The Word-Quest of TheProse.com (Challenge Repost)

Enter username and password.

WesternPaladin

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He waited for a moment while the front page of Prose refreshed. There was a now-familiar red dot on the “Activity” icon in the top right of the screen. Without waiting for the page to load fully, he clicked on it.

OnyxCity started following you.

2 hours ago

He blinked several times, releasing his grip on the mouse. The last time he’d seen those two words used so close together was almost a year ago, continents away. They reminded him of the smell of those old books bound in some type of leather no-one had ever seen; of the ship they’d found drifting with no sign of the crew on board, and of dark mountains shivering under strange stars.

He pushed it from his mind. It had to be a coincidence. Nobody could possibly have known about that expedition to the Antarctic - they’d managed to keep it out of the press, though it had cost them a fortune. And that was without counting the promises made and favors owed to every government with an interest in the frozen continent. Certainly there was nothing amiss with this person’s profile: a close-up photo of an ordinary-looking person, presumably OnyxCity herself. An address for her personal website.

And here was some blank verse, posted just a day ago. It was a somber, reflective piece about the protagonist’s emotional state. Little, it seemed, to distinguish it from the other poems that went up on Prose every day. He raised an eyebrow when he reached the closing stanza, which had an odd rhythm unlike the rest of the poem. Even though the poem was mostly made up of short, everyday words, it ended with the word “firmament”.

He closed the poem and navigated to another of her posts. This one was about summer, and its imagery was suitably light and breezy. It was only four verses long, and the fourth verse’s cadence again shifted dramatically compared to the other three. Its rhythm was jarring, even as it spoke of an eternal green meadow, and a chill crept up his spine.

He stared at the screen for a minute, and another, not blinking, until it felt like his eyes were on fire. Then he leapt to his feet. It took only a second to reach the trunk he’d brought on the Antarctic expedition. He hurled the papers on top of it to the floor, threw it open, and started rummaging through its contents. He’d used the ciphers a thousand times, and he more or less knew them by heart, but in a situation like this, he had to be absolutely certain.

It took him hours to copy every one of OnyxCity’s poems onto paper. It took him more to make the calculations and transpositions for each one in turn, starting with the oldest and going all the way to the most recent. Evening slipped away to night, and the sun rose again outside, but he didn’t notice as pages torn from his pad piled up around him. Even as he found a description that matched no planet in the solar system, he tried to imagine it might still be a coincidence. Even as a collection of haiku became an incantation to the King in Yellow, he still prayed he had made a mistake in his calculations. Even as her most popular short story concealed a quotation that exactly matched a passage from the Mad Arab’s writings, he still half expected to wake up at any moment.

He pushed the pages to the floor, his hand shaking. On his monitor, the browser window was still open to Prose. By reflex, he pressed the refresh button again. There was a new post on OnyxCity’s profile, a mere ten lines worth of rhyming couplets. His head swam as he performed the calculations one final time. The pencil fell from his nerveless fingers.

For the one who has read and understood. He awaits you in Stethelos.