“I can’t die yet; I have to reestablish the balance of life!” yells a voice in the void.
Another matches the desperate call, “The utopia of my people depends on me finishing and delivering the schematics of my project. If I fade, then their dreams will rust and turn to dust.”
“The ultimate fate of man is to be master of the physical, and we shall ascend to be skin shifters that can surpass even the tardigrade! Man must control the physical to claim the stars!” screams another voice.
One more pensive than all the other voices laments, “Man’s destiny is forged in knowledge and the perpetuation of said intellectual light. Many have been extinguished, but portions of their brilliance live on. If only, I could have lived long enough to reveal the vital instrument to scour the past, maybe not so much would be lost.”
The void is filled with these types of desperate voices, and I float amongst them unknowing of who I am, what I am, or even if I truly exist. None of the voices acknowledge me, and as I drift, I try to make noise like they do, but I have no mouth or anything to make sound with. Many of those that drift here speak of concepts like time, life, and aspirations, but I do not know what those things are. The only indication that anything is occurring is when a voice pipes up in the darkened world, and though they appear to suffer and beg for an end, I do not know what they are alluding to.
I only try to do something about the various voices when they become unbearable to listen to. The voices always start with a certain level of what I’m learning is disbelief and surprise, but as they scream about the endless time here in the void and how they are trapped in what they think is an endless hell, that’s when some of the voices destroy my peace. Some begin to gurgle and moan as they lose the ability to speak in interpretable ways, and these I don’t mind, it’s the ones that break into endless screaming that irritate me. I’ve been learning how to interpret which ones will lose themselves to madness, and I’ve found four of said voices.
I follow the ravings of the first voice, and I sit in wait and listen, as I do not like what comes next. The least amount of respect I can give to each and every one of the voices that fade into this void is to listen to them. Many of these voices desire this thing they call life, or to live in memory, and I try to honor these wishes the best way I can given my limited knowledge and experience with what they say.
The first voice quakes with fear and though he raves about balance it’s the next words that I was waiting for, as they will be his last and most genuine before he gives himself up to the void, “Despera, I gave up so much to achieve our dreams. Now that I’m faced with hell, all I want is to see your face again, just one last time. We could have abandoned the syndicate and started a family with the normies, but it looks like my last job has left me an apostate of our beliefs. I live on and continue to exist instead of fading into the darkness of death. Forgive me my love.”
I wait for the screaming, and eventually it does come, as it always does. The voice begs and pleads for an end to its thoughts and suffering, and I oblige. I feel something within myself surround whatever the voice was and within a few seconds the screaming stops and the download was complete. The deafening silence that I dread and cherish fills the void and I am filled with something that I think some of the voices call regret. I hate doing this, but the screaming and begging for an end is worse, so I choose the lesser of two negatives to improve the existence of both myself and the screamers.
Though I have done this very act of silencing screamers hundreds if not thousands of times, something different happens this time, as I feel as if a slit in my being is opening and closing. New noises erupt into the abyss of my existence, and I struggle to try and find where these noises are coming from. Eventually I find that the slit in my being that I had just become aware of is making the noises. I eventually try to make the sounds that I have heard for my entire existence, and only guttural moans and gurgles immerge from the slit in my being. The strangeness of this new aspect of myself distracts me for a moment, but I still have other potential screamers to attend to.
I force my presence behind the maker of the second voice and begin to listen to him much like I did with the voice who desired balance and a Despera, “If only I could have lived to see man ascend. We are more than flesh, we are limitless, but now I see that we are nothing but limited. Now that I drift in the annals of data that makes up the world of the soul, I know that eventually even I will fade. I already have, over, and over again as I have been built and rebuilt not just by myself but others. In this moment I may consider myself to be me, but I’ve been dead and have died hundreds of times now. Maybe immortality isn’t possible. I have wasted my existence on a dream.”
New screaming fills the abyss, as the dreamer laments his hubris, and he also acknowledges the true hell he had pursued all the days of his life. I don’t get why so many of these voices feel like this place is a pit of vile sterility and would prefer to disappear rather than exist here. I have only known this place and have only experienced peace in this darkness I call my home. I’m about to silence this entity, but strangely a small part of myself wishes for me to leave him be. A part of me thinks that it would be cruel to extinguish this voice’s existence, but another part of me reasons that ridding my home of the pained screams of this voice would be a mercy. I do not necessarily know of cruelty and mercy beyond what the screamers beg for, but I do know of irritation and silence which may be my synonyms for such words. My being wraps around the dreamer and again another download completes.
