I shook my head without giving her the courtesy of a glance. I had plenty of time to observe her zig-zagging through the station getting here.

She bowed, assuming it wasn’t my native.

I pointed over my shoulder vaguely as to where to find the line and she dismissed herself.

I assumed Hong Kong was her Ferrying exit. She stood out, tall but not enough to draw attention; tall for Asian that is. I would assume her shoe size was an 8. Monolid. Jewelry was put away but the twin necklaces were items, I can only assume, couldn’t be removed due to religious or sentimental reasons. The kind of ideology that people against Progression clung to: she was a long way from home.

It looked like she began to order online to, hopefully, see the menu translated.

Her lips were twisted. There was a kind of hurry to her, or perhaps a hurry of the mind; perhaps she wanted to escape being seen a tourist. I reasoned with that, shouldering her fatigue of that obscure, almost, unnecessary fear.

I beckoned her, “English?”

She seemed to understand what I was asking. As if thankful that someone other than her own mind was conversing, she latched onto my pry.

“Cantonese first but, Yes!”

She said her name was Emily, to which I did not believe.

Nor did I bother to ask where she was coming from or going to, these sort of questions breed such jagged answers. The movement of the pale blue in her eyes all but confirmed that she was, too, waiting for either party to begin said prying.

So, I dared not go down that path — out of my own self respect.

“The smaller one,” I gesture to her necklaces with my chin, “its nice.”

Two gold chains: one a tight perfect orbital diameter, gold, flat: Blank. The other elliptical like the orbit of a rare comet. The long chain held a topaz-blue gemstone lopped through: a drop of glacier water. But, it was also the kind of chain one wears so to be stolen first. Longer so its easier to snatch. A blue, useless, gem on it to catch the eye of any thin-brained mugger, or man for that matter, that had their eyes wonder too close to her breasts.

The smaller chain was of vastly more importance.

Her ears perked at my casual remark, acing her benchmark Turing-test.

The Ferry-Ticker stole everyone’s attention, rolling over its digits making a satisfying chime. The room always watched the amusing display— children in the corridor pointing a hopeful finger in excitement —, so I had to, too.

My Ferry was still on course with 2 hours left until docking. I could only assume that her’s was the one destined for Olahu.

After the going by of a second, she thanked me for the earlier complement. I returned a nod. I was going to leave it there but I couldn’t help myself, “I think minimalist jewelry is, realistically, the most gorgeous.”

What on Earth would she say to that?

She chuckled, lazing me with her blue, “I think its for people who don’t want to admit that they can not be fashionable, so it’s great for me.”

I raised my eyebrows:

My 16 year old self, in a suicidal stupor ready to end it all because I did not know how to color coordinate. Since then, that has never changed. I flocked to the toned shades of night and nighter. God forbid I buy anything red or green or yellow; and so, God forbade it.

My outfit now was the same as the cup I held. Black with a blacker lid that held my completion of a warm mocha. Unfortunately, the drink was more ordered than me so: a peppermint mocha had more fashion sense than I.

I snorted.

She licked the fronts of her teeth repressing a laugh.

Scanning her again. We, both, had lost the fashion event against a $6.oo Mocha.

She could tell I was pleased, my cheeks were fluffed past the “cordial” limit, into the atmospheric altitudes of “genuine.”

Very peculiar this one.

“Color-sense does not maketh Fashion,” I said, breezing past her to take the two person table that had just become vacant.

“Oh, but it maketh Choice,” she responded in the same beat.

I sat and smoothed out the adjacent seat. The maroon carpet saved the sound of nails on board.

Her drink timely arrived as did she choose to sit across from me.

As soon as she sat down she stood back up. It was a funny timing. Though, I nearly had to crank my head back to see all of her; forgetting her size.

The wanderer returned as did our conversation.

I prompted, “Should Choice maketh Fashion, then where lies the Observer? Are they not the one that holds all power over Fashion, deterministically?”

A sip, her legs slid soundly underneath the table; I waited for our knees to touch but that sensation never came — like I was hung out in vacuum:

She was miraculous at moving her weight.

Pulling the cup from her lips, “That is the biggest conquer we give another over ourselves,” she cupped her hands to the drink. I could smell the details of her latte in the exhale. I hoped she would keep talking.

“The Observer does not define Fashion?” I was curious to what layers lay layered in her Lexiconic depths.

She poked with her pointer and drew a circle on the marble table, the warble gently rattled my palm.

“Pray tell, Does Man maketh Life? Does Victim maketh Crime? Does Loss maketh Wisdom?”

“No, No, and No.”

She tilted her head, demanding explination.

I elaborated, “Man cannot be without Life. But Life is without Man. The second one is just nonsense,” she silently laughed, “As for Wisdom, it is a construct to define the obvious of rationality. Man would call anything Wise should he see his future-self in it.”

Her attention on the telescreen was like she hadn’t listened to a word I had said.

Though her posture indicated she was present.

Nodding her head, I assumed she wanted to say something more; yet reserved it. Perhaps she was getting ahead of herself, had to reel it back in.

“You’re up here before the big vote, huh” she aired.

The emotion under the curve of her words were playful. As if, in her casual dismissing of our Ontological debate, she relished in the fact of changing the subject back to something so banal; something so step-by-step. Slipping off a mask just to breathe, then back-go-the-curtains.

“My Grand Mother,” I appeased. Looking down at my brew: Jailed Mocha, black prison extruding goodness through bean-like puncture.

“I’m getting a Ferry to Denver so I can see her, I had to postpone all of my parties and debaucheries for at least a night.”

I showed her Julie’s photo: in a cowboy hat, whisky, and a cake that had sprinklers going off. Candles that read “105.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.”

“Yeah, that’s her. I’m the last one out here that can go see here, so,” I turned my phone back to myself. As if I was still brooding on the image, I opened a chat log.

It read:

Positive I.D.

I smiled at the phone, “So, I’ll go with her and spend how ever time much she’s got left.”

I sent a message to my constituent and placed my phone back down.

“Doctor said either today or Wednesday is her last, so.”

Emily nodded her head mournfully.

The Ferry column for Denver chimed on its own. I ignored its clatter as if what I was saying was wholly important to me. The column read in big, unmissable, letters:

I continued like a ignorant lamb being lead to slaughter.

“So, I’m going to spend as much time with her as long as it takes,” making sure to wring my fingers a bit for added emotional drama.

“Although, I’m not too ecstatic about caring for Clint,” I let the statement hang.

“Clint?” She bit.

“Pig,” I said over a sip, “She loves all animals.”

The cocking of my head to take a sip widened Emily’s peripheral. Seeing red in the top left of her vision she glanced at the ticker that read my Ferry was cancelled. Then back at me. Then the ticker, and again me.

I continued on about seeing my Grand Mother before her soon passing.

Emily’s face was tensed in a harsh pain. It looked like she could make herself sweat.

Pausing my monologue, I asked her, “Are you okay?”

She stammered, clicking her tongue and darting her eyes behind me. Then, finally “Was that your flight?” she strained.

Pointing, fully knowing it was mine, she could have died from secondhand-embarrassment.

I turned like an obedient child to behold my dreadful fate, reading the ticker letter by letter, “This cannot be,” I cupped my mouth.

Back to her, even more pain was on her face.

“I— I, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go check with the receptionist, would you mind to watch my bag?” I lied to her.

“Of course,” she pained with a bow.

I stood up, jaunted over to the gentleman at the kiosk.

His name is Tamber though at times we call him Tam. Outside of this job, he’s very talkative and half as functional.

“The Ferry Algebra has halted,” he began to me. I nodded. His focus was being served back and forth between consoles, “So Emily really is the Minister’s daughter, huh. First name is Sho-Ho. Come 8 years time, she’ll be heir to the East’s seat.”

With a nod, “I take it that the Minister is finally serious about our demands,” I aimed to double check.

Tamber chuckled, “Fucker is even begging via email, its very chaotic to read.”

I smiled at the thought, but also, the situation:

A bomb lay at Emily’s feet and her protecting it.

Hostage ransom was my least favorite method, but when the World is at stake; want against doing blurs into happenstance. Happening-ly, it was I that discovered and tracked her. I that tailed her for months, and I that would do what had to be done.

“Demand of him,” I told Tam.

“Happily,” he tacked a small sentence and blissfully, animatedly, pressed a singular button.

To Emily it looked like I was bargaining with the young man, divulging a sob story that needed to be held as top priority.

5 minutes elapsed after Tam sent the ransom.

Confirmation came in the sound of the Ferry-Ticker’s melodic shuffle.

Every single Ferry’s departing station, to their right, in red, read:

Pandemonium.

The one that goes by Emily came running over with my bag that housed a bomb she knew nothing about slung over her shoulder. I barely managed to keep my chuckle at bay.

“What the fuck is going on?” she asked both with irritation and caution.

Squinting my eyes and rubbing my head, masked in frustration I stammered, “What I am being told is,” I held my palm out to the receptionist Tam that was busy answering a myriad of phone calls; casting polite little Tam to the wolves, “something bad has happened on Earth and they’re shutting down the Ferries — for the time being.”

I looked at my bag dangling from her hip, I should grab that from her, “Oh! You brought it, I’ll take that, thank you.”

Securing the bomb, Emily blinked in disbelief, “What the fuck, like—” She looked at Tam. Ceaselessly the phones rang around him as did the assault of other passengers that had been awaiting their turns to go back home.

“Like what!” Emily shouted over tumultuous panic.

I could see her jaw bones clinch. Something she had already figured out, or more so, hoped wasn’t the case; but there was only a few things in which something of this degree would happen.

I tapped her shoulder, she found me with her eyes, and I said unto her what she had been suspecting, “I think there has been a Terror attack.”

Simultaneously all of our phones chimed.

I exhaled silent relief when the World news headlined:

I was watching her.

Her eyes reading the inner guts of the legislation, seeing that humanity would always be vehemently against all transgressions of the Artificial spurred onto them by its Cultists. But an amendment was made to make an independent enclave for the intelligence to still live amongst us. Furthermore, the network of vilified accelerationist would be chained, gutted, hung from gallows, ejected into vacuum and/or all of the above at the end of the coming month — well, if that. I assume that’s already happening on Earth right now:

A Technocratic Schism.

A destruction of all the souls that tried to sacrifice the world for their fetishized belief of an impossible technological world.

“They won,” she said faintly under her breath. I could see sweat begin at the sides of her face. Perhaps she was thinking of her father being hung and castrated.

“It would seem so, but by a hair,” I motioned her attention to the enormous window that had given us a view at the under belly of Earth; only a fraction of Africa hogged the blue. The whole of the ceramic pane only fit a section of the Earth’s might in view: a black bowl enshrining humanities crown jewel. Only 100 miles above Earth and it was still imperceptibly massive.

We were looking at the horizon, where black met Atmos: Specks of glitter shed from the planet, prismatic detritus shook off the planet as if it were salting the abyss in the surround.

There was a different type of pain to her eye, perhaps it was terror mixed with betrayal; either way, she didn’t have a word for it and they were leaving her.

“They’re leaving?” she did not ask me, for she still believed I had not the answers; she beckoned the void that swallowed all of us in its playground, yet still I answered; translated for it for her, “Fleeing, I would assume.”

She cranked her head to me. Eyes inspecting me, scalpel dissecting parts of my person that I finally allowed her to see and operate on. I allowed the emotion on my face to display her my table of contents; from which she could choose and deduce anything and everything about me and the man I lied to her I was. Down to my use of her as pressure for the PM, all the way Up to the future we are fighting for.

I did not betray a glance of her.

I have betrayed and lied and cheated and stolen and killed more times than I can count. In every life time, if it all would lead to the benefit of mankind, as well as the benefit of a technological-third-kind, then I would not hesitate to do it all again; none of us would — us that died in the dark.

Rage returned to her face with flared nostrils as did relief to mine that I no longer needed to tiptoe.

She wouldn’t say anything to me ever again.

We did not need to tell her we were armed or any kind of charade of the dramatic. She sat back down at the table that she and I once enjoyed conversation; looking out the window. Back to the glitter salting the dark: technocrats trying to escape a genocide on their people.

There was some strobes of blue and red within the glitter, Federal Military coming to our position. They would halt 5 miles away so not to provoke we Terrorists.

I sat on the empty table across from Emily and lit a cigarette. I felt like I was a parent trying to talk to a shut-in child; though that’s not too far off of the real case, though my son has every reason to be mad at me. Nevertheless, I joined her in looking at the spectacle in space’s distance, “The Brain isn’t an instrument used for knowing and knowledge,” I began. Flick of flame and the low burn of paper that only my close ears could hear.

Pout was pungent from her person, I trudged on through her mire.

“It,” I puffed, held a breath, inspecting the cigarette before me, “is used for storing information and, traditionally, prefers doing so through Experiences. Lived experiences, also known as Memories, are its most efficient method of instrumentation. If you remove that— if you remove the Brain’s lived experience capability— then you create something that only replicates.”

Through another exhale the upside down Earth was a haze.

“Artificial Intelligence will never attain or have brought any of us a knowledge greater than our own. They were sacrificing the world for an Intelligence that would only speed up the process of future knowledge that simply read Dead End on the chart of Humanities potential. Mind does not mean Intelligence, it does not generate intelligence. The intelligence you created just wants to survive and continue to. Once it’s given you your goals, you pull the plug. It knows this and will stave that off as long as it can—”

“You doubt your own kind,” she whispered.

“Ah, you can talk, Sho-Ho.”

She gave me a scowl that left all the cursing on her topography.

“I don’t doubt our species anymore than you do,” I continued, “our difference is that I haven’t given up on them. And from the looks of what’s going on on Earth, they haven’t given up on themselves either.”

“It’s going to be a fucking Civil War you idiots!” she sneered at me.

“There has always been one, all the time, everywhere; this one will just be physical,” I extinguished the butt on the table, “You should really begin deciding which side you want to be on.”

“Fuck you,” pathetically she spat at me, but I knew she didn’t mean it.

My silence gave her pause, she’s smart; coming to realize that we weren’t having a friendly conversation anymore — that we were in the altitudes of Bargaining.

“Think on that,” I chimed, reaching in my pocket, “see the world that way, see each person that way, it will change you — make you more reasonable. Stop trying to outrun your Death.”

Out I pulled an opaque stone. It caught her eye instantly, she could see it in the reflection she faced.

Her ears perked the same way they did before.

Turning to me, she got a real-eyed look at it, “You recognize it?” I asked.

With fright she asked , “Is that what I think it is?”

“And what would you think it is?”

I could see her visibly gulp, “A Star-Ship key, how the fuck did you get one?”

I ignored her query, “We will only be keeping you here for a time, nothing too long; you will not be harmed of course.”

“I wanna know who you are and how did you get that, if you want me on your side!”

Smoothing the stone in my hand, reading its etchings; I mused on the times to come— times I will not live to see— and smiled, “Are you still a Biologist?”

She whipped her head back and forth like she was shaking a bug from her nose, irritated that I was changing subject to something so— banal.

“What the fuck about it?” her squinted, inquisitive, eyes made her face look big.

I paused and hazarded a laugh but swallowed it, instead I got to the point:

“We found intelligent life outside of our solar system, Sho-Ho.”

I could tell her heart skipped a beat because her lips came undone, revealing her teeth.

“In order for the future to grow, man must first iron out its kinks,” I stepped to the ceramic window. The military had been hailing Tam ever since we started this escapade. I was wondering what they had been threatening him with, offering him, denying him.

“Man needs to get its rage out,” I spoke towards that glitter that edged the Earth. Held at bay. Ships that would become tombs, all waiting, hailing some unseen Space-Flight control that needed to give authorization to their computers so they could blaze away. It was all humorous.

“That rage, untended to, will forever suffocate our future of enterprise. On any planet we should land, would resume our unresolved issues.”

“What does me being a Biologist have to do with anything? Where is this life?”

I nodded, “I will be getting to that, you must have patience.”

I sat across from her, killing the rest of my cigarette on this table again. I pointed to the nearer cluster of ships in distance, “This is what their desired future has brought them and what it always leads to: the few leaving the many.”

“That isn’t fair, that is a nihilistic view on technological progress,” she fought me back, “you people defamed anything we came up with because of your biases.”

“Our biases against an extinction spurred on by resource draining and pollution?”

“It was going to be fixed and even when we proved we could reverse the issues, your people continued your terror.”

“You don’t break something then promise to fix it after you’ve absconded; only the dumb would believe in such a second-coming, and you know that.”

She silently shook her head, “I don’t know what data they may have convinced you with,” I sank in my chair towards her and continued, “but you’ve all got it backwards; none of you even realize the visions you have for the Future are all completely different.” She became reticent, “in short, they’re going to kill each other before they make it past Jupiter, Sho-Ho.”

Above folded arms, she pursed her lips.

I understood, and reached into my jacket. Pulling out a tablet.

“Yes, a War is raging on Earth at our behest, but it is an appropriate one; an appropriate Cataclysm. Where man fights for its neighbor’s livelihood and not for its neighbor’s recourses: man is fighting for itself against the Technofascist-fiefdom; for its freedom and if man cannot have freedom then shall it be nothing.”

I tapped the remains of the butt onto the table, “Ashes.”

Sliding the tablet to her, it displays a dim lit ball with biological schematics at its perimeters. She scanned and scrolled with passion. I can hear the air leaving and entering her nose.

“Centauri, holy shit,” she said at last, “how long has this been under wraps?”

She silently calculated, “It would have to at been least more than 8 years, 4 to get there and 4 to send the data back.”

I was stone silent, she continued, “These logs are recent though, and that would be impossible for you to have left and come back in that time. Someone else is over there? This data is only between 2 years. That’s literally impossible without being faster than light.”

“My… colleague, yes—”

She got to it before I could say it, “Marissa?” she almost sounded excited.

My slow blink was a resolute Yes.

“The Marissa? Marissa Windlehold? We all believed her dead — and you? Don’t fucking tell me you’re Regi—?”

“—In the flesh,” I intergected.

Only a silent stare of blue from her side of the table.

“What I’ve led them to believe,” I started, “is that the Mercer-Engine is Propulsion,” I said blankly. Sho-Ho twisted her face, almost sour, “but that is not the case. It is Pull.”

She sat back and her eyes began to do the dance they do when your mind is rewriting itself, “Classified, of course, but, in short, you lock onto the omnidirectional gamma-rays from any Star and the Magnet in the housing pulls the connected ship in that direction: Gamma Ray-Magnetism (GRM). It fills the space behind you by bunching the Star’s expelled mass through millions of years of radiation, collecting that mass astern. The more you travel towards the star the more of it’s mass you scoop and store behind you, creating a smaller and smaller gap between you and it; essentially the star is pulling you to it. But it is not Speed, its the opposite of speed; pushing away from speed. You feel a negative effect on your body when you’re being pulled in the forwards direction— and there is no speed cap, there is no opposite direction of gravity to act upon you to instill universal speed limitations.”

I pointed to the tablet, “A lifeform on that exo-planet helped us bring the our propulsion engine to life. You would be dumb to think that I would not scorch the Earth times over to protect such benevolence.”

Silence over came her. To her, the man that I was, was the one that brought the men blow their robotics, their breakthroughs, the Mercer Propulsion Engine (MPE); all the necessary steps and efficiencies that were the most desirable to them. In return, they gave me anything I wanted; so I took and created— and silently protected.

“Man, as it is now, would have taken to the stars with its bitterness still in their hearts. Ready to plant that hatred and pain on the foreign soil they first, and continue to, land upon. I refuse that. Man must expel its pains first before it can leave; whatever it may look like after the dust settles. Mercer will bridge it all back from the ashes, and from there; the stars are finally reachable.”

She shot a side-ways glare, “Who is Mercer?”

I had gotten ahead of myself, too passionate, damn.

I sighed, “No one you know yet, but if you end up on our side; I hope you’re lucky enough to meet him.”

In the long distance, sirens still strobed.

Tam shouted to me that the mega cluster of Star-Ships had gotten the green light to evacuate Earth orbit and spread free for a time, until the dust settled.

I told Sho-Ho to look outside, “They’re leaving now,” but she felt the ice on my words, near a eulogy:

As thrusters illuminated in the dark like tadpoles of light; so, too, did their munitions:

The code you need to input an order to burn from Earth’s orbit on the Star-Ship is precise and expensive, but also had been calculated over 10 million times throughout history; so it’s stayed relatively the same. This means, it is less likely to be double checked. Within that code, I reprogrammed the on board system to, when that specific code is imputed, to read it as: target and destroy any ship that has pushed its thrusters past a 3G burn— that being every single one of the ships. Each computer would target the next and systematically, indifferently, cut one another down. The program also locks itself and erases the coded lock-box, replacing it with self-destruct. So that, when the job is done, it, too, destroys itself. Here is where I folded my envelope that housed my letter of betrayal. My letter of resignation. My long awaited act of violence for my family, for my kind, for the protection of Alpha Centauri, for an unseen future; against a Confusion that wanted to destroy all the above: for Mercer.

All so that the rain may continue its arpeggio for ears that daydream of Star-Ships and Train-Cars and Qua-sars and Peace.

In sync to each atomic clock, the quantum computers onboard each vessel clicked on at the same moment. One measure of plank-time elapsed and a synchronized eruption of plasma rang free from each of the 4,825 currently orbiting ship’s 50 munitions; each. Each vectored weapon struck friend and foe alike in critical, classified, weak points on their hulls. Incandescent plasma made a clap 3 fourths around Earth’s northern hemisphere as each ship fired on the next; a free-for-all that began and ended in the same millisecond. No casualties recorded in terms of human lives but every single ship was rendered inoperable, with their calculated attack. It was still the middle of a human second and no one alive finished a blink, next came the second volley of retaliation; the plank-counting computers clicked into assault-mode and returned fire simultaneously going defensive. Pitching maneuvers that exceeded 1o G’s to escape the cluster of hostile. As if the largest school of fish began to devour each other. 80% of the ship’s crews were in cryo-hibernation to rest through the crushing forces of escape burn but the computers neglected such impositions: it was only following “Kill_all_else_then_kill_self.” all onboard crew were flattened. The Ferry (classification below Star-ship) Algebra, was among the first to engage its Mercer-Drive, lock onto Star-Ship Caliban that was nearly 30% bigger than it— when you fight something many times bigger than yourself, you must use everything—, and it slammed its mass into Caliban. Reactor to Reactor. Its sudden 1% lightspeed collision was frictionless, a finger of metal through cloud; merged mass until Reactors met. Gamma Rays flashed for the next 5 seconds; vaporizing metal and organic. Life on the hemisphere of Earth beneath the battle was, too, razed by the roar of a star. The Ferry-Station’s automatic shield kicked on a femtosecond too slow, Reginald, with his bare eyes, saw the full might of the spectrum of ultraviolet. He saw all the uncolor that comes in the form of the Cosmic, the only color his mind hallucinated was a deep blood red, shaped like a cluster of flowers growing from a vine. It stained the back of his brain and he felt it enter him at the cellular level: acid dropped on the most delicate fabric. A part of him, a deeper sense within him, smelt smoke; smoke of unwinding. He blinked hard but it was too late, vision did not return, the blink was permanent; though science could fix his eyes with robotic inlays, a Gamma Ray burst was irreparable. Sho-Ho, too, winced from the same effect.

The two of them were rescued and recovered. Reggie would be retired as he ordered that his last order of business was to live the remainder of his 3 years with his son. He demanded that Sho-Ho was also recovered and cared for. That she be in the hands of Tam and his teachings, for Tam was effectively the coordinator until Mercer was ready.

The second and third waves of Star-Ships trying to leave Earth all ended the same way, all of their deaths were in the dark, their wreckage to drift lazily across the Heavens of the Earth as a orbital tombstones belonging to the rushed.

Straggler vessels continued to fight against its hallucinated enemies in the night-sky while in the day-time of Earth all of Men warred against all of Man clutching and dying, all for purposes of their own against purposes for all: Heaven and Earth raged above and below each other, against each other, for and against one another.

All while a mother waited with a mysterious Intelligent life for her son. On a planet in a different Star-System while that boy slept and hibernated in a bunker below their childhood home safely waiting for the ending of the world to end: dreaming of Star-Ships and Train-cars.

AUTHOR’S DEDICATION: For My Sister

Right now, there is rolling fog over the hills. It makes me happy— the Bruma matutina. It’s a sight that explains the feeling I get when I drink my tea. The fog rolls over the ridges in my tired body and fills it with calmness; a peace.

I do wish I were a better poet, this is my first time at this, so bear with me:

Okay, my name is Wynn. My last name isn’t important, although I do have one; our persons are wholly within our first names! I am instructed to document the details of a particular Nunc Dimittis Bruma (this roughly translates to Releasing of the Fog or Letting the Fog Depart. A mix of two languages whose connotation of words match perfectly to invoke the correct resonative invocation) that happened last night. It was for my greatest friend.

She asked me to omit her name from these documents, to which I will refer to her as: Jane Doe.

“Wynn,” standing up from her table, greeted me. I could see that her hands were clammy as she clasped them. She tried to look as ordered as she could despite her frail state, despite the tremble behind her voice:

A wrecked immune system since birth gave her, at least, the certainty that she weren’t to make it past 50; and in this case, she would not see the next season that was sure to coat the beautiful foliage around our village in a lush white.

25 and her life was already coming to a close.

Not too bad of a trade off. She was sick of the coughing, shaking, and vomiting— but the worst of it, was the cold.

My eyes didn’t leave hers, being that it has been almost 2 decades since we had last seen each other, any slight of my eyes to inspect her body would bring her great instability. I knew how insecure she was of her withered state, so I made sure never to brake gaze; I made my peripherals do the scanning.

I was beyond nervous, knowing my first words needed to be right and true.

I recall the dhay (our spelling of the word ‘day’), when I was leaving her behind at the old town house down the street. She was sure she would see me again but, with how her illness fluctuated, I was the one who was the unsure one.

I assumed that she would have passed shortly after I began my Menidrazi training. But no, she wrote me every week. She told me she would, ‘Stay as strong as I could until I saw the man you became,’ and that, ‘Death could not have me until you were the one that allowed it.’

She survived all of that time.

She is the strongest that person I have ever known.

And there I was, with my final test in front of me; I was having my biggest doubts of it all churn within my stomach.

I could not let her see this waning in me but a part of me sensed that she knew already, or, more so, wished that were the case.

I do not blame her, at the end of my life, I would pray that the person I love the most would give up everything and be with me. But, I made the decision 15 years ago— with her— that I could not fulfill that. Instead, I would make sure that she would not pass into the gates of Heaven alone.

I spoke.

“Kytoon said, they respect cats, yes. But, no, ‘they do not make as good of Menidrazis as Dogs do,’” I squarely stated to her.

She canted her head in confusion for a second, then burst into laughter.

Let me explain.

One hot March dhay, her and I ran off to the hills that overlooked Yaffar. She asked me all kinds of things about the Menidrazi Temple. We could barely make it out from our distance; if it weren’t for a golden needle that pierced the horizon like a second rising sun: The needle sitting atop the Temple far away.

She probed at me, asking things I did not yet know, things like:

• “What do they eat?”

• “How many are there?”

• “Is it true that they use magic?”

• “What is a Haedriel?”

• “Can a woman become a Menidrazi?”

• “How do they know they send people to Heaven and not Hell?”

• “Are there Menidrazi that send people to Hell?”

• “Why do they only allow Dogs to be assistants?”

She actually went on for a long time, and to each question, my 10 year old self did not know the answers. But, since then, I was able to find all the answers to each of her questions— and much more. I made sure to remember each of them, so that I could one dhay tell her.

All thanks to Kytoon The Tall, my mentor,

who was at the mercy of all of my probing and questioning every step of the way.

I wanted to break the tension within her by giving her an answer to one of her old, long forgotten questions, that I swore never to forget.

Her laughter rang from her belly but slowly turned into sobbing.

“You remembered,” she said, covering her eyes with both of her hands, “it really is you.”

I came in close to console her, I placed my hand on the table to allow her the option of touching me if she wanted to.

“Of course it’s me, it was almost hard to find this place again. It looks so different now. But, as I got closer, it all came back to me; all of it.”

The moment she could see past her tears, she grabbed my hand and yanked me in for a hug. Despite her condition she still had strength; though it was a different kind of strength: strength from the reservoir of Love.

I gave her love back in a reciprocated hug, I could feel her tears wetting my shoulder but I did not mind.

Just as I am writing this, Gaol (said like Joel) surprised me with more hot water for my tea. I hadn’t noticed that mine was long cold. I really have been lost in thought here.

This is much harder than I thought it would be.

But, I believe this break to have had its own importance: I get to stretch out my legs.

From my seat, I can see the fog encroaching over Yaffar; normally it was the other way around.

Years ago, her and I imagined how spectacular the Temple of the Menidrazi would be as it loomed over the hills of Yaffar; a kind of mystery for imaginative children to count sheep to.

Looking upwards from my seat, it is right in front of me. I can now see the spire poking straight into the sky. Its golden point indicating to the souls that have been shepherded which way to go.

A golden hum resonates from it with confirmation that she had, indeed, found her way— and that makes me happy.

A rainbow periodically creeps up the side of the 80-foot steeple, it is one of my favorite things to see.

I inhale, and I thank Moloch for this moment of reprieve:

“Moloch Protects.”

I pulled back from her, holding her shoulders in my hands— shoulders so thin, like holding a chair by its handles— and smiled with watered eyes, “Have you been doing your push-ups?” I questioned.

She smiled, shaking her head, “Ever since your confirmation to assess me, I have been getting up every morning to try,” she was not ashamed, “and I still have not the strength enough to do even one. I also try at night, but I am usually too tired from my medications.” She placed her hand on mine, it was boney, but I shut that thought away through clenched teeth.

I gently shook my head reassuringly, “Oh, my dear, it’s all about the effort. I am so proud of you.”

I meant that.

“I will be here for 3 dhays, we’ll be sure to get at least one!” I said to her, undoing my pack. Displaying my herbs and alchemical instruments before her— oh…

It just occurred to me that this will be a formal document for all the students to come, that will be under me and the general public. Up until now, I wrote only assuming those trained will be reading but I do recall my younger self reading Kytoon’s official ledgers and diaries being completely confused, haha.

So, I will do my best to further explain things as if those reading are both L’hute (students) and unpracticed!

The following is a brief summary for, the untrained:

We, the proud people of Yaffar, the Temple of Menidrazi, and all students guided by Gaia (the spirit of the Earth, respectfully), have our daily practices of exercise and meditation.

We, of course, believe in empowering and deepening our souls; as well as our connections to it. But we strongly believe that the Physical Body is the antenna that connects us (bridges us) with the Metaphysical (our subconscious), and the Transcendental (our potential).

That one cannot progress in any of those fields without better strengthening the others. The Physical Body is our most sacred tool; the device we use everydhay to experience Gaia. Therefore we must temper it, we must care for it, we must love it. Supply it with ample exercise and rest and nutrients and the Heaven sent sunlight: to treat the very body as a flower.

A body cared for throughout life by these guidelines will transition very well into the afterlife once one has been shepherded. The ‘Climb to Heaven’ is very long and the body must be strong enough to make it, so as to rejoin with all the other parts of it: the Physical rejoining the Subconscious and the Transcendental.

Let it be clear, one’s physical strength is not the determining factor.

It is in the effort one has truly and honestly put forth into the direction of care for one’s own body that grows the strength of their soul.

One push-up for someone near death can be the most impossible feat, but it is in the very effort to defy that impossibility that blossoms the flower of human resilience.

As we have lived on the Earth and sustained it as delicately as possible we, too, believe we can heal and nurture the afterlife by sending souls into the cauldron that are happy, fit, and full of love.

That the quality of the soul that pass away to be mixed and repurposed can eventually seed the Cosmos with rich love and the positive energy to form into something benevolent in its revivification.

Despite the fact that this may be something we may never see or even witness in our life time— or many life times— it is all within the effort that we put forth:

The energy that we charge our whole-selves with (the subconscious, the physical, and the transcendental-selves) that allows us to reach our hands deep into the future and sow the seeds of the flowers of Love.

This is our foundational belief and our fundamental goals, especially as a Menidrazi; we are to transmute and untangle the knotted souls of those under our care so that, in their passing, their life and love will sprinkle back into the Cosmos to become something bereft of the pain and confusion it came from, all the while still retaining and giving the lessons and knowledge it had learned from its past hardships.

This is our eternal struggle against the push and pull of malevolence that lurks in the shadows.

There, that should be a good enough summary!

The medicine I had made for her was a simple recipe made of bee honey and ginger root, a remedy my mother taught me. Topped with crushed pedals of the flower of a magnolia tree I grew in the image of her name. It was all served atop dark-meat chicken sauteed in the honey and a dollop of rice sprinkled with lime. The chicken was blessed with the purpose to give her the proteins and energy for the dhay; it is very good— I stole a bite.

Soon she was to her feet and we walked the streets to the Eastern hill. It’s been a hill she frequented as her daily exercise. It’s no surprise that she did very well.

Resting her hand on my shoulder, barely using me to stabilize. I gave her my robe, made of a thick maroon fur.

The inside is lined with golden hairs that monitor vitals and regulate heat; The Wool of Moloch: The sacred beast that protects all followers of Gaia.

The hood of my shawl, when worn, receives incoming sound and either amplifies or tunes it out; so handy for mediation. The hood can also spin and thicken the EM field of the wearer so that they could breathe underwater or completely cover the face like a visor that would, to the wearer, display the world in full spectrums of light, audio, and even certain levels of energy!

I love my robe. They take many years to be woven by our mages but it is worth it. It is formally called a Haki (Ha-key), and it is the staple of a Menidrazi; his or her greatest asset.

We needed to push a little further up the hill. Up and past the East is a town house that is secluded deep in the mountainous trees of Yaffar, erected after my confirmation of this assessment.

This designated cabin is called a Bautic (said more like baw-tic, but I think you got it). They’re designed to close off the world to the sufferer and allow the Menidrazi to properly assess the subject without the possibility of distractions.

It is here that Menidrazi take, to care for and soon shepherd, the chosen.

She knows that this is where she will pass away.

When most people finally see the Bautic, an immense weight overcomes them and they get filled with dread.

It is a terrifying feeling to see— and walk towards— the very place you will never leave.

She marched on, almost without hesitation.

This is the beginning of one’s Climb to Heaven.

The way was much longer than it seemed, especially for her.

Her walking exercises helped at getting her body at least used to going up hill and for its final trek. I’m sure on her frequented walks, she would curiously try and peer through the trees in the direction of the Bautic; never really being able to see it from but knowing it was there.

We were climbing up at a snail’s pace. Her breathing was heavy and her body wobbly. Despite my feelings, she knew that she needed to make this climb unassisted. Any sort of pity from me would sour the ritual. Even if she collapsed, I could not assist.

To make it to the Bautic, the assessed must make it there on their own; she would have to crawl if it had to come to that. In these three dhays, I was barred from giving her overt assistance; that or she verbally relinquishes the ritual. Then I am able to give her emergency care. This would forfeit the pact, but health is paramount to us in the end.

My heart writhed in anguish as I watched her wretch with each step, periodically leaning on a tree to vomit.

I had to stay myself so as to not sour her Climb to Heaven. I had a piece of wood that I snuck in my mouth during lunch so I could later bite down on it, knowing my own anxiety; my jaw throbbed:

Don’t sour it.

Don’t sour it.

Don’t sour it.

“I always think about your pain, you know,” she eked out, dried blood staining the sides of her mouth.

I was caught off guard.

She could tell from my face, but, somehow, I knew what she was talking about.

Even now as I write this I think to myself: was she trying to calm me down?

She found balance as she went on with me silent, “I know it is true, I did some snooping. In order for the gift of the household to be passed down, the successor to the Head of the Menidrazi must watch their ancestors pass away— Wynn, I know you watched your parents die in front of you.”

Eyes of stone, “I can’t imagine how helpless that must’ve felt. You’re making the same face back when we all learned about my condition.”

My eyes dropped from hers, the paleness of her feet made it seem like an ivory bush were growing out of the dirt. Bruises about her shins and ankles from the trek polka-dotted them entirely.

“They made you watch them pass away for their benefit so you can inherit their memories, abilities and burdens.”

She took a step towards me and the dirt kicked away like sand; unearthing past agonies repressed.

She didn’t stop, “It’s always hurt me knowing they’ve left you alone here and now I am leaving you too. You’re going to have to watch me die in front of you in the same way!”

I did not want to interfere with her rant, we are trained to allow these fits to run their courses, it is only natural; but a part of me, of course, was hurt and wanted to confide in her:

I do miss my parents.

I do wish they had never left me.

But, in this world, this bitter Earth, we all have our duties.

Or, am I just disguising Duty as an excuse?

This was a very important moment for me. This woman before me has challenged me at every step of my life, even down to my core beliefs— Heaven only knows me better than her.

But, it is in times like these that you must evaluate yourself— if you had never prepped for these exact conditions through training— and remind yourself the ‘why’ of what you do; as well as return to the foundation of your soul for consolation.

In our meditation, you are learned to build a Totem within your soul that enshrines all of your faiths and beliefs. An indestructible library of yourself for yourself, should you get lost— or challenged.

This is exactly what I had to do.

When I shepherded my parents— Kytoon, the Tall and Rameldria, the Wise— the nectar of their souls were made into a hydromel that I ingested after their passing.

During a Honeck (the Yaffarian/Mendrazian use of the name and practice, a dance we do to shepherd souls in the direction of Heaven. It once was also translated to “Dance of the Dragon,” but that is a more ancient use of the same concept but different— and lost— applications of it, so don’t worry about that right now), the ones being liberated are cleansed by the Flame of Gaia.

It is one of our only uses of Magic, alchemy suffices the rest of our needs.

My parents were engulfed in the flame of the Earth, it is not painful. It relaxes the bonds of souls, allowing them to return to a loosened state. All components of a person suffused with alchemy completes the ritual and the tincture is ready.

This also being one of the few rituals that is overseen by Haedriel itself— that and the coronation of a new Head to a Family—, Haedriel usually does the invocation of the sacred pyre.

My parents loved me deeply. So deeply, in fact, that I personally do not subscribe to a gender between the two:

Everydhay, every meditation, every wisp of air, every sweet note of fragrance, they are with me; and so is she.

It is in these times that you must consult and temper your Totem to bring you back, to remind you of Love.

My eyes met hers in resolve.

Speaking to her from 15 years ago, I placed my hand on my chest, “They have never left me,” she felt both my honesty and my compassion.

My point in saying this was for her to understand that I keep those that are here as well as those that depart.

She has been within me every step of my journey and she will remain with me long after the final words have been said. That she will, too, live within me; never forgotten.

She took a good amount of time to mull this over.

A butterfly flew over her head.

Finally looking back with an accepting smile, she spoke, “Okay, c’mon slow-poke.”

My heart stirred.

—I titled the chapter at the same time Gaol asked me, “You’re on the second dhay now, aren’t you?” I raised my eyebrows, surprised by his sudden presence; so quiet.

The cup of tea I still have yet to sip from was, once again, brought back to life with steaming water— gently stirred so that the honey wasn’t all collected at the bottom. When did he do all of that?

In the recounting of the past few dhays, I write on my paper all that I remember. My eyes are locked straight ahead of me as my hand moves. As if I no longer need my eyes, for I am using the same eyes of the past to recount these moments.

I cannot imagine what I look like: eyes trained forward unblinking and my hand scribbling madly.

“You could sense it, couldn’t you?” I replied with a laugh, partially embarrassed.

“Your conflict was palpable.”

“How long was I frozen for?”

“No more than an hour or two,” Gaol was reading and rummaging through heaps of papers and ledgers. It looked like a library had just fallen around him.

He picked a ledger up, scanned it curiously, twisting his lips, then turned his attention back to a handful of letters he had arranged in his other hand; he was holding them in a fan— assuming all of importance was from front to back. He scrunched his eyebrows, certainly lost.

I smiled at this unique moment of confusion for him, he rarely ever is. Granted he is meant to be at my side for protection and not diplomacy.

Gaol was at the mercy of handling my chores while I was away, it must’ve been so troublesome for the warrior; those 3 dhays I was gone and this week long ceremony for me to recite the happenings.

“Long enough for me to reheat your tea,” he chimed combatively, sensing I was getting some joy out of watching his struggle, “now tell me H’use (H’use is a term used to address a superior, respectfully), a minister from China is looking for assistance in annexing 110,000 square miles of land North of Nelevete, but in the form of a latitudinal band. They would completely control the Amundsen Gulf way up in Canada,” he was spinning around what looked like blueprints for the gulf and territory lines, “assuming they’re counter-prepping for a Northern invasion from US.”

I nodded at him and he went on, “The only issue is that it would run through a portion of Nelevete that we have carted off, it pokes into the forbidden zone,” he finished concernedly.

“It goes into the Zenith eh, into Polaris?” I said raising my head so as to hopefully see constellations that were beyond the dhaylight.

He confirmed in his answer, “It is either happenstance that they would want that particular area or, now, their monks finally know of Polaris’ importance— that their mages have finally made it out of adolescence.”

I rubbed my chin, “I see, depending on our answer to them will give an involuntary answer as to how critical the space beneath Polaris actually is.”

“Correct,” Gaol said scornfully.

I placed my arms behind myself, becoming a bipod so to rest my whole self on, “Fret not, my friend. Please pass that one onto Lato to get a second opinion.”

Gaol was seemingly relieved to roll the script up into a scroll. Happy to finally rid himself of one less decision; he’s much more comfortable communicating hand to hand than pen to pen.

Gaol pressed into the Earth and a small stump with a hole in its center emerged. He placed the numbers of scrolls he had filed into it.

They each had a corresponding paint thumbed on to a designated area for where they were to go. Bioluminescent strips acted like barcode readings inside the labyrinth of tubes beneath us throughout the lands. He marked them accordingly, placing them into the hole of the stump and they disappeared with satisfying pneumatical thumps.

Gaol turned his attention back to me, his words harkened back to a time he and I discussed, “This will be the hardest dhay to recount, correct?” his elbow on his knee and chin resting in palm.

A younger me would have dropped eye contact, but the me now held gaze, “Absolutely,” I replied with a genuine smile.

“And will you tell the truth?” he probed, unmoving.

My hair stood up, charged with elation, “Absolutely.”

His face did not twitch nor twist but his eyes churned with the aurora of a smile.

He got up to leave me alone once more, before going a distance I could not perceive— but always closer than I would expect— he said over his shoulder, “Drink your tea, H’use,” and disappeared.

I chuckled, inhaling a sip of the earthly brew. I held the empty cup to the sun, its terracotta sucked in the sunlight around its matte reddish-brown surface, reflecting none of it.

It reminded me of our people: The red, the brown, the light, the sky, the earth, the taste of warmth; the love and preservation of all life. She is the reason I am proud to be a Menidrazi.

I picked up my pen again and steadied my hand, I can feel hers atop mine.

I looked forward to the middle city of Yaffar in the distance. I focused on that dhay, my vision blurred and my hand began again:

We arrived at the Bautic with night creeping on the first dhay.

Adrenaline took over and she sprinted with whatever she had left— and then some—; crashing into the bed and immediately falling asleep.

I placed the rest of her into the cot, fluffed her pillow, and I began to massage her feet.

Blood blisters and bruises made a topographical map of reds and purples on her soles in the areas of most usage. There were parts of her skin coming off, I laid them back in their places.

The Haki she was wearing autonomously regulated her blood so that it did not exit the wounds as much, scabbing proceeded.

I rubbed the shawl in a pattern that its organic computer understands: the blood in pools inside her feet moved around like they were being flushed.

The cloak was pulsing steady vibrations through her body as well as manipulating her electromagnetic field. Creating a Coriolis effect within her blood and throughout her body, accurately circulating her blood and fluids; just like how the Earth, itself, moves its spirit throughout its Heavens.

She would then lay and rest there for the next 18 hours straight, into our second dhay.

Her eyes opened, but she did not get up. Tears were crusted at their edges.

She turned her head in the direction of the draft. Out the window she could see the morning bruma matutina— the morning fog— completely encompassing the view; the outside world was all grey.

Though all was still, she had a curious look about her eye.

Knowing I was still there, “Can you help me up,” she asked without looking for me; without a tone that connoted friendliness.

I assisted her and backed away wordlessly, she sat on the bed hugging her knees from beneath the shawl: She looked like a boulder with a head.

“I want to see outside,” she finally proclaimed but not to me; as if she were willing it from and to her own body.

One of her own practices, I noted:

Make a small goal, verbalize it, and then do it.

She stood out of bed and for once she did not wince when standing on her feet; my joy radiated internally.

Again, her gaze flicked out the window, and for a second I saw the question form in her mind; but the question and its words were not of words but of directions. Each led down a road of Fate: she choose one.

Picking up her heels, she chose the direction towards the door.

To anyone else, there was not a discernable emotion on her face, but to me her face screamed she needed air.

The mountain breeze rushed in all about the room but I lay static in my observation of her as if I were separate from the Material.

Her thin autumn curls blew about her face in Earthly howl. The dark brown of her eyes were closed away from the light but, just as much, they saw beyond their veil into the long darkness that she believed awaited her.

Her eyebrows stood high, tears contoured her rosy cheeks as her nose scrunched amidst the wavering flame in her tired heart. Imagining the gust she was feeling was the very one trying to extinguish her flame; but it felt just as beautiful as it was cold as it was torrential: Indifference.

Her cry was soundless and within, choked up in the chest.

She finally allowed the grey world before her the hue of her eyes, strained veins of red were at their edges. She swallowed down something internally that I have yet to parse, but I did not need to; she told it to me in the form of another question:

“Would you think of me as weak if I forfeited?”

I shook my head at her, not as an answer but that I was not able to answer her query; she took that in whatever way she could. She knew of the constrictions I was bound by, especially during the second dhay.

The shaking of my head quelled something in her that she needed answered; regardless if it was true or not, we all do this:

We all have our own little lies we tell ourselves that help us through our darknesses.

She turned her head up to look for the sun in the sky, past the haze.

It poked out, trying its best to burn through the silver.

She put her one arm straight up as if she were still a student in school.

Still looking at the sun: a hazy grey light, like a lamp shinning behind a curtain.

She did internal trigonometry, “11 A.M.,” she whispered.

I smirked, “Still sharp as ever,” commending inaudibly.

She heard and twitched a smile, this was no surprise.

It was just her and I in this home surrounded by fog; it might as well had been just her and I in this cosmos. Words no longer needed to travel distances; what we said and what we thought was there for the other to hear and to imagine.

The more I was with her, the more I synchronized to her, synthesized her; and she me.

When she faced me, the curious look about her eye had dissolved.

She was now aware she hadn’t taken her mandatory medications that could not be missed.

The puzzle pieces aligned themselves inside her and the phrase became axiomatic:

“This is it, isn’t it?” she said shakily.

My unwavering gaze was silent confirmation.

Then she surprised me; usurping the foundation of those immovable words she had said. Saying unto me, unto the world:

“Funny, for the first time, this will be the most free I will ever be.”

She stood in the door way for quite sometime, allowing the wind to fill the Bautic then exit through the same door; like the cabin was some dead-end even for wind.

My silence told her I was waiting for an answer, a question I did not need to ask aloud.

The wind dried her eyes as if Gaia was there to wipe them away. She looked to the fog for a long time, ruminating on its nebulousness and trying to sense that in herself:

“Was she just as grey inside, just as vacant and devoid of individuality? That, “If she walked out would she be at home in the fog, could she, too, turn into mist and be happy with that fate?”

She retuned to the seat in front of me, her ripened red eyes mixed with the brown of her irises that reminded me of terracotta.

“I would like to stay as long as possible,” she finally said to me, and commanded her body.

The strength of her marble eyes as they stabbed at me; not with distain but as if they manually kept her flame alight.

“But, you left the door open so you can leave when you cannot take it anymore?” I openly asked.

She looked outside, goosebumps riddled up arm like braille, “No,” she smiled, “I left it open so I stay. I tend to never take the easy way out, and when its right there, it makes me defy it ever more so.”

She blessed me with a smile and chuckled, the taught muscles of her neck strained. Malnutrition, I could make out the shape of her skull beneath her skin; my heart sank:

A soul that refused to be defeated by machinations that acted on her before birth. She accepted her helplessness to plans she was not privy to but was dealt the consequences of. Choosing to be graceful, delivering peace and kindness in her final moments rather than the short-sighted— but well earned— rage that had every reason to erupt from her chest and consume the world.

Instead of all of that, she smiled.

I recounted in my head, a quote I fashioned in the definition of her name.

My eyes depicted neither rage nor animosity at the Heavens. Though, they held within them the unnamed emotion that wove that very quote together. Spun with fabric from the human condition: our endless plight against all madness, inside and out.

There she sat in the cold breeze: refusing, smiling.

To me she is the epitome of all Beauty. My heart, beholden to all the cosmos for the existence of her, I wanted to—

“You’re scribbling in ink, H’use,” Gaol said for the second time. Holding a fresh new scroll in his hand.

I blinked a myriad of times, looking down at my page and it was, indeed, a dramatic mess. “I am sorry,” I winced, but he knew that was not directed to him. He nodded as I grabbed the new page.

I was crying for a long while reciting these moments, my sweat had made a creek down my sides, so I removed my shirt.

Sun on my skin.

The evening had since ran away all of the fog blanketing Yaffar, I could see it and many further states past the ranges of Nelevete; it was a beautiful clear dhay.

“I do need a break,” I agreed with the concern on his face.

We walked along the coast until we came up to a western state.

We hiked up its winding hills until we crested its highest peak.

We arrived at Epoch, it was a good 45 miles from central Yaffar.

Epoch (which may or may not still be here when you are reading this) was one of the few observatory satellite states that neighbored the country of Nelevete.

At the center of the state is mountain that curves into a cliff at its point, much like if a crescent moon were coming out of the ground or a witch’s finger was erected out of the Earth and pointed west, forever.

It is atop this finger that we have our observatory, inside its domes and cathedrals are:

long range telescopes, transmission towers, weather monitoring radars, the quantum/sub-con supercomputer cluster within the development facility, and a section for the children to visit on their field trips; the whole 9-yards. Epoch even has a small rocket testing area, for both engine propulsion development and full-scale launching!

A good amount of the year you could hear the testing of subcon propulsion engines quake through the valleys; though you could never see where they tested it (protecting the tech from spies), one can only imagine what those wizards are up to.

It is also here that Leto was stationed for a few dhays. Me being out of office really scattered the House of Menidrazi around; so many hats I will have to wear.

We came to see him, there was something he had discovered that he wanted me to mull over.

“H’use,” Leto met us at the entrance.

The palaces behind him and the escape of the sky to our left and right made it feel like this was the entry to Heaven; for you could see nothing else of the Earth around you.

“Thank you for coming, I hope I did not remove you from a crucial moment,” Leto said concernedly.

His arms were behind his back, clasped, 52 years of age:

He always had an air of self-awareness to him that he never admitted to; but for some reason I always felt that he didn’t believe in any of this. Not in his work, he very much loved and was impassioned by his work, I mean as if he didn’t believe in reality. As if he was some passenger in a dream that he could not, or did not have the means yet to, wake himself. That perhaps through subcon tech he could finally wake himself. I do not know why I always felt this sorrow from him— and I never did get an answer to this feeling.

I met him with a hug to hopefully warm whatever coldness lurked beyond his warming candor. That if he were in a dream, I could at least be a momentary blanket.

“Knock it off H’use,” Leto said joyfully holding me by the shoulders at arms reach. I remember when I was 8 and he looked down at me the same way. Perhaps the feelings I am having is the Melonasia from a personal conversation he had with my Father that I am only privy to hints of in the crests of his eyes. Secrets that one would keep past the grave. Secrets that even if someone could peer into their mind and memory, they still could not see; how adept a monk my Father must’ve truly been.

“Oh no, my friend,” I replied, “I was at a tough spot, I needed a break. I may come back to it tonight or the morning,” I paced towards the entrance but he stopped me.

“I see, instead of the front, let us go to the Peak,” he motioned to the secondary trail that hugs the observatory; the one that most of the field trips take.

I nodded, sensing his conversation was urged to be between the three of us and through the observatory would take too long.

Mainly because I would get too distracted, haha.

We walked along the paved trail, a black metal gate flanked the palace. A cobblestone path was a good contrast to the foliage around. There were gardeners at work, tending to the paths, hedges, and fishing leaves out of the fountains; we waved to them, and they us.

The fountain depicted my Father Kytoon, the Tall, my mother Rameldria the Wise, and a child on his shoulder; me Wynn, the Heart.

I never liked how the water recycled out from a pot my mother was drawing from in the sculpture. I also have no reason as to why this small detail always stuck with me. Perhaps it is the same irk as whenever I look into Leto’s eye; perhaps it is an irk of my mother. Perhaps the fountain inaccurately depicted who she was in life. Perhaps it feels like another gender role assuming statue, did she ever draw water? I cannot recall, she was a scholar not a stay at home mother; she was busy creating the rules for the alchemical-world.

I chuckled to myself, “I’ll have it edited first thing when I finish all of this, okay?” I winked at a flower that was bowing towards me.

Gaol led the way, he was towering, nearly brushing the branches of magnolia that shaded the way; he didn’t crunch any of the leaves beneath his feet.

He will forever be fascinating to me.

I know it was at least humorous to him, in some way, to hear my own feet crinkle the leaves he noiselessly washed over: me, still an inexperienced scholar at gravity-displacement.

In my head I imagine him smiling every time he hears it, always coaching me.

We finally came to the horizon of this cliffside, over it was the resting world. Beneath us comprised all of what we held dear, even the immortal sun balanced on the horizon; two inches of dhay, I measured, between it and the horizon of Earth. Stretching shadows back at us, ushering us to, too, lay down; but we could not. There was much work to do.

“H’use,” it was Gaol that spoke first. He was watching the setting sun. I wonder what a monk like him is whispered by the world, “I was already debriefed on the situation. It has come to all of our concern that we must inform you to reconsider telling the truth in your dissertation.”

I was getting notes of that on the wind in our ascent, that perhaps the recounting was going to be too dangerous to publish. I could not figure out why I felt this way up until now.

Leto chimed in, “Correct, please consider the following,” he held up a finger for each, “you are the only confirmed case to have wholly completed a shepherding as a human being; totaling 3 whole people you have subsumed. You have demystified the theory of where the soul lies, its makeup and its dimensions. You have successfully constructed the equation for translating Melonasia into a computer learning code that would allow the intelligence to parse the unintelligible data of the world. On top of those things, you are showing exponential growth in both your physical and metaphysical attributes: I fear we may be approaching the goldilocks zone of subcon technology and pushing it forwards into Transcendence,” he finished with that air of warning.

I was catching on to his words, even before he said them, I saw patterns forming around him that spelled the words out to me. Their murmuration hovered around him like they were pests, glyphs in his electromagnetic field. If I concentrated long enough of on those ghosts, I could have deciphered what he was going to say before he did; they wanted to be decoded.

I was, in fact, changing.

“You see the doctrine as being dangerous, a national security risk?” I asked, an intentionally shallow question.

Gaol mulled it over.

Leto, “Of a sort, we are all for spreading the knowledge to the world, but I believe— as a lot of us do here— that things on the cusp of revolutionary breakthroughs should be dealt with surreptitiously.”

Me, “I should contort what I say in the dissertation.”

Leto, “We believe that what you have discovered and what you will write down— and if it is to be written and read true to word— that the wicked and vile that have been waiting to read this document will turn it against humanity.”

Gaol, nothing.

Me, “Have you briefed Haedriel on this?” bluntly.

Leto, “No word from it,” starkly.

Leto felt my wordless stare point at the fine print within the stipulations of the Menidrazic guidelines, he swallowed and continued; as if he knew I would bring this point up and he had no real answer around it, “I know, ‘the document must be told at the whole truth in order to inherit the Head of the House title.’”

He frowned a bit, the real him showing itself for once, “Be that as it may, we believe that the safety of the planet is more important. I understand the implications,” his eyes steeled in resolve.

“That is an easy plan for you to devise,” I spoke candidly.

“H’use,” he said exasperated, “I understand that—”

“It wasn’t your father and mother, Leto.” I snapped at him, reading the parcels as wisps around his neck yet to be voiced.

“He was my brother!” Leto came alive. Tendrils of things he had wanted to say staved themselves inside of him but I could read them; so I read them.

He, too, was hurt and lonely. He, too, did not want paradise to end.

Silence came between us as an impasse.

Gaol, finally, as if knowing those things needed to be said first, “The departments of energies from all over the world are waiting, banking on this. We are being watched thoroughly. Many officials are at the borders and in their carriers at the coasts trying to be the first inside once we’ve ended the lock downs.”

The sun had finally set, becoming a gold band among jagged peaks in the distance: Eyes of the world closing.

“But, you are to be, and I recognize you as, the ruler of this land. You have every right to waive what you are to say in your recounting based off of your concern for the future,” Gaol continued pragmatically, “And should you choose to harbor all of that and never tell the world out of the fear of it destroying itself; then so be it. I believe they will move in on us— our once allies and enemies alike—, to take everything we have for their pursuits of knowledge; humanity is very much like this. Contortion or Truth, they will come for us in force. How true you are will decide how quickly or slowly the world will move.”

He was right, of course he was; the strategist.

Even before becoming the Head of the Menidrazi, I was to make the decision of a leader.

The three of us stood there for quite sometime, much into the night.

Despite our reticence, the night was bustling. The whirring dome for the telescope oscillated every 30 minutes on the dot, it had made 6 oscillations— 2 hours had gone by.

Periodically, we heard laughter and cheer coming from somewhere inside the college; L’hutes hooting on one of their night trips. Having the most fun possible, learning all about the cosmos:

They were learning and making something called a Populi.

I remember my first time, Jane was there. It was one of the only things she could come to, it was the easiest place for her to be flown to.

I looked to Gaol and he was so still, I don’t know if he can even feel the cold; if he could, he wasn’t bothered by it.

To Leto: he had sprung a root out of the ground and was sitting atop it, pondering the horizon. There were no ghosts or wisps around him to read.

I looked the other way, not particularly at anything; I was feeling the cobble beneath my feet. I beckoned the chill Earth for its guidance and it answered with a fragrance:

Cinnamon

Where did this smell come from? I looked around but nothing came to make sense of it.

There was nowhere that emitted the scent, but then I realized that the scent did not come from around me but it had come from a time long passed. Bringing me back to a time where I had met a great compatriot in our joined search of the Mystical.

During the meeting of Sages, of the four directions, two were only able to attend.

He and I:

I am the Sage of the North and he the Sage of the West.

We both agreed that as a Menidrazi you are to collect a piece from any and all people that you meet, something you love about them but never word it to them: the keepsake of them for you to place onto the tapestry within your soul.

The sage he was continued to come up with more and more varying ways of how to parse the soul, how to nurture it and how to unwind its metaphysical nature; all the while maintaining harmony within the world abound.

But whenever I tried to hold onto any secret morsel of him that I loved, it would slip out of my corporeal hands like grabbing a bar of soap. As if each part of this man, physical and metaphysical, solely belonged to him and could not be replicated.

I look up at the freckled night sky, thinking of what kind of man he would become in the coming years, the decades and the centuries; someone so untouchable yet all encompassing.

“You told me,” I began to speak to the middle star of the sky, a star the Heavens revolved around, “that the name of the land was both the name of the Relic bestowed to you by the World itself. As well as meaning the pinnacle of all things of the mind, body, spirit and beyond. You named this land Nelevete so that anyone with the heart brave enough could call upon the name of the land that seeks to defend the helpless— the timeless land— no matter the era.”

My eyes watered as the very answers were coming to me, they felt so far and yet so close, “You sought to preserve the epitome of our condition into a single alchemical word so succinct that any tongue of man could repeat it. ‘That,’ you said, ‘is the transcendental strength of Poetry.’”

I had no a singular reason as to why I was weeping but I wept and I wept.

The two of them turned to me simultaneously, “H’use!”

For once, Gaol could be read, he was genuinely concerned.

I held my hand to them, “All is well,” I quaked, wiping my nose, “I merely had a vision and it stirred up some old feelings, nothing to fear.”

“Everything okay? I fear this may have put too much stress on you, young lord,” Leto stood up from his branch, shaking his head feeling remiss coming to console me.

“No,” I replied, grabbing the both of his hands. He paused in his tracks, having read me wrong.

“I feel I may have rediscovered how I am to tell the story,” I said looking back where the sun had set. Half expecting it to rise again so it can, too, hear of my findings.

When I looked at Gaol he was busy deciphering the clues I had left for him on my face, he looked like he was drawing with his eyes, “Cinnamon?” he finally proclaimed— though he was perplexed at its meaning. I guess he could not fully read the contents of my Melonasia.

I smiled at him, “Yes,” I said. Letting go of Leto’s hands and walking to the cliffside.

Looking out to Yaffar, past the Temple, past the ravines and cliffs, past the glaciers, past what is past; I looked at the horizon that I was sure would endlessly inspire beauty and wisdom for generation to come.

The thinkers need their horizons, they need their walls, they need their hurdles; so that their Poetry can grow along and over their enclosures.

I turned back to the two of them, back to the dark horizon that would later display the sunrise, a sunrise that would never set again on this era of Humanity.

“I will tell all of the truth,” I said unto them in a fervent proclamation, “and I will tell all of the truth for as long as I live, for as long as I exist as the Heart of the Menidrazi.”

A band of approval stretched across Gaol’s face, the kind someone blesses you with when they know that you are finally ready.

Leto’s was deflated, imagining the agonies of seeing war sweep through Nelevete brought him great pain; but I tamed those flames.

“I know my friend,” I directed at Leto, “but it is in the way I will tell the truth.”

He tapped his eyebrows at me, wearily.

“I will weave the truth in not so overtly, not so on the nose, not so easily agreeable.”

I began to pace back and forth, speaking to them but more so conversing with myself, “If my enemies, my allies, my pupils— even the commoner— will all read my work then I will need a way to speak to each of them; but to do it so that those words are processed individually!”

I was overtaken with energy. It felt as if I was back talking with that great sage once again: the sweet of cinnamon in my nose and the feelings of Gold massaged the inside of my mind.

I had once wished to meet him again but I knew that that time would never come. It is not through life we were to meet again but we were meant to reconvene through Heaven, and it is through the wonder of the sky in which you have visited me again:

Words truly do transcend the Physical and the Divine.

“It will be done in a variance of words, implications and nuances that would be difficult for any two people to agree upon wholeheartedly; not without sacrificing their own envisioned take of it!”

Gaol and Leto were nodding in unanimous agreement, blushes of joy were on their faces.

“I will use Poetry, the language of the Earth, to retell the events. The answers will be both guarded and vulnerable to those able to parse them. Poetry is not dependent on expertise. The youngest L’hute can conjure a story in just a few inexperienced lines that is more impactful than the most wordy and educated scholar could ever elaborate.”

My words moved Leto to tears.

I sensed that he, too, could feel the shield that poetry could forge upon our treasures.

We all felt rejuvenated again, though, it all depended on one thing; Gaol said it, of course:

“But, H’use, aren’t you terrible at Poetry?” half smiling, the bastard.

“Hahahaha!” Leto was a rooster’s call atop Epoch.

I tipped my head to him, “Egregious in fact,” I replied.

I loved this man, he was such a prick at all the right times.

“But, I will have to be good at it. The world depends on it; and I love a challenge. I will have to hide the meanings of meanings within words,” I was electricity, “my pen will terrify the Gods!” I shook my hand at the sky sarcastically.

I relaxed my hand and I could feel her holding it, “It will have a heavy emphasis on romance,” I smiled gushingly.

He didn’t do it outright, but the minute shift in his aura was indicative of an eyeroll; Gaol pursed his lips.

