I struggled onto my feet and although I was lighter, it had been possibly billions of years since I last walked, so I was a little unsteady.

I glanced at the crystal wall and saw that it now had a person-shaped hole on its surface.

I was happy that my attempt worked otherwise I would have wasted a precious and possibly rare resource.

I let out a sigh and gasped upon hearing my voice.

It sounded... Soft.

Like a whisper.

“Haa...” I tried saying while getting used to the cold smoothness of my lips.

I wondered how the crystal was able to bend as I spoke but I quickly remembered that my puppet was made out of countless particles of crystal dust that had arranged themselves in a manner that I Willed.

I stretched my arms and legs, getting more accustomed to my glass-like body with each movement.

I then tried picking up one of the stone tablets and my crystalline heart jumped as I held the tablet up.

It felt like it weighed about five kilograms but I couldn’t be sure since I didn’t know what the exact strength of my gravitational pull was.

I also realized that I did, in fact, have a heart.

I looked down and watched as it quietly thumped away in my chest behind my crystalline ribs.

I wondered what I would need to consume in order to power this puppet body of mine.

I walked up to the crystal and placed my hand on it.

I winced upon seeing that there was no transference of information like usual.

I tried absorbing some of the crystal’s energy and, to my relief, my hand sunk into the crystal as it seemingly evaporated.

Whatever it released seeped into my body and I felt my heart beat a little more energetically.

I assumed this was why the visitors wanted it.

It was the age-old story of animals having to eat to survive.

I remembered my objective from before and tried making my way out of the chamber but the path out was blocked by debris. Rock and ash which was tightly packed into the opening.

I thought back to how the first visitor I saw manipulated gravity and tried doing the same.

I raised my right hand and thought back to the sensation I felt when I toyed with my gravitational field.

My body started glowing a deep purple and I felt the air in front of me shift as I pushed the debris up and out of the corridor. Countless small purple sparks danced across my skin and they multiplied in brightness with every passing second.

I eventually pushed everything out and found myself in the central lobby which was covered in ashy mud and it was here that I realized that in this form I was far weaker.

Not only that, I could feel my heart weaken every time I used what I temporarily called Gravity Magic.

I could not risk my puppet running out of energy while I was out and so I rushed back to the Chamber of Tablets where I absorbed a bit more energy.

I then left the building by floating up and out of one of the towers.

Lifting my small glass body was much easier and I realized that I could glide through the air pretty swiftly.

I flew from the Mega Crystal, which sat perfectly at my equator and went south to where I last spotted the vehicle.

I gasped upon seeing it lying motionlessly atop a mountain of ash.

I floated toward it and landed near its head.

I inspected it and saw the seams that sealed it.

I tried slipping my glass fingers in between them but the seam was far too thin.

My heart then jumped as the seam suddenly popped open.

I took several steps back and hoped that if I died in my puppet body, I would just return to my planetary perspective.

Plumes of steam rose from within the head but they quickly flew away with the dusty winds revealing one of the visitors only it was covered in cracks.

It looked at me with eyes that dearly clung to life, eyes that I had seen countless times before, and muttered something while sitting in its cockpit.

I inched my way towards it as it continued to mutter words I couldn’t understand.

It gestured, with the last of its strength, that I lean over and so I did.

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It then placed its hand, which was cracked to bits and missing three fingers, on my left shoulder.

My body tensed up and my eyes widened as I beheld the beginning of all things again.

I also watched as a world died a cold and lonely death.

“Please…” The dying visitor whispered as the last of its light dimmed.

“Sustain the Perpetuation of Will. Do not... let the embers… die.” The visitor muttered and like that, it was dead.

I…

It had spoken to me in its language and yet I understood every word.

I didn’t quite know what they meant but they shook me to the core as I stood in the ocean of ash.

I looked into the visitor’s half-open eyes and let out a sigh.

I felt…

Disappointed.

Not because the visitor had died but because I hadn’t gotten him to teach me its language-

My eyes widened.

I somehow understood its words after it touched me.

I wondered if maybe he had transferred some of its knowledge to me.

With this in mind, I stood up and glanced at the corpse before me one last time.

It wore a pretty tunic and so I decided to take it.

The dead have no claim on what they leave behind, after all.

I was also tired of walking around naked and so I wore the robe in the same manner that the visitors did.

It was made from a single piece of silky purple cloth which hung loosely from my shoulders.

I realized after wearing it that the tunic had sustained little damage, even after all its previous owner endured.

I decided to thank the dead visitor by shoving it back into its seat and closing the head as best as I could.

I couldn’t redo the seal but I didn’t think it would complain.

And so, after giving myself a nod, I rushed back to the Mega Crystal and returned to the Chamber of Tablets.

I nervously picked one up and gasped upon seeing that I could understand what some of the words meant.

