Doctor Lexus Ruby-Rex

All this time...all this time spent wondering what happened...   I went into our mission thinking I was getting answers to help Ember. Echo. I'm not even sure what name to use anymore. Ember, probably Ember. That's the only name they remember. Instead of answers for Ember, I found more questions for both of us. There was a file there on me. I was part of the same study that Ember was in. I found some of my missing journal pages and evidence that they had been monitoring my journals written clear as day into my records. In one of the pages, there was mention of remembering an Ichabod. On another, it was Ichabod S. Throughout mine and Ember's records were mentions of one Dr. Somna...I think that's what the "S" from my old journal entries stands for. It's too much to be a coincidence if you ask me. Ichabod Somna. He's the key to my past. Did they kill me? What were we researching? They killed my other co-workers...I'm sure of it.   There's so much to process that I'm not even sure I have the mental capacity right now to even begin unpacking all that I learned. I keep reading and re-reading my file. Then Ember's. Then mine again. Ember is Participant SPR-0001, I’m SPR-1045. So many?! Sig had a great question. What do I want to do with this knowledge? Do I expose the Drafted Service and LHU? Will anyone even care?   With every new thing that we learn about my past, Lucius pulls further and further away from me. I'm losing him and I don't know what to do to stop it. He is upset that I continue to be the person that they have engineered me to be. More to the point, he doesn't understand why I won't just come back to the Cult of Fallow Hopes. I may not remember why I became a Hedon, but that doesn't make my belief in my Tenets any less real to me now. Just as his are to him. It is not my place to get between someone else and their beliefs. "Oppose no one, but do not let them prohibit you from enjoying what you can."   Edit:   How could I be so stupid? I literally said it and it still didn’t click in my head. I was a researcher on the Somnambulist project that I became a part of. They’ve developed something to change somebody’s strain. I’m fully convinced that Somnambulists are an LHU experiment to make super soldiers. That telegram… “In response to your last message…” It won’t stop rattling around my head. Was my last correspondence sent before my death? Am I my own monster? I need back issues of the Daily Bailey Bugle. I need to find that obituary. “…why do I remember flames? Why do I have whispers of screams in my ears and the smell of burnt flesh engrained in my nostrils?” Do you think it was Ember who did it? Is that where the name came from? Did he kill me?   What happened to me 1/117? The information was removed from my journal, but no corresponding page exists in my file.   Wait a minute!!!!!!!!! These papers say that I was in the service for 8 years!

It happened for the first time today.   I was going through some old boxes from Eden on one of the days that Lucius was home from service. Amongst one was an old medical kit of mine that I start to go through to assess usefulness of the materials. As I was pulling out a stapler, Lucius walks in. As he sees the stapler he says, "Ah, you back to flirting again?" I just kind of stared at him for a minute before shrugging and turning away.

Today I was going through old journals just to refresh my memory and I found pages missing from around the time that I became a Somnambulist. When I...died. I can't remember what was written or if I'm the one who did it. There was no note explaining the missing pages which I feel I would have at least made note of it if I had done it.   So where did the missing pages go? I used to carry a journal around with me all the time then because I was so paranoid of losing memories that were important. Problem was that I thought everything was important. What if the missing pages WERE important?! I can't bear to bring myself to think that they were taken by someone else maliciously. Was there something that I need to remember that someone wants me to specifically forget? I tried reading the surrounding pages for some hints, but no memories were triggered. Why is this memory loss so random? GAH! Who would've done something like this? And why? I trust Lucius; I don't think it would've been him. Right? With me being away in the Drafted Service so much right now, I don't even know who all may or may not have had access to our home and belongings. I should talk with Lucius next time I'm home. He'll know what to do. I need to find out if there are any other missing pages, too.

I went through the Grave Mind yesterday. It was my first time experiencing this, and everything went horribly wrong.   I was born an Ascensorite, but something happened while I was in there. By all markers, I appear to have been brought back as a Semper Mort. I have fangs and claws and crave things that have never before been appetizing. Even my eyes are different. What's more, I seem to have echoes of remembered conversation, whispers really. In my head. My fellow doctors have ruled me of sound mind, so it isn't something that I'm imagining. After a bit of research, I have discovered that there is a local stain of the Semper Morts called Somnambulists. From a clinical standpoint, Semper Morts are members of the Gorger lineage. One thing that Gorgers have in common is eating living strains, be it flesh, blood, or, in my case, spinal fluid. How do you go from not eating people one day to staring longingly at the back of someone's neck the next?! I can't bear the thought of it, but my stomach has been growling for hours now. I've tried regular food, but it sits as if ash in my stomach. I need to get in contact with some local Gorgers so I can learn the proper etiquette of asking someone if you can nibble a bit from them. How do they not live in a constant state of guilt just for their very existence? You're not supposed to be able to have a conversation with your food!   It has been strongly suggested by my peers that I start keeping journals as it would seem that there will come a day when I don't remember my past and how I got to my present. Have I already begun to lose things? Yes. Will it be slow? Or all at once since I'm new to this? I can't actually remember how I died. My superiors say that I was working on studying a new disease that rapidly consumed me, until I finally succumbed to the illness myself. I know that they've put together that I can't remember it despite trying to be nonchalant about it. They've told me that I no longer have the clearance to look into what happened pending a full investigation on their end.   I was faithful. I AM faithful. But why does the Lord Commander test me in this fashion? What if this was all a test of my faith and I failed. What do I do?   How do I tell Lucius? WHAT do I tell Lucius? I wish he were here. I feel like I'm falling to pieces. I'm grateful that our neighbors have taken over with care for Willow while I convalesce. They're not bad for a bunch of Hedons. Willow...She's too young to understand what's going on. Lord Commander above, not even I understand it. Lucius is fighting hard to protect us...this is the last thing he needs. He'll worry, and how can he fight with a clear head if he's worrying about me back home? But I can't just let him come home to see me changed with no word beforehand. ARGH! I can't not tell him. How does one even begin to write that letter? "Hey, honey. I know you're away fighting, but I died and I don't even remember how. Oh, by the way, I'm no longer an Ascensorite like you and our daughter. Surprise!" Stupid. He'll rush home, orders or no.   I hate that I'm on an administrative leave from Last Hope. What I need right now is work to throw myself into that occupies my mind so I can stop thinking in circles over this. I've been tending to the garden for Lucius since he left, but it's mindless work and gives me all the time in the world to think.