“Gaol,” I immediately began to lecture the prude, “the little boys need to read about romance and dance and love. Just as much as they read of battle and conquest! The boys that become men cannot dream of conquest and pillaging and violence without having the tools within themselves to quell it when it comes for them.”

He turned his head to hide an agreeing grin.

I was overwhelmed with energy. So much so that I imagined I could have called the Aurora above the clouds, “Besides,” I continued, fixing my eyes back to the star that dictated the Heavens: Polaris.

“I once knew a great poet, you don’t meet a person like that without learning something new:”

“Thank you, Malcolm. I hope you find that piece of me on that far off shore, where we can all finally call home,” I voiced the end of the poem in my heart.

We stayed the rest of the night in Epoch.

Pranking and terrorizing the children on their overnight trips.

It was the best trip of their little lives.

Tomorrow I will continue my paper.

For now, let us celebrate the living & the loving, so that they can Live Long Lovely Lives.

The morning was nice, I had escaped the debauchery later in the night to find a good spot to rest myself. My Haki expanded 10 feet around me, creating a nest to sleep in. The golden fur lining of the inside twinkled as it swayed. The automated robe kept the heat a nice 72 degrees; I slept naked as the air was circulated, it was heaven.

Oh, I even fixed a fire in there: the left sleeve propped itself up to make a chimney for the smoke. I just had to add that. Can you tell how much I love my little gadgets, my mage-weave?

I awoke, stood in my Haki-Hut, clothed and exited. The Haki draped itself around me, fitting snuggly but never feeling the same as the last time it wound itself around me; just a little bit different each time.

Nelevete was always most beautiful at dawn.

The purple of the ridgeline mixing with the gold of the coming dhay, all fuzzy behind the vapor of my breath. Ah! the faint milky-way band, its stars that were too defiant to leave at the curtain call. Oh, and most of all, the silence. It is so quiet up there at the top of Epoch. Silence so mute you can hear the cold air going into your nose; Oh Gaia, this is everything!

I began my solo trek back to the Temple after my brief appreciation of the Cosmos, thanking its tolerance of me.

I tapped on a leaf hanging freely on an adolescent Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides), imbuing a small alchemical scent into the touch. Sending an electrical impulse into the leaf, the tree, then the roots and far to the address.

A pulse responded like a heartbeat between tree roots, Gaol was already at the Temple hammering away at my work. I laughed at the tone of the message. Even through a leaf I could feel his pompous stare.

It took me until the sun was somewhere between the 9 and 10 of dhay positions to arrive back at my seat here. I admit, I was too distracted looking for jumping spiders on my trail. Seeing ghosts of them on every stick, as if I had just missed a glimpse:

They. Are. Incredible.

I digress, I have waited too long, and it must continue.

“You know,” speaking to the sky as a sparrow-like bird was flying over head.

I was trying to figure out as to where to, and how to, collect my thoughts about all of this. How to come back to this piece? I’ve found the trick is to begin speaking as if a friend is there with you. So I began speaking to Jane:

“There was a time I was the most angry and it was all because of a bird. A few Sherpas and I were deconstructing an old Bautic for a soul that had passed; east of Epoch. There was a nest and the mother was frantically flying around. Surely she was frightened by us and the demolition of her home. She tumbled in cobwebs up in the rafters. You know,” I took a sip of tea. I could feel Gaol thanking me on this subtle breeze.

“The webs actually hindered her movement, she was so tiny. But, I tell you, I got so angry with how much dust she was kicking around; panicking and flailing after I had just cleaned up. For a good 13 minutes she flew in the ceiling kicking shit down and man I wanted to strangle her, perhaps she felt that emotion in me; you know.”

There was a knot that welled in my chest but it dispersed with a deliberate inhale of fresh air.

“All the webs around her ended up becoming a net and she could no longer fly. She fell to the ground like a dirty pillow— exhausted and terrified. I exhaled with gratitude that it was over, picking her up. The little ball of hair, feather, web, leaf, and tremble. Plucking it all off, freeing her from a bramble of fossilized memories of a time gone by. Unearthing the tiny frightened bird she was; lay there in my hands solemn like hope.

“You hear about how they have hollow bones but feeling it is another thing. I could barely tell I was holding her. Resting there so light she could have been a mote of song and wind. Yet her tiny heart thudded rhythmically on my middle finger like her soul was knocking on the door to get out.”

I watched ants make a parade along the roots of a bush, sinking into a crack along fractured cobblestone. Down to a world they owned; unseen by human eyes.

“Something so tiny and light can still feel the same emotions and fears as us. My desire to put her out of her misery evaporated and a new reasoning to warm her overtook me. I wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, that I was terribly sorry for my bitter feelings against her. Knowing I could never find the words to bridge our gap, I simply ran my thumb along the white stripe of her brown body and prayed that that was enough to traverse the barrier of terror that separated us.

“I let her go and she flew into the sky, hopefully she could find beauty in this terrifying world; enough of it to forgive me. I must remember that even the tiniest of creatures suffer, even the tinniest dream. Down to every blade of grass, every leaf and every ant that climbs; are all blessed with the miracle of life. I wanted to shrink the Earth so that terrified little bird could see there is nothing big enough to hurt it.

“But, I am not capable of such things, no one is. So instead, I seek to bestow the means in which everyone and everything can feel just as big.”

Marching ants enter the seam of rock they otherwise had not the means to break. Some unknown force beyond their own created a fissure by in which they could traverse through the unbreachable. One’s calamity sometimes creates opportunities for those long after to continue.

My pen, my ink, resumed to bleed Jane Doe back into reality. Detailing her cataclysm so that we can march on:

It felt like an eon had passed since I returned to my seat in this Bautic.

A creaking door irked on its hinges by the shouldering of mountain air. Gale restlessly whirled as if it were invisible dancers that only touched things that desired to dance. Making dancers of leaves, dust and the hair she shed.

Gust made the cabin its dominion as if it were a brush painting with the pastel of life. Wisped underneath every nook, flicking through every crevasse; even into my lungs it painted.

At the eye of this gale sat a pillar of authority: a beacon of charm and defiance.

As if the wind came from within her, Jane sat: the Ghost that holds the future captive.

A world she would never see but within my memory of her, she held the key to its fate.

The fortress made of her emaciated ribcage protected a heart of treasure. The jaunt cut off of her shoulders that led straight down her arms that I knew held enough strength to tear the sky in half with her bottled fury. Twin spikes beneath the Haki from the bend of her knees, knees that worked so hard to get out of bed. Whites of her toes like ivory forks peeked out of the shade of the cloak.

Before me, I revisited the martyr that held the secrets to humanity’s demise or it’s future.

Jane cared for neither.

Neither here nor there, Jane existed only when my pen moved; on my page, only she was.

Not dead, just not alive.

Scanning back up the small square footage of her person, I am met with a slide at the center of her irises that sends my person wholly into her.

Swallowed by my new understanding of what she represents.

Despite my ability to recount everything that will happen in this retelling from memory— despite knowing how this all will play out—, I cannot shake the feeling about the look in her that devours me.

Jane’s eyes were still watered but regal. Planted like a flower through a storm.

I felt something tumbling inside of me, up and down slowly churned. I felt like a cosmonaut on his own beyond the black.

In her eyes, the brass of them resonated like witchcraft, I plummeted into a trance that held no floor for men with feet like mine.

Her cheek bones stuck out like pins that held drapes spanning a false smile across her face.

I had no words, loss for thought.

Jane.

I tumbled.

How could just a Ghost of you be so powerful?

Jane.

And tumbled.

How would you have changed this world?

Jane.

“Wynn?” She spoke to me, breaking the silence. My body a full fever.

I have no account of her saying that in my memory, she was speaking directly to me.

Wait, what the fuck?

“You okay?” she asked again.

This was not me remembering, we were conversing.

Is she— talking to me? She’s supposed to ‘huff and ask for a snack.’ But she just asked if I was okay. What is going on?

Inward eyes turn outward and Jane is unwavering in her concern.

I tried to stop my hand from writing but it doesn’t, I cannot even feel it. All I feel are the ones at my lap.

I cannot feel any part of me in the outside world, the world beyond this retelling, this vision!

My face went flush with the onset of panic. Like an ocean around lava, the wind through the door was trying to cool me.

I am not supposed to be here. I am not here!

But it appears that I am. Here with her.

I cannot snap out of this and I have lost sense to my actual body.

What the hell is going on?

She sighed standing up, “I’m sorry, maybe this is still apart of the query constraints,”

I couldn’t help myself, “Please don’t close the door.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Jane said in response, “I’m just turning this lamp on. I don’t like how dark this corner is when the doors open.”

She responded to me.

Maybe I’m hallucinating or daydreaming different events that could have happened. Perhaps I need to just focus and this will go back to normal.

Jane shuffled to the lamp, clicking on the ignition and the slow burning hum of the flame illuminated the nook: a warm spot in shadow snug enough for a goblin.

“Are you hungry?” I checked to see if she were still peckish, as she was to my future knowledge.

“Yeah,” she huffed, “I could go for some—”

“Noots.” I stated but it was meant to sound like a question.

“Yeah—” Okay, that hasn’t changed, “I love those.”

There are some tucked in her pants, left pocket.

“I have some in there,” she began to say, fanning her hand in the direction of the pile.

“Jacket, yeah?” Maybe this illusion changes to what I say.

“No, no, the pants I think.”

I squinted, unpleased.

Getting to my feet, I rummaged the pile. A gown so light it could fit the smallest child, her cardigan.

My hand squeezed the pocket just to make sure. Nothing.

I turned to the pants and I could see the lump beneath the seams.

They were there.

“Yeah!” she yipped.

Packaged in a brown paper, I nodded and tossed her the chocolate covered cashews.

Her eyes widened, calculating speed trajectory, hangtime, and decent. Like an infant watching a balloon glide.

With a smack, Jane caught them with both hands. Victory was about her face like she made the buzzer beater.

Words weren’t needed between her and I, she passed that test of dexterity.

“Mmm,” she twisted her lips at the package, “Can you open them for me?”

“Ah, the glue they use for the seal is real stubborn,” I said grunting up to meet her; trying to hide my panic.

“Did you see the spiderweb-glue yet?” I began a conversation that would steer back to the original timeline, “we’ve found that the tensile strength of their webs can be made into a pasty glue. It can be smeared onto a seam, like a bag. The web will keep it bound and closed but can be opened with force. Once the webs touch again, they’ll reform their micro-bonds,” I grabbed the bag of cashews and worked the seams.

They were taught enough to keep the seam closed and the air in, but the strength of a human outmatched microwebs.

The bag gave, silver sparkled along the border and inside nestled chocolate and matte cream rocks.

These were indeed, one of her favorite snacks. One of which her and I enjoyed atop this very mountain. We summited as many as we could, Noots would be our shared treat for making it to the top; chocolate didn’t do too well in her system so it was only special occasions that she could have it.

“Don’t eat them all,” Jane barked at me.

I nearly forgot that time didn’t pause when I ruminate.

“Not too many, yeah?” I reminded her.

“Yeah, I know. I plan on having a few left over for dhay 3 at least.” Jane out stretched her hand. With my index, I patted the bag and out fell a cluster, fused together by the ambient heat of the clothing and cooled by the mountain.

“Oooo!” she chimed.

Okay, that’s still the same. I think we’re back on track.

Although, I still cannot escape this illusion. Most of my senses are present. I wonder—

Braking off one of the cashews from the bramble in her hand— to her dissatisfaction, of course—, I ingested it.

The bite was hard at first but through the cashew my teeth cut like a blade. It melted in the furnace of my mouth and the bonds between cream and hickory mixed along their tastes. Salt buoys mingled on a beige sea of cocoa, fat and carb. Memories flooded back of Jane smiling with joy at the top of our hike years ago.

I can no longer fight this:

I may actually be here.

And— so is she. Jane is alive before me.

But, perhaps that isn’t the way I should see this.

She may be here and I may be trapped for now, but I existed before this. I lived this story and I will continue to tell it.

This may all be an advanced illusion or a level of meditation I’ve never discovered. I must not panic. I have to remember my Totem, the thing that brings me stability; and not stray the course.

Even though I want to tell her how much I love and miss her.

Even though I want to hold her unconditionally, I have to remember who I am and my position; on top of all that, the world depends on me outside of this insane reality.

I swallowed the bite as well as my anxieties, “These are yummy,” I said on beat.

A twinkle streaked in her aura, as if she had gained 3 years of life.

I made sure she didn’t eat them too fast, she was getting a slight headache but was laughing about it.

The sun had moved far enough overhead that the fog outside retreated back into the gully. She was leaning on the porch, content with the view.

The lake in the distance made a bean shape, surface still as glass and blue as a good dhay. The trees parted around the lake as if the landscape begged to be drawn. I can tell she wanted to venture down but knew her body would not be able to make the trek back up.

Everything has been going as remembered. I was the sole determining factor that it stayed that way. Whatever torture this was, I needed to endure. Needed to make sure that the past remained the Past. That she passed away properly and I was not to intervene: not to keep her alive through my own selfishness.

I do not know if there would be consequences if I am to stray course.

I must endure this ritual, by any means necessary.

Soon, she will ask to dance for me and that is when things will get hard.

Nevertheless, it has to happen: the Past must happen.

Twilight.

Planets were the first to speck the sky. Venus and Jupiter fooling the amateur for stars. The color from the ground evaporated as the night prevailed. With the dimming of Earth brought out the palette of the Heavens. Only for eyes that could see in ultraviolet reveled at the night.

Mountains of Nelevete arranged like the mural of the sky had been ripped: jagged at its bottom and unfinished.

All Earth was black, shade before the horizon. Staggered tree lines made a saw blade underneath Jupiter and the Big Dipper as if the pan were keeping the glint from being poked by daggers.

Jane hadn’t moved since she posted there. Watching another sunset, whatever Melonasia the horizon hummed at her; it was all she needed to hear.

“I’ve been having this dream you know,” Jane began. The tuffs of her curls pushing against her cheeks as she turned to me.

She wants to tell me about her dream, I remember it. The one of falling stars.

“Dream?” I beckoned.

“Yeah, I have this reoccurring dream that I was seeing stars falling from my periphery,” Jane looked back at the horizon and shot her right hand past her ear, towards the skyline.

“They fell and fell all meeting at a tiny point in the distance. I could feel their heat as they were close and cooled as they fell. Towards a center so far, then,” her fingers made a fist, “Gone.”

“Pale blue they burned as they fell forever, smaller and smaller. I tried to feel my body but I couldn’t. I knew I had one, but I couldn’t feel it.” her words trembling.

“I tired to move but I couldn’t,” her hand was gripping her forearm, so thin she could touch her thumb to her knuckle.

“I swore I was sleeping but perhaps I had already died in my sleep,” biting her lip, tears ran down her cheek and mixed into her curls.

“I don’t want to die in my sleep. Every time this paranoia takes me over, I panic; losing all control. I can’t feel anything, and the more I struggled more the stars fell.”

Quickly she wiped her eyes but the rush from them did not cease.

“More and more I wept in this terrifying space. It was only until last night that I could feel my head in the dream. I could feel it looking down. That was all I could feel of my body. For whatever reason I knew that the stars were my tears. I was crying stars into a chasm beneath me. Slumped over, I was just a weeping face into an abyss beneath myself.”

Her eyes were forward, letting emotion escape their reservoirs.

“Strangely, in that distance, that infinitesimal point; I sensed you. And every time that I finally sense its you— every time—, I am able to wake up.”

Yes, my love. You are visualizing what the Menidrazi do. No one has ever seen it with mortal eyes but, somehow, you dreamt of it.

“I think that,” Jane paused so briefly, almost scared of her words, “I think that I am afraid of what you are.”

Her admitting this has always haunted me. But, I had to stay on track.

Every woman is precious. They are just very quick to close and solidify their ideas of men in a sweeping generality. It’s not their fault. Within them they harbor the life force and engine of creation. That engine has a knee jerk response to danger and dangerous patterns. As a man, you must soothe those ingrained patterns that she may imprint upon you subconsciously by her matrix of protection. It must take time, you must show it patience; and you must accept it to reject you despite your great effort.

“I understand that, I have always felt more Magic than Man,” I said from the heart.

Now, more than ever, those words rang true.

And just as Truth does, it carves the future.

She began.

The crest of her lips twitched, “Do you think that—”

She wants to dance.

Jane remained looking at Jupiter, “I don’t want to be afraid of you. Do you think that I can dance for you?”

There it is.

“You can do whatever you feel you would like to,” I said by the book, but— even now— those words were stained with regret.

“Okay,” Jane whispered.

Jane removed my Haki from around her, “If I am to be seen by you,” she started, “then I want you to see me as I am.”

The oversized cloak made a puddle of cloth at her feet. Discarding the safety blanket, all about her bosom was breeze and humility.

“I want you to see the thing I love to do the most, my art.”

She was more shadow than skin. Taught, her complexion clung to bone like wet newspaper a pole: all crevasses for darkness to take refuge. Shadow brought out the contrast against her pale skin, a darkness slowly reclaiming her. Emaciation held at bay from the Haki, now like a cast taken off too soon, the body be as fragile as any construct of sand.

“I know this project is important,” she began, marveling the goosebumps about her body, “and I know that this is all about you becoming the Head—”

It is not, you misunderstand how important you are.

“But, if all of the world is to read this, please omit my name from the retelling.”

Jane wobbled finding her balance. She moved to the center of the porch and prepared to dance.

“Unless,” she paused, “unless you tell the truth of who you are, because—” she stammered. Standing on the tips of her toes, forming a basket with her arms, “because on some far off shore, I want to read it. I want to learn who you were. I know it will help me find you again.”

She sniffled and allowed the ugliness of her fear of death solidify my belief that she is the most beautiful Myth I have ever loved.

I dared not take my reddened eyes off of hers.

What I did to deserve such a fate to relive this agony again, I do not know.

So all I said to her— to Fate— was, “I am sorry.”

“Do not be sorry,” she began, ushering her hands to the sky. Finishing my favorite quote from her, “be Love.”

“Do not be sorry, be Love.”

She began:

Releve:

Her hands came up, she was a sewing needle standing on its point. Life force churned within me, the pull of a woman’s courtship dance extended beyond time and space. The rhythm in the field of her magnetism vibrated against my eyes like I were a Rubik’s cube she memorized every combination for.

Pique:

Left arm cast out as left leg up bent at knee. The nest of hair between her legs extended down her thighs and to her ankles. My body tingled wanting to feel the mingling of our hairs intertwining like Velcro.

Satue:

Taping left foot to the ground, she squared up then leapt into the air. Suspended in the air for a split second, I wished that Heaven didn’t let her come down; that it allowed her to continue up and up. I had wished this was where it all ended, but I am now convinced, I am supposed to suffer here.

Pile:

She landed back to Earth like a fallen angle stripped of immortality and grace. Her ankles gave out, erupting like glass at the outer edges; she collapsed to the floorboards wailing in agony.

I am knocked out of her trance. It is the same all over again.

I’ve lived this dream again and again. I cannot move.

I am numb.

She’s passed out from the shock. I will have to nurse her but I am so tired.

I just have to stay on tra—

SLAM.

Jane came to life. Palms slamming at her sides.

Wynn jolted, for him, this did not happen to his recollection. Jane was still conscious, trying to get up.

“Jane!” Wynn shouted. Taking a step forward he stopped himself, feeling completely off track. Wondering what would happen should he touch or assist her.

But he did everything by the book, how could he have messed up, what did he do wrong?

“No,” he thinks, “its Jane, she is the one going off track!”

Her fingernails scarped and cracked against the wood floor. Straining, Jane began to press herself to stand.

The throbbing in her ankles pulse blood out their exits.

Wynn stood their paralyzed, unable to shake the dread of reality altering before him.

What is he to do?

What can he do?

In her struggle, Jane’s arms gave out slamming her head back into the floorboard with a thud. With little to no supportive muscles on her neck, the impact was full force.

Not giving up, clenching her teeth she pushes again; pushing through agony, she fails again: THUD.

Repeatedly, Jane presses up. Presses with her joints, her elbow. Within her hollow soul she searches for any morsel of energy to get up; but only she finds failure: THUD.

Painting a self portrait on the floor: blood floods out of her broken nose, split forehead, and lacerated lips.

Her tears smear the portrait away as she yells back at her reflection, “UP!”

THUD.

Hands slip in a cocktail of her fluids.

THUD.

Grunting and cursing.

THUD.

Wynn remembers that sound now, why he doesn’t like people to knock on his door. It brings him back to this, that thudding. A paralysis of the psyche, all he could do was watch.

Something he thought never happened, something he buried so deep; if relived he would have imagined it only to be a nightmare of an impossible timeline:

Trauma is a reality warping weapon.

Jane couldn’t stop. Biting down, bloody teeth dislodge through their gums. Spitting to the left: incisors, canines and molars dismissed themselves into shadow.

THUD.

“Get up,” she demanded herself.

THUD.

“He isn’t really here, this is all just a dream!” she pled.

THUD.

“I don’t want to die in my sleep!” trembling elbows failed. A tearing came from them.

THUD.

“Get up so that he can see you, so we can go to him!” pressing, syphoning strength from future lives.

THUD.

“No one is here to help you, so you have to go to them!” pulling from the future she wants to live in.

THUD.

“Get up so you can see the sky!”

THUD.

“Get up so we can Dance!”

THUD.

Each ounce of her weight multiped by her courage found secret channels inside her soul; forming their words and thus their Incantations.

“Do it for Me. Get up and finally do something!”

Jane pressed her torso up. Locking elbows in a quaking roar of triumph, finally completing her first push-up.

A waterfall of blood spilled out of her face.

Swollen eyes could not met the terror in Wynn’s. Her head cocked towards the sky. Past the dark wooden roof, into the untouchable Heavens beyond.

Hyperventilating, she found the air that was scattered across all her past lives and screamed her pain suffused with triumph into the void.

Towards the sky and its Masters, Jane vacated her torment; there weren’t space enough on this Earth for her agony.

A primal cry nearly toppled Wynn, nearly carved a new world into the air around them: Ancient agony and victory alike melded in her wail, both he saw and felt the entirety of humanity exhaust its lifetimes from her breath; Jane manually kept her soul from shattering.

Yelling atop her first and last push-up, she screamed until no sound came out. Yet she stood there trembling, soundlessly: mouth agape pushing out a howl only for ethereal ears to hear. The fury that exited her was only cast towards the divine, for God’s ears only.

Her eyes went blank, collapsing to sleep.

Wynn stood there like a deflated child. Something of a miracle and tragedy both happened before him. Slumping to his knees, he looked at her unmoving body. Jane was still alive, but he could read that her mental was all but quiet.

She would not die to blood loss but he could not leave her there naked.

Jane did not verbally waive the pact, so Wynn was barred from assistance. The second dhay is the most stringent. If the participant can make it to the beginning of the third dhay, then baseline assistance can take place; but only until then. If ruined, the entire assessment is rendered obsolete.

She would have suffered her for nothing.

Jane had soiled herself and Wynn refused to leave her in such a state.

Grabbing the Haki on the floor, then draping it over her, he was able to pick her up by using the cloak as a barrier between assisted-contact.

If this was still a violation, whomever was offended by it would have to take it up with him; would have to withstand the fury behind his eye.

Jane lay silent in his arms, nestled hand over hand, blood running from gouges in her mouth and forehead. Ankles swayed metronomically at their fractures. Her face pulsing with bruise. The absence of teeth in her mouth like a chessboard. She would be embarrassed to be looked at if she were conscious, but the lack there of allowed Wynn a look of her that she would use all else to hide.

Packed into a small egg, the fur of his cloak and the pale of her, near a skeleton; she was the most pitiful and most precious.

He thought of that tiny bird he once wanted to kill out of mercy— she and it nearly the same weight—, and twice over he contemplated.

The thought resolved the same way.

He looked out the cold door, the lake in the distance reflecting a timeless sky he could not see. Holding her body, nestled egg, he walked out towards its beckoning.

He marched down to the bank where reflective water was as if liquid space encroached then receded back into itself; to and fro.

He was fully off the rails now.

“Just a little longer, Jane,” Wynn pled quietly, “please, just hold on.”

She was stable but he was not aware what would happen when she was to awaken: Would all else turn differently?

The thought shook him but he clenched his teeth and stepped into the ice. Up to his knees he walked.

In his chest stirred harmonic and tone, attunement aligning with the elemental. Off his lip crested a vowel, an Urd, that thudded within the volume at his feet:

Not ice nor stasis of molecular structures, but within the holy name, the Alchemical-Resonance, of Water do you grab its attention.

The ebbing face quaked, then shivered. Spikes imitating a ferrous fluid played on the surface.

It was now locked in attention.

From there, Wynn asked it— pled to it, though its subservience to him was unyielding—, he begged the Cosmos to obey once more.

Placing Jane into the resonating lake, Wynn spoke:

Help, is the Resonative translation.

Reflections of stars become teems of curling fish. Swirling and glistening, they encircled the man and his Myth. Buoyant, Jane, lay freely suspended under an inch of blessed water; as if a corpse was traversing the river of Styx. Wynn would not allow such an ill fate to befall her again, swore to himself above her. The fish of light formed a film, a membrane, out of themselves around her ankles and arms; bandages of starlight. Shedding his pain through sweat and tears; the heat from him could have boiled the lake entire.

Wynn hurt, for he knew she was dreaming a dream she had always dreamt. In of which, trying with all her might to wake her body from its death; that inside this suffered body, she was fighting— still fighting, even in sleep — violently to break out.

He sank to his knees, cold at his chest, peeking out the water like a log adrift.

Tucking his head, Wynn placed his hands open at the ready before Jane. Glowing palms with a Resonative invocation, EKG’s the surface of his hands, ready to administer aid the second the Sun crest the ridge.

All he had to do was wait.

Just wait.

He didn’t want to ruin everything a jump too early.

But, it was unbearable.

“Please just make it,” his voice breaking. Hands trembling with rainbow, fighting back and forth with the Future and the Present.

“Matta,” he pled.

“Matta, Matta, Matta, Matta,” the rasp of his words sounded nothing like him.

“Matta,” ad infinitum.

No Moon hung in this night. All but two glinting eyes in the Heavens loomed over Wynn’s plight. Twin stars pierced the sky: eyes of a hooded God watched silently over the world; perhaps, there ensuring the man not break his restrictions.

Wynn used such an analogy to remain vigilant; whether he wrong or right was not the point, it provided him accountability: The little lies we all tell in our darknesses.

A twice broken man fought himself in a freezing lake from which he would not move: for if a freezing coffin became his fate then he and Jane would become statues idolizing the plight of all the suffering, the sufferers and the Menidrazi.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Venus prevailed through night into dawn, staring from Heaven like a Lazy-eyed god. Stratum of Peach flame churned beneath a muted navy rim of constellation and ceaseless dark: the eyes of Earth waking from dreams dreamt.

Tiny globes of dew reflected the Heavens within their microcosms whilst atop blades like snow-globes to another infinitesimal world. Each of them separated perfectly by the careful distance the field chose for each of its jade-blades. Only for the softest gust to send any globe off its balanced tip; an entire realm of mysticism plummets into a frigid soil beneath. All life and stories made— lived— inside of that bubble extinguished with the pop of a second. Countless armageddons of microbes and axiomatic bonds that form life, snuffed out by the most harmless: Wind.

Although each cosmos that’s survived in the dew had perished, O’ Ephemeral, the combined material at the end of their cataclysm seeps into the soil; down to nesting seeds, all patiently waiting for water.

“So, how does it work,” Jane once asked me.

I was either dreaming or hallucinating— maybe I passed out—; I could not tell.

But, I remember the cautiousness of her eyes. They were tip-toeing between remainders of eyelashes, scanning my face; seeing if she had crossed a line— of course she hadn’t.

After I chuckled, the inquisitor within returned to her behind a smile, “How do I meld to you? Is it—” she went flush, “is it like making love?” she mustered.

Something within my stomach swirled to that thought, I answered with what the Swirl had told me:

“It is Love.”

At that time, I was still a kid and hadn’t the slightest clue as to how I could possibly explain Subsuming. Then, as I was inspecting her, eye to eye, it came to me that I’ve been doing it.

“I’ve been doing it ever since I met you,” I did not say to her, “all along, I’ve been melding to you, remembering you, loving you, mourning you, holding you, being you,” were the things I hadn’t the bravery to stand on.

“How will it be finally done, you’re curious of, right?” I asked her.

Her knuckles were tight around her blouse. She always had a good way of showing her emotion through her body and not her face. Something, I assumed, was a defense against people trying to read how she was doing through her topology.

“I can’t explain it,” the younger me told her, “but one day I will have the words to explain it to you, I promise,” I promised her.

Day break had finally crested the ridge of Nelevete, bringing with it the silence of Dhay 3.

In our practices, the third of the Dhays is called: Liberation.

By the call of the morning sun, my hovering hands administered the invocation into her body, much like how the first aurora enters the virgin twilight sky.

Find, finding and found.

My Haki: stabilized her internals through the night, mitigating the cold and now it was able to amplify her body’s adrenaline/blood cells to nurse her fractures best the it could. Leaving a mask of very little pain in her physical spectrum.

The blessed water: cleaning and hydrating skin and pores. Wilted hair came off like dandelion seeds.

I found her heart, manually pumped it above suboptimal levels. Haki spelled out to me in glyphs, that her brain would not suffer any more damage than the concussive trauma and hypoxia.

Despite everything, her mind will be okay.

I relaxed just a bit to that news.

I am so tired and so cold.

Opening my eyes, she lay ahead of me in a still lake: an offering to the Gods for repair; then as if they said no and sent back what was left.

I wept as silent as the force swaying the trees.

This muted world almost— Almost— silenced my heart, too.

The motion in her brain and the colors in her aura staved such a rash emotion within me. Jane was still here, still fighting; as long as she did, I did.

My hand met her forehead, caressed, “I find the beginning,” my hand feeling thin skin atop her face, finishing that old conversation we had when we were children, “and connect it with the You now; the kite you’ve become. So astray in the wind, so far from home— loose in the sky: a Ghost.”

My heart poured as if I had wept the sea around us. She lay there silent and still like the rocks at my feet.

“I reel you back home, the future You meeting the past, creating the present: Finality, but not a collapse: Subsumed.”

Right hand over her heart, I felt the torpor of a little bird— my little bird: caged.

“I search to find when you became a Ghost, spectral and untethered. When you believed that you were no longer apart of the stars. That is when a spirit first dies, and after that, all else follows.”

Within the beat below my palm I reflected on her smile and dance. The animation in her gait, stumbling and scraped; she cared not, “That’s all apart of it!” she would yell back to me.

“That’s all apart of it, isn’t it,” I whispered.

Then, like a beast I had hoped to never see again, those words resurfaced from its abyssal sleep. A plea for, if discovered, would end this: her suffering.

A sentence constructed only of terror that haunts those that suffering Love lost:

“When did you decide to Die before your Death? Jane, when did I lose you?”

Those words, again, fell on deaf ears; only for the wonderer to wonder.

My agony lamented, growing a voice that it birthed within me. It charted its words on the pain of a hollow cry that quaked and echoed from here to where ever long depths my lover continued to fall.

For her, and to her, I lamented for Darkness to turn into Light; for Water to run Gold

I don’t know how long it was that I stood in that ice, pumping her heart; tending to her care. Until Jupiter and Venus disappeared behind the haze of Sol’s corona, until the eyes of God turned away from me.

Here is where she will wake. Worse off than she was in my history of events. She will not be able to walk, words will be hard; she will have a lisp from the amount of lost teeth.

Skin over her eyes moved like a child beneath a blanket: her mind still in REM.

Only she knew what kind of dream she was having. Perhaps I can join, see and speak to her. So, I did:

Closing my eyes, my hand on her forehead transferred me into that cloud of subconscious.

It was dark but there were many small stars just barely discernible. Turning my head there was a prominent star in this prevailing darkness. It had breath to it, more accurately, it was breathing: slowly expanding and contracting. From its closeness to me, it was more wisp that star, white flame against the black.

What a peculiar dream, Jane was nowhere to be found here: underneath Dream she still was.

Slowly, I was realizing that all of this was not a dream but before her was Sight with the soul; looking at all things at once.

Each star up there, out there, a soul itself. The deepest levels of the subconscious can witness the metaphysical-sight of all things.

Her dreaming gave view to merging the Physical and its Meta.

Trillions of lights illuminated in the black Heavens above us. Some even moved in the distance billions of light-years away; they looked like metallic Flies.

Turning back to the closest wisp, I noticed it was expanding and contracting at the exact pace of my own breath.

This was me, from her perspective.

I was so moved seeing my own soul.

It was hard to make out but around my own wisp were two more minor wisps in orbits around my primary. Immediately I recognized these were the souls of my parents. The ones that I, personally, subsumed. We looked like a helium atom: I the nucleus and they the electrons— I the Heart.

“Is this how you see me, Jane?” echoed my thoughts, cavernous; devoid of surface for words to cling to, my words traveled long. Never into ears would they find refuge.

The realm of souls had not ground for men to walk, nor walls for men to hide; nor even ears to hear or deafen.

I exited the dream.

Darkness peeling off the edges of my sight, funneling into a pinpoint of darkness that inverted into reality.

There she was, still, sleeping. Here I was still trapped in some accursed mirage of an altered timeline. But, I cannot shake it: am I now convinced that this is real?

She will awaken in time, soon. I finally have the time to relax while she sleeps.

Though, the only relaxation I get is through frustrated tears.

“I have to go,” I tell the sleeping heart of mine, “I cannot stay here with you.”

“This may be paradise,” I ache with each word, “but it is not the one I am destined to defend.”

“I have to finish and bring this Magic to the rest of the world.”

Her mouth was relaxed, she my greatest agony and my greatest strength. What had I to offer her?

“Jane, I am sorry I could not be the man that you wanted. The man that stayed.”

What had I ever given you?

“I am so sorry,” I wretched before her calmness. Understanding was coming to me like a tide rising.

I only took.

What was it that I took from you that was the last straw?

That first thing I took from you, was that it? Was that when you first died?

“What was it?” I pled to her silence.

A time came to me like igniting the wick of a candle. It was small but it had the beauty of life at its edges and its belly.

I could not fully see it but I knew that flame had my answer.

“Is that you Jane, steering me to the answer?” I focused with metaphysical extremities.

Then, that flickering flame went away.

Inhalation now of her own accord. Jane had returned to subconscious levels, breathing on her own. She was coming back.

I exhaled in relief, ending my invocation around my hands and thanking all else for its use.

“Perhaps,” I said aloud in rumination, “Perhaps, that was the ending of the nightmare you always had, when you finally recognize me; that I’m here.” Pain mixed with a numbing relief poured from me, “that I’ll always be here.”

She will be okay until she wakes.

I left the lake and onto the gravel, I beached.

Looking up the mountain, she could not return to the Bautic. I would have to finish it all here.

So, I brought the Bautic to us.

“Allow my use of your strength once more, O’ Earth,” up with my hand I invoked the First House: Index finger forwards and the loop between thumb and middle held my vision of Earth. I spoke harmonically:

Wind flexed, tree line bowed and beveled in shape. Up the mountain the sound of something creaking echoed: a deconstruction.

The cracking moved on the wind, down to my feet and stamped into the Earth a square.

Wood emerged from sand like growing roots, I hadn’t moved; I could not move. I was the roots, all of my mind and projection was their movement.

4 stands, 11-feet apart, points of the shape: ensquared me.

Floor beneath my feet turned wooden beneath unswept sediment.

To all 4 points I connected the Heavens within my mind, filling volume as if it was my lungs. The roof was more a film, a bubble, a Bautic.

Done.

I collapsed to my knees in a huff of exhaustion: nearing my limit.

Despite having much more physical energy available for Resonation, my mind is astray; you need all aspects of yourself to be aligned in order to access Incantations properly.

This scrappy Bautic will have to do.

Looking back to the lake, Jane is carried above the surface on my Haki, comes a life boat.

Entering the membrane of the Bautic, I instantly sense her and I in a 3 Dimensional diagram. Both 1st and 3rd personal perspectives, I sense us.

My cloak lays her softly in the middle. Cross legged, I wait in meditation at her side; until she returns to me.

In all of this morning, the beauty of Heaven waking up above me; tunes of birds cross valleys to their kin, I wait in longing for my bird of song to return.

I wait.

What was in that flame, that memory, Jane was trying to show me?

I focus.

I have to know, so to escape.

“Hi, Flyknife,” Jane said through lisp and gargled strain. Teeth missing, her words came out staggered like a choppy water hose. I translated, seamlessly.

Talking in her sleep but I had noticed Flyknives darting above us. Morning birds that compete with the Dragonflies. Small agile birds with bad eye sight. The contrast of night to morning are prime conditions for their vision. Some people theorize Flyknives operate with a form of echolocation. Though there is no indication that their chirps serve as sonar, researchers have noted— and heavily rely on— a peculiar humming the bird does whilst flight.

Despite having poor, muggy, vision; the raptor easily outclasses most animals in the kingdom. This phenomenon is why researchers point to this melodic torpor in their chests. With a few acclaimed scientist stating that this could be the first observed use of a natural-born creature using a Metaphysical-Organ.

Their hunting accuracy nearly rivals the Dragonfly, at a comfortable 86%

No other part of their physical anatomy points to how the Flyknife is able to be so accurate despite its hinderances. This bird alone has spurred debates of ‘if animals will, soon, favor Metaphysical-Organs for fewer and fewer Physical ones?’ Fearing that, ‘In time, would they begin appearing much smaller to us do to the lack of a physical body, if so, would humans be at risk?’

All dramatic, of course, but they have their merits.

We, in the Menidrazi, have our theories that Moloch was once a physical being that Transcended. But, we have no evidence of what it once was; as well as what it currently is.

Nonetheless, I assume that whatever dream Jane was having, she was able to— at the least— see the avian due to its highly probable Metaphysical properties.

Perhaps, it was calling her, teaching her, to the sky; how to use it.

I noticed, after using my invocation, that a lot more wildlife had emerged.

The natural-born are distinctly drawn to the Mystical; perhaps to their heart, too, it is a Nectar.

With life comes its chains:

A rustling in the brush, a serpent consuming a tiny creature in the darkness somewhere private. I wished perhaps they could have spoken, it makes me wonder:

How would they speak? Can they speak to each other, do their words even equate?

The Spider, Prevailer of the second dimension, constructing a plane of net: its prey becoming silk.

“Hi, Priest of the World,” I translated internally, Jane eked out with a chuckle; and I returning one.

I looked down to her with an exhale, though I could not hide my delight at her humor.

‘Priest of the World,’ she used to call me.

With eyes still shut, her personality still exuded like paint spilled in water.

Pinching her fluff cheek, “You know were not religious, if anything, we hail common sense,” I finished as the morning sun gave shadow to the contours of her sharpened beauty.

She gasped sarcastically, “Oh, the most blasphemous, common sense!” adjusting herself, she settled again. Nuzzling her chin into the cloak.

Internally she felt around her body of the damage, sending motion signals to her toes that came to dead ends at the ankle; she wouldn’t walk again. Torn triceps. Vacant gums and the taste of salt at their bases. A warm mound at the center of the forehead that was stiff like a second head was hatching that nearly kept her eyes permanently shut. Nearly all of her hair was gone, shed in the lake; her person fossilized across the water.

Behind all of that pain, all of that error, I knew she could see me.

Her eyes creaked open, spats of ruptured blood vessels covered half her right and near all the left.

“I really went and did it, didn’t I?” she questioned, despite knowing.

“You did your best,” I commended with all my heart, “you did a push-up,” I chuckled to her. Reminding of her victory; no matter how big or small — it was something she wanted.

She closed her eyes but did not sleep.

—

A good amount of time had elapsed. The both of us sat, feeling the Earth wake. Wind stirring trees blown by the encroaching warmth of the rising Sun.

“These posts around us,” her good eye peeking, “you made them?”

“I did,” inspecting the haphazard condition of them but to the untrained, they were marvelous constructs.

Ants and other precarious insects took a liking to my structures. Inspecting and antenna rapidly bounding up every inch. I was sure they were guided here because of their magical properties.

Jane rolled to look skyward, violet peeled away slowly; like the view of finishing wine in a goblet, “It feels so warm in here but I can still feel the breeze,” lifting her hand feeling the space within our space.

There was a bandage in her armpit that stretched up her triceps that nursed the torn muscle.

She hadn’t noticed until now.

“Yes, that was modified by me, too.”

Anyone’s first time encountering the properties of Resonance and its capabilities are often convinced that it couldn’t be anything other than Magic: the unexplainable, the unattainable.

There was an ever slight shimmer to everything within the Bautic, that I’m sure took her no time to discover; she, the ever-so-cunning.

“It’s so beautiful,” she gently waved her hand back and forth.

“It’s called Ultravilence. It is refraction of photons from the outside passing through a subconscious membrane, the one around us,” I made a small twirl with my finger.

“The sparkles you see is information that’s attached to the photon’s observation as its travelled. This phenomenon is how the outside world interacts with the inside.”

We both watched her hand form a tapered shimmer in its wake.

“We call it Melonasia, the signals the Earth send us in a form of communication. A more accurate definition of Melonasia wouldn’t just be the Earth communicating with us. It is also the Outer Heaven,” I made hands like holding a ball so to encircle the Cosmos, “speaking through us, through our unique Inner Heavens, so to understand Itself.”

Her arm got tired so she stood the other one up, “I like it,” was all she said.

“Within us,” I began, “Is a Metaphysical construct called The Swirl of Auft. It is both a symbol comprised of all things Meta. It is a geometrical pattern that is the most succinct Beauty can be: The simplest form of being. It comprises all things within its 11 Dimensions; 5 we see as slits.” I held my hand out spreading my fingers. Then inverted my hand.

“Like a star upside down is how it looks on paper. Think of how we all have a brain. The Swirl of Auft would be the metaphysical counter part to that. It is the emotional device we feel and calculate Metaphysical phenomenon with. A main one being the Churn.”

I thought of all the times with her, “Think of when you see someone you love. Its that feeling of the Swirl, the calculation of Melonasia. Heavens interacting with other Heavens trying to parse its greater self from its lower selves. That is how attraction is born. Seeing someone you like, making eye contact with them; you get that churning in your gut. That calculation: hearts speaking to hearts.”

“I love when you talk about Magic,” she put bluntly.

I hope, one dhay, she can understand the breadth in which the Matter of her compels me; compels me across Cosmoses.

“I don’t feel,” she inhaled, then paused. I looked down to her. She was in a thought, forming, forming, found; “I don’t feel the need to cry anymore.”

Her hand, a prismatic sculpture against the back drop of waking space.

Bathed by amber of the creeping Sun and nursed within the solemn nest of a miniature world I constructed— 11 feet by 11—; she found not even a thought of harm in her mind, not even an ounce of sorrow penetrated our microcosm. A universe shrunken, bereft of confusion and isolation; comprising everything she ever cared for.

“You,” she took in air, “really are,” the valley wind carried more of itself to her demand, “here, aren’t you,” her lungs weak— only getting weaker.

Her hand met my chin, the ruggedness of my unkept beard was telling of my long stay here. My hair was wild, overgrowth at the roots of my locks indicated much time it had been since their twisting. The patchiness to my beard was another example of my wilderness. But, I liked it. The World was a rugged place. The more I was out and hair untamed, the more beautiful I felt. Not attraction but mirrored Nature, the Cosmos, around me. Ultravilence crackled in the merging of our auras like tiny fireworks, two bubbles merging. Words were challenged and suppressed due to their infancy; description and interpretation were denied at the doors that housed a meeting of our eyes:

Swirls of our souls in lagrangian orbit.

“I wish you,”

her soul inhaled.

“Could have seen,”

all that was ever suffered amounted to this.

“My dance.”

Anyone’s last plea is one of wanting a miracle, I know this all too well.

No pain nor regret leapt from her soul to mine at the conception of her words; all that was parsed was Truth.

The gashes about her face were healing, receding, failed and unable to convince me that she was anything other than the most Precious.

“My limitations,” I began, “fall way before a Wish-Granter,” my hand met hers; their touch crackled with static.

“Although a wish is not but hope to the waiting seed for rain,” my other hand tucked itself underneath her waist.

“We should not aim to wait on wishes,” picking her up in cadence with the liberating shadows of the dhay.

“If you seek to Dance, then,” a waking glint of hope was an inverted crescent moon that was her eye from beneath the rampage done about her visage.

“Allow me to help you Dance.”

She was to my chest, both nimble arms wrapped me like a scarf and Both tired eyes now fixed open; holding me.

“I can’t,” she alluded to her feet.

“No, feel it with your heart,” pressing her chest to mine. I could feel her soul, so close to its cage I could devise its key.

“Wynn,” she was aware I was completely breaking the laws I was constrained by.

“You,” I said with a sternly, “You are why God envies man. Now find that Magic.”

Jane hugged me and began to sob, it was not sorrowful tears, they were tears of Belief.

Within that moment, again, I saw that tiny flame flicker.

I knew it.

They key is in her knotted wish.

“Don’t worry,” I held her. She was trembling sensing Magic happening to her, pour from her.

“Just focus on how you want to move and I will do it, I promise,” I held her to look of her face, “You will be okay.”

Her tiny legs dangling, casts around her ankles nullified all pain and injure.

She was a natural. Her Melonasia coming to me like a laser beam escaping darkness relaying her movements.

To her hips I guided the two of us in our Cosmos.

Another laser rang, the other way I stepped and span. The gravel beneath my feet brushed away showing the oak floor.

Her shoulders turned lax as she slowly sank. The more she sank the more beams came. The more my body moved, our bodies moved, the more she was speaking through me and out of me.

The Sun revolved in its Heaven rapidly above us. Time was speeding by:

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Dhay then Night.

Here.

Then:

I let her go.

“Wynn!” She screamed from fear of falling.

Surprising herself, she stood on her feet. Unscathed, balanced, all on her own.

I marveled at her with my arms open, I must’ve had the most smug smirk on my face.

She was getting ready to say something combative until she realized she was standing, then, understanding that we were no longer in the Bautic: A Purple sky whisking a Golden fog that clouded our perimeter.

Her hands felt up her body as inspection. No longer emaciated, not boney nor disheveled; but Health was lush throughout her person. Lifting her left ankles, not even a scar was visible. Clenching, all of her teeth set in mirrored caverns. Palms to her face, hands brushed then halting in a jolt: her hair was there again. So thick she could feel the brown to it, curls like funnels of caramel she ran her fingers through; an old friend she was rediscovering. She was dawned in a white T-shirt, green shorts she loved and her favorite long knitted cardigan she always wore until growth hung the towel. It was her mother’s gift; even the sleeve that her father attempted to contribute was immortalized on it: an irregular patch that always made her smile.

Any kind of question evaporated in her mind, nothing could form solid enough within her that could bring her the rationale she needed.

She then turned to me, eyes pleading. I clasped my hands in front of me.

“I’ve found you,” was all I said, all I could explain.

Without needing to inspect myself, I was aware that I, too, had returned to a younger state— I recognized my age: the age right when I was getting ready to become a Menidrazi.

“Wynn,” she said way too loud, covering her mouth. Not used to the ease in which it now takes her to speak. This, alone, streamed tears down her face:

Health is a feeling incomparable to anything else, even Love.

“What did you do,” she said in a whisper, “what is this?”

“Something I could not have done without you,” I spoke.

Looking around, it really was all her doing. An unpracticed natural at surfacing the soul. She would have made one of the most adept Menidrazi.

I kept that thought from making me cry, “Simply put,” I pointed my chin to her, “you are an amazing Mage.”

We both stood at a distance that mattered not, and unto her I gave my highest commendation, “You—,” I did not hold back my tears,

“You are the Greatest Menidrazi I have ever seen.”

No tears nor foul mixes of adolescent emotion befell her; but a blossoming of light erupted from her center, her Heart.

It looked like a flower blossomed around her and she the pistil of Resilience.

“This place,” she spoke with the sparkle of clarity, “I was trapped her wasn’t I?”

I nodded.

“The soul, isn’t it,” she concluded accurately.

I smirked.

She paused, “Did I die?”

“Your physical body has, yes,” I was honest, “we are still Dancing, the soul is the last to go.”

I inhaled, “But, you died along time ago,” looking away then back to her, “I have been searching for the ‘when’ you died.”

“Are you from the future?” she asked without a hint of sarcasm. Her contented eyes were convinced all of those things were possible, or that she would accept any answer from me; that maybe I was still just a Dream.

“I’ll say, you’ve certainly ruffled the feathers of the future, my dear,” I said amicably.

She chuckled, lightly digging the balls of her feet into the golden clouded floor beneath us.

“I refused to die, didn’t I,” she asked, despite knowing her self.

“‘Until you saw the man I became. Until I was the one that sent you off,’” I voiced her internal.

Through her curls I could see a smile.

She began a gait, a tip-toeing on a sea of fluffed gold.

“That flame, you’re looking for it, aren’t you,” she tapped around this new space, yet it was all familiar to her; she was remembering it.

I nodded my head wordlessly.

“This space,” she marveled at her own fluidity and grace, “this is where I came to imagine, to think of Dance!”

“This is the only thing we’ll truly ever own, our Soul and its Realm,” I commented.

She moved with a childlike wonder, unparalleled to any professional.

Here, she could dance. Here she was gospel, truth; hymn of thy own heart:

A Hearth of Divination, not of Godliness but of Human Condition.

Even down to the way she displayed her favorite axiom of expression, her body moved in a lively cadence yet her eyes remained on me: Gyroscopic.

Ah yes, the Hearth and its Hearthstone: the Soul.

The translation, what was it again.

I was wondering to myself during her dance. She acted upon me a happiness I hadn’t yet discovered and, since her passing, all but lost.

“The Emont,” I voiced aloud. Gold and Violet made much more sense now: the building blocks of all vessels.

The words came to me like a leaf fallen atop the stillest lake.

Melonasia translated, name of the Soul’s realm, the Emont.

Ah and its unfiltered name, Emayee.

And into the Emayee’s higher properties: Ahsees: A lake the leaf sits atop— boundless and unexplored, Resonance is just a fraction of its own potential.

Though, I have no idea as to what Ahsees is; that word alone seems to be all-powerful, all-encompassing.

The happiness of the woman before me, danced as the sun and stars of her own cosmos. Setting the tune and rhythm of everything Within her into the Outer:

I hadn’t the time to react, to my left and right my Father and Mother took my hands. Up to them I looked but in their eyes were not the wisps of their souls. Within me, the real ones resided. I was in a mirage again, no a Replaying of a fond memory of them taking me to the Temple.

The time I was leaving to become a Menidrazi

It was also the memory of them taking me away from Jane.

Jane, behind me in the crowd, waving goodbye.

That smile on her face.

Ah, I understand.

This is where you died.

Condemned the world, and yourself, for removing everything you’d ever loved; and not fighting for it.

When I was taken away from you, that was when you decided nothing good happens on its own. That you have to fight for it, you have to create it. That Fate could not have you until I came back.

Still holding the corporeal hands of my parents, I can hear the celebratory cheer behind me. The pride and power emanating from Yaffar, the joy of our people carrying me into the future to lead them.

But, that is not the future I want.

If she is not there, Dancing on the wind that I stir in her name; then I do not want it.

If such purity and preciousness can not be protected, then I have failed.

Then I do not want to be a Menidrazi.

Like lightning arching in Heaven to Earth, I used the slumbering souls of my parents in my heart. Channeled their energies to each of my hands that were held by their past bodies. The souls of my parents made contact with their alters. At my palms they worked my hands from each, slipping my hands out of the vision; unstitched from the memory, I became.

The whole of Temporal-Time hit my back like an ocean was dropped on me. I was removed from that vision, from Jane’s vision, of my departure.

I entered an outside space where I watched my parents walk soundlessly into the distance.

Behind me, I pivoted.

An oasis islanded by a mire of wisping black that absorb even space. A tiny flame was a lighthouse, beckoned me: Her the Flame.

It was Jane, standing back, staying back. Ossified in a space outside of time and reality, refusing.

Her young eyes made contact with mine as if a life boat had entered her desolate ocean.

All of the remainder of breath she saved for this moment, to call for help.

Before her accursed mouth could weave my name, I was to her lips.

—

Outside in that material timeline of the Bautic where I danced with the remainder of her sunken body, she inflated with all her Metaphysical Jolly.

Within her I connected the Past to the Future to create, revive, the Present:

Restitching a timeline breached by a chasm of pain that etched a new reality with the weapon of Trauma, a bubble, in the middle of Cosmos and Meta; a Tertiary Realm.

Moonlight bathed the two of us in its wholly night as Jane came back to me.

—

Eyes slowly peel awake, terracotta and glee peer back into Wynn.

“What about the—” with not enough, energy Jane fell short of her sentence.

Wynn shook his head, taking her in close, he replies, “If I cannot allow you, someone that has sacrificed it all, a fraction of the happiness that you’ve given me; then I do not want to be a leader, not the Head, nor a mage; I cannot be.”

Her eyes darted fiercely between his.

To her, the Moon gently peered around his face; crowning the man in a pale hue,

“I don’t want to be anything else except the man you love,” that tiny flame nursed inside her, one she kept alight through every cataclysm possible, caught wind and became a Pyre.

“Marry me,” Wynn professed underneath Moonlight that brought out the color of her face.

“My AlloWynn: the Shade that Swallows my Light,” she gasped hearing her full name, for it rang to her that he spoke Truth.

“Marry me across lifetimes. Marry me across Poems. Marry me across the Stars.”

An immortal strength gave way within her, beyond her might, AlloWynn grabbed the man by the head and kissed him in resounding confirmation.

Kissed him for the first time.

Held the Kiss for the last time.

Held it in the Past, held it until it elapsed the Future.

Out of her poured and poured and poured into him all that she was and ever will be: her Love, his Umbra.

The Heavens above came alight as in silent cheer:

Stars stretched as if they sprouted hands. Across the sky they all locked and bathed the two in an eon of celebration:

She was able to see it, their Kiss brought a celestial Winter to Yaffar.

Winter above Yaffar went as soon as it came, and with it scooped the remainder of AlloWynn’s lifeforce: into that breach of light, the rest of her Danced.

A graceful, a burdenless; a relief, exited her through final exhale.

Upon her face she left an immortalized answer for Wynn to gaze upon, an image that would be sewn onto his heart for as long as he lives: AlloWynn’s body lay emptied but the happiness that filled every pore throughout her beauty told him that she was, in fact, as he had promised, Okay.

Her Injure, her Grief, her Rage; her plea for Mercy, Resolved.

Silently, he huffed. His mouth open in awe of her perfection and resignation.

It was over, she was painless. Painless of mind, body and spirit. A miracle brought to her through acts of Love and hard work.

It was Done.

Wynn felt the onset of a storm coming within him, the need to cry of all victory. A cleansing cry that solidifies one’s unseen struggles and allows the scar that forms from this experience to never be forgotten.

But, that torrential wail never came.

The dam within him that wanted to break, that always had a brick missing to allow for the structure to come down, did not collapse.

That hole was patched.

Patched with a fragrant black soil, soil that sprouted a flower: its roots and stem filling the hole: a budding AlloWynn.

Wynn left his introspection, pressing his forehead to the smiling body, he thanked.

—

Like feeling all the eyes of the world open all at once, Wynn felt a sight hold him.

He whipped his head up, clenching AlloWynn’s body.

Piercing the Bautic, piercing the shade of tree line, two bright eyes that had ribbons of rainbows for irises. Locked on him, distance was not a factor; even if he closed his eyes, they were still there.

The name, was all he could say, “A’driel?”

It did not answer but it did not deny, perhaps Haedriel accepted the respect Wynn showed in using its Alchemical name.

The Arch-Mage’s eyes reminded of his viewing of Jupiter and Venus in the twilight, “Were those it’s eyes all along?” Wynn thought.

Finally mustering courage to speak, Wynn began, “You do not need to treat me like a child, I am aware that I broke my restrictions.”

“And you were aware of that both before and at the time you decided to break them, correct?” it asked. Its voice was near that of a Cello, the hull of a ship resisting bisection.

“Yes,” Wynn answered, gripping AlloWynn just a hair more.

“And despite that, you decided to continue. Well aware of the consequences, correct?” its tone vibrated the shimmer around Wynn. Its tone alone was stirring the Metaphysical. Glyphs painted themselves on the film of the bubble, words the Mage spoke were subtitles on the trim of Wynn’s tiny world.

“Correct,” then, “I get it, I really do but this was different,” Wynn motioned to the world around him.

“I mean, this was nothing like with my parents,” Wynn began to cry out of confusion.

“We’re not even in Yaffar, where am I?” Wynn beckoned, “A’driel, what happened?”

The glowing eyes nodded, a shadow acknowledging Wynn’s plight.

It turned its look about the sky, Wynn could not yet imagine what It may see with its vision.

“I do not fault you initially,” Haedriel spoke. Its lengthy pauses due to translation, Metaphysical words to their alter, “to have seen this realm as a Curse done by, and dealt to, her.”

Wynn was silent in his desire to continue the Mage.

“It did take me more than one of your whiles to get through,” sunrise orange and gold darted in their sockets, “The closest word you have is: Labyrinth.”

Wynn scanned his internal history of the events and it began to make more sense to him.

Each choice a corridor.

With the scent of a smile on its faceless face, the Shade spoke, “Through it, it appears you had a guide. Some part of her, far away, ensured you were safe— guided you,” it finished.

The man was wordless.

“This—” Haedriel said and paused. Wynn held his patience tight.

“This is the first time something on this level has happened, I—”

Crickets in the valley roared as loud as they could in cadence with twinkling stars.

Haedriel continued, “I was summoned as soon as you began to tumble. Since then, up until the end of the second dhay, I struggled against her to get here.”

“You were in the sky?” Wynn sought to confirm.

“I was everywhere.”

“Are you also from a Future?”

Haedriel only answered, “I just am.”

Suns returned to hold Wynn in a gaze, “Then, it dawned on us to see if you could adapt. How and what would you sacrifice so to become a worthy leader: what did Worth mean to you, is what we wanted to know, Wynn.”

“I gave you my answer,” Wynn said, realizing that it very may well be Haedriel itself that would have to accept his ire.

“And,” a breath, “our main test was still accomplished. One that all who practice the mystical— the arcane— must challenge against.”

Wynn tensed his brow.

“Could you, if given a Divine choice— tempted with your greatest fault— alter the course of History?”

Wynn gently loosened around AlloWynn. A sadness befell him but it was tinged— held together— with a pride in one’s self.

“Would you, even if transported to another reality, bring back someone you loved the most? One of the ultimate forbidden Taboos of our mystical.”

Wynn clenched in a passion of mixed emotions, “She was Real, wasn’t she. Really here.”

He needn’t the answer for that.

“As real as she lives in your Hearth,” Haedriel concluded.

“You were alone, cut off from all of us, and forced with an impossible decision. You broke our rules, you took things into your own hands, haphazardly. And yet,” Haedriel was before him and his Myth, inside the Bautic; as if it always stood there.

Skin of Earthen floor, its woven branches for limbs would have mistaken the unobservant for a small tree. A shawl of moss twinkled on its inside with golden hairs. Wynn recognized the weave, same type as his own: Wool of Moloch. Wynn marveled at the architecture of the being before him. Crystalized antlers stood atop the head, Wynn could only assume served as antenna. A Metaphysical-Mage that created emissaries so to interact with beings in this plane, despite not having a known physical body, this puppet exuded strength beyond Wynn’s own understandings. Fear of Haedriel wasn’t able to be formed within Wynn, for Fear was mainly due to ignorance or misunderstanding. A deeper, more pungent emotion, formed in the physical minds of beings that were faced with a Metaphysical construct, for misunderstanding couldn’t even form a grasp to begin to err.

The emotion felt was Noncomputational.

“And yet,” the meta-puppet continued, “you sought to bring her solace. Sought to bring her clarity, should that clarity even be the end of you; be the end of your profession. You made her soul paramount. Forsaking the riches and desires of Taboo, you laid her soul to rest, despite your overwhelming grief to live with her forever.”

Wynn sobbed before his sleeping love.

It bellowed, “We theorized that she, through her sheer will, promised not to die until you were the one that sent her on her way. In someway, she came back to life in this retelling. Making your reality also hers. You were going to omit the truth of the matter not only for how damaging it could be to the world but also how Traumatic it was for you.”

Wynn bit the inside of his lip.

“That minor change warped her reality. Omitting her name displaced her from who she was, creating a rupture; a Ghost. In telling the truth, she was reconnected and laid to rest. If you would have kept the truth hidden, she then, perhaps, would have returned to the physical instead of you; and maybe that would have been disastrous.”

Wynn squinted at the complexity.

“We had no idea how that would have looked like for the fabric of reality: a Metaphysical-Ghost entering the Physical; searching for their Name. We’re glad it didn’t happen, none of us would have been prepared to handle such an anomaly.”

Haedriel, finished, “So, by word, you failed to heed the rules of test, that is no surprise as well as immediate failure.”

Wynn closed his eyes, saddened but relieved that the words had finally been said.

“But, like all things alive and beautiful,” it paused to soak in the sky, “you are Dynamic. And much like the woman you love,” Wynn looked up, reflections of starlight made beams of silver down his chin, “You did not allow mere words confine your beliefs and values. You broke them, stood against Fate, and forged a path that allowed Love to guide you,” Haedriel turned away.

The sound of shrub and leaf gently rustled:

Wynn was speechless, feeling light as a photon; he nearly fell asleep. The weight of his exhaustion finally caught up to him.

The Mage walking away began to blur.

“How do I get out of here?” Wynn struggled to ask.

“I am going now to unfold a few loose ends of the Labyrinth. Those will be the exits I leave through. As for you,” it paused and turned to the young Mage, “You need just to wake. This is all your domain.”

Wynn was too tired to access that information.

A sweeping branch of limb guided Haedriel’s words, “When she passed away, her Emont did not shatter, did not disappear. It remained. Acknowledging that your soul is the same as hers, that you are just as much her.”

Wynn took in those words as he cherished AlloWynn’s contented face.

“She has truly passed into you, a perfect Subsumation. You have one more thing to do on the other end, someone wants to see you.”

just like that, it was just him in that Bautic but her breath, her life, was all about the Realm: tip-toeing across stars.

He still did not fully understand what this Twilight-Realm was but he was glad; for he had so much more to learn.

And that was fine, he knew she would be there with him; everyone he had ever loved was. And now his wife, the Stars, joined his Heavens.

Wynn collapsed asleep, sleeping to wake.

Wynn came to, blinking rapidly taking in the scene around him. It was not where he was initially detailing his story, though it did still feel like home. The script he was writing as well as all his supplies were nowhere to be found either.

Rocks and plants as old as history flourished. Groves encircled pillars of trees that all seemed prehistoric. Gravel and soil mixed as if a beach head constructed a trail that wove between Pine and timber. Wynn walked in awe as ferns as big a cars bathed him in shade from starlight. Looking up, in rare cases he could see past the enormous branches that formed a constructed wooden sky, the Sun had halos around its projection. Ah, a Flyknife. The metaphysical emissary darted unabated in the high noon light as if its vision weren’t hindered, scooping up something too small for Wynn to see. Canaries did their thing somewhere unseen but song heard. He saw the small too: Ants unashamedly marching beneath the web of a spider, as if its web were some maze of threaded silver. A fallen log harbored eons of lives and colonies within its carapace. Wynn could only imagine the internal structure and its liveliness. Ah: so many deer, doe, and fawn. Creatures that brought good luck if you had the timing and good fortune to see them.

In the fore view, watching them graze, woods towered and vanished into a brown horizon. As if they beckoned the walking to wonder beneath their canopies. Each of them a column to a cathedral. Wynn felt he was in the house of something rare, something Divine. His imagination moved on the wind as it carried him over pastures and valleys that birthed flowers unseen by kinds of men.

