The soul is a strange thing. Not even I understand them, and I am the first soul. My birth, or perhaps creation, remains a mystery to me. But even my creations evade understanding as well. Adam and Eve, the first of humanity, were forged from ripped-out parts of my own soul. But their children were not. The souls of the second generation of humans and beyond were wrought of love. I have observed the true birth of humans, the moment the soul coalesces. To my senses, it simply appears out of nowhere. Upon death, I am able to sense more. The soul goes somewhere. A place just beyond my reach. And I have tried to reach it, divine essence burning with the effort. It’s maddening, and terrifying. All this goes to say that the soul is a construct of infinite depth. Almost all attempts to unravel it fail.
After all, infinity is not so easily gazed into.
—----------------------------------
“How are the readings?” Alan questioned, maniacal gleam in his mind as he frantically scrawled diagrams on a massive whiteboard.
“Well…” the fat scientist started, “they’re increasing.”
“Oh?” Alan looked up.
“Yes. None of the clones have so much as twitched a muscle. But every week, more and more of the true humans move or babble, but…”
“Continue” Alan promoted.
“We’re running into problems with interpreting the data.”
“Such as?”
“Well… it's strange. It can’t be studied analytically. It must be felt.”
“So, feel it? I don't see a problem.” Alan started to get back to his work.
“Wait. It's just that it's growing complicated. Really complicated. At first it was simple. A movement that somehow radiated joy, anger or some other basic emotion. Now the meanings are growing increasingly complicated. We can barely catch the tail end of some of them. And they hurt.”
“They hurt?” Alan questioned, cocking a head.
“Yeah. They hurt to look at, hurt to contemplate. It's like… remember that class in university, Interstellar Physics. Everytime we walked out of the class, it hurt. The more you understood the more you realized how complicated it was. Layer of depth, dancing just out of your reach!”
He stopped to take a breath.
“It's like that, but somehow more…comprehensive, if that makes sense. I…I don't know how much longer we can keep doing this. I can feel my mind degrading, and in turn, something else is coming out.”
Alan was on him in a second, “Something else? Explain.” he commanded.
“I…I don’t know. It's like my rational thinking is fading to the background. Why yesterday I was having trouble solving a basic Grandenetti Chain!”
Alan started scribbling stuff on the whiteboard. “And what’s coming to the foreground?”
The fat scientist hesitated. “Clarity” he whispered, “My emotions are purer, and my purpose is clearer. I react faster and adjust more smoothly. I feel…more awake than I've ever been before.”
He closed his eyes.
“But I'm scared. I don't know what I'm becoming. But at the same time it is so…freeing. So powerful.”
He opened his eyes, and Alan saw a flash of something.
“Fascinating. It looks like I need to spend more time in the pod room.”
He left with the fat scientist, leaving behind a full white board.
Paragraphs upon paragraphs decorated its surface, interspersed with drawings and diagrams.
And in its center?
A boy with a hole in his heart.
—------------------------------
Alan was back at his whiteboard, except now his writing was…different. More fluid and expressive, rather than analytical. It was research, yes. But it was also art, each paragraph seamlessly blending into the next, augmented by abstract symbols. Time slowed as he unraveled, and yet simultaneously created, the very essence of the soul.
Close…
Closer…
Almost…
Far…
Closer…
It was a maddening cycle of almost reaching the end before discovering new layers. He wondered if it would ever end, but there, trapped in that sublime mindset, there was no room for hesitation. No room for failure.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Hours upon hours later he was interrupted by a yell.
“Alan!” Jessica yelled, “Something’s happening!”
“What!” he yelled back, annoyed at being interrupted.
“One of them’s stirring more than usual. We…We think it might be awakening.”
Alan ran all the way, turning into little more than a blur as he engaged his augments to their fullest capacity. It only took him a minute to arrive at the pod. In it was the runt of the litter, the smallest physically and mentally, and the one with the least activity. Till then.
The baby, now a small child, was twitching with increasing frequency. With every movement the scientists winced, weathering the bombardment of pure meaning.
Once upon a time they would have scattered, but over the years they had been forged into something sterner. They were more in tune with their souls than most would ever be, and with that awareness they called up basic protections to shield them from the awakening soul. Yet their attunement couldn't match that of one who had only known his soul since the second he was conceived, so they suffered regardless.
As they watched the runt’s movements became more pronounced as so did the meaning behind them, turning winces into low groans.
