Nari’s Log was a ambitious unfinished sci-fi novella created by Natalie Neumann. Natalie does not recommend that you try to read the original work due to its low quality, structural issues, and grammatical errors. Instead, she encourages you to read the summary included in Volume 06: Nari’s Logof The Saga of Vincent Dawn and Volume 02: Nari’s Log of Natalie Rambles About The Saga of Vincent Dawn to better understand the content of this novella.
Well, nothing like experiencing the worst thing in your life, only to have nobody really care. I should not be bitter, since The Doctor does read these, but a little sympathy would be nice, bud. Even though he wants these to be understandable to all in order to prove that I get what is going on. Which, yeah, he tries to fix, before sending you off yet again.
I woke up feeling oddly clean. Like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulder, and I was back home. But in reality, I was just back in the sleeping chamber I fell asleep in. Still in my white coat and trousers combo, with black boots and shirt to keep some sort of theme. I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t done anything like Shift into Maxxi or Y’vonne, not that I even knew if that was possible. However, just as I was feeling up my face to confirm everything, a screen shot out from my wooden walls, with The Doctor being the primary occupant. Except he now had on a hat that looked like a pink piece of cartoon poop.
He spoke like a parent calmly lecturing their kids in the calmest manner possible. “Nari, you alright? You seemed pretty pissy when we met, at least in your Log. How’d you even get out of the train? Ya rascal.” I was annoyed that he would even attempt to comfort me. Not that there was any rational reason to be, he had no knowledge of what happened to me as far as I knew. But that didn’t stop me from lashing out at him, by punching the screen. Which caused him to fall over on the other side of the screen. Ignoring how I probably only looked like I was punching his camera, and could not possibly hit him.
After a “meep” sound, The Doctor brought himself up, and took a more stern, but still silly sounding tone with me. “Geez mister. I’m not the one who fell asleep after laying down for five minutes. Change of plans, since Maxxi is having her baby.” I tilted my head, briefly forgetting how pregnant Maxxi looked despite having the energy of five children on a very sticky sphere. “She’s ready now?” I asked, just wanting to make sure my ground was solid. “Yup! And we need all the sexual comfort we can give to her. So getcha keester in gear! First car to the left, ‘cos then you’d just be in the Rec Room, and this is a total un-recreation time!”
I decided that I should just not ask too much about Uni for now, but I just wanted to make sure he knew something for me to bring up later on. “Before I go, do you know of a Uni?” His cheery demeanor instantly vanished, he now wore a serious face for the first time since I knew him. “I’ll talk to you about that later. Now go help your friend.” He was remarkably somber in his tone, clearly indicating that something was indeed up with him and Uni.
I exited my sleeping quarters, and jogged over to the car to my left, opening the same metal door. Or should I say, I stood in front of it, and then it opened. The room itself was a pretty standard white room with a lot of closed shelves, and some medical instruments on the wall. Although, I’m guessing that the giant crate of something called, “Healing Jelly” handled most boo-boos.
My eyes quickly shifted over to a huffing and puffing, red in the face Maxxi who had her legs spread and ready to release a child. With her right hand grabbing onto Y’vonne’s arm, like it was her, well, baby. I went to the opposite side as Y’vonne, and began to ask her what I should do. She frowned before answering. “Nari, I’m not sure what exactly you can do. Maxxi just needs strength, so if you could just let her choke your arm of blood, I guess that might help.” Wanting to be helpful, I grabbed Maxxi’s other hand, and had it clench onto my arm, practically sucking out the blood it was so tight.
Just then, a pair of cartoon gloved hands appeared from the walls. Followed by a screen that just kinda popped into a wall, of The Doctor, now wearing a cough mask, and one of those head mounted metal circle bands which I never actually saw a Doctor wear. He spoke in what I think he found to be a gruff voice, but he just sounded like a goof. “Maxxi! I know you’ve got the moxie to do this! I mean, the word’s only two letters off from being your name! We lived out hundreds of adventures, and a quarter of them placed you in worse pain than this! You’ve got the gall. C’mon Nari and Y’vonne! Give this girl some mojo so she can let her child free from her vaginal prison!”
Y’vonne and I just kinda stood there. We didn’t know what he wanted us to do, and I just realized what exactly was going on, and that I’m wasn’t yet used to this. And I’m still not. We both just kinda murmured something positive and uninspired. It was along the lines of, “You can do it,” “We have faith in you,” and “Just one more push.” Although, that last one kinda worked.
Like shaking up a bottle before popping off a cork, rather than falling out gradually, the “baby” burst out in one blow. And planted its body on the wall, before it flopped on the ground. Leaving the gloved hands more or less useless. Maxxi’s face spontaneously returned to normal, before she puffed out her cheeks. “Well that was a lame experience. Human birth is scuky compared to dog birth.” There were so many questions, and I got to ask none. Instead, the “baby” started to turn transparent and, how do I put this? Melted. It didn’t end up screaming, and just kinda became a puddle that one would see as some spilled water. I could see Y’vonne looking horrified, like she caused the whole thing. But both The Doctor and Maxxi’s eyes were shimmering. Not with sorrow, but with bliss.
I looked down at the puddle, and before I knew it, the water was moving itself around, back into the form of an infant. My head literally tilted 45 degrees. “Huh?” was all I could muster. I mean, a baby fetus just became sentient water! Maxxi was the next to interject, with glee that was unexpected, even by her standards. “Oh my glob! Guys, guys, guys! I gave birth to a new species! Maybe even a new kingdom! I wanna call it Raiyne! Little baby Raiyne!” Y’vonne was just as perplexed as I was, but she shrugged it off far sooner than I could. How long had these people been here to get used to this stuff?