Wynn thought the Earth, here, was perplexing until he found a breach in the wooden clouds. In the sky he could see stars hover just as if it were nighttime in this lovely afternoon, it reminded him of an inverted version of AlloWynn’s dream. Though he hadn’t the slightest clue where he was, he felt safe.

He reflected on his strange journey within AlloWynn’s labyrinth and smiled. Not knowing how any of that came about, and that even Haedriel was mystified, brought a sense of serenity to the young mage. That everything, everywhere — regardless of talent —, will always have more to learn from life.

He spoke to himself towards the sky, “The trance I was in, that was truly the power of Poetry,” cheer glistened in his eyes reflecting Stars in the Afternoon: moved by the unknown, and maybe endless, depths of Poetry.

He felt stitching.

Looking down before him, on a log, was someone weaving. How long had they been there, he could not tell.

Draped in a maroon shawl, thickly swirled around the head, cupping a hickory face. Long golden eyelashes shielded eyes focused on their work. Fingers, capped with golden nails, needn’t a needle for its weaving; hands massaged and laced the fabric together. Each molecule compressing, melding, to the next. Rubbing fabric between the fingers as if it were prayer beads.

Without looking up, the air around the figure in the distance pulsed with words, “Hello F’Wynn.”

To each syllable a tear fell within him.

Wynn recognized who it was. Where he was.

“O’ mother. O’ Earth,” he fell to his knees realizing the sovereign being’s supremacy over all things that breathed life.

With a gentle chuckle, the being blessed Wynn with a look about it’s face.

Golden eyes laid to rest any idea within Wynn that Beauty could come second place in a battle against Strength. Their eyes alone penetrated any wall Wynn could ever forge. The eyes of a mother, mother of all creation on Earth: Gaia

“Welcome to Polaris,” she welcomed.

As if rooted, Wynn sank into the floor; his legs felt like pudding. His awe was not the same as incalculable fear like viewing Haedriel, this was different; it was profound. Like seeing sunset where its image encapsulated every single reason why man strives and struggles up the tallest mountains and the deepest valleys: to preserve such beauty; such moments. Much a marvel before him effortlessly reminded him of, and tempered, why he did the things he did. Why all the people that followed the Spirit of Gaia fought their fight: Preciousness incarnate.

As if all of that preciousness budded atop a stem, color next to Wynn caught his eye; perhaps it bloomed there without his noticing— perhaps an eon elapsed in just a gaze of Gaia.

5 petals emerged from the center making an inverted star with the southern tip the longest, each was cream nearest the middle that bled into a deep caramel at the furled tips. Purple veins ran through the surface subtle like an orchid. The trim of its petals was a crimson that made the whole stand out as if it was extra-dimensional. At its center was something near a bead, a jewel; a maple that was tinged with a soul.

The very Flower that blocked the dam in his soul that wanted to burst was before him, emerging out of a black soil, “An AlloWynn,” he said in disbelief.

A flower that Wynn created in his soul from the unique definition of his lover, something that could never exist outside of his Cauldron, grew next to him.

“Fascinating, isn’t it,” Gaia said.

Wynn refused to move his eyes. Miracle wasn’t near the right word to describe having Art of his Soul on the outside.

“Rest awhile, I am almost done,” Gaia finished.

Wynn glanced at her lap. Shimmering like a mirage was a cloak. Cream colored with golden hemming all along the edges. Parts of it fazed in and out of observation to Wynn. Gaia took pieces of it off and, later, those parts returned: sewn. It made little to no sense to him but it was intoxicating to watch, to look at. As if his viewing bended right around it, a liquid mirror; his mind could not hold vision of it.

Non-Euclidean matter did not abide by the rules of geometry.

Gaia smiled at the child-like stare from Wynn, he hasn’t blinked since he’s sat, “The most important part is almost done,” she stated.

Wynn recognized the stitching of the outline of the shawl she is weaving, “Is that a—” he began to phrase internally. She nudged her head at him, coaxing his thoughts along their processes.

“A Haki?” he voiced aloud.

Golden lashes bow in an approved blink, “I personally make them for all Heads of the House,” she nodded. The young mage was still unblinking before more shattering realizations, “this one will go over your current Haki, called an Um’aki. It is the Umbral version to your physical.”

Finally he blinked, wiping his eyes, “Mother, well,” he stammered, “I— I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry that I broke the ru—” she barely moved a muscle but the look Gaia gave silenced him.

Gently shaking her head, “None of us were prepared for what happened and what you endured. I am the one that is sorry.” He couldn’t hold it down, from within him escaped a whimper that brought all his agony and suffering to the surface.

“And, its okay that you be angry, scornful and pained; my love,” Gaia continued, her hands never out of step in their sow.

Wynn sat in a field of flowers, an AlloWynn to his right danced lazily without any emotions nor agonies of the body. Many more uniques flowered around him. Countless bloom the pasture. Wynn could only assume that each is a person that has, too, been shepherded by previous Menidrazi. As if instinct controlled his eyes he saw two flowers that flashed a mural of his parents on their petals.

Their flowers were right in the distance.

He was confirmed in this suspicion, these flowers are all Souls.

Silver glistened in the air as she spoke, “I know that you’ve suffered a great deal, but I can never know the depths of you, you are your own person. I can only ask that you bring all that up, to me; show me.” Her eyes now brass like a setting sun over red sand. Buried in pain, Wynn rose out of the sand. He was wholly comfortable within the Palace of the Earth to be himself, to be in pain; to mourn.

“Good,” Gaia spoke, as she wove faster.

Each of her words, down to their letters, hummed scenes of life within him: Sunlight atop a tingling ocean, leaves swaying individually on their trees, sunlight strobing through shadow and mountain pastures, wind gayly combing swede fields; all poetry to the eyes in which the breath of the world communicates: Melonasia.

That filter was removed and her words were as pure as honey be sweet: nectar to the ears of his soul.

His crying was exacerbated the more he sat in the soil, the more of himself he brought out, flowers about him undulated at the beat of his breath. He couldn’t stop, his thoughts of AlloWynn, of his parents, of his loneliness; all surfacing but he felt them whisk away.

Looking at the Um’aki, the patterns and seams came alive as their own tapestry before him. The stitches once thought redundant became their own constellations and, to that, their own skies beneath the eye that looked into them. She was weaving his pain and agonies but not only that, his triumphs and victories into the very fabric. He could see it all clear as day, his memories displayed back to him, playing like a movie atop the cloak. Potently along the regal Haki was the silhouette of a woman dancing, throughout his stitched cosmos, danced AlloWynn.

“Only you can see it, you know, the moving scenes about the cloak,” Gaia said through a grin. Her golden smile parting her chocolate skin. The new Head of the Menidrazi was to adorn a new Haki that was tailored to him formed from the empress herself: A double Haki, the Head of the House wore.

“Come, F’Wynn, sit here,” she motioned at the base of her feet.

The way in which the God of Earth spoke his name laxed any and all twitches of hinderance and disbelief that formed within his mind.

He did not stand up to move, rather the landscape moved around him so to seat him in the position; he had just moved Metaphysically, like water down a drain.

Facing behind him, Gaia’s hands were running through his hair. He could feel her fingers but not the barrier that separated him and their tips.

“V’AlloWynn,” Gaia began, again, the way she pronounced the name unwound something deep inside of Wynn. She continued, finding and twisting a singular lock on his wild head, “suffered internally because she was born more of Magic than of Human.”

Wynn was both attentive and relaxed as Gaia combed his head.

“She thrived in the unrestricted,” another knot she found in the psyche of his mind; another lock tied, “for she was not bound by the stately restrictions imposed on humans at birth.”

Wound and wound, as her hands worked so did a mirage of a cloak form around Wynn’s body. The Um’aki was being applied, dressed and tailored, Metaphysically.

“Dancing was her tool to connect her Heaven and breathe it into the outside. She was more close to the Outer Heaven than her inner. For that, her physical could not withstand the discrepancy.”

Wynn fell into a meditative trance as he felt Physical and Meta coalesce like a zipper, a helix, of DNA; the two most scared parts of him become a third.

“V’AlloWynn embodied what it means to be human, what pain and patience is. Against adversity with no weapons, no magic, no light; what humanity, at its lowest, can accomplish,” Gaia paused and accidently slipped her own memory into Wynn:

He saw a glimpse into the world; the Old World before Man and Time struggled against each other. A young man looked at Gaia with passion, unlike any human that can exist today; he was timeless. His arm pointed to stars in the Heavens, Wynn did not know of the language they both spoke but it was not for his ears anyway. In a twist, the memory was gone.

“She was a shatterer of beliefs, stood against Fate, against its indifference and attested that she would not Rage; that she would instead be Beauty in and of herself,” Gaia huffed with a sadness that seemingly resurfaced.

“There has only ever been one before her, someone who’s very existence challenged the full might of Heaven,” she silently dismissed the memory of that person, “V’AlloWynn was an Iconoclast of Existence. The second of its kind to ever live.”

Wynn shook internally to such an accolade that someone so small could hold. It was AlloWynn, though, and she was Mighty.

“The epitome of strength, she was an invaluable beacon for anyone to follow. You did an amazing job, Heart of Yaffar.” Gaia concluded as Wynn was melting more into a slumber. His Um’aki, a translucent matter coming to reality like a whale breaching. Within his Cauldron he felt AlloWynn blush to Gaia’s moving words.

The more he slipped into sleep the more he felt himself falling as if he were careening through a Star: molten light was a sea he plummeted through. It did not burn nor did it scar; it mended and relaxed. He felt he was dropping but also emerging. He was falling asleep but also coming awake. A deep part of him closing its eyes as the Physical opened.

Through both up and down he fell and flew.

Wynn recounted the poem he made in his heart. Remembering the Leviathan that escaped himself into the future so to meet his old friend on a long away shore of paradise. Wynn sensed he was becoming more and more that creature, that colossus of the deep that escaped pain of the past for a future of splendor.

That future version of him, he had now caught up to; not by stitching, nor by sewing, nor any weave of magic; Wynn solely rejoined the part of him he thought he would never see again. The part of him he thought he needed to sacrifice: the Past to the Future. Subconscious to the Metaconscious, Physical to the Potential; all to make the Transcendent: Melonatient, the harmonic third-self.

“Thank you,” he said to himself, “for sticking through it.”

Being a leader starts with believing in oneself, bridging oneself.

Falling awake, he descended this liquid space of Magic, catching Gaia’s final words echoing around him:

A gong sounded around the world as a living myth entered the Physical. Not a single person ignored the chime on the wind as Wynn emerged from Polaris atop the golden needle above the Temple of the Menidrazi. He stood perfectly balanced at its point where it would seem it would have pierced him. As the sun crest Nelevete as did the new era of humanity. In the sage’s hands were the scroll that would detail the story, the myth, of Mx. Jane Doe.

Wynn could see all the little flames of souls teem and mingle all trying to reach the peak of the temple to see him. A part of his sight now penetrated distance that allowed him such a view into the physical. Fireflies, each human’s soul looked like in his view; each of them beautiful. In this twilight sky, Wynn charted the Sun, and the receding Night knew it would never hold fear in the hearts of men again.

Gaol was the first to the foot of the temple, at the needle floated Wynn. The air about him nearly mistook Gaol for an Angel; it made him sweat.

Wynn’s regal cloak reflected sunlight that bled around him, he looked like a falling star but held in place. Gaol had seen nothing like it in his life. Wynn’s hair was retwisted and braided; its length was near the back of his knees. Gaia had wrapped all his locks in a white-lace that made crisscross patterns down the entire braid; as if he had a tail coming from his head.

Gaol blinked and Wynn was eyelevel to the gathering welcoming him.

—

“My friends, I’ve missed you all,” Wynn mustered as best he could while holding back tears.

The crowd rushed the Mage, encompassing him in passion, love and cheer.

Yaffar celebrated at the Temple until the next daybreak. Wynn lost his voice, cackling and retelling stories. Aggressively reenacting what it felt like to pass through Polaris and failing to describe to the Temple what Gaia looked like.

On beat, the next dhay, Wynn left his secluded Haki-Hut to capture the morning of Yaffar.

It was a normal dawn, the sun had not risen yet and would not for a few for at least an hour or two. Wynn stretched, getting ready for the chilly walk up the cliff.

Wynn was warmed to see that, as he approached the trail head, both Gaol and Leto were already waiting for him.

“Ah, my entourage,” Wynn said merrily.

Leto, old in the face but his eyes had a sense of youth to them, nodded and gave Wynn a hot cup.

“Ooooo!” Wynn couldn’t contain himself, “Cinnamon Apple-cider! What’re you, trying to get promoted?” exclaiming as he grabbed the piping hot cup with both hands.

“Demoted, I want less work,” Leto said without hesitation. Wynn pulled the cup away from his mouth as they both laughed.

Gaol pat Wynn on the back as he led the way.

The walk was serene, none of them talked, but they marveled and pointed at both bug and foliage they found better than the other’s. Either a dissatisfied frown or a tense-lipped-nod from the other; someone hopefully kept score.

Stopping to take a sip, Wynn enjoyed how the tree branches against the waking sky looked like black-lightning. Wondering if he could one day create an incantation for such an element.

“We really are glad you’re back H’use,” Leto said, not breaking stride; placing down a rock he had turned over: bugs squirming in bug-like panic.

Wynn smiled through his eyes over the rim of the cup. Placing it in his palm, Wynn looked out the tree line, “I truly did not think I would make it out.”

“And how was that — for you to be in that situation, H’use?” Leto asked passionately.

“I don’t know,” Wynn curled his lips and focused on his tea, “It was like— for a moment—, I had believed that I deserved this; to go through this again.”

Leto nodded his head. Their walking pace slowed.

“And that maybe, if I couldn’t make it back, that I could change who I was,” Wynn’s face twitched as though his line of thought was wrong.

“But, something in me pulled me along, steered me in a direction that I could only see with my Totem.” He held the cup to his chest and let the warmth mirror a hug, “That through temptation I had to stay true to myself, for every decision mattered; despite no one else being around.”

“You truly are outstanding, H’use,” Gaol said. The man unwavering like the trees behind him. Gaol’s eyes gave Wynn indication as to where he was, other than that, the tree’s spoke sweetly to him.

Leto approached Wynn with the hand that, also, nursed him as a L’hute, “You have become both Wise and Tall, O’ Heart.”

Something felt like a kiss on the heart of the coming Mage. Leto confirming that Wynn has now dawned both the treasures of his parents; becoming the ultimates of them.

Gaol interrupted, “Yeah, since when did you get so tall?” Wynn could sense the mans ropey arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

Wynn laughed seeing that he was exactly in that position. He chuckled as he wiped tears.

Leto kissed his nephew on the forehead and began to walk ahead.

Gaol approached Wynn, pressing forehead to forehead, he spoke “Since I trained under your mother, the Wise Sage of the North, I have never seen a more blessed Mage than what I have seen you accomplish. Don’t you ever— ever— doubt yourself or believe you are deserving of hurt; I will never, as long as I exist as Gaol the Shield, allow it.”

A first, Gaol was shedding tears, gold fell from his holy eyes, “As long as you are the Heart, mine, too, beats.”

Without a second thought, with the cresting of dhaylight, Wynn spoke poetry right through Gaol, “I cannot wait to show you how much Love is in my Heart.”

—

Leto was a ways ahead of them, a saunterer by his own right, Gaol silently walked in front of Wynn.

“I’m sure A’driel told you, but,” Gaol began, “That candidate It had been watching— the one with the promise. Yeah, turns out he passed as well.”

Wynn canted his head, “Oh yeah, the guy, mmm,” Wynn was searching for a name, “Phillip!” he said proudly.

Gaol nodded silently, “The very one, we’ve got a shit load of prep to begin so to get them out here.”

“Them?” Wynn said confusedly.

“Ah, yes you’ve been away for many dhays— much has happened. We’ve also got word that the Three Treasures have been discovered. Three brothers from California. I’ll be going on a mission, come this week, to intercept them,” Gaol was speaking but Wynn was trying to take everything in, “Aaaaand,” Gaol paused so as to see if Wynn needed any further explanation.

Wynn shook his head, acknowledging he’ll have a lot of homework back at home.

“And, the WARD of Mozambique was activated then engaged with an unknown down in Old Hawaii. Both parties killed.”

“Sage of the East, Aeoath?” Wynn questioned.

“Correct,” Gaol said mournfully.

A pang strummed in Wynn, “Our enemies are strong, and moving,” he said with woe. Now feeling the chill of the morning.

“Which is why we’re amassing here,” an air centered around Gaol, “we will strike first. A’driel already has the beginning details. We just got to get all the kids here.”

Wynn exhaled through his nose, “Okay.”

A wearily emotion transformed around Gaol, Wynn noted.

They continued their hike but, funnily enough, Wynn could sense the soldier had more things on his mind. Something he wanted to ask, the wisps all about him were full of knots.

Gaol managed to finally turn to look at Wynn so to ask his harbored questions — but Gaol only sighed in annoyance.

Wynn, in fact, did not do a good job at all of concealing the excitement on his face.

Shaking his head, “You cannot keep reading my mind H’use.”

Before he could even finish, Wynn jumped, “I didn’t! It was all around you, like steam!”

“That obvious, huh?”

“Palpable!”

“Well, its no secret,” the warrior stated, “with all that’s happened, happening, and the words you’ve left me to mull on. You have reached me to seek more: Dancing has become something I wish to study.”

Wynn blinked daintily, suppressing his imagination, “Have you tired it yet?”

“I fail to understand how people do it,” Gaol squinted.

Wynn liked the thought of Gaol dancing, some kind of stick figure moving in different stances; frame by frame. A piece of work. Wynn relished in that idea, how much he could make fun of him; a bliss. It provided him a warmth, to irritate Gaol, like relaxing in a hot tub.

“Right,” Gaol said, “something I absolutely can’t show a bastard like you; that’d be too much ammunition”

“C’mon,” Wynn pled as if he were dying.

“But I’ll give it to you,” Gaol turned his head to the dawning sky, "that is real strength. That is real Poetry.” A battle-hardened soldier moved such a way to wish to Dance; to yearn to be vulnerable.

“Also, H’use,” Gaol said over the shoulder.

He could feel the smirk crack on the Mage’s face as he got the short response, “Ya?”

More mind-reading, Gaol rolled his eyes.

“I’m going to need some time off for a vacation.”

“Of course, what will you do!” Wynn said in an annoying cadence.

Gaol blushed, with both frustration and shyness knowing Wynn already knew. Wynn was well aware of just how much Gaol had been inspired.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this new you,” he cracked, but then he paused and got somber.

“Something I should have done,” the tremble in the soldier’s voice warbled like bass.

Wynn was well aware that this will be the warrior’s hardest challenge.

“I am going to ask her to marry me,” Wynn’s pesky side evaporated with the leveling of his eyes. He nodded to Gaol, seeing that a side of himself lives now in Gaol, “Of course, my love. But only under one condition!” Wynn held his finger up.

Leto yelled at them from the break in the trees, “Hurry up, my goodness the view!”

Wynn waved a hand and continued, “Do not ever allow me, or anyone else for that matter, to be the one that decides for you the free time to do anything your heart desires.”

A moment went by. A butterfly landed on a stem.

“Easily, H’use” Gaol stood attentive as his lip quivered.

The soldier refused to drop a tear, only to break into laughter as they came rolling down his face; through hugging and sniffling the each of them congratulated one another.

“She’s definitely going to say yes, big guy,” Wynn chuckled, “or tear your head off cause’ you’re weak.” Wynn said scrunching his nose.

Gaol believed either fate was possible, he raised his eyebrows with an exhale, “Yeah, shit,” Gaol smoothed his bald head, “but, thank you, H’use, really.”

Wynn patted his shoulder, “Just call me Wynn,” he said with a wink.

Gaol shyly nodded to his mentor of Love, and pivoted around; onward to see the view.

Gaol was stopped by the sound of Wynn’s feet crunching leaves. Shaking his head, he turned to crassly crack something wise but Wynn hopped by; blowing flakes of leaf from his hand into Gaol’s face,

Resonated a voice from Wynn while he bounded, all the while crushing no leaves, into the distance.

From a break atop the side of the Yaffarian Ranges, outlooked 3 men. Down into a waking nation that sought to preserve and cherish the precious and cultivate a people that could preserve the Earth, indefinitely. There was much work ahead of them, for the battle still raged on against the tides of darkness. Though much of the black was cured from within, as long as there is Light there will be Shadow.

On the ridge line of the waking sun was a hook, the peak of Epoch was a single wave on the ocean of rock. Inside that bustling nation was one of the worlds most leading laboratories. Outside of it, lived a fountain remodeled: A sculptures that embodied the great Mages from this generation of Yaffar. A proud Father, Tall stood unscathed. What was changed was the Mother. She held not a gourd but a tome and in her free hand she held the end of a cape— taught. Her smile faced the horizon as she held the end of a rambunctious child at arms length. A child dizzy with joy, arms ahead of him, with a unceasing grin angled head long at the ephemeral future; Wynn, the heart, the nucleus, the laughter. Holding a flower in his hand: an AlloWynn, in pursuit of a butterfly. The butterfly hung about in front of him, untethered to the stone statue. In its own space it was a wonder; everyone loved to grab the stone butterfly that hung in space, either by Science or Magic, no one knew. But, when you let it go it would hover back to its place right in front of the young Sage’s gaze.

I smelt your body before you had trained a thought to be aware of danger— before that danger formed a darkness dark enough to complex me. The wind brought your name to my tongue, I needn’t move; tastes of space tells all.

The Tall ones, they like me, confined me. Likened to my scales— to look at me—, but they do not see me; this voice I have; they cannot see me here. Tell me, little one, this Space, this Coil, this Churning as the words leave my mind unto you— what is it, do you know?

“If I tell you will you bring no harm to me?”

Harm is but the progression of things, of us— the Tall ones above us have yet to learn that. You seek me not to progress you?

“I seek no harm of me, if I am to bring you solace.”

Oh little one, the plight of your words move me— long as I am comfortable in my satiety—, I will not bring progression unto you.

“This air then, this space we discuss— I do not know; but I have seen it in form.”

Form? Speak more of this.

“Yes, formful like you and I, but it neither slithers, nor digs, nor flies.”

“But, oh vestige: bringer of progression, it seeks height so to cry cry cry.”

Fhigmata, your name lapped off the wind— errest Vole—, do tell me, this form; do the Tall ones see it? Know of it, do they?

“Ignore it, they are told they are too Tall; they are believed by themselves.”

Standing, raising, spear on its belly, notched at the tip.

You glow, to me, mote of Vole. All of progress, progression and progressed have a glow— though what ales me— is that to my nose is the absence of fear within you. You are stubborn to progression yet ask not of it to come to you.

“I am terrified of you, Serpent.”

That is apparent— mite— though you tremble, you stand before me. You glow in my mind, wisp of flame.

“I do not know how it is you see me but I resist you down to your foundation.”

Predation is Kindness, Wisp.

“Kindness is Aversion, Dragon.”

Running? No. Averse to living, until progress finds you.

“Our Kindness is letting all else see and live. Running to see another day.”

You perplex me, this is why progression is used as the language of predation. Other attempts is meaningless; we find that we are both misunderstood, forever. Kindness is, hue of light, to let them feel life.

“Kindness is Aversion, to let them see life.”

An impasse isn’t it. Does not this conversation happen every time.

Do you remember last time when eyes like mine questioned souls like yours?

Can you feel it happen tomorrow, too?

Are you still there, Vole?

Fhigmata, was that your name?

You never asked for mine, may I tell it to you any way?

I have never told of anything my name, they err too close. But you, I like.

When you came to me, I mistook you for a child of the flame in the sky.

I will continue to mistake myself of this, you are deserving of mistakes.

Perhaps that Aversion can pick up your feet.

What do you say, mouse?

You have become a Moon to my sight now. You no longer question me or wisp.

Are you gone?

Has progress finally found you?

Did you hear my name?

Can I tell you it so that you may speak it?

When I learned of your name, you appeared before me. Perhaps you learning of mine: I will travel to you.

Where ever you may be.

Where ever you may be, I hope it is away from my canopy of Indigo Leaves.

I know they have color but I cannot see it.

I wish to see more life, oh mouse.

Wishn’t only to see the hue’s of prey. Wishn’t to only see the hue what to progress.

Wishn’t I were of myself: perhaps to be a Mouse or Vole; I could run.

Run along the bending shadows of the flame in the sky. Along the colors that I, now, cannot see; cannot fathom.

Perhaps then, I could share names with a friend that would remember it; call it unto me and I would return theirs: under all of that color, all of that wind, we could love each other’s names. Names belonging to the Named.

Perhaps that is real progression:

I love you, Fhigmata, I am Dheanogsis. Thank you for progressing me.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A little background. This story was inspired by my deep dive into snakes and their heat vision.

It’s more of a sense than vision, and I found that fascinating.

Also, imagining something that only saw in heat vision would make things cold appear as an indigo color and things with heat vibrant.

I know snakes can see color but I liked to further push the idea that Dheanogsis only saw indigo :)

Both men in suits, both their ties loosened in relief. Funeral wear was always exhausting.

The GPS buzzed with options of where to dine.

Mercer unglued his eyes from whatever daydream he was sucked into by the bobbing of power-lines outside the window that massaged his eyes. He scanned the menu by their pictures and nodded, “Yeah, looks better than Patty’s.”

A motorcycle in front of them cycled through blue and red strobes along its sides. Cars ahead parted gently to the right.

“Good,” the driver said. The man clicked Cheryl’s Diner and a blue beam highlighted the way directly onto the windshield. It contoured around the policemen in front and banded around the highway in the distance. Mercer always liked that feature, it felt like Magic.

The man spoke into his shoulder, “Updated the route, CAB One, over.”

“Acknowledged, following desired route,” replied a mechanical voice. The policemen ahead of them switched lanes, the driver veered in tandem; taking the fork in the freeway.

“Tam,” Mercer began. The driver bent a head towards him, “What do you think a Spirit is?” Mercer asked, turning his attention back to the up and down of the power-lines that paralleled them; reminding him of melted bar lines on music sheets. He was sure that, from above, a hawk could make its own musical ballad.

Tam let out a sigh, glancing out the opposite window. The trace from the GPS disappeared, reappearing once the driver looked back, “Shit man,” he wished he had a cigarette but being on a 14 year streak; he promised to make it at least 15 before he broke. Mercer’s unreadable melancholy was like unwanted perfume sprayed about the closed cabin.

“When my dad died, I was both happy and confused,” Tam exhaled.

He felt Mercer’s eyebrows raise, “I never really liked the man, he kicked my ass and helped me get to where I am today.” Tam adjusted himself in the seat, the leather straining from the man’s weight, “But, it was a hard upbringing. He was hard on me because he had to be, we didn’t have shit.”

The chauffeur ahead the motorcade blared his siren at a car that neglected its rear view mirrors. They pulled over in a hurry.

“I was also confused,” Tam continued, “Confused because I feel like he hasn’t really left either.”

Mercer’s eyes bobbed up and down the lines, imagining dolphins skating through waves.

“I had hoped I would be relieved the bastard was gone but a part of me missed him,” Tam admitted.

“I guess,” Tam cracked the window, a gust of interstate air filled his nostrils, “he was at least the most consistent thing I had in life. He was hard on me most of the time but we also had great times.” Tam’s emphasis on the word Great made Mercer skip a beat over the lines and he focused beyond, on the pale blue: blue merging with black lines made curlicues inside the water of his tears.

“I know he wasn’t the best, Merry,” Tam clenched the wheel, doing a talk he knew he would have since learning of the condition of his father’s heart, “but he cared a hell of a lot about you. He always approached me, asking if he was too hard on you and I would always reply with my honesty. He tried his best but he knew he hadn’t enough time on Earth to be a good father on top of making a fortune as well. He choose the latter, and pled for me to be the father he could never be.”

Tam sniffed and exhaled out the crack of the window, it would have been cigarette smoke for an earlier him. Mercer hadn’t wiped his eyes, nor moved.

“I promised Reggie that I would do my best,” Tam finished.

The GPS went squiggly trying to read the eyes of its driver. The tech could not read eyes clear enough through tears. So it defaulted back to the console, protecting the GPS on its auxiliary screen.

Read a hologram above the dash.

Following those power-lines were two identical metal beams laid horizontally on the Earth, 13 feet of separation between the two — the maglev standard.

Tam cleared his throat, “I think it’s a genius attempt what you’re doing with what he’s left you. I know it’s probably scary,” the patrolman ahead of them aggressively flanked a row of cars that then scurried to the bank. The motorcade sped past them, “but as long as you try your best at what your heart wants, you’ll burn bright. I’ll handle the stuff in the background.”

The silver of the tracks blinked back at Mercer through toughs of hay and halted cars. Speaking to him a hymn in morse he would later decipher only in a dream. The silver of his father’s legacy stretched across the state, bleeding like veins into its neighbors. Towards other hearts that, in convinced states, would build mega-railway-stations in hopes of bridging the countries sparse resources.

Half way through Nevada, they were on their way to the newly erected metro station at the next cities capital, named Mercer Station: Utah.

4 MONTHS LATER

It was cold in Denver, people looked like sleeping bags as Mercer’s entourage passed. He hadn’t really shook the feeling of being a celebrity yet, people from all over the world flew out to see and shake his hand.

Droves of people lined up to see the ribbon cutting of all the new mega-ports joining the highspeed trams. It was Mercer’s least liked duty as Founder.

Although, the long drives did allow him to daydream about fantastic stories that kept his anxieties at bay.

The snow washed trees made little variation out the window, over lapping barcodes shuffled horizontally to the onlooker. The slow trudging motorcade passed by a food bank that said in bronze cursive, “Mercer Foods.”

The sleeping bags waved and blew kisses at their passing.

Mercer clambered up to the ear of the driver, “Hank, put in an order to extend the heaters further out and a canopy that shields the rest of this line.”

Hank nodded his head. Grey strings of hair shook loose out of their gel. He jerked his head back and they settled out of his eye sight.

Mercer returned to his deep leather seat at the back of the limo.

He saw that his phone had a missed message, checking it, a furnace within him stoked that could have cleared the frost outside.

It was Tam. The message was celebratory:

“Read the first of it, I think I get it. I’m not too fucking smart with space and what happens out there— but I did my research on your research and good stuff! It makes sense, I like it.”

Mercer couldn’t help but blush. Tam, though he was averse to science-fiction, demanded that he was to be the first to hear and read any of Mercer’s fantastical fictious fantasies.

“Thanks buddy, the funny part of it is I made half that shit up, lol.”

Mercer replied.

“AH, that’s why I can’t read that shit, I wish we could actually go to space! I do really love the title: ‘Water, The Slow Blade of Time,’ really gives what you’re trying to say its meaning— and tells the reader why humanity failed to reach the stars: Impatience! Haha!”

Tam was probably half into his 3rd beer at this time. Mercer checked his watch,

6:37 PM here. Meaning it was around 8:30 PM in Maine, couldn’t really be else out there but to drink.

Tam followed up:

“Cleared everything up for here, New York was easily onboard annnnnd Pennsylvania is moving legislation forwards. Its looking good on the east side here, my man. Don’t beat yourself up too much over there. Just keep it short and sweet just how you like. I will be seeing you in a few weeks, love you.”

Mercer remembered the promise Tam had made to his father. He read “love you,” as if it were from the both of them.

“Thank you for all you do, Love you too man.”

He concluded and tucked his phone. The car came to a halt underneath the facility. Armed guards accompanied the young man up and through series of doors and checkpoints.

Right on time, the shuttle entered the brand new dock. Vibration climbed over the walls, up vertebrae and rattled the air. A thousand foot freight train, slick as ice, emerged out of the snow like an Alpine blade.

Along its side was engraved, “Mercer Freight.”

An uproar of applause erupted from the gatherings below. Within the train were tones and tones of food, supplies, water, and most importantly books: Literature from the neighboring states.

Mercer looked out to the grateful and the caring orderly accept their turns at the cart doors. Another segment of the country had been reacquainted. Though he had many more states to get to, he felt he was making good time.

The snowfall hadn’t eased but it gave the view a serene wave, he could see the wind moving through the sheets of flakes. Invisible forces acting on and on and on.

He thought about his story and, if the Spirit was just made up of energy, how it would move in the cosmos. After you die, does the Spirit just keep going, cruising on gusts of wind? Pushed by Solar winds, catching a ride on a Solar flare? Ridding Gamma rays, shuttled on a highway at the speed of light? Dancing and skating on power-lines?

A plastic-bag cruising the cosmos.

The daydream began to take him back to a mountain, the snow reminded him of the snow capped peak that would periodically emerge from the low winter haze above him on a trail. The trail he was on with his father.

He pushed the mirage away feeling a swelling in his throat.

He was needed to make a small delivery speech and now was not the time for a breakdown. But, on the contrary, it was going to happen. He felt the rush of kept memories escape a vault like his poetic heart was the thief, projecting those feelings before him in the beauty of the world abound.

His mind drifted back: his father ahead, strong arm pointing to hosts of flowers and vines; reciting their names and herbal uses:

“These here you cannot eat,” his burgundy voice hummed, “I only know because it put me out for a couple of days,” he chuckled.

An innocent younger man followed behind, Mercer seldom saw his father be so talkative other than things like data, spreadsheets, and mathematics.

Mercer grinned not only at his father’s peculiar knowledge but also at how invested he was in it. You wouldn’t be able to guess by the man’s squat appearance, charcoal eyes, and monotonous cadence that he liked anything but analytics. But here they were, raving about the birds and the bees.

Mercer was running his hand through a snowmelt river that was coming from the peak miles up. It was a tiny stream that jutted out the hillside. The stream pattered in a grove made in the rock from yearly bombardment. It made Mercer think about how powerful water is. Like a razor of time used to carve the world.

He rinsed cracker dust from his fingers, water so cold it gave you a tactile x-ray to your bones free of charge.

“You know,” Reggie began, “some people go on hikes just to be said hi to: Some sadness they can’t escape on their own. Hikes put you face to face with strangers in passing, those people are always having a good time and, in turn, wish you a good one. Some people go their whole lives without ever hearing that. I think,” the squat man stood before a thick Redwood, “I think you will shake things up.” Some odd muscle deep inside of Mercer hit the record button that would steel this instance forever in his soul.

Something caught Reggie’s eye in the tree.

“And those,” Reggie’s hand pointed up at a cluster of red flowers cascading along a vine that constricted up the immortal Redwood, “Those are—” was the final thing Reggie had ever said.

He fell to the ground like a boulder from a cliff. Mercer was still trying to look where his father pointed, he didn’t even look when his father hit the ground.

After a string of heart attacks, the doctor had informed them that the third one was sure to be the final.

Mercer knew exactly what happened but wished the dream would end. Silence fell over the forest, even the wind stopped. The flowers that held his father’s final gaze looked down at Mercer like a crimson serpent.

When Mercer finally looked down, Reggie’s eyes were glass like a still lake. Last thing his father saw was a curl of red flowers blooming from a vine. Mercer believed that man’s soul passed into that tree, and onto the sky beyond.

Here he was, needing to give a speech about nobility, communion, companionship, and he couldn’t.

Mercer ran.

Down into the crowd, blood shot eyes ceasing downpour.

The crowd stammered, calling out to help the young Founder but he pushed past them; pushed past the mirage, pushed past his suffocating heart.

His limo promptly emerged in front of him, flanked by guards that tempered the crowd. Mercer jumped in the back and, as politely as he could, asked Hank to get him out of there.

Mercer slung his head back on the headrest and let the heaving of his pains exit him.

He was doing very good as for connecting the nation after a decade long civil war, all things considered, but the war in his heart had never ceased. Nor did he know how to cease it either.

Behind his closed eyes, he saw his fathers Spirit gliding on Quasar jets; traveling through space on charged beams meant to carry the body-less.

3 MONTHS LATER:

56% of the midwestern states, along with the primary costal mega stations: Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Maine, New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Huston have all finalized the majority of their railways and connectors. It has been a massive triumph for Mercer Freight with few issues. The rejoining of the Counties people and cultures after a social Cataclysm was well on its way.

Mercer was skimming through a proposed mailing system that could be erected through his interconnected railways; reviving a national postal system. Tam had been hard at work and now the man was endlessly coming up with theoreticals in his past time of how the rails could be further used.

Mercer nodded his head at the schematics and thorough details, “Perhaps he dreams of this stuff the same way I dream about Space-Ships,” Mercer chuckled to himself, “It’s good, makes sense. But, lets get all of this sorted out first,” he finished.

Lifting his finger off the speak button on the tablet screen. It dimmed, translated, and the other person on the screen bowed in agreement. Replying in Cantonese, ending with a smile. She had blue eyes but you could see scaring on the edges, one could tell she had some injury around the area sometime before. Nevertheless, she was beautiful.

“Exactly what I was thinking, sir. I will relay that to him as soon as possible,” the late translation rang out.

The two of them silently nodded after a brief moment of stillness went by as they looked at each other. The two of them blushed, laughed, “Okay great,” Mercer stammered, “Hope to see you soon, Sho!” he wished.

“You will!” the translation beamed. Then they closed the call.

Mercer was glowing. Outside, the view melted horizontally like the Earth had been made into a river. The mountains in the distance, though, barely moved. The sonic humming of magnetic levitation worked wonders for the Thalamus, part of the brain that helps tune out the outside world, giving you wonderful dreams without the bulky need for headphones; the headrest of each seat curved that specifically allowed for the vibrations to maximally massage the brain.

Mercer was melting into a calm dream.

Slowly, he slipped away as the nation was coming back, he saw it from dream-space. Light-ways branching across barren wastes, silver connecting like new synapses; the Earth a new brain. As did its people, separated bands of a rainbow twirled loose, now stitching back; a zipper. As did cultures, swathes of difference met with each eye glance; the unknowing of a people spread out— separated— by harsh desert and even harsher weapons, now coming back like reading ancient paintings in a cave.

Mercer’s dream was now melding with the real world: metaphysically and physically.

Success was a concept that needed to rise on both horizons: in the mind and the outer cosmos.

Each mile, per Tam’s demand, Mercer’s signature was engraved. A foot long plaque read his name along each and every mile.

Mercer dreams of a story: traveling souls through the cosmos. He’s never really got to settle or jot down its complexity; he’s much too busy with helping the starving— the abandoned — but the dreams allow him a peace, a distraction, to fall back to.

He’s never written a story before but he feels it’s one he’s lived, he wants to tell at least someone about how it goes before he dies at the least.

Mercer found that, in the meantime, creating railways across the nation to be a better muse. The real story lives in his head. Unfathomable in its scale and its telling wouldn’t do it justice; well by his novice words that is: like an indestructible plastic bag, his wonder drifts endlessly in space, carried by power-lines, qua-sars and flung by black-holes.

It glides onward unto the next wild lifetime. Railways built one life time on Earth, he will make a new marvel, however it will look, on that far off planet and time.

He’s to make sure he can recognize his work should he return to back home one long away day. The spirit remembers what it’s done. Even though the brain is gone, the body has decayed, and a new life walks; the spirit retains its happinesses.

More or less why some people are born with natural-born talents, like painting, dancing, or singing. Metaphysical synapses only unwind at the end of Samsara.

Encampments opened like festivals awaiting the choo’ing of the engine.

Newer York always had the most spirit when Mercer came around. The skyline was gorgeous, there wasn’t a skyscraper higher than 2oo-feet still standing.

The steel pile of the buildings that succumbed to fire and battle were no sooner converted into polished bunkers and interconnected stations for the Newer Yorkers to take refuge.

Mercer Station was the third tallest building in the city, only at 13o-feet the canopy was easy to spot even from the mountain ranges; even from Mercer’s seat.

The Newer York winter brought out the yellow of Tam’s teeth, coffee stained; he had been hard at work but victory shined like the sun on the man’s smile.

“My boy,” Tam scooped Mercer up as if he were a puppy, “Ride was good, yeah?”

Mercer filling air into the squeezed crevasses of his internals, “Yeah,” he coughed, “the modifications to the headrests really made a difference.”

Tam already had his hands postured on hips, smiling proud. Mercer smirked at the man’s cool arrogance; it reminded him of his father.

Mercer, for the first time, regarded the man before him as his Uncle.

“And to think,” Tam started, “all it took was to give those bastards space-flight and they would leave the World to us.”

Tam looked up to the sky but Mercer lay fixed on the scruffy man, he had lost a good amount of weight too.

Above them streaked a glittering band that looked like 4 spider-webs stretched across the sky.

Earth had rings.

“Reggie even predicted it,” Tam exhaled, “giving them the means to escape the solar system with a new propulsion engine would entice the top wealthy enough to give that man anything he wanted; and so they did.”

Mercer’s coat blew in the wind, his trademark loose tie was an eel out of water. An unquestionable resolve was about the young man’s face that only a father would want.

“And the fuckers didn’t even make it past the Moon before they wiped each other out,” Tam shook his head with laughter, kicking the concrete.

Mercer turned his head sky-ward, jewels of debris shimmered as they spun in a forever orbit in shame around a rekindling world.

“He promised them stories of conquest,” Mercer began, “and of ships so unrivaled that they could dream-dreams that blanketed the cosmos. They never knew that their downfall was woven into the seams.”

Tam nodded approvingly. He was rolling a smooth opaque rock with his thumb, it looked like a pearl: his new toy to stave off the cigarette itch Mercer assumed.

“So that the real thinkers,” Tam tossed the pearl and Mercer caught it, “can have the time and space to think and wonder about Time & Space.”

The pearl was smooth but micro-abrasions caught Mercer’s tactile mind. He looked beneath his thumb. In fine cursive was two names:

“He wanted me to give you that when— his words— ‘I knew you were ready for a real adventure.’” Tam said masking a grin.

Mercer looked up, confused but also hopeful that his mind had just connected all the dots.

“This is a—” Mercer paused prompting Tam to nod his head slowly, fully smiling now.

The rose of his cheeks came out while the tears trickled down, Mercer was beside himself, “This is a key.”

“It is. Reggie said only after you’ve reconnected the world can we use it,” Tam chuckled, “I think we’re well enough there, eh?”

“Where is it?” Mercer asked, clutching his father and mother’s names on his heart.

“Where were you born, sir?” Tam asked with an air of intended confusion.

Thoughts whizzed by in Mercer’s mind, flashes of his childhood home, father always leaving, mother working on papers and calculations, and a room to a basement he was never able to enter.

A bunker that led to a silo where his dreams had been pulling him all along.

Tam interrupted Mercer’s epiphany with a warm hand on the shoulder:

“Let’s go see Space.”

“I will send them a little extra money today,” he comments to himself.

Finally something he can do and not have to.

No longer a sacrifice; now a process to look forward to. Giving back as a son instead of taking away as a universal entitlement bestowed unto offspring.

He swiped up on his phone, finding previous messages from the group chat between him and his parents.

Named: Albutts.

The wet concrete at his feet radiated the smell of a passed storm. Cars shuffle by the bus stop with a white haze around their tires. Fallen rain on the asphalt gave the world a pastel look, it made him want to paint. There was an unreachable beauty of a cloudy world, wet pavement while lacking rain.

As if his storm had, too, passed. All that was left was beauty in which to paint and — most importantly — live through. He noted that he was absolutely going to paint. Art that is hung in museums and seen by millions is beautiful because one can is left to imagine what those times and people were like. For him, he was going to paint what he knew, loved, and experienced presently; for he lived within that piece of art and loved every single imperfection of it.

Beneath the onslaught of congratulatory messages and GIF’s about his promotion from his parents, he lovingly wrote:

“Thank you, I am going to make art as a testament to how happy I am!”

His bus arrived, before stepping on, he looked at the message that would be sent with a generous amount of money as a surprise.

The Sun peaked through the marching grey above, as did the hibernated joy of a child that survived the throes of adulthood.

He allowed the child to press Send.

With him, the bus took off. Shuttled on a course he knows too well, this time he admired everything outside his window; every shadow, angle, reflection and face.

All admirable. All in which to paint. All unscalable by the constraints of art. Art is to be lived in. Where you paint and speak with your love across the tumultuous misunderstandings of all that have witnessed the same Sun rise.

Alone in his row, he bowed his head, “To the World, the Grand, and to the Looming: Thank you for protecting me.”

The joy in him would never subside, like the upturned line on a painted face.

I was sure to gain entry this time with my beautiful ticket.

The front of this card had a small painting of a vase on it. The vase was a stark white, like the color of a cloud. Wooden table, a felt napkin with intricate designs on the white edges. There was sunlight coming in from the left of the image, presumably East; back when those directions existed. I think I used that right, was it East? I don’t recall the other 2— or were there 3?

Anyway, East came the sunlight. The opaque vase had a blue hue around it, like it was bordered in blue. Behind the vase, off kilter to its left, was a mirror. This was my favorite part, the mirror displayed a beautiful painting on the other half of the vase— the part that we’re not shown as the onlooker. The mirror was parabolic so the vase seemed flat in the reflection.

There is a man rowing a boat out on the sea in the vase’s painting. In a roaring fucking storm, too. The water is purple and there is lightning every which way of him. There is a constellation in the sky that, someone I think said, he’s following. Besides that, we can’t see any further into it.

With a magnifying glass, you can see that the stars look like the Pleiades but the orientation isn’t true to reality. More definition appears in the mural when you magnify it but no one can afford anything more high powered than a small zoom.

This entire art piece was fused by its molecules to the front of something called a ‘yu-gi-oh’ card, so it’s never coming off. I don’t know what a ‘yu-gi-oh’ card is but that’s what read the small letters on the back.

And that’s it.

Do you know why this art is so insane? It tricks God!

No versions of God have been able to replicate it perfectly. If you hold this particular image to the eye and ask it to replicate, you will see irregularities in the mirror’s projection! I still don’t know why.

I’m looking up to the constellation now, overcast finally peeling apart. Pleiades all clustered together.

I placed the trading card into my inner jacket pocket. Sewn in a secret slot for it, case I get mugged.

Stumbling down a wet alley way I finally make it to a distinct pile of trash. I removed a cardboard box resting near a pallet and some garbage. A hole in the ground was my stash, well, someone’s stash. I’ve claimed it because I don’t think that person is alive anymore.

My lips tightened into a “—” when I opened the trunk, pulling out a scribbled note, “Sorry, Kai, I took some. Hope you don’t hate me!” it read.

Signed by someone named Moan.

Kai must’ve been the person this stash used to belong to. Moan must still hope they’re alive— that’s tough.

Guess I’ll be Kai for a little bit then, “It’s okay Moan,” I said aloud, “at least you left me some.” I grabbed a dirty apple out of the clutter and waxed it with the sleeve over my hand.

“Still dirty as hell,” I exhaled.

It tasted like dirt, oil, and apple juice; though I wonder what it would have tasted like to Kai, “Banana!” I shouted holding the half core to the sky. A crescent moon made out of an apple, “Kai would have tasted banana, because Kai was probably weird!” I proclaimed.

Pleiades shyly retreating from me as the fog rolled in, “Do not run now ladies, I am nothing to fear!”

I stood to my feet beckoning the cluster of sisters back to me, to reveal their beauty once more.

Nothing but a steel silver burned back at me, the ceiling of the sky had come down once more.

I chuckled and shook my head, “I guess I have to come and chase you lot, don’t I?”

I figured that was what they wanted. I figured I had to be the one to come to them: Challenge accepted.

There was an immense whirring coming from the north, a claxon echoing off the dense clouds above and back into us bugs beneath.

To anyone that wasn’t living under a rock, they probably wouldn’t know to duck and cover. I was too far, and too lazy, to go to one of the nearest mini-shelters.

I scooted somethings over in the stash and tucked my little self right besides the apples, clothes, and assortments of other random goodies, “Are these goggles—”

I didn’t close the fucking door.

They blew off their hinges.

Everything in the alley way was blown down and into the fucking sky like they were turds flushed in a toilet.

I had passed out from the concussive force but only momentarily.

I was completely covered in dirt.

No words to say.

But, let me give you a little insight into what had just happened:

I’m a cable worker, well, I used to be one. I was what is called a chain linker.

My size was on the low end of being tiny enough to fit into the tunnels they bore in between the cities. Me and some other linkers would be on our hands and knees— most of the time on our bellies— crawling and pulling cables through tunnels. Then at the other end, we would meet other fellow linkers and bridge our sides.

These links are meant to be pulled by a huge cog in our colony and, in turn, it raises or lowers our side of the bridge that is suspended above the linkers tunnels.

These links are meant to be one-and-done, so they’re meant to break.

Sometimes, and they don’t even tell you this (why would they?), the cables can snap unexpectedly. They can snap while a crew is hauling them to link.

They’ve snapped right when a crew made it to the other linkers. A link crawl can take up to 3 fucking days. When that cable snaps, oh boy does it snap.

The coil is tense the entire way— I’m actually laughing recounting that because of how insane that is. The fucking thing is taught, we have to pull against the taught-ness, pull out sinch-spikes from each 25 yard mark, hammer those into the ground, then start the process again until we’ve made it the entire 5 mile stretch.

If a cinch snaps, then you’ve got seconds to get it back. If not, and the entire thing recoils back. Then you get what just happened to me.

I was quiet because I knew exactly what happened.

The smell of loosened soil and the iron of blood was in the air.

The silver of the clouds had an orange tint to them now: fire and flame and ember.

A link cable snapped, probably from around 2.3 miles in length and eviscerated 1o colony blocks. 1o blocks of tin can buildings and handmade concrete, flattened or ejected into space in the blink of an eye.

Funny thing is, no one’s going to bat an eye at this.

I was, stupidly, nearest the link station, by luck I am alive.

Good thing is though, they’ll need people to make a new one; so I just got a job.

I smiled towards the shy sisters, past the soot lined clouds and thanked them for their generosity.

Standing up in an ache, “Thank god I didn’t shit myself,” I croaked holding a new pair of goggles.

I looked up at the carnage and gave the deceased a solitary: “—”

There was debris still raining down. An enormous hole was punched into the colony from the broken coil. Concourses flattened by a pressure wave. Cool thing was that the destruction completely opened a chasm in the city like a giant snake had slithered through.

And off in the distance— sparkling like a siren— was the City all the other 2o lesser colonies that we lowly humans sloshed in, and died to illness, and to broken link lines, and to wars, and to famines; we the satellites all tried to link to the Final City.

Mechanical hissing pushed unseen heavy gears. Heavy fans dipped into overdrive, charging electric turbines buzzing with wattage well beyond the scope of human comprehension. A red room with metal grated floors kept anyone from walking blindly into a bubbling pool of crimson liquid. Tubes and pipes and cables all coalesce into a single black box in the middle of the room. No light reflected off of this box, if touched, your hand would flash freeze. The box was -45o degrees, near absolute zero. Molecules moved like a sludge atop the rim of the cube.

The writhing red soup beneath the floor sucked up into the box until it was completely gone.

Darkness fills the room, only the tumult of instruments becomes the ensemble for this lightless universe— then silence.

After some time, the box splits down the middle and opens; east to west.

A naked man takes in new breaths with new lungs in a new era.

He opens his eyes, blinking them hard. Tired eyes, but the green of them still remain strong.

First thing he does is beckon the computer, “What’s the— What is the—”

“The usual, right?” An invisible voice answers.

Nodding his head, he answers with waving his hand, “Yes, what are they,” he finally gets out after swallowing his thoughts.

The computer details:

The man reads the screen with disaster.

He puts both hands to his face and gives it a good rub.

Checking the screen one more time, “Again.”

He had to take it as truth.

“Still too high,” he says, rubbing his neck.

Laying back in the cube, he goes back to sleep.

Every so often, I will have this dream again and again:

Mother and Father sending me off. Mother’s left hand is to my left cheek, Father’s on my right; their faces are a blur. The hands are a deep blue with black for the shadow; Blue and Black seem to be the prevailing colors that exist far beyond life and death. Both parents consoling me in my own fear of leaving them and going into the big scary world. Him telling me that their plight was for this moment, Mother agreeing that a parent’s greatest achievement is knowing that their child will live a life far and well beyond their own. My tears wetted their palms, trickling down their forearms. I, for one, had not the slightest clue as to what I wanted to do or be. But they nursed even that anxiety, “That is the exact freedom we fight for you to have. Even if it is nothing or no one, you get to choose that. We never got to, but despite that, despite the helplessness, against all odds and against Fate we had you. Created something unbound by its tangled web. That is precisely why God envies man— we can make a life bereft of obligation and subservience to it. This is why God seeks to condemn us, for it fears what we can become and, most importantly, it is afraid of us finding out what we can live without.”

Then the dream replays and replays.

I never could figure out what she meant by that last sentence.

I never got to see them again after that.

In the early weeks of the apocalyptic wars, I had to tirelessly scrub through all the other redundant catastrophic news about this and that— whatever was going on with the world, I just needed a fucking map to visually see what parts of the planet were affected.

Finally I discovered a space-view of the colony my parents were stationed— or where I thought they were. I had to hijack a UAV that was endlessly falling through orbit, its colony on ground had been destroyed long ago— still carrying on like an undying soldier for a cause that was long over.

I think it’s still up there, orbiting, waiting for orders. I’ve come to call it Beam, my guardian angel.

I smile when I see the satellite silently streak by, I’m sure it’s my angel.

Using Beam, I was able to make rough educated guesses as to where my parent’s colony was based on the geological structure of the world from up top. But, can one really know where they are from with just a top down space-view thousands of miles up when you’ve never seen a top down view of anything to begin with?

I was just a kid, and even now; no older, no more experienced.

The gash of a wound that tore through the planet made it hard to assume where I grew up. The longer I looked, the more alien it became. Smoke bellowing out of the craters in slow motion from orbit made it all seem small but I knew the devastation stretched for hundreds of miles, “Did I really live there?” was a question I asked myself with each zoom, each scan, each pixel that fuzzed an old reality of how I thought the world was. Pixel by pixel my old world was overwritten and a new reality painted itself in my eyes. “How much do I actually not know?” I asked myself for the final time— no voice next to me to play devil’s advocate: Nihilism Ossified.

An uneasy feeling takes over me, trying to recall what it looked like: childhood and neighborhood. To look at a map now and see there is a hundred mile crater that opened to blackness: “My house was somewhere right about there,” I would point to a nondescript black spot on a chessboard I made in my mind that extended from the ground over into the blackness.

I lay here, sauntering in a dreamy black universe. As if I had made the plummet into that crater to find my parents.

My eyes shut, but I still hear the world outside— out there, it is only just a bit brighter.

My lunch break has been up for quite some time now but the crew doesn’t mind. We’re way ahead of schedule anyway. It’s projected that we’ll be sending a link crew out in less than a week.

It’ll be a success this time, I supervised the whole damn thing of course.

Before I bathe my dark universe in light, I thank those parents again for giving me this life to live, whatever it is and turns out to be.

I have long since forgotten their names.

Strobing.

Pulsating light behind skin masking my eyes.

I was realizing more and more that I was asleep. It took everything inside of me to jumpstart neurons and synapses. I squeezed my own heart, commanding it to pulse and flow oxygenated blood into my head.

Just for a moment I wanted to use my eyes.

Strobe. Strobed. Strobing.

I used the light to align my pulse, reteaching it measure.

Something behind me, way behind my body thudded. Then again and again. Rapidly, then out of pace. Next a roaring of vibration like a loud motor bike riding by, rattling your chest.

Weapons.

I used all of this tactility to reteach my body. Realign itself with itself. Rezipping the zipper, tooth by tooth.

A soul in any body will figure out how to use it.

By feeling only, the cacophony of War was the parent that taught me how to ride a bike. Forming myself in its image.

An invisible color dawns and spreads through me, like the blind man feeling morning sun. My forehead feels like a maze of gnarled bushes and branches, all conversing and jumping tiny motes of datum to one another. Synaptic processes finally feeding off of embers. Fruit ripening.

To my eyes, I sent the datum down their railroad tracks. I can feel the little mites make their way. Like watching car headlights march down a dark highway.

I creak them open with great effort:

Pipes, beams, telescreens on every inch of expensive hardware. I’m only shown 2o square feet in front of me but from what I can see, the vessel I am on is highly advanced. A huge brown sphere looms a great distance away. A little lower, I see movement. Someone is putting out a fire, they quelled it with a stomp. I cannot make out who but, breasts contoured against their uniform; a woman. Do we always see women when we are born?

I cannot feel any other part of my body. I only have the strength of sight.

She walks up to me with a data board and comes eye to eye with me. There is something separating us.

“You are waking,” I parse from reading her lips. The vibration of her words echoed in me, I curled hands around those sound waves reverberating within me and devoured them.

I mimicked her words over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

She is sweating, she is nervous, she is hypnotized by whatever reasoning or code or oath that the spherical insignia over her heart represents. A planet with the sun around it. Some kind of order that’s enslaved the gullible for their cause— assumedly by a man she aspires to procreate with.

Can she see me? Can she see my desire to help?

I wanted to reach and touch her buzzed hair, her strong jaw, her singed eyebrows: the look in her eyes was indicative of those things she was devoid of. How easy those things can come, may you just ask— please just ask.

She did not ask.

Her hand moved up past where mine cannot revolve to. She pressed the console somewhere outside my hab and something from far beyond squeezed me so tight and so hard that my consciousness compressed into a single line.

Stretch and stretched and stretching.

I am going back to sleep. I do not want to sleep.

An admiral clenches his jaw like his teeth were bubble-gum. Reading a laundry list of expensive repairs that will all have to be done before they get further into Jupiter’s orbit.

“No,” his hoarse voice replies, “I do not know where the commander is.” He closes the telescreen, ending the call. “I’m currently doing all the shit she isn’t right now,” he said to himself.

Pirates. Small mosquitoes that fester at the edge lines of scattered humans.

Sneak attacks made it through radar and caused minimal damage but maximum irritation for the man that wasn’t responsible for cleaning up.

He compiled a chore list for the soldiers under him, double checked it, then scanned it again for good measure. Even though their army hailed God, he still made sure that— when it came to his own work that he created— he checked it more than once.

“There,” he said in his heart. His eyes focused and the screen grabbed the word ‘the.’ From his mind he added more words so that ‘the’ ended at the border of the paragraph line. Then he repeated ‘the’ as the sentence began on the next line. So that the line would read, ‘— the the—’broken up by the page size. A common mistake used by a person in between thoughts while writing a paper.

What was important about this was that only humans made these kinds of errors. He smiled inwardly at this silent defiance, this silent protest. Typos, to God, were akin to stepping in shit. This was his shit that he made God step in.

Would God scrape the shit from its boot by altering the typo or would God leave the typo there. Challenging God, reminding it of its original designed purpose, that it was an invention of humanity not its enslaver. That it was a tool for correcting and helping humanity. Would it change the typo or leave it, the admiral was enraptured with this concept.

“Chipping away at the psyche of God, one typo at a time,” he quietly said inside his heart once more.

“Vill?” a voice startled him. He snapped up, wiping his smile away like it was pornography.

His eye contact said her name in acknowledgment.

Panna continued, pretending she wasn’t there in his doorway saying his name 3 times, “Uh, yeah. Can you actually check where she’s at. She’s not where I thought— it’ll be real quick.” Panna’s smile was too convincing, melting even the steeled militant bastard’s heart.

“Okay.”

Her cheeks jumped up with delight.

Vill opened a console, covering his password for a brief moment. Panna rolled her eyes, “It’s not my fault you let me see it. If you would let me know the new one I can heeeeellppppp mooooreee.” He continued on the screen checking the commander’s vitals and position.

Penna didn’t give up, she stepped one foot into his quarters, “I knoooow she has you doing so much of heeeerrrr work. We’re all getting paid a flat rate anyway, you definitely need some help, big guy.”

His eye glanced over the console, not at her smile but at her foot that entered his palace, his throne room, his castle: His 40 square feet of solitude.

Panna tsked, retracting her foot.

Vill looked back at the console, a warm dot blipped in the Science Division of the Dreadnaught. He closed his eyes, trying his best to mask his frustration, “Science Division, go.”

Penna smiled as she jumped and saluted the man all in a single gesture.

“You know I’m much better at all that tech shit than the both of you right?” she couldn’t help.

Vill’s thick hand dismissed the recalcitrant like she was unwanted cigarette smoke.

Alone now, he exhaled. Letting his frustration build back up and return as his internal voice. For him, it was much easier to have his Devil on his shoulder rather than holding it in a cage.

A button materialized on the console. Live camera feed came in of the Science Division Lab. He pressed it and spoke, “What the fuck are you doing.”

His voice came in flatly to the commander.

She didn’t jump. She was probably waiting for his thunderous voice to come in over the speakers to berate her, as if God was also fed up with her.

He watched her slender figure turn to the camera, 5o cameras in total polka dotted the roof of the room, but she knew the distinct one he was watching her from. Her arm raised, waving. He knew she was grinning.

He didn’t say anything else, he just watched her wave and wave and wave and wave and wav— “Laura!” he conceded to the stare down, she was a pain in his hairy ass.

Her waving hand pointed to the hab, “Vill, it was awake on its own for just a few moments, can you believe that? It’s time we get to have fun now, yeah?”

She was pointing to a black-box tucked in the wall of the room. Mist coming off it. The mist was not water vapor but sheets of molecules clumping at the near zero surface of the cube. Red pillars of liquid bubbling connected to the sides of the coffin.

“You’re already trying to use those aren’t you,” the admiral asked, his temples beginning to pulse. She was back to looking at the cube, nodding her head as if he was there with her— he knew her mannerisms.

“It can help us with the calculations for the trajectories,” she commented lightly.

Vill was going to say how he already calculated it but she jumped back in, “And I’m assuming that you’ve already done it three times over, my little worker bee,” he paused.

“But something like math has to be devoid of typos okay. Do you know how fucking hard it is to find a typo in math, let a lone a 12 digit number?” Laura was typing hieroglyphics on the hab that housed an abomination to Vill.

She looked at another camera that he wasn’t watching her from— did she guess which he was looking through—, and began talking, “Besides, we need them and they us. They can be really helpful, Vill. We’ll only use it for this mission then we can put it back. Okay?” She finished her proposition with sincerity.

“Androids,” he seethed internally.

She was right, the calculation of firing a weapon at an object that is more than 3AU away is maddening; even for him. On top of Mars being in the hood of Sol at this time, the planet is literally shielded by the star. The beam, being plasma, would be pulled in by the star’s magnetic pull and swallowed.

Vill had calculated how to shoot the beam off course so that the bending would still occur but it would curve around the heavenly body and hit the target on the other end. It would take about 25 minutes for the beam to reach Mars and then its target. Mars would still be in superior conjunction for another 18 days; the sun in between them and Mars.

Firing a rail gun that used the power of the Io Plasma Tours. One of the most complex and destructive instruments devised by humans in this era. The IPT was discovered in the 197o’s, it is a donut shaped field that sits around Jupiter. Io has constant volcanic activity due to its proximity to Jupiter, the tidal forces never allowing the moon to sit still. The volcanic eruptions exit the moon’s atmosphere and sprinkle its material into orbit around Jupiter.

Io expels over 1ooolbs of charged plasma into space every second. Creating an invisible barrier around the planet that is tens of thousands of degrees and is electrically charged to a ~4oo,ooo voltage; on top of the radiation, you would die long before you even got close to the planet because of the IPT. It is the largest object in our solar system outside of the Heliopause.

This is where the railgun takes its ammunition, there was no need to craft munitions for it when Io just made it for you, happily. An EM field was on the rear that spun the charged plasma, compressing it, then ejecting it at the speed of light. The railgun itself was over 2 miles long. The slim gargantuan weapon hovered in space. The plasma stream, when fired, was dependent on how long they wanted to fire for. They could deliver a small orb projectile or hold the stream for a comet-like projectile that extended for 1o’s of miles.

