He woke up, but he had not been asleep.

Rather, he blinked, and the world returned to focus.

He sat in a room of his own design, dark enough that he would not have to see the realm that he had been granted dominion over.

He had allowed himself to view it as beautiful once, but time had dulled its splendor.

He did not need splendor. He had been granted dominion over this Gate, and he would fulfill his duties.

It was simply so.

He blinked. A quiet ticking echoed in his mind. The sound that had woken him. The sound of a gear, clicking quietly.

He frowned. Though he had once been more involved in the lost souls, guiding them through the Gate by his own gentle hand, the method had made him weary.

And so he had spent a long time using what he found in the realm of his dominion to craft a mechanism that would open the gates for the lost souls without his presence. The Gate rarely needed his attention now.

The mechanism he had crafted was designed to be a perfect system, but despite the power granted to him, he did not have the arrogance to think that he had the ability to achieve perfection. Despite being granted power equivalent to it, he knew he would never achieve Godhood. He would not dare be so arrogant.

No matter. If there was an issue in his mechanism, he would fix it.

He did not know how long it had been since the gears had clicked. Time no longer meant anything to him, and though he could remember a gear calling out to him once before, he did not know how long it had been since that time.

The gear had been simple to fix with only the slightest adjustment necessary for it to find its place in the grand mechanism that he had crafted, for it to turn quietly and smoothly with its fellows.

Perhaps he had been too soft with his attempt to fix it? Had he been too arrogant in his faith in his system? Too passive in his action? Perhaps he had believed that a slight adjustment would be enough to fix the flaw, but now that he thought about it, the existence of a flaw in his flawless system meant that it was not so.

Instead of adjusting the clicking gear, should he have replaced it altogether? Maybe even go so far as to redesign the system from scratch? Perhaps he was being too hasty. Perhaps an occasional error was to be expected, and accounted for, with gentle fixes to the system as necessary.

He supposed he could not make a decision either way, not yet at least. He decided that he would inspect this new clicking gear more carefully than he had the first.

Focusing his attention on gear that continued to click at the edges of his perception, he felt his mind probing the gear.

The gear clicked loudly in his mind. Identification. Stoney.

The gear clicked again. An apology for bothering Him once more in such a short amount of time.

He frowned. A short amount of time? He struggled to recall the details of the previous gear that had called his attention, but he was confident that it was not the same as the one. The soulless were all similar to him, but he knew that there was a difference here. No matter how slight.

The gear clicked. Confirmation that it was not the same as the one that had called for him previously, but that it was still present.

He frowned. The mention of the first gear, Marten, gave him a sense of time. The gears expired and automatically replaced themselves quite often. The fact that Marten was still in existence meant that it had been a few decades since the gears had clicked at the longest.

The gear clicked. It had been less than a day since they had last called for Him.

He did not understand. How could this be? Two errors in such quick succession? What was the reason for this?

The gear clicked. The lost soul.

An icy fear gripped at His heart. The same lost soul that he had seen through the mind of the last gear. It had not passed on yet?

The gear clicked. The lost soul was still in this realm.

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Was it stuck? Was it unworthy to pass on?

No. The Gate was not of his design. It was infallible, impossible. There would not be a soul that would not be able pass through it. There was a problem with his mechanisms.

The realization hurt him more than he expected it to.

Pride. How useless.

It was a sign that he still had room to improve, just as his mechanisms could.

The gear clicked again. An inquiry. An invitation.

An interesting one. He considered the suggestion for a moment. It had been a long time since he had communicated with a lost soul directly, and more forgotten emotions flitted through him, of anxiety, of unease at the memory of the weariness that had plagued him during his early days as a warden, but he decided it was necessary.

The mechanisms were flawed and the Gate still needed an operator while he decided how he would repair it. He would guide this lost soul through the Gate. He would restructure his realm anew after he ensured its safety.

The gear clicked. Affirmation.

The gear fell silent.

A moment passed.

The world exploded.

A guttural sound of shock escaped his throat as he flinched back from the unexpected explosion of blue light. Squinting against it, his eyes struggled to remember their function, but were quick to adapt to the assault.

And he was able to see, but he did not understand.

[Jamie] would like to start a voice chat.

