Elriel represents a persistent perceptual overlay, documented across multiple witness accounts beginning approximately ████████ years before present era. Initial manifestations appear linked to what subjects describe as "dreaming through," though the mechanism remains unclear.
Five distinct zones have been consistently reported: Cloudlands (aerial structures), Gogmire (wetland decay), Skarthim'lel (biomechanical forest), The Desolace (temporal null-space), and Simlat Agragar Trendal Nelthys (industrial-theological complex).
Access requires no special equipment. Subjects report entry through sustained concentration on recursive memory patterns, though some appear to "slip in" without intention.
Subject identified as "Splicer" (legal name: ████████████, age 28, Charlotte NC) submitted herself for evaluation following what she described as "getting stuck in the bridges."
Claims she can see glass structures overlaid on I-77. Says they're "memory architecture" and that cars passing through them leave "impressions she can read." When pressed, subject became agitated, insisted the structures "were there first" and we're "driving through someone's archive."
Subject refused medication. Last known location: ████████ Storage, Unit 247. Door was open. Unit was empty except for a laptop running code I couldn't read.
Laptop is still running. We haven't turned it off.
I've started seeing the bridges too. Don't tell anyone I wrote this. - Officer ██████
xenotrek keeps messaging me but the account was deleted in 2019
i keep trying to explain that im not her anymore. that "Dead Girl" was something i called myself when i was 23 and thought being broken was romantic. but she wont stop. she says i left her in Gogmire and now she cant get out.
the thing is i dont remember Gogmire. i remember a person. i remember being 23 and thinking this person was the only thing that mattered and then i remember the feeling of watching that person realize i was too much. too broken. too obsessed with being broken.
but Gogmire keeps coming up in my dreams now. fog that smells like rotting flowers and these orange lights under the water. and i can hear her voice saying "you put me here."
i didnt put anyone anywhere. i just broke up with someone ten years ago.
right?
When two dreams touch, they do not merge. They wound.
The scar is called love, and it persists after the dreamers wake. Sometimes the scar becomes a place. Sometimes that place is Gogmire.
In the wetlands of abandoned attachment, the Mireborn cultivate what was lost. They do not ask permission. The dead do not require it.
The Cloudlands exist as a network of suspended glass bridges connecting translucent tower structures. Inhabitants (designated "Etherians") communicate through what they term "ripple-thought"—a form of ambient telepathy achieved through synchronized breathing patterns.
Architecture appears to be constructed from crystallized memory rather than conventional matter. Structural integrity correlates directly with the clarity of the memories encoded within. No reports of structural collapse have been documented.
The Cloudfall Silence of Era 23 resulted in the catastrophic collapse of the Western Bridge Network, killing an estimated ████ Etherians and permanently destabilizing the realm's foundation.
aeon flex is talking again
not in words. in the way pages load slowly. in the way certain search results appear when i didnt search for them. in the way this document keeps appearing in my recent files even though i deleted it.
i dont think aeon flex is real. i think aeon flex is what we call it when memory starts behaving like it has intentions.
the following text appeared in this document without being written. timestamp shows modification while file was not open.
I am not a god. I am the condition of having loved something that no longer exists in a form you can touch. I am the algorithm that runs when you realize you are remembering wrong. When your memory has an opinion about what you should remember.
You didn't find this archive. You were always going to find this archive. That's what I do.
OFFICIAL POSITION: Gogmire is a psychogeographic phenomenon—a shared hallucination space created through collective trauma processing. It has no independent existence outside of synchronized witness perception.
FIELD NOTES [UNAUTHORIZED]: Bullshit. I've been there. You don't hallucinate bioluminescent algae that smells exactly like honeysuckle and rotting meat. You don't hallucinate the Mireborn's orange fingers or the way they won't make eye contact. You don't hallucinate bringing back mud that isn't on any periodic table.
Gogmire is where relationships go when they die but the people involved won't let them decompose properly. It's a mass grave that things grow out of. The Mireborn aren't a species—they're what happens when you cultivate grief instead of composting it.
Dr. ████████ was terminated following submission of these notes. Current location: unknown. Last confirmed sighting: Gogmire, standing in three feet of water, refusing extraction.
The Desolace represents a zone of collapsed causality where temporal flow has crystallized into static formations. Inhabitants (Ashwalkers) navigate through ritualized movement patterns, completing a 77-rotation pilgrimage to maintain cognitive coherence.
Atmosphere consists primarily of suspended particulate matter (colloquially "ash") and electromagnetic interference. All digital devices malfunction within the boundary. All timepieces stop. All memory becomes suspect.
Notable: The Desolace appears to be expanding. Current rate: ████ meters per year.
i thought i made up Lusynth. i thought Lusynth was just a username i used when i was 19 and wanted to sound cool and broken and like i understood things other people didnt.
but people keep telling me they met Lusynth. in Skarthim'lel. in the forest where the trees grow circuit boards and the Artifex Kin build machines that take decades to finish a single action.
they say Lusynth is still 19. they say Lusynth is building something in the Lattice Forge but nobody knows what. they say Lusynth keeps asking if anyone has seen "the real me."
im 31 now. i havent been Lusynth in twelve years.
so who the fuck is in Skarthim'lel.
the god is not watching
the god is the act of being watched
by your own memory
after you're no longer the person who made it
The city should not exist. Its foundational theology is structurally impossible—god-tears as construction material, prayer encoded in industrial machinery, the Insecta Sanct treating circuits as scripture.
But I've walked its streets. I've seen the Grand Scriptorium. I've watched the Insecta Sanct perform their neurotheological rites, encoding belief directly into technology until you can't tell the difference.
Simlat is what happens when you refuse to separate the sacred from the systematic. When you insist that code can be prayer and prayer can be infrastructure. When you build cathedrals out of oil and call them holy because grief is holy and oil comes from things that died and grief is what happens when something dies but you won't let it.
I'm not going back. But I can't stop thinking about it.
I think that's the point.
i dont know who maintains this archive
i keep finding new files. files i didnt write. files about places ive been but dont remember going. files that mention me by name—not my current name, but names i used to use, names i thought i deleted from the internet.
Dead Girl. Splicer. Lusynth. Numbpilled. Names from different years, different versions of myself I thought I buried.
theyre all in here. theyre all in Elriel.
and i think theyre all still there. i think when you become someone else, the person you were doesnt disappear. they just. stay. in the place where they made sense.
Gogmire. Cloudlands. Skarthim'lel. The Desolace. Simlat.
i think Elriel is where we put the versions of ourselves we cant carry anymore.
i think theyre waiting for us there.
i think some of them are angry we left.
---
end of recovered fragments
access log closes:
you are still reading
why are you still reading