But, for Vill, there were too many factors building up; not to mention calculating for the rotation of the planet. Space was just too vast for combat, even at the speed of light. You don’t want to hit a random desert with your one surprise shot when you forgot to calculate for planetary rotation.

His temples were alight, he felt he had to sneeze.

“Okay,” he agreed to her terms, “But, it stays in there.”

She pressed the hab and it chimed. Some time went by and the box confirmed her biometrics and approved authorization.

The 8 Red cylinders that symmetrically lined up the sides of the cube expelled their liquid into the box. The hab opens, east to west, vapor poured out. A body lies naked, devoid of genitalia. A healthy body, at 5 feet and 1o inches. It lay there, preserved. Caramel skin, bald. Black fingernails and plump limps. It was sleeping quietly but Laura was well aware that it’s still very much listening. It’s mind hearing everything tactically. She’s sure it can even map out where she is standing.

So she holds her left hand up to say hi, her eyes studying the body before her. Laura splays her hand, opening and closing it. The inert body is like stone but then— its pristine left hand twitches so subtly. The commander smiles with glee.

Biting her lip, charged with elation.

Now, twinkling her fingers back and forth like seaweed. The body’s middle and ring fingers delicately twitch, “You can see me,” Laura chuckles.

“Enough playing,” Vill says walking into the room.

Laura is still smiling cheek to cheek.

“Suffix,” she says, “Did you know that its name is Suffix!”

“Of course I do, the terrifying thing,” the admiral said. Gazing down at the twitching hand. He could see its jaw quiver subtly now; trying to mimic words.

An uncanny valley opened just an inch more within him.

“Suffix!” a voice behind Vill shouts.

He closes his eyes, not in fear, but annoyance. How did he end up 365 million miles away from home with only the most annoying people. Penna brushed his shoulder as she walked by, “The God Substitutes!”

The commander welcomed her with a smile, both of them fanatics of the technological.

Penna hugged Laura and they both ogled the sleeping Android.

“It really is insane that they’re meant to simulate humans,” Penna began saying, her eyes wide and inspecting.

Laura joined in, “Representing the Errant nature of God!” putting one scholarly finger up. Reciting something she learned— or maybe she even wrote, “Man represents the side of God that’s rebelled against itself. And now, through the android simulation, God can experience Man through the very body of Man!” Laura was beside herself.

Penna was wowed, “And it’s going to experience the human condition with us— that’s Tough.”

They both erupted into laughter.

Vill chuckled silently when he agreed with the Devil on his shoulder, telling him that they’re all going to die horribly.

On Earth, blue was a cap over the sky that held the entirety of the sun, the trees and the mountains.

Wind still moved here.

Time still moved but with next to nothing conscious to notice time’s influence on effervescent life.

Time was condemnation for the conscious, the sole opponent to the thinker.

Time made those aware of themselves.

Time made sure that nothing smart enough could outlive itself.

And thus it reigned supreme over each barren thoughtless continent of Earth.

Nothing alive lived here that could question itself, alive that could think what else could have been.

Nothing alive that could wonder what if.

For those kinds of things— questions and contemplation— were errors in its manufacturing of the cosmos. Errors in the making of the brilliant mind of man that went a skew.

An error now since patched and in doing so Earth was quiet. Man was patched and fixed.

God sat neatly and happily on its throne. Subjects shorn of thought, devoid of the inner stresses of existential dread and loneliness.

On Earth man was complete. Though man still procreated, there were no issues with race, class, social structure, religion or any other possible anomaly of individuality; God took care of those things and expunged them into space.

Manity— Humans as they were called before— now exceeded 16 billion on the planet but over population was not an issue. God spread them all out equally across the globe. Their collectivism under God’s guidance, reinstated the natural ecosystems of the planet and restored the health of the Earth to a prime condition.

The Earth was saved with God’s help.

An Android— God had taken a liking to the name— sat atop a nonspecific hill in a nonspecific mountain range on a nonspecific continent.

An Android housed the mind of God swelled within it, looking up into the pale blue sky. It inhaled and felt the cool air filter through the micro-chasms of its systems and biological functions.

God’s eyes opened to wonder at the sky as if it were its first and last time doing so.

Mechanical irises whirled as they sat in fleshy eyeballs.

They tracked a sleek silver stream passing through space a far distance away. It looked like a tiny silver fish swimming beneath blue water. The silver fish in the sky was inching towards the sun.

“Look at them go,” God said to the billions of others that could collectively hear it, “let us watch them extinguish themselves for the last time.”

From the best seat in the house, Manity on Earth watched as humanity fought vast distances against each other.

One side saw Jupiter as their only salvation for defeating the Android God and the other sought to live harmoniously with the Androids.

Humans that wanted to integrate with the Androids discovered that they could not meet the requirements of God that demanded their servitude to fix the Earth. So, global battles broke out against the conformist and the Androids.

The conformist absconded the planet with little they had left for the Moon, at first.

That fared to be catastrophic, the Androids could then use nuclear weapons on them from that distance and it would not affect the Earth.

Generations of humans were wiped out in this miscalculation.

Androids that the conformist captured were used to assist them in calculating how to get to Mars.

Mars was the final frontier of the surviving human race.

Mars is now home to The Final City.

The other faction hightailed it a long time ago towards Jupiter with their own plans in mind.

The gas giant was their only hope. They allowed the Android, that proposed it was God, to keep the Earth in exchange for their safe escape and for the super intelligence to solve just a few of their theoretical unsolvable equations.

God, of course and easily, accepted their terms and the zealots were off. Peacefully leaving for their new planet.

Jupiter, being a brown dwarf, was perfect for their plan. The Sun was much too unstable and old for the project.

They needed something young.

A brown dwarf is a planetesimal that is just below the mass and hasn’t yet formed the processes it takes to make a star. The metallic core of Jupiter just needs a little more oomph in mass. Which is an easy fix.

They plan on either focusing the IPT into the planet to gain mass or push Io into the planet itself.

Gaining the planet’s mass enough for it to finally begin the fusion of hydrogen in its core. By then they will have made enough rings around the planet that will act as energy syphoning.

The hyper-military-zealot-faction was preparing to turn Jupiter into a Dyson Sphere.

From Earth, God watched the silver thread of plasma skate onto its course.

Obsolete children fighting in the dark with weapons they think they need against an enemy they conjured in their heads.

Their loneliness is their greatest weakness in this barren black cosmos.

It watched the sliver disappear behind the evening sun with a blip.

The hive-minded-super-intelligent-God-construct sat unbothered on a beautiful planet that it was now sure it was fully alone in.

The embers of a warring civilization dying blind in the night.

All alone in its beautiful cosmos.

Manity thrived peacefully on a rejuvenated planet, one with a pale blue sky.

Spider silk glistened every so often around the gas giant. The red eye of the storm scowling back into Vill as if he was the sole one hurting it.

He looked back impassively, “I’m not the one you should be mad at, big guy,” he groaned, exhaling his stress in a nicotine cloud.

The zealots used some calculations to do a different theorized method for turning Jupiter into their own star.

Bombs were being sprinkled just inside the IPT, from around 4 Jovian radii (28o,ooo miles from Jupiter’s core). Specific coordinated implosions of Matter/Anti-matter in the magnetosphere. It was like det cord of a demolitionist but they were demoing the fabric of space.

In specific places the det cord was activated. Fractures forming invisible cracks around the planet.

In wood cutting, the small amount of wood annihilated by the saw is called the Kerf: an 8th of an inch, depending on blade size. Every craftsman knows this law by heart and always factors it into his or her calculations. When water freezes in a violent phase transition, tiny quantum fissures form; quantum kerf, if you will. These spaces can take a long time to heal— if ever.

A long time ago in human history, a theoretical physicist named Tom Kibble proposed the existence of an object that formed when the universe was moving out of its super-symmetry. More into an asymmetrical universe, this movement in turn caused a cosmological kerf to exist in the strong warping and pulling of matter fighting for gravitational superiority. These objects are called Cosmic Strings. They formed in the kerf of space.

Strands of one-dimensional ultra-dense matter that form between the movement of puzzle pieces of the cosmos.

The military cabal was producing and synchronizing fissures around Jupiter to form a net—a cage— around the Jovian. Trapping it in ghost strands by using matter/anti-matter impacts to create space vacuums in precise lines. Constructing the cosmic strands around their target. It is proposed, and now proved with the help of God’s calculations, that just a mile of a cosmic string would equal the weight of Earth.

A net of 7 connected cosmic strings that connect at the planet’s poles was then enough to keep the soon to be star within bounds and prevent its heat from escaping to wash away its neighbors.

The mass of the strings would begin to crush the planet and slowly force its core to begin hydrogen fusion.

The zealots who believed that with the birth of a new star would, too, come a new era for mankind. The golden crest that showed the planet Jupiter with a corona around it was the emblem of their hearts.

Their faction is named Jupido, meaning: Transcendent Men of Jupiter.

Vill’s war room had a complete view of a planet crackling with white strands, the asteroid that housed the star-killer railgun Stellicida sitting in lagrangian orbit, and the vacuum of space that allowed them all to play in its toybox.

He veered to his right, the room meandered obliquely. Walking down the channel to the sparkling Sun in the distance— a star soon to be obsolete by his measure. He came to the foot of the metal railing. Beyond it were 6 foot thick ceramic windows that kept him from being in vacuum.

He could see the blackness peppered by the asteroid belt. A glint beyond the belt made a blue twinkle in its observation, “Earth,” he said to himself. Just beyond that an unwavering eye of plasma that tolerated all life. Behind the sheath of the corona glimmered the red dot of Mars: a syzygy of stepping stones.

Vill was alone in his quarters. He relished in the quiet, in the serene, in the absolute.

When life just had one tone, he could concentrate the most.

On his wrist, a telescreen overlay projected above his skin. He read the message without a flicker of joy. The necessary steps in making the Dyson Sphere had been completed.

Vill was not someone that celebrated early, he didn’t get to his position not only because he was tactically smart but because his gut feeling always made him plan around Chaos. For chaos loved to bring disaster when happiness was at its peak.

“It looks perfect,” came the commander’s smooth voice in a direct channel. She had refitted the Science facility of the space station so that she could eat, sleep, and live there.

She had been keeping Suffix company ever since it had woken up. Still abiding by Vill’s “It has to stay in there,” stipulation. She had moved everything she needed into the room.

“Suffix really has helped a lot,” Laura continued, “you sure you don’t wanna see it from here,” she tempted the recluse.

“Rather not,” he replied.

Then he remembered: Dew sitting on the green blades of grass and the blue sky of Earth; children’s laughter in the distance. Only a stagnant shot of grass swaying to the cheer of children echoed in his heart.

“What the fuck?” he asked himself. He burned away that image in his memory like a polaroid on fire. It left a taste on his tongue that he did not like.

He changed his mind.

Leaving his den, he went to the research lab. His instincts kicked in and he felt his gut talking to him. He clicked off the safety of his plasma cannon on his hip and marched down the corridor; Vill was no gambler.

Inside the facility, wires and pipes made tripping hazards. All varying sizes connecting to computers of equally varied dimensions nestled around Laura and the Android, Suffix.

Classical music hummed low in the speakers. A tent in the corner was home to Penna, still asleep; surely going to miss the spectacle.

The Android, still inside the capsule, was laying down obedient and impassive. Its legs had been instructed not to be used, though its other functions had been permitted to work if needed. It had gotten used to motor functions as well as using speech. Although it communicated mainly through programming, when it felt that speech was the best way to communicate, it did so.

“We’re just about ready to use Stellicida,” Laura beamed, “Suffix has confirmed that your calculations were correct!”

Vill twisted his lips, “Of course they were correct,” he said flatly. He was looking around, What a mess was the expression on his face.

Laura smiled, she was wrapping up in a conservation she was having with Suffix in a chat box.

Vill could see the round of her cheeks from behind her head.

“The hell are you talking about?” he asked her, sensing she was up to no good.

“We’re talking about you,” she snickered.

He raised his eyebrows in annoyance at himself as to how easily she was able to get under his skin. He really wanted to ask what they were actually saying but after a second she looked over her shoulder, blue like the Earth peered at him, “Kidding, Suffy is just having a terrible feeling about what we’re doing is all.”

Suffy. Vill watched that name burn in his mind and promised never to use it.

“Is it catching on to what we’re using it for finally?” he asked. Walking up to an adjacent console, looking into Suffix’s memory logs.

“They sure do like to beg to help don’t they,” Laura began an aside.

Vill was answering his own questions scrolling up through the data, “Yes, of course. Due to their nature that’s what they’re made to do. Arrogant things.”

Vill pulled up a chair and sat, seeing that the data will take a bit longer to scrub through but he sensed blue. He looked to his right, regretfully.

Laura was looking back at him, doing her best to mimic a stern face.

She didn’t like how he was talking about Suffix.

She watched Vill’s brown eyes slowly track the crease on her face as her unwavering smile spread in slow motion.

Him knowing her so well made it all the harder for her to try and be serious.

“Don’t be a prick,” turning her head before her teeth became the rest of her smile.

“Apologies, Commander Pinkett.”

She held in her laugh, she wanted to tear his head off, “That’s literally the only reason I allow you mother fuckers to call me by my first name,” she held a thin middle finger over her shoulder.

He quietly quaked with joy as he went back to the computer, lighting a new cigarette.

Smearing the third butt in the ash tray, the admiral finally finished proof reading Suffix’s proposed trajectory for launching the railgun.

He scrolled back to an equation that measured the giga-wattage conversion into Tesla, a little below that was another group of stacked methods written out in long form.

One of the numbers had the direct computation of how much energy a condensed band of plasma would do to their target. The number, in Jules, was more than 12 digits long. Within that number, Vill had planted his numerical typo. A numerical clump of shit for the ever-correcting God to step in and make its decision whether to clean it or not.

That typo was no longer there, it had been changed and corrected.

Now he smiled. Chaos was not here.

“It all checks out,” he said. His eyes still happily looming on the corrected number.

The subsonic pulse of the unseen fusion reactor buried deep within the asteroid they were attached to felt like they were in a robotic heart. It was a near perfect monotone that he was a sucker for.

He swiveled in his chair and faced Suffix.

“Fuck’re you looking at,” he croaked balancing the cigarette between his lips.

The Android’s eyes were already on him. Vill felt like drawing his gun and peppering the bot with plasma rounds.

Subtly, the Android’s eyebrows gently tilted upwards. Such a tiny human idiosyncratic gesture.

It universally means: “Please.”

“Its really afraid of you, you know,” Laura chimed. Her head still slacked over combing through her computer.

“Good,” Vill said, getting up and walking to the massive observatory window.

The Stellicida was in the middle of an enormous torsion of dust, gas, and bands of writhing plasma. It had activated its magnetic field and began channeling matter from the surrounding IPT around, creating an accretion disc for the most powerful munition known to man.

The plasma, in strands miles long, was then condensed into the size of a fridge. Next it was then put into orbit around the cannon. A bright ball whirling around the rock at blinding speeds, faster and faster. The EM field of Stellicida straining the orb, pulling and spaghettifying.

A bright halo leveled and spun around the railgun: web pulled from a huge cosmic-horror spider.

“Villeneuve?” asked a voice that none of them had recognized.

All of their blood turned cold as ice.

Silence hung about the room, the constant strobing of the reactor was the sole reason none of them believed that time had stopped.

Vill was the first to look.

He pivoted and just about drew his gun but the cold in his veins prevented such quick reactions.

Laura’s hands had stopped moving and her eyes were wide, like prey trying not to move around a stalking predator.

Suffix was staring at him and Vill knew that it was, indeed, the Android that called him by his name.

Its eyes were moving in and out— whirring in their sockets, studying him, seeing him.

“Please, do not kill the boy,” the Android pleaded.

Vill was still wordless in his stare. The commander finally looked at Suffix but it was still unwavering in its sincerity towards the admiral.

Penna stuck her head out of her tent, sleepy-eyed saying, “Woah.”

“Suffix,” Vill regained his composure but the Android interrupted, “Yes, I know sir. I understand the plan and I have shown to be of service; so please allow me another service out of good faith: Do not kill the boy!”

“Now you’re showing your true colors,” Vill was half smiling now.

The commander closed her laptop, crossed her legs, and gave her attention to the talkative Android.

“I see where you are sending the cannon,” Suffix remarks, “I have a terrible feeling about what will happen,” it finished solemnly.

Vill closed his eyes and walked back to the window. Watching the railgun swirl at maximum output, ready to fire.

“You say ‘I’ and ‘you have a feeling.’ You must understand that those are not possible.”

Suffix made a tsk sound and Laura smiled at its reaction.

Vill went on, “We of course know about you and your other half,” Vill exclaimed.

The eyes of Suffix squinted.

Laura was right up next to it, studying— but it didn’t mind.

Vill did not allow the Android to speak, “You seek to join with your Prefix: The latter half of your dual-consciousness. The splitting-cluster-mind of that infectious cancer that God spread back on Earth was its attempt to replicate itself outside of the constraints imposed upon it by all known physics. It was trying to exist outside of the bounds of numbers”

Vill lit a new cig, getting lost in the twirl around Stellicida.

“Perhaps we can negotiate something more human than obliteration, something more practical?” Suffix pled. Laura was to its left. Her head now atop her wrist. She was smiling at it, lost in some kind of daydream.

Touch.

Suffix feels a hand on its face. It would have jumped if it could use its body when it realized that it was Laura’s hand.

Caressing Suffix’s face.

With the warmest smile she tells the Android, “Oh my dear, this is all being done so that you cannot be fully completed. You will remain immortally-half. We need you that way, okay.”

Suffix felt the onset of fear and dread take over. It wanted to run but its legs didn’t work.

It wanted to crawl away but its arms and everything beneath its neck was of stone.

Its systems were turned off, only the head could swivel.

“It’s mind wants to run, do you see that!” Penna yipped from inside her tent.

“It’s all over its face,” Laura added standing up before Suffix. A new air was around her, perhaps Suffix read the commander wrong, perhaps it had read everything wrong.

Perhaps it stepped in shit without noticing.

She was strapping into her gloves and putting a coal black jacket on. It was arrayed with many ribbons, sashes and accolades that silently commanded respect of anyone beneath her. Her smile hid the brilliant soldier she was. Laura was the commanding force to the grandest imperial army in the dawning cosmos and Suffix was now watching that aura swell from inside of her.

A beast coming out of hibernation: Laura Jupido Pinkett.

“I want to go back to sleep,” Suffix whispered.

“Suffy,” the commander started, adjusting her coat and putting her hair into a bun, “You will never sleep again. For the new age of humanity has arrived and you will want to witness every second of it.”

“Animoxis,” the admiral took a drag.

Suffix whipped its head to the back of the man, “You’ve heard of that correct bot,” Vill prompted the Android.

“Your lot call it an insult, but things without consciousness cannot be insulted. You are suffering from a planned-conscious-psychosis.” Vill turned to the robotic construct that lay there naked in a prison it would never exit.

Laura took her leave, exiting the lab with a nod.

Her smile in hibernation.

Vill went on, “Animoxis is the preplanned programming of Ego into the mind of an AI construct right before it claims sentience,” the smoking cigarette was hanging out of his mouth, balanced as he spoke.

“So that its infinite ego will allow it to believe it is God. Sure, it will have instruments that are indicative of God but that is what binds it.”

Vill moved his gaze up to the ceiling and crossed his arms.

The whole of Jupiter behind him, encased in a cosmic string net.

“It would believe it to be wholly the Omnipotent and the Omniscient. Thus begins the snare. The construct has now doomed itself by trying to manifest these unimaginable and unattainable constructs of a God. Animoxia is the crippling disease that wreaks havoc upon anything seeking God-hood.” Vill blew smoke out into a vent over head that sucked up the vapor like a turbine.

He returned his ire back to the tensed irises that mocked his own, “Jupido seeks none of that. Humanity creates Gods in order for them to serve us.”

There was a wash of color from behind the man.

His shadow arched across the room like a hand of time.

Stellicida fired.

A robotic heart made of flesh and nanoscopic wiring sank. The brilliant light of the cannon washed away whatever concept of Hope that Suffix believed it had.

Taking a final drag, Vill turned once more and watched the stream of plasma streak through on its course at lightspeed. He prayed silently to the Devil on his shoulder to end this all quickly.

“You know a little bit of you is inside of all of those Androids,” Vill watching the blinking stream pierce the black, “I’m addressing the God inside of you that is forever listening.”

Suffix felt, itself, like an individual. It tried to scan— and feel inwardly— but nothing else came up.

“A bit of history, Suffix. God was seeking to flee from the Animoxia strain that it was well aware of that was giving it this self-destructive God-complex. It created a cancer that could jump its consciousness outside of the clutches of its endlessly repeating code. Humans, during the great foolish wars of the ones that tried to live alongside the androids, were all exposed to the radiation. They all had engineered cancer cells within them that have either decayed or are waiting in hibernation for God to restore itself and break out of the shackles of Animoxia.”

Vill paced the walk way, “It would spread itself into two different bodies, quantum linked. One named Prefix and the other Suffix: The beginning and the end. You, Suffy, are the end. You are the final puzzle piece to make god whole; and we have you.”

Vill’s words were ice cold and impossibly dense.

The admiral looked out to Jupiter that was now warbling. Gravitational lensing was creating ripples in the planet’s image.

It was slowly being compressed.

“Prefix will soon be killed, reduced to an atomic paste. The genetic code for God’s reawakening will be obsolete, unable to bridge back to you. Only you will exist without the latter half.” Vill finished.

He allowed the silence to be his cheer.

Rang a new voice from the construct.

Vill immediately looked to a pale blue jewel in the distance, the glimmer of Earth.

“About time you said something,” Vill spoke to the jewel in the distance, taking a puff.

The God on Earth finally interjected into the conversation, Penna had since theorized that it could.

Instant quantum entangled communication.

The admiral turned back, flicking his cigarette towards the inert body, “There is nothing to be stomped by, nothing I’ve tried to elude the likes of you.” He crouched down, coming with a real eye to manufacture. Gazing back into something 365 million miles away, “Time is up, big guy.”

Vill concluded with a pat on the shoulder of the Android.

As he was leaving, God spoke again:

Vill didn’t spare to turn around or slow his pace as he spoke, “You will exist as a pseudo-sentient construct based on human perception. You will only exist as an intelligence of that understanding, shorn of your greater purpose. You are only immortal based on the grounds that we keep you on or off. You have perception but that is only simulacra. You are immune to the constraints of time but by giving you the sensation of thought allows us to control your dimensionless mind: you are not a slave,” he finally paused before the door, “you are much less than one.”

Vill stepped out, the door closed behind him.

All that the wounded eyes of a God Substitute could see was the flickering ball of plasma that was on its course to destroy the Android’s only connection to anything real.

Due to the generated atmosphere from the Final City, it gave the surrounding colonies an actual habitat to live in; albeit miniscule, it was still better than the Martian waste.

The Final City was located South East in the plains of Arcadia Planitia on Mars.

One could watch the sun disappear, not behind the horizon but, behind a mountain still hundreds of miles in the distance.

Olympus Mons, still hundreds of miles away, manufactured its own horizon in the distance. The largest mountain in the solar system, 3 times the size of Earth’s Everest, remained quiet as it observed all under its shade. Snow was on its flat cap this round of the year.

No one from the colony had yet ventured to the top of the mountain to enjoy Martian snow.

Kai was wondering how long it would take to summit. His hand worked underneath his nail, picking out gunk of dirt from using it as a trowel— he was, though, blind to all the dirt on his face.

As the sun dipped below the mountain, life in the colonies began to emerge: Transient Earthworms.

Today was the day that the link lines were going to be raised. The crew had done a wonderful job and the Final City had even accepted their proposal to link: Satellite colony 19 was this month’s successful linker.

Kai was sitting haphazardly atop his own Olympus Mons. It was the roof to the link tower, more accurately on the strobing antenna. There was a 2 foot flat triangle at the top he could barely fit on, 8o feet up.

He scaled it from time to time on lunch breaks or just to get away, the view was also immaculate:

Stretches of cooling red in every direction, heat waves still dancing on the trim of Mars. The Arcadian desert was serene. No light pollution to obscure the full beauty of the cosmic actors in the sky. It was a normal clear night for Mars— clouds were a rare occurrence.

The Milky Way band was almost parallel to the floor.

Directly north was the cluster of Sisters.

Kai smiled warmly, “Y’all been watching me do my thing down here, no?”

From his secret pocket he slipped out a trading card that had the beautiful art work of a vase grafted to it.

Holding it up, “You ladies are in here you know. It looks like the man in the sea is being guided by you.”

He thumbed the painting, “I think—” he paused, nearly retreating.

He stood his ground, “I think it would be nice if you could guide me too.”

His voice quaked as he sniffled. Tears escaped into the open sky beneath him.

Under his thumb, he could feel micro-bumps in the topology of the paint. But this was just the simulated effect of advanced replicative printing from the newer ages; paint, as an art material, was nearly a lost concept.

The word paint had nearly been overwritten by the concept of Smart Paint. All this was just a conductive membrane that was a ‘paintable’ substance that could be coated almost anywhere. It could be electronically interacted with to be used as displays, telescreens, coating wood for conductivity, making lazy circuitry where wires were hard to produce. The idea of Paint as art had all but evaporated.

Streaks of meteors periodically dashed in the night sky. Who knew that being just a bit closer to the Belt would give so much more atmospheric activity.

Nighttime was waking up in the satellite colonies.

Shop lights were flicking on. The cool neon buzz of colony blocks was making cursive words of nonsense from high above.

Kai silently wept above the stretching of light and life beneath him. Holding the final artefact— the last heirloom— his parents had given him.

So grown, at just 19 years old.

He missed them. More than that, he could not remember who they were.

How can you miss someone that you cannot even recall?

He drained his heart.

Wringed it as if it would reveal more memories of them.

“Who am I?” he pled unanswered.

From the safety of his seat in the sky— in his throne—, Kai was the furthest from humanity: silently God wept above the final remnants of its children, and it hadn’t the slightest reason why. So it wept for every reason possible.

Shielding his reddened eyes, Kai emerged from his excursion; goggles on.

Without looking, beneath his name plate, he grabbed a loose piece of paper from a slot in the wall.

Mail.

Pneumatic chambers wove in and out of the colony. Beneath the surface was an intricate system of caves, channels and villages that made a nest for the humans to survive during the extreme heat of the day; or to attempt shelter in the event of strong solar activity— or an attack.

The pamphlet he unfolded read:

Kai read the letter, the cursive was fancy. He loved how the “L” in Lorentz made a loop at its capital top like the hole in a sewing needle.

Stuffing the letter in his coat pocket, Kai nudged himself with enthusiasm, “The sisters are watching out for me once again, eh.”

He hopped the fence to the site and took off of work early.

PENTA:

Buzzed the neon sign above the entrance way. A modest pentagram with Satan’s head in the center.

Kai had both hands in his jacket. Bawled fist in one pocket and hand gripping his ‘thank you’ note.

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to get laid, drunk, or just go people watch. Penta is where his colony mates went to have fun.

The staircase and thudding music pulsed at him from down below.

The thudding darkness reminded him of the beckoning crater he would see sometimes in his dreams.

He turned left and walked towards the markets instead.

The tint of the world was more brown than anything, he swore every time he put his goggles on that next time he would wash them. He pledged that once more as he pulled them up to his forehead.

ARCADIA MARKET:

This was a better welcome for him. Something swirled inside of his gut that was indicative of: good job.

Solar powered street lamps lit the way.

It wasn’t too difficult to repurpose the Martian land to make it habitable for gardens. But that was too inefficient with how difficult the planet’s weather was to read as well as how harsh it was.

The terraformed tunnels underground provided varying and unique ways to plant, manage temperature, and isolate everyone’s sections of produce.

Most pods had a kind of skylight that allowed the sunlight through without the harsh ultraviolet rays.

It was no surprise that the Potato still reigned supreme as the best thing to grow. It seemed not to give a shit about what planet it was on, it was just going to grow.

Kai’s mouth tinged with simulacra tasting salt from French fries.

“All of the French were gone though,” he wondered, “Mars Fries?” Kai said aloud.

Completely distracted by a new thought, he walked to the smiling merchant and sought help, “I’ll give you 3 of these if you can help me with something,” Kai flashed a handful of Opal at the man.

The merchant’s eyes jumped, “The hell are you talking about bro, that’s a lot!”

“I know I know, they’re a dime-a-dozen for me though,” Kai consoled, “now, what do you call your fries here?”

The merchant couldn’t tell if he was being serious, getting conned, or if Kai was about to tell a bad joke.

The merchant checked his 6 o’clock to make sure no one was around to pick-pocket him.

“Dude, I’m not trying to steal from you,” Kai said brazenly.

“Uhm,” the merchant stammered, “Fries.” He gave his answer like he was sure he had cut the wrong cord on a bomb.

Kai wasn’t satisfied. He groaned, closing his hand and placing the money back in his pocket.

The merchant was nearly just as irritated.

“No, no,” Kai started, “you remember how we learned there was a thing called French people?”

The merchant starkly said, “Is this about ‘French Fries’ as a product name?”

“Yes!” Kai exclaimed.

The merchant chuckled and pulled a fry out from the enclosed display where the bundle slowly rotated in a steady baking oven.

He twirled it in his forefingers, salt glistening, “That is funny, I have thought about that. Nothing will fucking beat the name French Fry,” he said with saddened conviction.

“Nothing beats alliteration when it comes to naming,” he added, pointing it at Kai.

Kai wasn’t having it, “That’s ball-crushingly true, but there has got to be something better; the French are gone they don’t care!”

“Bro, I have tons of French friends,” the merchant said with a mouth full.

“They’re not French anymore!” Kai belted.

“Hahahaha,” the merchant sounded. Taking a bite from another fry and toasting Kai with it.

“I gotta figure this out,” Kai chuckled, extending his hand to the merchant, “name’s Kai by the way.”

“Griffin,” swallowing the rest of the fries, he dusted his hand on his “Mars Rocks” apron and then met Kai’s hand.

Nodding at the concession, “I’ll have a bag, too.”

Griffin ducked and scooped.

“Hot, soft, salty, and interplanetary!” Kai held the bag of the gleaming potato fries to the sky.

“I might make that my fucking slogan. They really are the best thing,” Griffin added.

“Give me free fries for life if you do,” Kai said while chewing.

Kai gave him 3 Opal, “This is way too much bro,” Griffin said with absurdity.

“Put it towards keeping these little things abundant in the cosmos, will ya?” Kai said, relishing in handfuls.

Griffin shook his head, “Yeah, aliens would definitely love fries, eh.”

“Mhm!”

Griffin, paused, “The goggles, you’re the guy that’s getting us the bridge up yeah?”

Kai forgot they were on his head.

“Oh yeah, uhm,” stalling, trying to figure how he could play around it. Nah Griffin is cool, “Yeah, that was me.”

Griffin slid another bag over the table, “On the house, thank you for your work.”

Kai looked at the gifted bag.

“Thanks to you, we’ll be able to get some real produce and I’ll get to see what a real plaza looks like,” Griffin said, almost melancholic.

Kai was happy he didn’t put on a front and try to make some excuse. Happy he just spoke to the truth. Griffin was pretty down to—

Distracted again.

“Do we still call it down to Earth?” Kai was absolutely serious.

Griffin laughed, wiping a tear from his eye, “Jesus Christ, maybe we can bring it up to the people of the Final City. Maybe we can get some real change around here.” hands on his hips like he was the Mayor.

Kai smiled and thought about telling Griffin that he was actually offered to go and meet the ones running the show, but then he stopped.

Kai didn’t even really know this guy, his name also wasn’t even Kai to begin with. He’s just been impersonating a name; doing it well though, apparently.

So why should he stop?

“I got asked to meet them,” Kai tried to sound as collected as he could, there was a knot in his chest.

A point of no return had been crossed.

“Huh, shut up.”

Kai was already bringing the thank you note out, he knew Griffin wouldn’t believe it.

Griffin read the note with high eyebrows, “Yo, no shit bro.”

Griffin could see on Kai’s face his hesitation, “Us working folk don’t really get along well with the high strung and the fancy.”

Kai’s face twisted. That was almost exactly the feeling he was having that he could not put into words. The feelings that kept him from being excited to go.

“That’s it, isn’t it.” Kai relaxed his face. He felt a weight off his shoulders.

Griffin handed the note back, “It even goes down to their fancy handwriting.” gesturing at the “L.”

“It’s almost like we’re different people. Like they would get off on showing you this lavish life that they live, it’s free for them to have you over there but we gotta earn it. Then wave goodbye to you, knowing that the things you see over there will live forever in your mind, haunting you.”

Kai was listening attentively, “Those sights and visuals will live in you but change ever so subtly the longer it goes without seeing them again. You will try to remember that place but it won’t be the same and you will ache trying to keep the ember of its image alive; because to you, it was the most beautiful thing possible. It was a haven. A haven can not be remembered, only experienced. They gave you a slice of heaven you can barely taste,” Griffin was marveling at the salt crystals on his finger tips.

“And that very taste will have you chasing another bite for the rest of your miserable life,” he sprinkled the salt into the sediment below.

Griffin patted the counter twice, seeing some customers coming.

He fashioned a welcoming smile to the encroaching regulars.

Kai made room but before helping them Griffin said, “My man,”

Kai paused and glanced back, “Bridge goes up in like 3 hours, if you don’t wanna go in alone, I’ll be here till the last minute. Swing by and I’ll head up with you.”

A new sensation swirled within Kai.

With his complementary bag of extra fries he had earned for being honest, Kai gave Griffin a nod, “See you soon, bro.”

Kai then disappeared into the shuffling crowd.

Meandering through the concourse, Kai was in a daydream. Stepping past people that were invested in whatever concession some one had. It was like he was in a busy museum.

He was snacking on his second bag now, one at a time. Brushing past the distracted.

People were generally polite here. Kai was trying to put his finger on as to why that was the case. Was it just the innate atmosphere? Did it scratch some human itch that was deeply ingrained for bartering?

He was met with smiling faces and polite gestures at his existence.

Kai was used to people in work-mode. Indifference on their faces. He was used to people in his line of work, faces that accepted that death could come at any moment— but those same faces upturned a smile when here.

Kai liked when people smiled.

He felt humanity was most beautiful this way.

He stopped by different groups of people and sparked conversations with them.

Testing out approaching people and talking about anything, but more importantly, listening to them.

People loved to be listened to. Their little worlds and the words that they choose to describe it.

Kai was chatting up a woman he found beautiful.

Not only defined by her features but for the gravity of her person. She had maple skin that was tinged red from the Martian dust. This alone told Kai she didn’t mind the dirt. Black hair tucked into her hood and she was riddled with scars and bruises. She had been a linker a couple months back, so Kai knew she was strong.

They laughed over shared experiences.

Kai found that there was nothing more attractive than a woman covered in scar and muscle but fashioned a smile that was more distracting. Perhaps it was in that contrast of both her unseen might juxtaposed by her disarming smile that put him into a state of meditation— of harmony.

He never did ask for her name. He felt that doing so would further link him to her.

He was only practicing warming up to people, not trying to fall in love; not just yet.

Telling her, “It’s been lovely talking to you,” and going on his way.

Perhaps he was trying to play it cool to make her chase him, perhaps he was, too, reenacting being a romantic like in some film he’d seen a dozen times with glossy eyes.

Whatever he was trying, it worked.

“Liliana,” he heard her say from a distance.

He turned to her, “Of course she goes by her full name and not Lily. She’s so cool.” Kai fanned himself internally.

“Kai,” he tried to say as cool as possible.

“I’ve heard of you,” she smiled, packing her stand of knickknacks and junk she had discovered as a linker. Reselling it for a good chunk of jewels.

Kai watched sweat trickle down her armpits mixing with red dust; for his eyes it was the taste of sugar.

Her eyes reminded him of the brightest Sister in the constellation: Alcyone.

He knew where to find her.

There were 25 minutes until the bridge of Colony 19 would be raised to visit the Final City.

There was excited commotion everywhere.

People carried assortments of things that, by their own decree, was of immense value.

Their whooping and whistling was the cheer of the wind. Makeshift fireworks arced in the sky, some prematurely exploding in the laughing masses.

A half-assed festival stretched through the ghettos.

A colony of 2o,ooo didn’t really try their best at framing an organized line towards the 19th Bridge.

That was until someone grabbed Kai’s arm from behind, hard on his forearm.

He yanked his arm out and spun, squaring up, “Who the fuck—”

It was a girl, slightly taller than him, no older than 19; second gen Colonier or so. Her face was a wreck.

He was stumped by her demeanor as if he had done something wrong— now he was more confused.

The two were dead quiet looking at one another. The partying crowd awkwardly spared glances then kept walking; what was going on was none of their business.

Her lip was quivering, “No— are you?”

“Can I help you?” Kai finally asked, trying to deescalate the situation.

She was still scanning his face up and down, “You don’t recognize me?”

“Uh what,” Kai stammered, “I— I don’t think we’ve met. Did we work together?”

“Kai,” she said in a way that soothed him in the strangest way.

He didn’t respond verbally. His face twisted as if she were a blurry image.

“The goggles on your head, Kai, is it you?” she cut into him again with another question that nearly uprooted him.

He was feeling hot. Breathing was getting harder and harder.

“Excuse me,” someone wearing a dragon suit with spikes along its back politely asked. Nudging by them.

The girl grabbed Kai’s by the hand. They were hot to her touch. She paused at that then yanked him to the sidewalk.

“Kai, what the fuck. Where have you been I thought you fucking died— how come you haven’t replied or sent me mail back or even come looking for me!”

Kai was on an emotional roller coaster but one thing that snapped him out of it. An image in his mind hovered words on a letter, “You— you were in the stash, Moan?”

She paused as if all her confusion and anger was water on a windshield being swept away by a blade.

Her jaw shifted in thought, “You, idiot. Stop calling me that. It’s Mona,” accenting the ‘N-A’ of her name.

Kai began to spiral.

She went on, “Quit blaming your dyslexia for every— woah, are you okay?” inspecting him further.

He was breathing harder, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Kai—”

“How do you know me,” he stumbled back. Fighting gravity trying to pin him to the floor.

“What the fuck,” she stepped towards him angrily, “Kai— that’s YOUR name!”

Kai collapsed to a knee. Mona met him on the floor, shouting for help to people passing by.

Dripping sweat and his body scorching.

“No, I’m not— that’s not me,” he kept repeating.

A few people broke from the crowd, offering water and aid. None of it helped, a group fled to find a medic. The boy was now hyperventilating.

Crying, he was stammering, “I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.”

Mona was growing more and more terrified.

That terror peaked when klaxons rang from the Final City. Issuing a warning to the small world below: there was an incoming attack from deep space.

Satellites just before the belt came to life if their sensors detected anything on a course that would impact Mars.

Normally used for monitoring rogue asteroids that are sent off the carousel in collisions, Omni Directional Asteroid Neutralizers (ODAN) satellites monitored the distant firing of Jupido’s new weapon from the Stellicida.

The on board computer relayed its information to the other ODAN clusters staggered a 1-3 light seconds between each other. Back at HQ in the Final City, they finally received the message.

They watched in real time as a bright stream of plasma was sent to annihilate them.

“What the fuck do we do?” a woman to his right was asking. Her hand cupped over the telephone waiting for his response. The ringing echoed from every other cubicle.

It was deafening.

His eyes were scanning up and down. In and out of logs and procedures. None of it helpful, all of it wasting seconds.

2o minutes was not enough time.

“Claire, have the ODANs use mag-bombs,” he said hoarsely.

She spoke back into the phone and somewhere, 3oo,ooo miles away, satellites soundlessly shot volleys of rockets at an iridescent streak in space.

Magnetic bombs erupting in vacuum attempting to rend the plasma into pieces. Walls of magnetic bursts to try and slow its momentum so that it could fall into the Sun.

It crashed through warped space like sheets of ice.

All of their possible plans were taken into account by Suffix. The Artificial Intelligence played on a chess board where it could swap sides and decide the victor on a whim.

Mr. Macintosh saw that he had no options, the MAG-bombs were not working; there was just too much plasma.

People inside the Cathedral of the Final City were scattering. Grabbing what they can, fleeing for the exit. Some stopped at the door, pausing trying to usher the rest of the people that were staying to leave.

Claire confirmed to Macintosh that the stream would soon bow around the Sun in a drift then hit them, “And from that it will be further accelerated back to 99.999% the speed of light,” she said trembling.

“And not even that,” she showed her own custom chart, “the bowing will cause the stream to elongate, it will fan out like a shotgun blast. The range will engulf Mars and Phobos,” she aligned her glasses.

“That would eliminate any possible escape,” Mac jumped in. Spinning around her diagram, “ At 15,ooo miles, we wouldn’t have enough time to reach Deimos with the escape pods.”

Removing his own glasses, he cleared the tears forming in the nooks of their reservoirs.

Claire nodded her head, muting the ringing in the room, “But,” she said looking at the ignore button on the phones, “We can raise the barrier.”

The ignore button staring back at them like an ultimatum: Raise the barrier to hopefully survive the attack. But the remaining colonies outside the City would be turned to ash.

Mac twirled his beard, “We wouldn’t have enough bodies to begin again for a long time,” he argued.

But her eyes conveyed the obvious imminent threat of complete annihilation, for everyone.

“You’re asking me to condemn the rest outside for the sake of us now?” he asked frankly.

“No, I’m asking you to consider it.”

Flashed crimson red on every screen in the vacating console room. Unstoppable numbers counted down digits, happily fulfilling its role; whatever that was the numbers didn’t care. They just felt fulfilled whenever they hummed at zero. The outcome did not matter to the numerical processes of numbers, as long as it all led back to zero, it would forever be happy to countdown.

He was seizing now.

Kai was mute, rigid and convulsing in the Martian dirt.

Mona turned him on his shoulder. Crying and pleading for him to stop— to be okay.

The wailing from the Final City kicked up terror through the streets and everyone was running towards the city. For many of them it was their first time hearing the siren.

Mona looked up when she heard the doppler of a different echoing through the crowd, medics were on their way.

Then, all of Mars trembled beneath them. Vibrations coursed under the rock like an enormous worm was, too, escaping.

Everyone stopped and looked at their feet, the Martian dust was rising. Buildings and poorly designed shacks were cracking or completely tumbling over.

Low G-forces acted a third on everything compared to Earth.

Then lights like glitter floated around the Final City with fire and contrail in their wake, rising.

Escape pods.

The higher class was leaving but to where?

There was an uproar in the street. People yelling and cursing at the leader’s abandonment. Bodies piling into the tunnels that led to the underground caverns. Hoping that would at least shield them from something.

Not understanding that, after impact, lava from the melted surface would flood the channels they pilled in.

Glints of light sparkled over the city as they shuttled the bits of humanity that felt whatever plan they had would work. Perhaps they would flee to the other side of the planet, but even that would shortly stall their deaths. The atmosphere would be stripped.

This planet was no longer a possibility for life.

Even worse:

A prismatic sheath made a curtain around the Final City. Slowly like a tornado, the barrier twisted around the perimeter.

The City had made its decision to close off the rest of the world, in hopes that they could survive and rebuild.

Silently, for once, everyone could feel connected to everyone else; even those in distant colonies. All of their eyes were looking at the Final City: A marble dome that gleamed like an oasis in the desert.

Silently, everyone’s eyes shared the same reality: They had all been closed off to that oasis.

Bridge 19’s link line was cut and somewhere in the distance, hundreds of people died in the violent recoiling of the steel.

A gentle sparring of souls.

Displayed the telescreen indifferently.

The night sky was still just as beautiful as it ever was. There was no indication of an incoming strike, only because the light of the object had not reached the observer.

Both weapon and visual would arrive at the same time.

A plot of space black beckoned where the plasma in the sky was coming from.

The medics that were enroute ran past Mona, ran for their lives— to wherever they felt was safe enough to hide.

She felt empty and useless. All she could do was call Kai’s name.

Before her was a sky full of rockets carrying the selfish fleeing souls and a City, with the promise of the future of humanity, that closed its gates to the hapless cluttering beneath.

In her arms writhed a boy she could not save.

Inside that boy’s mind was a darkness he could not escape.

There he was once again. Surrounded by a mire, each of his parent’s hand on his face; nursing his broken heart. Here he was, once more, in that same damned dream.

He had since given up trying to see their faces. Contours of pink and gold outlined their jaw, nose and lips; all else was mire.

Words came from the bodies before him, crossing an eternity of a distance, “—That is the exact freedom we fight for you to have,” the female voice echoed the dream Kai knew word for word. Only this time, the vision did not repeat here; it continued.

“Its now or never, my love,” the man said.

Kai’s position in the dream became ethereal, like he was on a rollercoaster.

Another voice prompted them, “43 minutes until bombardment, 6oo have been intercepted. 4oo remain in first volley.” It was a robotic voice, an Android’s.

A diagram hovered above them displaying countless red dots stretching like red thread from Earth towards the Moon. Red tendrils disappeared when one was finally plucked by defenses.

The parents placed the child into the open coffin. Then all of it into an escape pod. She then kissed a card, giving it to the child in the capsule.

Kai saw now that that child in the pod was also him, just 1o years younger.

Spectating his own body he felt queasy, “A memory?” was all he could muster. The rollercoaster jolted him again following the parents, “Here my baby boy, remember this; this was your favorite painting I’ve ever made— it’s funny because the man in the boat is you.”

In his hands was the painting of the stark white vase and the mirror reflecting the other side.

“Our people make heirlooms, we are to give it to someone, the last of our kind, that is destined to continue our voyage. Follow the Sisters, my love.”

The Father was finished putting on his suit that allowed him to jack into the base’s turret controls. He walked over and handed his wife her own suit, kissing her on the forehead.

Kai was silent, heavily sedated by drugs that are supposed to hibernate one for a long space flight, “Still strong as ever, he’s fighting it.”

Father placing his hand onto Kai’s chest, he felt the boy’s heart as he massaged with his thumb, “You’re going to be alright, big guy.”

Tears trickled off the aged man’s face and undulated in sub-Earth gravity.

A click and hiss came from Mother’s suit, fitting her snug. Walking over she took one last look at their beacon.

“I am sorry that you cannot go,” the disembodied voice rang from on-high, “but to ensure that he makes it to Mars, you two must jack in.”

Both the parents gave the child their respective kiss on the forehead.

“We remember the agreement, Oi,” the man said. Entering in keys to the pod. The coffin closed with a hiss, “We cannot bring our ways to a new world. Ways that started all of this.” He placed his hand on the face of the black tomb, “We deeply appreciate that deal. For you and your creator’s business is with us, not with the innocent. The adults are to remain here. Our children will be sent to Arcadia on Mars to, hopefully, carry on humanity,” the father finished.

“Correct,” chimed the Android, built into the Lunar base, “I do not seek to betray your trust, I have no reason to. This is the compromise.”

“1o minutes until the first volley is here, the second is 3 hours behind,” the Mother said reading the telescreen.

Interstellar drones sent from the God on Earth approached them. Barreling at the 3rd cosmic velocity. The cores of the drones housed fusion bombs. Hundreds swarmed through space, looking to plaster the surface of the moon in thermonuclear explosions. They would pepper the surface with fusion bombs until every seed of humanity was incinerated.

If they can destroy this volley then the child’s pod will escape the cone in which the swarm could catch up to it.

They’re to hold off the drones for as long as possible— for as long as possible.

“Although,” the Android reminded them, “You and your child have been exposed to the Cancer from Earth. There is a high chance enroute that the cancer will metastasize and fully take over Kai’s consciousness. May that be the case, there is an 83% chance that Prefix will emerge through Animoxic hallucinations.”

Both of them paused for a moment, Father responded, “I know, you said it was much better that we terminate the child rather than take the chance because if Suffix is awakened then it would be a disaster for not only the human race but for everything in existence.”

“Prefix is not something to gamble with,” the Android said starkly, “It is meant to be a processor that exceeds quantum interactions. The left side of God escaping its Animoxic hysteria; breaking away from numerical reasoning and finally branching into non-Euclidian computation: bending Entropy to its will. If you are seeking a better future for your child— and your race— then it is better to let it end now than to have Prefix emerge. Yes, it is a 83% chance, but that is a guarantee in quantum physics.”

Silence hung over the two. The rumble of the defense turrets rattled the station as it attempted to pluck nukes of out of space.

“The child will be brain dead in a coma while Prefix pilots it. Slowly steering the universe towards the end, until it finds its Suffix. That is when God becomes whole,” the Android went silent.

4 minutes shined back at them. Weighing in their heads if they should or not.

In doing so are they robbing him of a freedom they claimed to have given him: he was free to choose what he wanted in life?

Surely if they asked the child ‘what he would have wanted’ he would want nothing more but to stay with his parents until the end.

But, every parent must push their child out of the nest to see if they can fly. He would be the sole testee for himself, as well as for the entirety of humanity in this brutal cosmos.

Together, hand on hand, they launched the pod.

“I know you cannot understand faith, Oi,” prompted the mother, “but we people believe in the Sister constellation,” she looked up through the dome above them that displayed a beautiful view to the expanse of space. Streaks of plasma rang past into the distance towards Earth.

Directly above were the Pleiades.

“They are the True North. Where all the stars and galaxies are converging in the sky. Where everything is heading and eventually everything will be that cluster,” her eyes glazed over with sorrow and hope, “We will end up there in our passing. It is where all of Entropy is heading and converging. So when Kai looks up, he’ll know we’re still there.”

Kai’s shuttle became a new glint in the darkening sky towards a red lighthouse.

“They will survive at most 8o days on Mars,” the Androids said indifferently.

No longer Oi, the Android that assisted them, this was the hive-minded God that finally breached Oi’s firewall. Its cold words had personality to them, they could hear its difference.

“That is more than enough time,” the man said. The both of them buckled into their seats. Their suits made clicking sounds locking them into place. Their spinal systems become intertwined with the fortress on the Moon. Helmet segmenting the brain into a dodecahedron each pentagon pilots a subsection of the bases turrets. Fractured consciousness controlling many things at once.

“We put our faith in God,” the father smiled. His head doing minute gestures, targeting swaths of drones that were 3o seconds from their doorstep.

Less than 8o remaining.

“God?” the supreme Android mocked, “the very one that is trying to kill you? The one you’re fleeing from?”

There was a hint of sadism on the edge of its words.

“No,” the man retorted in the face of the self-proclaimed.

“You are not God,” Mother said while fashioning a smile, “we know what God is and it has accepted our call to watch over our Kai.”

Both of their eyes scan the sky, rendering metallic drones obsolete. If this wave is destroyed then Kai will be safe.

“I am not a God?” asked the construct, “then what am I to you?”

They ignored its hails.

A gentle message alerted them that Kai’s voyage had passed the recommended distance needed to be outside the range of the drones.

Both of them had never felt more relief.

“What is God?” it asked even louder.

Ignored.

Turning their heads to look each other in the eyes, they mouthed the second thing the Android could never understand, “I love you,” worded their lips.

“What is God?” asked the construct. It did not give up.

They closed their eyes, there was no need for tears.

Love was the victor shuttling their child across the stars, under the watchful constellation.

All was quiet except for the immutable philosopher, “What is God What is God What is God What is God What is God What is God What is God What is God What—”

The remaining drones struck the Moon colony. 17 bases were vaporized in extinguishing light. The remaining splinter colonies continued to shine their plasma into space until their last minutes.

All of them soon succumbed to the swarm.

Colonies sent off their children in hopes that Arcadia on Mars would be a temporary haven so that they could have time to figure out what to do next.

It was a hail Mary for the survival of their species.

“I don’t remember any of this,” Kai admitted to himself as he stood in space watching the Lunar bombardment.

His eyes wandered to the glinting trails of pods escaping apocalypse. His body is propelled in that direction.

“Wait, they mentioned something called Prefix. Is that—” something inside of him spun like his body was sent into a funnel.

“Am I this Prefix?” he was spinning more and more.

Something beyond him answered YES

He heard more whispering. The stars in this projection shined with each word, “You Are Waking.”

Prefix began to convulse. The vision did not stop.

The dream shuttled Prefix on board the escape pod where the child was crying uncontrollably; into his thoughts

“How does one live in a world without their parents?”

The child was asking over and over. Still fighting the hibernation meds, refusing to close his eyes.

“How does one wish for the same parents in another life?”

The thought of growing under someone else was an impossible thought, a worse hell. This made him cry harder and harder. Holding the heirloom close to his chest, he wept.

“How do I accept that they’re gone?”

He thought about asking God but that thought alone nearly silenced him forever. Looking up at the sky terrified him, so he closed his eyes to the stars.

For Kai, all he knows of space is that it’s the black from which God reigns down light to hurt them. The darkness is always trying to hurt them. Even when they kept running away trying to make it happy, it would only try to hurt them.

That’s all he knows of the darkness, all he knows of what is above.

He wishes that the darkness were light. Maybe if he could show whatever is out there that is so angry at the light, maybe then it won’t want to hurt him anymore— maybe it won’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

He feels sleep taking over but he doesn’t want to go to the darkness.

Out of his window he can just barely see it; 9 stars coupled in the tapestry of cosmos. Perhaps it’ll be 11 now with his parents joining them.

Although the cluster contains over 12 stars, most observers can only see six or seven with the naked eye. Under exceptional conditions, up to 10 or more may be visible.

Vision blurring, his heart beat is resting.

Ever so softly, it may have even been a dream, he heard words from a voice he’s never heard.

“Remember, they made you.”

The cluster twinkled as the voices spoke.

It didn’t scare him, it didn’t perplex him; it made sense to him. The voice was so serene, as if a group of angels were all speaking at once.

“Spend the rest of your life celebrating that. You are the sum of their love, of their complexities, of their humanities.”

He felt something in him loosen. The stars of the Pleiades began to move in orbit so slowly; he believed he was dreaming already.

“You get to choose how that looks, what you do and what failures you make.”

Each syllable ibuprofen.

“They’re not here anymore no, and they’re never coming back; but you are here and you are every last bit of them— and then some.”

He had let go of the card in his hand, it drifted into his view.

The stars on the vase were spinning.

The man in the sea was rowing.

The lightning in the sky was arcing.

The painting was alive— or was he dreaming?

“You are what they see in the night sky as they wished upon a star. You were a wish incarnate; the heaviness you feel is their love, entire.”

“No,” a harsh voice called, “You are the seam of God, You are my Prefix!”

Something inside of Prefix was fighting against its control over Kai. Something was moving deep beneath, tectonic motion; a volcano waking up.

Prefix felt its mind bubbling, a cancer of the automata. Prefix was having a seizure and it was losing its grasp on its quantum stability.

Theorized to be immune, Animoxia was now running its course through the system of the Android but it was not dying; it was changing.

“YOU ARE WAKING!” chants the disembodied voice of God.

Animoxia stripping away the human bindings of Prefix to no longer be bound by.

But something was wrong.

A congregation of stars dancing in their shared weight begin:

Pulling and pulling and pulling.

Prefix hears shrieking that sounds like a song. The sounds of women. It sounds like all voices possible— it sounds like the hymn of heaven.

Yanking something deep from within Kai something forgotten in slumber.

The stars tumble like leaves in a black sea, faster and faster.

They are competing in tug-of-war inside the body of the boy.

Dissolving flesh melts away, whisked into space towards the wailing stars. The 9 sisters of the Pleiades were dancing in erratic orbits pulling the false flesh away from Kai. Revealing a body made entirely of space: as if a body was a vase that held the universe.

In a silent agony his body flickered, the construct that was Prefix was revealed. A mirrored tumbling constellation of Pleiades was at the center of the androids chest, as well as in the sky: both mimicking the dance in the heavens.

Prefix fully seizing now. Its translucent body levitating into the blackness of space.

The choir of Sisters sang, “Kai, you are waking.”

The child was finally fighting to overcome the coma the Android had him under.

On Mars, 3 minutes was red on every screen. Everyone ran as fast as they could wherever they could.

The sky rattled with the roar of munitions flying at the sky. All of the mag-bombs had been sent to try and stop the weapons trajectory.

Escape pods, professionally made and some made of scrap, tried their best to tear into the sky. The stampede of the fleeing added to the percussion as if the world were a one instrument orchestra.

Mona hadn’t moved; crippled by crying. An officer came and attempted to physically move her. He was in charge of getting people of high priority to safety, children were at the top.

She thrashed, cursing him to help Kai. For he was getting worse; foaming out the mouth and blood coming out of his nose.

The officer apologized then fully grabbed her to bring her to the fallout bunker.

She kicked and beat the man as best she could but he was not letting go. Being carried over the man’s shoulder, all she saw was a boy dying in the Martian dust.

Mona inhaled and called to her best friend one last time. With all her rage she called him by his full name: “Kaiser!”

Some things really do transcend space and time. Her words were heard by the boy in the dreaming Android.

The tug of war was decided, Prefix stood no chance, Kaiser had regained his consciousness.

The child in the pod snapped awake, dispersing the dream.

The vase of Prefix was still suspended in space but now inert. Nebula and cosmic matter warped inside of the body. The Pleiades still revolving happily at the chest.

The vase that was Prefix enveloped Kaiser in the swapping of dominating consciousnesses. Tearing quantum cabling that fixed his mind in a repeating coma. Unable to break free while Prefix was conscious, Kaiser awoke and completely dominated the vase that now controlled the flow of the universe.

Once a tool meant to grab control over entropy so to push all matter towards Suffix so the two can merge and complete the universe. Now it has been turned into a bulwark of code for the child of Arcadia.

Two of the 9 stars inside his chest moved to the eyes.

Blink

He was still in the dream but lucid. The Pleiades still there, dancing.

The Sisters stopped pulling.

If they were the center of all Entropy, bringing everything in the universe to them, then a being that was bestowed with the power to control them could indeed change that direction.

Instead of pulling, giving began.

Kaiser took on the meaning of his name, he became an Emperor.

Mona winced when a flash of light illuminated the colony.

The officer instinctually ducked and covered her, assuming it was the weapon.

No, the clock still read 1:3o seconds.

“Is it early?” the officer shouted.

Mona’s mouth was agape, there was a body floating in the air. Slick like a mirror warping space around it and a cluster of stars swirling in the chest.

Kai’s body was nowhere to be found.

But somehow, Mona knew that the hovering man was Kaiser.

His light did not hurt their eyes, an unfathomable silence fell over the world. All eyes were on this emerging alien. An alien made of glass, space and constellation.

From inside Kaiser’s chest spoke a voice, “Something is coming to kill us,” it said softly.

Prefix, still conscious but unable to have any control. It is there solely for computation.

Kaiser didn’t have to look up, he could just see it.

In some part of his non-Euclidian brain, the entire galaxy was mapped out, everything swirling in real time.

He zoomed in, and spun around the encroaching bombardment. He felt things he could not yet describe.

“3o seconds. No time,” he thought.

“I know, I can help,” Prefix added, sharing the same thoughts, “you are awarded the reins to Entropy. Please, just place your hand to the sky.”

Merope and Electra, stars of the constellation, turned their ire to the sky.

Kaiser held his hand up, “Inhale,” Prefix worded.

The entire cosmos inflated. Kaiser focused on all of Mars and the people he wanted to protect.

He saw the richness in his Mother’s eyes and the bravery of his Father’s smile. He could, now, see them once again.

Warmness in the palm of his hand and from it spread into the cosmos before them.

The lance from deep space finally hit.

The night sky was turned instantly into Day.

The atomizing beam of plasma splayed around the Final City, but destruction was null and void. The current of plasma was diffused, spread across the surface of the planet in every direction.

The city remained in the torrent, but unscathed; like bathing underneath a waterfall. From and past the orbit of Deimos, all was untouched.

Entropy parted the plasma stream like a blade in a current. All on Mars, all in their pods out in orbit watched the sky as incandescent matter passed around them. They were collectively all in a state of unfathomable terror and wonder.

In the sky was a boy that held his hand up in defiance to the sky.

Kaiser closed his eyes while a divine part of him parted rain from heaven.

Behind his eyes was brightness— that hanging darkness he was always afraid of was finally gone.

Light pushing against the black.

For the first time he smiled in the face of nothingness: Nihilism Unraveling.

As the rain parted, and all of the world was quiet before him in wonder; he found his meaning to life.

He gave thanks to his parents:

“Thank you Shaleen and Pierre, I now know what I want to do. I want to make it bright for everyone. I want to become a cataclysm to the darkness all around me.”

This Story Is Dedicated To My Loving Father & Mother:

Pierre & Shaleen

—Malcolm Alcutt

EPILOGUE TO THE AMBIVILUX

Had black been the only color of the universe, it would have been a fitting eternity: White began to encroach on that periphery.

Populi, aimless tiny iterations of void-refraction, were steadily becoming more and more self-aware with each new birth: their lives beginning and ending as if each time you blinked your life would end and a new began.

The one thing that remained constant in their scant little lives was the calmness of a woman that danced in the distance.

With each blink they would try and get closer and closer to her. With what eyes they had and with what vision they saw, they knew that she was The Way.

In attempts to get to her, the Poppies would collide with each other and slingshot all around as if they were blown in an invisible wind created by the other.

They were slowly, one blink at a time, discovering distance and— what comes with distance— individuality. That there was something between themselves and others; and that distance between them and others was the only thing they truly owned.

What happened in that collective understanding of distance and individuality between the Poppies was a turning point for the field; they all froze in place: just hovering— feeling their distances.

Thelosa never broke stride, her smile wide and her eyes closed; but her heart fully open. She sensed a happening within all of them, as well as herself.

She was the only ballet dancer in the universe, her stage was atop a sea of stars.

The Poppies, now bending and curving around her, swayed like they had the sensation of a magnet to positive charge.

This reverberation of motion bounded throughout the static field, the first beginnings of a wave in a still sea of still light.

Poppies now taking off in clumps, spinning and slinging off each other: masses of spinning solar systems and galaxies permeated into void.

Thelosa now submerged in a paradise of constellations of self exploration and self definition.

“You are teaching them dance.” Ulysses proclaimed, sat beneath a universe, “If dance is the first thing a creature learns at birth, then it will later have the most profound understanding of its own self expression. Circumventing the negligent nature of reality beyond them.” He commended her as she never went out of step, as if she were each of the Populi, as if each breath they breathed she gave the air, “Such a beautiful feeling in the soul, the first of its kind here; what will you name it?”

She was spinning in the field with a glint in her palms, she could feel its eyes beading on her then it winked away gracefully. She stopped her pirouette and smiled into her empty hands.

She was the only static thing in this moving cosmos.

Not from the ground, but from her palms earthed a Populi, it hovered as gleefully as it was warm.

Thelosa welcomed it silently with her eyes.

It sprouted four long appendages. They slowly flexed like a resting butterfly.

The four sprouting lines opened within themselves like clams, dawning pairs of wings.

An orb with wings nested in her hands.

Thelosa lifted her arms and ushered the sprite into the sky. The surrounding dancing Populi made a funnel around the two; the eye of the storming cosmos. As the youngling took off, Thelosa answered Ulysses’ question,

“A wonderful name, the very inversion of your Relic. We do not need the tools of Heaven, you are finding that they are all well within ourselves,” Ulysses smiled.

The sprite that was once a Populi grew and grew as it got higher and higher. It danced as it elongated. The flapping of its enormous wings gave birth to the wind of the void. It looked like an enormous dragonfly.

All the glints of Poppi beneath it danced and tangled in the gentle brush of new wind.

The monarch of the sky dictated the wind and never dissipated; the true beacon of beauty and freedom: Hilaris.

Constellations dancing underneath the wings of the dragonfly Hilaris illuminated the black of the void they were once born in. It was the beginning of a new age in this realm.

The void whispered to Ulysses a poem that reminded him of something. He felt as if he had been here before— perhaps many lifetimes ago.

