Per 
Verib Ponis Pulvis
That's what they used to teach us, back in school. The same repetitive phrase, without end, over and over again, pushed through my ears like a cork popped out of a bottle of champagne. They used to tell us it symbolized 'the indefinite struggle to find reality in a world of fiction, to reach out and touch God's hand and discover not its validity. Rather, its faults.'
I can't believe I used to gobble that shit up, but what was I supposed to do? I was just a kid.
Looking back, I'm surprised the absurdity of it all didn't come to me sooner. Lessons were separated into periods, but they were never just 'Math' and 'Physics.' No, they always wanted to make a point out of a mathematical flaw, or an example out of a classmate's mistake, and go over specifically why it was impossible. Never a docking of marks, not once was I told I had been "close enough", if your answer was wrong you were berated and told how it was wrong. Because of that, I never rose my hand for fear of being ostracized, while the professor rattled on about "the impossibility of negative momentum" and "the definite limit of atomic weight."
Scientia, Ubi Fallacia Consumet
It was about a month ago, my first assignment. Rarely did we have the opportunity to see the world around us at face value, our professor's constantly reminding us of the 'dangers of a young mind, open to belligerence and foolishness'. I never got used to that fucker's lectures, even after 22 years stuck between concrete walls and dirt. Lodge Alcove wasn't exactly a cozy home, but it kept me safe, and I was always occupied with work and recent events. Once in a while, they'd let the students come above ground for excursions; for the most part, that entailed sitting on our asses in the grass while our professor explained yet again that the earth, does indeed, revolve around the sun. My favourite part was always watching the apple trees sway in the breeze.
I was 20, back then, young and full of depressive vigour. I'd been assigned along with a small fire team for reconnaissance against an ana-contradictory event. There were nine of us; three administrative staff, a four-person team of RUBIES, specialized in physics simulations, my batshit professor and me. They hadn't told me until we were already 2 hours inland that we were heading to Idaho, hiking along with some ZIRCON journalists to investigate some call about 'strange happenings.' I would have appreciated being told beforehand, but instead, I got to listen to an eight-hour discussion on the Magnus Effect. By the time we made it to the containment zone, I'd already fallen asleep, and it took a RUBIE shaking me awake to get me out from the truck.
Enodari Dubitantium
We spent more than four hours scrambling through that park, with nothing but our novels for company. As per usual, one of the ZIRCON's had already started writing his thesis paper on the subject, stating that the fact that nothing was present proved that nothing ever existed. The report had said that police found some rich athlete in the area, his legs snapped at a 120° angle to the thigh. There was no sign of forced struggle, no high places to fall off of, just a long trail of blood where he had apparently dragged himself and then dropped like a sack of shit. He wasn't the first person to end up dead in this park, but the only reason we had shown up was that he was a donator, and so it'd be on our ass anyways. We'd ended up cutting the area down to small section south of the incident, all the while those fucking ZIRCON's kept speaking aloud to their camcorders and their microphones as if by some vague coincidence someone other than them would listen to it.
Then came the sound of tearing, like someone had ripped dried glue off of a piece of paper.
All I remember seeing was my professor standing there, his elderly skin sagging loosely, and then the sight of his skeleton, collapsed on its knees, nearly a foot away. He had tripped on a small stone, his body still elevated in the air as if upright and human, and yet his bones stood up as if nothing was wrong, and he stared at me. Two empty sockets burrowed into my fucking sight. All he could do was stand there with his jaw unhinged as if he were screaming at me. Screaming for someone. For help.
By the time the others had arrived, they simply stared back. Those same cold eyes reverberating back at the poor man. My professor dropped to the ground, followed by the rest of him, and that was it. No remembrance, no tears, not even a fucking celebration that I didn't have to listen to his lectures anymore. I remember hearing one of them rationalizing it down to "an accident, in which Professor McCarthy fell upon a stone and suffered from complete excarnation." He'd taught me for nearly half my life, he was every inch and aspect of my education, and they simplified whatever just happened to him to a fucking accident? There was no way I was accepting that, so I ran. I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction, as deep into the forest as I could go. I don't even think they noticed I left.
This world has always been confusing, full of strange and curious things, those of which I was always taught to doubt and understand. The rules are supposed to make sense, science is meant to have the answers, but not like this. Never in this way. I don't wanna doubt anymore. I don't want to live in the dark.
I Want To Believe
