Kryss floated, bodiless, in the general region of his ritual ground, wordless thoughts spinning, making and breaking uncountable connections every instant, guided incompetently by his vague understanding of what he wanted to achieve. It had all seem so clear when expressed in distinct words bounded by his physical brain and limited human nervous system. But here, where no such limits or bounds existed, such thoughts seemed hardly worth his attention.
Fortunately for that small part of him that was Earth-Kryss, the efforts that he and a tiny lesser infinity of other-Earth-Kryss-like beings had put in had reached a threshold, and a spirit-fractal was formed, one that might, eventually, flower into a guiding oversoul for the creation of a new subset of REALITY, branching off the current path-pattern of materialistic-bound Earth humans. And so the way was cleared through the energy veils of humanity to access a universal vibratory energy that had never been authorized for incarnate humans before.
And thus, deep within Kryss, a new crystal was formed in select neurons of his central nervous system, along with catalyst codes that would allow such crystals to stimulate their own reproduction over time, if properly used. And so the first step of quantum spiritual awareness was taken, and the production of entanglement pairs began.
All Kryss himself knew was that he had touched some level of awareness beyond human expression, then everything went black and he CRASHED back into his physical body as if from a height of several feet, painfully jolting his every nerve and leaving him dazed and in pain, cramps appeared in every part of his body, and even his bones ached. Despite all that, Kryss was elated - he could feel that something deep within him had changed. He felt a closeness and bonding to his ritual works that hadn't been there before.
Ravenous hunger hit him as he slowly stretched and recovered from the multi-layered impact of his experience. He had prepared a small lunch to satisfy post-fasting urges when he was done, but it hardly even touched the deep hunger he now felt, so he quickly changed to normal street clothes, grabbed his essentials, shut down the computers and lights, and headed for his car to go home.
The hunger made him break one of his normal rules and stop for snacks on the way home. Walking in to the 7-11, everything felt strange, the people felt like mannequins or robots, the building felt like cardboard, and most of his usual snacks held no appeal despite his appetite. He ended up leaving with juice, beef jerky (the most plain, unflavored kind they had), and some assorted fresh fruit. The mere thought of anything with caffeine had suddenly become repulsive, as had most of the sweets and baked goods. Just walking past the cigarettes had nearly caused him to throw up.
Driving itself seemed more automatic than usual, his skills and instincts were intact, but he was almost entirely unable to actually focus on the task and missed well-known turns twice of the way home. Fleeting glimpses seemed to haunt him of other roads, turns, and options, of buildings that didn't look right and scenery that felt out-of-place. Yet when he focused on such things, in every case he could clearly recall, all was the same as it always had been.
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Arriving home, his cats gave mild mews, acknowledging his return and informing him all was well with the household. He then headed for the kitchen and made a huge serving of scrambled eggs, which he devoured with toast and butter, even though the toast had a minor feeling of wrongness about it. His drinks seemed limited to unsweetened juices, whole milk, and water - but he got the idea he could managed to consume enough of normal foods to get by in casual social situations. He'd have to do a true shopping expedition tomorrow and start making lists and assigning tolerance ratings, he thought. For now, though - sleep called.
From the moment he lay down, a strong sleep paralysis swept across Kryss' body and a kaleidoscope of images swirled through his mind. While such experiences in sleep or meditation weren't unknown to him, the scale this time was very disorienting and he felt a falling sensation as his body literally "fell" asleep. His last wakeful awareness was of an angelic gaming "Dungeon Master" asking him "So, have you decided how you want your stats to work yet?" as he sat before a huge tabletop game of some kind, with all sorts of dice, cards, wheels, and other randomizing equipment filling the table, and with a group of beings of light and darkness clustered around, waiting to learn how character generation was going to be handled this time.
He awoke the next morning feeling a bit stiff, bracketed closely by his beloved felines, but fairly clear-headed as he got up and put himself on automatic as he did his morning bath and shower routines, and fed the cats. As on the drive home, everything in his home seemed both out of place and yet perfectly normal at the same time. The hunger of last night was gone, and the food restrictions seemed to have loosened a bit, though he still had to avoid most caffeine and stronger spices, still, a simple bowl of oatmeal caused him no discomfort or concern.
The cats seemed more attentive than usual and wanted to play and to compete for his lap, and he felt a strange energy flow from his hands as he pet them and played bat-paws with them. It slowly dawned on him that he could now FEEL some kind of energy flowing within and immediately around his body, and he could use it to feel the presence of his cats as they entered or left it, or moved within it. It brought back memories of a similar feeling briefly glimpsed over the years when he had done meditations aimed at seeing auras. Now, he couldn't yet SEE anything, but the FEEL was far more solid and reliable than he had ever felt in those experimental days.
Kryss was sure now that his ritual had changed him, but that he simply hadn't given it enough direction to produce specific results. Even so, he felt that the primary goal - connecting his awareness to the greater universe, had been accomplished. He just hadn't been aware of just how overwhelming the "greater universe" was. He realized now that just the tiny, restricted, glimpse he had been given would have killed most people or driven them insane, but his decades of seeking had left him open to enough that he was able to grow instead of breaking. Better yet, a small portion of that glimpse had stayed with him, and it wasn't fading away as he had feared it might.
If his morphic theory was correct, he had started an ongoing crystallization process that could continue to expand if provided with proper growth conditions. So the next step would be to head back to the warehouse and try to optimize and direct the next growth sequence.