The Flow
Demi
Yeah, that’s right! I was moving up in the cosmos.
Not only was I definitely not fired – I received a promotion!
No big deal really. I was just the youngest Skafos to ever be promoted to an administrator in the history of the Flow. Possibly. That wasn’t exactly clear, but I also couldn’t find anything to disprove it either. And on my very first assignment, no less! How many floating robes and cutesy masked demi-gods filled with nothing but existential dread and dreams of murder could say that, huh?
Yeah, that’s right. Just me.
There was only one tiny problem.
Test results processing…
Processing…
Processing…
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon… you can do this me,” I murmured, bouncing up and down on my Floaty Couch® as I bent my tablet in half and eyed those notifications. “We’ve got this. I studied so hard this time. Memorized everything. Even double checked my work.
“I know we can do better this—”
New Test Results Have Arrived!
Score Received: A-
Tutorial Completion: 1.12%
Estimated Time to Finish: 1.89 trillion eons.
I stared at those glowing white words, the eyes on my cute fox mask going round and wide and my mouth dropping open. Again? AGAIN!?
“Damn it!” Gods damn it!” I screamed, hurling my tablet into the Flow – the black square splashing through nimbus soaked waters, rebounding, and punching holes in the puffy white clouds that floated overhead, twinkling with spirits in all of the flavors of the rainbow.
“A-?” I demanded of no one in particular. “What does the minus mean? Did I get something wrong? I don’t even get to see the answers! Who designed this thing?”
And yet as the echoes faded, only silence remained.
There were no answers. No clarity. Only the Tutorial.
The one required to unlock each of my fancy new administrator privileges.
I’d only been working on it for forever! What even was an eon? Was that like 10,000 cycles? 100,000? And did time even really matter here inside the Flow? I mean, hadn’t the Cheater sent a memory crystal back in time to himself? And Charon had insisted that this wasn’t even the first Nyx, right?
Although, I knew those were just excuses; just a mask for the real problem.
It was the minus. That fucking minus.
That tiny little sneeze of a line represented every niggling doubt and insecurity I’d never known I had. It was a perfect reflection of me – Demi.
I didn’t even have a skeleton! And certainly no tasty food, or even a desk or a chair. I had to make my own! Apparently, Skafos were supposed to stand for all eternity. I just had the one thing – the one thing that made me Demi!
I was supposed to be the top of my class.
Not slightly below the top. Or a minus-width from the top.
The very tippy-fucking top. The top and then some.
I wasn’t a minus. I was supposed to be a plus.
It’s just that my instructor hadn’t covered any of this stuff during orientation. The Tutorial was all about “deterministic probabilities” and “continuity errors” and “disaster protocol this” and “advanced gate design that” and there was just so much math. Like really, really complicated math in at least five dimensions. Way more than I’d ever thought I’d use in the real world – or a glowing white abyss without end.
Maybe I should have studied harder in school…
This was also probably why I had a drinking problem.
*slurp*
*sluuuuuurp*
Shit. I was dry again. A wave and my frosty, cloud mug refilled with glowing white nimbus and those little chewy fruit spirits.
And I didn’t feel bad about it at all! I mean, sure, Charon had told me specifically not to drink the tasty spirits – but he’d been shy about the reason why. Plus, I’d already figured out how to delete the recordings. That had taken less math. Not zero math. Just less.
Also, the stress had really been getting to me lately! It was just a lot of pressure. The Tutorial. All my new responsibilities as an administrator…
Specifically, my assignment to kill Nyx – aka, the Cheater.
Okay, technically, I was just supposed to “keep an eye on him.”
But Charon had said I could try to kill him if I wanted. There was even a line! And one of the perks of management was that I got to skip the line straight to murder.
Although, the chances of that were looking… not good.
At least one former employee had already failed.
Actually, several by the looks of the assignment roster for Nyx.
Okay, fine, it was an impossibly huge number! Not that it was clear why! I tried to open his case file, but those pesky error messages showed up every time. I didn’t even know why the others failed. It wasn’t doing great things for my self-confidence.
Another sip. “Ahh, that’s the stuff. It’s the faint aftertaste of existential despair that really carries the flavor, you know?” I said aloud, admiring my mug.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Only to realize I was alone.
Talking to no one. Sitting on a Floaty Couch® in an endless white void.
