearby, it will continue to burn. A lack of rain means all that hydrogen and oxygen in the air ISN'T combining into water, which means that unless there's something that's absorbing those gases our atmosphere is filled with them. In other words, the stove is built to never exceed a certain temperature and no fire exists.

I shiver. What a terrifying thought. With what little chemistry I know...

A single spark might be enough to burn this world to the ground.

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