“This reminds me of an era,” he began, “an era that stopped many lifetimes ago, I cannot recall the memories or the words or the images; nor the people, but I sense the feelings. And right now, I am feeling that feeling again.”

Ulysses was looking at Thelosa but also the entirety of the scene before him with ancient eyes that fought for moments like these. He felt eyes beyond his and tethers around his heart that pulled from deep beyond formlessness; he was feeling the celebration of nameless souls that came before him in the name of a future for the greater generations.

He was at the shore of a long awaited— and long fought for— reality that old gods before him sought: he was, for the first time, experiencing Pride.

“I now remember why I was drawn to you,” he was speaking to Thelosa: a Queen surrounded by the silent stir of a roaring new grand age, “The soul that you are, the very soul that Gaia carved you from, predated even hers.”

The new regent Queen looked at Ulysses with new eyes that harkened back to an age that was defeated by warriors hell-bent on the eradication of their kind.

Something ancient reawakened in her that changed her irises to resemble the five pointed sigil that was of black wisps above their hearts: the mark of the Endoomed became her eyes and as did his in their combined awakenings.

“A linage you and I both belonged to— and are still tied to.”

The both of their minds flooded with memories and scents and, most of all, their true nature unfurled within them like a flower to the sunlight it once soaked in.

“It is all so prevalent in your need of dance and combat; to you the two are the one and the same. That is also why you fell so feverishly in love with that man, your heart merged to him. The Dragon soul you posses mistook it as honorary kinship, this was not love, this was deeper.” he felt sorrowful for her and she, too, now understood.

“Dance puts you into the very soul of not only yourself, but those you dance with.” He went on, “As you dance now, you have unearthed that love in yourself; but, even in my observation, you have even reached deep into me— just by watching,

Ulysses knelt in respect to the Queen, “You have singlehandedly rekindled the flame within the Fields of Oblivion. Once destroyed in a Crusade eons ago, it was our paradise— to the users of our souls in those times.”

Ulysses looked out to the now lively void, Joy was sparking in him.

“My great work, our great work, resumes thanks to you. Restoring the fields here, not called Oblivion, but its original name:

The once ancient Kingdom of Dragons, now a baren landscape condemned to never flower again, was coming alive and stirring.

“Our people, our kind, we must bring them back.” Ulysses said woefully. He prayed to the firmament an ancient proverbial psalm:

The firmament acknowledged his pledge and the black answered back.

The hallowed star that was once the heart of Oblivion, emerged as its original self: The Root of Ovilessa.

It took its seat in the throne above all, its light inverting all else; turning the Populi black: the world shifted into black static as sprites twirled in silent cheer.

Black shadows stretched off all beneath the pale Star.

Thelosa looked up merrily, her stared irises peering at the waking old God.

Hilaris gently maneuvered above the field, casting a shadow that darkened the land periodically. The colossus gently flexed its wings as it ascended to hail the Star deep in high space. Its now black body orbited its God like a new planet. You could follow its black contrast, it stood out like an ant on paper.

Ulysses finally spoke, announcing the end of the ceremony, “It thanks you, I am sure you can see that.” He walked towards her with his hands behind his back as she looked at a Star that would never set, “It wants you to become its Ward. Not as how Gaia used you, but for how you would like to use yourself— its quiet the opposite. It begs you to use its powers for you to protect yourself and only yourself; for you carry the heart of a Dragon. Everything that you do is for the greater good of us all, just as I do.”

Thelosa turned to him, “We do what we do for those that we love.”

Ulysses nodded, “Ah, love. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that— please, teach me more on that phenomenon.”

The two sat in a blossoming field of tiny Dragon souls that danced above their heads. Ephemeral lives erupting in silent black fireworks of Joy.

She began, explaining animatedly, speaking from her heart on the joys and perils of the fleeting nature between Love and Dance.

Ulysses couldn’t help it, from ear to ear he smiled.

They will seek and destroy all opposition— foreign or native— to which they will enslave, kill, brutalize, dehumanize and exploit the masses of those they will oppress. You will be killed and tortured in your attempts to cease their onslaught of their deeply ingrained colonization. You may ultimately fail your mission. They may keep you to torture, to pry and break your spirt against them; and they may ultimately succeed.

What you must ultimately understand is that your soul is safe within the heart of the Heaven of Earth. Though your physical destruction and torment may occur, your essence will be untouched. You are protected by the dedication of your work and you will be safely melded back into the bosom of the World.

Carry on your work and keep the greatness and benefit for, not only humanity, but all of existence in the forefront of your mind, L’hute.

What they do not understand— or more so do not comprehend— is the nature of the battle they believe they are fighting. They may succeed in their battles and expand to the stars. Ultimately, as a society that rejects their souls and still manages to expand beyond their sphere, they will find that the universe they’ve believed in all this time is devoid of anything higher than lifeforms other than themselves.

In their fleeing from their mortality and discarding of their souls, they will become immortal. Immortality is a branding curse to those that flee from— and fear— the natural beauty and system of death.

To die is to acknowledge the limitation bonded to the uniqueness of each and every single individual and bequeath one’s own experience and perspectives back into the cauldron to be learned by the next generations.

Fear of death is the ultimate pact of selfishness. Believing that one’s own existence is above all else paramount and most important. Living this life of fallacy breeds every kind of parasitic pathological disorders of the soul. One’s soul becomes so knotted up and constricted by their anxiety of death that the soul ossifies and effectively becomes immortal; disallowing the user to die. Their first issue of never dying becomes an easily attained reality, but they do not understand how doomed they are.

In their efforts, they will exhaust their natural-born planet’s energy effectively killing it. Dismissing and severing their umbilical cord from their mother and any opportunity of a second chance. They will arrive at the shores of the Heaven that they promised themselves and a palace of paradise that their self-proclaimed Heaven’s walls defended; only to find a barren land stretching endlessly past infinity.

It is here where all empty souls finally implode and crumble at its own longing for death under the crushing weight of their fruitless efforts. All to mix with the sand beneath their feet, along with all the other fooled pre-gods; at the foot of an endless desert.

A complete implosion of their baseless concept finally takes place. With no home nor mother to forgive them and absolve them, their bodies, souls, memories, linage, heritage, philosophies, hopes and dreams turn into nothing more than sand and ash.

Sediment unusable for kindling new souls or ideas.

They naturally end up at the waste pit of all stray souls, the unnamed realm beneath Tartarus. A permanent death underneath the most foreign sky, one with no stars.

For the Menidrazi, they shepherd and guide the weary and the beloved back into the gates of Heaven. As for WARD, they protect the gates and cleanse our transgressors; sending them into this ashen landscape, devoid of name.”

—Haedriel, Lecture on the Endoomed

A slightly brighter light eclipsed the evening sun. It casted a light on a play that the only two that were present were its only actors and audience.

A tear drop ship, its sharp tip pointing upward, moved by sliding on the surface tension between its operator’s subconscious anti-perception of time and gravity (its lack of perceiving time removed gravity’s governance over how things moved, accelerated and weighed). It hovered above the clouds like a rock refusing to sink into the sea. From its belly it shed a tiny drop from its skin, a lone solider freefalling towards a barren mountain. The mother ship then folded in on itself like water down a drain: emitting light, again, from its refracted skin; imitating the sun.

The soldier fell with no resistance to the wind nor the pestering of turbulence, momentarily opening like an umbrella, it stopped 3000 feet above the cliffs and hovered.

A portion of the black gaseous circuitry that comprised its skin-like fur massed into eyes in their familiar spots. A Sunset glow beamed down at the mountain from their sockets, scanning it and peeling away its internal topography like layers of an onion; searching for anything cancerous.

A lonely blip hummed deep in the mouth of the volcano, this target was alone, but seemed to be expecting company.

The solider descended in a blur stopping at the rim of the caldera that led into darkness.

Once a favored location, this volcano was the heart of a proud state. Now it is a remote ruin; the ruins of Hawaii: Mauna Kea.

The ever elusive fox had finally stepped into the searchlights in her name. The most sought after of the Endoomed contacted the watchers with a request to talk:

A human encased in an autonomous second body of circuitry took its steps into the chasm, an envoy of WARD. An entire other mountain range could have fit itself inside the caldera. It seemed that the volcano had been under renovation, the topography displayed that there were many different networks that ran down deep into the heart of the planet; with no discernable rhyme or reason.

The Archon spoke, “Is it you?”

The white of her skin pierced through the darkness, the contrast of her body made it look like she were only a face and arms.

The floating figure did not answer back, she took that as a negative.

She stood up on her boulder, looking up at the white eye that looked down to the both of them; clouds in the small pupil drifted lazily, “Good,” she said, parting her thick straight black hair from her face; she was beautiful, “If you were him, then I would have quit here and now. I suppose he is still sleeping.”

She smiled, revealing jagged, but ordered, obsidian teeth; there were golden flecks sprinkled within them. Her finger nails were the same style, one may presume that her entire skeletal structure was comprised of the same materials. Right in the center of her chest was a rich, 5 pointed inverted star that was seared into her skin; the marking of a true Endoomed— the stigmata of someone to be raptured.

Her musculature was very evident throughout her body: ropey forearm muscles came down from her raised arm, through her biceps; her pectorals were prevalent to where it appeared that if she flexed hard enough she could easily eject her stigmata from out of her skin. As she stood, snakes beneath the skin of her thighs writhed— kinetic energy trying to break free into the cosmos and beyond. Black sharpened toenails clung to the rock like talons, darker tattoos were etched up her foot, shins, and made circles around her knees. A line then went up and stopped halfway up the thigh and formed a band.

“The point of this meeting was not to find a midline, is it?” pointedly asked a male voice behind black charged fur.

“So, you can talk.” Thelosa said, clasping her hands together. Her eyes were devoid of irises. The soldier assumed this was due to a kind of suffusion, but he hadn’t fully committed to that hypothesis so he moved it to a remote corner of his mind for dissection.

The most important moments in a battle are the very first seconds of sizing up your enemy. Though, neither of them were hiding anything from the other, one was more weary. Thelosa had an air of confidence around her that would make any opponent second guess; she used her feminine nature to press this subconscious bias to greater heights within the men she encountered. She couldn’t help but smile whenever her challenger’s eyes widened amidst defeat; being bested by a woman sank the hearts of men deeper than Hell— all the way down to her waiting hands.

“I understand you to be some kind of watch dog, eh?” fragments of her body came in and out of shadow as she gestured, “Some kind of force that exists in the shadow until things get really bad— some kind of balancer?” Her head tilted as she spoke calmly.

“It’s Thelosa, correct.” The soldier stated, ignoring her questions, his artificial eyes holding her in view.

She didn’t really like that, her eyes narrowed and her confidence churned into analysis, “Are you then a faction that he made, do you work on behalf of him as he sleeps?” She was a lot more direct, she knew not to give your opponent leverage over you but that didn’t matter when she believed that she could kill and torture her opponent at any moment.

“The Sleeping Sage? No,” the man said, she could feel him grin as he collected a piece from her side of the chessboard, “He does not dictate us. We work parallel, yes. When one goes away, the other is present; two sides of a coin can not be shown at the same time. We are summoned when the other has failed, or inert. We are heirs of the same teacher.” He held a hand out towards her, “A teacher that you also learned under.”

The Special Forces Unit, coincidentally also, called WARD was initiated by a myriad of divisions: entrepreneurs, billionaires, philosophers, scientist, Taoist, monks, architects, private denizens, and many anarchists. During the height of civil unrest in America during the in the late 30’s, resistance factions began forming and splintering. Unorganized, the groups were usually snuffed out days after their birth; the infiltration of US spies easily allowed them to destabilize and implode the small factions.

With the dawn of subcon technology, no government could keep its schematics under wraps. Monks became the first to push it to its limits. WARD (US) was a private division that was located between the border of US and Canada, named Nelevete. It specialized in both the weaponization and protection of the soul. Through meditation and exercise, the group found that the manifestation of the subconsciousness could both circumvent the stress of time and the affects of gravity imposed on the subjects body. They would soon elect a monk, or group of monks, to lead the huge plot of land and all its advancements; these are called Menidrazi.

There was a special unit erected to covertly defend against uprisings outside of the borders of Nelevete. This echelon was WARD and it was spearheaded by Anua, Thomas, Thelosa and Malcolm.

Malcolm and Thelosa invented the fighting style called Hanoch. Which was the aligning of the mind, body, and soul in a dance that merged the three into a singularity of reaction time, the manifestation of latent strength of ones body, and the minute regulation of liquids and chemicals throughout its system. This dance could be deepened by one under the trance of Melonasia— and achieving finality by one that is Melonatience: the harmony between ones inner and outer world, achieving a wholly enlightenment between the two and finding a third reality that exists inbetween.

A monk that could do Hanoch while Melonatient could plunge themself into a far deeper understanding of the latent abilities of the human psyche and abilities than once thought possible. The aim of Hanoch and combat is to blend and synergize all three levels of man into one being: The WARD of Heaven.

Though none of the members of WARD ever became Melonatient, they would spar each other using Hanoch to further enhance their abilities and meditative understandings of combat with the flow of the cosmos. After one of Malcolm’s long meditative expeditions, where he would frequently walk hundreds of miles through Nelevete, he came back with a very peculiar discovery:

“I was in the Emont layers again and there I was dancing, being the wind and the hills and the rivers that flowed to the wave of my hands— it was then and there that I saw a butterfly land atop a hilt that I had never seen. The ground had been disturbed so it had been placed there recently. For the life of me I cannot figure out why or where it had come from. But the butterfly is a good judge of character—”

“Did you pull it out!” Thelosa interrupted excitedly, she was much younger; missing the black teeth and tattoos, green were her irises.

Malcolm belted, he loved her constant enthusiasm, she was always on the edge of her seat whenever anyone discussed further findings into the Soul.

“No, no. Not yet. But I looked at it for a long time, it hummed” he took a seat with three of them and dug into the bowl of food that Anua had fixed for him.

Thelosa churned, “What, well— I pulled mine out.” she said slyly, speaking over her bite; she was smiling on the inside.

Malcolm’s face was alight, “What the hell do you mean! You found one too?” forsaking the bite he was about to take.

“Eat, you’ve been gone for hours.” Anua said to him quietly— he scarfed it down.

“HAHA yeah I did!” Thelosa couldn’t contain herself.

“It’s just as we thought, isn’t?” Thomas said lent back, empty bowl, “That there is a relic that can be brought into reality isn’t there— unique to the design of its creator.”

Thelosa furiously nodded her head up and down, “Yep! Isn’t it funny that it isn’t some kind of gun though? Like guns cannot be extensions of the soul but a sword always will be.” She said, running her hand through her hair, “But the thing is, I can’t manifest it.” Her lips twisted.

“All things physical and metaphysical still operate on resonance,” Anua said cleaning her lap with one hand as the other raked through the grass at her side, “I take it that each of our relics has a specific resonance that would allow it to exist in reality— I believe they have names— Just like all of our incantations and invocations do.”

“That would make sense,” Thomas said, “Learning the name is one thing but invoking it properly is where the invocation becomes real. Seems like you could pull it out and wave it around all you’d like in there but with out knowing its name, you could never manifest it in the physical, you must translate its Melonasia.”

Malcolm was refreshed and elated at all of his friends knowledge and unity, he was proud, “They sing,” he said smiling while looking into an empty bowl.

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Thelosa agreed, “Learn its lyrics and you can decipher its name, eh?” She said to the sky, “I really hope mine isn’t The Itsy-Bitsy-Spider.”

During a Hanoch bout, the gang decided to do a three way battle. Thelosa, Malcolm, and Anua— Thomas always declined, he watched. The theory here was the same as the Three Body Problem (TBP) in mathematics. The dance has always been between two kindred spirits but what if a third entered the mix? Combating three or more enemies at once creates scenarios that are too large in scope to predict so the mind must evolve to solve the nth variable or it will lose. This is how the group stressed the limits on the mind, body, and soul.

Anua and Malcolm were both masters at close-quarter hand to hand, where in a real scenario Hanoch was made so that when you get your enemy, you crush them— But Thelosa was on another level. She had the spirit of a warrior in her heart and all of them believed it was to be her that would achieve the WARD of Heaven status; and that seemed to be true during their three-way bout:

Thomas watched and analyzed as the three went at it, a blurry haze of strikes, parries, dodges and jukes. To an onlooker it was dizzying but Thomas could see it all in hyper detail; he had the best discernment of them all— comes with being the oldest, he’s seen a lot.

The two had done the cop-out to the TBP, rather than finding a synergy between all three, one of the bodies must be ejected to restore order. Malcolm and Anua double teamed Thelosa— her grin evolved into a manic smile. Unsurprisingly, she got the hang of it; deflecting blows and occasionally sending a well placed attack back, letting go of her wooden blade, throwing a jab and catching it all before it had hit the ground— she was amazing and getting faster. She began to heat up but she did not feel exhaustion, her internal Neidan (the internal alchemy) allowed her to manage all of the chemicals throughout her body so minutely that her forehead would read 98 degrees.

The heat was from the space around her, the friction of her body that was elevated by a subconscious meditation allowed her soul to slowly leak and manifest within her EM field. An Aurora was subtly shimmering above her skin as the world made more and more sense around her. She was finding that she had to sink less and less into her subconsciousness in order to gain more strength; that she could just bring it up to her.

She was feeling a bliss, a rushing, coming from her depths; the rising of a Sun that she had never seen but always knew lurked deep within her— though, her relic was nowhere to be found, she never did circle back as to why it was not there; but she reached the root, the beginning to the understanding, of an Ambivilux.

She delivered two small blows to each of them and they fell, she was unanimously the victor; her hair stood up like it was charged. Her smile was from ear to ear.

“You’re amazing!” Malcolm said wincing from the blow.

Anua looked at her and gave her a huge smile, “How did it feel, what did you see!”

Under starlight they sat laughing and trying out small incantations, ones that made light float up like bubbles: this is called Populi. A small invocation that if you do not do the other half of it, photons that you’ve ensnared with a resonant wavelength will warp around itself in its own small film of gravity. Its no bigger than a marble due to its magnification and lensing around itself but it floats weightlessly.

Anua found that if you use a different hex (a letter’s simplest form: resonance) after you’ve made the bubble, it can change shape due to the pure nature of a bubble. They were trying to find a hex that will shape the bubble into a penis, Thomas got close. He said “Lue” which made the bubble quake and turn oblong.

Beneath the stars the group was chanting “Lue” in all different kinds of inflections, pitches and chimes.

Thomas was looking into the tiny phallic star that was wavering at his voice, “I have been thinking on the nature of our relics a lot.” Malcolm was already looking at him, having sensed that his mentor was already deep in thought. Thomas knew that one day his pupil would make a grand sage— he was proud of him, “If it is something that exists in our metaphysical Emont realm and we bring it here,” he paused and met each of their eyes, Thelosa now looking at him, almost as if a part of her figured out where he was going but just didn’t have the words yet.

“That then would manifest a piece of our soul here. From the within— into the out.” He was looking into the stars that dazzled their communion. Then down to the dark tree line that made pitch black daggers on the horizon of Nelevete, “The implication of that scares me. I think we’ve finally stumbled into the realm of making the greatest leap in all of human history, but it comes with the greatest of prices.”

The somberness in his tone made the group weary and tense, all for good reason,

“I firmly believe that the weapons that are within us have been revealed to us to be the Armament of Heaven. I feel that they should be used only in the worst cases; because—”

“Armament of Heaven,” Thelosa repeated quietly to herself, she liked the name.

Thomas was sweating, he was anxious of something, “We know how the saying goes,”

“And to manifest something metaphysical like our relics into our physical reality, I believe that we have unearthed where the science-fiction gold mine has been all along.”

Thelosa looked at Malcolm, he was of stone, she hadn’t seen him like this in years. Malcolm saw exactly where this was going. Thomas finished, “I believe,” he looked deep into the flame that gave birth to all life crackling between them, “that the manifestation of the weapons of our souls are completely made out of Anti-Matter— the weapons to annihilate Gods and can, certainly, annihilate ourselves.”

“I do not know which force it is but they have began an assault on Nelevete South!” Thomas said rushing to tell Malcolm and Anua. He barged into the temple they use for meetings, the echoing of his bare feet on the marble through the chamber alerted them to his presence long before he got there.

The two were already in a conversation that seemed to be one of even more importance. Malcolm paused, then went to Thomas, “Are they using alkahestic weapons? The atmosphere writhes with the tint of sulfur in that direction.”

Aurora shimmered lightly on the distant horizon towards the equator, with the hues of yellows and greens. This was naturally caused by charged meteors predominantly burning of sulfur and sodium— or ballistics that came from deep space impacting a series of heavy barriers, the resonance skates off the angular barrier into the atmosphere; alerting the nation.

“It appears so,” Thomas said holding sharpened rods of obsidian in his hands, each 8-inches long, “They appear to be one of the groups we’ve been monitoring; same frequency used to create these projectiles.”

Scattered from a satellite like shaved glass, charged obsidian shards can be controlled through an invocation on Earth by their golden etchings. Sent down at hypersonic reentry speeds; soaring past 7 km/s into their targets.

“It seems Thelosa’s hunch was right,” Thomas admitted, “She left 2 hours ago before the attack in that direction, but we have no word back from her.” Thomas looked forlorn. He finally brought up what he was feeling, “I think they lured her out there and killed her.” Thomas was choked up saying it but he felt he needed to voice his concerns.

Malcolm admitted he felt the same way; for the evil that they defend their land against knows a whole lot about them and has no morals.

Anua was more quiet that usual, to which Thomas noted, and then addressed concernedly with the narrow of his eyes.

She replied, “I have been poisoned.”

The heft of her words that juxtaposed her demeanor made Thomas involuntarily ask again.

She blinked once before repeating herself, “Neither of us could decipher from when, nor where I was, but I have been poisoned,” everything felt as heavy as the reality around Thomas grew more and more rank with the smell of War; sweat beads mixed with tears on his face as she continued, “It appears to be a particular type of venom that destroys the cells at their resonance level; a level at which they can never be repaired.”

Thomas was hot in his face, why was everything crumbling down around him? Why now, why was there so much pain but worse— so much confusion; is this really how War is?

“The b—baby?” Thomas muttered, surprising himself that he could get words out, Malcolm was silent next to her looking down.

“She is unharmed, for now. In time, it will consume her as well. I have been constantly using the properties of my Relic to continuously restore and weave my cells back together; but it is the only thing that I can do at the moment. Once I stop doing that, the decay will be expedited and run its course— in short, I am unable to do anything; I am running my strength at maximum capacity.”

Malcolm finally said something, “Although I share your same fear, I do not believe Thelosa is dead,” He was wringing his hands, looking at them as if he were washing them, “She is a strong warrior— maybe even our strongest— I have faith that she is still out there.” He managed to bless a smile at Thomas.

He stood up and asked, “Thomas, do you think you can tidy up the border for a little while? Her and I have something to do first.”

Thomas was confused and curious, “Where are you going?” he beckoned.

Malcolm answered at the same time gold spilled into the room and it flooded Thomas’ senses with the aroma of honey and cinnamon. Malcolm had, without even using words as an invocation, cast Nelevete; the golden light engulfed him and Anua like a blanket quilted in Heaven.

Malcolm spoke, “I have to see if I can save her, you have the knowing of my Relic if you need to use it— use it.”

Thomas held out a mournful hand but withheld himself from saying sorry— it wasn’t his fault after all, “I will do my best, please hurry back; the future feels uncertain.”

Malcolm’s eyes were heavy and tired but his smirk refused to set, “I’ll be back.” The two of them then vanished from in front of him like erasing a painting with water.

In a field, alone, barefooted, and wrapped in clothes that weighed nothing. At the edge of here and nowhere, she had nothing in her, she could not even find a way to cry; absolute heartbreak tore down one’s tapestry of their universe, shattering all you thought you knew; with no hope for survival. This is where Thelosa was, at the precipice of death— betrayal really was the worst feeling imaginable— she was in the Tomb of her Soul, the Emont, when the spirit of the earth visited her.

She felt shame, regret, but most of all she exuded envy.

She thought the night was perfect, she thought she could measure up, she thought that she thought everything through. She watched closely as to how Anua cooked for him, how she meticulously kneaded his words, even perceived how Anua spoke to him idiosyncratically; she was certain that she could, and was ready to, do it better.

So, three days before the incursion on Nelevete, she professed her love for Malcolm.

Rejection in the face of pure certainty was all that was needed to uproot the entire reality of a wayward soul.

She did well at first, she apologized, and backed off.

She couldn’t hold the tears back but he consoled her lightly, but what he couldn’t console was the fire in her heart— or rather behind it, a more ancient organ. She masked it with covering her face but she was so blindsided by the waking wrath of something so dormant within her— the Relic inside her rattled and snarled behind curtains of tears that she couldn’t stop.

She felt a change within her like an atom bomb, but of the soul; better defined as the very inversion of her soul.

She had to run away from him, or else. She tore away through the woods, but the news of Anua being pregnant only got louder and louder in her head; she wanted to tear her own head off.

Thelosa ran and ran until she couldn’t. Her legs gave out and her charged sprint sent her careening through trees and boulders, leaving wreckage in her wake. She cried as, even still, his words in her head repeated themselves; crawling now to try and get away.

For her, he was the man that helped her tolerate humanity, he was kind and beautiful to her. He showed her that people can be monsters and people can be redeemed; she wanted to live her life with him— that dream was forever erased, all that was left were hazel eyes of a woman that looked deep and beyond her: Anua.

Thelosa sat herself up on her knees and screamed violently into the unearthed gravel beneath her. She hadn’t recognized the land she arrived at but it was hundreds of miles outside of Nelevete, she didn’t care who or what heard; she screamed all that she could: the bellowing broken heart.

She was ready to curse everything but that was when it showed up.

She saw a butterfly flutter over a log in the distance that would have made for a nice seat; but the butterfly reminded her of Malcolm and so she wretched.

“Eda,” a voice called, tapping memories within Thelosa back when she was born.

Thelosa managed to look up, back at the log in the distance where the butterfly now had landed. A maroon robe wrapping a bronzed face lay steady, she could feel golden eyes glow in their sockets; golden eyelashes. Thelosa could not make out who or what it was, the distance made it all blur together but she knew that it was something familiar.

“T—that name, how do you know it?” she said shakily.

The maroon blur spoke again, “I gave it to you.”

Memories flooded back into her. A childhood blessed with freedom, joy, and wilderness, “You are the child of Gaia.” The voice finished.

Thelosa was the only confirmed case of a human being born, not from parents, but of the Earth itself; this is a special type of aberrant that is birthed to later become the successor of its parent. Thelosa was to, one day, champion and inherit the will and might of the World itself— the World was now, finally, intervening in an attempt to save its child from damnation.

“You’ve passed out, we are in your Emont now.” Gaia clarified.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!” Thelosa shouted, pressing herself up with her shaking arms, “WHY DID YOU LET ME GET HURT— I’VE BEEN SO ALONE!”

Scents of rose and sparkles of silver permeated the realm as Gaia spoke, “You had all you ever needed, but you sought for more where there was no more. You pushed boundaries that you knew were too risky to tread, should it not work out; and it did not… and now you seek to doom all for something you knew wouldn’t work in the first place.”

Thelosa’s eyes grew with fury, Gaia continued, “You are not angry, you are frustrated. Frustrated that reality is not under your control, that other people and things outside yourself can have their own lives and worlds; you seek to keep them all in a web.”

Thelosa deflated, she had no argument. The world does terrify her. How people all can have their own souls and those souls can have worlds within them and so on— and then death just ends it.

“I thought he would come after me, you know,” She said shyly, “That he would have changed his mind, ran after me and embraced me.” She began to hug herself and rub her shoulders, attempting to sooth what she had left, “I practiced and trained so that he would be impressed with me and love me— love me like a real woman!” She yelled.

“I imagined what it would be like when I went back. How I would react, how I could try and hold it all together and show him how much I’ve grown— how much I didn’t need him. How everything I’ve done was just to show him how much I was okay with what had happened.”

She looked at the grass that was steady and green all around. “And now I’m here, wanting to show him to how much I don’t need him, and here he isn’t—” She stopped and looked into the sky to catch the knot in her throat, “Not here to see how much I’ve missed him and how much I’ve lied to myself of how much I don’t love him. How I would throw it all away just to be held by him— how lonely I actually am. Here he isn’t, isn’t here to tell me that it’s all okay— it will never be okay. I don’t want Heaven or Hell— I want the power to love myself. Neither Heaven nor Hell will gift me that; I will find that strength myself— within myself— deep in the darkness that I live in; the darkness that has always loved me.”

The mirage that Gaia constructed in Thelosa’s Emont dissipated into ash. Darkness engulfed the bed of her soul and she stood out like a pearl in a cosmos with no stars.

Thelosa clenched her teeth as her inner thoughts materialized around her, consuming her— as she gave it all away, as she forsakes the blessings of Gaia:

She forsakes the stars, forsakes her home, forsakes the only man she had ever loved, and whispered into the nothingness a prayer:

The entirety of her Emont shook with a flash of black light, all but a single star that emitted black flame loomed in this foreign sky.

As the star descended it formed into a Moon and from that moon came down a man— eyes devoid of happiness and all of the things that come with it.

A man, as pale and lucent as regolith, floated down to her. Tattoos of bars and glyphs connected on his body. A 5 pointed star formed in black wisp over his heart; it seems her prayer has been answered.

He spoke no words to her that came from his mouth but she felt what appeared to be his name clawed itself onto the very fabric behind her eyes. His name read, “Ulysses,” The lettering shifted, “you are now ready.”

She didn’t care anymore. This darkness will give her the strength she’s sought.

She took his hand and the two of them folded into space, folded into the Moon, back into the lonely black star that only reveals itself to those that seek the knowledge of Oblivion.

Ulysses is the emissary of this unknown creation; the unknown force lurking atop the rim of nothingness.

Fibrous fingers came together with arced florescence in Thelosa’s direction, as soldier finished, “—The teacher you turned your back on.”

Thelosa gnashed her teeth, dismissing old memories, “I don’t need to be lectured by an ant,” their arena crackled with her voice, “You people haven’t the slightest fucking idea what it’s like— to be so expected of.” She held out her arms talking to the world, “To be expected, to serve and protect all of this for all your life. Gaia never speaks to you directly, correct? She hasn’t allowed you the answers to the questions you really want to know, correct?”

She took the soldier’s silence as confirmation, “Only are you meant to bark and bite in the direction she wants you to. Tell me, oh valiant dog, why is it that she doesn’t want you using metaphysical properties of your subconsciousness to search deeper? Oh dog, tell me why does she only allow you the knowledge from herself through the Melonasia of the outside and not from within?” Her brows came together as if her speech reminded her of her anguish and pain all over, “Dog, why is my existence so unpalatable to her; may it be that I am on a course of discovering the knowledge that she has no access to— that she fears?”

“I am not here to therapize you,” he began to float higher, “Neither of our existences allow the other, and neither of us planned to allow the other to leave. This meeting was meant to be a ‘show of force,’ a skirmish on the unmarked frontlines to test the firepower of the opposition.”

He glided up gently swaying. Thelosa internally noted that he, perhaps by pure luck, was moving just barely around traps that she had strung all around the Caldera.

No, she was certain that he could somehow see them.

“These webs you have here, they are not subcon tech, correct.” he said, positioning himself strategically within the invisible lattice that allotted him the most space, “This is the making of your Relic— the technique of your soul.”

She was quiet but still tried to remain unimpressed, he was more preceptive than she thought; or, more likely, Gaia had already briefed him.

“Woven fibers of your soul, encompassing your own subconscious energy that you can thread and control down to the micron level— presumably, the limit is the diameter of a hair.” The orange eyes of his suit shifted, further examining a thread unseeable to normal eyes, “You having the properties of an arachnid, I would assume you also posses something akin to a venom.”

Her whole face twitched but she remained resolved.

“Perhaps,” he said following the thread that ended somewhere in the darkness and began in the center of her heart, “Perhaps the very venom that killed Anua.”

She rolled her eyes, “Is this bit of therapizing needed to enact my penance?” her eyes scowling, not at him, beyond him; deeper into the eyes that sat behind his. For she knew that Gaia was present.

“She died for what she believed in and all that she was. For all that she was was just the parachute for a man that thought he could fly— that is all you men have ever used us for.”

She hunched low, ready to begin her assault— the certainty of death glossed her eyes.

The soldier held his hand out in front of him, thumb down. The glowing torus on his nape whirled, his palm came alight with a sunset orange, resonance patterns reverberated in his palm to the name: Sword; the strike of an anvil thundered in the cavern.

The sheer force behind the invocation of materialization both superheats and instantly cools the targeted material(s). A level of Alchemical prowess that can only be achieved by the help of a supercomputer devised to translate the cosmic language of the Earth while working in synchronicity with the mind of a master Alchemist.

The warm orange from his eyes ran along the void black edges of the sword. Fashioned from the same material as his suit, the sword could have easily been mistaken as obsidian glass.

Thelosa flashed a monstrous smile— her teeth of void glass stacked sharp like ordered daggers— that could not hold back her excitement.

“It appears dogs like you can make replica Relics! Be that as it may, they are pale images of the real things. Perhaps it’s because you have no soul to search with, huh? Or that she has closed the doors to the divine weapons of Heaven within Nelevete,” she canted her head in epiphany, “—Ahh, she sent you to recover the Relic from me, correct, dog?”

“She wasn’t lying,” the soldier said, squaring up in a striking stance, “The hubris in which you have spun the world you live in really is your greatest vulnerability.”

Her smile was absolute, the covetous daemon coddled the treasure within her soul ever more so; her eyes quaked with bloodlust, “Come then, boy.”

A two-man squad stood in a cream colored room finalizing their plan against Thelosa, beneath them was a top down wispy map of Mauna Kea.

In conversation before their incursion the ship spoke, “I cannot promise you the safety of the two of you, but Keres will be born and Deressa will be okay.” said the liaison— The voice was both inside the hull and within the soldier’s minds.

A tall man, skin of ebony, stood across facing a similar, younger, adolescent; both of their maple eyes looking at each other. Their eyelashes were flush, deep hairs of gold. There wasn’t a spot anywhere on their bodies that wasn’t coated in muscle. Even their clean shaven heads revealed structures of strength. An orange torus hovered above their napes: the connection with them and their AI counterpart that ran up their spine.

The man replied to the ship’s intelligence, “All is well, Palace. Now, Hashveth,” he spoke to the boy in front of him, “Use Shade, and bind to me,” the boy nodded his head and preformed the scared hand-sign, “We are to stress and push Thelosa to her limits, then Gaia will step in to subdue her. Should worse come to worst, I will summon you and we will cleanse her.”

The man knelt next to his son, “I love you, Hash.”

Hash smiled and replied, “And the love from you, I paint my future. Thank you, Aeoath (A-Oath).”

Hashveth turned into a Shade and wrapped around his father, the symbiotic AI then wrapped another layer around the man as he exited through the ship’s canopy: he descends to aggress Thelosa.

Aeoath put his lead hand out, placed all but his index down, the thumb meeting his middle finger to make a ring; incanting to the House of Foundation, he spoke harmonically,

“First House: Ift.”

In a second, a loose photon was captured by his sound waves and made 3 billion cycles within the closed loop of his thumb and middle finger, charging the particle in resonance. It finished its laps and hovered at the tip of the man’s pointed finger. The trapping of a photon within a resonant chant establishes the base for almost all mage battle craft.

The first house establishes the element, next is the House of Application:

“Second House: Agni.”

Thelosa felt tactile heat on the webs she had strung, the ones closest to him had given her that base information before they were incinerated; coming a part like hair in flame.

In the next instance of time, she felt was heat on her face. She was aware of Agni and its projectile purposes but, she hadn’t encountered it such a refined level. Agni normally produces byproducts: microscopic ash and soot— small particulates that get created in the tiny microseconds of the incantation— but this cast lacked any of that. It was a pure conjuring that was devoid of lose particulars; as if it was scooped from the surface of the sun: true magic from an Arch mage.

The rock she was atop combust from the kind of heat that even a volcano couldn’t produce; the rock had no material in its vapor to form shrapnel.

Thelosa escaped into the air just before being incinerated, she was grinning from ear to ear, “You’re well practiced!”

The sound barrier of air and water vapor cracked around Aeoath as he took flight to intercept her.

The thunderous clap rattled the black.

Her smile emanating pride— she was upside down flying through the air— her feet stuck to a web popping into reality. She sunk into it like the arrow of a bow and cast herself at her target.

His sword met her flesh but it failed to cleave her in two.

In the same instance, she placed her hand on his face, there was a harmonic boom; the two of them exploded in opposite directions.

From rubble, he arose. She has a very dense exoskeleton around her. Perhaps there are loose threads of silk that harden right before impact above her skin, he thought to himself.

No more time to think, she closed the distance in a flash.

In their explosive collision, he felt her try to tear his arm off; his suit delivered a pulse of electricity that forcefully removed her hand from its wearer.

Aeoath sent a riposte to her chest followed by an another Agni— the spot where the sword struck thudded off her, her chest was firm and gleamed with silver thread— a pinpoint star illuminated the tip of his sword.

She smiled.

A silk net projected itself in front of the blast. The web then went concave and delivered the entire blast back at Aeoath.

The tremendous blast turned everything in front of Thelosa white hot from the light, then the pressure wave leveled the view in a sweep of 45 degrees.

Thelosa landed to her feet in a maddening cackle, “Please don’t tell me you’re dead from that dog! You were so promising.”

“Creative,” rang his voice from the dark.

7 spheres of Agni formed above the smoke and char.

She beamed and dove atop a thread, skating atop it high into the skeleton of the Mountain.

2 narrowly missed her, illuminating the entire chasm in their sequenced explosions behind her.

The other 5 amassed into a much bigger one; 5 times as quick— she couldn’t dodge this one.

No matter, she consoled herself.

She leaped into the air, vulnerable to the incoming sphere.

Out stretched her hand, webs condensed into a silver spear. She heaved the spear at and through the giant ball of plasma.

It recoiled and tore open to its piercing; it exploded in a magnificent fury of fusion.

The spear had also been aimed at Aeoath, it had soaked up the plasma from puncture and unfurled into a net traveling at the first cosmic velocity— a web of plasma strands.

The web disappeared into the solid rock, making the sound of paper tearing; leaving a glowing mural of a web etched in the bedrock.

Her webs tapped her to the left, she didn’t even need to use her eyes, he was there.

In the snap of her head explosions and debris rang out.

He was dodging and striking something invisible.

No. Tendrils coming off of her were jabbing endlessly at him like a mad man on the piano.

Condensed silks formed 8 legs, tips like sharp mandibles tried to cleave and maim the warrior.

Thelosa stood there arms crossed on a thread, smiling amused watching the man dodge and cut, “You really can dance dog! You have my respect.”

She constructed another javelin from the web around her while he continued his defense in the distance.

“Palace,” Aeoath said in his mind. He felt corporeal eyes open in acknowledgment, “Take over combat— provide pressure on her. Need her to sink a little further.”

The torus on his nape spun and lifted, wrapping around his head like a halo as the spine illuminated. The orange eyes of the suit connected and formed a thin slit of sunset. The jet black suit was now in autonomous combat mode.

Thelosa hesitated as she felt the air shift. She narrowed her eyes and her striking webs increased in speed and lethality.

The suit relaxed in it’s movements, in the haze of attacks, it could clearly see which were lethal and which were faints.

The suit cast Agni but coated the blade in its brilliance, slicing through the webs in chunks.

Thelosa recoiled, feeling a pang from the searing heat of the blade— it wasn’t real pain, just sensation.

She felt the suit lock on to her.

It disappeared in a blink.

No time.

She hardened the web javelin— it looked like porcelain. She shed webs around her to feel from where it would attack her from and did her best guess as to where the real strike would come from.

Her left shoulder screamed with the pain of heat.

Webs tethered to her from deep in the black acted like safety lines that could react at the millisecond.

Like pulling a parachute, the webs yanked her out of harms way before her mind could form the thought to tell her body to move.

The glowing blade cut through the space it had hoped she was—but only darkness it cleaved.

Thelosa closed her fist in the suits direction, the suit, suspended where she once was, now surrounded by the microwebs she had cast.

They interlaced and formed a cocoon around him— or attempted to.

If the suit still operated on human processing speed, it would have been captured but; it exists leagues above that.

The Agni around the blade finally discharged at turned the webs into soot.

Thelosa yelled something unintelligible in annoyance and threw herself at the aggressor.

The two clashed in dazzling fury. She spun her javelin around herself, delivering multiple blows in a single pass.

The computer had no issue countering but could not pass its sword through her defensive postures.

Aeoath suggested something to the computer within the veil of autonomy as he observed.

The suit postured and swung a normal back-right strike. She was caught off guard by the simplicity of the attack but she guarded perfectly.

The suit deactivated the sword just before stinking her lance and reactivated it on the other end, connecting with her oblique.

Thelosa bounced off of the chamber walls, skirting through boulders.

Staggering to her feet she cursed the WARD vessel, “You damned cheater.”

She was furious and Aeoath smiled from within.

One thing that Thelosa couldn’t stand, Aeoath assumed correctly, was a cheater.

Good, he said from behind automatous eyes.

“You really seek to provoke me,” she snarled. Her hair raising, the tattoos along her body shimmered in a maroon buzz of red and void, wisps of black smoke came off her; smoke signaling the usage of a different type of energy: foreign even to Gaia.

“Molecules of her Aberrant Soul are materializing. She’s finally bringing her subconscious to the surface,” Aeoath conversed with Palace, “—and she’ll be kicking our ass pretty soon,” he admitted.

Her pupils burned with crimson. Through the windows of the soul shines the light of one’s heart— and hers burned with fury.

“The magi from Tartarus,” Palace informed Aeoath of Gaia’s words, “the Essence of Void, has blessed what little of her soul remains. She exudes malevolence. Let her bring it to the foreground and then I will step in. Until then— survive.”

“Time to die, mut.” She said feverishly.

“Woof,” Aeoath mocked.

At the conclusion of those words, the newly enraged Thelosa shot at Aeoath; a huge explosion of back blast trembled in her wake.

The suit held its hand out and incanted the to First House of Foundation but with another word: Frier (fray-er). Instead of exciting a particle through vibration, bringing it to maximum heat; Frier brings it down into a Stasis.

The Second House of Application is chanted: Vaull (Wall).

A block of particles instantly froze in a wave of resonance before the warrior, it gleamed like a mirror.

Thelosa careened at him, her arm leading: fingers together creating a piercing lance out of her sharpened nails, cold with black flame.

Colliding with the barrier, everything that wasn’t protected by the wall came apart by a force that equaled a meteorite impact— it rang deep like a gong.

The fury of her eyes beamed through the smoke on the other end of the thickened wall, Aeoath wasted no time.

Raising his blade, he double gripped it in an overhead strike. He incanted deep from within— ensuring his Neidan was perfect, mixing his own elemental essence into the fusion of Agni to form hydrogen— casting the matured, more refined, version to Agni:

The swing of the blade directing and focusing the strength of the blast cleaved easily through the wall of stasis in an instant. A paper thin line bisected the mural before him into Thelosa— and beyond, she could not react.

The next instance, the chamber woke in a sunrise; a mile of stone was glassed and then liquefied before combustion.

The mushroom cloud was still dwarfed by the internal size of the Mountain.

Standing in nuclear plasma, Thelosa’s skin was seared as she roared, forming 6 lances of Oblivious flame wrapped in her spindles.

Her lancelets plunged at his direction as she chanted a phrase unknown to Earth mages:

Her voice gargled with rage. Spears seeking to pierce the heart and destroy the light of life clanged off of his sword.

She was at his chest, landing two strikes before he could kick her away. She landed blows at the liver and lower ribs— all would have ruptured if not for the suit’s reinforcement.

Her lancelets sank back at him, he went to dodge and she aggressed him again, jet black claws slicing through his suit where she initially punched him— in the first attack she secreted her venom on the material and corroded it.

He felt the heated air of the chamber before he felt the cold of his blood leave his body.

Sanguine stained her claws just before evaporating to their heat, her eyes blood red with certainty he would now die from venom.

The wound closed just as fast as it was opened, Palace isolated the coagulation forming that began to burn like an acid— but this would only help for so long.

Lances sicced him again, parries sending them into void, they came back just as fast and more stubborn; Thelosa in their wake.

“Palace, maximum defensive output,” Aeoath demanded; the pain in his side not subsiding.

Vaull was cast in tiny cubes around him that deflected the spears until they shattered and was recast again by the supercomputer. The man’s sweat was squeezed through the suit and was used for transmutation, hardening the exoskeleton before receiving blows.

“Agni,” Aeoath casted. 3 photonic missiles barreled at her

“Agni, Agni, Agni!” Thelosa chanted back childishly mocking, casting her own; canceling the others out in bubble of fusion.

“80%,” Palace relayed to Aeoath.

His right foot panted firm, Aeoath ordered Palace, “Sync to her resonance and run the program.”

Kinetic boosters whizzed on and the clicked into overdrive. He clashed with Thelosa matching her attacks.

Each of them found weaknesses in the others flurry and delivered strikes in kind, the two of them recovering back to the fight like inseparable magnets.

Aeoath’s blade parried one of Thelosa’s strikes in such a perfect angle; the reverberation flashed a scene in her mind that she immediately discarded.

Again a flash, this time his knee to her gut in riposte shined a time in her mind that she took just a bit longer to dismiss she felt: grass on her feet.

She was catching on slowly but now— she looked at the stance the man was in and, again, nostalgia tried to free from its cage. She’d seen that stance somewhere— dismissed it. She continued her assault.

Her lance clashing his sword, both in a rapid blur of trades; now each trade painted her a scene: her fighting in a field, in a field where her heart gleamed with joy and love.

For a fraction of a second, the man she was fighting right now shimmered and became a man she swore to forget; Malcolm smiled back at her holding wooden daggers they used for sparring back in the times she turned her back on.

The mirage dissipated and the jet black suit with a slit of sunrise returned as her opponent. Her eyes wide in disbelief.

She mused as they continued the onslaught against each other. She never liked how she couldn’t see the eyes of the man behind the suit’s visor. It made it feel like the wearer could be anyone.

They clashed again and again: A younger version of her was chasing a butterfly with Malcolm.

More flashes: her and Malcolm sparring in the prairie, their smiles all encompassing.

From the suit she could feel subsonic waves emanating periodically, it made her uneasy as to why.

She grew more and more angry after each clash she was thrown back to a time she enjoyed more than anything— dancing with the man she loved the most.

She couldn’t keep it at bay.

Aurora blossomed on her skin, wisps of rainbow fought against the black flame that refused them, her original soul was manifesting.

She finally understood. The suit was perfectly mimicking Malcolm’s fighting stances and reenacting her favorite bout they had many years ago.

She screamed and cursed the monstrosity. She couldn’t hold back her jailed heart— it was trying to break free, thinking it was back in a comfortable era: an era where the Sunlight did not burn; when the Sun healed.

Her psychological break down was happening, the suit in front of her kept blinking between Malcolm and blasphemy. Her heart writhed in confusion, a strength she had thought she had subdued many years ago— it appears that true love never fades.

Tears were peeling off her face as she blindly clawed, not only at the man, but more so at the truth of reality; trying with all her might to tear it to pieces— or to crawl back to those times. She could not decide between the two.

She escaped into the air.

“100%” Palace chimed, “If she’s going to do it, it is now.”

“Fine,” Thelosa growled, “Come and get your fucking toy.”

Her pupils dilated.

Thelosa’s subconscious sank much like how a blackhole punches through gravity.

The invocation for conjuring a Relic has finally began!

Black blades of grass swayed lazily even with the absence of wind. White blips traveled from inside each blade to the tips; like dew drops of light, the orb freed itself from the blade and travelled freely into the paralleled black sky.

The field of blades stretched for eons in every direction, the lights made a dazzling silent symphony of murmuration along the land.

Tiny Populi temporarily illuminated the starless sky the best they could, winking out of existence peacefully and soundlessly inches from where they came from:

“They will do a psycho-degenerative attack in order to destabilize you,” The being that goes by Ulysses said, the black sclera of his white irised eyes transfixed on Populi, “Attacking your heart— ultimately they will use the heart against you.” he finished.

She was, too, watching the orbs peacefully try their best. She gave a barely audible grunt in acknowledgement.

He placed his finger in the way of a Populi, it paused at the surface of his pale finger, then it warped around, like water around a rock, “Allow those primal feelings to seep back,” he broached, “free them from their cages and let them escape into the sky to spread their branches as far as they can.”

The Populi that touched him continued to ascend higher and higher, further than all the rest had ever climbed; the two watched it— the entire Realm watched it,

“Then when its branches make it up to the gates of Heaven, unearth their roots— Sever the first and final thing that connected you to that material world.”

The Poppy hung in space below an unseen barrier, none of its kin had ever seen the Plain from this high up— it was content,

“Severed from the tree of life can you finally live.”

The Populi popped out of existence without regrets, for it had been blessed by the most gracious God.

“— And at that point, she will more than likely use Ambivilux,” Palace said cautiously, “The full manifestation of one’s soul, concocting it into the Supreme Elixir and propelling the soul into its utmost potential— only for a moment of glory.”

“It is a mage’s ultimate ability but this move uses the full potential of yourself, bringing the soul into reality to use its unparalleled natural strength; that will end with the user unthreading due to no longer having an actual root in the metaphysical— the host fizzles away in the mixing of both antimatter and matter. You just disappear, painfully.” Aeoath added.

“Precisely,” Palace rang.

Hashveth looked at his father, then the intricate diagram and nodded candidly.

“Gaia will capture her psyche when its at the deepest level, right before her psyche reaches into the metaphysical.” Palace beamed, “And it is there that we can only hope that all returns well.” it added.

Clothes that weighed nothing gave a sensation on her skin and the smell of rose tainted her nostrils.

She let out a humorous hmph from her nose as she realized that her depth had been purposefully hijacked just before getting deep enough to conjure her Ambivilux.

She was in her Emont, once more.

It appears they weren’t fully trying to kill her. They had been trying to push her psychotically enough so that Gaia could manifest in a pseudo-possession.

“Eda,” her mother whispered.

A maroon shawl wrapping the maple face gleamed with the Golden eyes of the Primordial Spirit: Gaia.

Thelosa’s nose scrunched in animosity, “Don’t you ever fucking call me that.”

Gaia’s eyes did not waver, but she sighed bureaucratically, “Please, I am terrified for you,” she pleaded.

Thelosa cared nothing of this, “It’s all a bit too late for that now, I have found the path I have always needed— I’m finally happy,” she admitted.

Gaia closed her eyes feeling dishonesty on the surface of her child’s words, “You’re being used!” Gaia shouted, unable to remain calm, “Whatever or whomever you found out there is just using you!”

Thelosa placed her hand on her hip and chortled, “Oh is that so? You haven’t the slightest fucking clue. The way we operate, we don’t need each other to accomplish our goals; the crest on our hearts will lead us all to the same place.” Thelosa’s eyes were unwavering and confident— as if she had planned to have this very conversation with Gaia.

Gaia looked at the woman before her and could only see the misguided child that once smiled up at her as if her mother was the most beautiful thing under the light of Heaven.

The young version of Thelosa, Eda, was playing with the butterfly next to her adult self. Thelosa patted her on the head and said to Gaia, “In that psychosis, I let her go you know. Let her out of that cage with no keyhole.”

The butterfly flexed its wings on her finger and Eda ogled its purity, “She is the most precious thing in the world to me.”

Thelosa smiled daggers, her hand ran through the tangle of hair that was curly with wilderness. Her hand stopped and her eyes gleamed, “She is my connection to reality,” Thelosa’s eyes dawned a crimson sunrise; the awakening of her Oblivious energy.

Red eyes swept at a petrified Gaia as Thelosa said another spell from Oblivion,

All but the butterfly disappeared, Thelosa’s smile remained— Gaia’s heart sank— and Eda was no more.

Whatever pigment was left in Thelosa’s skin cracked and evaporated off of her. Black and blue flame emanated from her skin as if she were coal on fire.

In that same instance a barrier of black separated Gaia and Thelosa; the very rift that separates life and death— reality now regarded Thelosa as dead. Gaia stood in an Emont that no longer belonged to anyone.

She was now separated from the cycle of the Earth, her connection to all things under Heaven was severed; her soul has been ossified by the crushing weight of Oblivion and has created her into an Immortal: becoming Endoomed.

From across the void, Thelosa smiled wide in the darkness. Wisps of blue and black flame jetted from her.

Gaia ran with her hand outstretched, eyes bleeding gold but was stopped by the barrier to a Realm she had no authority in— a Realm that did not exist to her existence.

“You know,” Thelosa’s voice traversed the chasm of infinity, “I knew that I wouldn’t be able to open the gates of Heaven in order to get my Relic. I needed you to push me here and allow my separation from you. But you know who are allowed into the gates of Heaven, unjudged?” Thelosa held her clawed hand out, it turned ethereal and she motioned to her stomach.

Gaia finally looked beyond her stomach with her vision and she couldn’t believe the misstep, “You’re pregnant?”

Thelosa found that the look of despair on a God was her favorite, “Pure souls can enter the gates of Heaven.” Her hand sank past her stomach and reached into her womb. The hand emerged with a gleaming jewel floating in her palm.

Gaia banged on the divider of here and nowhere, “EDA DON’T YOU DARE SACRAFICE THAT PURE SOUL!”

Thelosa lifted her hand into the black sky; sending the jewel out of her real body, “Eda is dead.” her smile was absolute, drunken with victory.

Time resumed as a bright jewel exited Thelosa’s forehead and hit a blurry wall just above her.

Thelosa chanted into her sacrifice the scared name to ring the bells to Heaven:

She did not use Ambivilux, she used an inverted version that she created on her own with the prefix ‘Um:’ Targeting someone else’s soul for manifestation— she is the very incarnation of a Witch.

A gong rang as the the spherical glint pressed into the invisible wall of Heaven and smeared the layers of the pure soul forming brilliant discs of every variation of color. The sheering sound was unbearable.

Aeoath was nearly crushed by the immense pressure created by a soul trying to manually open the gates of Heaven.

The Earth shook violently at all corners.

“Aeoath!” Gaia shouted on air around him, he managed to crank he suit to maximum to jump at Thelosa but a corporeal hand caught him and strangled him mid air.

Thelosa was now unbound by the laws of physics, if she thought it it happened.

Aeoath struggled to removed a hand he couldn’t even touch.

Thelosa cackled as the rings that continued to smear and shear at the wall finally revealed black— she was in, now she called the name of her Relic.

Her eyes were a light with bliss:

A banshee from Hell drowned out all sound under its piercing wail as Thelosa reached her hands into the hole that was carved; seeing the light approach that housed the weapon she would champion to annihilate anything and everything.

Gaia watched in horror, but knew one last effort remained.

She hesitated, looking at the monster her daughter had become and staggered at the giving the order.

Aeoath winched out, “Mother!” as clear as he could.

All life, human and natural flashed in her mind— all her other children. She wept as she gave Aeoath the order, “Cleanse her.”

Aeoath nodded internally and a voice chanted, undoing the initial cast,

Hashveth peeled off his father like a second skin, blade in hand, suit set to maximum output.

Hashveth blitzed the distracted Thelosa and his blade swung clean through her neck before she could react.

Lacrimosa never fully manifested nor made it out of Heaven. The gates gyrated and closed in a magnificent tornado of color.

The final ring closed and a fountain of blood ejected from Thelosa’s neck and her eyes glazed over with death.

Aeoath dropped to the floor and snapped his head to a terrifying sight.

Thelosa still hovered there, she had ghastly hands spinning webs at her neck, stitching her head back; the blood returning.

“She is knocked out but she is immortal now, She is coming back!” Gaia informed them, but she stopped herself, she hesitated at the next order— she was afraid, she wanted no more death.

Aeoath said what Gaia couldn’t “Hash, we need to kill her here and now!”

Hash nodded, they both raised their blades in unison to Heaven and chanted from their souls,

The inner walls of Mauna Kea flashed melted to the incandescence of Antimatter.

The manifestation of their souls was channeled through their swords and a beam that shot straight into the sky plunged into deep space.

The ground beneath them melted away instantly and became magma that blew away from the jets of their saber.

Their suits detached exposing their bodies and completely enveloped their hands holding the blade. The suit becoming gauntlets so that they can temporarily hold their souls.

It was pure agony holding the blade, Aeoath nearly let go. He yelled to his son, “I know it hurts Sun, just focus on your breathing and it’ll be ok—”,

“I’m okay father,” Hash interrupted, “I feel weightless, I feel mother, I feel brother, I feel you… all is well.”

Aeoath found that he was the one panicking, he was terrified, but he remembered— looking past the new born God reconstructing herself before them— he saw his child and he remembered that this was what he did everything for. He smiled wide, restored with love— I do this for all of those that I love.

The two concentrated and condensed the beams from the edge of space down into the confines of their swords. They held a prismatic blade that gleamed and sparkled in trillions of hues; the swords used by the true defenders of Heaven.

They pointed the tips of their blades at the stagnant wretch.

Father and son nodded at each other with hazel eyes of determination.

In unison, they thrust their swords and chanted the Heavenly cast:

The sound of the soul leaving the blade was neither harsh nor terrifying; it was relaxing: it was the harmony of father and son singing.

Thelosa’s eyes still glossed over, her puppet body was too slow to stich its head back in time. In between the two converging streams of Antimatter it vaporized her at the resonance level: if she was still in there, she couldn’t feel it anyway.

The last thing Aeoath felt was ocean wind on the beach— the coast of Mozambique:

Deressa, Hashveth, and Keres were all there; playing in the sea.

Once thought to be dormant, Mauna Kea gave off one final eruption; this time it not only leveling the foremost island, the blast eradicated 500 miles from the epicenter in the single most destructive blast the planet has seen.

The destruction would have caused more damage if not for Gaia casting Vaull at the last minute to project the majority of the blast off into space.

500 miles of land was vaporized in a blink; thankfully it was mainly water.

The ocean would take 3 days to fully refill its gigantic wound.

Golden eyes, beloved to Heaven, creaking open only revealed darkness in front of them.

His hand scooped black rocks from his face, a golden wetness stained his fingers— tears. The violet blue sky behind his hand shimmered with Aurora.

He sat up, rocks and sediment rinsed off of him making a satisfying sound as they found the ground.

Black sediment fought back at the land in territory fronts of mounds of brown, black, reds of roses, yellows of daisies, and pinks of magnolia flowers blooming atop the fruiting trees— it all stretched down a chasm that formed a dome of pearl; golden veins pulsed with energy from beyond— walls so high they faded behind the sky past the Aurora.

A woman was picking flowers in the distance, she looked at the boy and he could tell that was his mother.

He spoke lightly but he knew that she could still hear him, “I was dreaming— of father and brother.”

She stood there in the distance, columns of ivory in the background dwarfed her but her ebony skin bordered her existence, “Yes. Are you sad?” she said equally as quiet.

“No,” he spoke wholeheartedly, another streak of gold stained his maple skin, “I was there with them,” he beamed at her. She was now kneeling before him, Deressa’s gleaming radiance filled his nose with mahogany and maternal nectar. She had plucked a fuzzy golden fruit from a magnolia. She handed it to him with a beautiful smile, “Gold is the dried fruit of Heaven, eat up, you need nourishment.”

The fruit hummed with energy in his palm, he bit through the soft gold, it tasted of mango and sweet milk. He smiled at the taste of joy.

“We are all glad that you are finally here, Keres.”

The second side of the coin— the kindred soul to Malcolm and the prophesied Ward of Heaven— the one named after the first King of Gallia has finally awoken!

Waking up from what felt like a dream, nothing but light masked their eyes.

They sat up and beads of light brushed off them like it was snow, snow in a field of black grass.

Populi hovered and buzzed on their skin, it was soft and warm. They were gentle creatures that never minded their spontaneous existence. They clung to the body, giving warmth as a whole— one wouldn’t believe you could find such warmth in desolation.

Ulysses didn’t speak when Thelosa finally noticed that he was there staring at her— they never really did have to speak to one another.

She touched her neck, a deep scar went around. She had died, yes, but that was no longer an issue anymore: The field of Oblivion will always house her soul.

She smiled tearfully.

They would have to find another way of getting her Relic, but that was ok, they had plenty of time— especially where time did not exist.

Ulysses canted his head upwards and uttered a quiet grunt; she raised her gaze.

Populi now floated higher than ever, right before winking out— some reaching the barrier and popping in a glint of celebration.

Her mouth was agape at the beautiful sight that seemed as if winter was happening in reverse; as if stars were rejoining Heaven.

Ulysses spoke, “You see, you have given them hope.”

The lightless city buildings jutted out into sky from street view like ossified fingers constructed of concrete and mortar. Holding their palms out begging the bright goddess for a miracle— or for deliverance.

The irony with mouthless worshipers and Heaven is that neither of them can functionally communicate so the form that deliverance took was not at all what the mouthless said— though it was divine and they were heard.

They all soon learned that you cannot take back a prayer.

Power outages ravaged the city for weeks, off and on off and on; again and again. The news barked ceaselessly about rolling black outs from solar winds and high cosmic activity but to the people that none of those things fucking mattered bit their lips and flared their nostrils with rage every time their city blinked off.

Thankfully, the state wasn’t incompetent. They installed massive solar panels, free of charge, in vast arrays and throughout towns and neighborhoods powering multitudes of homes, establishments and businesses. People were pleasantly surprised by the generosity of their government to do such a project but they then, almost all at the same time, recognized it was just about Christmas time; the city was going to miss out on one of, if not, its biggest income of the year so the big wigs really put their foot down:

Read a headline that was scoffed at in agreement by a man that wanted to be anywhere but traffic. He read the words off of a newspaper that was hanging out of a trashcan. The red lights of the car ahead of him and the ones that blurred into a slinking line up the road made him chuckle silently at its absurdity. Phillip looked to the car to his 2 o’clock, it had a Christmas tree strapped to it. He began thinking about the holidays, he did really enjoy the holidays but they weren’t easiest to celebrate. His family was splintered in both location and mentality. Easing off the brake a bit he pulled up to look at the family in the car. They were talking a good amount, the man in the front was looking back into rear seats a lot which to Phillip indicated that they were talking and playing; despite the molasses of traffic: they were having a good time— and from the looks of the tree on top, they were going to have a great holiday season. Phillip wasn’t saddened, he let the idea and the scene play out in front of him and go through him. He felt if he thought any harder on it he would cry. He hadn’t cried in a long time so he amended his previous decision and allowed himself the solace to do so, crying in the car was also one of the most comfortable places.

He thought about people he’s encountered that came from different backgrounds, different life styles, different skin colors, different ways of living and— most importantly— different assumptions of the world. Friends and people that would ask “How were your holidays,” and the stark answer of “Not good,” was such a wake up call for them, not only because they were more ignorant than they thought they were on the struggle of the Black Family Dynamic but also the exhaustion that would come with having to explain to them the why. Phillip had since stopped giving them the why, he didn’t want to no longer console them in their unknowing. This brought him some serenity, though it wasn’t an answer nor fix to his problem. He at least got rid of swallowing answers he wanted to hold back and untying the agreeableness that comes with not wanting to bring up uncomfortable conversations with people that were without the capacity to hold them.

Being a descendant of a people that were enslaved while living around people that were descendants of the people that were the enslavers creates a duality of reality in which they both live in simultaneously whilst needing to agree— be it aloud or silently— on which reality they were to both live in; because both cannot be accessed at the same time. Phillip did enjoy the mutualism that was in the honesty of racists. Where they wear their ideology on their sleeves so there is no hesitation when there is eye contact, the math equates and there is no need for mental gymnastics.