Finally, just as it was becoming unbearable, the runt’s movements finally stopped. There was a moment of silence, true silence, deeper than any normal silence.
Then the runt’s eyes snapped open, golden irises shining bright.
And with unseeing eyes, it saw.
Ripples of meaning, heavier than anything before swept outward, inspiring movement in the other children. I reeled with the scientists, but for a different reason. They were desperately leveraging their meager knowledge of the soul to maintain their sanity.
I was in shock.
This should not be possible.
To awaken one's self off the essence of one’s soul alone was a paradox. Self-Wrought Existence, the creation of the self, as I had done. A creation worthy of divinity. Yet the runt didn't ascend. I frowned, and looked closer until I realized the problem. His soul was too weak.
All souls are infinite on a physical level, but on a spiritual level, there are different magnitudes of infinity. Divinity requires a certain strength of soul, one the runt did not possess.
Even so, it was a feat of unsurpassed accomplishment, and it provoked an appropriate response. The scientists screamed as their very minds threatened to give in.
“Alan!” one choked, “Emergency destruct! Now!”
“NO!” Alan yelled back, “This is the greatest discovery in the history of mankind! We need to weather it!”
“No, Alan!” Another yelled, “We won't make it! Don't let your greed be the death of us!”
Alan laughed, a tinge of something hair-raising manifesting.
“You stand on the precipice of the greatest discovery in human history! Of the greatest power in the cosmos! And you want to turn back!” he yelled incredulously. He laughed again. “No. Understanding or death.”
The waves of meaning were growing increasingly powerful bombarding the scientist with the joy of a people one moment, and the chill of true death the next. And that was just a result of the child’s existence. Any of his actions…they would have a much greater impact.
The six scientists glanced at each other, and finding mutual understanding, forced themselves to their feets. Standing there, strong against the kaleidoscope of incomprehensible visions, they cut heroic figures indeed. But for every hero, there must be a villain.
Alan rose to his feet as well, chuckling as he placed himself between them and the control panel.
“Finally some grew some spines, Huh.”
The scientists stepped forwards as one, “Move. Or be moved.”
Alan grinned madly,
“No.”
The scientist rushed forward as one, not thinking, just acting. That is the essence of a soul. Existence.
Alan attacked them, augments flaring as he moved faster than any human should.
And found himself matched.
The scientist fought for their very minds, allowing their souls to shine in the forefront as shields.
And Alan fought for his brother, pushing himself to the absolute limit.
In a world of twisting meaning, and impossible visions, seven scientists fought over the rise of a demigod.
I was impressed by how they fought. In such a place, the laws I had so painstakingly forged meant little. They fought unconstrained, soaring through the air one moment and striking with biting rhetoric the next.
It was a battle in many dimensions.
But all things must come to an end.
The runt, no, the child of the void opened his mouth and said something. It was a question, and a declaration. Of existence itself.
It struck the warring scientist like a runaway spaceship. Four instantly collapsed, minds shattered. The remaining two fell to their knees, clutching their heads.
Alan merely tilted his head back and started to laugh uncontrollably, his insanity temporarily shielding his mind, as he basked in the child of the void’s declaration.
The two scientists began to crawl to the control panel, until about half-way there, one couldn't take it anymore.
“Go, Richard” he managed to choke out, “This isn't about us anymore. That thing can’t be allowed to live. And neither can…Alan.”
With those final words, he slumped to the floor, mind broken.
The final scientist, Richard, mustered his will, and continued to drag himself forward.
Time narrowed to a single instance, a frozen hell of meaning and death.
The next he was at the control panel.
Alan finally noticed him. “Richard! Get away from there!”
He tried to make his way over, but found his bodily control fading as his pure significance began to find a way through his maze of madness.
Richard frantically typed away on the console. Luckily, as an entity without a soul, it was largely immune to the effects of the child of the void.
Finally, he arrived at the lab’s self-destruct sequence. He looked around taking in his last moments of life. A child with golden eyes. A crawling madman. 5 corpses.
He sighed.
Then, with the last fragments of his mind, he pressed the button.
—--------------------------------------------
Nobody survived the massive explosion. Not even the child of the void. It may have possessed an awakened soul, but it was still mortal, young, unused to its power.
I was, strangely enough, sympathetic to Alan. All he wanted was to bring back his brother. I know what it's like, the madness of being alone. It lurks around me even now.
The incident shook me. It was among the closest I've seen beings to achieving ascension.
And it was by the mere virtue of manifesting its soul.
Some things truly are beyond comprehension.