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On January 25, 2017, a video titled "Where to Go When You Are Sick with the World" was posted to a previously empty YouTube channel. Promoted by anonymous accounts on several social media sites, the video achieved modest viral success and was largely interpreted as a surreal short film. Unknown to most viewers, the video alludes to the philosophies and clandestine activities of the Fifth Church, a hostile anomalous religious movement that had previously been the target of several high-profile containment and suppression operations by the Foundation.
Despite its relative popularity and the presence of numerous flagged keywords, the video was not highlighted by the Foundation's WATCHDOG network upon posting, and did not come to the attention of any Foundation personnel until nearly four weeks later. It was promptly removed under the guise of a copyright claim, but at that time the video had been viewed nearly four hundred thousand times.
Below is a full transcript of the video's contents.
[The focus of the video is an unidentified woman in a black and white dress. She appears cheerful and speaks with a calm, measured voice. Behind her an edited background shows a field of stars, slowly scrolling past. Phrases marked bold appear on the screen as text.]
[Where to go When You Are Sick with the World]
Are you sick with the world?
Are you full of blistering potential that has remained undefined?
Do you seek a better future for your body?
You do not need to answer. All of these things are true.
Hello. My name is Victoria Mendez. I am a wellness professional and a spiritual guide. Today, I will take you on a guided tour of the possibilities that await you. What I am about to show you is a guaranteed method for you to become more confident, achieve greater personal success, and never perish on this Earth. All of this is possible in only five simple steps.
If you are unsure, please repeat this section of the video until you are ready to be honest with yourself.
Step One: You Are Here.
Congratulations! You have already begun, and your trajectory is assured. Unless you are stopped, you will reach the final gate. But before we get too excited about your destination, let's discuss where you are right now.
People like to act as though they can be separated from their context. They pretend that their body does not extend past the ends of their fingers. The truth is, there is no boundary between "you" and the rest of the universe. In this sense, location is key.
Where are you right now? At your home? A coffee shop? Perhaps you're on the go as we speak! We move around so much because, at our core, we know that our surroundings influence who we are. They resonate and become a part of us, and we become a part of them in turn. We hope that these places will replenish us, but more often than not, our spiritual energy is drained instead.
For instance, let's look at vacation destinations.
[As she speaks, pictures of tropical resorts appear on the background behind her before dissolving away.]
Each year, millions of people flock to tropical and exotic locations. Vacationers place great importance on these excursions, and try to convince others that they, too, should partake. The truth is that these are empty places, and those who go there are empty people.
[The image of a globe appears. As she speaks, it spins faster and faster.]
This is not just a fact about vacations. There is no place on this Earth that will replenish your energy. If there ever was, it was destroyed a long time ago. Over the last twelve thousand years, humans have constructed monuments to the destruction of your potential. These organizations are dedicated to crushing those who dare to dream of more than simply living and dying on Earth, and being eaten by vermin and parasites.
And make no mistake: they want you to die on Earth. They want to hold you down and suck the sweet smoke from your lungs. They want your potential to be borne only in the wings of the flies that devour you. They want you to become empty. Just like them.
[The globe dissolves away.]
You have never been an empty person. You are full to bursting, fattened on the teat of self-knowledge. You want to learn more about yourself. You want to change into something greater, not a corpse.
You have the power to choose. Your blood is your own. You are free to do with it as you please. Do not listen to those who would tie you down so you can die and be eaten by the mold and the worms. Do not nourish the Earth. Leave it, and thus grant it death.
There is a place we can go. Far, far away from Earth. A world that orbits a five-pointed sun. A civilization where the people are not people. An engine for turning the Imagined into the Real. There, you are the star.
Before you can go there, you must settle your affairs on this doomed planet.
Step Two: Sharing Your Truth with an Ungrateful World
You are hesitant to move on. You cherish those around you, empty as they are, for they helped shape you into who you are. You wonder if your light can be shared with them; if they can join you in the next world.
This is not possible. Ask yourself: if they knew of your ultimate destination, would they be supportive? Or would they attempt to dissuade you and pull you back to Earth so you can die in the mud?
Think on this. The best way to pay back your former family is to outlive them.
To illustrate, I will offer the parable of Grammostola medusae, the Red Armored Tarantula, a species that flourished in the jungles of South America almost twenty five million years ago.
Like all arthropods, the red armored tarantula periodically shed its skin as it grew. The tarantula was always sentimental, thanking the molted skin for protecting it in the past, and refused to consume it. Those lost calories rotted and festered, fertilizing the jungle weeds and carnivorous plants that preyed on the tarantula. As a result of lost fitness, the red armored tarantula was hunted to extinction by early hominids, and no trace of it remains.
On the other hand, the tarantula's cousin, the five-legged Singing Pentapod, never hesitated to consume its molt. It knew that once the skin had served its purpose, it had no further value beyond sustenance. As a result, the Singing Pentapod thrived, multiplied, and survives to this day.
Now you know where you're going. You know what you'll bring. How will you get there?
Step Three: Quincunx
I'm very excited to introduce to you one of the most effective wellness tools I have learned in my career. This is an idea that has sheltered me during times of grief, sadness, and unfulfilled potential. Soon, it will be yours too.
