I won’t lie and say I didn’t hesitate; the obelisk, even half-covered by sand and shrubs, was awe-inspiring. This close, I could see fractals and hexagon patterns with what looked like kanji in minute detail. Some as big as my fist, others in groups that were so tiny and compact that I could only barely make them out. It was an impressive sight all on its own before you considered the intricacy involved; I’ve never seen lines so precise outside of a laser engraver.
That whole tangent thing again, maybe I won’t do that so much in the next life. Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to think my way forward, I did what every good soldier does, brute force.
Slapping my hand onto the hard stone was something I like to refer to as ‘immediate regret’ decisions. I’ve been shot, blown up, and stabbed. I remember the ache that comes after chemo that feels like your organs are slowly melting inside your body, the fear, and confusion of a helicopter crash in enemy territory. Still, I’ve never felt pain so complete and all-consuming. It started everywhere; it might have been tolerable if it had any ramp to it, but it was all-consuming and instantaneous.
My first thought, when I realized I could think, was why hadn’t I blacked out. The human body is a wonder of nature, if a little poorly designed, and one of the best parts is the whole ‘if it gets to be too much we’ll just shut down for a bit’ part. After getting past my immediate shock, I could see that I wasn’t actually inside of my body anymore, I was floating over its right side and behind it in the air. I could almost see the line of swirling green linking me to my heart and had a realization that while I could sever that cord it would be a poor idea.
In my confusion I almost missed what looked like my body melting from the bottom up, tiny motes of light of every color floating off my body like bubbles inside of a boiling pot. It was simultaneously horrifying and fascinating.
How was it doing that?
Why were the bubbles different colors?
I really wished I could have slept through this whole thing. Not that I’m not a curious man, but nobody likes to hurt. Well. Some people do, but I’m pretty sure they’re not into this level of pain. Watching my body boil away was the only high point of this experience so far, gonna have to dock a couple of stars on my google maps rating.
After what felt like hours my body finished boiling away, blissfully the pain did as well. The roiling mass of motes that was once my body started to flatten out and circulate itself into a circular shape in front of the obelisk, swirling and rotating faster, eventually going so fast that it looked like a gradient wheel brought to life. Without warning I felt a slight tug on the cord attached to my heart, which is when I realized the gradient wheel had gone concave and in the middle where all the colors mixed and looked like a Roma’s closet vomited into a blackhole.
There was no fighting the pull, I felt it, then I was shooting towards the hole that opened up like I was about to take my shot at the Kessel run. As I came into the ‘wormhole’ I could see tiny specs of light speed past me like shooting stars, some speeding past within millimeters of my body. I could feel my dissolved bubble body floating behind me, being dragged behind me like I was some kind of interdimensional Nyan cat.
I was in what I was affectionately calling ‘the wormhole’ for what felt like forever. Once I got past my initial panic of the severe out worldliness of the situation, I started trying to keep time, mainly because it’s basically all I could do. I’d gotten to 400 something seconds at least 7 times, pretty sure it was at least seven times. It was to the point that I saw how close I could get to the motes and that’s when I made my next significant discovery.
From what I could tell as they blurred past, the motes were more of the Kanji symbols from the obelisk. Managing to get a good look at some of them that were more floating than screeching past I realized that they were set into hexagonal fixtures. Was that important? It felt important, but did that mean it was? I spent some time thinking about what that could mean, eventually when I came out of my head wishing to get a closer look at them.
With that thought I realized that a few that were going past swirled past at a slower speed and I COULD get a closer look, this led me to the realization that I could impact the place at least slightly I found myself in. looking around and finding a cluster of motes that I found interesting I willed them closer, figuring it was worth a shot, and I shot at the cluster so fast I ducked and it passed right through my head leaving nothing but a tingling feeling; like a light wind except for it didn’t stop on my skin it went entirely through my body.
That brought me about to the realization that I should have come to earlier; it wasn’t the clusters that were moving, it was me. With this realization I did what any person in my situation would do and had an existential crisis.
