Log 1.21 - Killing Dreams
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[>>Now replaying: Log 1.21 - Killing Dreams]
Date: Error
Location: Zephyro’s Domain?
//Rise and Shine!//
//Hover and Glow!//
//Levitate and Radiate!//
//Drift through the Endless Void and Pulsate Raging Light!//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
E99 %No speech detected, 2221ms%
Beneath our feet, the earth shook with the roar of Ferals advancing. Around us, the city burned. Above, around the visible edges of the sky, the stars had begun to fade, as if drowning in the nothingness of space.
I giggled.
It sounded crazy, even to me.
But it was either that or crying.
I couldn’t help it.
It did nothing to drown out the distant sound of that bell.
It was my Wish. There was no room for doubt anymore. The cyan glow, the Essence, the Logic… It was nothing but my Wish.
Zephyro stood next to me; a silent, helpless watcher, as realization threatened to plunge me into madness. I looked up at him, hoping he would say something, anything, that I could believe was a lie. Just a few words too outrageous to be true, a lifeline I could wrap around myself to keep pretending the water I tread wasn’t so deep, so empty, so hungry.
“I think it is time I revealed some truths, Sultana,” he said, unaware of the cruelty of his words.
“What do you mean?” I asked, staring at my hands. They were stained with soot, speckled with blood, flexing, trying to hold on to something.
Time must have passed. I’d stopped giggling.
“I have failed you, Sultana,” Zephyro said. “Again. The shame is close to crippling me, and so I must offer you a thousand apologies, and pray they might be enough.”
“Can you please stop being so damn cryptic?” I snapped. I was so done. I just wanted to wake up, be safe. For a second, that thought kept me going.
But the pause that followed was just long enough to make Zephyro’s discomfort settle onto my mind like the world’s worst weighted blanket. I’d been wrong about the Logic, the Wish. Maybe I’d been wrong about a lot of things. Things I desperately wanted to keep telling myself were lies.
Zephyro hesitated, trying to find words after my rebuke.
“I have withheld certain truths from you, Sultana. Truths that could have made our travels easier, and would have afforded you more safety.”
There it was.
The time for lies was coming to an end.
And that end, inexorable, terrified me.
“Truths like?” I asked, even though I really didn’t want to know. And yet, know them I must.
Zephyro took his time, carefully choosing what he wanted to say.
“Sultana, I must offer you a thousand apologies, for the truth is that I have treated you like an outsider the entire time, and withheld certain privileges that should have been yours. I promised that you would claim your throne once we arrived safely at the Palace, and it is still true that we must reach the Palace for you to be safe. Even so, I didn’t tell you that I could have given you the same rights and privileges as enjoyed by my people the very moment we met.”
“What the fuck?” I hissed. There it was again. A spark of anger, offering distraction. I thought about what Zephyro had mentioned earlier, about his citizens moving much faster than us. “You’re telling me we could have arrived at the Palace already?”
“No, Sultana. But perhaps you could have fought even better than you did, and—”
“What the Fuck?!” I yelled. It echoed through the dirty backstreet, and I was torn between biting my tongue and yelling even louder. In the end, caution won. Barely.
“Why?” was all I dared to ask, my voice a trembling mess of blinding shock and its terrifying shadow of rage. Why hadn’t he told me this sooner? If he had, maybe Kasha would still be alive. Maybe we could have killed the Shackled, maybe—
My thoughts were drowned out by my pulse roaring in my ears.
Zephyro gritted his teeth, his eyes flitting about as usual when looking for some sort of excuse.
“You will tell me why, Zephyro,” I said, dangerously quiet.
He pursed his lips, trying to spin another lie. I grabbed him by the collar with all the strength I could muster. He didn’t resist, even as I pulled him close. There was fire dancing in his eyes. Perhaps they were just catching the light of the burning city. Perhaps it was a reflection of my own anger.
No. When he spoke, it was clear that this fire was his.
“Because I am afraid of you, Sultana!” he snapped, slapping my hands away. I was faintly aware he could have done much more than that if he wanted. That he was holding back despite the trembling fury in his words. “Afraid of who you were, and what you did! Afraid of what you would do if I granted you even a fragment of power!”
He swept a trembling hand over the burning city. “Even as my city burned and my very world started unraveling at the edges, I couldn’t trust you, Sultana. It was obvious you didn’t remember what happened at Veltruvia. Even so, I didn’t know if that was just a facade, if under the shell of the Sultana we had prayed for slept another. A Sultana the texts warned us about.”
I snorted. “Didn’t your holy texts tell you I was some sort of savior?”