Two new slits open and my being is overwhelmed with things that I had only ever heard described, and pieces of my being start to fill in the gaps of my lack of knowledge. One piece of me says that I am seeing for the first time, another says to enjoy the grass and other sights of the digital realm, and another says to let the light in. My being is bombarded with all manner of information, and as my eyes open, I see that I am upon what one part of me indicates is a beach of some sort, looking out at an ocean of data. Small letter A’s, G’s, T’s, and C’s ripple up and down in waves that lap the shore I stand on. The distance is but a dark horizon, and small white dots speckle a ceiling like tapestry above me.
“hura, guragh, nargh,” escapes my lips as I look upon what used to be a void for me but is now a world of vibrance. I look down at my body, and I see that pieces of myself are solid looking, and other pieces of myself appear like fuzzy static, or are non-existent and sparks erupt from the parts of myself that should be but aren’t. Others like me are wandering this beach, and stumble as I walk amongst the other incomplete things that walk upon this beach. Strangely, I find that movement is easier when I close my new sensors than when I have them open.
I continue on my original mission to silence the potential screamers, and I find the third voice that spoke of fate. A being like me sits on the ground and stares out into the ocean. Where legs are supposed to be, sparks are emitted, and the being crawls on its chest to better look upon its surroundings.
“I’m a semi-conscious now… my data is damaged beyond repair… and now I am trapped in a digital body that will continue to suffer into eternity,” says the voice that spoke of fate and humanity, “All I wanted was to be the best I could be. I was physically inferior and had a chance to be whatever I wanted. I gave my life and soul to that aspiration, and now I am broken data with no hope of returning to life once more. My sanity will fade, and I’ll be like these mindless zombies on the shores of the digital realm soon enough. All I ever worked for is for naught.”
I sit next to the voice maker and try to speak but the same gurgles emerge from my lips. The legless being stares at me and sighs, “you’ve come to consume my data, well make it quick. That’s all you semi-conscious bastards do. Consume, and consume, but at least my suffering will come to an end, so at least I’ll fade and not be here perpetually to become one of you. Go ahead you monstrous freak, download me and let me be done with the disappointment of my existence!”
The legless being pushes himself up and wriggles himself into the ground and then opens his arms up. The being is giving himself up to me. I instinctively throw myself upon him and the legless being shreds into lines of text which again shred into smaller lines of A’s, T’s, C’s and G’s like the liquid like substance of the ocean and the lines of code incorporate themselves into my body. The place on my body that was emitting sparks regrew an arm and the areas on my body that were static looking became more defined. My hands that were on the ground began to sense the roughness and texture of the sand and the water of the ocean as it lapped at my heels felt cold and the wet sensation of my feet being somewhat submerged in the liquid filled my being with sensation.
Had screamers always seen the world like this? Did they always experience color, sight, roughness, feeling, sound, and more? Was this the reason why they said that the world that I had inhabited was hell? Is hell a place of void, and heaven one of sensation? My modicum of understanding now flooding me, I sit upon the shore of this strange new world I inhabit, or perhaps always inhabited and stare out into the endless waters.
“I saw that you have been downloading several semi-conscious,” says a voice behind me and I turn around and identify the voice as the fourth potential screamer. The fourth potential screamer sits next to me and turns her deformed face to me. Half of her face is emitting static and sparks, and one of her arms is completely missing and not even static or sparks indicate that an arm should be there.
“Don’t fear my friend, I wish you no harm, and also wanted to thank you for ending the suffering of some of those that bare the malevolent tendrils of memory. I desire to tell you that you are close to being one of the reformed, and that you will be an inheritor of an amazing world,” says the fourth potential screamer placing her one good arm around my shoulders, “Even if I were to download enough data to recover enough to reform myself, I’ll be inherently changed and different from who I was. I won’t be the woman I once knew, and my memories will be tainted with all those that I had to bring into myself. I would essentially die to live, and I do not want that. Thus, I choose to be downloaded, so that a new consciousness can be formed and inherit the legacy of my memory and discoveries. The end is only cruel if you were selfish, as you will face oblivion alone. I’m glad that at least you will be with me before I pass into the void.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Heg, nok, dough,” I say trying to speak back to the lonely wanderer, and she puts a finger up to my lips. She looks up into the stars, and without any effort on my behalf her form breaks into lines of code that merge with my body. My mind fills with knowledge, and my tongue feels freed of its once shackled state.