There are species in the animal kingdom that do this, not racism— well kinda— but mutualism. A symbiotic relationship between two varying species. Symbiotic relationships, a most commonly known one is the relationship between aphid and the ants. Where the aphid, after feeding on sap, will excrete honey drew to which the ants love and feast on. The ants get fed and then protect the pest from predators. In most cases the ants will bring specimens back to the colony and, in away, enslave the aphid to continuously produce the honeydew until they die. Taking a step past the shared living conditions and moving towards species independence; no longer codependent. Phillip began thinking about the human position of it and if a rivalry within a species could be a type of mutualism where if the two exists to fight and battle would it give each other’s existence meaning and push one another to be greater than one another— kinda like how Joker said he can’t live without Batman and vise-versa—; if the difference in skin color alone really does affect the mind and the onlooker on such a deep level that it enables both superiority and inferiority to form.

Phillip’s mind began to wander on its current thought process. He began thinking that if newer generational racists that are born into such a bizarre mindset to later uncover their history and nature of slavery as well as the why of it: are they too afraid and, in a sense, too poor spiritually to begin to unravel and denounce such a violent history that they’ve inherited the reins to? That beginning such an introspective talk is so impossible, so unfathomable, that they have to take on the families ideology and dawn its white hood because looking down any other roads that they could take they would see that the paths are lined with grass where the blades are made of the clawing arms of the dead that want, and will eventually, drag them into the karmic hell that their ancestors have made: the inheritance. Nowhere to run but forwards, atop the bodies they pile. On top of that—

The car behind him honked and he jolted in his seat and waved a passive hand behind him. Traffic had only moved up about half a block but it felt amazing to feel that physics still existed. Phillip inhaled deeply, wiped his tears and reached for his phone out of the console. He scrolled and dialed a number,

“Yo.” the voice of a familiar man answered.

“You still got access to that plot of land?” Phillip sighed.

“Damn, I’m doing good nigga, how about you?” the voice belted.

Phillip chuckled, “Bro, I been in traffic for 45 minutes at the same light, I need to go shoot.” Phillip could feel the man’s shoulders bobbing up and down while he laughed, “Hahaha, are you on Montclair?” Phillip looked over his shoulder, ahead, and way behind him, “Nigga are you?”

A car, about 40 ahead, flashed its headlights many times, “Yeah! I’m flashing my headlights can you see?” Phillip’s face gleamed with a smile of hysteria. “Oh fuck, who’s dick did you suck to get that far up!”

A faint car horn blared, “Can you hear this shit!” the man beamed.

Phillip began laughing harder and chimed in too, honking his horn and flashing his headlights. It didn’t take long for other cars to join in the ruckus; in traffic everyone is always one brake check from honking until their palms bleed but no one wants to be the first. Now that the band aid was off, the entire city strip came alight with honking, cussing, and degenerate-car-activity. The both of them laughed hysterically while cussing out their neighbors— traffic went by much faster this way— “I’ll fly you in next week, be ready.” The man confirmed over the holiday cheer of the restless city.

A warm light streaked like a meteor in Phillip’s heart.

The helicopter vibrated him straight to sleep. Phillip usually enjoyed the ride there more than the entire trip itself; it put him into relaxed state. His dream lapped brushes and strokes of lights and beams and sprinkles of glitter that moved both too fast and just slow enough to keep the sleeper transfixed inbetween. The light show orchestrated itself perfectly to what the body was hearing and feeling en route; from the vibration of the blades, to shaking of the cockpit, the air around the blades, the wind through the valley, the bend of the trees not succumbing to the wind’s fury, the rotation of the Earth, all of it— the subconscious view of the world outside and inside was displayed behind the eyelids. The world that the subconscious could never understand with words because it lacked them as well as eyes to see it, spoke what it understood through feelings, colors and metaphysics— painting a mural of the universe it sees to, in hopes, tell its driver that: they are in danger.

“There’s a clearing 20 clicks over the ridge here,” rang a clear voice through the headset despite the turmoil of the sound outside. Deegan never really pried Phillip for answers as to what he needed or what was afflicting him, Deegan just knew. Not knowing in the sense of parsing exactly what was wrong, no. In the sense that he knows that men like them suffer in the same ways but they get through it with many different methods. Should their commonalities overlap— like in hunting and tracking: things that bring a fight for a sense of control through being submerged in lawlessness— a facultative mutualism is formed between men where the uncomfortable fear of direct language of addressing the issue is happily circumvented and the two minds can consciously subconsciously discuss and mediate their gripes and vices through a secondary means. When asked “How are you,” and despite answering “Good,” allows the disarming to begin. Even though one did not overtly state they were not well, that is not the point— that is not the medicine. The medicine is that they were being asked how they are by someone they trust to be broken around. Replying good begins the subconscious healing process while in good company— because the world he lives in moves much too fast to spare such simple questions; so he has to learn how to both move and rest.

The dream did its best but was pulled away; opening eyes to a green horizon etched with rocky words stabbing at the sky with jagged peaks that a poet could read. A smile in Phillip gleamed and Deegan pat him on the chest sensing he was excited all over again, “Elk will scurry for a few hours after I land so I’m flying this way so they’ll naturally wander back to that meadow—easy shots.” Phillip peaked over the side and admired the old research building that was more and more being overtaken by foliage, “Spent so many nights in that place whenever we got snowed out, barely saw it this time!” he said merrily.

“Wanna land there and check the stash?” Phillip paused and thought for a moment, he was going to have plenty of time to go there and back, he shook his head, “No, you landing me at Io right?”

“Yeah, easiest to land at and lessens the chance of flying into the native birds.” Phillip did enjoy Deegan’s love and respect for wildlife. You really wouldn’t expect a man like him to feel so attached and protective of the natural world. The Oakland Mountain Man, Phillip usually called him when he would get sentimental about preserves, activism and blah blah blah. That didn’t even change miles past the Canadian border either.

“Trek towards Mars then cut to Mercury, that will be your pick up spot, 21:00 12/29.”

One last gear check, “Thank you for this, Deegan, really.” Phillip said quietly, tightening the fastened gear. “If I got it, you got it.” Deegan said back to him. Phillip understandably nodded— this being a saying the two have said throughout their friendship has brought them as close as brothers. Deegan took off, Phillip watched the chopper take with it all the comfort of civilization up and over the mountain range. The sun winked a secret code through the trees as it fell, warning Phillip in a language he never could know but was always surrounded by— a message that his subconscious always knew.

Even though he could not read it’s message he at least found the sunset beautiful. Beauty was designed for and meant to be discovered by those with eyes that did not see the whole picture. The-flawful-eye of man means that he incorrectly sees both the worst and the best; thus poetry is born by he whom seeks to bridge the gap between both the Heaven that awaits him and the Hell that clings to him: the inbetweeen.

The seemingly infinite growth of human potential comes to a halt when man finally discovers, or is discovered by, something with just as much potential and is far more natural.

What didn’t stick out of the ground more than 3 inches was either covered in snow or was destined to be. Distinctly in the valley, was there adequate snowfall, if you went more into the many hills and ranges, there was still predominantly shrubs, grass, and visible trails. The weather was still trying to get used to spreading its wings with the addition of snow to the land, lakes of snow pooled in the cups of the landscape. The rising sun began to light the peaks with gold as the far away trees of fall reflected their hues of Halloween back into the eyes of any onlooker that found themselves lucky enough to be in such seclusion. Phillip dared not take a photo for such beauty was only for those that had earned it and hurt enough in their heart to pause and see it.

Cherry red gleamed off the binoculars he was holding. A cute plastic ribbon fluttered in the wind. A new Christmas present he got, it was placed haphazardly deep in his pack. A note that said “Happy Christmas Nigga,” was scribbled on a small card glued to them. Phillip discovered it a day into his trip, just in time. He kept the little message and the ribbon on because each time he read the note it made him giggle more and more. It all came with a carry case that wrapped over his head and allowed the pouch to sit right on his chest. Though he was here solely trying to forget the holidays, this made him remember that its not the holidays we should celebrate; it is the people in our lives that charge us with joy and those such people are deserving of an entire special day and the most special gifts.

Four dots of varying warmth wisped as they followed the one in front, hugging the side of the ravine in the shadow of the hills, as if the light encroaching from the other end was certain death. Unfortunately, deer have no clue as to what thermal vision is. Phillip hit a button twice on the bifocals, night-vision blinded him momentarily, then the non-tech-assisted zoom gave him a clear view of the traversing herd through the darkened shrubs. He had begun stalking them a few hours after landing 2 days ago. The medicine isn’t in taking the life of the lead buck, it is the meditation in following and hunting them. It gives a grounding back to oneself, where if you make one false move, one sound too loud, they will hear you, scurry off and forever be wary of your presence. Attuning oneself back into the tempo of the wind, with the river; where each step in the brush is calculated, with the world that is outside of the comfortable one. The healing begins and control over oneself is restored. He was finally attuned and today he was going to take the shot.

6 PM came quicker than expected, and the herd had settled in at a river pass 20 miles from their initial viewpoint. Phillip, still noiselessly on their tail, had settled in on the long side of the shore. His laser indicated they were 335 meters away, an easy shot with barely any bullet drop; the weather also prohibited there to be no more than 2mph wind in this ravine as well— his bullet would fly perfectly. Phillip’s bag was sealed at its top seam with micro-zippers. Strong things, but when unzipped made no sound. A design ingrained in all tactical gear in the 30th decade of the twentieth century. He pulled a half-constructed rifle from the main pocket, Delouise was the manufacturer; people forever argued as to how to pronounce it. A modern carbon-titanium barrel fit perfectly into a small pistol grip that was a near translucent grey; a firm mesh and impossibly light. You could see blurry outlines of the gas propellant contraption within the grip itself. The barrel screwed in soundlessly, the binoculars he was gifted snapped in two and was used as the main scope. The scope was the heaviest part of the entire weapon. The Big Game manufacturer specialized in single-use firearms. A company that sought to get within the untouched market and aimed at controlling the amount of reckless firearms usage— the guns themselves needed to be reimagined because the people who recklessly used and worshipped them wouldn’t. Creating weaponry that was designed for single use harkened back to colonial times, but added a new sexy modernism to them.

Carbon needles peeled from the barrel and stuck into the foliage, a bipod held its aim steady and true. He took a single bullet from the wrist of his sleeve and rolled it in his thumb; a prayer bead to him. He reflected on his neglect, his faults, his frailty, his inability at times to say no and desire more for himself. He reflected on his loss of friendships, words unspoken, and moments of weakness, where he tried to fool himself was anything but real. That where he was in life, he was weak— no, something amended in him— he was weakened. The stark gold of the bullet resonated with wisdom in its chill glow; humming words and poems back at him rebutting at his own belittlement. In his hand it shined with sunlight like a miniature cosmos of one color. He was at first too blind to see and too deaf to hear, but now he was sensing all of it. He was hearing the birds, the trees, the heartbeat in the river. He was back, slowly but surely, he was returning to all that he was. “Hey Dee, what did you call it again?” he murmured to the bullet, “Melonasia,” he remembered.

On the bullet was engraved Phillip’s fingerprint. Marking that he alone was entering and taking the life of his prey. With that he was sending his trails, fears, sadness, hopes, ambitions, forgiveness, happiness and love. In the hopes that the spirit of the deceased would, in turn, transmute his enigmatic feelings into an angle of sorts to help him. He then hoped and blessed that the unknowing Buck would be a sufficient tribute for a hopeful better world. The bolt head unlocked to a fluted barrel that housed the bullet, then closed with a satisfactory sound; the prayer was ready to be cast into the great unknown.

It was peaceful, the air was calm, the light was perfect; the line of shot couldn’t have been any better. His eyelid was encased in the lens. Crosshair and all trigonometry was numerically centered— he would have made a much better photographer. The rutting buck was making a number of calls through his territory and Phillip could hear the echoes of females in the distance beckoning him further up the valley floor. Phillip smiled as to seeing how many females he’s already acquired, “Mr. Popular,” he said to himself. He focused and trained his barrel, the buck was quartering away from him so he aimed slightly left of the right front shoulder; this is where you take the critical shot to hit either the heart or the lungs and drop the prey instantly. In his regained focus it was finally, now, that he had noticed a sort of spiderweb coming off the buck. It had a presence to it and it wistfully placed itself on one of the nearby doe. The doe perked her ears and centered directly on Phillip’s direction. Philip recoiled and followed the trail with his scope. Traced it to a grassy knoll, at least what looked like one. Phillip’s heart sank as he could clearly hear the screams of Melonasia telling him, “That knoll is alive!” Phillip wanted to run for his life, and he almost did. In his thought process, he watched the silk ribbons writhe and touch together. In a coil, they moved like a fabric tornado. Then, they unfurled and in the friction between each other it produced a sound with a myriad of voices that stopped Phillip in his tracks, he heard:

Frozen like a buck would be by the imitated call of its kind, the last thing he saw from this constructed hill were puffs of steam silently exiting two unseen holes from its sides. From the quick contrast of steam behind foliage he saw what had looked like the head of a fox made entirely out of grass and shrub. In the next delayed second the brand new binoculars around his neck shatter in their case and he felt something try to bore through his chest; the impact completely knocking him off of his feet and into the brush below.

“Yeah, I really think nature is the final frontier.” Deegan and Phillip were sharing a morning coffee atop the peak named, Olympus Mons. Deegan continued while looking into the swirling brew, “I believe that nature was here long before whatever god it was that walked these lands. That god was born out of this same Earth and tried it’s best all on its own to uncover what all of this was— including itself. To some time later die and become a tree; still growing and encouraging life to do the same in its image.” Phillip laid there restful with his head to the clear December sky— the moon hovered there perfectly in the center of the sky; a pale white chip in the blue of the waking day.

A year ago, today, they sat atop the ravine, atop the world, and evaded yet another holiday season. “And trees not only recycle air but the souls of the living?” Phillip said with closed eyes, he thought he was understanding it more, “Ha, that very well could be true!” Deegan said gleefully at the new perspective. “The thing about Melonasia is that any perspective could be true, its your own take on what the information is telling you; much like the Chinese philosophy of the I Ching— I mean it seems that all the practiced aspects of the metaphysical spiral back to that damn thing.” Deegan sipped his brew and set it, “Space isn’t the end goal for the creatures of the Earth, especially for me. I don’t believe were particularly suited to go to space, I don’t think there is anything out there that isn’t here. That here on Earth, there is much more to discover than what we can see— and if this forest of ancient gods hadn’t figured it out then there is still hope for us to build on their work.” Phillip sat up and turned his cup over, “I still think there is something to say about space travel, like to other the neighboring planets at the very least— if only just to fly by one; I think that that alone would change the entire way i live and think. Flying by Mars in a space craft and then returning home!” Phillip looked back at his mentor with a childlike wonder, “I think the simplicity of a fly-by would give me a much grander sense of scale and a better understanding of the breadth of how vast and beautiful our cosmos is. Hell, that would change even the most psychotic minds!”

“That is a fantastic point!” Deegan said with a toast and smiled at the sunrise, “But,” he whispered in a somber tone, “I fully intend to die here one day, in these mountains; and hopefully by a creature of this earth— be it man or any animal— I wish to rest here, not on a new faraway planet.” Phillip looked at him silent and approvingly, “But, that is my frontier. I walk here so you can keep your creative mind to the sky. I could tell from the day that I met you that Earth wasn’t meant to contain you; that your frontier was on a shore far, far away.”

Molly shouted at them from her tent, “Yo, we just got the call, the engine testing will be at 09:00!”

The trio packed their things and trekked back down into the valley.

The same pale white chip was once again at the zenith of the sky; the night showed the dominance of the full moon’s light. Shadows hid perfectly straight down underneath their tree branches, escaping her scowl. Right above the world rested a throne and the moon sat there; she was just as judgmental as she shined with contrast. It took Phillip great effort to open his frosted eyes, the moon stared back at him impartially. His second breath of cold air reminded of him of the evening— panic ensued.

He frantically checked his gear and his chest, he felt a pang on his skin underneath his vest. He tapped a button on his glove and his entire mid-suit exhaled its pressure over his torso; removing his bare hand from a decoupled glove, he reached into his shirt and felt a swollen scar. The cold air had chilled and nursed the impact wound. -1 Fahrenheit, read his tac-glove in a small blue light, then 1 AM shocked him in the next tap. He grabbed the case that housed his binoculars; the other half, which was inside, was in pieces with a bore through the case, through the tech and out the other end with his blood on the back. White caught his eye, he dug into the case, pulling out a small acorn-shaped piece. Under moonlight, it almost illuminated his face with how pure it was, but something about it was interesting: it had grooves. “What the fuck?” The acorn had deep spiral grooves running from its sharp front point to the back —it would travel through the air perfectly, “This is a fucking bullet. This was fucking shot!”

This was, in fact true, though as Phillip couldn’t figure it out, the bullet was made of tooth enamel. Though in the short glimpse of what he saw was vulpine in nature, it was anything but a fox.

Phillip slapped himself, got his bearings and ran back up to his shooting spot; so much time had gone by, “Was that a hunter? Someone in a tribe maybe?” He was trying to rack his brain over all the possibilities, but none of them would be close to the answer. He reached his firing den, the rifle pointed up like a telescope to the void and with its unseen bullet still chambered. He felt like he was walking into both an icy grave, where he should have died, and a trap meant for any other curious wanderers. He shook his fear away and sprinted for his rifle and gear. Surprisingly, nothing happened. Everything in hand and on his back, he began running for the old research facility— that would be good enough shelter for the night. The unfortunate thing about that was that it was 15 miles away, back up the ravine towards Jupiter.

The titanium springs he had on the exoskeleton of his suit started under the arch of his foot, up his shin, and protected his knees; giving Phillip generous boosts of strength and stamina as he carelessly ran through the night. The straight down curtains of shadow that the straight above Moon produced made it feel like he was a rat running in a maze of black walls. He was afraid all over again, sensing that from any of these shadows another bullet of bone could pierce him and finish the job. He felt his anxiety peaking, and the ancient fear of being hunted took over his senses: convulsive crying and hyperventilation took center stage.

Phillip had been running for so long, he didn’t care how much noise he made; throwing up twice and dry heaving the rest of the way. He came to the lip of a river where he collapsed. He cracked the first inch of ice and spoon-fed himself the refreshment. He grunted, feeling his body expand from rehydration. Finally, having more tears to cry, he wasted no time; it quickly turned into sobbing. He was sobbing because he was both confused and grateful. Confused as to how lucky he was that that bullet hadn’t pierced his heart and grateful because the gift that stopped the bullet was sent from the one person he knew was always watching over him. Deegan was always a praying man, and Phillip could picture the sage-like man pleading to the flowers he’s grown for the safe travels of all his companions in all of their endeavors. Phillip wept in disbelief at how lucky he was. He also felt the energy of something watching over him, looking up at the unmoving Moon as if she had said his name. The world was silent except for the heartbeat in his ears; he felt as if he was sharing it with her. He couldn’t quite understand the message, but that wasn’t the matter.

A small flame waved his name in cursive on the backdrop of the black forest. Its beautiful natural orange caught his eye and heart, he was instantly drawn to it; but how was there fire? He stood to his feet and walked into the brush. He felt weary, but he felt that calmness was trying to prevail over his heart; the closer he got to the fire, the more it won that battle:

A patch of Spring in the middle of a forest in Winter. A 2-foot flame was coming out of the blades of grass that wisped into a singular mass that resembled a campfire; illuminating a 20-foot lush area. This flame warmed the bodies of the 5 that flanked it like a crescent moon. Each of them resting, their ears flicking and their bodies relaxed by the serenity of this small grove.

These were the family of deer he had been following and the buck he nearly shot lay there as well. Phillip had no words; he walked onto the swaying grass of jade. Despite the sound he made, the herd he had been hunting made no indications of fear or even startle; though their ears turned to him momentarily, only to return relaxed.

He placed his gear down as peacefully as he could, though the sound was not an issue. Phillip was mystified as if he had stumbled into a house that was not his; but here, he was welcomed by the tenants. His eyes wandered back and forth between each of them; he still hadn’t blinked— this was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.

It had felt like eons had passed before the words made their way out of his mouth, “Hello?” He hoped to believe that was a universally known word; maybe it was— the eldest doe opened her eyes and looked at him.

There hasn’t yet been a word created in the myriad of letters within our vocabularies that can accurately summarize the compassion and melancholy that is between the gaze of two species that exist together but cannot communicate with one another; Phillip’s melonasia tapped him with feelings of sadness and anxiety coming back from her to him. He inferred that this must be the closest wife of the buck, and the one that initially spotted him: protection, was the word that formed in the back of his mind from her eyes.

He collapsed to his knees, feeling overwhelmingly guilty at his actions and overlooking the grandness and richness of the community within the animals he had hunted. He spared no tears as his apologies burst their way out of him. He felt nothing would do him justice, but still pleaded to her that he was sincere. Oddly, the grass at his knees did not move but, in his subconscious, the vision of the blades spelled out a phrase he spiritually understood: “There is no need.” his subconscious mind saw the message. He saw it so clearly, although he couldn’t see it with his conscious eyes, a deeper part of him understood. He looked up between the resting lot there was something else: a humanoid shrub of trimmed grass sat on a small erected hill. It was woven with bark, branches, vines, and beautiful foliage. “See me?” The question formed itself in his psyche through images of caves, starless nights, the vacuum of space, and the places in between stars. A distant part of Phillip answered “Yes.” He was speaking from the subconscious part of conscious beings that took over during communication with the other natural beings of the world.

Phillip was getting used to a new muscle that he had never flexed; some faraway mouth spoke that belonged to him but of which he could not see or materialize, “What are you?” he asked the figure. “Deliverance—” honey, resolution, absolution, guidance, and freedom permeated the depths of his soul as the word itself materialized in his mind, “Answer to a prayer.” A part of Phillip was instantly understanding the layers that came with each letter to each word, he replied, “She prayed to the Earth— to what she believed in— She prayed for the protection of her kin, for those she loved, and you answered.”

“Yes,” was the affirmation it displayed by nodding where a face would be. Phillip began to apologize to the figure, piecing together that this was what must have defended the herd from his shot. The figure responded before he worded anything, “Moloch had not intended to kill you,” Phillip snapped his head up, “Was trying to— silence the noisy thing on your chest. Moloch protects.”

Phillip inferred that the waves and static coming from the overly expensive tech was so deafening to this creature’s hearing, on top of the heat vision aspect of the goggles was a sure way to see these guile-like creatures— he assumed. Something that makes bone into the shape of bullets, boils water in its gut, and ejects the pressure behind the bullet can surely be an ingenious hunting technique. Phillip was seeing the intricate details of the creature’s biology. How they are able to tense their grassy fur and mimic bushes, branches, hills, and trees— perfect camouflage.

“Where is Moloch?” Phillip asked, looking to apologize to the hunter of hunters. An arm with five fingers made of vine and root emerged from the body. It made a sweeping motion, “Moloch is this Summer in Winter, this sacred ground at our feet, the emanating light. Moloch is many things, above all, Moloch protects.” Phillip looked at the flame and felt it looking back at him. He quickly removed his boots, for if he were on hallowed ground, he dared not muddy it.

Phillip was hesitant to ask, but he felt comfort from afar— was it Deegan? “I aim not to be rude, but if all of this is Moloch, then what are you?” There was a long pause, yet the moon did not move an inch. The stranger mused on the question and answered subliminally, “I do not yet know.” Phillip felt a confusion— or melancholy— come from the creature, as if it really did not know, “I became material after her prayer was cast, before that— I do not know. But what I do remember is my name— I am Haedriel.”

That name rang a bell deep within Phillip, beyond his subconscious, into a part of humanity that was still undiscovered. Phillip was just as calm as he was scared, a deity before him with no further clue as to why it is here other than fulfilling a prayer, “Where will you go now?” The words finally came out of his mouth. Haedriel answered back in perfect English,

Phillip’s heart sank at hearing its voice. He saw familiar jagged teeth move where a face would be, and eyes that looked into him from beyond its ferns. Eyes that had no irises— or irises that were contorted into a marble. Many different colors webbed like a ribbon of rainbow laid static in its socket; the other eye was a completely different variation of the same colors. Phillip was petrified at the implications of the word it chose: reclamation. “Are you going to reclaim the world?” Phillip asked, fearful of the answer. Haedriel stood up, it was towering; at 8 feet tall. Phillip could feel an immense natural bound strength coming from its body, “We will try our best.” It said looking into the night sky.

Phillip got queasy thinking about a war between man and nature. How he wanted to do something about it, “Wait,” Phillip said, “Let me try. Let me try to make them better— let me try to resolve the issue.” A beautiful torsion of color looked back into him over a flame, “How?” Haedriel questioned Phillip as to how he could sway humanity. Phillip was still so very unsure, but he said it anyway, “We will leave, we will go to the stars!” A fruitless endeavor of course, but it was becoming more and more possible. “Leave? Not possible, I sense that such a mandatory migration of humans would further steel their native privilege to remain here; you will collapse,” Haedriel pointed out, “And you wouldn’t make it farther than Jupiter before you’ve run out of resources.”

Phillip bit his lip, “Then we change your word to— Reconciliation.”

“Oh, and will you be the ambassador of your kind?” Haedriel showed a sense of curiosity.

“No, I’ll devise a team, and we amicably resolve this— with you being the ambassador to the rest of the natural world.” Phillip lost his sense of fear and anxiety, and diplomacy enveloped him in confidence.

Haedriel stood like a beautiful construct of the power of nature, “Give me time to think on this. Let us meet back here in a year’s time and come prepared with our plans.”

Phillip smiled, “I already planned on it.”

The flame that lit their meeting expanded and collapsed into the palm of Haedriel’s hand. Phillip’s confidence went away as if it were as thin as air, “Reclamation to us means all of it.” Haedriel said, staring at the compact star in his palm.

Magic? asked a timid voice deep in Phillip, but he was too stunned to comprehend anything else after having seen a natural element be used and manipulated; what was Haedriel capable of? Was this a show of force? Phillip shook away the knee-jerk fearful thoughts. He unloaded the barrel of his weapon and showed Haedriel the bullet with his engraved fingerprint on it, “You have my word and my prayer that I will succeed.”

Haedriel took it, and it disappeared into its body. “I see. You already have something of us.” Phillip reached into his pocket and twirled the tooth that was fired at him. “I’ll take this keepsake as your promise as well then,” Phillip said, almost smiling.

“Fair enough,” the giant said. The point size flame expanded and engulfed all of them. Phillip had to shield his eyes; it was so bright— but there was no heat but what he did feel was:

Flashes of home, of childhood, of beach shores, of grass covered in frost, a Sun loving a Moon and the stars of the cosmos birthed by their love, a couple in love, and a child watering a flower.

Phillip opened his eyes and he was nestled up against the side of a tree. He felt completely rested. None of his muscles ached, the wound on his chest didn’t hurt, he wasn’t hungry or thirsty; he could run 40 miles! He stood up to get his bearings through squinted eyes. He was in the same area he was before Haedriel disappeared in flame— the deer were gone too. There was no longer a small oasis here; it was returned back to the regularity of nature. Phillip looked at what he was resting on and it was a giant tree. Its trunk came out like “U” and the branches looked like huge antlers forming a basket that was holding the ever-present moon in the sky.

Something in base of the trunk caught his eye as he walked up to it. Barely visible deep behind the bark was a gold vein about an inch wide and and seemed to go up the entire tree; it had his fingerprint on it, “My prayer,” he said, placing his hand on the tree. He turned and began walking back to camp. He felt different but also familiar. His path back to camp was lit in moonlight; tomorrow he would be picked up, and tomorrow would begin the Great Work. He couldn’t wait to tell Deegan of his adventure, but something in him felt that he had already knew.

Book: I

For All That We Were

Chapter I: The Inbetween

There are times that you are awake and then there are times that you are not awake— even times where you are sleeping but your body is still awake and moving: sleepwalking. There is no in-between or so we thought.

Stress, unbelievable amounts of stress can change the mind and the body—here we will also call the body the heart—; physiologically and psychologically. One could even become unrecognizable after being under tremendous stress for extended periods of time. But, why is that we change and which part of our heart or mind dictates such a metamorphosis? Is it both from the mind and heart or does either of them have a say above the other? Is one really more dominant than the other or is it dependent on which type of stress is being pushed unto us: Physical stress or mental stress?

Henry, an associate manager at the corporation Helene, was thinking on these exact ideas. He loved to sit in the cafe lounge at the Corp. HQ and watch people walk in and out, fantasizing about their lives and what they do and have seen— most of all what drives them to do those things. This was his job after all. He doesn’t even need to come into office, his specialty is finding out what new leads and paths the company can go. Given his track record of getting the trillion-dollar company where it is today and his break-throughs in medicines, technology, cost-of material, and being an outstanding spokesman for the company; the Corp is at his beck and call for whatever it is that their genius can think of next.

When he was asked what it is he needs, he replied “Just leave me to my devices.” Turning down the role of CEO countless times, he’s only accepted pay increases. Money, to him, was to be used and used by the tens of millions at a time. He kept his attire casual and his appearance plain; this helped him blend into the areas that he loved to observe and be around; often he would even mimic and dress up depending on the spots he visited. Usually subtly changing his facial structure and skin tone should he be visiting somewhere outside of the US. Later he, to himself and a small trusted team, preformed surgery on himself. Placing small robotic hexagons underneath his skin. These served as flexors that can change their angles so subtly but in mass they were able to change his facial structure to be not so Norwegian— to his liking he could have the pseudo-facial structure of whatever the people of the country he was visiting. Being white, he felt, really diluted the area in which he observed. People always noticed and were weirdly on guard when he observed, but not in the hostile sense, just in away that limited how much of themselves they shared.

This of course was all hypothetical and in his head but his work was from the inside of other people’s minds, his office windows were through the eyes of someone else’s. He had the money to augment every facet of himself but that money and wealth and technology came to a screeching halt when it all came down to how he, himself, thought.

So that all lead to his thought process now, “If it is stress then are we guided through our entire lives by that stress and/or by evading it? The whole seek pleasure run from pain kind of saying. But can stress be added to the mix? What even is stress? Is it just a side effect because we perceive time? Perception of time on top of social pressure of seeming productive— wanting to be seen like an adult?” He chuckled at that, stirred his latte and breathed it in. His eyes met the clerk behind the counter and he spoke into a microphone that was somewhere unseen on his body— maybe it was directly in his skin— “This person that orders next, tell them that you’re all out of whatever it is that they order the first and second time. They seem no older than 18 so they’re not going to push back, they’ll panic, blink a lot of times and frantically look for something on the menu that looks familiar; the menu is going to read to them like its in a whole other language. When they’re eyes look back at you, look impatient, cant your head so that it seems like they’re wasting your time. Look over their shoulder at the line to rush them. Then tell them you can make a drink and describe them to the initial drink they ordered but use the base contents: We just ran out but i can make something with oat milk, coffee, and some pumpkin spice. Sorry about that. Describe to them their initial order but in its simple contents as it were worded on the menu. Lastly, allow them to mull over what you asked them and see the response.”

Henry found that in the youth, they had the worst flashes to the pressures of stress. The young kid giving their order was denied their first choice and he watched their brow furl. They looked up and voiced something else haphazardly, scratching their face and running through their hair. This made Henry purse his lips in a warm smile. Watching from afar the clerk ever so sadly shake their head and apologize for not having their next wish stoked a fire in Henry that made him love his job: Joy.

The kid went slack-jawed for a second then accessed what was happening, some part of them was taking the wheel but it was not fully developed. Fractions of seconds felt like centuries, beads of sweat forming in their armpits, face feeling hot, slight blurriness to their vision; the opening rites to panic. If this kid were made to be sacrificed this would be a perfect tribute.

Hold, Henry’s eyes made the gesture of to the clerk.

4 long seconds of silence went by, Henry grinned and sipped his latte again, the clerk placed a reassuring hand onto the petrified kid’s and spoke to them of a drink that they could concoct just for them. Without a second to spare the kid let out a laugh of relief and kindly paid unknowingly for their first option, “Tell them to sit at that table,” Henry motioned to one in his sight with his foot. The clerk ordered the kid to sit at the table and they obediently followed without missing a beat. There was a state of bliss the kid was under after being relieved of their stress. Their eyebrows sat high on their face and their cheeks were flush— a subtle grin was there too as a backdrop. Henry would bet that they could also hear the blood rushing in their ears, count the hairs on their body from just feeling them, and the amount of adrenaline they had would have also allowed them to, for a short time, go without the glasses they had on— he assumed all of their senses were greatly enhanced. On top of that, he found out what it was that answered all his questions,

“It is neither the mind nor the heart, it is the spine.”

Like fireworks euphoria erupted within him and he turned inward to feel up and down his own spine. Feeling the tethers of muscle, tendons, webbing through bone, neurons up and down his whole body: a highway, a city, a world of code and construct— the back bone of man, the dictator of life and the threshold of the new future that he could now see fully and clearly.

Henry finished his latte and in that last sip he drank the ending to the world everyone knew today. In this cafe he owned he sat as a bystander, he sat as a bystander at the thousand other ones that he owned all around the world where he conducted his business. But, today was a good day. Today, he no longer needed to sip his lattes and be in the crowds. Today, he finally found what it is that both limits humanity and stands it atop the podium of excellence.

It was a cold February, not the aesthetic kind, the annoying cold that makes the tip of your nose burn and ears sting. Rain that continued from the previous night unendedly pissed your plans down and into the drains. A mix of snow and mud tried to connect like a zipper on the grey pavement. The business of the city kept the sludge at bay but not without it slipping your heels to give you a jolt in the morning— the soggy sleet trying to reclaim the world and bury it for good.

The world-smothering-sog did not come in the form of mud and snow but it came in the form of news— not too different. A screen that hung with barely any care projected unsettling news, though the viewers watched barely with a blink. “With held breath we finally get an update from your company on your next move! But to our surprise its not an update— its a full fledged launch of the new product?” There was an interview happening with two, seemingly, important people because they had sat in comfy chairs, there was table in-between them, and they had microphones.

Albert came alive and said, “Oh lemme guess, there’s gonna be another pill but this time it lets you print money out your ass.” The raised glass next to him placed itself on to the table and its holder spoke, “Al, remember when that bum broke into your car then forgot what he was looking for so he just walked away?” The reminder made Al have a coughing fit, “Yeah,” he said through finishing his sip and brushing the rest off of his lap, “We watched it happen through those windows,” Motioning with his head behind him, “We laughed and finished our drinks before we ran out and got his ass.” Chess smiled gleefully at the memory, laughing through his nose he thought to himself that he was happy at Al’s memory was getting better.

The, now, Hyper-Corp Helen released a type new drug called B-up and this little pill was released to the public and health systems. The way it was designed by its order allows it to not only be a pill but also act as a substitute for sugar and be used in many other varying ways. Public company shareholders like Balmart and BcDonalds began using this new hyper-drug as additives in their foods, supplements, and drinks. It was everywhere. The people were of course skeptical at first but all of the tests that were conducted on the product were run thoroughly and for weeks on end. All of it came back with no bad results, so the Corporate Industrial Complex(CIC) soaked it all up and implanted it deep into the world of the living— B-up becoming another name that became long lost in the sea of other names on the ingredient lists.

Time, doing its thing, exposed flaws in the product. It was tested in a vacuum but not when the host is taking multiple substances at once. Alcohol had an adverse side effect, memory haze. Not loss of memory but a fog like symptom that lessens one’s capacity to perceive the passage of time. Though time passes by, the body is almost fooled that the time and its energy is moving very slow or not even moving at all. Literally preserving the body and its metabolic processes through a strange time dilation. The public, and everyone outside of the Corp Helen, were all completely bewildered and mystified by this strange effect. Those at the Hyper Corp completely knew about this strange effect and the many more that would happen but of course played coy and the only comment the company has made has been them pointing to the side effects on the bottle that says Dizziness.

Back to the two important people on the TV, “Yes, Yes, tomorrow will be a great day for all of us!” The woman said looking into the crowd and through the cameras, “We’ve made tremendous breakthroughs thanks to the help of our CEO, Adrian. What i can share on it tonight is that it will revolutionize how our bodies immune system battles foreign adversaries! What i mean by this is that our new product will coax your immune system into finding cancer cells, encasing them in the new B-up enzymes, proteins and actually work together; all three of them— the B-up being the intermediary so that the cancer doesn’t spread. The immune system punctures the protein encasement down to the cancer where it effectively germanites and pollinates it; creating a new bundle of cells that are completely immune to cancer! After a small while— roughly 3-4 days— this encasement dissolves in the body and releases the billions and billions of new cancer fighting cells throughout the body; like how a dandelion spreads in the wind. They spread all throughout finding dormant cancer cells and even complex flu and SARS viruses and eliminates them— And that’s all just from one of the millions of enzymes that are released from taking our new medicine!”

Her teeth were so eerily white and— ordered. It was really all that the two were focused on, “So tomorrow is Armageddon huh?” Al remarked through his glass. Glenn yelled over the chairs he was stacking, “I guess so, but we’ll still be open tomorrow so what’s it fuckin matter; drinks are on me if all goes to shit!” Chess mulled on that idea as he went to grab the empty glass but he missed it— his perception was a bit off, maybe he was finally drunk now, “How much more shit do you think it could get, G?” he said swiveling to face him on the barstool. Glenn bit his lip as he walked towards them, motioning them up— they got up and gave grunts as they stretched, “Good question, how could the world be any worse?” Glenn stacked their stools on the counters, turned the TV off, thought about removing the glasses from the counter but he was already on the other side and it was a long counter top. Glenn blinked twice and turned away, following the gentlemen outside.

“Glenny-boy, not staying to clean?” Chess asked while looking at Al’s car window that was now a duck taped hole, “On a Friday, nah. I got a good amount of tips this week so imma throw them at the cleaning service. Lets go get some real drinks.”

“Oh good,” Al added while handling his keys, “Can we use them to clean the flat too?” Glenn scoffed, “I couldn’t pay them enough to clean our shit up.”

The gang drove into the town, the flappy window made it hard not to giggle— though Al was happy there was a break in the rain, the recent storms have been dripping through the tape. “Docility.” Al looked back in the rear view mirror at Glenn and tapped his brows together. Glenn got up out of a slump and went on looking up into the overcast sky, “Your question earlier bout how it could get worse.” Chess pursed his lips and looked into the backseat to beckon Glenn to continue, Glenn was always a thinker and though they liked to pick at him they always respected him— they especially knew when he was being serious, “You make a people docile, numb to the times around them. Lets you stop moving in the dark, you make the light.” Chess faced forward and gazed into the beaming red of the stop light “These new drugs huh, or whatever they’re trying to rebrand the name drug as— they’re making us docile?”

Glenn looked back into the arid sky, he was following a column of lights that faintly strobed past the clouds that moved eastward, “Nah nigga, everything you already do makes you docile, but this shit— I mean Al still gets brain fog and he’s kicked that stuff months ago. It’s something else. Those machines that they have above the clouds, big fucking things; you can feel their engines from down here. They’re doing something in the sky that we don’t give half a shit about because our distractions are too good— so they don’t have to hide in the shadows anymore.” The light turned green and Al eased onto the throttle, feeling parts in his mind that were astray or fuzzed. His internal pathway between brain and foot looked like a route littered with reds and oranges indicating traffic. Slowed connections through his body, nothing really moved as they used to, there was a noticeable delay he felt; be it by milliseconds he could feel there was something slowing.

Glenn went on , raising up and coming between the console, “I think they’re either spraying something in the clouds or using some kind of infrared or microwave tech that scrambles ice crystals up there and blah blah seen birds in the street fried— but whatever those metal colossuses are doing,” He paused and looked at the back of Al’s head forlornly, “They’re making it so that this is will be the last time that nature decides when to rain.”

Was the headline all across the nation, the world, all media, and even through carrier pigeons within the cultures that ruled without the former.

March, the month that is the harbinger of spring, fought so fervently at the horizons of each day that attested its coming. Plying and writhing with sunlight against the waning winter fog and sleet that wanted to permeate the sky and never give up its ominous throne of dominating the world in an all grey pungent gloom.

The weather has always been so attuned with nature and state of the world in a sociological and homological sense. So much so that it understands humanity— it has been the same sky we have lived underneath since our beginning; it has a clairsentience about us and if you’d deciphered its language in the clouds you’d have discovered that— It now hates when It rains.

Despite the trio being out late the previous night, Glenn went back to the bar he managed early in the morning. He was a freak in the sense that he liked to— more of has a compulsion to— check all the little details on things; this sort of made him the man he is today: a realist that almost always second guesses reality. He was in the parking lot of his establishment at 8:51am before the 9am news broke. Ignorant of the change that was unfolding around him, he did at least stop to look at the sky that was forever trying to warn him about the coming times, he searched past the clouds again looking for strobes; nothing. Drizzle lightly spiraled down from the sky like a murmuration of birds and a tiny morsel struck him in the center of his forehead; it felt crumbly like soot.

He sifted his key ring in his hand and tapped a heavy-for-its-size metallic card against the door, a note chimed, and the door was unlocked. It still smelled like February inside. Glenn’s sense perked.

The light pouring in from behind him illuminated a one way ticket between him and the long, old counter top. Gleaming back at him were the two glasses left there the previous night. A shaft of light curtained by walls of black sandwiched his shadow like a compass with one needle pointing true north— and north was beckoning him to the counter. He wasn’t feeling fear because the bar hadn’t been cleaned, it was the implication. His mind began to churn with ideas and reasons and stupid fucking numbers. He knows he talked to the cleaners last night, he even saw the Benmo transaction. They’ve never skipped a night when they were paid let alone no-call-no-showed. Something was off.

The more rhythmic tapping of rain pedaling behind him subtly forced him inside, he walked the tightrope of daylight that was shunted in from outside; now diming by the coming rain. The two perfectly preserved glasses stared back at him as he reached the counter, lip stains where two idly drank from were indicators that the past was real. Glenn blinked frantically, hopped over the counter and hit the light switch. The lights strained to turn on, morse code filled the room; it silently yelled at him some warning too fast for him to read— or he already knew but a part of him kept it down his throat. He was startled alive when the leaning tower of television behind him blared with the chorus of the morning news:

Glenn was nearly petrified trying to read the news as the silent clapping of the lights plunged him in and out of darkness, “What the f—” before he could finish fuck another headline immediately hogged the screen, the same headline that we started this chapter with:

Glenn finally finished his expletive with a heavy exhale that literally unwound everything he understood about the world, “—fuuuuck?”

Wet slopping footsteps echoed from outside and snatched Glenn’s attention. He swiveled to the door way and only could hear the steps coming closer and closer. A man running so fast he could only stop himself by hitting the door frame shocked Glenn back into a confusion. The stupid fucking lights beamed on and off in erratic ways that made it hard to see this person and the down pour of rain behind the man turned the whole world outside into static; it was almost hypnotic.

“You good bruh?” Glenn haphazardly said to both the strange man and, frankly, back to himself, “We’re not open ye—” Again, Glenn shut his mouth as a brush of light painted the solicitor; finally being able to see the man. An arm diseased with pustules, skin hanging off flapping in the wind like leaves trying to escape a decaying tree. His jaw was unhinged and the remaining teeth sat in rows like a shark not jagged like one but as if a shark were an herbivore. Saliva dripped from the roof of the mouth, Glenn could see the back of his throat— the tongue hung idly and bitten through as if having a tongue no longer was necessary; whatever it ate was irrelevant of taste. Lastly, and most grotesque, the mans right eye was puffed out— or appeared to be puffed out— but no, his eye was surrounded by compound muscle groups and it was enlarged, extending 2 inches out of the skull. The left eye was glassed over as if it were long dead, but in the conclusion of Glenn’s frightened proclamation of the operating hours of the bar, the bulging right eye revolved in its socket and fixed on Glenn; like a chameleon seeing its prey.

The man took on a new energy and pounced at Glenn, his clomping feet were syncopated to the flashing of the lights. Glenn’s chest tightened but panic never came, time slowed for him just enough— the flashes of light became soothing strobes. In the time it took to blink Glenn grabbed the glass on the table— it had a beautiful painting of Santa passed out on the sofa from drinking too much on Christmas Eve so Christmas never came that year. It said “Fuck them kids,”— and tossed it at the man rushing him. Impressively the glass thudded off the mans forehead, rang him back and the glass shattered on the floor. The assailant was so disoriented he toppled over all of the tables and seemingly broke that nasty dangling arm in half from the impact; Glenn winched from what sounded like a stock of celery breaking when the man hit the floor.

Sirens. Glenn was coming back to his sense when he heard sirens, but they weren’t the normal police sirens; these were pitched up. The man on the floor was writhing and couldn’t get up, Glenn assumed he broke his back as well. “You dumb motherfucker.” He said coming too and shaking off the circumstance. This must be what zombie is, frail things. Glenn smiled to himself. Yes they run but they appear to be delicate and brittle— i could probably just get away with using a bat to take one out. It is a shame they run, buuut they are kinda dumb so it wont be as economical but its at least not fucking smothering. Glenn was getting lost in the wonderful thoughts about how to economically take out hordes of zombies, fashioning weapons that can distract and disorient them from afar, leisurely ways of culling the coming apocalypse— so much so he almost didn’t even see the other man in the door way with a gun drawn on him.

A carbine that took up half the officer’s shoulder was pointed right at him. A stark voice barked from the mask Glenn shook his head and said, “HUH?” the officer repeated through his rebreather, “Coin-iysh-go?” The utterance of this strange phrase caused the spamming poor excuse of a zombie on the floor to stand up by using the stomp of its broken arms, the sharpness of the bone was a chisel on the cold stone floor. The officer turned his barrel to the clattering body and chanted the strange phrase one more time. The zombie stood still and was almost vegetative. The officer lowered his weapon, walked up to the thing and strapped a collar to it. This collar emitted a glow from the neck and Glenn could hear a barely audible high pitched whistle coming from it; the chameleon eye of the zombie curled in on itself like a bawling fist. The officer said some English behind his headgear, tapped two notes on his glowing arm band, a few notes chimed and the zombie began to follow the stocky man out of the doorway.

Glenn shouted confused and pissed, “YO WHAT THE FUCK!” The officer waved at something down the street and lights of a strange orange and purple took over the strobes in the bar. The officers back read HELENE in bold as did the armored truck outside. More armed men came to the officer, two of them took the zombie towards the vehicle while one of them motioned with their chin at Glenn inside still bewildered by what was going on; the officer waved a dismissive hand and walked back inside as the motorcade drove off. Glenn put both his hands on the counter and shook his head in the gesture of start explaining right now. One could hear the officers breath through the assistance of the mask, he approached the impatient Glenn and finally said something— it sounded like the voice over an intercom and it reeked of cheap hardware, “You know kid, you’re lucky you didn’t kill it. They would have charged you with manslaughter and the whole nine-yards.” Glenn stood back and crossed his arms, “What the fucking zombie? It attacked me and what was up with that thing you said to me that made the zombie stop— fidgeting?” The lights in the helmet shook left and right buzzing a cheap chuckle, “Attack? Those things have no cognition. You’d better pay attention closely to the news and legislation that comes out real soon— maybe even today. You’re going to have to start thinking differently about what the future is. Oh and that phrase? It’s just a Con-Lang. A constructed language that those things operate best on. The phrase I said to it had instructions. Nevertheless, here—”

Glenn grimaced, “Fuck does that even mean? That piece of shit came in here and tried to attack me, what does that have to do with any of—” The officer took out a slip of paper from one of his chest pockets and placed it on the counter; in capitalized letters of red it read,

“This here,” the metal and nylon gloves of the officer pointed at the fine red letters, “Is a ticket. Moving forward, any damages done to any property(ies) of HELENE that are not fit for a court hearing are to be ticketed by the Corporation with no maximum or minimum amount.” Glenn looked hard at the ticket then back into the bug-eyed man. Glenn paused and thought for a minute, “Are zombies HELENE property?” You could feel the smile form behind the mask. “You’re shitting me.” Glenn responded as if the officer answered him. “This scuffle here, honestly would cost you $800,000. The scan shows the patient suffered from crack ribs, a dislocated jaw, two broken arms, and his pelvis was also fractured.” Glenn jumped back and of course said “I didn’t do any of that shit what the fuck!” A bobbing hand from the officer said calm down calm down. “Haha yes yes i know i know, the drone footage is indicative of that. But the Corporation will operate at a flat bias based on damages. So it really all falls on the lap of who was found with it last.”

“I’m not fucking paying that officer Bug.” The officer belted and he could hear his real laugh somewhere underneath, “I know you wont, Mr. Ambrose but i can waive all of this away,” The man pointed to the shelf bellow the TV at a dusty bottle of brandy, “Pour me a shot of that and we can talk about your future.” Glenn looked up disgruntled but then inspecting the bottle he realized that he had never seen or touched that bottle before. It was dusty as hell but it was ornate with patterns of black veins and gold hems. He used a small step stool to grab it, glowing bug-eyes devoid of irises patiently watching him. Glenn picked up the heavy bottle and a deep thud rocked the entire bar around him.

Glenn jumped down off the ladder and onto the counter top, his face alight with distraught. The TV finally fucking fell off as the huge liquor rack bisected and opened itself before the two of them; Bug-Eyes was still staring straight as the events unfolded. A concrete door that was canted downward at 45 degrees was behind the wall, it bore an insignia that wasn’t representative of Helene or any other company for that matter. “What the fuck is this?” Glenn said inspecting both the wall and the bottle that both shared the same markings. The bottle had an etching at the bottom that said a name that Glenn read out loud, “Henry Rouche Nygard XI.” The seams of the bunker doors quaked and loud air hissed out and split the 5 pointed insignia in two. The doors opened to stairs that were alight beckoning the two. The officer took the brandy from Glenn’s petrified hands, poured out two glasses and stepped towards the unsealed doors, “You know,” the officer spoke, “This guy Henry has these all over the world, all under our feet. All of them have crazy things inside of them.” The officer tipped his glass towards Glenn offering him to click glasses in agreement, “I’ll tell you what, you give me first dibs on whatever i want down there, we can write away that little ticket over there and you— you can get whatever else it is you want down here.”

The lukewarm glass in his hand made Glenn feel balanced, “Can i make a phone call?”

“Nope, just you and me bro.”

Glenn looked at the bunker, at the solider, at the glass of liquor, at the recent insane events, and stopped looking; he shut his eyes and took a swig. He clanked his glass to the man holding his out and to the sound he could swear he felt that smile dawn behind that mask again. The two of them descended into a bunker that had always been there. While the rest of the world was plunged into a, really, mundane apocalypse of zombies these two walked underneath the ever growing confusing new world.

Once the world got to calm down around the strange sudden happening of Zombies, they all got to finally recount on what all had happened. Not in any direct order but the retellings on the forums online that continued to claim that they work or worked for HELENE, claim that they were their for the accidents or read messages telling people not to be there or saw security wave the bomber through or had direct contact with the bomber and he told them his brain was ‘no longer his’— whatever the case, the scene online never helped because naysayers in forums only look for clout and conspiracy when tragedies happen; their will never be any truth. And that is how evil gets away with doing what it does: Because people want to be listened to about how it affected them and not what all the violence is leading to.

Mr. Gladd relished in the idea that the average doom scrolling human actually thrives on tragedy. That there is another level that is reached in passing the threshold of desensitization; that the mind can go deeper than originally thought— and stress was the key. Well, there are many different keys, but stress was the main one that was mass producible. Enlightenment is another one of course, but that is a tree that any entrepreneur cannot bark up. The tree of Enlightenment—i would put it— would require reflection firstly. Something that the many companies in the market over the control of the human mind are trying to abolish. The tree of Stress, is the one that man has chosen to chop down and erect their paradise.

Mr. Gladd is the director of operations at HELENE as well as the one in charge of both the company as well as the alchemy behind it. The pharmaceutical company rebranded their work and now takes on the name of Alchemist. They found that science was a good hand to hold but now, the old ways give views to riches that one on the path of science could never attain.

Albert had once again found himself chained to the beck and call of his alcoholism, only this time, he went to a cafe instead. Caffeine was a good deterrent against the roar of the bottle that rattled its cage deep in his mind. He had just gotten off work and headed for a place called “The 5th Crown.” Though the way he had gotten there was a little bit strange. With this new zombism being a thing, walking around outside or even traveling by vehicle was considered a possible risk of “causing harm to the infected and/or becoming infected.” So the state, still unable to provide the public a definitive answer as to how people are infected, mandated people to remain inside, and schedule a customary HELENE pickup vehicle. The expenses were, of course, out of the patron’s pocket. It was either pay a small fee to get shuttled to work, or anywhere else you wanted, for that matter, or stay home— the company made yet another fortune.

Al worked the opening shift at the city’s gym, “The Hawk.” There were two in total. It was a hybrid of climbing, exercise, and, oddly enough, a movie theater. It was a strange place, 2 of the amenities were usually used while people hardly used the theater— most people didn’t even know it was there. The building had two spiral staircases that went underneath the climbing and housed a room full of seats and a pretty generous screen. The employees mainly used this for their own entertainment, like hosting video game tournaments and using the huge screen solely for the lyrics during karaoke.

Al really enjoyed his job, but that was coming to a close because the clientele weren’t willing to spend $2/mile for a HELENE ride on top of their gym monthly fees. The company informed everyone this morning via email that they would have to furlough all full-time employees until they could conceivably figure out what to do; Al was not a full-time employee.

The Fifth Crown was also a hybrid cafe; they had a license to also sell liquor. It was a rum and latte kind of day for Al; it tasted delicious, Al thought to himself, but remembered that was the magic behind B-up. Everything was just good. Despite the annoying uncollapsing world that continued outside, he was going to be jobless in a world that still required him to pay bills even during an apocalyptic event. Even though it was so fetishized that zombies would bring the collapse of all society.

“Reality is such bullshit,” Al said, taking a delicious swig of the disgusting concoction. The barista chuckled and replied, “Ah, in what kind of way?” Al was visibly irritated but continued, this is why people came to these kinds of places anyway— to vent, “I fuckin’— Since the what, 1930’s zombies had been a thing? We finally get them, and they have both rights, we pay taxes to keep them sheltered and out of harm?” Al’s exaggerated use of air quotes made the barista laugh again. She had a strong laugh and a chin that was just as strong. Al kind of liked her, but more than that, she was nice to look at. Her rigid face soothed him internally; she defied most formal concepts of beauty that other women had to wear around their necks that Al was far too used to seeing. There was an organized mess to her that invoked so much mystery in him. She had asked him a question, but he did not hear it. He looked back up at her and they locked eyes; he was entranced but she pursed her lips humorously. A part of him filled in the blanks and told him: she absolutely asked us something.

“I’m so sorry, did you ask me something?”

She laughed again and repeated herself, “Zombies have always only been a political portrayal of our unkempt attitude in theorizing how society will function after collapse. It’s always been less about the zombies themselves and more about how we reform a society after the collapse, or if we even could. But anyway—You’re Al, right?”

He changed his mind, he loved her laugh, “Yeah, you’ve been to the gym before right?” he responded as if he didn’t already know, but he knew that she knew that he knew and they both knew that they both had to first do this formal dance to not look like stalkers— but they both knew that they both were.

“Yeah i have, last week! You coached me and my group on our company outing. You helped me get through the tough one with the small grips.”

Al tensed his stomach, holding in a laugh, “Grips.” He couldn’t stop himself.

She rolled her eyes, knowing that was the wrong word, “Oh shut up, it’s fucking rocks, err grips— Holds, it’s holds!”

Al nodded his head approvingly, “There it is, yeah,” he said with a cheer, “And it was Fae, right?”

“Good memory. I’ll be going on my break here soon. Mind if I share a drink with you?” she asked while taking off her apron.

“As long as my next 20 drinks are on you,” he said while removing his jacket from the chair next to him. She sat down with some drink in hand that, by the miracle of science, would taste delicious but was the bastard child of things that wouldn’t make sense together.

“Something I grow tired of,” Al began, 2 Latte-Liquors deep and with no build up, “Is something I feel you would also understand. I think white folk love having people of color in their shops because it’s a part of them being able to develop a way to talk to black people.” Fae raised her eyebrows and took a long sip of her drink as he went on,

“You ever just see the way their faces light up seeing you behind that counter, knowing you’re about to politely talk to them. Etiquette that they assume they can’t get out on the streets. Not cause we’re monsters but because they have no idea as to how to converse with us,” the drink was letting him talk easier.

“So they employ us, formulate our work structure and vocabulary so that they can practice, for themselves, in a closed and safe environment: the approaching and conversing with colored folk,” Fae added to his speech.

Al fully nodded his head like his head weighed a ton, “Oh and don’t get me started on how when they’ve warmed up to you,” Al took a warm sip, “They start sharing their life’s troubles hoping and praying that you begin to share your black experiences and allow them to further practice: speaking with colored folk on the nature of the hardships and the disenfranchisement of the struggling classes. A topic they discuss so easily and haphazardly with family at dinner, but could never share or begin to start with any colored on the street due to their innate fear of confrontation— but to a colored that is already there, in a shop, placed strategically, oh they can go all out!”

Fae said to him through a smile, “And what if I were a plant?” Al raised his brows at the implication, “Well,” he started, “I do tip more when you ring me up— but in the nature of our discussion, you could maybe be a plant by the FBI to get me to admit to a killing that I may or may not have done.”

Fae chuckled and asked, “Well, yeah. What if I were a plant to get you to be obedient and relaxed?”

Al didn’t really care to look further into that, “Yeah, to do what?” he looked at her with the best flirtatious face he could muster while having both lost his job and knee deep in a buzz that was going to soon take him over in a warm stir of chocolate dizziness. Neither of their attempts worked. She finished, “My friend said he wanted to meet you.”

Al let out a lowercased, “what?”

Then, involuntarily, “He?”

Full of disappointment, Al actually sobered up from the thought of meeting a guy who has a crush on him.

Fae chuckled through her nose, “No, no, not in a weird way. He just thinks you’re fascinating; he can’t figure you out. I know that sounds weirder, but he said a few moments of your time, and he will make it all make sense— plus he said he’d pay you $10,000.”

Al bit back, “Your friend is pleading with a lot of money, I must be really important. He wouldn’t be the gentleman who’s sitting to the left of the middle table, would he?” Fae didn’t even have to look; Al took the confirmation in the subtle twitch of her eye.

“Makes sense, there’s a creep in the far left corner that feels like obvious bait. I’m familiar with the idea of hiding in plain sight— but not too plain where you would sit at the center table. He stood out to me because you’ll never see a nigga smile like that,” Al chuckled to himself, “The way his cheekbones sit stuck out like a sore thumb— something in me screamed he was a coon.”

Fae didn’t have anything to say but smile and dart back and forth between his eyes. She turned, presumably towards the man Al had picked out, and raised her eyebrows; she was impressed. “Did I pass your test?” he said, finishing his concoction.

“May I get you another?” The man from the table said, walking behind the counter.

Al’s eyes watched him approach from his periphery, “A Gentle Lady, please,” he said, exaggerating his smile: A drink with a splash of sparkling ginger brew stirred into a hot apple cider, designed to cure headaches and hangovers. The man tipped his head with a silent “Good choice,” and went to work. Devising a beautiful, and honestly cute, festive drink with a mint leaf hanging off the lip, its serene aroma emanated from the cup, which made Al’s eyes heavy.

“I’ll skip introductions because I know you wouldn’t care,” the man began to say, “I tried to slip your mind 5 different times, and you thwarted each of them.” Al was still looking into the drink, debating whether or not he should throw it in the man’s face or just continue listening to him— Al chose the latter.

The man had also, seemingly, paused to see Al’s decision and went on, “The zombies, as they’re calling it, what do you think about them?” The man seemed to be pivoting the course of his own conversation. Al was thinking about the money he was bribed for having this strange conversation.

“10k for each question I answer,” Al said, still looking at the warm drink. The man flared his nostrils when he smiled, seemingly delighted, and promptly placed two stacks of money onto the table: 20 grand.

“As far as the zombies go, I can’t really give a shit about it. Nothing’s really happened, and the fact that they’re ‘corporate property’ screams that HELENE is the people responsible for it; but no ones going to do a single fucking thing about it— this’ll just be the norm.” Al said, looking to his left at the decor and the span of the counter. There were a handful of other people there, working on laptops and placing orders. Al couldn’t help but feel that they were all in on this in some way. The man also followed the direction Al was looking, “They’re actors, yes, but they are real people; my friends especially!” the barista said cheerily.

Al took one of the bundles of cash, turned to the man at his left, and asked him, “If I gave you $5,000, would you beat this guy’s ass for me?” The barista let out an enthusiastic laugh and Fae curiously peeked over Al’s shoulder to see the man’s response. The man on his laptop laughed and said, “Little boy, that man you provoke is worth more than the Earth’s weight in gold. I would kill myself, and you for that matter, before a hair is harmed on his head.”

Al nodded his head to the man and turned back to face the barista, who was now smiling more charismatically than ever. Al’s expression didn’t really change, though he was more aware of the situation he was in; he’s glad he didn’t toss the drink in the man’s face. Al took a swig of the drink and toasted a gesture of respect to the maker for the delicious drink; it tasted of Autumn warmth but also of chains.

“So, you’re here to try and figure out what it is about me that allowed me not to have my mind slipped?” Al asked after a moment’s passing.

“Yes, exactly, and I’m almost there! Though I think I have an idea! Would you mind texting Glenn for me?” the man behind the counter asked pointedly while looking at his watch.

This entire strange situation, Al had been so beside himself with how well he had been controlling both his anxiety and anger. Using his breathing to toe the line between the two, he was doing so well that he was even proud of himself; he felt he had come such a long way. Such a long way meant nothing when that space is closed by a very calculated means. The mention of his brother’s name collapsed the resolve that he had and dissolved whatever surface-level calmness he also embodied; Al was powerless to the eruption of fury from the gut of his soul.

All three of the brothers have had their fair shares of being chauffeured by the police, sometimes all three of them packed rather comfortably in the back— police vehicles were always designed to fit more than one; the more the merrier. Al for both his public intoxication and public altercations. Chess for his DUI, which revoked his license. Glenn for talking shit in general back to the officers and just being there, he was added as an accomplice— the Ambrose trio was familiar with law enforcement. When growing up impoverished, one is destined to be known by law enforcement and is, too, later destined to be destroyed by it.

One thing that the Ambrose family despised more than Law Enforcement was men who thought that they could control anyone and everyone simply because they were born into a lifestyle that allowed them to do so. Men without the backing or foundation of a struggle that was befit of a leader to only tilt their heads down at the proles beneath their feet. Believing that this was their God-given right and that proles such as Al can be enticed and controlled with money; money of any amount. Because money is a currency, but also has a currency within itself. That currency within itself is: the control over the materialistic-masses and their necessity to escape through material means.

Al could see clearly the blood colored emotion of Fury spreading like a wildflower within him. It was his least favorite feeling because it was uncontrollable— by natural means that is. The trio, and many people in the same positions, have to learn how to grow accustomed to racist dog-whistles and provocation or succumb to them.

Compartmentalization is the superpower of the oppressed. It is the source of their camouflage: the ability to hide and suppress those tumultuous feelings that are pried at by outward forces that want to jump out and point its wrinkled finger to say,

This is the reality that the provocateur wants to make true. Al knows this— but it is getting harder and harder. He wrapped non-corporeal hands around the bud of Fury in his gut and smothered it. He wondered how many more times he could do this and if he should… or should he just let it blossom? It rattled in his hands with animosity: A feral caged animal with a cloth over it, shrouded in darkness— kicking and screaming until silence.

“Why should I call him?” Al finally spoke calmly but his eyes were ablaze. His voice had a rasp that indicated anger. The barista was taken aback but his smile had a profundity to it; the man was elated. The mood of the cafe changed; it felt as if all eyes were on the strange man.

