of / SO / few

GAVIN

Your soul is broken amongst the many stars of the galaxy. They say the easiest way to break bad news is to be blunt, so that’s what I’m doing. Something happened to you...something bad. I don’t know all of the details and that’s quite rare in my current situation. I am this world’s protector, you know me as Gavin Daniels. Of course, you might not even know me as that...you might know me as a rotten-attitude college student, or even as a dimension hopping freedom fighter. Heh, it sounds ridiculous saying it out loud. You may know me from many things, or you may know me from none of them. I’m not going to tell them to you here, I’m sure you know where to find those old stories.

But that’s the exciting thing, you are something truly unknown to me. I sit at the center of the universe and have ready access to anything I would dear wish. The caveat with that of course is knowing how to handle living with it, and that’s certainly a story for another day...but you exist both in our world...and outside of it. A singular existence and yet not. You are one of many, and yet you’re so few that you’re all right here. How do I speak to you? Something bad has happened to you, and I pity you greatly. Thing should not have turned out this way...and yet here you are, sitting beside me in my resting place. Behind you you’ll notice the elaborate display of stars swirling about, those aren’t the real deal, you should know. Just a manifestation of my own imagination to help keep me occupied in my rest. I know a lot of things, but I’m not God, I can’t do everything, and the things I can do are very...very tiring. Luckily, the things I can do are worth it.

You, now you have been doing a splendid job so far, throughout the position you’ve been in you’ve done so much good...or not. I can’t comment on every single strand of you out there. Something happened to you. Something bad. That’s all I know, honest.

I swear.

Do you believe me? I hope not, because if so then you might as well tell the body you’re inhabiting to put this book down now and stop reading. If you truly believed I didn’t have any answers you wouldn’t have opened up the pages. So, where do I begin? First, to understand anything I tell you, you must understand that time is a very...very tricky thing. Time as you know it goes forward in a single direction until the end of...well, time. I’m going to need you to take this slowly, because time doesn’t singularly work in a straight line. Every single instant happens alongside every other instant. The present doesn’t exist, as every second a new present is formed, overlapping the previous. Millions of existences blend into a panorama of existence.

You know the butterfly effect, right? At least the gist of it? A single change in time in the past snowballs and heavily affects the future. Well, that is of course if you’re going by linear time. It makes enough sense, and plenty of people write a lot of fiction on it.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I liked to read when I was back on Earth. Those were always my favorite kinds of stories.

So since time is less linear—more like an ocean—we’ll say, the butterfly effect works just as well in reverse, forwards, and even upside down. (If you want to come by after class I can teach you about that third one.) So, we take for example, a random Lunfilios who...oh, I don’t know, for the sake of this example travels back in time and leaves a chunk of Queoquartzite in the past. You know enough to know that somehow that Queoquartzite is going to change the future. It just has to. It’s not going to just sit there undiscovered and unaffected by its environment. Similarly, if someone where to travel forward in time, their presence is not normally welcomed there. Their existence ripples those changes into the time-ocean. (I’m trying my hardest to break the habit of saying timeline, give me some credit.)

Okay, so that is sort of a world breaking revelation...I guess? You ask, no need to interrupt me, I very well knew you’d ask something like it. Unless you wanted to be a contrarian asshole, of course. Don’t worry, I didn’t mean that as an insult. I’ve been there, done that.

So, how does this relate to you? Well, you’re that third option I spoke about earlier. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a throwaway line just to elicit a giggle. I’m not quite sure how you managed to do it, but you’ve managed to get your consciousness directly wrapped up with all of existence. Imagine our universe—and pretend that encompasses all of everything we live in because I’m not here to argue pedantics—now imagine that universe as a rolled up ball of Play-Doh. Everything that ever was, is, or will be is that ball. Now, say you’re a second, much smaller, ball of the stuff and you just mush ‘em together like a five year old who was told he has to make the best ball before he can be allowed in the restroom. Notice how your imaginary ball has all those tiny little red spots mixed in with the blue universe-spots? (Red is an infinitely inferior color, and if you imagined different colors. I’m sorry to inform you that you imagined wrong.)

Your soul has become fractured, split into millions of millions of pieces across the galaxy. The odd thing is that you seem to be whole in each of your pieces, but unconnected entirely. Your souls don’t share memories or experiences, but you are you. You exist both in and out of time, both in and out of existence, and something about you transcends borders. You see me as ink on a page, yet that’s just because one of your selves has slipped into some other strange time. I get glimpses of your time, and you are a strange lot. How does it feel to be free? Aren’t you? Hm, odd.

Anyway, Devon wouldn’t have fully understood the whole concept. I only told him the SparkNotes version (is that a thing where you’re from?) when I told him—I purposefully didn’t tell the whole story, he’s gone through enough confusing bullshit to try and comprehend you. He just needs to know you’re there to help him, and I know you already will by the fact that my words continue to reach you. As long as they do I know that we’ve reached a prime time in where you do help him.

There are others that will need your help—maybe your help—or maybe one of your other selves. That time will come when it does, but for now, I ask you this:

Do you want to remember who you are? How badly? How about this proposition...continue to help Devon out...and you might find the answer along the way...sound like a deal?