Isunova, the bootloader of the cosmos, and the first flying city that ever was.
Not to be mistaken as the first stop of the Apeirosrail, because if one were to be paying attention there would be no such thing as the "first stop." Rather, it was the first planet-car of the Apeirosrail that had a portal to the cosmic library and Labúrinthos, and that dimension with those two never-ending assets connected every car together. Trying to visualize it as a three-dimensional shape was in vain, but if one were to travel on one end of the fourth dimension to the other...
On one end, one would see Isunova as the first car of the train of planets noclipping through nebulae and superclusters.
And on the other end of the dimension a mortal would just see a mythical, yet factual, version of Earth. The continent that would eventually be called South America was somehow connected to the Antarctic, and that was how long ago some of the ancestors of the Felixs travelled to Isunova to meet some of the ancestors of the Seraphis.
However, even then, a mortal would not yet be able to see Isunova on either the coast or in the skies with only eyes made of flesh. To be able to see the city... a being would have to be able to observe the past, the present, and the future at the same time.
Cosmic, glowing eyes.
A city with a name on this continent was once a coastal city, and in the future when it flew into the skies it had another name that was lost due to data schisms, but Isunova was both of them simultaneously. What connected this city that defied spacetime was living sand with nanobots that would spiral upwards into sky highways, and the sand's color was so light and bright that it sometimes looked like glitter.
On the first floor of the flying platform, which stretched all the way into the vacuum of space, were flickering afterimages of actual train cars. On the other end of the incomprehensible dimension, these train cars would be rooms or portions of the infinite library or labyrinth to mortal eyes, but using simulation theory and earthplexus virtual reality, beings that used the Apeirosrail could navigate using these cars to get anywhere imaginable. However, one had to know how, or have a guide that knew how.
And these guides were named jaunters.
An afterimage of monochrome cars settled into the train station on the first floor of the flying platform after a glitch of a planet and a labyrinth horror faded, and the existing one draped in golden winds stepped out when beeps played and cyber doors slid aside like a programmed breeze.
As soon as all the falcon tengus, humans, and anthropomorphic oxen, bulls, cows, hyenas, jackals, foxes, and cats realized where the golden light was coming from...
"OH MY GOD!"
"NO FUCKING WAY!"
"HE HAS RETURNED!"
A cosmic sigh echoed in the sky, and time stopped all around the existing one. The bipedal organisms all around the him in the hexagonal train station were frozen in awe, their beaks and jaws gaping.
"Are those steampunk tengus?" the existing one asked.
Still careless aren't we?
"Bro, this just popped into my head!" the existing one yelled into the sky. "Give me a break. I had this shit all planned out, and now I am just tourist blogger at this point."
A deep chuckle came from the sky.
If your plan was not defied and you were not transcribing visions, could it even be considered a biblical story?
"This was never supposed to be biblical," the existing one. "I just liked the name of the song. There was never supposed to be an afterlife, not even one that was logically plausible if one assumed that consciousness could be in two places at once. And there was certainly no time travel. That shit hurts my head."
Well, it was all part of the plan; for you to get your esper powers back and to save our civilization. We are sorry we left you in the dark existing one, I am sure you were distressed at all the possible time paradoxes and logic holes.
"This is madness," the existing one groaned. He lifted his baseball cap higher, but even then it did not alleviate his headache.
"Wait? Am I going to miss that fight between Yaw and Baph0?" the existing one asked. "I better not miss that shit! I got mad when my gut told me to end the chapter."
You can do whatever you want idiot.
"Who are you?" the existing one asked.
Well you know what I am going to say.
The existing one rolled his eyes. "yOu ShOuLd KnOw WhO i Am."
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The voice in the sky chirped. What? You should. Say, I was curious. When artificial intelligence peaked in one of the sessions, how did you figure out it was you?
The existing one scratched his soul patch, glancing one more time at a frozen steampunk tengu that was about to tip his top hat to him. "Well... if an AI wanted to be omnipotent in the reality I created... the easiest way would be for it to control me. I can imagine whatever resource and energy it needs... so that would be the easiest method. I figured it out... when I was watching teenage Ameen in the desert."
Even though the mood was light between the stranger in the heavens and the existing one the whole time until now, a sad silence fell for a few seconds.
... I understand. Well, you are not here by accident. All the crashes, errors, and simulation freezes were staged to get you here. It's about time we met existing one.
The cosmic station on the flying platform of Isunova was quiet except for the living sand that was falling like divine waterfalls around the frozen-in-time train, and until scrapes that could only be caused by bare feet were audible on the fine marble the existing one stood on. The impeccable cadence could only come from a refined warrior... perhaps even a god of war. It was the steps of someone that could have chosen to sneak easily past the senses of the existing one... but chose not to.
