Aspentas’s domain visibly shook as an unseen force assaulted it from the outside.

“Now it really is time to leave, isn’t it mortals?” the mechanoid said, looking up at several cracks that had begun spreading across the sky.

He had told them exactly what to say when faced with Warden Apollyon, and had in the blink of an eye swapped their plain military fatigues for sets of protective layers draped over with thick woven cloaks, which Aspentas called pilgrim’s garb.

He assured them their clothing wasn’t an illusion this time, and surveyed them both carefully, adjusting cloaks and tapping at their newly secured forearm datapads to make sure they worked. Pieces of Glass began to drift down from the cracking sky above them.

“Aspentas, do we really have time for this?”

“No, we do not. I’m just being . . . what do you call it? Fussy? I just . . . my, my . . . I really do hope we’ll meet again, mortals. The Candidate’s pilgrimage is so often one of solitude, but you have something special. Protect each other. Be gone with you now, to the Holy Warden Apollyon’s domain.” He held up his left fist in salute. “Hail Divinitas.”

For the fourth time since meeting Aspentas, the mechanoid pulled Enmei’s consciousness from out under his feet.

*****

They awoke standing, facing each other at the base of a stone staircase. Enmei sighed, locking eyes with Katsumi. “It’ll be alright. Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.”

Katsumi nodded, emotionless. They turned to the staircase. After no more than twenty steps it disappeared through an arch etched with ornate angels and demons, pressed together in motionless combat. Beyond lay only the darkness of a monolithic structure. A temple, a cathedral – Enmei didn’t know what it was. Its colossal walls extended upwards and to the sides for all eternity it seemed, endlessly etched with the same twisting, contorted, naked figures. An immense, frozen canvas – the war between good and evil set in stone.

Thin slits of windows pocketed the wall at random intervals, and little protrusions topped with shingled spires made lookout points from which to survey the starlit expanse that enveloped them.

And it enveloped them fully. There was nothing around them except the cathedral wall. Enmei and Katsumi stood on a cliff from which there was no bottom, only an abyss of sparkling purple and blue and reds bleeding into each other, sections of it scarred by Glass.

“I guess we'll take the stairs,” Katsumi said.

So they did. They strode into the darkness of the cathedral until the light from the entrance was only a dim speck behind them. They brushed their fingers along the walls to guide themselves in the perfect dark, until the walls suddenly gave way to nothingness and the stairs narrowed with what Enmei assumed was nothing but an abyss on all sides. No pinprick of light shone from above, no goal in sight. They must have been climbing for more than an hour now.

They held hands, for the reassurance of each other was all that they knew. Looking back, they found the light of their entrance gone entirely. Their eyes were useless. Tapping at the datapads Aspentas had given them produced no result. The world around them was a pitch, swirling black like they had never experienced. But they calmed themselves, whispered to themselves, and continued upward in the dark. Reality and conscious thought seemed to dissipate with each step, as if their journey was burrowing them further into a dream.

“That is enough,” a thunderous voice sounded, reverberating through the black around them, in their minds and outside of them.

The stairs fell away and both of them plummeted into the darkness.

Neither screamed, because their gift of breath had been taken away. Neither could see the other, only feel the wind tearing at their cloaks, blowing through them, tearing them apart.

Enmei!

A silent scream.

Still falling, flailing wildly in the dark, reaching, reaching for–

Their fingertips brushed. Enmei gasped in relief in spite of everything, gasping for air that didn’t exist. But what did that matter?

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He reached again, catching something this time. Her wrist. He tugged on it, pulling her close in their freefall.

I’m here, Katsumi. I’m right here. Still no sound came out.

But he felt her – she was there, wrapped around him. He could feel her lips against his cheek, screaming their own silent words.

Will we die like this, I wonder? Enmei thought, calm and dissociated in the darkness. How long will we fall?

*****

They awoke standing, facing each other at the base of the stone staircase once again. Enmei started, eyes darting around the familiar surroundings.

“What? I – we, what just happened?” he stammered. His mind was swimming, bleary, as if he had woken from the middle of a dream.

Katsumi sank to her heels in front of him. “That was scary.”

Not to mention confusing, Enmei thought. “I don’t get it. What were we supposed to do? How are we supposed to talk to Apollyon if we can’t even find him?”

Katsumi righted herself, pointer and index finger pressed to her lips. “A test?” she said. “It has to be. One that we failed, somehow. Did you hear that voice as well, before the stairs disappeared?”

“Yeah. It said ‘that’s enough.’ Then everything fell away.”

“I don’t understand,” Enmei said, setting a hand to his throbbing temples. Something in his ‘false memories’ was beginning to peak out again. Not now, damnit.

But it came anyway, brought forth by some insuppressible will.

Him and Katsumi, looking out on the abyss of space. In that space there were stars, and a bigger, brighter globe.

Earth. They were on the moon, thick white Babylonia issue suits separating them from the nothingness surrounding them. But that was impossible. He and Katsumi had never made it to the moon.

Her voice crackled in his ear, saying something over the comms.

“That’s my theory. That by discovering the Amorphic Continuum, we jostled a sleeping entity into becoming aware of its own dream. An entity of cosmic proportions, Enmei. Unfathomable, in truth. But somehow, for some inexplicable reason, by becoming self-aware within its own dream, it shattered. Isn’t that incredible? That being is what split into the shards of consciousness we’ve been testing on today, shoving into robotic constructs.”

They were walking in the memory. Great, bounding steps in the low grav, Katsumi ahead of him, turning to look back.

“I don’t understand. The Head Scientist said we shouldn’t understand. You heard him when he said the technology we’re developing is dangerous for our minds. Have you been trying to figure it out anyways?”

“Not exactly. I did attempt the mathematics a few weeks ago, but the Head Scientist warned me away from it personally. He explained the danger to me, and that part I think I understand. What I’m saying is purely philosophical. I’m saying that by discovering the Amorphic, we literally killed God. The mind shatters like glass. It holds true even for the being that dreamed us. It’s only a theory, of course, but it has some merit, no? I call it Glass Theory.”

He was hyperventilating now, groaning, collapsed on the ground before the cathedral with Katsumi bent over him.

“Enmei. Enmei! What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Fuck. I can’t – I can’t stop it.”

“I’m here, Enmei, look at me.” She held his head firmly, forcing him to look at her face. Stricken with worry, of course.

Damn. I can’t bear having her look at me like that, anymore.

His breathing gradually slowed as he held her gaze. Then he grinned stupidly. “Even in my false memories you act so smart. Did you know that I’m in love with you?”

“Huh?”

“I feel like we’re going to die every other second in this crazy future world. I don’t think I’ve said it enough.”

Katsumi was speechless for a second. Then she started laughing. “I guess so,” she said. “Hardly any time outside of Aspentas’s loving care and we’re already cutting it close. I do know you love me, Enmei. How could I not, after all you’ve done?”

“Love is a foreign concept to me.”

Both of them jumped. “What the–” Enmei got out before the resounding voice came again.

“But your memories intrigue me. Climb the stairs again, Candidates.”

They froze, waiting for the voice to speak again. It didn’t.

“I suppose we’ll climb the stairs again?” Enmei said uncertainty.

“Sure seems like that. I guess that’s Apollyon speaking?”

“Sure seems like that,” Enmei agreed. “Let’s do what the Warden says.”