I excitedly sat down with my back against the metal wall and proceeded to read what appeared to be a travel log of a species that called themselves the Pāttiram.

Apparently, they had been travelling across the cosmos for so long they had started to forget where they came from.

All they ever did was look for planets rich in what they called Glass, harvest them and leave on an endless journey to a destination they didn’t even know.

Their story may have been shrouded in vagueness but I wasn’t doing much else so I decided to read everything in the chamber.

.

..

Mmm? I sounded internally.

I had lost track of time again.

I had also run out of tablets to read but that wasn’t what brought me back to the present.

Sitting opposite me was a figure made of pure black smoke that rose endlessly, threatening to fill the chamber with each passing second.

Its form was masculine and it held in its right hand a blood-drenched hammer.

My heart raced as we sat in complete silence.

I was so immersed in reading that I didn’t notice its entrance or appearance.

I tried opening my mouth to speak to it but no words could leave my shaking lips.

The dark figure then stood up making my body quiver in place.

It walked up to me slowly, swaying from side to side with each step.

A plume of smoke flew past my face and bit my teeth upon hearing a thousands pained screams.

I knew who each scream belonged to.

Every mother, father and child-

NO!

I shook my head while pressing my back against the wall.

I didn’t want to remember but each breath I took brought back everything I had tried so hard to forget.

The dark figure rushed towards me and grabbed my neck before letting out a breath that smelled like freshly spilt blood.

He squeezed my neck and forced me to remember-

“NO!” I screamed before realizing that there was no one else in the chamber other than me and my left hand was tightly wrapped around my neck.

I quickly let myself go and wheezed out a horrified breath as every attempt I made to calm myself failed.

This… shouldn’t have been possible.

This life was not supposed to be affected by the previous!

I gasped again upon seeing a single tear fall from my left eye.

I gently wiped it with my thumb and saw that it was a tear of liquid crystal.

I looked into it and saw my new face.

I…

No.

I wouldn’t allow a simple hallucination to faze me.

I wiped the tear on my tunic and thought back to everything I had learnt.

It was both wonderfully insightful and somewhat disappointing.

The Pāttiram were spacefarers who had travelled to countless worlds in search of Glass but either they failed to mention why or to where they were travelling or they had forgotten.

I hated the latter possibility and was frustrated by the former.

They had abandoned their home world after harvesting it of all its resources and it was eventually obliterated as the star it orbited died.

The few documents I found hinted at the possibility that Pāttiram had been travelling across the stars for millions of years but in that time civil wars and the ravages of time had cost them invaluable information.

Each member of the species was much like my doll in that they were a Glass construct that housed a soul but not only had they lost their last remaining living members millions of years prior, they had also lost their genetic blueprint. To add to their troubles, they had also lost the technology necessary to build themselves new bodies.

This meant that they took great risks every time they landed on a planet since a single loss would be possibly catastrophic.

The poor bastards had probably lost hundreds of their members during the collision with my moon.

I sighed deeply.

The Pāttiram I spoke to said something about perpetuating some kind of will but I wasn’t sure what that meant.

So, I instead chose to think about something that fascinated me every time I thought about it.

The Pāttiram knew of the wonderful powers of Glass and, according to them, it could be harnessed in six ways which corresponded with something they aptly called The Six Laws of Glass.

The first was The Law of Uyil which stated: “Everything is a shard of the First Will.” It was also represented by the closed string which made up a large amount of Pāttiram iconography.

The law of Uyil held dominion over the mind and soul meaning I had used it to temporarily transfer my consciousness into my doll.

The second was The Law of Vāḻkkai which stated: “All living things are the product of Divine Introspection.”

I wasn’t sure what this one meant as it encompassed all living things and since I had no life on my surface, I had no way of testing or observing it.

The third was the Law of Tīppoṟi and it stated: “All things are connected by the threads of Tīppoṟi.”

I had tested this law out and saw that it encompassed electrical charges.

The fourth was The Law of Erippu which stated: “Glass holds within its embers of the fire that birthed all things.”

This law was the one which probably kept my heart beating.

Coursing through my doll was a sort of primordial energy that was housed within Glass.

The fifth was The Law of Iḻukka and I had actually used the power of Glass in accordance with its law which stated: “All that sinks takes with it all that surrounds.”

It was a magic which allowed me to manipulate the very fields of gravity.

The last was The Law of Veḷiccam which stated: “Light is the one absolute and, even in supposed darkness, it will continue on to the end of time.”

This law was pretty self-explanatory.

These laws and the understanding of them were probably how the Pāttiram were able to become a spacefaring species but in order to avoid their fate, one where they endlessly drifted through space and time until the last of them died, I would need to find a way to make myself indestructible.

Yes.

This is what that Pāttiram meant. I thought to myself.

True immortality was the key to the Perpetuation of Will.