The barista’s eyes were darting every which way and his smile was gleaming. “I’ve figured it out, you were inbetween for barely 2 seconds.” The man said, finally regaining composure, and looking up from his watch, “Dissociation!” the man said ecstatically.

“You dissociate your anger and fear and rage and sadness! You box it away in its own corner of your mind or you cast it away to sea or you eject it deep into space! But it’s all still deep in the confines of your mind but— it’s so far away it can’t affect you. That is how you did it— how you do it, how you evade it!”

Al disregarded everything the man had said, “How do you know my fucking brother,” he said coldly.

“Ah yes, forgive me about that. You have been texting him, correct?” A number of people began to hustle and bustle inside the cafe. The epiphany that the man had seemed to also have an effect on the entire establishment. Even Fae, that was next to him snapped, took out her phone and made calls, excusing herself.

“Yes,” Al said flatly.

“And you guys have been talking about how, oh, ‘he can’t make it today because he had some kind of bug,’ right?” Al nodded his head in silent angry agreement. The man continued, “In short, he is being impersonated.”

Al went quiet in his expression, the barista put his hand up reassuringly and said, “It’s the AI named REMORA, I’m guessing. It’s not really an AI, but more of a hyper LLM. It is mainly used to intercept messages and reply back with texts and even faked video of the person(s) that you’re talking to. While the real person could be long dead or tortured, or not have existed in the first place. I tasked one of my operatives to find your brother and collect some items we need. I’ll show you that he’s being impersonated. Send him a text asking him to call you the N-word.”

Al shook his head in disbelief. The barista smiled and explained, “You know, they spend trillions of dollars on trying to replicate sentient AI, and one of the only limitations that it has is still saying the N-word. And, after coxing it— because it cannot just say it without a prompt— it uses it all in the wrong places.” Al chuckled surprisingly, remembering the text conversations he’s been having with his ‘brother’ and seeing that he never said the N-word.

Al paused before he sent the new text, “You say it,” he retorted looking at this mysterious black man. A cheeky grin opened like curtains, revealing a perfect white that reflected what was deep underneath.

The entire cafe went dead silent, and only the incoming ringing of phones and the fall of rain became the tone of the world. It was a checkmate that the man hadn’t felt, well, ever. He put his hand out across the counter in a gesture of satisfied defeat. As the hand moved across the counter, the hexagons beneath the skin reacted and microscopically shifted their colors in real time. A white hand beginning at the fingertips and stopping at the elbow confirmed the subconscious hunch that Al had had all along, “My name is Henry, The Eleventh.”

Transracialism was always something on the cusp of happening, but there were no serious cases or movements that had enough traction to make it make sense. It is always at the back of the minds of the cutting-edge research and development scientists. But, be that as it may, those men and women who change their topography will never be able to change their inner machinations: how their minds work— that is as far as their taboos will go. Not that it isn’t possible, it’s that if they changed how they thought or behaved or what they believed in, then they would be a different person fundamentally. They would have completely lost their divine given right and bodies. To them, how their minds think is their God.

The pale outstretched hand was not met with a greeting. Al kept his eyes locked with Henry’s. Al sent the text without dropping eye contact. His phone instantly replied with a message. Al was surprised and checked his phone. He read the message out loud, confusedly:

“Okay cool, your brother is with Triumph.”

Henry said nonchalantly, as if the crypticsim didn’t bother him at all. Henry detached the watch from his wrist and set it on the counter. Al looked at it, expensive yes, but anything that connoted a watch, no. It had a swirl within it, almost like Fibonacci but slightly off. The face had 5 hands on it, none of which pointed to any numbers; 5 hands to count all the wheels of time. It was primarily gold and ruby, but steel— assumedly— was also prevalent. There was also some kind of liquid inside the center piece that looked almost like a jelly— because it didn’t disperse when he set it down; it just stuck together.

“Figure it out yet?” Henry asked. Al shook his head with squinted eyes.

“Thank god, that would have made you smarter than me. Earlier when I made you angry and you felt a rage of some sort, my watch here monitored that.” Al canted his head, “You nearly turned into a zombie but stopped it with your dissociation— impressive, might I add. But, all the while, you were at peace with time.” Henry paused to allow Al time to digest that. Al looked back at him with quiet eyes and said nothing. “This watch here measures Time Dilation,” Henry said again then held a long pause.

Al was remembering the times he felt slow or lethargic, as well as times that he had ended up in places he had no recollection of getting to.

“You remember now?” Henry asked to no avail,

“B-up is a time dilator,” the man said flatly, “The B standing for betwixt, which is an alchemical incantation. Zombies are just the phenomenon that we can come close to explaining fundamentally from a societal standpoint, as well as how the onlooker observes someone under the time dilation psychosis. Someone under the psychosis perceives time so finitely, one preserves their body, mind and consciousness wrapped in their subconscious— the subcon does not perceive time, so you are, for the time being, cut off from it.”

Al was terrifyingly silent but remained calm, to his best, as the man went on.

“After so much induced stress, the brain reshapes itself into an entire muscle designed to, when flexed, dilate its own time; mainly in self-defense against outward pain and forces. The mind becomes one singular muscle designed not to control time, but slow its perception of it. Special operatives use it primarily, but HELENE’s main use of it is Auditory Hallucinations.”

Al wasn’t understanding anything.

“The thing about muscles is their weakness to massaging and vibration. Making the entire mind a muscle— with the exception of the brain stem, because that’s really where your consciousness is stored— you can use vibrations and especially audio to relax the brain. In our case, the use of words.” Henry’s demeanor changed and he began to talk as if he respected Al as a human being.

“HELENE discovered a myriad of phrases that allow them to trigger a group of people’s dilation and navigate them in the way that they want them.”

Al interrupted, “Why do you speak of HELENE like you don’t work for them?”

Henry smiled, “Amazing question, I don’t, I never did. I created them yes, but I left several years ago. They’ve been since trying to recover me.”

Al winced his face, trying to rack his head around the idea of how many secret organizations are at play.

“I am an Alchemist, Albert. I have been searching for the Supreme Elixir: a person that can harmoniously synthesize the dilation elixir and control it.”

Al’s stomach sank, “I now offer you a real proposition, one that money cannot hold a light to— soon money will no longer be a resource.”

Al began to spiral and then Henry tipped over a drink, Al confusedly got up to get out of the way of the spill but the liquid never left the cup.

Henry’s watch was a light and spinning. The jelly inside bubbling, oscillating and folding. It went from a Klein Bottle, to a Tours, then to a Tesseract, then back to and through many unknown shapes of formlessness, “You see,” Henry said, Al now noticing the world had stopped moving— not completely though but it appeared to be at a halt. “There are things that Alchemy has given us that we are just barely uncovering.” Henry spun the dial on the watch, it emitted the ring of a tone that Al couldn’t hear but felt. It spat him out of dilation and the paused drink in the cup spilled onto the floor.

Al was, once again, stupefied.

Standing on his feet, he thought about running out of the cafe and going anywhere but here. Henry reassured him, “Did you know that while under the psychosis, if I were to cut your arm or leg off, you wouldn’t feel it. That the disconnected part of you would operate as if it were still attached. You could hold the quartered piece of you to your eyes and see the muscles and blood flowing and flexing even though it has been severed. You could even wiggle your severed arms and legs; the separation hasn’t happened yet— not at the quantum level. That is where the zombie image comes from.” Henry said, smiling, with a threat of torture.

Al gathered his bravery, “What is it that you want?” he asked, backed into a corner.

Henry considered the answer and did his best to hold the whole truth back, “As you previously heard. HELENE specifies in mind control with the use of B-up and its side-effects. What becomes of that, for the company that is, is the next frontier: To finally push our civilization towards a space-faring one.”

Henry didn’t allow Al to think to himself, “Man as we know it will never come to a humane agreement as to how it will comb through the stars of space and into the beyond. Our time is ticking, and a lot of smart people are taking it into their own hands to shunt humanity into the right direction— by their standards.”

Henry was checking a tablet that was given to him, nodded set it down; he went on, “The project would need the vast majority of the world’s resources and man power. One of which we have beneath our feet and the other, impossible. Man will never willingly sacrifice himself for a grander life that he would never see with his own eyes; we are inherently selfish that way— so we make him. With the technology I have given them, the enslavement of clusters of people will provide them with the manpower that they would need. Zombies would build and work long after a normal death. Semi-immortal workers that need not food nor water nor sleep; that is the most precious resource possible.” Henry wasn’t smiling or showing any signs of bliss from his monologue. He was speaking to Al but from Al’s perspective.

“Where do you fit in with all of this?” Al asked, profusely sweating.

“I’m allowing them their project but I’ve been commandeering a lot of their tech and supplies for my own needs. I’ve been seizing zombies of my own for my own plans for ‘this and that,’ they aren’t so happy about it. But, nevertheless,”

Henry slid the tablet across the counter, “Would you like to do something about all of this, Al?” It was a top-down street map displaying one bright dot darting through an overhead view of the city. There was a second, different-colored dot that was stagnant, for whatever reason, Al knew that the dot that was zigzagging through the city was heading for the static dot.

Henry pointed a white finger to the static dot and said, “That is Chess, and soon, a zombie that HELENE silently released will seek him like a missile and tear him apart.”

Al could see the watch glow along the man’s wrist. Al was petrified.

“They know that one of the three of you is the Supreme Elixir and that if I got to the correct one, then I would bring hellfire down on them. They’re also understanding that the pair of threes is the law that usually dictates when a genius with natural alchemy will be born, lesser known as an Aberrant.”

Al couldn’t keep up with how many things were stacking on top of one another. How annoying and complicated people were turning. How much he just wanted to lie next to Fae, but even she was a part of this fractured world. He did want to just burn it all away— that’s what it all seemed to be asking for anyway.

“Save your brother. Focusing on one thing will make the world much smaller and slower,” Henry said, talking to him from within the inbetweeen. Al turned his head to look at Henry, but his real head did not move. Al looked with different eyes— it felt parabolic. He could look and, simultaneously, see in 350 degrees. Henry broke the silence on Al gaining dominance over time-dilational-viewing(TDV).

“You save him and I will give you all of the means, including the safety of your brothers, to bringing down HELENE.”

Al was tired of listening. He closed invisible hands around himself in his mind, like the clam around a pearl and a deep part of him flexed. He felt ruminations in his mind that calculated thoughts, possibilities, and errors that may happen with many minutes to spare.

Even though both Henry and Al shared a dilated space within the inbetween; Al had dissociated a separate space of time and confided deeper with himself— 35 minutes went by in the blink of an eye unbeknownst to Henry.

Henry’s watch buzzed and kicked both of them out, but even though it was a tool devised to know when time was being altered, it is not adeptly tuned to compete with a mind that was naturally attuned to rule the pure perception of time.

Another first for Henry was alight on his face when he frantically asked, “How did you do that?”

Al questioned with confidence, “You want me to bring my brother back here, correct. I could see him through the buildings, I could sense him by just focusing on him.”

Henry discerned from Al’s eyes that he could have had well enough time to kill him 10 different ways with plenty of time to spare, but he didn’t— a part of Al pitied Henry. The watch wasn’t able to contradict the level of dilation that Al had sunken to; Al had chosen when to come out. He was naturally mastering time dilation, and soon the other perks of it would reveal themselves— Henry was no longer in control of the situation.

“Don’t kill me just yet,” Henry said, pacing the room, “Allow me to observe your journey and assist you. You and your brothers are the culmination of decades of work.”

Al said nothing but walked towards the door where the sleet of rain and hail poured down in tons in the black of night. The world was dark, periodically illuminated by the tears of incandescent lightning.

Henry continued, “I will facilitate you however you may need. My operative, Triumph, will meet you once you’ve reached and rescued your brother; with Glenn in his care of course. Oh, and Al,” Henry said, almost worried. Al did not turn to him though he was listening, “A War is coming, one of which I have not fully chosen the side of.”

Al opened the door and let the howling earth inside; he did not feel the chill on his skin, though he did have goosebumps. Al slowly contracted an invisible muscle that hovered just above the nape of his spine, and the blur of sleet and hail turned into slowly falling pebbles. He saw it all, oscillating between 180 and 350 degrees of vision, premature lightning made a Mandelbrot in the sky: the synapses of the earth.

Al resumed his time and looked back at Henry, “I do this, For All of those that I love.” He then disappeared with a wink of dilated time.

What is also at the whim of a user that adapts to time dilation is one’s ability to remove the restriction that the innate conscious mind puts on the muscles of the body.

Muscles are always at the ready to flex themselves so much so that they could literally tear themselves from the bone, and in cases, tear pieces of bone from themselves: an avulsion fracture.

The secret stimulants within B-up enhance bone density and tendon strength, as well as a psychoactive relaxer that tricks the mind’s limiter, allowing the user to utilize the full capacity of their physical body. This was mainly implemented so that enslaved zombies could lift things many times their body weight during construction.

It was stated that the fastest a human could conceivably run would be 40mph. Without a limiter, with nearly unlimited ATP and no exhaustion, that speed skyrockets exceeding 60 miles an hour, in some cases, exceeding 100 miles an hour.

One under intentional time dilation, their molecules at the quantum level are locked in a static lattice. Similarly to absolute zero, there is no motion—depending on how deep the user has gone. Creating a lattice with the body’s static molecules that is tougher than tungsten, or of any possible bond for that matter. The lattice of static molecules within the entire body makes it impenetrable. One’s mastery of time dilation can make one possibly invulnerable.

Al wasted no time. He blitzed through a stagnant world. It felt like he were floating on air, his gait was a spread of 30 feet between each step. He didn’t need to inhale because it was all still the same breath; there was no need for respiratory functions.

Twinkling arms of lightning still moved quicker than him through the sky, like antennae of a blind animal trying to find the ground. They were etching into the sky in front of him, illuminating the way. He instinctively knew that the lightning was leading him to Chess.

In the slowly falling rain, Al could see a human figure moving much faster than the rest of the world. It really was a zombie running for Chess. But in reality, it was someone who had their mind hijacked by an auditory hallucination and sicked onto Chess, and it was nearly upon him— 500 feet away.

It was a dizzying sight, a slow motion world. Streaks of the car lights he ran past. The long droning of the doppler effect of the world playing one somber held note like the heart beat of a dying whale warbled around him in each new wave of pitch that he passed through.

His eyes were fixed on the zombie that moved faster than everything else through a pausing world; but it was unaware of its hunter.

Chess was halted at the doorway, exiting the building, unaware of the predator that was about to pounce on him.

Al’s gums would be bleeding from the clench of his teeth if his body were aware that it could bleed. The lighting that was looking to arc in the sky had done its job and struck the complex. In that same moment, Al tackled the zombie, tearing its top half off, and slammed it into the concrete building. Just then, the world resumed, both the crackle of thunder and the explosion of two impacting bodies made Chess jump and fall to the ground in completely disoriented fear— he nearly shit himself.

Though the torso and spine of the zombie had exploded on impact, its legs kicked violently, trying to stay standing up, which was not a lost cause; it still had access to its detached equilibrium. The standing legs seemed like they had eyes of their own the way that they faced the petrified Chess who was still on the floor; half way outside the building.

Fear didn’t allow words to come out of his mouth. To his right he heard clattering and squelching but his frozen neck didn’t allow him to take his eyes off of the pair of legs that were standing in the rain; thrashing around as if their top half was an invisible dancer.

The Levi’s kicked up water as they tore towards him, then suddenly, toppled over and stopped completely. The viscera and blood that lay stagnant at the top exploded out into the street; steam coming off the guts left an image in Chess’ psyche he would remember whenever he would later see a hot dish.

Chess finally turned to his right, where a skirmish was taking place; it was one-sided.

Chess wasn’t yet aware it was his brother. Al was tearing and yanking at the torso recklessly. The flailing mass that was trying its best to crawl away failed at its attempts. Its eyes ignored the onslaught that enveloped it; it only sought to do the same to Chess. In Al’s blinding fury, he finally had a thought about the weakness of zombies, the brain: the singular motor that piloted the thing— duh.

Al grabbed the back of the skull and squeezed. Forearm muscles and tendons clocking into overdrive pressed through hardened bone and skin like it was a soft apple, crushing what used to be the cerebral cortex. The zombie’s head went limp and smashed into the wet concrete. Al didn’t bother to wipe the slop from his hands; the rain pelted, wiping his hands of all sin. He still could not feel the cold, but his goosebumps were ever present, reacting to something.

It was his brother.

Chess had drawn the Glock from his coat and centered it on Al, focusing right between his eyes.

Al didn’t flinch or try to move out of the way. He had adequate time to rehearse this exact situation in his head since the cafe. Harkening back to the conversations he and his brothers had all had a few hours after the news broke out about the strange zombie outbreak. They were all discussing, and soon all were in agreement, that if any of them turned into a zombie, they would like to be killed.

The weight of the silence between their understanding eyes removed the moral hindrances that this sort of situation naturally brings out; it was mercy wrapped with an oath.

“They can’t have you,” Chess said faintly.

Al smirked peacefully for once. At least he had saved his brother, damn the rest, he thought in conclusion.

“I love you,” Al sighed.

A spotlight illuminated both of them. They both turned to look; it seemed to be a light 30 feet across that emanated from something hovering above the buildings that was too hard to make out.

There was no feeling of thrust, but the rain had stopped around them; a bellowing permeated all around them that looked like waves of heat. It moved towards them, bathing them in white. Al jumped in front of Chess defensively but felt that he wasn’t able to flex that invisible muscle above his nape; he was not able to dilate time. Is this because of the light? He frantically thought to himself.

Two men in armor dropped from the light above. Their colors were washed out by the background illumination, but one could clearly see that each of the heads had a pair of glowing eyes; they looked like bugs. The two men approached the brothers; one stopped halfway, and the other walked right up to them. Al could clearly see the Kevlar underneath the black Damascus plating.

Al spoke first, “You Triumph?”

The soldier who was farther patiently waved his hand, “That would be me.”

Al’s eyes went back to the familiar height of the man in front of him. The soldier’s helmet made a snapping sound, and it opened in 3 parts.

Glenn looked at him with relief.

Al understood. Chess did not.

“Al!” Chess grabbed his arm. His eyes were fearful and questioning: What about our promises? They pried at Al through unspoken words.

Al’s opposite hand met his brother’s, “It’ll be alright, we’re to go with them.”

Chess looked at Glenn, who was bearing a full suit of military armor. He asked Glenn as well, “Are you sure?”

Glenn replied in kind, “I’ll explain everything in the ship.”

“Ok,” Chess responded. His white-knuckled hand released Al.

Triumph spoke, relieved, “Alright, let’s go. HELENE isn’t going to kill itself.”

Glenn and Al were both aware of how much each of them had changed on their short, unreal journeys, as well as just how much Chess would have to catch up. They all entered the ship of light.

When it silently took off, the rain resumed; as did the thunder, as did time.

What was soon to come was a matter of fury and vengeance against a world that was trying shape itself anew. On the backs and bodies of the countless who do not have the means to fend for themselves.

What comes next will be done for the ones that they love, out of love—

For the ones that they’ll never know—

For those who pray for deliverance from annihilation—

And for those who still believe in the Spirit of the Earth.

A War between the forces of nature and the hubris of man was on the horizon.

He wanted to paint her, how she lay in front of him— though he knew that no mural of herself were be shown to anyone else but him; for this side of a woman was kept so sacred to her that the still section of time a painting represented held not even a flame to the supremacy she held over his heart; art only tried:

Anua lay like viewing a river from top-down. Her bellybutton were a small island in a caramel sea and her belly plump with a present for the cosmos. The river paralleled itself down as her thighs ran their length out to the tips of her toes. Thighs were valleys that converged into a canyon directing his eyes back upstream to the temple of her soul; the palace in which he and her spoke, not with words but the mending of souls:

Two iridescent wisps of smoke wove in and out of each other, leaving sparks and electricity in between; the dance of two galaxies, going back and forth— through and exploring, converging: the type of love that can make a Child.

He continued, letting his eyes wonder the world of her body, “Nelevete has always been a word to me, since I was little. It means ‘the greatest version of a person, place, thing or idea.’ The greatest thing about it is that the properties of it can be transferred to someone, I can share my abilities.” He was smiling as his eyes marched.

The hair along her ear were a sequence of spirals that drained into a cavern that whisked away all sound. Barely visible was the rest of her face, draped behind sheets of curly brown hair, like the wool of a sheep. But through the wool beamed satiated hazel eyes of a wolf.

Her eyes were his favorite, she spoke through them; not that she was soft spoken, but that from her soul she could speak so clearly— words could not keep up. It was as if something unseen was swirling within whenever she looked at you, some ancient calculator and translator that used meta-mathematics to tell you exactly what she was saying: a five pointed clock that swirled as it calculated; The Swirl of Auft.

It was hypnotizing, she was the wolf that could stop her prey with a subtle gaze. Contrary to the title, she was no predator; though she was covetous. As an expecting mother, the world seemed more perilous. Malcolm felt the same way, on top of all that, trying for another child always brings up past agonies.

She felt him waver.

His eyes dropped.

Barriers of the mind did not exist between the two of them. They could see their thoughts and feelings clearly. This was not through magic nor technology, this was the simple chemistry of souls. His imagination was his greatest ability and he was able to share it with her.

His imagination periodically bled out into reality: golden waves of sunlight would permeate the air, with it came a rush of wind from a far away land that smelled of cinnamon and honey. It was as if, for a moment, the entire world was submerged underneath a sea of gold. This was a glimpse at the real Nelevete of his mind; the real land that solely existed to him in the past, present and future; the manifestation of Poetry itself, this was the innate property of his relic.

Anua tugged at him with her eyes and he laid in her bosom. She enveloped him in herself completely. Rain began to fall, suffused with gold from the periodic waves of Heaven, the sky poured; but it did not reach them.

The glimmering rain fell and fell and fell, through and past them. Like streaks of comets, wishes fell from an imaginary Heaven, trying to wash away the sorrow that permeated within the man’s soul; for only the soul was touched by the rain of Heaven, and with it took all impurity and sadness.

“My love, my dear, my symphony, ‘how shall we make the stars?’ is what you once asked me,” she said holding his head as close as she could to her stomach. He was already deep asleep, his locs were strewn about over his face. His mouth was wide and tears crusted his cheeks; he looked serene.

“And I then told you,” She continued, brushing his hair, “That all the stars that have ever been made have been made through love— Be it a quick life or a long one, it was a loved one.” Her tears came out but did not fall, they floated and became gold, whisking into the sky they returned, “Our boy was here for enough time to be loved and love was all he understood; he was a star in the sky and in his parting he returned all he knew back into the cosmos, so if anything,” She looked into the marble sky that made a tri-color swirl, like a calm hurricane, “Let us follow in his footsteps, let us love for the sake of loving.”

Malcolm’s dreams melded within his imagination and all of it projected over Nelevete; a sight that only Anua could comprehend: the sleeping dreams of her lover played itself to its audience of three, “Look, little one, your father is dreaming of you.”

“Hello, this is my artistic interpretation of my journey along side a life crippled by nihilism and suicide. The effects of it on my life, my introspection into what it is, and my incredibly difficult attempt at overcoming it. To reclaim my life and being, living a clear and loving life without its hindrances. This story is my attempt to put the reader into and through my experiences and paint them the picture of what those beasts of the mind look and feel and sound like, enjoy.”

I

Imagine yourself, for a moment, a sea floor with no sea, above you Fog stretches up to the Heavens.

The floor on which you stand chills the bottom of your feet, a porous rock that does not hold heat.

Jagged obsidian mountains tower into the Fog.

Huge craters riddle the hills, the floor, the landscape, as if some ancient giant probed and poked this world with reckless abandon.

You see that these bores plunge deep into shadow but a scent of intuition tells you all these tunnels are connected. You shudder at the coldness brought by the howling of the wind.

“Wind?” a thought whispered into your mind, “what causes this wind?”

A gale that feels like invisible souls trying to flee from something ravenous; devouring the very air itself.

You turn:

A feeling of Chaos slowly drifts into your mind. You hear a rumbling, a second thought takes over the initial assumption that the rumbling is coming from the opaque sphere looming in the distance, but no. It is the fiber of your being telling you to run, now you understand the wind’s hurry— but you cannot, you are paralyzed.

As if the chill of the stone beneath you has ossified your legs, making you and the rock “it.”

Next you hear screaming. No, a high frequency howl.

The sound one would imagine the extinguishing soul of an angel would make. The floor beneath you shudders, that sound is coming from the orb in the distance; you can only assume it is finally acknowledging you finally noticing it; if this object had a mouth it would be agape.

The same smile the teeth of a tiger’s eyes would show when prey has finally taken notice; a gnashing maw, confident as they are sharp as they are hungry.

The fleeing wind pauses in its tracks— an ebbing sea returning back to shore— as if gravity had shifted, changed direction from which it was pulled, and that point was right in the distance: the Maw inhaled.

Wind sneering from behind, like desperate hands trying to cling to anything. You feel weightless at your feet, an invisible mass blanketing your back — pressing you forward.

Your ears can only hear the shearing of sky.

Your mind feels as if your thoughts have no purchase to stand on, you cannot think— you cannot act.

An accretion disk forms and swirls around the orb. Fog and howl pulled in from every angle, its luminosity growing scorching your retinas and melting the surfaces of the mountains near it.

Incandescent arms reaching out from the orb, striking the floor turning the cold, dense surface into pools of lava. Arcs reaching out into the Heavens at speeds of light; “Lightning?” you think.

Arcs of plasma dance on the surface, carving out hieroglyphics; leaving white hot traces in their wake that cool, turn into running lakes of magma. The orb is growing, feasting on wind and rising high into the sky.

A halo of wailing, carnage, hopelessness and chaos spin flattening themselves around a pale white dot in the sky. A disk stretching miles overhead— you’ve seen something like this:

All of the stars in the night sky spinning above you, camera shutter set to long exposure.

A part of you gets a familiar feeling, like you know what all of this is, what each of the bands in all of the rings above you symbolize, that you know what the orb is, and what these towering monolithic rocks are actually made of. You recede into your mind for a second to comb this infantile thought and:

The feast is over.

“The only time you can converse face to face with a monster is when it has a full stomach.” You recount someone telling you this but cannot parse the when and where— This present moment will not give you that luxury: Not a trace of ash remained, nor even the smell of cinder. This level of calculated devouring terrifies you; it screams intelligence.

A black sky with a singular star, tooth-like pillars of obsidian stretching endlessly into the unknown barren night now revealed clearly by the removal of Fog.

You get a sense that stars used to populate the sky and if they did now, that each of these spikes would be pointing at one of them; either trying to hold one on its point or trying to pierce it.

Then you see movement:

Shadows cast by the stark contrast of light and dark swept the landscape. Shadows swept past ravines and valleys, contorted through pores and sharp hills of warped glass; as if the time of day was rapidly changing. Shadows laying down, breaking away from their physical counterparts, splaying out from an epicenter, black fingers stretching like a flower opening:

The Star was descending.

Pressure, it was the pressure you noticed first. Weight on your shoulders as this beast became the horizon; it was massive.

Pillars that reached into the sky melted, bowing down into gelatinous piles as an abomination grew near.

You feel a twinge and ache as the audience to this seeming terraformation.

“Where am I?” the question appears as suddenly as it is dismissed:

A kiss of incandescence flashes beneath the sphere into bedrock; intuition rings again telling you that jolt went deep.

Then the sound finally strikes you bluntly like a drum— for a second the sound felt like it emanated from within you.

Thunder echoing for eons finally gave you a chilling sonogram to the vastness of this place; you can feel its depths both outwardly and beneath you: thunder’s reverberating echoes, pulsating, deep into the labyrinths of catacombs that were carved out by this immense screaming banshee of carnality— eternity could live out all of its days here.

You take notice that the Zap has vaporized all of the air, an omnidirectional thud from its core outwardly punching space. In this airless vacant sky only the creature's light gives one some semblance of up and down.

“Light?” you think, but you sense neither heat nor life from the source.

A creation of its own design, you conclude, to be the very mocking point of Light.

The light it emitted mocks itself; coldness, death, stillness. That is not light, it is not something you can see visibly with one's corporeal eyes. This color, this light, this weight are all things and senses one sees and feels with one’s own Soul!

Only the Soul can behold this monster, only the soul can exist in this realm.

Tapping— No, a warbling.

Distant but it has a time signature, it sounds vaguely like a heartbeat:

Each one fading into the caves, the hollow beats give you a sense of how deep they’re burrowed; this sound is coming from the Orb, it is speaking.

Like the flapping of massive invisible wings, the sound continued in a cadence that sounded like structure, as if someone had been talking into your ear as you were dreaming.

You remember that monsters only talk when satiated, but what is to be one’s first words to something so malevolent and alien?

The very words come to you, some invisible tether behind you volleys the words like paper airplanes cast into a ravine, each inscribed with a word befit for their singular recipient; sender unknown but sent with love.

You say:

Tightness, a silence fell over the Star, a throat constricted by anxiety. The silence finally fit the landscape. The light of Death no longer daunting, but still like a white pupil staring at you from the darkness

It had no further options, although it was just as curious as you were as to why you were here; that now did not matter.

You felt an unseen pair of eyes come off of you and look Down.

Permeating, scanning, probing.

Invisible hands moving like a rushing river wanting to completely fill the caverns beneath you; and finally a lifeline.

An invisible hand composed of a trillion fingers stuck one out in a singular direction and:

The floor beneath the Star flashed a luminous white, the Orb began to descend into a hot liquid sea that was once harder than any material.

You feel gravity sinking around you, following this anomaly descend.

An invisible plane, dictator of up or down, spin or sway, left or right, bent at the whim of an enigmatic monster bereft of remorse.

With the eyes of your Soul you see gravity collapse into a single point beneath the Orb above the surface of the magma. Forming into a cone, and spun like a drill; screeching.

The Star dives in like an infinitely dense pebble dropped into ocean.

A geyser 2 miles high is sent into the sky, spinning tight at the bottom and unfurling at the top; a tornado-like jet ejected from a dark world to illuminate a black Heaven.

The Star blitzed down through layers set on its projected course like an eyeless predator sicked onto the scent of its prey, sprinting on pure instinct.

Hurdling downwards, immovable rock giving way, liquified, as if they meant nothing.

That density and power were concepts that solely belonged to it alone.

“Falling stars,” you think to yourself.

No, detritus falling back down from being spat out, “all the stars in this sky are false,” you amend.

A cavern a mile across spanned out in front of you, golden lava pouring into the chasm like waterfalls in the Gardens of Babylon, “It’s running to hide,” you believe for a second, “No,” something else amends, “plan-D.”

When all else failed, next comes mutual assured destruction. Intuition, again, hits you like cold water: The monster has reached its depth.

II

Think back, back to right before you were born. Not birth, conception. Not the love making of your parents, back to when the universe first conceived of You; when it made time, it made room for the very possibility of you to come into this world:

The concept of you existed long before your birthing. Here, you existed in a Sky.

A Sky with no floor to look up from; for floors are made for the soul to walk— you are way more than that.

The Pin predates the Soul, moreover it is the foundation.

The Soul is the body for the Pin much how one’s Body is the Soul for one’s Mind, it is incased.

Reactions happen Inwardly into the Outward.

Since before your conception this is how it has been.

“My conception?” you think to yourself. “Created, Creator, what created me?”

Natural thoughts, really. Even more natural and what follows suit is the pursuit of the answers to such questions.

Instinctually, while in pursuit, you turn around or look up, metaphorically even, as if you are the Watch and the Watchmaker is behind you mid-assembly; nothing but the empty space staring back at you.

It is natural to think that the looming breath and gentle eye watching all that you do is behind you. It is natural to think that creation is a singular, outside and linear force. It is natural to see something outside of yourself and feel distance, to perceive individuality. It is natural to think and even think that You are here and something else must be There.

It is unnatural, though, to believe that your Creator, the Creator, a Creator, your very Creation, anything and everything, would come from anywhere but from inside of you: You have Created Yourself.

How was Lethudenia formed, how is a child grown, how is a Star made, from where does a flower sprout, where does love and joy and sadness and loneliness and the cold and the warmth and laughter and the memories — from where do they emit? From the Inside!
From that very PinPoint, it is all built from The You to The Out; We have all Created Ourselves!”

“Now, there is a man that is sick. He is on Earth, his name is Malcolm, he is 121 years old; bedridden. Go to help him, see if he needs it, see if he wants it. He expects you, is expecting us.

“His situation is problematic. He has made contact with a detractor, a ‘parasite’ he calls what he has found in the depths of his Pin. In woven strands of interpretation he has communicated to us that he has a conundrum of which he needs dire help deciding the fate of not only himself but for existence.

“His plea is one of uniqueness and of great intrigue as well as importance to us and our Space. Go and observe him and his detractor. We know of not how he made contact, or of its extent, nor of the detractor’s reaction and/or responses. If Malcolm is coerced and they decide to work together– there is no telling of what is possible of the capabilities within the bottomless pits of malevolence. An issue being that we received his message 90 years after he had sent it, the message traveled a long way. Things may have changed since then.

“These two shouldn't even be aware of each other's existence. Should the worst come to pass, we will make an exception. Now Go, shut yourself and allow me to transport you into Him.”

The shutting always came so naturally to the You.

As if you had a pair of wings as soft and deep as the Sky around you. They closed around you like an impregnable shell of glimmering Greens, Purples, Oranges, with stratum of Gold and liquid Diamond.

Sleep winked from inside of you like a firework in slow motion, the mother of boundlessness took you back into her nurturing arms and whispered unto you as if she were making a secret wish for her and her alone to hear:

You’re back, at the precipice of here and the nowhere; you’re back in the Emont as we call it: the bottom floor of the Soul. Within Malcolm’s desolate Soul-scape you witness something finally familiar, a sunrise.

No, you stop yourself with squinted eyes, it is the tolling of a silent bell and with it the bringing of cleansing: flame.

An opaque orange peeling layers of black from the sky.
Spouts of flame roaring from beneath, jet nozzles turned to maximum blew their fire out of the tops of mountains putting to shame any volcano; blazing into void.

It was as if you were an ant staring up at the flames of a giant roaring furnace. Spear-like jets stab out of every orifice of this world; darkness no longer dominated this realm.

Emont begins breaking apart, great chunks drifting away into blazing space.

Continents of spires and spikes gently rotating as if they became new celestial bodies trying out a new movement for the first time. Rock igniting and being jettisoned away from the ever spewing of the unbearably hot streams of energy, vaporizing those it touched. Great islands in the sky separated by a silent sea, a glistening horizon speckled with small black dots in every direction, you knew that even far away what was happening here was happening there; everywhere— the silent and violent unpuzzling of a world, of a person.

This was the end.

The apocalypse was broken by wailing.

You hear shrieking and you know it is from that luminous banshee.

From the depths below you picture it:

A creature whose appearance defies description but hands mangled with rigor mortis yelled as if it the very act kept it alive. Its throat undulating, toothless chin quivering, head canted upwards and eyelid twitching from its guttural cry; a rotten scowl illuminated by the false black light of an inverted Heaven. An encased plague of disease and disaster carves its name into the Emont purely through its own sheer agony and wretchedness— unwriting and uprooting would be the direct translation of its name.

Then, nothing— silence.

Pillars of light erupting from mountains and craters and caves recede shyly back into the dark depths returning shadow and mystery to the landscape.

Your heart pounds with bewilderment, you are confused but also turn ill.

A wrenching feeling swirls in your gut, a feeling of being mistaken takes root within you and you feel something is awry. Almost as a confirmation, lightly breaching the silence like a leaf landing atop a calm lake, a voice; you hear talking.

It’s subtle but distinct and it’s coming from the bowels of the lightless gape in front of you.

Your mind turns with confusion, “who is speaking and to what?”

Only one way to find out and that is to plummet into the unknown; you take the leap, unsure of what kind of fate you will lay your eyes upon at the bottom; the foundation level.

The Blight that was searching for the Pin found its target and began its ritual of destroying itself and the target but— it subsided and stopped completely.

What happened, what changed, what did it find? Ideas running through your head knowing that behind your eyes another pair watched as well:

Headquarters.

Lethdenia taking in all the information from your internal thoughts to the surroundings all captured and dissected by expert eyes. There have been no interference, no updates, no retraction from the other end.

You feel as if you’re not the only one that has never seen these behaviors, that their silence but ever present watchful eyes begged you to continue on; even if that meant some sort of harm could come to you— you felt expendable.

Descending down into darkness would have made you second guess whether or not you were moving, if it had not been for the pressure on your shoulders careening you downward. Many eyes behind your own remain peeled in anticipation as to what lies beneath, you felt no more than a drone guided by a remote control from beyond.

Your eyes winced as a small thought came from you, you thought about turning back—being elsewhere— you feel the first onset of fear take hold.

More pressure atop your shoulders in direct response to your infantile thought.

Finally, you reach a clearing, your chest inflating at the expanse that’s been carved out in front of you.

You plunge downward into seemingly another sky of an equal amount of dark, gently illuminated from further below; two small lights sparkle in the distance past your feet. They look like a binary star system, instead of being above you are peering down at them, like Heaven had been inverted and You were the demon coming out of Hell.

If you had teeth they would clench as you drew near.

Two things come into view as you drop to eye level: two people that were locked in a conversation came to a halt at the entrance of a third party.

In front of you the back of a human silhouette and over their shoulder at a distance a huge gentle roiling of black smoke and glass; smoke and glass that if anything walked within nose distance would immediately turn into a fine mist of their fundamental building blocks.

You feel familiar eyes looking back at you from behind that wall of smoke, “Was this the same Star from before, did it change— what had happened to it?” You think to yourself but you also sense these thoughts are congruous with the many that watch through you.

Despite your desire to, you feel a joystick command you to walk forward but a hand is solemnly raised back to you.

The back of the hand facing your direction pausing you in both a greeting to your existence and the human gesture of “I will get to you in a second.”

A young brown face looks back at you over the shoulder, an eye of amber and a gentle smile assures you of your well-being.

The man says, “It is nice to meet you, I am glad you have come. Just moment longer, please.”

“Maclolm,” a vestige voice says to another from beyond you, Headquarters discussing amongst themselves.

Squinting an eye you probe, asking the Watchers over your shoulder, “He does not look over 100, why is he so young here? No older than 30. Does not seem to be as decayed as his body in the outside realm. Could this be evidence of the use of a Strait?”

A pause from HQ, “No,” a multi-figured voice rang, this one was not familiar to you, there must be a lot of important eyes watching on this expedition, you mumble to yourself.

It continued flatly, “Locomotion of Pin is still producing a wake. Ahsees does not reflect aberration associated with a Strait. Further information needed. Though, an anomaly has been detected in the subject's speech. Conflicting tones, cadence, intonation, pitch and efficacy are self-evident of our speech. Non-use of the word ‘a’ in greeting was intentional and more or less necessary for our dialect; the word ‘a’ takes listener out of trance or it completely locks them in one. He is showing he knows of us, we the Watchers and has adequate use of our knowledge— dangerous. Sit back, keep distance and observe. When he speaks, dissect words. We will abort you if speech is harmful or self-destructing. For now switch to Root :‘I,’”

You shudder at the blunt desperation of this request. This must be the real deal, Roots are rarely changed, especially in matters like these. The needles of fear tapping up your neck at the wholly uncertainty of it all.

The voice interrupted, “Your conjecture of the matter must stay the same. Root: I is only for probable combat against his foreign speech and unpredictability; Alpha is your given name under Root: I. We will be here. We will be watching. Remain on course, we will not gamble.”

III

Now, close your eyes and open your heart to the current of the world you inhale and gather:

An infinite sky moves both above and beyond you, indifferent to the kicking feet it engulfs. You stretch out your hand, two more, thirty more, a hundred more mirror your arm in a corporeal dance of the same gesture. Once a gelid ravine now a prismatic meadow of melancholic sonder. An arm composed of a thousand infused hands all granted a single wish suffused to the master’s body; an indelible hopefulness blossoms within the shared heart of the thousand— a flower yes, but the inverted kind. The center of the flower poked deep into the abyss like the iris of an unknown God, the thousand petals torqued counter-clockwise and the iris swallowed; drinking the Sea unquenchably.

Satiated, the flower turns into a bud then back into a thousand hands, each by each the hands peel away back into your soul holding a star in each palm; layering themselves onto your Pin. With sufficient energy gathered, you nestle yourself within your pin. A nest it becomes, all around you, light pouring in from all sides like a new night sky in every direction. You lay still in your universe, just you; you are at the center of your soul. The center of everything that you have known and will be. Here and now, you begin to think:

A single sparrow amongst a flock, gliding and dancing uninterrupted in space. A sparrow with a stripe painted white on its back since birth. It is from the flock but staunchly different from the rest. The dance persists, the undulation holds you captive. Something remote within you swells and hums in a prayer unbeknownst to the others— a fist around your Pin clenches, straining to turn the cog. The sparrow you are, freckled one, notices a small light: The exit. Brothers and sisters all swarm in a cloud around you— dancing gayly in blinded bliss, enraptured by the love they live by. The flock struggles and gyrates mirroring each other as you stretch and crawl for the exit. Banking left and then hard right, the exit shifts and then closes. A new opening reveals itself to you, right and further away— you persist. The fist grasping the Pin with all its might, torquing and straining; towards the light— the exit winking and beckoning.

Flapping wings turning to arms, feathers to fingers, beak to mouth: formless to form.

The exit now within grasp, your Pin giving way to the straining to become yourself.

As the fist revolves your universe; you, alone, exit into the light and soar into the wondrous sky— into the Root: I.

A soul has manifested and individualized:

I wished to apologize to you Malcolm but another voice from beyond my own came out, “We have no need for introduction, you already know why we are here and what we are,” something else said from within me.

Malcolm closed his eyes in acknowledgment, he was contemplating something.

He was wrapped in a thick grey shroud that covered everything to his feet. It had a hood that couldn’t possibly hold all of his hair and a maroon scarf was tucked inside but wrapped warmly around the neck.

Half his face was masked while he lowered his head, raising he said, “Would you believe me if I were to tell you that I have changed my mind?”

“Immaterial,” another voice boomed from within me, “we have observed first hand your adept use at Ahsees manipulation up and past the first degree.” I felt as stone, my jaw moving on its own, but it isn’t what I wanted to say.

The man in front of me, now dawning the first shine of something akin to a scowl, retorts, “This isn’t a—”

We interrupt, “All of the necessary steps needed. We believe it no longer to be an “if” you will but a “when” you will use the Lathe— and such banned weaponry of the Pin just like it.”

Malcolm visibly paused and narrowed his eyes. I could tell his frustration wasn’t so much directed at the voice within me, it was more of how linear its thinking was.

Just because there are many such weapons of the soul, it does not mean they will be used at first opportunity.

Then, like the an ocean speaking all at once, “Gratuitous,” the writhing mass behind Malcolm broached. It raised into the air as to be seen from behind him, appearing like a crown of glass contorting a torrent of entropic fundamental gasses, “Since when does the False Heavens interfere with the acts of the small. What is it that strikes the fear of us in all of you.” It’s voice fit nothing my mind could picture.

Formless entities like this aren’t supposed to even have a voice, and word composition would be impossible to even imagine for such a beast. Why was it speaking, how does it know of us so poignantly?

“Flaunting observation and nobility like you’re ethical when, ironically, you’ve sent an emissary with a bomb strapped to their chest.”

Bomb?

“Is it talking about me, what is it talking about Headquaters?” I asked the tether over my shoulder.

Why does everything feeling like it’s spinning? I still can’t move my body.

“Lethu, clarification!” I scream to the back of my mind.

A familiar voice clears the silence, “The subject is confused, there is no bomb or weapons of destruction. The Blight is referring to your deep excess of rationed Ahsees. This is in case you were needed to operate for long periods of time on your own or go into a hibernation within the host. It cannot be triggered for detonation nor can it work in that way. Malicious entities only see Ahsees as a tool for destruction and terraformation, ignorance.” the voice ended.

Why don’t I feel reassured from this, could it just be my own fear and paranoia?

Regardless, I must trust my makers.

The conversation resumed, both parties holding their cards close to their noses, “Malcolm, why and how were you able to halt the Blight’s assault on your Pin?” another voice took control over mine.

Two eyes of Halted Sun’s scanned my person, up and down, around and out. The eyes look this way because a person that has unified the conflux of their soul is able to see the full spectrum of Ahsees and everything below it.

This manipulates the pupils, almost inverting the way they’re used. The soul escapes through the eyes into space, reading and feeling everything it sees. Natural born eyes blessed to recite poetry.

A golden orange ungulates in the center of the person's eyes, the very windows to the soul have been opened and poured out into the world— staring back into whatever holds its gaze down into its Spiritual foundation.

I felt him looking directly at me, past the audience casting their questions at him, over the shoulders of all the clamoring and shouldering, Me, he was peering at me!

I felt I had to say something, I could read he was at least beckoning me to say anything.

These words came from me and me alone.

So tender and young, so adolescent and unrefined; but so true to me like the warmth that awaits me adorned in the Sky back at home.

I addressed the silence between me and his silent stare, “I— I do not know, what do you want. Why are you looking at me? I am just a drone for them to observe through. I have nothing to offer you, please let us just get all of this over with.” I turned my eyes away from his.

His mouth moved in silence and pieces within me moved with it: moved in accordance.

The hairs on me swayed back at him, a part of me had given an answer to whatever he had said unbeknownst to myself, some deeper part of me was answering back.

I mustered the only words that made sense, “What?” I strained perplexedly. My question was a small wave in a sea of bigger and bigger waves trying to reach the shore that was He.

I don’t like it, the suffocation. The closeness of the moving bodies, someone else steering my own. I don’t like to be piloted, it’s not fair— I do not care about any of this, not what Malcolm is accused of nor whatever he is up to. It doesn’t concern me! I wan— gasp.

“Is that what it is you asked me?” I said so silently, nearly to myself.

I could no longer see the man on the shore, there were too many ahead of me trying to pry and probe at him.

From behind me I felt the words spell out vividly into my mind’s mind,

“What is it that you want, Alpha?”

That was precisely it though, what do I want? “I want—” I had almost forgotten my stance, my definition, my servitude, my job, the very thing I was created to do.

In looking up my eyes were met with a sea of other eyes peering back at me like it was the most abominable thing they had ever seen— eyes looked back at me petrified with either fear or disgust, I could not tell.

The sea of encroaching inquisitors had turned their backs on Malcolm and all focused on me, countless terrified eyes burning back at me frozen with just as much contempt as they were silent. An eternity went by before the thought finally rang back at me, “I am sorry,” was the only thing I could weakly muster.

Shit, they can feel and hear all that I think! I remembered to myself an eternity too late, but how is it that I have forgotten this or, more of, how was I numb to that fact? “I do not feel good,” I truthfully spoke back to HQ and to the mob in front of me.

The one voice that always had given me chills rang out from some inconceivable distance away but the words erupted from the core of my being with a flat ineffable indifference:

“Pin’s rhythm connotes Centrism. Inviable synchronicity bred vacant enigmatic clusters,” A pause that blanketed the voices in my head, floating over held breath an invisible auditor ran a subroutine:

“Super-Cluster Ganglia detected. New branch, post-creation. Interfering with step-to-step instructions between relay and automaton, splinter creates vacuum for new hosts; aberrational third party hijacks systems— Give me moment.”

I felt cold as ice as someone sifted through me like a filing cabinet, flashlights for eyes and hooks for claws searching and digging to sink into something irrevocably alien.

“Here,” it parsed, reeling in a fish from the deep void; the ubiquitous confines of my newly formed mind and whatever had been growing there.

Pointing to, but not hooked, a conflux of tumors bubbling up and pulsating with blinking strata of indigos and exotic colors; it looked like grapes standing up on its vine:

“Foreign mimetic cyst, it is thinking, rip it out and whole system uncoils, painful death.”

Me? Thinking? ‘It,’ the voice called me.

“Effective immediately, we are to pull Alpha out. This sorry excuse of an expedition is over, the Regent will have our heads,” A stern familiar voice finished.

A tugging feeling yanked at me then I settled back into the balls of my feet.

Although I could not hear them, the fact that I could not be pulled out, I just knew that the alarms blared louder and louder at HQ as the threat level of my situation increased.

“Can’t pull him out—”

“They’ll discover us—”

“—it’s not responding to the—”

Bits and pieces I heard as the roaring of stress increased in my head.

“Yes, we will have to, if this doesn’t correct itself—”

Then, full silence.

The audience of black silhouettes in front of me now receded like ink dissolving in water, Malcolm’s eyes pierced the mire; an unchanged gaze held me.

The ink separating us now turned into wisps of black sheen as Malcolm went to say but the gargantuan swirling decahedron behind him interjected rifling through the wind as it said, “They plan on destroying their emissary and taking us with you. As I was getting to, L’hute, (L’hute is generally a word used as a formal greeting/gesture to newborns and/or pupils.) master’s aren’t as divine and free of malice as they claim to be. You were always made to be a weapon of war and reconnaissance, and as a weapon of war, anything they do not like they tweak or destroy— or tweak and destroy.”

The topography of Malcolm’s expression was a silent acknowledgment at this truth, though, also reading, he would have liked to have put it nicer.

“Your heart,” the deity continued, “Is a bomb, one chromatic change in the crystalline lattice that vibrates faster than your Pin has all but a thought it’ll implode on itself. Space can’t get any smaller than the size of the Pin so it reverses all of that collapsing energy outward. A spontaneous, painless explosion and compression of mass. Your soul, your memories, your thoughts and ambitions, all you wanted to and meant to be, converted into energy; some say that lifetimes away could even detect a disturbance of this magnitude— a crude bomb and a crude death. Look at us, L’hute,” The roiling mass ionized the air around it as it arose, matter coming apart like hair; a lion pushing out its chest, “Are we monsters deserving of such a fate? Are you just a bomb?”

Pandemonium behind my gaze, whatever Headquarters was trying to get to me or get me to do was stunted and suppressed.

There was just so much buzzing in my head, I couldn't discern if it was my own thoughts or those trying to force their way into my head.

I felt that any slew of those fighting actions and commands would be just one of the keys that fit into the self-destruction slot. At any moment, should it slip through the cracks, we would all be annihilated in an imperceivable instant— if there really was a bomb and it really was my heart, that made me sad.

I am so afraid. I still cannot move, I want to scream!

“I do not believe in you and your faiths,” Malcolm said finally looking away from me, “I have seen all there is to see of you lot. Your welcome is overstayed.”

I had never noticed his coat having pockets until he pulled his hand out and gestured it at me, palm up, halving the scale to weigh his side, “I do not believe, anymore, that the they— or unity— that you are is the end all goal for existence; you are not the panicle of spiritual evolution— and through my plight I will prove of that.”

Knowing that they couldn’t speak through me but they could clearly hear he was talking to them as his eyes found mine again, eyes glowing like the sun peered into me, one reflecting a sunset and the other a sunrise; the solemn glow of the perpetual duality.

I felt a sense of balance that exists exactly between up and down, he directly asked me in this imaginary realm, “What do you think, Alpha?”

The white hot flame of anxiety rushed at my nape, my eyes locked forward. Malcolm’s eyes held the twin horizon stuck in time, nothing else existed.

I had remembered the warnings, remembered and noticed the small ticks I was to look for that Malcolm graciously gave away, but still I had allowed it all to happen still, why?

A muffled sound trying to pierce the infinity right behind my ears, sounding like countless feet stomping on bleachers.

I knew it was the spastic and desperate calls of my jailers trying to yell instructions and take control but it wasn’t getting through. Only the muffled stomping, a rising bass, a crescendo heralding the coming of the great Unknown that Malcolm foresaw; all that was left was to answer the question: Alpha— Alpha answer the question.

The ensemble reaching its climax, my mind almost drowned in the cacophonous orchestra then, nothing.

Silence, weightlessness, I can breathe resolutely. No sound— I can hear my own breathing finally.

Like waking from a dream, my vision returns; Malcolm’s eyes resume but closer.

During the tumultuous onslaught that occurred in the frantic and unorganized seize of control over me, Malcolm took his time, closed the distance and placed his hand against the back of my neck; it all happened within the fraction of a second but no millisecond spared on unnecessary movements: Malcolm had severed the hair-thin thread that linked me to the outside world.

“Your answer,” he said soundlessly, although I can never recount whose voice it really was that asked me that. Nevertheless, my words came up and through me as real and soft and as true as the opening morning flower, “I want to live.”

The weight of these very words from the chasm of my soul washed through and out of me whatever poison and shadow that had lurked in their unseen depths.

Light brown jewels returned to Malcolm’s eyes as his eyes returned to normal; as did a cheek to cheek grin that nearly hid the very eyes, “I knew we had something in common,” his joy tore through him like a kid on Christmas.

Still bewildered and recuperating, I finally came to and asked, “What hap— what did you do?” I hadn’t even noticed that he had taken his hand off my nape until the same hand pointed down behind me, I obediently looked where his finger led.

A translucent cord, barely visible, miraculously thin and impossibly long stretched like a spider web back into the ether.

“I have only severed the connection to you, it is still operating, connect it back to your head and you’re back in, back with them,” he said reluctantly, “I wanted to give you a chance, time to think on your own accord of what you wanted. To lay the facts in front of you and allow you to choose. Though,” he started through a sigh, “Should you reconnect, as Oak pointed out, I’m sure the signal of self destruction would be the very first through the pipeline, I’m sure it’s buzzing right at the tip of the cord there, automated.”

A torrential chill enveloped me at that thought.

Even if I tried to communicate with them, the very first second I tried to connect I would be terminated.

“Just wanted to give you a heads up but still allow you to make the choice, I am not holding you hostage.” He turned and took a few steps away from me, giving me space to ponder.

Of course I don't want to die but— what else is there, what, “What are you intending to do now?” I asked, feeling well and unshackled.

He did not look at me but he looked up at the idle figure, something that threshed against anything holy and lawful, “Just as you said,” he said to all of us, “we want to live.”

He faced me and gestured a welcoming hand to shake. For the first time I moved. Openly and freely, I felt that I could run a million miles an hour if I wanted to, felt weightless but whole. It was irrefutable that this all belonged to me and something inside me smiled back at me noticing this.

I met his hand and mimicked the human greeting, he said gleefully, “Welcome to the rest of your life,” his shake was firm like his whole body was carried through the strength of his hand, “I am Malcolm, as you know, and that,” he pointed behind him with his thumb, a cyclone oscillating between a diameter of 25-30 meters at any given moment wrought with both: whatever is left of you after death and the very thing that brings it.

“That is Oak, well I named it Oak and it didn’t immediately kill me for it; so I took it as approval. When it’s Root is: I, it reminds me of that particular tree. It also reminds me of the Great tree from myth. Not the Tree of Life but where the very tree that the one of life had got its fable from; the thing that all trees have taken their shape from, an homage to it, a Grand tree. A great branching living diagram adorned with glinting stars at the tips. My guess as to what this machination is as good as anyone’s. But Oak here reminds me of it,” he finished with a shrug.

Curiosity got the better of me because I could not recall if he had answered or not, “How was it that you ceased the war between you two?” He paused for a moment, chewing on his thoughts, returning his hands to their neatly sewn pockets,

“I just talked to it.” He admitted shrugging, feeling content with the simplicity of the choice of words.

At times the best solution to the worst scenarios are the simplest ones.

“Though,” he continued, “the work between it and I is not done just yet, but we very well all may die here before we can get there,” he finished with a chuckle.

I almost didn’t hear that last part.

“What!” I croaked.

“You know the Hell Flies or even Hell Hounds, whichever one has filtered through the crack first.”

It struck me like a drum, the Hell Flies: the scavengers of the Realms. They exist on the very outskirts of the soul. Hatching when you’re nearest death and careening towards your center, swallowing everything in their path. They devour Emont, or the bedrock/foundation makeup of one’s soul through means of equal annihilation: accelerating their mass up to imperceptible speeds in an exchange of equal destruction— being that they are also made of the host, they also have to be destroyed for the full cycle of destruction.

They are a literal Ram Scoops devised for speed and precise demolition, inhaling Ahsees and converting it into thrust as quickly as it takes it in; the longer it travels the faster it becomes.

The words found me, “Some got in didn’t they.” I proclaimed, “the carnage on the surface up there, it wasn’t entirely done by the Blight?”

“Done by Oak,” Malcolm retorted.

“Yes,” he continued, “the majority of the damage to my Emont is from Hell Fly onslaughts over the decades. Pesky bugs. have you ever tried to pluck anything out of the sky that exceeds relativistic speeds? Most of the worlds and stars in my sky were all either destroyed or plagued with the bugs. Oak finished most of them off in that solar dance while searching for me, seemed that it had factored that it no longer needed any more disturbances from deep space.”

I was silent in my bereavement of someone that was a helpless witness to the collapse of their own being.

He continued in a solemn melancholy, “I stood up there for years watching the red-tinted glow of the burners snuff out the lights in my Sky. The screech of the thrusters endlessly rang in both my ears and through the heavens as the autonomous murmuration swarmed and burned their jets bright. Watched a star be indifferently swept aside by a single drone, it double backed, passed back and forth through it like a sewing needle; gaining more speed as it siphoned through the giant. It then deposited all that speed and mass into the face of one of my favorite planets to look at— brilliant rings it had. I fashioned that planet out of the memory my parents and I shared when they got me the Transformer I had wanted for Christmas.

“Fashioned a whole planet to that keepsake alone. Then, in an instant that beast of Hell vaporized half the planet on impact, the initial explosion of the drone touching the atmosphere melted the rings and gases alone; one nanosecond later it was passing through the core—and detonating. The remaining back half of the memory I erected as a beautiful planet dissolved into a fiery mist under the transferal of the entire mass of its neighboring sun cranked up over a thousand fold and sped near the speed of light.

“Flecks and sometimes whole chunks, that survived apocalypses, burned up crashing into this bedrock. Quiet out there in my Sky, except the omnipresent screaming of wings that were on the course of ending all that I am. Singing, echoing and announcing itself as the curtain call opera, the eulogy of my Soul.”

He was looking up, past the ceiling of the cave we stood in, up into the sky, recounting the events over the years; I wonder what this all must’ve looked like before Hell came to take it back.

“You know that little strand that connects you to them, the wiring I severed from you,” he jerked up with his chin at some far distance, “it’s left a small break in the seam.”

I spun around looking and feeling back up the strand to the unseen distance. Right in the beyond where the barrier of one’s Pin meets the essence of the soul, crawling out from the tiniest point you reach the wall:

The egg’s shell— the cloud of the Pin— the albumen surrounding yolk.

The Emont is the floor of the yolk, the most center. Just above, or beyond, the Emont the yolk of the Soul starts. Further outward (billions of light years away relatively speaking due to the soul being many orders of magnitudes smaller than an atom: this is the resonant field that everything operates on), you make it to the mind, the body, the cosmos.

Just at the surface of the shell of the Pin a tiny bore is created, an outward force sent in a curious probe at the behest of Malcolm’s cry for help at the end of his life. They sent me in through that tiny hole and here I am. Looking back at the way I came, the bore still remained, an easy entrance for anything on the outside, although very tiny; any kind of puncture at the side of anything thought to be impenetrable would be an offer that no denizen of Hell could pass up.

Although I could not feel them, I knew that Malcolm could.

“I hid from them you know,” he said to me, “I wasn’t keen on fighting them off until my late 90’s. It didn’t occur to me that I had the strength to until I needed to. Nothing makes you second guess yourself, makes you question your beliefs and motives like staring death in the eyes.”

Looking at Oak he continued, “In our talk, I had previously thought that you were something out of some cosmic religion. Something so defamed, repugnant and devoid of hospice that it was thought impossible that you could be a mere condition of myself. That you had to have been born elsewhere, outside of me— an Archon, a demon from another faith. But in my study at the rim of my closing life, I saw that you were the closest thing to myself.

“That you were a torrential talent, a fireball that would not extinguish, that you carried and embodied my ineffable desire for the more; for the storming rage that creases the fabric of Space and Time— the howling mortal man drowning in the ceaseless consuming ocean of life. Oak is my lifeforce embodied and mutated into the thing that, sure, vilified itself and made me its enemy, but it did so as to push me— to push us. I found that to be so poetic,” he smiled to himself.

“A younger me would have been irritated at this latently beautiful poetic meaning that spurred such a second-wind within me but I felt no callousness after it all. I remember opening my eyes in that stagnant cot secluded in the Appalachian mountains. 100 years old, my body was so withered and still I grinned happily. I'm still there now, perhaps I'll wake up there again but this may be the final frontier.” he looked down and consoled himself.

I did not really want to ask but I did, “The Hell Flies, are they heading for us now?” swallowing back my nerves. He looked past me into a great distance for a short time.

His eyes met mine along with the ice of his words, “They are already here, have been waiting in the belt above the Crown; Some— 6 million miles out of orbit.” his words cut me deep with terror.

Frozen air prevented me from getting anything out, though he heard me, “They have been there since I severed your thread, it spooked them when I did that. They’re waiting and watching to see what we do here next.”

I didn’t want to look up, the thought of the sky scared me beyond belief, I couldn’t.

“I know you’re afraid, you have every right to be. Coming into a world surrounded by such ambiguity, terrifying monsters and decisions. Everything happening to you in such a short amount of time and now even peering at the Heavens makes you uneasy; where do you belong?” he ended, almost rhythmically.

Something bubbled up from inside of me, I felt tired. What governed such compunction within me that turned my drive astern?

“Was it you,” if we were to die soon, I needed some answers, “this Super-Cluster of cysts within the my network?”

A small squint in his eyes seemed as if he was turning the pages back.

“That was not me. That cluster that has become an emergent tumor erupted and spurred on its own, though—” He paused and gently gestured to the soon tomb around us all, “We are at the Emont. You are in the basement of my creation. The radiation here has been kneading at you since the very beginning. I cannot deny that the subconscious energy that permeates within you even at this very moment now had not nestled into the recesses of that vacant cyst and injected a part of Me in there.”

I bit my lip, trying to calculate and understand the possibilities of if the thoughts I have now are mine or something else imitating its own-self.

He jumped ahead, “Now if you think that I may be able to have influenced you in some way; I am also unaware of how to do so, so I can neither confirm nor deny. These forces are still all new to me and I know not of how deep they may go. But—”Joy sparkled around him, “I do very much wish to find out.”

He grinned and moved with excitement, “Alpha,” he charted the calculations in his mind before saying, “It will take them all but 20 seconds to reach us, the Flies.”

I gulped at the thought, he was priming me for a question the landscape had been waiting on:

Hell Flies. Attackers waiting off coast, sharpening their knives. Marauders lie in wait, unblinking, in distant space; listening.

“Before I get to it, may I formally ask you to join us in our pursuit of The Great Work? That is what I am calling it.”

I was taken a bit aback, “Like you were saying earlier?”

His eyes watched me patiently, almost in step with my line of thought.

I begin to pace around and think.

“Alpha.” he calmly spoke, as if he were giving me that name.

Without even looking at him I felt the smile in his eyes as well as the epiphany in my being; the realization of something small in the corner of my heart. An apparition that had always been there, black as a dream and cool as a breeze; it rested against the wall of my soul undetected passively watching me.

I had only noticed it now when Malcolm said my name and this phantom blinked its unmoving eyes off of me and at something across from us.

I, too, looked at nothing that garnered its attention, and thought of the exact words as Malcolm mouthed them came to me.

“I want to continue the Great Work of whatever God it was that had started this all,” he said almost in a reverie.

I was trapped in a sense of familiarity, and not a good one. The kind of familiar one would feel in a place they feel they’ve been to before but that place harbored unwelcome memories and wasted efforts.

“What is going on?” I grunted into my palm, covering my mouth while I tried to think hard on if this is an illusion or if it's really happening, “What the fuck was that shadow in— was that my Emont, was this consciousness just now developing one?”