[A shape appears.]
This is the Quincunx.
It is an image of power that humans have attempted to harness for millennia.
[Images appear behind her: a crucifix, a six-sided die, the engines of a Saturn V rocket, and a baseball diamond.]
Look around you, and you will find the quincunx in everything. People hope that it will bring them enlightenment, fortune, and success. But all of these attempts to wield the quincunx do so by alloying it. The cowards are afraid to use it in its purest form, for they know that in the Fifth World, they do not exist.
That's right. This humble symbol is our gate to the next world, and your personal ticket to paradise.
[In the background, the scrolling stars reveal a new shape floating among them: an immense spaceship, cobalt blue and pointed at the camera. From this angle, the ship's silhouette resembles the above symbol, four cylinders connected to a larger central mass.]
This is the Quincunx. A craft created by our visionary, using the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of starflung children. It is pure and powerful, and will convey us to the furthest reaches of the universe in pursuit of what we deserve.
[The background's camera rotates around the spaceship. From the side, it can be seen that the central structure of the ship is a massive, egg-shaped pod composed of numerous tessellating shapes.]
[The woman claps politely.]
You will be here soon!
Step Four: Becoming The Vessel
Remember how we spoke about location earlier. What makes the Quincunx such a special, spiritually fulfilling place?
I will answer with another question. Have you ever heard of an anechoic chamber? This is a room, artificial or natural, with zero sound. They are the quietest places on Earth. People in anechoic chambers are disoriented by the lack of ambient sound. In the perfect silence, they can even hear their own organs work. People who stay inside for prolonged periods are known to experience euphoria, epiphanies, and even glossolalia!
Now think about space. There is no sound, no medium to transmit vibrations. When you speak on a spaceship, your every word, every breath, every heartbeat, can only echo until it is fully absorbed into the energy of the ship itself. After a prolonged stay, the Quincunx will become a truer part of your body than any serving of meat.
You're a fast learner, beginning to put things together. The Quincunx is your home. The Quincunx is you. The Quincunx is all of us.
Pay attention. There may be opportunities for advancement.
[The woman pauses, and next to her a video appears and begins to play. It shows three men in jumpsuits, floating in zero gravity. The background is a pale blue wall, covered with large hatches, similar to the interior of a bank vault. Each hatch has a porthole, but only whiteness can be seen on the other side. One of the men is tied to a stretcher. All three men are smiling.]
[One man opens a hatch, revealing a plain, deep cavity. The two free men grab the stretcher and slide the other man feet-first into the cavity. When the tied man is chest-deep, he speaks: "Hlaol tlaib mnapc." The other two men repeat his words back to him in unison. All three laugh.]
[The man on the stretcher blinks, and his eyes are black from lid to lid. He smiles as the others finish placing him in the cavity. They close the hatch.]
[The camera zooms in on the porthole, through which the man inside can be seen. Suddenly, he erupts into plasma, his skin glowing and mottled with sunspots. He is still smiling as the brightness increases, and the image in the porthole is drowned out by his fierce orange glow.]
[The camera pans up, and the scale of the room can be seen: a massive, egg-shaped chamber, every wall covered with hundreds of identical hatches. Every porthole is glowing bright.]
[The video ends and disappears, once again showing the spaceship framed against the starfield. The woman clasps her hands together.]
If only we could all be so lucky.
Step Five.
[The woman does not speak. In the background, the camera slowly approaches the ship's central pod from the side.]
[As it gets closer, more details can be distinguished. First, the spiral patterns that wind their way along the outer plates; then, as the camera grows even closer, it is seen that the plates are themselves composed of much smaller shapes, tied together like glittering blue scales. The camera pauses mere meters away, as the ship slowly spins beneath it.]
[The woman turns away from the camera to face the background. She reaches out with her fingertips and touches the ship.]
[Where her fingers make contact, the scales sizzle and boil. They burst into smoke, which travels in tendrils up the woman's arm and along her body. It reaches her face, and she inhales deeply.]
[The camera rotates so more of the ship's side can be seen. As the smoke trail falls to the woman's feet she steps forward, walking into the background, past it, and joining the ship in the void. She walks along the Quincunx, holding her hand to the hull, creating more smoke, a trail on which she walks.]
[As she walks, other figures walk on from out of frame, following her, stepping on her trail of smoke. There are dozens, all indistinct, facing away from the camera, which begins to recede from the ship.]
[The procession continues until each person wraps around the curved nose of the ship and disappears from the frame.]
[The video ends.]
Conclusion: Despite the wide circulation of this video, it has resulted in little disruption of normalcy. The vast majority of viewers interpreted it as fiction, and those who thought otherwise have consistently failed to correctly identify its origin, suggesting non-anomalous conspiratorial thinking. Thorough testing has not found any cognitohazards in the video itself, and those interviewed reported no strange phenomena of note following their viewing.
However, analysis of the viewer population at large has identified a massive uptick in missing persons cases. In particular, viewers of this video have gone missing without a trace, leaving all belongings behind, at roughly twelve times the usual rate.
In all cases, their current location remains unknown.
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