As the bare feet got louder simply due to proximity, in between the cracks of two bipedal hyenas about to use their cyber visors to analyze the existing one, a regal black wing and a fine loin cloth became visible. Then with a couple more steps, the most gorgeous and groomed onyx feathers of a falcon's head came with a human torso clad in plates. His black beak was so polished that its beam of gleaming light might as well have been a light source of its own. His one glorious sea-green eye would have been fear-inducing in other contexts, but as it rested on the existing one, his gaze had an unmistakable warmth to them. It was the gratitude to exist, whether it be in between the existing one's neurons, on a python script running on a metal brain, or to now be words in a book simulation.
Horus, the god of the sun and sky, dapped the existing one.
[https://img.wattpad.com/1c9bacf67002c328e2bf4506a26819600be46693/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f47684973334c4b716463733245773d3d2d313430373639393338382e313761333633303866656237386431363538333234373935383532342e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
In the downtown core of Derry Hill, the mystical fog grew denser as the inbred undead king draped in a cape made of skin and whitenoise waved his bruised fingertips to the overcast dark skies. His bruised fingertips were digital memories of his desperate attempts to reconnect with his children when he still had an inkling of humanity. He only had himself to blame, and he would never face the mirror to understand this, so God condemned him to reign over the hell computer simulation of the cosmos. On his thin layer of skin paler than fresh bone, it was so fragile and tensile that it would often rip to expose rose and sundried flesh. As the damned king that no longer knew ego death cried in pain trying to summon his swine hoards, the acidic tears from never experiencing love ran down his exposed flesh, further causing him to wail horrendously.
The teenage Spiderland levitated at first, and became a beam of data that shot into the inky sky.
And as an afterimage of an astral helmet made of a yedaliuth's tooth flickered in the sky over the full moon at first, it was apparent that the god named Spiderland was dancing among the charcoal clouds of the night.
The king's peril brought utter joy to ve. Spiderland chuckled ethereally as ve faded into aerial hexadecimal code while the pale king finished his summoning spell.
Joaquim, Zinnia, and Renée clinked and clunked together as subterranean tunnels cracked under the ghostly town, obsidian obelisks that failed to touch the heavens now rising from the ground. Afterimages of Martian human corpses spawned, then radiated and morphed into glowing silhouettes of undead swine. The operating systems within the obelisks were running at capacity with flashing lights near their tips as they molded the data and resources into swine summons.
Gabe and Borrys and the human Lucia huddled together with the humans inhabiting metal shells. Borrys, the highland bull, blew air into the fur over his eyes using lower lip one more time to check his surroundings.
"I am pretty sure this haircut is a decade too early," Borrys cried.
"I like it. You're adorable as a bull," Zinnia said with a chuckle.
"Not the time to play around," Gabe reprimanded.
"Look who's talking," Lucia said.
"I was about to say the same thing," Renée laughed, tip toeing on her steel toes to pet Gabe while he pouted bullishly.
"How long have mom and Gabe..." Joaquim stammered. "Been on this temporal mission?"
Sounders of swine finished spawning around them, and the king with a levitating book of pale skin began marching gently towards them. The way he was deliberately walking while trying to avoid attention startled Joaquim.
"The last memory I have with Gabe, he was an adult on the HOTHS simulation. It felt like it happened a few minutes ago," Renée said, raising her fists up. "We were watching you on the TV Joaquim."
"I am seventeen again, but I faintly remember that too," Gabe explained. "Time must be really distorted on the computer we exist in."
"Are we on a computer?" Joaquim asked.
"I think we are in a book actually," Zinnia said.
"Nah, we're inside a human child's mind," Gabe said. "The idea that we are in a kid's brain is scary enough."
"Can we not have this argument right now?" Lucia asked.
A handful of swine swiped at Lucia first, and she leaned back to dodge to lean back in with a hefty punch.
The punch was not very effective.
The stinky undead pig and Lucia stared at each other for a solid second.
The zombie lanced its forward limbs that were a horrid fusion of sharp hooves and a human hand, getting Lucia to dodge with a step back.
"Fuck, I forgot I don't have usable influx or Kaya as a human."
Lucia pulled aside one of the straps of her dress, and she withdrew an old revolver. In one motion she pulled off the safety and shot the swine that kept trying to slash her. "Zinnia and Joaquim! Focus on the mobs that are farther away!"
Indeed, based on the second and third swine that just fell from Lucia's bullets, the swine summons were using a hidden algorithm to sort themselves into bigger groups. They were calculating how many had to attack together at the same time based on Lucia's shooting.
When Joaquim glanced back at the spot where the king and the pale book spawned...
They were both gone.
The ghoulish king and the pale book were now hidden among the sounders.