Where'd You Get the Sword, Rook?: The Ember Files - Log 3
Dr. Moraine interviews Rook
To view the previous log - Log 2.1 - click here.
(Confidential - Do Not Distribute. Internal Use Only. For Observer-Initiated Casework.)
Filed by: Dr. C. Moraine, Narrative Adjudicator (NA)
Institution: The Ember Path Institute - Division of Narrative Forensics & Relational Phenomenology
Date of Interview: November 28, 2023
Case ID: MR-011K
Classification: Psychic Interference / Non-Local Bonding / Delusional Self-Mythology
Subject Status: Fragmented, Unmedicated Male - Rook Wetherell (50, born March 12, 1973) - Pisces Sun
Observer: Designate Mara Luz
Filing Type: Fragmentation Transcript / Emergency Diagnostic Archive
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
Rook: So what did she say about me?
Moraine: You both agreed your transcripts could be shared. Do you really want to know?
Rook: I’m sure it was about me being a mama’s boy and all that bullshit. It’s not my fault she got more involved in our friendship.
Moraine: Did she misread you?
Rook: I told her what I was. I’m the coyote, man. That’s my role. That’s what I do. She’s not the first person I’ve guided to the right path. Although I never get credit for it.
Moraine: What does that mean to you? To be a coyote.
Rook: I show up when someone’s about to cross into something new. I lead, I inspire. I stir shit up. I never force anyone to conclusions. And I don’t stay. That’s never been my role. I told Mara that from the get go.
Moraine: Mara told me you think you’re in the Illuminati.
Rook: I don’t think I am. I know I am.
Moraine: How do you know that?
Rook: I have the certificate to prove it. And the sword. Both hang on my wall. In my office.
Moraine: Did you buy them yourself? Online?
Rook: (smirks) You don’t know how it works. I was recruited.
Moraine: You didn’t answer the question. Where did you get the certificate and sword?
Rook: One night I was online - deep in it - researching the real networks behind the visible world. Suddenly the screen went black. Then a message appeared. A portal. It asked if I wanted to enter. My full name, birth date, address - all already filled in. I just had to click “accept.” And I did.
Moraine: Why you, specifically? Do you hold influence? A high-powered position? The Illuminati, if it existed, would recruit people of power and influence.
Rook: It does exist. And they contacted me because I see things. Slips in language, errors in patterns, rhythms in behavior that don’t belong. They knew I had the kind of mind that doesn’t look away. That’s what made me a candidate.
Moraine: A candidate for what?
Rook: For divine work.
Moraine: What if I told you that every bipolar patient I’ve worked with has believed they were either chosen by God or inducted into some secret order?
Rook: That tracks.
Moraine: How so?
Rook: Because bipolar brains see. We detect inconsistency. Pattern. We move faster than the world. We may be unstable - but that’s only because we’re attuned to how broken everything else is. We’re the ones who know the code is corrupted. That makes us ideal.
Moraine: Ideal for what?
Rook: For rewriting the code.
Moraine: What if I told you there’s a name for this? That the thing you call divinity is a symptom - an overflow of dopamine and grandiosity, not a cosmic calling? What if none of this makes you chosen - just chemically altered?
Rook: (quiet, almost amused) You think that discredits it. But maybe the brain is just the antenna - and the signal’s still real.
Moraine: It’s true the bipolar brain processes information in extraordinary ways. Rapid associations, heightened sensitivity, the ability to connect disparate ideas in seconds. Your experience of the world is different - faster, deeper, sometimes more beautiful. But it also means disinhibition. It means grandiosity can masquerade as truth. It means you might feel divine - but not be able to ground it. That’s the cost. The signal might be real. But without regulation, you can’t hold it.
Rook: (silent)
Moraine: Let me explain to you how the bipolar brain reacts chemically to certain triggers that lead you to believe you're on a divine or holy mission.
During a manic or hypomanic episode, the brain experiences surges in dopamine, norepinephrine, and glutamate.
These chemicals amplify energy, pattern recognition, and emotional intensity. You feel hyper-attuned - like the world is speaking only to you. That’s not enlightenment. That’s neurochemical flooding.
The frontal cortex, which normally helps regulate judgment and self-perception, gets overridden. You begin to perceive connections where there are none - or elevate ordinary events into messages from beyond. This is called delusional patterning, and it’s common in manic cognition.
