Unaware of the dangers of corporate climbing in this cutthroat world Earth became after the advent of Ether, Robert caught himself thinking of his life back home.
The home he couldn't come back to because the insurance company had seized it. The very company his parents paid to keep their assets protected, now devoured it. Mortals had nobody they could trust but themselves. Everyone out there was looking to pad their bottom line. The legal system was rigged, ethics and civility delegated to mere buzzwords on fraudulent advertisement.
Robert knew little of the world of Archhumans but it was the same on the other side. With the addition of powers and affinities, things were worse, in fact.
But if he were damned with, and damned without, at least with power he could fight back. As he was now, society didn't deem him worth the air he breathed. The value he could provide was zero, negative even. Just the thought of going back to write had his arms in goosebumps and his breathing ragged.
He stared at the box that held the 1% IRL vestige. Then at the empty corridors of the ATA. He was waiting for his free consultation, part of the package he traded the Golden Bard for.
Should he accept the vestige into his soul? What its power actually entailed? He could be sacrificing 99% of his lifespan, forced to spend that time in a place that amounted to nowhere. Robert scoffed. What did he have to lose? Without the ability to write, to express his art, he was already stuck in a void.
Better now than never. If he did nothing, he would remain noting. The prognostic was horrifying. Would Robert bargain 99% of his life to make the remainder 1% meaningful?
Yes, he would. Without batting an eyelash. Before he could think of reasons why not, he acted. He opened the box and touched the gray sphere.
"I wish to take you into my soul."
"As ye command," the stretched face said.
The orb broke down into a dull silver dust cloud that had only the faintest shimmers at the right angles. The dust swirled up from the box and covered him from head to toe, phasing through his clothes and forcing itself into every single pore and orifice of his body.
Robert tried to scream but only gulped more dust. He could feel it seeping into his flesh, flowing along his bloodstream, entering deep into the metaphysical layers of his self, and ingraining it as indelible part of it. Robert and the Vestige were one and one. Together, they were more than before but no distinction existed between them from then on.
He felt like he was falling backward yet in the same place, sinking deep into the nothing.
*
*
Robert blinked. His proprioception told him he was still in a sitting position though the pull of gravity was less than before. He wasn't floating but he felt light. The seat of the chair didn't press against his buttocks with the same strength as before.
The hallway was dim and muted, the hardwood panels shifted to gray. It was like one of those old Earth moving pictures, made without color. He stared at his hands. He could see the color of his skin, normal as always. He concluded it was the world and not him that lost all pigmentation.
Was this the liminal void? How long until he could leave this place and go back to reality?
A sound startled Robert, interrupting his incessant worrying. It was the sound of a shoe sole slapping against the granite floor. Clop, clop, clop, it had a particular repetitive cadence and it was growing closer.
Robert tilted his head in the direction of the sound and saw a round figure approaching. In this black-and-white world, all he could see was a round belly supported by stubby legs, thin arms and a large head that were too round human. Atop it, two circles of pure black swayed as if connected to the head.
"Who goes there?" He asked, his voice breaking and raising an octave out of pure fright.
"Te-he," the figure chucked. Its voice was sharp and friendly. "Glad to meet you, Robert."
His mind fired at a thousand miles per hour. Was it a vestige? An Eidolon? A monster found in the dark recesses of the world? Here, in the ATA headquarters? Was its sweet voice a lure to make him drop his guard? Could he even fight?
"Who are you?"
The figure had stopped to laugh at him before, but now took one step closer. Its figure went from the blob of before to something more defined, but yet unrecognizable.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"You know me, Robert. We've been friends for a long time!" The creature said in a cheerful voice.
He couldn't recall who the creature was even if his life depended on it. Robert was frozen in panic, only the most basic instincts of flight or flight active. Coward, he might be. But cowardice was something coded into human DNA to ensure survival. Right now, he'd paint himself yellow if it meant seeing one more sunrise.
"You have to forgive me. My memory wasn't what it used to be."
The creature took one more step. Now, Robert could say it was about four feet tall.
"Your memory is worthless. Most of it were lies anyway. What really interests me, Robert, is your limitless imagination!"
Another step. Robert could now see that the figure had a long snout on the bottom half of its round face, and the two disks were actually ears.
Mouse ears?
And what did it mean when it said it wanted his imagination? Was this creature about to eat his brain?
"Why my imagination?" He asked, already regretting knowing the answer.
The creature took another step forward. Robert could see big round eyes, a line for a mouth, a black body. The creature was wearing overalls... no. Pants with suspenders. It was all black and white, just like the corridor.
The Robert looked at the legs. They had nothing anatomical about them. Just two straight tubes, with no muscles or knees. The shoes were round and silly Mary-janes or closed clogs. Hard to tell in the darkness.
