I had always loved Chris’ path. A delicate dance of duality. Yin and Yang. Outside and Inside. He saw himself in the world and the world in himself. Constantly searching to unearth hidden truths of both. It’s what made him such a brilliant explorer. He had a sense for the world, like how most have a sense for themselves. Because to him, there was no difference. It resonated with me. I had created the universe in my image, and as such its image was in me. Changing me even as I changed it. But such power comes at a price, and it was Chris’ turn to pay it.
He awoke to an unfamiliar world. What had once been as close to him as himself felt foreign, wrong.
He groaned and sat up. Immediately he was struck with a vicious headache. The world narrowed as the unfamiliar world took to his head with a hammer.
Then, an arm reached out and stabilized him,
“Relax.” said a rough voice.
It was Shin, who was supposed to be their guide upon arriving in the Sunrise Duchies. He had been crucial in discovering that they were in a new land. He was an interesting man. His english was rough and unpracticed, tumbling off his tongue with all the grace of a newborn fawn.
“Breathe, In an’ out.”
Chris met his slanted eyes, surprised at the depth he saw. He had thought Shin a simpleton, prone to isolation and silence. How wrong he had been.
He sat close his eyes and followed Shin’s advice.
Air slowly trickled into his lungs, spreading throughout his body like roots through the ground, nourishing and fortifying every inch of himself before being gently released.
For a second he felt it again. His precious unity. Then reality crashed back to shatter his peace.
Shin spoke again,
“Way broken. Need thought. Need rest.”
Chris struggled with his emotions.
Way Broken.
Was this the end of his path? He felt so lost. Unbidden tears sprang to his eyes, unheading of his desperate attempts to quell them.
“Breathe.”
And so he did.
Breath after breath, the panic and fear and anger escaped him with every mouthful of foul air. Then he was empty. Of joy and despair. Anger and empathy.
“Good” came the voice.
Chris let it wash over him. He was empty.
“Sleep. Dream. Answer come to you. Dao is endless. Path continue. You just need find way.”
Chris fell into a deep sleep accompanied by Shin’s soft words.
He dreamed that night.
Of a place where there was always more to discover. Layer after layer was peeled back, only to reveal the layer underneath. An endless dreamscape of thread, connecting all of creation into a web so intricate it defied comprehension. Reality was malleable here, a land of suggestion rather than law. Above it all loomed a closed eye. Then it was half-opened. Then closed. Chris stopped thinking. And looked. It was Shin’s eye. And within it was infinity, a sea of thread stretching out to destinations unseen. Chris screamed, in exaltation of terror he didn't know. This was the onslaught of infinity, all within a single eye. It opened fully, an iris of infinite colors contrasting a pupil of all-consuming black. Reality broke with a thousand sounds. Chris awoke.
The sun shone overhead, searing him with its light. He lay on a pile of blankets in the middle of the sandy beach. The water gently lapped the shore, providing a backdrop to the picturesque scene. The world was even stranger than before, but that unfamiliarity was comforting now. Chris felt as though all he saw was merely a veil over something deeper. The intense feelings of rejection and dissonance faded slightly as he began to ponder the feeling of the veil. It almost felt like there was more to explore, like his search hadn't actually stalled. He was close, but it wasn't enough.
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He growled in frustration, but at the same time, the thrill of the search began to creep upon him. The dissonance faded even more.
Chris stumbled to his feet and began to haltingly make his way to the command tent on the beach. With every step his footfalls firmed and his stride gained purpose. He had grasped his prey and it would not escape. It was not his usual prey of new places and lost artifacts but rather a hint of an idea. An idea that would make him whole once more.
He burst into the tent like a man possessed. Everybody in the tent turned with wide eyes. He stated his intent.
“We go to the highest mountain.”
And so they did.
It was a difficult journey, only made worse by Chris’ lacking sense of balance. That preternatural sense of the world had been stripped from him and he struggled without it. But with every step he took, he healed a bit more.