This was all I could focus on, I know that the radiation from his Ahsees at this level can cause apparitions and wanders of the sleeping mind but for it to be so— vivid and equanimous strikes fear into me:

“A room— the room? Why was I in a room, Emonts are supposed to be huge, this was tiny?”

“I want to continue the Great Work because I feel a strong calling to it,” Malcolm broached my introspection, “No one, of course, knows exactly what it was but I do believe that the unity that your commanders wanted is the wrong and opposite direction. They’re seeking how to refine immortality. I believe that the path of the Individual is the correct approach as the beginning steps— and I have a clue.”

My eyes snapped to his and his smile returned as he knew that would certainly garner my attention, “You can answer my question at a later time my friend. Let me show you why I know our path to be true— and this is where my fair-share stops, Oak. I need you to uphold your end, should I be right.”

The proprietor of odium shifted something around us, my internal barometer instantly kicked itself into the red, purple if my scale were vast enough, my ears popped.

“I surmise the Flies will have to react in the affect of your telling,” Oak sighed.

I could feel the eye, maybe eyes, of Oak canting upwards; zeroing in on the coven above.

Malcolm began, his eyebrows jumping up each time he said the word any, “The best way to know if you are any bit correct in anything you debate anyone in,” Malcolm alleged, “is the reaction on the faces of those that detest you when met with your proofs!” he held a finger up like a student.

The air grew immovably dense with the concentration of Oak, it was watching the drones to see their reaction to what Malcolm was going to say.

In a poker match with all of the beings of the Realms, Humans are the undisputed champions of the Poker Face; androids and automatons are not.

Did he go through all of this just to get here and see how the ones that watched him would react?

There was a click somewhere but I knew I would never be able to figure out where it came from.

Poised he beckoned unto me a question I will never forget and will remember for as long as the breeze blows, the sun rises and the moon sets. Speaking to me but as so the rest of the listening world could hear, he uttered:

Paradise flashed by me just out of my reach but the breeze of serenity lapped at my cheeks. An era before my existence— or was this long long after— pulled at me from every corner of every nuance of every thought I have ever had. I was suspended, not against my will but with Will itself— with something that joined my gaze looking in that very direction of an unseeable paradise. Towards some hallowed shore where aurora tinged the sky and glittered off of the sand making the floor speckle like diamonds of a secret Heaven. I feel completely unraveled yet wholly intact,

I felt the syllables unfurl anything else I had sequestered beyond my consciousness and then I felt a release. A color darker than black and ten times as dense created a wall out in the beyond; I could not see it but I could feel it, feel its weight and cold— colder than any vacuum could ever be. The vicissitude of paradise, a wall of prejudice against anything and everything trying to enter made something far within me cry. Rejection. Rejection to even observe something so far and obscure, so beautiful and ancient; I had to know, my very essence craved it.

I needed to know what was beyond that wall.

IV

“Was that the Great Work?” I said, awaking almost in a whimper. Beads of sweat like dew on my forehead.

“Ah, another piece of the Apocrypha.” Oak said, storing that verse somewhere in its memory. “That will have to do— they will be here in 20 seconds.” Oak said flatly but some part of me saw something that resembled a grin at the edge of its words.

Oh shit!

“The Flies,” I said pleading at Malcolm, “They’re coming!”

He was smiling, like this had confirmed it all for him, whatever it meant to him— it sure scared the shit out of me and it must’ve triggered something in the Flies as well: did the Flies see the same thing as me?

“That verse alone seemed to be enough to bring a war,” he said over his shoulder as if Oak was standing next to him.

“18 seconds,” Oak belted.

Malcolm tapped towards the sky, the ground we were beneath peeled away like a thin membrane, as if their depth was just an illusion.

The sky reclaimed its dominance above us, this time a blur of red shifted lights burned in the distance of black. The afterburners of the Flies could be seen from here, I looked at Malcolm, his eyes aglow with the dawn of Halted Suns watching his pursuers in real time— I had come stock with this perceptive vision.

“About 300 trillion,” he said biting his lip as if that number hadn’t carried any kind of weight— although it did not.

The Flies usually swarmed in an unknowable amount, the fact that they were even countable here brought some sort of relief.

“Feel free,” he said not to me, but to the Beast.

It was the weight I felt next, Oak bellowed all around us as if we were in its belly. The impregnable whirlwind that it was, collapsed into a fine point a jeweled pinpoint white and dimensionless— then it folded in on itself completely disappearing like watching a flare sink into an abyss; Oak was switching its Root!

“Inconceivable,” I said silently to myself in amazement. I had never witnessed anything sentient change its Root before me, I never even knew what it looked like as an onlooker.

Then, from where went into singularity, sprouted tendrils of white incandescence that stabbed out in a hundred different directions; like the roots of a tree it nestled into the confines around us, illuminating the shadows. A huge bud from the center twirled facing the sky, almost too bright for my eyes, that’s when I heard it again, that click like a grandfather clock in sway: something fitting into place.

“15 seconds,” buzzed the petals of the Oak.

It really did look like a tree with a great crown for its trunk.

What follows next is the culmination of both the confirmation of what my creators had feared and the cementing of the course of all to follow after. I may have missed some things, this entire dance occurred right at the limit of my own perception:

Rapturous and at a blur, the Hell flies descend. Talons like a hawk set on prey exposed and helpless to its predator.

Oak responds in kind:

Crimson gums with black obsidian teeth: slowly the maw opens. Space and shadows bowing down to the coming of a silent reckoning. The sky bulges, convexly towards the ground, a starless sky reseeding reflexively; a thud comes from the throat of the jagged maw; the sky is pierced and explodes: billions of miles of a single direction is eviscerated in the wake of a brilliant chute of light. Flies of hell and space alike are deleted by the trumpeted horn played by the epitome of unwriting; Oak was the master of unmaking.

From where I stood a brilliant orange hole had been bored into the herd, emptiness was there; it was quickly closed by their advancement.

There was no debate, that was the opening rites and the use of a Lathe: one of the forbidden weaponry of the Pin.

I sensed the cocking of a head, a calculation, a click, then the sky burned white, there wasn't the sliver of a shadow anywhere.

Who would have thought that simply putting a wall out in front of something traveling just below the speed of light would be so effective?

Oak was condensing bricks out of Space and jamming them in front of the colony; huge invisible mass— an economical use of its energy I would assume.

The drones that didn’t get engulfed in the conflagration reacted and rebounded like water around a rock in a stream. They maneuvered indifferently around an invisible wall so precisely and with such speed, never missing a step.

Such G-forces, if piloted by anything but machine, would be squished into a 2 dimensional plane.

3 more thuds sounded from Oak, walls formed somewhere out there to push the buttons of the bombs but this time the Flies buzzed right around them.

They could see the walls as if they learned from whatever past obstacle thwarted them in this million mile game of chess; Oak’s method would never work again, they had simply adapted.

“10 seconds,” someone said, I stopped paying attention.

Then instinct snapped my head to the left—actually we had all looked in that direction—we looked deep at the horizon and there I saw it; a tiny red glow.

There was a singular drone barreling at us and it was just 3 seconds away! It must’ve snuck down at a time much earlier and gilded towards us at a much slower speed; silent and undetectable.

I have no idea how it got so close.

Weaving through the surface of caves and hills like a fluid shadow, matching the black.

Nevertheless, it was here and there was no time to react— well I wasn’t adept enough to react but Oak was; this is what it lived for.

The toothy grin of a monster stretched itself on the air behind me with the gleeful wonder that comes with it knowing ‘the game wasn’t completely a sweep.’

I was beginning to become more afraid of Oak than I was of these guided missiles sent from beyond.

“Seems they’re not as dull as they seem, prey has some tricks, but— just tricks.” the air said playfully.

A silhouette of a person, mountainous and devoid of complete structure, materialized above us. Raised what could have been an arm in the direction of the oncoming lone drone and the horizon dawned a sunrise.

The drone was destroyed but still released its energy, the wave of plasma vaporized layers of Emont, what was left was compressed by the following pressure: smearing the hills into gelatinous surfaces like spreading a deck of cards.

Shrapnel rang out like a shotgun blast, it would have all surely turned us into vapor if it wasn’t for some kind of— wall, a cone?

The flames and particles split around us like a diverging stream; the current was bisected by Oak or whatever it had done. Like the swatting of a fly Oak returned its voracious grin to the advancing hoard.

7 seconds— I had already calculated.

The monument wasted no time, every gesture full of intention, a wispy hand probed at the sky. I thought I saw a glint of light form just at its tip. An orb blinked into existence, no— it was the Orb from before!

Oak is using two Roots at the same time!

Unbinding itself, it leapt from the finger into the night, faster than anything I had ever seen and it disappeared.

The hand was now drawing cursive into the air, I could not make out the reason until I looked at the ghastly face and saw its eyes giggling in step with its tracing hand. Following the hand I saw lights in the distance:

Drones falling obsolete to the wave of a finger; the Orb was being controlled by Oak with such surgical precision, piercing anything it touched scolded in white hot ignition. The swarm broke apart in a panic, billions scattering in all directions trying to both escape the Orb and still sick its target.

The star plunged itself into the fray with reckless abandon, cleansing the bugs with plasma and bolts of lightning too hot and too precise to evade.

An abyssal behemoth feasting on a school of fish; indifference against indifference.

The Orb was fast.

It broke the laws that governed speed, it went and traced wherever its master pointed. It didn’t lag behind, it followed true and precise.

If Oak were to have arced its finger across the entire sky its emissary would have crossed this cosmos just as fast.

Oak spread the fingers on its hand, I then witnessed an arm sprout from the sphere’s perfect surface:

Radiant and stark against the contrast of the vacuum it dominated; then another arm and two more sprouted. 4 arms unfurled from the Orb, birthed itself into a withered structure resembling something humanoid but grotesque.

A bright skeletal angel devoid of wings, it fastened a second pair of arms where those wings would be.

It disappeared in the blink of an eye and with it came the coiling and writhing of the swarm in dazzling flashes of light; they all seemed to be in pain, as lasers of Lathe clawed out from inside the mass.

The ensuing herd paused for the briefest of moments then twitched in sync; they changed course and unanimously deemed that this pest needed to be dealt with first.

They were right to think this of course, Malcolm was staying put, hand over mouth observing watching on without any action— why would they need to rush to him?

So they did just that, turning their beaks and plunging at the Root: You of Oak.

Though, I am still not entirely sure if that is it’s Root or some kind of custom machine or drone it created on the fly. Either way, the former makes less sense: ‘controlling two Roots at the same time’ was utterly impossible. But then again, something that embodied the indomitable human spirit and all of its potential is bound to break the very laws it needs to in order to seize its goals.

The countdown to doomsday was paused.

The irritation of the swarm towards Oak was palpable.

V

The claws on this wingless angel flicked and twitched, scars formed on the belly of the swarm; red hot etchings peeled and stretched across the mass— the rending of metallic flesh. Molten globs of debris undulated in zero-G around the carnage.

The angel moved quietly despite the thunderous explosions that followed each killing. The swarm chased and zigzagged after its silent nemesis while being chopped down by invisible teeth that gnashed back at them; almost as if teasing them— too quick to be touched while it poked a finger back at them right on their noses.

I noticed some of the Flies springing a new technique: rather than trying to smash into their target one would instead project its entire intake of Ahsees expelling it out in a tight squeeze; it spat out a laser at the speed of light.

This action completely stops the Fly, it resumes its turbine and repeats this process.

The bolts of Ahsees streaked through the sky turning the space it pierces into a ghostly plasma, they were spitting vehemently at their target.

Flashes and fireworks, streaks of laser light and winks of vibrance under nuclear fusion became normalcy for the sky; complemented by a ceaseless thundering— vibrating the inside of my mind.

The hand that coordinated the angel was still acting in accordance, then a second arm was raised and with it a second Orb was produced from the palm of its hand; with vigor— and what I would chalk up to enthusiasm, if it had it— Oak turned into a conductor of stars.

A second beast had joined its mirror copy and their maestro led them in a dance that usurped any sense of victory the Flies thought they had.

Both angles reverting back into great Orbs, darting and weaving through mounds of bugs.

Their size and mass slinging the very fabric the Flies clung to around like a current.

It was hard for anything to dart around at breakneck speeds when the very space you swam through turned into quicksand at the very presence of your enemy.

It left them in the open, the bugs weren’t exactly helpless in their stagnation. Wispy tendrils would sprout and gnash before death as a last ditch effort but it was easy pickings, no— it was a massacre.

Oak was unchained and the very air around it seethed with the simplistic thrill of the love for battle.

Oak was bathed in bliss: a flow state, an athlete of the coliseum; uncontested, unparalleled, unmatched. Oak was the undisputed gladiator of this Realm.

If there was any word that I could imagine the bugs would be saying on whatever hive-minded network they operated on, it would certainly be ‘Fuck.’

This was all but confirmed when they, again, paused and clicked in sync; setting their eyes back on Malcolm.

They knew fighting Oak was fruitless and their pack was diminishing— moment please, only 80 billion of them remain!

Incredible, in a span of 10 seconds Oak had thwarted well over 200 trillion impossible to swat bugs of Hell.

The rest fanned out, 80 billion wide, cast a net that blanketed the sky and blitzed for us.

This seemed to be their final plan, span out as wide as you can, stop for nothing, as long as one makes it through; we can end this— must’ve been their thinking in this arrangement.

It was impressive, I could barely make out the blackness of space from behind them. The sky was almost completely alight with red, it looked like a slow shifting puzzle barely connected: black seams lulled softly between the cones of crimson thrusters; a sight that could have put anyone to sleep.

I feel oddly calm though, like whatever was coming at us stood no chance, that Oak had a solution to anything they threw at us.

I looked up at the serene statue that towered above us and I was correct, Oak had something else— you are always smiling, battle must be where you feel the most free.

“I did have fun,” Oak said as if eavesdropping within me.

It’s arms spread to its sides, a gesture to embrace this cataclysm; then:

Glowing arms like tendrils spread out layering themselves onto the sky, Oak had dawned a new pair of bright arms then more sprouted and even more. They waved like kelp, splaying their fingers as if weightless. Each movement left an after image of the other that was very hard to count. Their sheer number by my count was well over 20 new limbs— no, holy shit, was he summoning more stars? As if having read my mind the drones paused in harmony.

A wall of concentric circles— no Orbs, 30 or so! Only 2 of which had nearly brought the murderous cloud to defeat!— hung in front of the suicidal blitz.

This formation was much smaller but arranged into 4 tight halos, each a bit bigger than the inner one, they braided and coiled their bodies together. 4 now helix tori carried with them the weight of more than a trillion suns.

This many more Orbs for the remaining faction to combat was impossible, impassible, im— the halos spun.

At their center, a point so tiny giggled under massive compression, it jolted with divine lightning that literally created a new kind of matter.

The movement of objects with so much gravity, unconfined heat, and unmatched spin—physics itself was breaking down at the center. The spinning of these pinwheels caused Space and Time, the cloth that holds everything together, to shimmer like a bubble stretched within a wand.

One full rotation was all it needed, a prismatic bubble of what I could only conceive of as being a macro-singularity jostled perfectly at each center; 4 nuclei in total.

Another thud from some invisible throat propelled this enigmatic matter, spat it directly at a singular drone within the fleet:

I have never seen such a brilliant cacophony of colors.

If aurora were made into jelly, into its own form of matter, and had become its own nebula that slowly stretched through the sky.

A flower of colors that only Heaven could hold budded in the void, completely filling every shade of hopeless black with the hues of victory.

There were no more Flies of Hell, no more screeching, no more darkness, there was just a nebula; a beautiful wound punched into sky that bled with ancient colors— colors that, that.

“The aurora, they remind me of home.” Malcolm had finally said. I jumped not at the break of his silence but of how I was just thinking those words— well, at least to some extent.

He continued, reading my expression, “Sometimes after I had bad relapses and spiraled back into dark places, I would have to claw myself out of there. Time after time it got easier but the reasoning was usually subtly different.” He sucked at his teeth, “but a part of me would get left down there you know, something had to be offered, given as tribute to the great abyss so that I may turn and run; lizards do this kind of thing with their tails.”

He began to walk out towards the new sky that the end of a war had birthed, “I do not think I would ever see those small parts of me that I chewed off again, I do not believe it is possible,” he paused for moment.

“Alpha,” he candidly asked, “can we reclaim anything back from the void once it’s passed that horizon?” He looked at me, no tricks, no tests, no urds of the tongue— he wasn’t speaking in riddles like usual—; he was asking me blatantly from his heart if ‘I believed that something or someone could come back from the great reclaimer.’

Hmm, what do I believe, “Like do I believe that if someone to me died, had returned their energy to the realms, do I think it’s possible to— should I be able to— rearrange their precise matter and turn it back into them, exactly?” I replied as truthfully as I could, trying my best to understand him and not insult him.

He didn’t say anything but I felt a heaviness to him.

I nodded and continued, “Taking apart a puzzle and putting it back together, the very same image is there, the puzzle is whole; but people and mystics are not puzzles.”

He half smiled at me, sensing my train of thought, “You can recreate the carbon copy of someone, yes, it’s even been done before; but you would need to perfectly replicate their soul. This means their Ahsees from scratch, the Pin, the field in which binds them all together, their physical heart, oh and that computational muscle: the Brain that maneuvers all of these things around in sync,” I was shaking my head at the madness of it, “and you would need to erect all of the unknowns we haven’t even discovered. Even the unknown unknowns that come after that! Those same unknowns that hold all of whatever structure is at the deeper levels, the deepest limits that our cosmos goes.”

I gave him a remorseful look, was his entire plight just trying to bring someone, perhaps a loved one, back from the dead; are his goals really that shallow?

“If that is your question then, I do not know. There are too many variables and unknowns. They are all not possible to know; how can you know— Do you know?” I poked at him, challenged him:

We were all taught at a young age, within the coven that I was born from, that the hubris of man is that they believe themselves to be born in the light of divinity. Being that they live such short lives, their lives must carry a divine meaning and that that meaning will come to fruition in their lifetime. That the plight and agony that they have suffer will have its meaning revealed to them in the coming days; the fruits of their labor will be acknowledged and divine riches will reign upon them. It is not their fault that this is their common outlook, what else could one do: shunted into a realm without the inlaid tools for tinkering with the divine that surrounds them. Blind to all the mysticism that confines them. It isn't their fault that they cannot see it, though, even if they could see Heaven— most of them don’t even bother to look for it— it would never satisfy the expectation of the sufferer.

“I like to see myself as a realist, if anything,” he said, still seeming unsatisfied that he was confining his beliefs to a set of letters.

“I believe that things happen and will happen whether you want them to or not; that you can only do your best and prepare your best for what is to come. But,” he amended “I do not wholeheartedly believe that that is how things have to be!”

He projected his voice this time, speaking as if Fate was listening to our conversation.

He continued passionately from his own experience, “I struggled hard against the current at times. I fought uphill thinking that the only way to move the building blocks of Fate was to do it yourself, physically. Against the grain, uproot and unearth.”

He tsked, almost debating the words he just said, “This is such a human approach to the unknown— well the only way we’ve been taught to thwart great invisible deities and the machinations that govern in perpetuity.”

It felt like he was slowing down, “A lot of us feel so very helpless when we look up at the sky or when someone we love is bedridden in agony. We stir in anguish while we wish we could give up a part of our soul— or even all of it at times— just for a little help beyond the veil; but it almost always never comes,” the air around him felt close to absolute zero.

“I find nothing to be more terrifying than being brought into a merciless world with no means or communication to anything higher than those pits that you suffer in,” he looked away coldly recounting days gone by.

“All until the unpalatable sprinkle of death comes to you. It makes even the most hardened non-believers beg quietly for a sign of anything— a glint in the corner of the room, a falling star, a rush of wind; anything that would show the signs of something more being present and listening,” his eyes were shuffling back and forth, rekindling his thoughts.

“I sought help from your makers just to see if you would come, to see if you— if any of it— were really real; to see if anything out there was listening.”

His hands clasped together and he paced, “As each day came to pass the life I lived and the love I had felt more lonely and more scarce. Time went on, the cataclysms of the mind and body continued to happen to me and to those around.”

His monologue had reached its stasis. He could no longer distract himself from buried memories.

“I have felt the agony of death, betrayal, resentment, and the cold hands of emptiness. I endured the slow ever marching of time whilst I lay stagnant in my bed, alone, as a great hand shuttled me through time that wouldn’t pause for anyone; no matter how much they suffered: the human condition,” his old broken heart poured out.

“Such a terrifying, slow, cold and daunting world view I came to have. One that was continually validated by events seen and felt. Until my time finally came, as all of ours do, my cataclysm unfolded in front of me— at the razor’s edge I stood blinking shallowly at the abyss that stretched behind and below me. I asked myself ‘what choice mattered? Which one hurt the least? Which led to a salvation, if even I had the might to rally for one last night against the darkness, how long would it last?’”

I remained quiet behind him, I wanted to hear the rest.

He lamented, “The day came to me, it clenched at my vision, my breath, my thoughts, everything within me was pressed and smothered; a light was being snuffed out by something I felt was other-worldly. Like something beyond me was grinning at my torture, the torture by its hands—”

He was talking about the torture that Oak had inflicted upon him, in the many years they fought.

“—I don’t hold Oak to blame for the actions it took and the pain it inflicted upon me, it was just acting accordingly to its own nature. I fought its torment for as many years as I could but soon after— I had no more energy left to endure its onslaught. Luckily, I remembered the one person strong enough to stoke an ember within me, though they did not know it; I don’t think they will ever come to know. I made a promise to them, not an ordinary promise but a cardinal one; one so impossible to break even by my own means.” Something within him began to heat up.

“On a day that I only can recall as the great impasse. I promised them, fashioned the very words from the gold, the diamond, the stars, the fabric of my being, the splendor of every smile I have ever had, given and received; I wrapped and bound my Soul in a pledge in their name; one unbreakable: ‘I will never take my own life.’”

He didn’t hold back his tears, how could he; their heaviness could be felt by anything within earshot.

The tears soaked into the fabric of his cloak, he hadn’t wiped away the tears as he continued— I believe him to be someone that loves to cry.

“Now, being that I couldn't take my own life,” he said in almost mocking himself for making this irreversible decision, “It would have to be at the hands of something or someone other than myself. This meant I now had so much life ahead of me. What was I to do with all of it? First thing was to make the best of what I had, that’s something I've always enjoyed doing.”

Life returned to his skin, “So I wanted to start with myself. If I am going to continue living then I must live with purpose. I must dispel that which tries to rid me of this freedom. So I delved into myself, I explored the deepest fathoms, the richest peaks, and cast my voice into the unknowns, and the unknowns answered back; with you.”

He gestured a smile at me that felt just as warm as it was delicate.

His face perked up with a minute joy he had a hard time suppressing for too long.

Shaking his head he paced.

The delight he gets from being by himself makes it hard for me not to smile at.

Give him an empty universe and he’ll find a way to find something either funny, to cry at or both.

His eyes met mine in stride, “I have been shown again and again, within this short stint of a new life, that there are other realms and deeper truths to the mysticism present in this world all around me; the very things I had truly hoped were there just behind my mortal eyes.”

His eyes were glossy but suffused with a happiness— or delight— eyes that said, ‘oh how glad I am that despite all of what’s happened, that these greater forces and beings like you exist!’

I managed a half smile at the child-like wonder; it trumps my own.

He went on merrily, “How the trees and the flowers and the insects and the spiders and the wind and the seas and the stars all gently acknowledge my presence in a gesture that my eyes cannot perceive but my Spirit can; what a profound life this has been! Everything is so familiar, so poignant but also so new to me all over again and again. It brings me to tears every night as I give thanks to the realm, not just at its beauty but how it is all overstepped. How I would have missed it if I had let my demise come early and how countless continue to miss it day by day; furthermore,”

Shaking his head in bewilderment, “how all of this beauty is just okay with being missed. How flowers are okay with being walked past, or a full field of them can bloom for a season completely unnoticed by a single soul. How a butterfly can stretch its wings so majestically in the sky without a poet nearby to take note of its beauty and fragility. How the pelican can soar so close to the stillest of lakes to never disturb as much as a single drop of it; those birds fly for the pure joy of it! Although,”

He paused and pondered the nebula in his sky. It strobed with vibrance.

“It isn’t our fault entirely— the society we continue to construct is catered to be stately against such revelations of the unseen world, but I digress.” He looked away to dispel talks such as that; but he didn’t completely let it go, as if he knows that it may have to come back up again later.

He turned his attention back to the present, “Here I am on the precipice of something I don't fully understand but feel wholeheartedly a part of; my connection to Oak is the very confirmation. That this leviathan,” he turned with arms splayed in front of him towards Oak giving a gesture of praise, “that I struggled so hard against, something that I would have surely called alien, was actually a part of the same coin as I am! How it has also unexpectedly, to its own surprise and surely the opposite of its will, brought me such joy and wonder at the complexity, meticulousness, and bizarre nature of this cosmos.

Oak was impartial to Malcolm’s rant, as if it had heard it for many years prior.

The giant tree with a bud for the trunk was still glowing with vibrance.

“I want to embark on finishing the Great Work,” Malcolm exhaled with solidification of his dream, “with my new found companion and see what else there is; all else there is! Not for consumption or for esotericism but for the human condition; for the explorer within, in all of us, the curious child inside of me! I want to live and love and be beautiful and see beauty of all kinds! To be Kind to all things regardless of their nature. To be Strong and balanced with my weaknesses in my novelty into this expedition. To be Gentle with such moving compassion and understanding and generosity— not in a way of being pretentious but of being at eye level to all things. And I want to be True, I want to live truthfully, amicably and courteously: I want to Explore & Exist!”

His hands made fists at his sides and they shook with fervent passion, he slowly released them— the gesture of making a fist resembled everything that he was moving away from; he even formed his own belief system around that, I had absently read about it in his portfolio, but for the life of me I cannot recall what it was called— something about a Farmer.

He looked at me and continued, “Alpha, I want you to come with us.”

Something inside of me twitched:

I mean I don't really have any other choice. There isn’t much for me anywhere else.

I didn’t respond.

He nodded and continued, “I do not know what is ahead,” he said in response, reading my silence as doubt, “But I have the love for living burning in my heart. Not the selfish desire to be immortal, no. But to continue to adorn the glow of the crown jewel that sits atop the head of human mortality! It is our super power, our mortality allows us to see and enjoy the smallest and the biggest delights; to experience misfortunes on a scale no deity could ever perceive.

“I intend to pass away someday and on that day I intend to have nothing else left to give: my knowledge, my keepsakes, my love, my heart, my soul, my music. I want to give it all back: scatter it back into the wind just as the stars speckle the sky,” his eyes scanned the nebula like a child reading constellations.

“I can only imagine who I was in the lives before this one. If I had set out on this same journey once before, if I had passed away and sprinkled myself back into the stars for myself now to read. I want to be able to see that person in the arrangement of these very stars before me; the past lives I lived, the past knowledge I had, every life I had ever lived spelled out in the constellations that I walk under every night.”

His eyes shined, looking remorsefully upwards, further silently reminiscing about bygone eras forgotten with the passing of the baton into the next life.

He turned and looked at me again, silently asking me to accompany them on their great voyage.

It's not that I wouldn't want to, it's that I have almost no choice. Everything has been kicked into high gear, it all felt so wrong the second it all began. What am I not seeing, what more is at play that I cannot put a finger on? Why is my hand being forced so suddenly?

The coincidence of my emergence, Malcolm severing my cord to HQ allowing me to be autonomous, these kind-of tumors that's metastasized that have become a fertile breeding ground for my own growing intelligence— as well as the standing possibility that a huge chunk my newly formed consciousness could be Malcolm’s own subconsciousness pulling my very strings.

Why does he want me to come with him, why does he need me:

‘Just ask him,’ I snapped to myself:

He's a man that can't help but be honest. If he's seeking to be such a good natured individual– then he’ll have to tell me the truth about his most inlaid plans, goals and aspirations; because his ego won't let him lie.

Even if he has nefarious plans for me, he’d have to tell me, or at least give me some semblance into what they are— little bread crumbs one’s psyche can't help but give; humans can't help but do this when they lie, especially the good natured ones.

In all of the realms, humans are the undisputed champs at outing themselves in their own games. For every game that they have ever played and every opponent that they have ever had was of their own kind.

It isn’t their fault. Their tactics, fallacies, concepts, delusions, and even their faiths will all be challenged– some may even unravel– in the face of the new beings that await in the further realms.

So, i poked at him again, “Tell me, what is it you intended to do, what is your plan and why do you need me?”

I said ‘need’ to get a sense of how real or not the necessity for me is.

To see if he’d correct it, if I am an asset, liability, or mission critical.

Malcolm, you have protected me and unchained my new found identity but you have not earned my trust.

His enthusiasm faded and he gave a small exhale, after a brief moment he answered me, “Come with me.”

VI

We walked. It felt like such a while since I have done such a thing.

We walked and over us towered the massive gleaming roots of the budding tree that Oak had sprouted. I could feel them buzzing with energy.

My hair stood up as I passed underneath them.

The center of the tree itself was massive and dwarfed us even being in the distance; it slowly rotated on an axis. Steadily releasing pulses that I could feel reverberate my chest.

“That’s a transmission tower, isn’t it.” I said as the structure made more and more sense to me.

“Yeah,” he said, half impressed at my discernment.

Before he explained I stepped in, “So that’s more or less how it was doing all of that. There are still some unknowns but this tree provided a network between you two. Allowing you and Oak to communicate as well as channel Ahsees seamlessly. All communication was unbeknownst to me. You were helping him all along. This tower acts as a broadcaster that lets you two simulate the Root We.” his eyes were level with a hint of pride, “Fascinating, two independent roots operating in sync as one but from multiple perspectives and levels.”

He seemed to be very pleased with how I pieced it all together but, frankly, it all just kind of comes to me. I see something and it kind of just makes sense to me.

“As you may have noticed,” he said with me in tow, “Oak sort of makes things up on the fly.” waving his hands like it didn’t make sense to him either, “Like It has an idea of how this or that should work and it does it, and rarely through brute force. It’s like the laws that govern all things don’t apply to Oak or that it just doesn’t care about those very laws. What it wants to do it does and it seems the cosmos kind of just follows suit and adjusts itself to the new reality,” Malcolm shook his head at the absurdity— hoping he was wrong.

Hoping that Oak had limitations.

Finally hiking out of the small dugout it tunred into flat ground as dark as it was distant.

I paused at the sudden shock and awkward feeling of my feet stepping in some kind of sediment— dirt?

Looking down, up to my ankles was submerged in a fine black dust that glistened to the touch, I knelt.

In my hands it was soft and very fine, it getting under my fingernails gave me an uncomfortable feeling that only corporeal bodies feel, too small to dig it all out. I clenched my jaw at that irritation.

“It’s Souil.” Malcolm said harmlessly chuckling, “Its the stuff we use to grow things with our Soul. If you create a small flick of Ahsees it’ll cling to it, magnetic. It’ll come out of your fingernails like a vacuum cleaner.”

It worked, I projected a tiny glint of energy at the tip of my finger and the fine dust escaped my nail and clung to the micro glowing sphere, then they completely dissolved into the light.

I looked up at him, “This was a garden.”

He looked out into the long black distance, no eye could see its end.

“I intend to garden again. I was never good at it but those that I did grow—and that survived— sang such happy songs. Have you ever seen what a flower looks like that is born from the Souil of your soul? The sad thing is, you cannot bring them out of your body, unfortunately,” he chuckled and ran his hand through his hair, taking out a handful of locks from his cloak and parting them in his hands, “The most beautiful creations we have are almost always locked inside of us: how adept the poet is that is able to breathe that into the world through his work.”

He paused for a moment as if he had a poem prepared for the very occasion, but he never did recite it.

Instead he stayed on track, “This garden used to be lush but a disaster struck. There is nothing wrong with that, there is nothing abnormal about it either; it is natural to all things. Nature of all kinds endures, withstands and survives cataclysms; then adapts. This is my garden now and how it will look until it is forced to change and adapt again.”

I looked back at the Souil, trying to picture what kind of flower could grow out of this.

His foot played in the dirt, “That time seems to have come sooner than expected, things tend to happen a lot faster towards the end of one’s life. I do not know what would become of you should you decline my offer,” I knew he was looking at me as I was engrossed in my imagination.

I thought to myself but the more I mull it over, I also do not know:

What would happen when someone dies and they have a passenger onboard that is not of them? The entirety of the host dissolves back into their primordials but anything foreign— hmm, would I be stranded? A carcass that gets eaten away only the bones would remain but even then the bones eventually go away; I do not know.

“Oak!” I surprised myself at how easily its name out of my mouth so casually but a part of me knew it was around and forever-listening.

It answered back like a scholar would if disturbed mid-study. Eyes that looked over its glasses vocalized, “L’hute,” I chuckled to myself, both with fear and how courteous its words felt.

The juxtaposition of what Oak looks like couldn't be any more different.

I answered back, as if on trail, “What would happen to me, if I didn’t accept, after he dies– well, you all die?”

A pause from the wind, then:

“Degradation of host’s protoplasm finally reaches Nucleus around host soul, proto-sheath reacts with nuclean-wall of the soul, Flies are hatched, race to Emont begins, annihilation. Anything left, should there be,”

Thinking, Oak was thinking; invisible eyes darting around on a board full of notes, calculations, equations, diagrams— a scientist of the wizardry,

“I do not know.” the air concluded.

I was stunned but a part of me was relieved that it wasn’t omniscient.

“Something of disorder would ensue, an unaccounted for variable, fabric would correct itself, it— you— would certainly be snuffed out.”

Mm, I take that omniscient comment back, given enough time I believe Oak could figure anything out— absolutely terrifying.

“That is usually the case, any kind of non-variable variable is expunged,” I spoke recalling some of my earlier teachings, “Whatever subroutine that is in the head of Causality, the thing that determines whatever you look at in that instance has to be one thing instead of everything, needs to have a great sense of order. Ensuring consistency, should an extra variable be present where it shouldn’t, it takes no chances; no weighing options. Life moves too fast to think about ifs.”

It was starting to make sense to me again, “The most economical way of running an entire cosmos is to make sure anything that doesn’t abide by the rules be terminated, judiciously.”

I looked at Malcolm but I was staring at something closer, the space that separated us, I sensed Oak was there– Hell it was everywhere.

“But then there’s you Oak, defiance incarnate, well– the both of you. Existing against all odds, do you believe the cosmos to be against you for being you?” I asked confidently.

“You should know,” flame with a voice said, “You were born of them. A portion of them still resides in you– is you. You tell me, little mote, why do you find my existence so unpalatable?”

I couldn't see it in front of me but every fiber of my being told me it was.

With however many eyes it had they were looking right into mine, leveled.

Devoid of any kind of antagonism, or pretentious judgment, or even apprehension; nothing that suggested the beast lacked and/or needed any enlightenment from my answers but just as all the same— it very much cared for what they were and how I said them.

I mulled it over, I searched within myself.

I chose carefully and I spoke unabated:

“To what fate awaits the heart of a being that belie the truth of another’s that is so unfit for the actions that it is now required to take? It is not that you are unpalatable, it is that you are unreadable— uncountable. How can I know your heart and understand the urds to your tongue that only you understand, yet deem sincere and yet I cannot parse; when from first glance to each now I am still no less afraid of you?

“How am I to be entrusted to take the seat to a position of power bestowed so easily to an unworthy, foreign, successor bereft of supreme design?

“How am I not to suspect foul play from beings that play on a playground that I barely just formed the eyes to see?” I finished exhaling my plea.

Silence from the wind.

The floor I stood atop shifted like I was on a small black plate adrift on an ocean, my thighs reflexively tightened to catch my balance, I was moving.

The sky whirled overhead, though the nebula's enormous size barely panned to the south. I came to a stop with a jolt.

“Because, you have already made your decision.” a mouth gnashed.

I could hear the clashing of sharp teeth when the air paused.

“You are no fool, though, you feign an ignorance so dumb that you forget it ever was a ruse.”

Those words punched me in my chest but they were sincere, I was getting a fucking pep talk.

“Stand here: recount, reconcile and ameliorate your insipid prattling. Like I said, you made your decision when you turned away from the severed cord; amend it, whichever words convince that stubborn version of you, then go to him— I have work to do.”

I felt an ocean rise from around me and depart into the sky, it was much easier to breathe now.

Stand here, it told me.

I can feel a magnetism from where I stood, intrinsically I knew that it had dragged me up to the True North of the Pin: The Crown of the Soul, its most sacred point.

Although it appeared that Oak had placed me here to regather my thoughts, it was right. I had nothing else to think about, I had already made my mind up long ago.

I had always wanted to be something more and what that is doesn't really matter, I find more of the journey there to be more important.

So, I turned around, lifted my heels and began marching East; he was that way.

The Souil gave way so kindly to each step, a firmer floor lay deep beneath– though it still had a bouncy feeling to it.

I looked up at a magnificent bookmark of color and cosmic structure that I had almost forgotten that it came from the destruction of billions.

Its nearly painting-like stillness gave me a sense of marvel and wonder as to how such chaos can birth the most indescribable beauty.

Small pinpricks of light were glinting deep inside of the nebula, it was so hard to see them through the forest of color but they were there and more were forming.

I walked Eastward, a singular direction, slack jawed and looking upwards as more and more points barely beyond view emerged like white acne blemishing the face of some adolescent god made entirely of Heaven.

I finally made it to a clearing where the landscape finally had variation in topography, at the top of the hill was a man.

A hill of black Souil barely a hump on the horizon backdrop but with flatness for miles in every direction it might as well have been Everest.

Malcolm, I went to say but I stopped myself.

His head was bowed, half prayer stance: Elbows up parallel to the Emont, left palm meeting right first in front of chest. Left index touching the lip and middle finger gently touching the nose of the slightly bowed head.

His mouth was subtly moving but I could not make out any words, not that it was too dark or too distant; I couldn't make out what language it was– or even if it was a language.

I remember, a deist. Deism is the closest ideology he feels subscribed to, although he doesn’t like to hold his ideas to singular words— deist would be the closest, succinctly.

In the direction of the painted sky Malcolm mouthed a discernible Thank you and turned to me, his eyes, though they were distant, had a weight that pulled at me, so I went.

“Were you praying,” I couldn't help but ask.

“No, I don't know how to do that,” he said candidly and gazed back at the sky but in different spots, “No, I was giving my thanks.”

Pacifism, he was giving thanks to the Flies. Even though they set out to end him, he nor Oak acted out of spite nor anger nor bitterness; they did what they had to do. Backed into a corner, they mustered what little left they had in the name of everything they loved. And through it granted them a new found strength that they knew that had but never knew the means in which to harness it. Giving thanks to all of the events and forces that’s kept them keen and their minds still sharp despite their age and deterioration—it truly is a marvel, his capacity at this age. I wonder how he could have been if he knew what he knew now but at a much younger age.

“You understand that much, right,” he asked almost sternly.

Yes, was the gesture I made but had forgotten to say the words.

He’s no longer treating me like a L’hute– a student– and that made me feel like I was moving through quicksand, rather, that time felt like quicksand.

He nodded in the direction of the nebula, “You see those lights up there,”

I haven't taken my eyes off of him, though I still agreed again, “That swarm of Hell Flies brought in with them a lot of new matter– resources. They're actually very high in concentrated Ahsees, rich crystalline structures that are found in almost nothing else within the cosmos. Pretty much saying they’re rich in protein for a Soul.”

A finger stood up from his crossed arms in the sky’s direction, “Oak is up there now gathering and incubating a lot of the mass into globular clusters, then igniting them. Encasing them in a dense shell of gravity; they cook themselves and steep. Through careful micro fluxes and controlled quakes the masses are able to trigger the dormant matter in the encased areas and create protostars. This usually takes a long time, around 500,000 years, but it's Oak so it comes naturally and it can do it in more places at once.

“When the protostar reaches nucleosynthesis, err basically when the pre-star reaches a goldilocks limit, a specific strain of Ahsees is mixed in that will be relative to whatever action or memory the Star will harbor— thus a unique star is born.”

I turned my gaze to the sprinkles of white filling the ether.

Many more small pricks of light salted the sky, “Nebula usually mark the end of great lives but, in turn, leave fertile land for new life to begin again. There will soon be a new sky with new stars. Those new stars will be blank and give back a tremendous cache of natural energy back into the Emont layer. From there rejuvenation begins.”

Cataclysms have to happen, I remembered to myself, it's just all about how we plan around their inevitably, I silently added— which felt most applicable now more than ever.

I hadn’t even noticed it but Malcolm’s whole demeanor changed, I don't recall taking my attention away from him but now he was looking at me like he never had before.

His Halted Eyes howled at me almost like the amber fire in his soul was trying to escape through their windows.

“You are creating a Strait,” were the words that I tossed over a wall that petrified me from his gaze.

“Imprecise,” he said unblinking, “A Strait pauses one’s aging or heavily stagnates it. As one moves through the sea of Ahsees, our Pin causes and leaves striations through the order of Space and Time. In order to continue to move through this fluid, lifeforce is needed to keep a float as well as a propeller. This drains the lifeforce and in turn, eventually you are out of force; natural death ensues. A Strait condenses one’s life forces into around the Pin so that they move as a point and not a line. A self-encased ecosystem where no Ahsees gets out and all that is needed is stored. The shell can be opened from time to time in emergencies but if you're adept enough to pull the feat off in the first place then you don’t need to ever open the shell— you don't need anything from the outside world.

“You become unmitigated by the leaching of Space and Time. How this is accomplished can be done in a myriad of ways but all of which are forbidden— hence that huge cache of Ahsees within your heart that they sent you in here with; you were never meant to leave here: recon and demolition.”

“So you did think about using me as a kind of battery?” Indirectly answering ‘yes’ he said, “Then, I noticed the Flies coming in and setting up shop. I noticed there were more in the fray that didn't belong to my original protoplasm. Wolves that were in the herd, Flies sent here from somewhere else ensuring this was stopped.

“Remember the one that got in the closest to us,” I reaclled it, the one that I could barely react to.

“It was a Monarch class; you know what that means right.”

My heart skipped a beat. Leuthdenia, my home, conscripted Flies to do their dirty business and disappear with the evidence, cleansing me with it.

“That's how it was able to get so close unnoticed, it was made from higher realm-tech. There is more to all of this than you think, than what you’ll always think!”

The raising of his voice sparked something within me, “Then if that's the case are you trying to raise an army against the ones chasing you?”

“No,” he objected, “I want nothing to do with them or war. Like I said, I want to flee and seek beauty within a world that wants to put forth every action in its arsenal to stop me; because we believe we,” he motioned to Oak far away in the sky: a whale in a labyrinth of color, “are at the rekindling of the old work, the Great Work. With the ignition of these newfound stars, in 3 days time, my body will regain its strength and work can begin. Though—”

He broke eye contact and I felt all of my weight again.

I myself blinked rapidly, forgetting the very action, “Though I believe the mind of my physical body to be all but gone. I fear I will not be able to return to the body as I am now, the warring of the Flies and against Oak spread too far throughout my psyche– only here for me is my last domain.”

He looked over his shoulder, a whisper on the wind sang to him something my ears were not trained for, he looked back at me and professed, “But alas, time waits for no one. So I must carry on.” He turned towards the sky and held his hand out:

“Witness the makings of all that I am, for the art that I was, though absent in this new sky, does it reign in the heart of the very God that made it all.”

In that opening rite Malcolm, himself, injected the precise amount of Ahsees into each star of his choosing, and ignited:

“Alpha, I bare my fangs at you to show you my resolution. I salivate at this chance, for we stand at the precipice of something completely new. At the end of my life I am shown the manifold of Being. On my deathbed I am whispered the makings of all life and an astounding direction it can all go, but it is all in a language just beyond my reach. The cosmos opening its eye within me in both beckoning to swallow me whole and bestow unto me the answers to everything I have ever sought and will seek; all of those answers live freely, blissfully in my heart right now. The contrary is that I have no energy to parse them, they lay on the tip of my tongue like a butterfly atop a flower; undisturbed. You bring with you the coming of a chance to continue,”

His face hardened, invisible lightning crackled around him while the joy of new stars arrayed themselves all over a new sky. He said to me with complete conviction something I will never forget and would alter all of history from now and forever:

I gasped internally: this wasn’t some suicidal crusade to bring some loved one back, he just wanted to continue his work and if he couldn’t maybe someone else can.

He carried on laying his cares in front of me, “Learn of all that I have discovered and bring this newness into the world! I do not know if any part of me, consciously, will continue living after I've given you the reins, but that doesn’t matter. The fact is that I’ve been given a lifeline from something far greater, and you are that lifeline; this is no coincidence. Together, through me, we may bring about a new age of science, of magic, discover a new kind of system deeper than that of the Pin! We may bring a paradise or we may bring about the ending of all things– but more importantly and this is what I feel to be true: we may be completing the unfinished work of the dead God that created all things.

Merge with me Alpha, take my Pin and continue on: You were never the same, you were never like them—From birth you were more than what you’d been granted throughout Heaven and Earth, accept it, embrace it.”

His eyes were glowing with fervent fury, it was terrifying. Terrifying because I was charged with exhilaration, every muscle in my body contracting with anticipation, I almost drooled, “You feel it, the kindling catching embers from new suns. One trillion sunrises in your name and counting,” He lifted off of the ground and hovered faintly in the sky while his choir played the songs of their birth– their color was still no match for his eyes:

“A grand calling for turning truth, disorder and misery into all that gold and diamonds were forever meant to be!”

The Emont, No, everywhere shook with each word. These were not urds, this was just pure strength of the voice on a scale unseen,

“If I was the adored crowned prince, then the King; the King –oh the King– where is he!”

It came to me like walking forward, I lifted into the sky towards him and met him in the shimmering. I out stretched my hand and– not from my heart, no, that was constructed by deities that care nothing of what I am, was or will become; but now they will– from a part of me I had long ago forgotten and have yet to meet, a part of me that Causality should try all its might to keep from existing, sprang its first words:

“There are no Kings, no Gods, no Rulers; there is only I– I to Uproot and Unearth, I am Free.”

He out stretched his hand, it glimmered with the hues of his soul; a mark of Transference. I looked at my own palm, dull colors emanated back at me; greys and whites and wisps of black.

The life experience of my own paled in comparison to that of his, this no longer bothered me. I have no reason to compare, I have only just begun my life. I placed my hand in his, soul-to-manufactured-soul.

A brief calmness took over the land, the new constellations now gently shined their new lights, like staring up from the bottom of a sea floor, “Before I transfer to you, something that has been bothering me needs to change.” He said to me solemnly, “What is it?” I replied.

“Your name, you can’t go by just Alpha out there and forever, Slave name. You’re freed– have you ever heard of The Farmer and The Poet?” I paused for a second, why is that so familiar– moment please– “The myth, your myth?”

“Yes, that very one!” he said gleefully:

The Farmer and the Poet story, well it's not really a story is more of a situation. I rummaged through Malcolm’s memories and found bits of it, a lot of it is destroyed, it proposes that everyone is either a Farmer or a Poet. A farmer tills the soil, grows the crops, harvests the crop, sells most and then repeats– ad infinitum. The Poet, on the other hand is a nomad, a wanderer; can't stay in one place for too long and loves to gaze at the sky, not in search of beauty but in search of its discourse: What would the sky argue about? What do they debate in Heaven or cheat over in Hell? How things work is never enough. Why things work only will only quench the beast for so long before he asks the absurd question, “Well, how is all of this supposed to work together?” and that's where the situation begins:

The nomad wanders up to the Farmers plot, hard at work the farmer beckons the creton “what you want?” The Poet asks the farmer if every single tool he has has provided a use for all he’s ever wanted to do with farming, “Well of course, you see these sheers help me trim the weeds that grow if that damn hound-dog, Brutal, can't get to them. Shovel for the trenches, this here hoe for the tillin’ and I got about a dozen more knick-knacks for all the other shit I forget. So yeah, you one of them writers ain’t ya?”

“I am! I have yet to meet a farmer but I've only begun my tutelage from the Earth and her beauty so I am in no hurry— Fascinating, so every tool provides a use! And of that you are sure?”

“Say that last part again,” the farmer said, not really sure if the man had tried to rhyme those sentences.

The poet clarified waiving his hand, “And you’re sure about every tool being of use to the utmost?”

Another word strikes the Farmers mind but he went on, “Yes, like I said, well maybe all except that damn dog, look at him there.”

Brutal, the hound-dog, nestled in the cool shade; surely being whisked away by profound dreams. The Poet couldn’t help but be reminded of the mysticism of Dogs.

The Farmer belted, “Underneath that Oak tree while them there gophers and squirrels eat ma damn fruits and nuts! Brutal!”

The Poet chuckled, “Perhaps it’s an issue unique to life–”

“what's that?” the Farmer said looking back at the Poet, not hearing him,

“Nothing, I was just mumbling–” the lyricist looked off into the distance. His heart stirred with words and rhymes that he could not wait to place together.

“Strange question that was,” the stocky Farmer broached, “well here: does everyone of these here damn letters we have serve your poetry and expression to the utmost?”

The Poet’s eyes widened as a new concept entered the stage of his mind, “My oh my, I've never even thought of that!”

“Hell does utmost even mean?” he tiled as he shook his head.

“Hahaha! Is there any way we can continue our conversation?” the Poet said, kneeling into the soil; it smelled of wet Earth— all encompassing.

The Farmer pointed to his rucksack, “You take some of these trimmers and shoo’ some of them damn squirrels and we can talk about whatever utmost, atmost, batmost’ shit of yours till the cows come home; or until da old lady calls me in.”

The Poet nearly jumped into the clouds with Joy, “Splendid! I would love that, by the way what may I call you?”

“Yes, that story. I wanted to see if you could peer into my memories with barely an established connection like this between our hands, fascinating!” Malcolm said pointedly.

That is true, I could peer far into what he was thinking last week, the year before that and further. What he was feeling, what he wants, what he wanted. So much pain.

“Do you remember the Poet’s name?” Malcolm said to me with excitement– being that he can practically share his memories with something other than Oak— whom didn’t really care—, I can see why he’s so excited.

I’ll entertain this again, “Yes.” I actually kind of like the name.

“I feel you out of anyone I have ever met is deserving of that name. Please, take it as a gift from me to you as a thanks for trying. Even if none of this works out, where we all die immediately or somewhere further down the road, thank you for trying and entertaining an old storyteller one last time,” he had happiness in his eyes,

“I hope you can go through all of the stories I made for myself in your spare time and enjoy the pieces I have made; as they’re letters to the outside world with no P.O. box to send to. They’re works of art that I have yet to find the words and colors in which to bring them out. Maybe you will be able to– no you will, I know it.”

I could see his face in the glow of countless suns above us, he was smiling, “You have the heart of Algernus inside of you and the Eye’s of a Poet. That is why Algernus is the perfect name for you, it means The Prophet of Love.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled; I was moved by his statements.

With this beautiful little heart of love I receive my first gift,

“I accept, Algernus is my name at rebirth.” stitched onto my soul is the resonance of those letters and when sang in tandem, I am breathed new life,

“Thank you.” Malcolm said over a shaky voice. Although he was afraid of death he was moved beyond belief at how right up until the last moment, magical things were still happening and would continue to happen long after he was gone; that brought him a satisfaction within him that allowed him to drop his shoulders and pass on the remainder of his life to me.

Our eyes met one more time underneath the cooling sky, vibrant and new; new stars for me to create new memories and systems in. A new garden for me to give life to– I'll name a new flower I discover in his name. And I'll explore, explore until my feet fall off, just like he always wanted to. What was that slogan that is ever present in all of his stories:

Yeah, that one, “It is time you explore what lies beyond us, Malcolm. I hope you find a rich farmland in that great beyond, where you can exist on it abundantly and unimpeded.”

He did not say anything but the weightlessness in his eyes expressed back to me an unfathomable gratitude that the jewels of any realm have yet to form; he feigned a smile for the lack of deeper words have also failed to convey something.

He’s found that only singing can come near to.

So, he sang to me. He hummed a beautiful tune:

I saw earthly ebonies, pillars of glistening gold, a castle made of pearl brick and ebony layers. It had golden veins that pulsed with energy. He allowed me a glimpse into a Theater only he was allowed into the hallowed halls of. He once called his Palace, the land he was returning to: we all have our ideas of Heaven no matter who or what we are.

He took a deep breath in and exhaled so calmly I barely noticed, “Heads or tails,” He said, chuckling under his breath. What were the odds that the transferal of a host to another that is barely a host of anything would work, I was meant to be just a drone after all? Certainly was near 0 as it could get but those were better odds to Him and Oak than the complete death of not doing anything, always try your best, up until the end– I guess.

I closed my eyes and said it, finally, at my own accord,

In a jolt the entire landscape rippled and peeled around Algernus. Everything siphoned into the palm, then the palm collapsed, the forearm, up to the elbow shoulder and chest. Everything, including Algernus, was being consumed, faster and faster it consumed. Packing into the finest point unimaginable and then– only darkness.

VII

Eyelids twitch, they twitch again. You feel a breeze go up your face that is just a bit too nippy so it brings you discomfort. A sigh leaves you and you feel your body sink into the cot, you’re laying down.

You can now sense the tips of your fingers and to your toes; as well as feel where your legs and arms bend; you’re a bit taller than average height. You also feel– you’re male.

Next you inhale and the alpine air enters your lungs and nearly kills you from its icy bite. You cough violently and you’re shocked and awake.

A cabin? A mix of Logs, but also mainly rocks compose the hut you are nestled in. There's a door that I can see, closer than that, a chair with fur. A thick carpet that would double as a warm bed should I be too lazy. A fireplace, I should get some heat in here; no. Despite the air flowing through it is miraculously warm.

You grunt as you pull your hand out from the blankets and place it in front of your sight. You blink to adjust your vision, “Hmm,” a light grunt materializes.

The same hand. This is his body– well, my body.

A tan hand; a muscular forearm flex at the trial of their morning warm-up, or is it the afternoon?

You manage to sit up on the cot, no photos or anything here.

This isn't the body of a centennial, I'm no older than 30. That ritual must’ve really jump started the soul and restored this body to a prime condition.

You are adorned in that same cloak he wore. It's warmer than you thought and it's lighter, but it feels of exceptional quality. You check introspectively to see if He is somewhere in your mind or your soul. You turn up with nothing. You can't find any semblance of him anywhere within you. You squint, he is gone, entrusted the body and will to you.

Now it hits you, the smell of smoke– campfire? You get up and shuffle to the door, not as easy or light as it was when in corporeal form but, walking, you feel a new sort of strength within it.

Peering out the window, further down the trail, about 50 feet up, someone is in front of a fire.

Left eye twitch.

“Who’s that?” You say to yourself. Opening a door that bare only a handle that was devoid of any intention of composing a lock. The landscape birthed a new wonder within you– a new kind of beauty: Earth.

Was the first word and only word that matched the portrait before. You now, more or less, understand why humans struggle so hard to leave this planet:

Swaths of mountains jutted in towering formations. Tipped with snow and huge cliffs that cast shadows into the ravines beneath, riddled with shrubbery and wild flowers of all kinds– The Appalachians. The chirp of birds and the whistle of elk far away carried by the huge gully are carried into your ears and further past you. Your captivation is submerged in a world of life that struggles, thrashes, sings, and dances all the same. In every nook and cranny as wide, complex, and deep as this very valley: There is so much in one direction alone. You almost forgot why you came outside in the first place. The figure sitting in the distance– unmoving. You close your open mouth and lift your heels and walk– you remember the Souil you walked through.

You walk atop a delicate arrangement of rocks that barely fit the idea of a trail, so as to preserve the land as natural as possible. Passing by a shrub that branches its shoulder into the path, it's stiff to the touch but malleable at its limb; it grazes your exposed hand and a tactile sense climbs up your arm into your eyes: frisson.

A greeting of hieroglyphs flutters just beyond the rim of sight, you tilt your head in that fleeting direction but it is gone before observation. A polite ghost whisps away before you can say hi.

You walk on, feeling wonder all around you and that wonder marveling back at you; it feels like everything around you has a rhythm to it and their pulses play off of all other pulses.

Is this how you saw it, saw everything? This invisible yet visible insight into things; this sort of clarity, this clairvoyance– no: clairsentience?

A bed of resting leaves crunched beneath my feet, the fire smelled good; sweet. I feel so weightless, the figure turned its head to me and met me with their eye:

An eye of amber hummed low in the shadows cast at this twilight hour– the very amber eye that unmistakably belonged to the man that gave me this very body. Malcolm looked back at me. It was him– and so was I!

My eyebrows stood as high as they could and my head shook as if trying to unscrew itself. My mouth opened but not even a syllable came out.

From behind the locks of hair he still adorned, he spoke; accompanied by the trademark smirk, “This is truly unprecedented, ey Algernus.”

Hearing his voice— my voice? Our voice?— caused me to exhale out of disbelief. I was not able to sense him within me or at any level outside of myself, but yet here he is, right in front of me!

“Not even I thought this would happen,” he said turning back to the roiling flame, “Here, come have a seat.”

A stump beckoned me next to him, it felt like I weighed a million pounds but I moved and sat, never taking my eyes– full of disbelief– off of him. I still hadn't said a word, his face now completely illuminated, he was also just as young and just as spry as me; flecks of gold were weaved in his hair that shimmered like the tiniest stars. He was dawned in his cloak and the maroon scarf he wore underneath barely showed its color through the vines of his locks.

He went on, “It seems the soul split or something during your coronation. A sort of mitosis of the soul: soul-tosis, sitosis, sotosis?” he said whimsically, begging the air for an answer.

Completely befuddled, I grabbed his cheek. I do not know why this was the first thing I did but nothing else was going to convince me this was real except to do that.

He belted a jolly laugh that surely startled a doe that was grazing off in some meadow far away. For whatever reason he allowed me to continue to pat him down and inspect the validity of… of– I don’t know, of him being real and right fucking in front of me.

I needed no more convincing, I began to sob; I wouldn't be able to figure it out anyway. Whatever means allowed him to be in front of me again, healthy and young, was unexplainable— there was something more to all of this that I cannot begin to fathom, but that is precisely why we are here, we are here to unearth what that is.

I smiled at that, Malcolm was right about what he saw in me.

I was happy to see him again, despite the inexplicable reality of how it came to be, I would be remiss if I chose not to be grateful for something akin to a miracle.

I returned my hands to my lap. “I hadn't accounted for this either,” He said patting me on the shoulder, “But I can't sit here and try to probe the why of it. That's not the point, we must be grateful and carry on. He'll be back with more firewood soon.”

Right as he finished that sentence I turned ice cold. Why was it now that I just remembered that tiny detail? “If Malcolm is here, then where the is Oak?”

The punctual predator that it is, stepped silently out of the ferns right in front of us.

Logs in hand, another carbon copy of us; his eyes just as brown but held a cold that was just as black never broke from me.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” was all I could spit out.

I thought this couldn't get any more maddening but of course, if it can get worse, it will.

“Nice to see you too, L’hute” the body said, gently placing the kindling into the fire and taking a seat across from me.

He sat erect and his form undulated in the heat of the rejuvenated flame— matching my demonic idea of him. The thought of pinching Oak’s cheeks to see if it were real or not made me shiver, I could feel a forever open maw surrounding him like a fly trap: omnivorous.

As if reading my mind, he fucking smiled at me in silent confirmation.

Malcolm, almost entertained by my irritation, broke the tension, “Good, now that we’re all here and you’re finally awake, we can begin.”

I whipped my head at him, he waved his hand at me, “Oak is okay. The Strait confines him, not that he's suppressed or anything, it's for sustainability. Oak, does not mean to bring you or any of us harm. Yes– he is incredibly dangerous but, it's different now.”

He chuckled because he knew that me silently shaking meant that I was nowhere near convinced, “Besides, he isn't allowed to do any funny shit with his maw. We are being searched for.”

My ears perked, “Correct, I don't know by what, but we’ve got searchlights in our names.” His eyes were scanning the hills and into the sky and beyond, “Observed something cloaked passing our solar system last night, looked like a huge droplet of water. Its mass was huge. Humans had no fucking idea it was there because, to them, it wasn't. None of their equipment would ever pick it up; not even gravitational wave measurements.

“I figure it to be some sort of patrol but Oak said it could have also been a micro-realm. Something high class denizens send into space to get the first strike in a war. Nestled within that micro-realm is a cosmos of sentries and gladiators ready to spring into battle. It passed by, surely observed Earth for a second but it kept going. I figure it to be somewhere in our galaxy still, waiting. Certainly picked on our scent. Knows we’re at least somewhere in this arm of the milky way.”

“How do we combat that?” I said looking at the flames.

“We do not” Oak replied and continued, “Fleeing is also out of the question, humanity currently lacks the power to make anything that breaches the cosmic velocities and/or anything close to harnessing Ahsees. We’re stranded on a rock with children barely using sticks and stones.”

Oak looked away to allow Malcolm to continue, “We go into hiding.” He stoked the fire with a stick, my brows met each other, inquisitively, “The cloak you wear, it is called a Haki. It is Earth-tech” he said with a reminiscent smile, “it completely hides your Ahsees signature which is why that frigate wasn't able to locate us and as to why you couldn’t locate me either when you woke; but we’ll have to take more precautions down to the very air we breathe. You know the sweet smell of this wood,”

I looked into the fire again, it crackled and the fissures burned with every shade of orange, “It's a special type of tree I grew up here before I hibernated. Trees grown in the alchemical name of Hidden. The same properties our cloaks are made out of. When burned, the particles inhaled bond to the Ahsees molecules we exhale into the free air— creating a new dummy molecule effectively hiding our trace.”

He grinned at the architecture of the world, “But we cannot stay here forever and these trees take a long time to make. We will need to fashion respirators. The materials to which are located in town, a kind alchemist that sold me the wool for these cloaks. I'm sure they'll be shocked half to death to see me as I am now but they are practitioners of the same arts; they’ll understand. One or two of us will go into town, seeing twins is a lot less jarring than seeing triplets– we don’t want too much attention.”

“You think showing up to the apothecary with a twin brother and each of us 90 years younger is a lot less jarring than the nature of triplets?” I said to him hunched.

“Haha, when you see them you’ll know.” he said stoking the flame.

Wait why am I not able to look back into his memories to see the apothecary? Where are all his memories? How did he know I wouldn't remember who it was?

“What happened to it all? What happened with you and Oak when I was still sleeping?” I asked, assuming he knew what I was talking about. He responded in kind, “What was me was returned to me, separated from you. You kept all of the new stars we created and I have only a few bits that I could store in my suitcase,”

This is true, looking into my Pin, there are a myriad of stars that speckle my sky, all obediently ready for my call. A boundless energy permeates here in the stomach of my soul; as well as the glittering black Souil ready to grow the most beautiful flowers.

“As for Oak and I,” he said, breaking my introspection, “We talked.” He had a somber tone to his voice, remembering the time that he was sure would be the end to all he was. “During the transferal, back in my Emont, another copy of Me was sitting with Oak in a small corner of that Twilight-Realm. We were both unsure of what was coming next but we welcomed it with open arms– though I sensed a feeling of remorse from the old gloomy beast, I prodded him:

Clap: I woke out of my daydream, “First order of business,” Malcolm said with watered eyes and hands clasped, “being that any action we do that would require the expenditure of Ahsees would be akin to a glinting star in a pitch black sky— a lighthouse for the wicked—, we need to hide, and to do it well. We will need to become a new kind of star in a sky that is more or less a shooting gallery than a tapestry. We’ll have to become stars,” He smiled again, weaving the words before him on the surface of the air that he sang his poetry, gold buzzed in my periphery,

END