Where am I. what the hell did I get myself into. Having a panic attack in a void of nonexistence surrounded by symbols that looked like they should have been inked on the hipster who liked to refer to himself as a ‘master Barista’ at my local coffee shop was never on my list of things I’d like to experience. If I’m honest, I really could have done without it. It was a lot like having a panic attack only you don’t have lungs so there’s no hyperventilating only fear. It’s weird how much fear your brain can produce when it realizes the anchors your body has to the rational; breathing and the hot prickling on your skin don’t exist anymore.
Well now, that’s enough of that little one. The voice that spoke sounded like it came from a million miles to my left and from my chest simultaneously. I was so deep in my panic that I didn’t have time to register whether it was male or female, the only overarching realization of the voice was that it sounded like home but pounded on my senses like a blizzard.
There we go. Come to me. The statement was undeniable, it was not a question but an eventuality; The wolf pack hunting the rabbit in the tundra, a nor’easter in the Mediterranean. I could try to run, but all paths lead to there.
Despite my initial fear as I felt myself being drawn to the voice, I realized that this is what I signed up for. I mean; it wasn’t in ink on a contract, but an outcome that I could control is what led me from my bedroom to all over the world in search of control. Those thoughts brought about a realization that shook me just as much as anything else: There was no pain.
If you completely discount my encounter with what I’ll be referring to as the ‘asshole-isk’ (formerly known as ‘the obelisk’), my body was quiet. Over my 34 years on the earth, I’d spent 6 years as a Cavalry scout during the initial push into Iraq and another 9 flying little birds for Task force 160. Accruing the arthritis that seems to come with any type of service along with muscle tears; shoulder and knee surgeries, and all the other things that build up the underlying pain that every human body seems to innately ignore.
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Before I could get too deep into that line of thought I felt myself accelerate towards where I knew the voice came from. The closer I got to the source the more the hexagonal motes seemed to fade into shadow until, abruptly, I was in a place of darkness. I wouldn’t call it a room, but it had a distinctly different feel than the void.
It has been so long since an exchange from your sector, most thought it an impossibility at this point.
“Uh. Thanks?” not sure what I’m supposed to say to that, I’ve spent most of my life trying to wrap my head around whether gods existed or not that being in the presence of one was both overwhelming and slightly disappointing at the same time.
Ah, no little one, I am not a God. That would qualify me for a completely different set of restrictions, and I would not have found you…which begs whether other sieve have found one and not shared the information. Are you rare, little one?
I was in the military long enough to know when someone saw me as a possible case study, but I don’t think this god...ehh, being? Meant any harm, from what I could tell from the tone and innate feeling the voice resonated in my chest that it was curious. I was less a part of this conversation as I was a data source that could directly communicate the needed information.
Go big or go home, I guess.
“Ain’t no thing like me, except me.” I’m not saying rocket racoon has the answer to every situation, but he’s got the answer to enough that you should take note.
Is that humor, little one? Good. A little bit of levity and hubris in the face of what you consider incredible will get you further where you are going. I’m not sure how long it would have taken you to get there without me, but the multiverse has moved at least 14 revolutions since the pillar from your original world has been activated it would have been a very long trip. Lucky for you, you almost destroyed a world full of minds and I felt the flare of your panic and their confusion.
I had the feeling that the voice was female, at least as I understood it. For all I knew it was a tentacle monster with three heads that communicated entirely through vibration and it had tricked me into its mouth for a light snack.
What an exciting being you are. Humans are by far the highest populace race found in the verse, but you feel…refined? Maybe it’s because you come from a stripped zone? Not having magic in any form isn’t unheard of, but someone from a world devoid of aether is a theory that has been argued since the inception…
Maybe I could make an exception. I wasn’t sure what the voice wanted, but it didn’t sound like the concrete thoughts I figure a god should have, more like a scientist who just discovered plutonium and is going to see what happens when you break a piece off and shoot it out of a slingshot.
I’m close enough that it’s not an OVERLY ambitious jump…I was wholly forgotten for whatever conversation the being was having with itself. OK. Yes. Would you like to be my first, little one? My mind immediately went to where you think it would. How would that work? As far as I know she didn’t even have a body, and if she did, I was nothing but a spec of dust to her.
