ENDRALON.SPACE · ČLÁNEK
5. 7. 2026
VIII KROFTRA
Why did ArtFork leave Wetlandbad? Well, that's quite a complicated question. It would seem obvious -to a brighter future - but there was nothing obvious about it. First of all, ArtFork didn't leave because he wanted to, but because he had to. And then, he wasn't of an age to make decisions for himself. So it was decided by The Council of the Younger Freaks, who decided the future fate of out-of-body souls.
In that time, ArtFork's soul was floating above his head, gradually strengthening the pressure to detach from his body completely. That's why Fork loved theValen tobacco. It reminded him of what it was like to be completely detached from his physical being. As a youthdom, he lost his parents, siblings and extended family. They all died of the hakunbelan plague. The disembodied souls were a side effect of the disease. There was no help for those whose souls were not disconnected from their bodies.
The Hakunbelan plague was very painful, the body grew hot and dry until the skin became inflamed and burned holes inward, perhaps through the abdomen into the bowels. Not very nice, let me tell you. Well, that was part of why Fork had a fixation on the place and why he liked his little rituals and why he wouldn't leave FX6FEE until NamastFinger died.
She was everything to him that he lost in Wetlandbad. How ironic. Wetlandbad succumbs to fire and drought. No survivors. It's a dead planet for this maefee. The last sanitation units burned Zoleish, Quanteer, Serose and JavanTry100 area before leaving the planet. The planet was listed by the The PEACEMO as a danger zone and was off-limits to everyone in Natrabal multigalaxy. In Moshquenseer dimension at the time, it was not the first planet to be attacked by the Hakunbelan plague. It spread through wormholes and The NADAPLEB VER STEMHABA, the multigalactic council began the protracted remediation of Moshquenseer. In all, 160,000 planets were sanitized. The victims of the Hakunbelan plague numbered in the billions. Less than 500,000 souls survived. But the souls had to take up residence in other bodies. To do this, The NADAPLEB VER STEMHABA used the bodies of the victims, especially of the Melusinian fever, which affected quite a large part of Torovan. This is how ArtFork came to FX6FEE in the assigned body from The Hospital floaflee KASAREM.
If there was one thing he hated, it was his potato nose and the ever-growing hair from his hearing aids and potato snout. That's why he liked to wear the koleyms, a coat with the collar up and a hat. He felt like an uglpig, covered in purple and black bristles on his back, on his stomach, a habrey almost couldn't even find his way to bristles, only when he was excited the habrey found its own way. He'd also let himself get all traccooed, it gave him a little sense that he'd determined what he looked like. And that's what NamastFinger liked about him.
Letting himself traccoo also helped him deal with the memory of the immense pain he'd experienced as the hakunbelan plague permeated his body. It was something horrific to get traccooed. It was a combination of a sting and a puncture - and that's exactly what it hurt, like being bitten by an earwig goblin. And the earwig goblin bite spreads all over the body. It bites into the chest, the pain shoots out in all directions. So no fun at all with traccooing, buddy.
What The NADAPLEB VER STEMHABA had not treated was the placement of new citizens. Also, some souls were given a much older body, which just happened to ArtFork. It was not his real name. He forgot his real name in his death throes. ArtFork was the name he chose. When he woke up in his new body, he had his head over the edge of the bed and was looking at the poster of KROFTRA, which was the most talked about film in the whole of Moushramee at that time.
So when the HondeyKa visitor came in from The Hospital floaflee KASAREM and asked him for a name, Art was just trying to read the sign he saw upside down, and since he wasn't used to seeing in his new body yet, he read it wrong. "ArtFork. My name is ArtFork." "Well done, Fork. Welcome back." And that was the whole after a return care. That is why The NADAPLEB VER STEMHABA was publicly criticized for its lax approach to the whole matter, but in truth The NADAPLEB VER STEMHABA was fully occupied with the rehabilitation of the planets.
It was only later that The Shmutresee Foundation was established to help the victims of the Hakunbelan plague acclimatise to their new bodies and planets. But Fork was from the first wave, so he had to fend for himself. Not that he's not confused. The confusion caused him problems for many quintans to come. The whole planetary arrangement was giving him problems. It was as if someone had thrown him into an encyclopedia where he understood nothing.
The only thing that helped him was the fact that the soul in the new body had adopted the language, so it wasn't difficult to understand, but understanding was a matter of context and interconnections. That's why he was so annoyed by all the Hashabyars and new conveniences. Not that he wasn't fed up with all the other terms.
What he had left over from his old life, but what ArtFork didn't realize, was his ability to remember things he heard, and very accurately. The meaning may have eluded him, but the order of the words did not. Don't tell anyone, but for the first few quintans he'd been living hand-to-mouth before he figured out he could trace recharge card codes of snoopers and then pinch it. So he fended for himself until he figured out how to actually make a living, which took a long time.
It was very difficult for him to understand his existence on his own. He didn't remember anything from the past, only occasional plagues of fright surfaced, sort of flashes of memories that didn't say anything specific, and then there was the memory of pain. Not much for understanding himself. It wasn't until sometime later that The Shmutresee Foundation began her outreach, once it had experience with recorded transmissions. The first batch, ArtFork's, was not registered. However, ArtFork understood that not everyone accepted the body change, more than fifty percent committed suicide into the light cycle, and that the vast majority of the others suffered from similar rages as he did. So he was actually lucky.
And when he won the flight to island, he got lucky a second time. Well, who does that happen to? Admit it. How ironic. Wetlandbad succumbs to fire and drought. No survivors. It's a dead planet for this maefee.
