Chapter 3: The Gentle Extraction

The music repeated ever so quietly in the background.

The tape hissed between loops.

Lu’dunum gave a grisly smile.

Yet it was a smile of utter love.

He circled to the side of the Dreamer, his steps measured, theatrical, almost reverent. The Dreamer itself was positioned toward a large, clean marble wall — pristine and untouched, a stark contrast to the grates and drains below.

Suspended above the exposed brain, the metal crown of needles hovered in place.

Attached to its center was a strange glass lens.

It was pointed directly at the marble wall.

A projector.

“Ah ha… maybe I should explain. It is my craft, after all,” Lu said, speaking slightly upward — as though addressing a balcony audience.

A pause.

Fine, but don’t get too carried away.

“Hah, me? Carried away? Please~”

He flipped his hands flamboyantly before returning them to the work at hand.

The creature beneath him released a muffled whimper.

Lu glanced down warmly.

“Welcome, to my… hospital. I clean the… horrible thoughts that residents collect.”

He reached for a strange blue solvent resting in a narrow-necked bottle. The liquid shimmered faintly as he poured it gently over the exposed brain, letting it coat the surface in a thin, cooling glaze.

The muffled sound dulled almost immediately.

“See?” Lu said softly. “This is a pain stopper. So they can’t feel what needs to happen. Like cutting infected flesh.”

He lifted his scalpel with a sweet, almost bashful smile — as if trying to disarm any fear with kindness.

He set the blade aside again.

Not yet.

“Here in this realm — Insomnia City… those poor people can’t fall asleep. Lest they turn into horrible… horrible monsters.”

He leaned in and massaged the brain gently through the solvent, fingers moving in slow, circular motions. The blue liquid absorbed into the folds, easing them open like petals beneath water.

The music chimed faintly.

Lu adjusted the angle of the glass lens.

“And when they stay awake too long… the thoughts pile up. Sticky. Loud. They start to rot.”

He tapped lightly against the lens with a knuckle.

“That’s where I come in.”

The marble wall remained blank.

For now.

The crown of needles lowered one delicate inch closer.

The tape hummed.

And Lu prepared to begin the cleansing.

“Now you see, this ‘crown’ is… well… I don’t know the name,” Lu admitted with mild embarrassment.

He paused, as if waiting.

He sadly did not remember that the medical apparatus was called Pento Numas.

“…Right, exactly. Pento Numas,” Lu’dunum chimed brightly, siphoning the knowledge directly from the air around him.

He nodded to himself.

“Yes. That.”

He patted the side of the metal ring affectionately.

“Now my best friend Envy calls it the Scrubber 9000. I like that name,” Lu added thoughtfully. “However, he also calls me ‘Dog,’ so… we both have two names.”

He smiled warmly as he recited what most would recognize as bullying.

It did not occur to him to feel otherwise.

Lu reached up and began lowering the needles.

Five of them descended with mechanical delicacy.

Each needle was thin, polished, and attached to a hose that rose high above the crown before vanishing into the ceiling. These were suction tubes — coiled like patient serpents awaiting instruction.

The blue solvent shimmered faintly as the tips aligned.

“Right. And each needle is used for very important reasons,” Lu continued cheerfully. “I am tasked with finding certain memories that each needle needs to extract. To cleanse the sick mind.”

He spoke the words cleanse and sick with a kind of careful reverence.

Well Lu, a voice seemed to prod gently, what are the names of the five needles?

"Red, Blue, Green, Pink and Purple," he answered instantly, beaming.

A pause.

Those are colors, not names.

“Well, it’s easier that way,” Lu replied with a small huff. “You make everything so complicated with big words. Here. Let me show you what each does.”

Ah.

As if he were the one writing the story.

Lu leaned closer and retrieved a large tube-like instrument from his table. It resembled a stethoscope designed by someone who had misunderstood anatomy. The device was called the Sounder.

Its end held a soft plate — rounded, padded, almost gentle.

He pressed the Sounder against the exposed brain and began to move it in slow arcs.

As it rubbed the folds, the crown responded.

The marble wall flickered.

Then—

Images burst into existence.

Projected in real time through the strange glass lens.

Memories.

Thoughts.

Fragments.

They appeared in vignettes — jagged scenes, incomplete and trembling. Everything was tinted in a harsh orange hue, as though viewed through the streetlights of Insomnia City itself.

A man sitting at a kitchen table at three in the morning.

A child staring at a ceiling that would not dim.

A hand gripping a pill bottle.

A clock.

Always a clock.

The five needles trembled above the brain, awaiting assignment.

Lu tilted his head, studying the projections with keen delight.

“See?” he whispered. “They collect.”

The music continued softly behind him.

And the orange memories flickered against the marble.

“Now red is the easiest to use. We need to find violence.”

As he spoke, the marble wall shifted.