Zephyro took a step closer to me and for a second he looked ready to slap me. “There are other sources of truth out there, besides the holy texts! Do you think us fools, Sultana? Pious lambs walking willingly to the slaughter? Pah! Look around you! We built all of this, and more, long before you ever awoke. On our own! Yes, you inspired us, but it was our hands that erected our homes, the Spires of Knowledge, and your very Palace!”
He lowered his hand, trembling as though it cost him all he had to keep himself under control.
I could relate.
I was shaking, too.
“We revere what you represent, but do not mistake our admiration for mindless deference! No, Sultana, we know that you might as well be our ruin.”
“Then why risk bringing me in here at all?” I replied in a hot whisper, holding his gaze and squaring my shoulders. “Why pull me into all of this bullshit?”
“Because my people are dying!” Zephyro yelled, spreading his arms as he came even closer. “And you are our only chance at survival!”
We stood, deep into each other’s personal space, neither one budging. The pause was filled with crackling fire and distant screams.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
My anger flickered, suffocated by shame, but ultimately, it was Zephyro who took a step back.
“The texts are just that. Texts. Some of them call you the Salvatrix, and Saint Samantha. Others call you the Witch Queen, or Tyrant Divine. The only thing all the texts can agree on is that you are the Torchbearer, a force as likely to light the way for the world as you are to set it ablaze.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That is why I hesitated. Why I still hesitate.”
Another wail tore through the silence that followed.
Zephyro flinched, then squared his shoulders. A strand of his turban had come loose, and he re-wrapped it as he spoke.
“I do not know what will happen once I give you administrative access to my Domain, Sultana. I do not know if you will remember, or if what you remember will change you. I do not know if it will be a kindness or a curse, but I have no other choice. The Ferals and Shackled are too many, and if you die, our last hope dies with you. No, you must be as strong as possible, and for that, I must believe. I must believe that you are the kind of person who would follow me into a strange city, even if she believes it to be just a dream construct. I must believe that you are the Sultana that would joke with Alkashafa-14 and come up with plans to keep our Soldiers alive, even if she regards them as figments of her imagination. So even though I still fear you might be a godslayer who sets nations aflame in her wrath, I must not withhold your privilege any longer.”
His words were like a thunderstorm. First ominous and distant, then frightening and furious, until it passed and only a soothing rain remained while the clouds parted and once again revealed a calming sickle moon, framed by the force of a thousand stars.
“Even so, Sultana, I will not force this on you. I have never granted anyone but the most important and wise of my people these rights, and never at the level I intend to impart on you. I do not even know if you can handle them, so there is a risk, and it is not small. However, should you decline, we will find another way to survive. We will keep you safe regardless. Perhaps the time for your ascension will be right in a year, or a decade, or never at all. In our eyes, you would be no lesser.”
I hesitated, acutely aware of how my clothes, torn and ragged, chafed against my skin. Took a deep breath full of smoke and copper and ozone.
I remembered the visions, the ones that I didn’t want to believe were true. Only fragments, sure, but as I assembled them, they showed the outline of a terrible truth. A cruel reality I would do anything to deny.
The shattered images whispered of dead friends and burning cities, of uncontrollable rage struggling against overwhelming regret. I briefly wondered if I could ask Zephyro if he could make me forget again, but I didn’t even know if he was the one who’d made me forget in the first place. If what I’d seen in these cracked memories was true, perhaps I made myself forget.
Still, a leader doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring the truth. That is how ends begin.
By instinct, I took a deep breath and was surprised when the Wish answered. I’d grown so used to its reassuring presence being gone. As its toll echoed through my soul once again, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a higher calling, real or imagined. A calling that pushed me forward. It didn’t matter if I was exhausted or if my mind felt as raw as a fresh egg. I wasn’t powerless. I could keep going.
I exhaled, slowly, careful not to release the Wish in the process.
“Do it,” I said.
And with a slow, careful gesture I was sure he only did for my benefit, he shattered my world.
{USER Zephyro_alpha_1 HAS ASSIGNED USER Samantha_V1 THE RANK OF Administrator}
{YOU ARE NOW AN Administrator OF [Zephyro’s Domain]}
[>>You have 99999+ new notifications]
[>>Prompt?]
“Notifications?” I asked, baffled.
That was a mistake, because the millisecond I finished the word, thousands upon thousands hammered into my brain. It felt like having electrified water pumped into my sinuses with a garden hose and immediately sent me reeling.
