Issue 20, Page 12
Did you find something?
Transcript
1: Rhoda steps through a doorway. The walls around her are charred black, and the doorway opens out into a realm of black flesh with a similar canopy of dirt and roots.
2: As she fearfully steps on the floor of black flesh, she looks forward.
??? (off-panel): I knew it…
I feel like I knew it all along…
3: Julia lays on a bed of tentacles. A black figure looms over her, its hips and hair melded into the mass below. Its long perked ears and long hair give the image of Sedjet, but its skin is glistening black, and its hair are long tendrils, melded into the world of dark flesh. Its eyes glow red and its wide mouth shows many sharp teeth, but it looks sad, as if crying.
[BlackFennec]: This is what we are inside… deep down…
Everyone on this planet… we’re the same.
We are nothing but this dark, hungry flesh in disguise…
4: It turns to us and Rhoda, starting to smile.
[BlackFennec]: All of us.
5: Rhoda gasps. We cut to her shocked face as she awakens from the vision in the dark of her room.
Is that Sedjet?
Yes I’m afraid it is
This is… Surprising. Well, part of it.
Julia still definitely looks like Julia, just… Minus the usual energy, seeing as she’s just chilling out. Here. With….
Perhaps she really is stronger? Or maybe this fate of everyone becoming one within TOWC, isn’t exactly what it was stated to be? I mean, Julia still looks like Julia in this astral world, even if her physical body is DEFINITELY gone right now.
Meanwhile though, Sedjet, or who I can guess, is Sedjet, is… Looking like he got a new haircut. And he thought I wouldn’t notice!
In all seriousness though, does this mean that he truly is closer to being more like the Black idol than his previous canine self?
And what does it mean, him having this form, here? He looks much more humanoid than other constructs of TOWC so far.
Won’t lie, a little worried about Mel. Rhodah knows that the soul of their friend still exists, seemingly “relatively okay”, minus some trauma and brainwashing sprinkled in.
On the other side of things though, Mel doesn’t have super secret mind powers, so knowing that TOWC just broke out, got rid of a scientist AND your friend turned significant other (?). That’s…. Gonna hurt.
Rhoda, good luck. I get the feeling that you might (and I hope) go back in there. If so, well… I’m thinking TOWC will be there, knowing, waiting for you.
Oh, make sure to say hi to Sedjet too!
re: Sedjet’s form? He’s just barely Sedjet-shaped to be recognizable, I’d say. And so HIGH on his change that he’s being a dumbass again. Feels like he’s latching unto excuses to *not be* Sedjet anymore.
And his eyes might represent his mind’s predatory intentions, or something. “not safe to be around” kinda feeling.
True, true.
However, while this may only be in the astral world, the only other example of a “solid”, symmetrical form that TOWC used, at least that I can recall, was just now. Considering that Rhodah saw the black idol here, then saw this? I do feel that that’s a big jump, black blob to a vaguely canine shape.
Definitely agree with the eyes comment.
Just thought up so more stuff… See, this is why I have to exile myself!
If Julia is still the wolf we all know, and Sedjet is now the black sludge that we don’t completely know, and said black sludge may not be connected with the rest of itself, outside of Earths atmosphere, how much does Sedj/TOWC know? All the info Sedjet has? All the info Julia has? Because I get the feeling, that no one will be thinking to change regulations and codes, not realising that the idol knows what they all are now. I mean, it’s not like Rhoda is going to come out and say that “hey, turns out that souls and an afterlife exist, and this thing uses them, maybe!”
Another thought: If Sedjet, if that is Sedjet, has this new astral form here, what about others who have been consumed previously? The bat who got tricked into opening the cell way back? Everyone who got consumed on the moon? Heck, the anthro corpse it was fed during the tests? Did they wake up with a changed body like Sedjet here, with their own individual bodies like Julia, or were they just gone, shredded up and drowned out?
Gonna miss Sedjet being on the side of the anthro world. I mean, he only MOSTLY looks to be more like TOWC. Maybe, maybe there’s a tiny chance he can be returned to how he once was (to clarify, a fox scientist, not a black goo mass). For now though….
One more thing, until my brain comes up with more.
… Is it wrong that I keep picturing everything from when Sedj is interviewing Julia, to right now, as some kind of weird Snickers commercial?
Half-infected Julia: Sedjet, ditch the Shankar radiation!
Sedjet: Why???
Half-Infected Julia: Because you aren’t you, until you’re hungry! (And a black world conquering mass of flesh, teeth, tentacles, and eyes)
“A few minutes later”
Julia being taken in by infected Sedjet: Better?
Sedjet with a new haircut: We are nothing but this dark, hungry flesh, all of us!!!
Dream walking Rhoda: …
Dream walking Rhoda: Quietly leaves like she saw aaabsolutely nothing.
And the new commercial shall run before the next “Doe is me” 😉
As for TOWC, I believe both Julia and Sedj’s minds remain separate from it. Listening but not dissolved into it.
Julia remains more defined likely because her awakening had been in silence. No voices from outside of herself. And, Sedj has issues, and doesn’t want to be his former self, and that reflects on his astral form.
Rhoda, though? I have no idea. She might raise an alarm – she does have the means to prove some of it – or she might not. Incredulity aside, her character remains unclear, and knowledge is power mostly when you’re the only one with it.
It seems like this is a bit much for the Black Dog to be dealing with, so I’m wondering what Rhoda’s next plan is going to be. Though I suppose that if she did summon the Black Dog, she might meet Mr. Cat Mask Face, who might have some kind of advice for her…
Also, I think this is the moment that Rhoda was warned about in Issue 10, Page 7. Back then, Rhoda had already mostly recovered from her vision of the afterlife, so it wasn’t really clear what kind of revelation she could have that somehow would make her flinch after that. But now she knows.
This is almost certainly it.
Question remains, is this The Secret? Or another secret?
If the former, then this scheme has SOOO many layers…
maybe the ‘gods’ really have set up a tasty soul farm at the expense of TOWC.
Don’t you get it Sedjet? *You’re* Izuru Kamakura!
Welp, I’m gonna have nightmares for a few days, got gonna lie
Also, may I point out that it looks as if Rhoda just dreamwalked her way into Sedjet f***ing Julia in a mass of tentacles?