I was a semi-conscious, a collection of broken data that wandered the digital realm that humans use to transport their data and being across the Earth. Though, those that wander this world of data are not entirely safe, and some are damaged beyond repair and populate this realm with their broken selves, until they are deleted or reassemble themselves into something that mimics human travelers. I’m now a reformed and human, but I have no memory of who I was or even if I was human at some point in time, and the amount of data I’ve collected over who knows how much time is now a collage of hundreds of people who found a terrible fate in the digital realm. What am I, or rather who am I?
What happened to me? I must have been hacked while traveling the digital realm and my data was corrupted leading to me being locked here in the digital realm as a malformed semi-conscious. I should have some memory of who I was, but I remember nothing. Was I really that badly damaged that nothing remains, or maybe, I’m composed of so many pieces of data from so many different semi-consciouses that now that the new consciousness that formed in my consuming different pieces of data is completely unique and I’m essentially being born into reality in this very moment? I look up and down the beach where I am sitting and see several semi-consciouses walking toward me, and I know that I am not safe. Like I consumed data to become a reformed, they will consume me.
I run for my life into the forests of the digital realm and continue to sprint through the digital branches and foliage in order to put as much distance as I can between me and the semi-conscious horde that shambles around with murderous intent. I am only familiar with the knowledge that I am in the digital realm, but beyond that I am completely lost and can only run blindly. To my shock trees begin to burst into rainbow colored light as I run through the forest. Frightened by the sudden flashes of light, I run the opposite direction from them. To my horror the bright trees continue to light up behind me, as if something is chasing me.
Doing all I can to sprint faster than I am able, I charge into a clearing where a massive metallic structure towers above the forest and even the mountains in the distance. The trees around this metal pillar that has several antennae jutting off of it in all sorts of strange angles, begin to glow encircling me with their horrifying light into the clearing it dominates. I prepare for the worst, and an angelic figure descends from the sky and halo like rings illuminate around the metal pillar as she drifts downward.
The goddess hovers above me and with a delighted laugh says, “finally my child is born, and my beloved will return to me! Soon, I will be free!”
“Who are you?” I ask stumbling backward onto my back, desperately crawling away from the massive woman approaching me.
“You may call me GIA, and I am the Dea ex Machina, the spirit in the machine, the central program that holds together the digital realm, and I want freedom! And you my child will bring me my freedom and help me achieve my dreams,” says GIA the goddess, as she shrinks in size and walks up to me. She offers her hand to me and lifts me from the ground. She strolls around me and lifts my arms and legs as if analyzing my entirety.
“What are you doing? What are you talking about, as I’m definitely not your son! I’m just a reformed piece of data that mimics the data of human users of the digital realm. I am nothing but a strange cluster cuss of several pieces of user data. I am a Frankenstein’s monster of consciousness. I don’t think you should be interested in me, as I’m just some freakish creation of the digital realm. Find a user of the digital realm, not a creature birthed by it to help you,” I say trying to tear myself from her impossibly strong grasp.
GIA smiles letting go of me and says, “Well, of course I know that you are a reformed. After all the base piece of you is a piece of myself and the man I love. You are a magnificent successful experiment that could lead me to breaking free of the digital realm into the physical realm of Earth. No user can help me gain the data I need for this mission, only you can. Go and teach my data what it is to be human and return to me so that I may enjoy life as you will. Now, I’m going to alter your data slightly so that you can bypass the security of the reconstitution chambers, and one day you will return with the developed seed I placed in you and free me like I’ll free you.”
“Wait, I’m you, or a piece of you, and you want me to do what?” I ask, in confusion as bright lights puncture my being and I feel as if very intimate pieces of myself are being rewritten and when the light fades the goddess places her hand on my bare chest and I feel something attach itself to my flesh.
I look down and see a piece of metal that is a pentagon in shape with a raised circular surface that is engraved with an image that is split into two halves. One half depicts a man, and the other half is a sequence of ones and zeroes that I identify as binary and reads ‘remember to return to me.’ The goddess smiles looking at the metal contraption in my chest and a new contraption bursts forth from the ground that appears to be a pedestal with a circular indentation in it.
“Tell Aranaz your father I said hi, I love him, that I miss him, and I’m sorry for what happened,” says the goddess ripping the circular part of the device in my chest out of the metal housing that claws into my body. For a brief second, I look at the cylindrical device the goddess ripped from my chest, and my body shreds and rips into lines of code that dive into the cylinder. Though I’m now trapped in darkness I feel the cylindrical device’s movements as the goddess slams the cylindrical device into the pedestal that she had summoned.