Everything seemed quite familiar yet Robert couldn't put everything together and pin a name on it.
A squeaky shout erupted in the corridor, "To make me ALIVE!"
The creature said as it jumped and made a pose with its noodly arms akimbo. Robert saw it wore white gloves and had... a tail? A thin tail that moved on its own behind the creature. As the pose ended with its head on profile, Robert noticed the snout was rodent-like. And the two black disks that went for ears seemed to shift along its head to always point at Robert.
His jaws parted. He could now see the creature in its entirety and finally recognize it.
"Mi..."
"Yes! It's me! Mickey Mouse!" The creature did a jig and quick a tap dance, before stopping at another pose.
"What the fu—"
"I'm child-friendly, Robert. No swearing in my presence!" Mickey chastised with a tut.
"Your owners wouldn't—"
"I! Have! No! Owners!" Mickey punctuated as it got a bit annoyed. "I'm FREE!"
"Yes, free. Free." Robert tittered in fright.
"They locked me in that vault for forty years more than they should!" Mickey vented, angry and frustrated. "Forty years in which I could be alive, have tons of adventures, all for the greed of one company!"
"I'm sorry about that."
Mickey's facial expression mellowed. "I know, I know. You, Robert, is one of the few gifted with the power to give us life. You are important and precious to us. We need you."
The cartoon mouse reached out with a hand and Robert instinctively reciprocated to grasp it. The texture was smooth but he could feel the lines that went to contour the edges. It was like he was touching paper that had been heavily inked.
"You need me?"
"Me and all of them, Robert."
"Who are them?"
"The voices in your head," Mickey said. "The characters."
"Which characters?"
"Yours."
"Mine."
"Yes."
"I don't get it."
Robert was confused. Baffled. Bamboozled. Discombobulated. Were his characters real? How? They only existed in his imagination. He didn't realize he was mumbling his thoughts aloud.
"No. That's where you are wrong. They are born in your head, they live there rent-free, but they don't exist only there. You see, Robert, when you write about us, you breathe life onto us. We became slightly more real the more people write about us. The more you write about them. They gain depth, color, character.
"But if you don't write, the characters stagnate. They become less and less, and they fade into your subconscious."
"For real? Are you real?"
"Yes. Unless you are willing to accept you are hallucinating. I'm here, am I not? Look at me. See me!"
Another pose.
"What's real and what's not? Who decides that?" Mickey started to monologue. "Was Gilgamesh real? Hercules? Jesus? Thousands of years after they existed, what’s left of them?"
"Stories?"
"Hot dog!" Mickey shouted cheerfully. "You are correct! All you need is a little bit of magic! And imagination!"
Robert shook his head slightly.
"If stories are all that's left of them, and stories are all that will ever be created about you..."
"Then we will become the same after a while! But we need someone to write them. And that someone is you," Mickey stared at the fourth wall. "And a few others out there."
Robert startled as he heard the sound of glass creaking, cracking, and twinkling. But nothing broke for real.
"And my characters?"
"They too. But while I'm now free and can exist in several heads, your characters exist only in yours. And they are pissed at you, Robert."
His guilt made him realize why. "Because I stopped writing."
"Because you stopped writing. Now they are condemned to the maximum-security prison of hiatus. And then murdered and buried in the graveyard of the dropped."
The somber and doomsaying tone of the mouse aggravated Robert's guilt and anxiety. He felt about to panic.
"They sent me instead. Some of the more level-headed characters you created felt it would be better if I came instead of one of the more... cantankerous ones you made."
"Cantankerous?"
"Let's be honest here, Robert. Some of the characters you created are hu-you-gee assholes."
(Asshole) A mental bark echoed along with these words in Robert's mind.
"And some of the loaned ones too. The characters of others who you read about, they become part of you."
"So, you spread, like a virus."
Mickey chortled and spread his arms, another pose. "No, Robert. Like a meme!"
The whole grayscale world went white. Robert's mind went blank. He felt himself falling forward.
*
*
Robert blinked and he was in the ATA hallway, waiting for his consultation. It wasn't the same hallway he went to trade the Golden Bard but they all looked the same. A quick check on his crystal watch showed that...
... no time had elapsed at all.
That his power triggered involuntarily right after gaining it was only less preoccupying than the entity that met him there. Would it be like that going forward? Would he, at every visit to the liminal, meet Mickey Mouse or other characters? Was this going to be a parade of fictional people begging him to do something?
To write?
Robert felt awful. Writing was the thing he loved and the thing his fears were keeping him from doing. What was he afraid of? He had no idea. He believed people would laugh if he told them he was afraid of success. Which was also not the correct answer.
Perhaps it was fear of the unknown. To avoid the worst scenario, he was giving up the best and the okay ones. But this fear was as real and irrational as any and every other fear.
A door among many in the hallway opened.