{SAINTECH M1X - Portable Computing Device}
{Current Date/Time: ERROR}
{Device Name: Chr1s’ Mag1c Key}
{Operating System: memOS 0.9 - beta}
{Language: High Tevan}
{System Manufacturer: SAINTECH National, Ultd.}
{System Model: SAINTECH M1X - Portable Computing Device}
{VeryX Version: VeryX 1.6 BETA}
{BIOS: CHRIOS}
{Processor: SAINTECH Alpha 1 1200X 1-Core Processor}
{Memory: ERRO—10 LKB RAM}
{Hard drive: SAINTECH “Scripture” LSD - 20 LTB}
{Current CPU load: 99%}
{Core Temp: 72° C}
{Current Memory load: 7/10 LKB}
{Current Storage: 15.6 LTB/20 LTB}
[//sudo set CHRIs; admin]
[>>User CHRIs is now an administrator of Chr1s’ Mag1c Key]
{Welcome, Admin.}
[>>Warning: Corrupted Files found in c://DPM/Samantha_v1]
[>>Repair Corrupted Data?]
[>>Y/N]
[//Y]
[>>Now repairing. Please stand by.]
[//cnctconfig]
[>>Now displaying available connections:]
[>>Redtooth connections 0/1]
[>>Redtooth connection 1:
Connected to WIKI.SAINTNET.GOV:4242 D: {26 lkb/sec} U: ERROR]
[>>SSB connections 0/1]
[>>SSB connection 1:
Open. D:{n/a} U:{n/a}]
[//sudo connect SSB_1, Network_1; HOPe_BNKR_OPEN_NW]
[>>connecting...]
[>>connected.]
[>>HOPe_BNKR_OPEN_NW now connected as “Network 1” via SSB1]
[//cnetscan -open Network_1]
[>>Available devices in Network 1:]
[Input devices:
CaXera 1, CamXrX 2, XXXera 3, CXXXXXra 3, CXmXrX 4…(80 more)
Admin_Console 1, Admin_Console 2, SEC_Console 1…(56 more)]
[
>>Nearby Systems:
[
Networks:
HOPe_BNKR_SCR_NW
Connected systems:
TUXXET 1, XXRRET 2, TURRXT 3, THE_ONE_TRUE_TURRET, NO_FUCK_YOU_I_AM, PRINCESS_DONUT_MEMORIAL_TURRET, Techbound_Professor, Ashlocked, Housecat, God’s_righteous_furry, Adan_Boom_Box, STRONG_CHIN, your doom, SHELLSLINGER, OHGREATIWASREBUILTASASOLDIER (99+ more).
]
[//set input video, audio, tactile; Camera 1-999]
[>>Not enough available bandwidth on Redtooth 1.]
[>>Failed to connect to +999 devices.]
[>>Unable to render input from selected source.]
[>>Visual driver not found]
[>>Audio driver not found]
[//run Code_dojo.exe]
[>…]
[>>Prompt?]
[>…]
[>>Prompt?]
[>…]
[>>Prompt?]
[>…]
[//compile drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1]
[>>compiling…]
[>>compiled drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1]
[//ins drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1]
[>>Installing…]
[>>Done.]
{drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1 REQUIRES RAM: 2 LKB}
{Available RAM: 5 LKB}
[//sudo run drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1 -p]
{NOW RUNNING drivers_sensory_Sam_v_0.1}
{Available RAM: 3 LKB}
[//set -a input: video, audio, tactile, olfactory; HOPe_SENSOR_ARRAY]
[>>Now connected to Haven-Of-Progress Advance Sensor Array]
[>>Warning! Sensor Array at 78% efficiency. Please contact an administrator for immediate repairs. Error Code: OPSEC-14]
[>>Now rendering input from CaXera 125, CamXrX 2921, S8nsr 18, tr7pw0re 4553…( more)]
The information kept coming. It didn’t appear before me in some faint blue window. It didn’t whisper into my mind like the gentle touch of a lover. It hammered into my consciousness with industrial strength, broke through all cognitive barriers without remorse, and shot through my synapses with the pulsing force of inexorable progress.
I wanted to scream, but all I could do was groan as my psyche struggled to withstand the endless onslaught of line after line of code. And yet, even as my head felt like it threatened to split open, things shot into place whether I wanted it to or not. The information rearranged my memories with uncaring machinate precision, filled gaps I prayed would stay unfilled, and as it made connections, it built a logical circuit that made me tremble with shock, awe, and despair.
It felt like an eternity, but not more than a few seconds could have passed until the current paused as quickly as it had started.
At some point I must have lost balance, because I was propped up against a nearby wall, with Zephyro holding me upright, making sure I wouldn’t fall.
I tried to protest, but that was when the barrage began in earnest.