Based on what I know about you so far, your specific triggers include:
Narrative immersion - especially religious, mythic, or conspiratorial frameworks
Emotional intimacy followed by abandonment - which floods your system with unresolved shame
Sleep disruption and stimulant overload - which you often frame as "creative flow"
Online rabbit holes - which mimic the highs of addiction through perceived "revelation"
Rook: (sarcastically) Oh, is that all?
Moraine: There are others. I will document them in time. You aren’t special in these indicators, Rook. You are textbook bipolar. And completely unregulated.
Rook: I’m fine. I’ve had all the therapy. I am healed. Those things don’t trigger me into my addictions. I’m not tempted to drink, do drugs. My dick stays where it’s supposed to. Doesn’t even feel like a part of my body anymore. It’s offline. My therapist said I am good to go.
Moraine: Mara told me you said your therapist fired you - because you were "healed from your addictions."
Rook: That’s true.
Moraine: Therapists don’t fire unmedicated, deregulated bipolar patients who claim they’re in the Illuminati. More likely? Your therapist felt you weren’t engaging in reality. Or refused to accept the diagnosis. Or maybe - just maybe - they recognized the cycle of manipulation you put everyone through, including them.
Rook: So you and Mara must really enjoy tearing me down in your little sessions.
Moraine: (calmly) No. There is no tearing down. In fact, in the first sessions, Mara insisted that you could be healed. She saw through the delusions, the myth-making, the mania. And she did not abandon you. In fact, she repeatedly told me she was hoping for reconciliation if you agreed to work on healing. She saw brilliance. She saw potential. She saw the real you, even when you couldn’t.
Rook: You mean she pitied me.
Moraine: Not at all. She - (pauses) - she believed in a version of you that existed in glimpses.
Rook: Does she still believe in that potential?
Moraine: I don’t believe she does. Or, at least, she is losing hope for you. The problem is you'd rather be powerful than whole. And a bipolar brain with Maternal Imprint Fragmentation Syndrome (MIFS) only allows for short unsustainable bursts - you are fragmented.
Rook: (silent)
Moraine: Rook, do you feel you'll lose your intellect - your specialness - if you become regulated?
Rook : (long pause) Yes.
Moraine: Do you believe your intellect is a direct result of your chemical imbalance?
Rook: I believe my mental illness lets me use and process information in special ways. I notice things. I make connections others don't. That's what I was trying to do with Mara - help her. Heal her. But she turned on me. It's not my fault she misread my intentions.
Moraine: (softly) She didn’t misread. She misbelieved. She believed you wanted to be healed, too. She told me she asked you repeatedly if you were okay to talk in depth about your addictions and that you insisted it was fine.
Rook: (pauses) I did. But she moved too fast, always digging. I told her - I’m the center of my universe. She’s the center of hers. Don’t push me.
Moraine: But you like it when someone is fascinated by you, don’t you? It confirms that you are special.
Rook: Fuck. Everybody likes to be seen. To be admired. That’s not crazy. It’s just she was always digging deeper and deeper into me. I thought if I slowed the pace, she'd stop and stay. Women never stay. They always run away.
Mara kept naming things I wasn't ready to be named. And that's when the friction started. That's when she stopped waiting for me to catch up. Like I said, I was just there to be a coyote. She made it more than it was.
Moraine: You want to be the center of someone’s universe until they start pointing out contradictions. Until the mask slips. She told me when she named your mother issues, you told her she was obsessed with sex as a way to connect. But that you claimed not pathologically so - which meant you could still be her friend. Why did you say that?
Rook: Because she is obsessed with sex. I told her a million times I couldn’t talk about sex.
Moraine: And yet you both talked about sex all the time. You shared deep, intimate details about your sexual histories.
Rook: And she took that for more than it was. She wanted to turn that into romantic love. Or, more like spiritual love. I don’t know. But I only have platonic relationships with women - I tell everyone that all the time.
Moraine: Perhaps she only wanted the truth from you. For you to name what’s broken in you before it breaks everyone else.
Rook: Of course you see things her way. Not mine. I’m done talking. Done being betrayed and my words twisted.
END TRANSCRIPT
Filed: Tier 3 - Emotional Pattern Archive / Fragmentation Events
Reviewer Notes:
Subject remains emotionally fused to Observer 014. Retains self-mythologizing tendencies. Denial of cruelty masked by performance of insight. Shame not yet metabolized. Surveillance behavior ongoing.
END LOG 3
To view the next log - Log 3.1 - click here.
