The 616 Diaries: Entry 13

September 24th, 2019, 5:47 PM

So it turns out I’m not the only one who is looking for connections with 616. I always suspected that I wasn’t, but it turns out there’s a tiny niche of a community on the internet devoted to sightings of the number. Most of the people on the forum seem more like fanboys, like they just like the Devil and being all satanic—some even look like they’re just pretending—but it doesn’t stop the community from existing, and I’m guessing that there’s at least one person there who actually sees it. They can’t all be fakes.

But that’s who sent me the email the other day. Apparently, this blog got to the point where people were starting to notice it and someone posted the link to one of the forum threads. I don’t think they were too impressed, honestly, since I don’t post too many sightings themselves and just whine and complain about my life falling apart, and that’s further supported by how the email was written. It really just does sound like they think I’m another fan and devoted follower of the number, as if the email was more a recruitment drive to bring people to forum.

Since I have little else to do, however, I decided to join and read up on them.

There was one guy, goes by the name Ravenseer on the site; he seemed legit. Whenever he posted, it seemed like he was seeing a lot of the same stuff I see, a lot of coincidences that shouldn’t be coincidences. He didn’t seem to be making the same connections as I was—particularly to Catalytics and the House of Orphans—but just from his postings it really did look like he thought this was a real thing.

So I joined. Went by the name of Corvus, telling myself it was just because my last name sounds cool, but that first dream about the crows came back to me. If I was going to join a community—if I was going to put myself out there and let people find me—I might as well use the clues 616 has already given me. Maybe someone would pick up on it, maybe they would be able to understand, but it was a wild stab in the dark. I really didn’t think it was going to be anything when I posted a reply to Ravenseer and told him about all my little connections.

It was only a few minutes before I got a reply and direct message. On the thread itself, Ravenseer sounded dubious—even going so far as to say that the Catalytics stuff was bullshit—but that it was cool that I was seeing the number. Even asked for specific stuff.

In the direct message, however, Ravenseer said that the Catalytics and House of Orphans connections were incredible. Told me that he wished he had seen it before, that it was so obvious. He said that if I was comfortable with it to send him some notes and he could compare them with what he has, but that he knew that it was a dangerous prospect. If I’m right—even if I’m not—there is something at work behind the scenes and that someone could find us if they look in the right place, using the right search terms.

The message was paranoia and excitement and fear and anger and frustration all laid out for me to see, and he even urged me to continue talking on the thread just to put whoever it was that was looking for people like us—if those shadow people even existed—off of our track.

I did reply on the thread. Gave him just a few examples of what I had found, but also pointing out that everything was just a theory. Even deflated my own argument just to play along, but when it came to talking directly to Ravenseer, I started to doubt myself. Not that I saw the number or that it meant something, but that I had enough of a case to expose myself like this.

When I replied I tried to sound just like him, the tone frantic and excited and worried all at the same time, but I said I wouldn’t give him what I found until we knew each other better. I debated on just sending some of my notes—give him a taste—but as I was looking at the body of my email, I hesitated. I threw it into my draft folder and told myself that it could wait another day.

Since I was still suffering from a massive hangover, I just didn’t feel like it was the appropriate time.

It’s sinking in now, that I’m finally alone. Now that I don’t have any of them pestering me, I realize just how secluded I’ve become, how much I’ve turned into the crazy hermit. If I was a woman, I should have bought at least six cats by now, probably rescue another 10 just to make it a variation on 616. They would be my new family—these mangy, adorable-despite-their-parasites cats—and I could distract myself from the fact that I traded everything away to pursue a ridiculous idea of a purpose. If I wasn’t so convinced, if I didn’t know that I wasn’t making it up, I probably would have dived in front of a car just to have a chance to get any of them back.

But I know better. Today is a day for grief and doubt, and no amount of certainty will get away from that. It will be weeks until I stop crying for Renee; curling up with a pillow against my stomach, feeling like I’m worthless and that I’ve made too many mistakes. It will be months before I stop looking for her around the corner, stop looking at the couch and wondering when she’ll be coming over before remembering that it will be never.

She won’t. It will hurt for a while, but she’ll get over me. I was just a phase in her life, and some guy will come and sweep her off her feet like she deserves. Renee won’t be looking at my side of her bed and wishing she could smell my scent. She’ll be smiling right before kissing the man who fought for her, she’ll be laughing once she has kids and she gets to be the mom my parents knew she could be.

Renee will have a life and a family and a future; I’ll have a number and enough tinfoil to keep people from reading my thoughts.

This is my sacrifice. My solitude, my pursuit of the truth; all of it means more than anything else. It means more than my happiness, my loneliness, my anger, my sorrow, my anything. It means more than me. To be called on by something beyond the pale, that was always my destiny. This number—the number my boss gave to me so casually—it was just waiting for me to wake up and realize that I had a purpose beyond just survival, beyond life. Now that it has me, now that I can finally see, it won’t let go. I won’t let go, because I understand. I understand that this reality was never for me. I wasn’t ever supposed to be happy or to fit in, to feel, to love.

I am here to keep the record. I am here to write down the hidden language, the code hidden within the texts, to decipher what has happened and what will happen. With the number, I see what has already occurred; make the connections no one wants me to make. With my dreams, I see the future, see the hints that will help me interpret the past and present.

I don’t need to be happy to do that; I just need to be alive. I just need to see the hints and clues, create the tapestry hidden behind the veil. Work will get some of my hours—it has to just so that I can keep going—but this is my life. This is why I must suffer. I am here to find the 616s and then share what I have learned.

Yet somehow, with all of that certainty, I still won’t send Ravenseer what I’ve found.

I guess I need more time to get used to the idea.

-Ray