The harsh orange vignettes reorganized themselves.

An argument bloomed into focus.

We see through the Dreamer’s perspective — shouting at an older man near a makeshift rope bridge strung over a dry canal. The bridge sways. Words are sharp. Hands are raised. The Dreamer’s voice cracks with anger.

“It could be an argument,” Lu narrates gently.

The image fractures into still frames.

“It could be thoughts of violence.”

The projection stutters — now the Dreamer stands alone, imagining harm. The older man falling. The rope snapping. A wish that lingers too long in the mind.

“Dirty, dirty. Tsk tsk.”

Lu lowers the red needle to the front-right quadrant of the brain.

A precise insertion.

A slight, muffled “muggg” escapes the Dreamer.

The suction begins.

A red liquid rises up through the hose.

It is not blood.

It is far too vibrant. Too luminous. It glows as it moves, thicker than water, richer than dye — more akin to ink pulled from a fountain pen that has never run dry.

“The higher-ups can paint with this stuff,” Lu adds brightly. “Makes very bold pieces.”

The marble wall dims slightly as the red memory drains.

“Blue is sadness.”

The projection changes.

A grave.

Faded flowers.

The Dreamer kneels beside a headstone worn by weather and time. The orange hue tries to stain it, but sorrow remains unmistakable.

Tears fall in the memory.

The Dreamer in the chair twitches faintly.

“Ah — well. Better place now, Dreamer.”

Poke.

The blue needle sinks in.

A brilliant blue ink streams upward, cool and luminous. It spirals through the tubing like captured sky.

“Green is happiness. Purple are nightmares.”

A memory of laughter flickers — sunlight on a rooftop, a shared drink, wind in hair.

Extracted.

Then—

A nightmare.

Clowns.

Faces stretched too wide. Painted smiles that crack at the edges. Teeth beneath paint. The Dreamer running through narrow alleys as laughter distorts into sirens.

The purple needle drinks deeply.

Lu hums along with the tape.

“And pink is my favorite.”

He pauses, watching the wall carefully.

The projection softens.

A dance.

Hands intertwined.

Singing in a dim kitchen beneath a weak orange bulb.

“Pink is intimacy. Often romance. Could be dancing or singing. Art even.”

He smiles — deeply this time.

The image flickers again.

Bodies close.

Two silhouettes intertwined in quiet closeness.

Not crude. Not violent.

Simply human.

Lu stares with open curiosity, head tilted slightly.

“Ah ha… I don’t get to see two males do this often.”

His tail flicks once, thoughtfully.

He leans a little closer to the projection as if studying technique.

“How about a commercial break?” he suggests suddenly, bright again. “Oh! I know. Describe where the ink goes!”

He glances upward — toward the unseen narration.

Ah.

Good idea.

The five tubes pulse rhythmically above the Dreamer’s head.

Red.

Blue.

Green.

Purple.

Pink.

They converge into a thicker central pipe that snakes upward into the ceiling. The pipe runs through the walls of the lab, past the sterile green panels, into the rusted arteries of Insomnia City.

Deeper into the factory.

Where the ink is sorted.

Filtered.

Compressed.

And fed into massive glass silos that glow in layered colors like inverted sunsets.

From there, the ink is processed further — refined into fuel.

Burned in turbines.

Injected into generators.

It powers the neon towers.

The rusted districts.

The orange bulbs in crumbling apartments.

The sleepless city.

Every light that keeps someone awake.

Every hum that prevents a dream.

All of it fed by what Lu gently calls cleansing.
------

Some time had passed.

The tape still spun.

The crown still hummed softly above the Dreamer’s skull.

On the marble wall, pink flickered a little longer than the others.

The squawk box crackled.

A groan seeped through the metal mesh.

“Lu’danum… you have been looking at what I can only describe as male pornography for fifteen minutes.”

Lu shot upright.

He had, in fact, been staring.

His tail was wildly flapping behind him, betraying a focus he had not realized was visible.

The image still lingered faintly on the marble.

He quickly jabbed the pink needle deeper.

The projection snapped out of existence.

“I was, simply… scanning for… abnormalities,” he coughed, adjusting his glasses.

The voice returned, flat and uninterested.

“This is your second warning. You will be lashed fifteen times.”

Lu shrugged lightly.

Then he leaned just slightly toward us — offering a quiet tidbit.

“This is my second infraction this month,” he explained with mild embarrassment. “The first was because I stole some memories to learn how to dance. You can just inject it into your mind. Boom! Instant talent.”

He smiled, shoulders slightly hunched.

“I did get beat… but… haha.”

He brightened again.

“Now I can tango!”

The squawk box went silent.

The crown continued its work.

The Dreamer no longer made any sound.

Lu adjusted the red tubing with careful precision.

What a strange man.

With no care — or perhaps no ability — to fear.