[Accept]

[Decline]

He stared, eyes unblinking despite the discomfort of keeping them open.

What was this?

The unfamiliar symbols stared back at him, unmoving, unwavering, a few of the symbols started to glow.

He did not know what it was, and he did not know what it meant, but he felt compelled to reach forward and touch the panel of blue light.

A quiet buzzing echoed in his head for a moment.

“Hello?”

He looked around, startled by the sudden sound of the unfamiliar word in an unfamiliar voice. His small chamber was illuminated by the light of the panel, and even without it, the chamber he had buried himself in was too small to fit anyone other than himself.

“Hi, is this the Founder? My name’s Jamie. I’m an Otherworlder?”

Again, that voice echoed in his mind, in an animalistic, alien tongue. What was it saying? Why did he not understand it? He clutched at his head, willing the voice to quiet.

But despite his will, it continued.

“Umm, can you hear me? Did I cast the spell correctly?”

Was it not he who was chosen to be the keeper of this Gate? Who would dare to challenge the power granted to him? For a moment, he felt rage. Rage at this strange entity, and at himself for being unable to comprehend it.

Fury coursed through him in the place of blood, and he felt no shame in the emotion, for even God knew fury.

How dare this creature exist?

“Hello? Is this thing on? Did I get the wrong number? Oh, no. It’s just a little inside joke. Sorry, Stoney.”

Why couldn’t it hear him? Was it deaf? No, that would not matter, for even the deaf could hear his words. Perhaps its mind was not developed enough to understand him? But that didn’t solve the additional question of how he could hear its voice.

He paused, and for the first time in a long time, he realized that it was he that was hearing things. Physically hearing things.

Why? How?

“Wh-”

His voice cut off, as if he were surprised by the sound of it. And he was. He hadn’t meant to speak. He had no need for it. No reason. No purpose.

When was the last time he had moved his lips? When was the last time moisture and air had touched his throat? Would he even be able to talk if he tried?

“Wait, I think I heard something.”

The voice echoed in his head again. He did not understand it, but it was higher-pitched, excited, as if it were reacting to his broken question. Had it heard him?

“What are you?” he asked, his voice echoing in his tomb.

Silence answered him, and he was quick to assume that the creature hadn’t heard him, that it truly was deaf to his words, no matter the method of communication.

But then it spoke again.

“Huh? Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t understand you.”

The creature’s garbled language continued to evade him, but the confusion in its voice was clear.

Or not so clear. He wasn’t confident. It had been a while since he’d heard someone speak.

“Have you a soul?” he asked again, finding his confidence in his words once more. “Speak, demon. In the tongue of my forebears. Do not dare to sully my ears with your devilish whispers.”

The words escaped him before he could think of them, but he was surprised by how much sense they made.

This was no ordinary creature if it could not hear his word, for even the animals of this realm would bend to his will. Soulless, powerful, and inexplicable? The description fit a demon exactly.

The urge ran through him, to take his holy power and smite this demon back whence it came, but he realized he did not know.

How? How had a demon come into his realm? It was impossible. This was the realm that housed a Gate. How?

“What did you say? Hello? Is something wrong with my translation magic?”

The demon's words echoed in his mind, still foreign and indecipherable. What was it saying?

He did not know, for he was not omniscient.

But he had to know. He needed to know. He had to know what he had to mend in order to fix the mechanisms of the Gate. No. At this point, he knew he could not fix things. For a mistake of this magnitude to happen, meant that his mechanisms were too flawed, unworthy of operating the Gate. No. He would need to start from the very beginning. He would need to break everything down and build anew. It would be simple, and he knew this from past experience, but perhaps the simplicity was where he had gone wrong.

He had believed his power to be almighty and infallible, and perhaps that was true, but the wielder was not. He had made a mistake, and if he wanted to make sure that he did not repeat it, he would need to learn more about the mistake that plagued him now.

Glaring at the blue panel in front of him, he lifted his arm and brought it down in a mighty blow, banishing the panel from existence, plunging him back into darkness.

Blessed silence met him again, free of the demon’s garbled speech. For a moment, he felt the urge to close his eyes, and pretend that his utopic world had not been disturbed.

But no. He had a duty.

It would be fulfilled.