By myself. With nothing to do except study.
“Huh, I wonder what those two are up to now?” I murmured.
Luckily, I had a solution for that now. Yeah, that’s right, my office had a new window into the Five Rivers! Go me – we’re moving up in the world! I’d decided it was important to focus on the little things. Like small upgrades to my cubicle. Sure, it was just the one viewing portal right now, but I heard it took at least a few billion eons to upgrade to a corner office. Although, my current view left something to be desired…
The pair were just bickering in a swamp next to a pile of rainbows and a bunch of spotless and impeccably-made designer luggage. The murder babies were even playing in the pile of rainbows. I’ll be honest, it was slightly adorable. That might have kept me busy for a while. You know, while the Cheater and the trash goblin did their usual song and dance.
But eventually that got old and they were still bickering.
This time it was over how to haul their trash.
“This is your fault, Fang,” I muttered. “If you could just keep it up for more than a few minutes, we could have finished this ages ago.” I still hadn’t forgiven him for failing to murder the Cheater.
And then they bickered some more.
There was some light blackmail – emotional and drug-related.
My fingers drummed on my couch. It was just starting to feel so tired – this constant back and forth. They needed new material. Or, better yet, they needed to hurry the hell up! I couldn’t kill them until they entered a new gate—
I hesitated. Wait, that wasn’t true, was it? I mean, I’d seen something…
My hands darted across the surface of my tablet.
Yup, there it was, a new feature. I could now create miracles!
Okay, “minor miracles.” I hadn’t unlocked all the features yet. And the strength of the miracle decreased the further away from the Flow they traveled. But, right now, the pair were standing right next to Cocytus.
They needed wood, right? Isn’t that what Nyx had said? It only took a few dozen swipes at my tablet, but I eventually brought up the new miracle menu.
Hmm, I couldn’t make custom miracles yet, but I could choose from a list of preset options. It looked like I had a few choices…
Oh, and this one came with lesser sea serpents! How big was a—
Ahh. They were huge and covered in armored scales. Easily big enough to eat a Cheater and his stupid, impotent lizard sidekick.
Perfect! Just a few finishing touches and then—
“Voila! I love it when a plan comes together!” I cheered as the mist swept away onscreen, revealing the ruins of an ancient ship.
However, the mad smile on my painted face soon slipped. What were they doing? Why were they just standing there… staring at it? The shipwreck that I’d conveniently summoned for them. Were they going to check it out, or…
No, no they were just going to bicker some more.
“What’s wrong with you paranoid assholes? I even added the rainbows,” I shouted at the portal, bending my tablet in half. “You love rainbows! It’s just all rainbows with you two. Seriously, do I need to create a sign or something! Just go—
“Wait, what are you doing?” I muttered, peering closer.
Only to recoil back into the comforting embrace of my Floaty Couch®, staring in wide-eyed horror. They… they might be the worst parents ever. Were they really sending the murder babies to check on the wreck?
“No, that’s not— Hey, stop! Where is the cancel button on this thing…” My hands tapped rapidly at the tablet, navigating through at least fifteen layers of menus. Whoever had designed this thing was also a sadistic jerk.
“Squeak! Squeeeeeaaaak!”
Too late. I could only stare in horror as the babies were smashed into puddles of rainbow and ripped into several jagged, colorful pieces, all while their plaintive wails filled the air. Leaving only the soupy, prismatic remains of three precious murder babies.
Which promptly disappeared, my mask frowning in confusion.
Then Nyx just re-summoned them beside him from a pool of shadows.
I felt so conflicted right now! I mean, the babies were safe, but—
This meant I’d wasted those sea serpents for nothing! They just ate a bunch of rat-shaped nimbus while Fang and Nyx looked on like terrible co-parents.
Wait, were they fist-bumping? What was wrong with them?
It would have almost been cute if it wasn’t so damn frustrating!
Especially since, after that, they just murdered the sea serpents. And not how you’d probably think. I mean, the snakes had really strong armor. Even Fang’s blades just skittered off them. Then they were running away and screaming and… well, I almost got excited. Almost. But I’d been burned too many times.