After some extremely awkward cleaning up, and confused looks as The Doctor and Maxxi were gleeful with their… child. But after they ogled over it, I brought The Doctor over to the Rec Room to explain what I just saw. He was now wearing one of those lacey baby headgear things. Since I believe he had a warehouse of novelty hats somewhere. “So, the sleepy gentleman needs some answers?” “Um, yeah. Did you observe my Logs, or not? I want a lot of stuff explained. Let’s begin with just how did I even Shift?”
The Doctor then took out a party popper, pulled it, and began to speak in an announcer’s voice. “It’s time for ask The Doctor! Round Zwei!” I was genuinely surprised how balloons and confetti didn’t burst out from the walls. “Before you ask, no. I didn’t get to observe your Logs. I need to actually read them, and I’m not the best thought reader. I know, I can create all this, but reading gets to me! And why did you Shift? Well, the Omnibahn is supposed to keep you consciousness inside of it, unless I send it out. Otherwise, you’d Shift all over the place, for all eternity.”
“And when I tried to craft things to keep you inside of the Omnibahn, well, I dun goofed! I forgot to carry the one. Happens to the best of us!” “So, how did I get back?” I asked, while playing with a ball I found lying around. “Oh, well, I altered the course of the Omnibahn, so I could suck you up, kinda like when we first met, except it was just calling your consciousness, so it’d come back to your own body. Or to use my prefered term, Essence! Although, I think you Shifted twice. Which is something best avoided, since it can indeed alter your very Essence.”
“I can buy that. But you seemed awfully concerned by how I met someone by the name of Uni.” I said, now stroking the ball like a cat. What? I wanted to fidget with something. “Ugh! Uni is a jerk! I won’t spare you the deets, since that could just backfire on me in the long-run. When I was born, I had a sibling born from other parts and software than I was. With the biggest difference between us being how they could manipulate certain individuals, rather than objects. With there being one person per world that they could control, all under the same name of Uni. I’m not sure what the goal with them is, but I know why she is called Uni. Because her ultimate goal is to pretty much undo the Omni. She thinks that there needs to be some brand of universe compression, so there is just one reasonable universe that followed the same laws. Not that there have been any issues thus far, everything has been working fine!”
He took a breath, before continuing on. “And yeah, it’s a she. Or at least that’s what ‘she’ says. Either way, she operates all of her lives through one central hub that is somewhere in the Omni, not unlike my giant tin can, I guess.” “Okay, I guess that makes sense, but what can I do to get back at her?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow at me. “Um… You don’t. She can get pretty aggressive. She has the world in her hand in pretty much every world with people, or is at least close.” I did not accept that answer.
“No, Doctor. I want to make her pay.” He sighed, and asked me what I’d actually been waiting for. “What’d she do to you in the two worlds you explored?” I took a deep breath, and describe what happened during both of my encounters. The Doctor’s reaction was a mere, “Huh?” I lost it, and started lashing out at him for being so mellow about the whole thing. “‘Huh?’ That is the most fitting reaction you have after that torture? A word of mild surprise? Were you just not listening?”
“Nah, I was totally listening, but that really is pretty mild compared to what the other two went through. Besides, all the pain you felt was numbed.” I quickly fished for more info to see if I could call him out on that. “You mean like when I met that Cowboy with the explosive javelins?” He nodded. “Well, that was a summer’s breeze in comparison. It was actual pain!” “Oh, now I get it!” He said, placing his fist on an open palm. “So, I guess your pain reduction thingie didn’t work either. Yeah, that does suck. I’ll fix it, and it’ll be water under the bridge, kay?”
I was about ready to stomp on his smirking face after he told me to forget everything that happened. So, I tried to make it very, very clear what happened. “After being injected with a diabolically potent poison when I was immortal due to a nightclub, and getting verbally assaulted! I said some insane shit about Uni’s fate, it’s in the freaking Log! And then I woke up with a backseat driver in the back of my head, before she somehow took over my mind, I was sent to a reincarnation of the asshole who poisoned me! And then, having no control over my body, well it wasn’t really mine, but whatever! I was taken before her, now a him, where he literally fucked my now female body to death right after I regained control! I could feel everything, and he somehow set me on fire! It was my own personal fucking hell!”
There was a minute of silence. We both looked each other into our dead looking eyes. But then The Doctor broke the tension by taking on the most serious tone I’ve heard from him. “Nari, I know that this might not sound like much, but you’d better get used to stuff like that.” My jaw dropped. “Look, Nari. I really don’t like to do this, I did it many times on the Maxxi and Y’vonne. And that was just recently. I just want to be honest with you before I need to do… something to help you from this. I’ve seen it dozens of times before, and I am well aware of how uncomfortable the mere act of sex is to you. But… This is the best option I know of. You’ll end up recording this, so in case you ever find out about this, I must ask one thing of you. Don’t hate me for this. I was only trying to help.”
My anger subsided, before I felt something grab my limbs. They were five artificial gloved hands that were just like the two that came from the wall before Maxxi gave birth. They placed me on the ground, as another went to cover my mouth. Obviously to prevent my screaming, which certainly did happen. And then, I felt a needle. It was just like the one that first brought me here, but perhaps more potent, because I was out in a few seconds. With the last image I recall seeing being that of The Doctor holding his hat on his chest, and rubbing his eyes.
Whatever was going to happen clearly made him remorseful. But what exactly was he going to do? I got the feeling that when I woke up, I would not have the answers. I drifted out, almost content by falling this way. But for the first time, I was truly scared of what’d happen when I woke up.