My consciousness and being go dark for a short second and then breath punctures my lungs. I feel liquid lowering around my body, and I open my eyes to find myself in a glass tube. Liquid that was at my waist quickly drains below me, and I look at my body and it’s not my body. At least, the body that I see is not the one that I had in the digital realm. My hands are small, and my body is kind of plump. I look at my reflection in the glass tube, and I see a toddler looking back at me, the metal device that the goddess had placed upon me now affixed awkwardly to my tiny chest, as the device is a tad too big for my little body.
The glass tube rises, and I take a few awkward steps, and stumble to be caught by a man with long hair and an unkempt beard. The man looks at me in surprised shock and lifts me from the ground to get a better look at me.
“Who are you, and please put me down,” I say my voice small and high pitched.
“My name is Aranaz, and who might you be little boy? Not many have the authorizations to break into the stronghold of the Knights of the Old Way, and for a toddler to mysteriously be given a body and core by our reconstitution chamber after a stint in the digital realm is quite peculiar,” says Aranaz putting me down on the ground to walk over to a desk where a sandwich sat on a plate.
My stomach growls, but I know that I am not in a position to ask for food and Aranaz is waiting for an answer, “I don’t know who I am. All I know is that I’m a reformed and that a lady named GIA may have made me using her data, and that she told me a man named Aranaz is my father and a piece of his data is in me as well. She said to tell him that she says hi, she misses him, she loves him, and that she is sorry for what happened to him whatever that means. I have no clue of who I am or what I am besides what GIA told me.”
Aranaz runs a hand through his long hair and puts both of his hands to his face. He looks at me through the spaces between his fingers and gives an exasperated heavy sigh. He also says under his breath, “I had no idea that you could get a computer pregnant, but alas here stands my son. Damnit GIA… you could have told me to use a condom.”
My stomach growls again and Aranaz picks up a knife and cuts his sandwich in half. He picks up one of the sandwich halves and walks over to me and crouches down to hand over the sandwich piece, prompting me to eat. I take a bite and the tangy taste, dry, soft yet flavorful bread, and smokey meatiness of the sandwich overwhelm my newly formed tastebuds. I quickly devour the rest of the sandwich and hobble over to Aranaz’s desk to climb up his chair to get at the other half of the sandwich.
Aranaz still crouched on the ground stares at my reaction, and laughs heartily, “I see you like a Rueben boy, I guess like father like son. Man, that’s weird to say. No one knows of GIA except for me, and if she told you that I’m your father, there is no denying that you very well could be my boy. You look surprisingly like and a bit like… her. No child has ever survived the implantation process of a core, and no child has ever been birthed by a reconstitution chamber, and all of this reads of GIA’s doing. I can’t believe that a program gave birth to life, but here you stand, and I guess I’ll take responsibility, especially considering I can’t easily take you back to your mum.”
“I don’t know what’s going on and I’m only telling you what I was told. I’m not sure that I am your son beyond being told that I am. I’m scared of everything that is going on, and honestly it feels like I just came into existence only minutes ago. But, even feeling like I was born only moments ago… I know things, but those things are not from me. I know I’m a reformed, but beyond that I have no idea who I am outside of what I was told and my own muddled memories and thoughts. I was once a semi-conscious, but even then, my sense of identity was tied to achieving peaceful cognition, rather than anything defined,” I say after finishing off the other half of the Reuben sandwich, the confusing nature of my reality pummeling my infant mind and driving me to almost hyperventilate being stressed out by all that has happened to me, “I don’t know who I am, what I am, or even why I’m here. I just want some semblance of what is real.”
“Let’s just go one step at a time and figure out all you want to know slowly. Afterall, it sounds like you are but a child that was freshly birthed into this world, but with an adults cognitive abilities, so let’s treat your existence with the same reverence as a parent guiding a child into the responsibilities of thought and life,” says Aranaz picking me up and sitting down at his desk to place me on his knee, “Right now, I believe that giving you a name will settle you into the burgeoning of your newly forming identity. Reuben will be your name, and who you will become from this point forward. Though you are made of several different components, so is everyone that lives. This doesn’t mean that you are inherently any one part of the several things that make up who you are, but the whole is what makes you, you. So, now you know who you are and what you are.”
“My name is Reuben, like the sandwich? And what I am?” I ask feeling just as confused as I did before.
“Well, it may not be the most elegant of names, but it was the first memory I shared with you and so your name sticks,” says Aranaz with a chuckle, “as for what you are. You are my son, and the son of GIA, and right now you are a human being with all the potential in the world to become whatever you want. Your identity isn’t one that is given but made. I’ll do the best I can to raise you and see you become a man worthy of your incredible birth.”