Thorn

October 19, 2023

A station in Bennett's territory.

Lyrics

BENNETT 1

Yeah, you can say I’m unsavory
My life has gone down the drain
And the powers that be only look on with disdain
But I always come back and survive

BENNETTS 1 & 2

They try and try but they can’t get rid of me,
I won’t fall to their their moralizing hand¹
Nor the administrative command²
I’ll remain a thorn in your side

BENNETT 2

This is the place I consider home
The Land of Diverging Realities
Where the others, they get me
Like nobody else
Then there are the fighters who want me gone
Rushing me with their swords like it’ll
Wound me, though my will is strong
They wanna see me bleed so bad

They can never damage our will³
We stand until they wear themselves out
And I can get back to my escapism
Wishing for someone to show me their bones
Notices spread around the town
When I post them up in my station
With me are thousands, tens of thousands
A multiverse branching out⁴

BENNETT 1

Yeah, you can say I’m unsavory
My life has gone down the drain
And the powers that be only look on with disdain
But I always come back and survive

BENNETTS 1 & 2

They try and try but they can’t get rid of me,
I won’t fall to their their moralizing hand
Nor the administrative command
I’ll remain a thorn in your side

BENNETT 2

or the 20th time I’ve come back
After being erased from existence
We’re not wanted here but here we stay
Just reappear in an empty station⁵
Make your way back to me
And let my knives cover your walls again
We’ll go back to the way things were
A familiar shocking aesthetic

“Normal people” look down on me
“Normal life” will come to an end
I see the impressions in my peripheral
Vision, in their own version of reality
“Normal life” will come to an end
Depressingly out of my reach
But we can indulge here all we want
In the midst of this urban decay

BENNETT 1

Yeah, you can say I’m unsavory
My life has gone down the drain
And the powers that be only look on with disdain
But I always come back and survive

BENNETTS 1 & 2

They try and try but they can’t get rid of me,
I won’t fall to their their moralizing hand
Nor the administrative command
I’ll remain a thorn in your side

Commentary

I went back to the first station I saw. Its owner had put up some new gory drawings. I didn't really care that he did that, or that he was into horror, but I was curious about who he had copied the notices from. I knew it wasn't from the area immediately outside the station--I had explored that area already.

I looked at the drawings closely, and I saw that next to them there was a label with the station it came from. From there I found a map, boarded a train, and went to the origin of the drawing.

When I got out, I was on a dimly lit platform. The lights along the ceiling and floor only served to illuminate the notices on the walls--and there were a lot of them, mostly photos or drawings like the one I saw earlier. I spent some time looking around, but then I saw someone heading into the control room.

I walked closer to keep an eye on the room. I could hear someone yelling inside. Something about trying to survive and getting into fights with pearl-clutchers who want the station gone. As I saw the door start to open again, I went to look at a nearby photo of a sink with thin streaks of blood running down the basin.

I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned back to see a person storming towards a dark corridor labelled "EXIT". As I watched, I was overcome with curiosity about the landscape outside. Yet I wanted to wait just a bit longer, so I turned back towards that photo of the sink. It seemed intriguing to me in a way nothing else I saw was. I guess it's because everything else was what I expected. And it was all so predictable because I've seen it all in the City of Gray and Blue, I thought to myself as I finally headed towards the exit. I guess they're all one type of person. I'll call them "Bennett".

Once I got outside, I looked around, taking in the rundown urban landscape. The roads were all pedestrian here--it seemed everyone either traveled on foot or used the stations. I didn't really find much that stood out to me aside from the sink, but I was totally on board with the disrepair surrounding me, all the cracks and crevices and the plants sprouting through them.

It was fairly populated, with plenty of people walking around and leaning against walls. Nearby, there were a couple of people commiserating over the attack on that station. I guess one of them was the station owner I overheard.

Notes

1 One of the main reasons why people fight each other in the Land of Diverging Realities is that they want to get rid of evil. Bennett and Clementine are similar in that they're both of them are up against people with this motive.

2 The administrative command kicks you out of the realm. There is no way to fight it and come out on top, unlike with regular people. However, it's possible to be reborn as a new person. The realm will erase who you were and and where you've been, but you can make new memories.

3 The weapons in the Unreal Dimension (space encompassing Land of Diverging Realities, City of Gray and Blue, etc..) are just for appearances, they don't play a part in deciding who wins and loses. On an individual basis, it comes down to will--if your will is strong then the weapons won't hurt you.

4 The way the Land of Diverging Realities works is that if a few dozen or a few hundred people use the station, then there will be one reality. If many thousands of people are using the station, everyone gets split up into different versions of reality.

5 In the Land of Diverging Realities, you start over with an empty station. Because Bennett have all organized together in their territory, they will straight up say "I was previously [name]" so their friends can recognize them. Meanwhile, the Land of Diverging Realities administration hasn't done anything more than use the administrative command to take out Bennett's stations one by one.

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