And that skepticism proved justified. Fang used his clones as a decoy while the Cheater opened a shadow portal. A sea serpent lunged at Fang, only for his body to break apart as a murder baby fell out of a pulsating, black portal. The snake snapped up the baby. Swallowed. Then—then it start to choke and heave. The reason for that was soon obvious.
The murder baby was eating it from the inside out.
The rest of the snakes didn’t last long.
I could only stare at that portal now filled with rainbow lakes, the faint prismatic pitter patter of my failure raining along the shore. Another failure.
“Damn it! Why do they always survive?” I screamed, slamming down my tablet, the black square splashing against the water and bouncing straight back into my hand.
This wasn’t fair! I just couldn’t win lately.
Maybe I really was a minus…
Wait! Hadn’t Charon said the Flow’s power to intervene directly was weaker in the Five Rivers? Huh, then maybe if I just got those two into a gate, that should speed things along. That meant I needed to bide my time. Just sit back on my Floaty Couch®, have another few drinks, work on the Tutorial and wait until they entered another corrupted gate.
It had to happen eventually, right?
My eyes slid to that A- still hovering there in the air.
Although… that would probably take a long, long time. Especially since the two of them bickered a lot and the Cheater was crazy and loved tangents. Also, the Tutorial was lame and rigged and terribly designed.
Hmm, or perhaps there was another way?
What about that moose and the elf lady? What were their names again?
Ahh, yeah! Horus and Eris.
What if I used my miracles to help them hunt down the Cheater and his impotent lizard sidekick and tear out their spines in a flurry of rainbows? Just like the Cheater was doing with the sea serpents for some unknown reason. Wow, that was actually making me really thirsty. Luckily, my new promotion came with unlimited refills…
*sluuuuurp*
Much better! Now, what were Horus and Eris up to?
The view shifted – the portal now showing Anchon.
“Wait… what? They haven’t even left yet?” I muttered. “What’s taking them so long? That should have just been a quick—”
Warning! Deterministic Probability Dropping!
Narrative Continuity: 75.67 to 69.69%
Oh. Oh shit.
The Manual had mentioned this…
The Flow had a sort of script – a “narrative” if you will. It could predict with almost perfect precision the actions of every spirit registered to the system by compiling an impossible and inconceivable number of variables. That’s actually how the Oracles could predict the formation of corrupted gates. And, coincidentally, what I’d been studying.
If that seems complicated… it was.
Also, there was so much math involved.
Anyway, long story short, there were occasional outliers like the Cheater who refused to just go with the Flow. They were dangerous because they could create deviations from that narrative – continuity errors. Like two duplicate spirits being in the same plane of existence at the same time. Oh, or how Nyx’s memories of an almost infinite number of former lives had begun to fracture his mind and bleed over into his subconscious behavior.
In this case, the problem was the strange relationship that had begun to develop between Horus and Eris – two key members of the narrative. A relationship that should never have existed; that couldn’t have existed if not for one person.
The one that had manufactured this entire situation.
With a stolen journal, a heated sewer bath, a labyrinth of traps, and two cryptic and entirely-too-personal questions. That’s it. That’s all it took.
You know, to break a divine and semi-sentient river of spirits that could bend time and space and that had been servicing this eternal loop of suffering and pain referred to colloquially as reincarnation with perfect precision for the better part of forever.
Sure, it wasn’t a traditional romance story – likely not the pulse-pounding and titillating tale that most were looking for – but somehow it was working.
Even I was starting to “ship” the two of them!
And this was all the Cheater’s fault.
In an instant, my fingers raced across my tablet. They’d trained us for exactly this situation during orientation. Luckily, I’d been the top of my class! The movements were automatic, the product of exhaustive study and preparation.
And only moments later, I was done! The support ticket had been submitted—
My tablet let out a chime, more glowing white words appearing in the air.
Supervisor Help Request
From: User#31223523509823422345
Subject: HELP!!! I HAVE A CHEATER PROBLEM AND IT…
Ahh. Haha. That’s right… there was no supervisor. Or there was, but that supervisor was me. Which wouldn’t be much help right now, would it?
My eyes swept back to the viewing portal, that sense of dread returning with a vengeance. The fact that I’d messaged myself didn’t help – just more evidence of what I’d already feared; what that minus represented.
Maybe I… maybe I wasn’t the top of my class anymore.
Because there was no class – no one keeping score.
There was only me. Alone. Facing a madman.