Oh. I see. No little one, while I have often peered into the physical races and studied their breeding methods, energy beings do not propagate like that. I’m not sure if I was more relieved, or more disappointed. It had been a while, if I’m being honest. Maybe someday, little one, we should all have goals It was phrased as something the girl next door would say so that she didn’t crush my dreams, but I’m not sure this being would circumvent my emotions, she didn’t seem to be anything besides direct and concise. Thankfully, she continued without acknowledging my thoughts.
I am a being of, mainly, pure energy. I could not quantify how long I’ve existed in any form of time that you would be able to reference. If I had to equate it to a facsimile of your own world it would be a few hundred thousand years, plus or minus a millennia or three; the math is not really compatible.
That was…interesting? So probably not older than earth, but definitely older than humanity. “What do you mean by ‘your first’?” now that I managed to get my brain back on track, I could start getting the information I needed.
I am what is commonly referred to a ‘sieve’ in the void, we exist entirely as separate consciousness whose sole purpose is to capture and refine aether that is moving from one place to another, it would be easier to say that we were conductors? Every verse has a node are branches that lead to pillars. Every world in a node has at least one pillar, some millions, but there are at least one on every planet that exists, whether it has life or not.
Sounds like maybe I flung myself into space? Some how I am now existing in some kind of extended universe that my brain interprets via hexagons and Japanese symbols?
Close, but think bigger, your universe exists in parallel to trillions of others. The exact number is impossible to lock down, as a well thought out spare imagining from a child could create another million as we speak. And the children in those could create more…I believe you would interpret it as a logarithmic curve? It is not exactly pertinent to this discussion, suffice it to say every node that is created spawns more sieves and maintains as much balance as possible. Every sieve is its own individual, which can lead to particular...complications for beings who exist outside of age.
“So, less like a universe, more like a multiverse?” I’m pretty sure humans at some point managed to prove the theory of multiple universes, but I feel like it’s not something you could actually hang your hat on.
EXACTLY like a multiverse. Which is the only important part of this entire thing, I can’t over explain things to you, or we cannot complete what I’d like. As being of energy we must exist outside of the verse, the only thing I am able to actively touch are sentient minds who move through the aether, but, if I were to have a sentient mind who will soon exist back in a physical body name me and share a piece of their consciousness with me, I would be able to effect a world more directly.
“I don’t want to sound contrite, but why would you want that? It sounds like you have complete autonomy to see anything you want; you can go anywhere and see anything you wanted at a whim.”
While that is true, I cannot INTERACT it is an existence based entirely around a ‘look but don’t touch’ policy, except that touching is not an option. Knowing you will live forever tends to bring about a sense of apathy and lack of depth in emotion. To take one of the colloquialisms I’ve found in your brain ‘We don’t have any skin in the game’. If you were to contract with me, I would now have skin in that game.
“Would you be able to die? I feel for you that you could live in eternity without any vested interested in anything, but that is a lot of pressure.”
I would exist as an entity, what would be referred to as a god, until you died. I could also maintain my existence, even enhance it, if you decided to share my beliefs with others. I cannot tell you because at this point, we’ve entered what would be considered the ‘negotiation’ phase.
“Because I have something you need, and you have something I need? Seems pretty straight forward.” I’ve existed in this void for what felt like it was probably hours, maybe days since I don’t have any accurate reference, and I’m bored. I can’t imagine living here for eternity. The idea of it is actually terrifying.
Not entirely. You have something I want, but I will deposit you on the other end of your transfer regardless of whether you agree or not. What we CAN negotiate is that I can change the destination and allow you to keep your knowledge as well as a few other variables dependent on the destination. Otherwise, you go to your destination of choice at your current age without any memories of your world. The amount of variables I can change is dependent on a slew of factors that I could share, but I can sense that you don’t actually care.
Sometimes it’s nice to have my mind read. Disconcerting that she can tell I don’t really care, but nice that I do not have to put up a front. I can take my time figuring this out, but honestly knowing I’m going to lose my memories if I disagree is a bit of a sticking point. I’d survive, but the cost was higher than I really want to pay, might as well think less about it. “I’m in.”