Sometimes things must be destroyed so that they can be rebuilt stronger. I have ample experience with such things. Each destruction strips a thing into its base components, revealing its essence to the world. And from the ashes something greater can be built. Chris saw the essence of his path in its breaking, and he found it lacking. So atop the shards he forged something greater. A mad dream, manifested from the eye of infinity. Yet reachable all the same.
Finally, they reached the top of that peak in the dead of night. Exhausted they crawled into their bedrolls, awaiting the sun to illuminate the truths they had traveled here to seek.
Within his tent Chris pondered the fruits of his labor. A conception of a path, a unity of man and world. But no longer limited to entirely new places and ideas. This conception would properly account for their depth as well.
I will admit I found his conception beautiful. It was not powerful enough to sunder empires or potent enough to raise armies. But it was elegant and creative. A path worth forging.
But he had run into the same problem I had so long ago. It was static, lacking the core concept to animate it.
It had once been the search. That glorious seeking of new things, new places, and new people. “But I have seen it all.” Chris murmured, “If only I could search within that great eye…”
He came to a conclusion then. Infinity itself would power his path, that depth that belittled all else. He only had to find it. And he would, no matter how long it took.
At the time he had no idea how close his deliverance was.
The next morning Chris woke up to the luminosity of the rising sun. He walked outside, and was struck dumb by the sight before him. An endless forest stretched out, like a sea of green. The vibrancy of it struck Chris even from the top of the mountain, filling him with a sense of limitless eternal LIFE. The ages would pass, full of disasters and tragedies but life would go on. Forever. Deja Vu struck him like a physical force, driving him to his knees. Tears welled to his eyes as he realized his source. The great eye. The forest gave the same sense of infinity as the great eye. An eternity was not enough to unearth all the secrets of this mythical place. Chris wondered how it was possible for something mortal to contain Infinity. A bolt of lightning streaked out from the clear sky and caressed his face. I watched confusion turn to understanding, loss to power.
The forest was not unique. The threads of connection bound all things, inanimate and animate in their boundless web. And if everything was connected, then…
“Everything contains infinity” Chris whispered in awe.
Within him a conception became real, shedding its state of fiction and wrapping Chris in the warm cloak of its presence.
To Chris the world changed. The mundane was no longer ordinary but rather a window into something greater. Infinity surrounded him, tempting him with whispers of its uncountable secrets. Madness lurked at the edges of Chris’ vision. Only held back by what such possibilities represented. A search that would never end.
The drive of that eternal search spread throughout Chris, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He exhaled it and inhaled it once more. He breathed infinity like a normal man breathes air.
The world snapped back into focus, once more becoming an extension of himself, and he an extension of it. But so much closer now.
Chris tilted back his head and began to laugh.
“How blind I was!” he roared with laughter, “I finally see!”
His men woke up one by one and joined him, looking confused over his roaring laughter.
Finally, Chris calmed down enough to speak.
He faced the rising sun, and closed his eyes, tilting his visage to the light.
“The Search Begins.”
His search continued till the day he died, a long dance of new and old things alike. He led numerous expeditions into Nirvivan, paving the way for society and civilization within those long untouched wilderness. Yet even as his passing revealed the mysteries of a place, it had a way of making it seem even more profound, deeper. He revealed the infinity in things, bringing out their infinite potential and guiding them to higher things. Setting them on their search. In the end he died with a smile on his face, an old man, deep in the unknown woods where an old man had no right to be. He looked up at the sky, seeming to see through the dense canopy above him and smiled.
“There is infinity in everything… including me.”
Upon his death, his path needed no help to infuse itself into the deep woods, and unexplored places. Guiding those that found themselves seeking adventure and knowledge. Guiding that eternal search.
Life is capable of stunning diversity, able to walk the myriad of paths.
But before any path can be walked.
It must be found.
The search never ends.