You reach up to pull away the headband, but realize that it is already absent. Your eye is already exposed, and all you need to do is open it.

And you do so.

In an instant, all EYES turn toward you and the mouths of creatures innumerable snap open. Shrieks echo throughout the warp, stirring the muck of the Empyrean, revealing and waking a billion more nightmares.

You spin in circles, casting your Baleful Gaze upon all your EYE lands upon, monsters – daemons! – shrinking back wherever you look. But, it is no use. There are too many! You have but one eye, and the monstrous tides of Chaos are endless. In panic, you try to hide once again. You curl up, compressing your soul into an infinitesimal speck, then throw yourself into the abstract detritus of the warp.

The creatures swarm around, mixing you into the mess — a speck of life in a slurry of warp-stuff. You spin dizzily through the heterogeneous mixture, fighting back tears of confusion. And yet, you cannot get away. They are everywhere, EYES wide open and vigilant. You know that you must stay still, stay silent, for there is nothing you can do in a realm like this.

You have no power here.

Nothing.

No hope.

Only chance can save you now.

You realize with a start that in your panic, you have not closed your EYE. It shines with a sliver of metaphysical light in this void. Despite the roiling colors of the warp, your Gaze cannot be hidden, for it continuously carves a shallow, but noticeable trail through the warp-stuff. Quickly, you close your EYE, just in time to avoid notice from a feathered monstrosity, twisting its way past you.

Or, you tried to close your EYE.

And, you tried to avoid notice.

You did neither.

In a moment, many-fingered limbs – digits ending with claws, hooves, mouths, spiracles, and a thousand concepts unimaginable – reach out and trap you in a fleshy prison. The pulsating walls of the creature-cage are impenetrable, even to your Gaze.

And suddenly, a hole opens! An arm(?) moves slightly, revealing the tiniest gap in the prison’s defenses. Not wasting this chance, you dive in, shrinking yourself even further and squeezing your way out.

And once free, you find yourself in a cave.

A cave with TEETH.

You panic, whipping around just in time to see the entrance seal shut. You slam yourself into the wall, right where you think it should have been to no avail. And then you feel movement behind you.

Nine tongues emerge from the walls, spiked and dripping with vile mucous. Each one continuously shifts in form. Bigger, smaller, bloated, pink, blue — every form different from the others and never the same as before. Screaming in fear and disgust, you try to run, to swim, to move in some way, any way, away from this nightmare.

And you move. You finally move! You duck and weave, twisting your way around the tongues as they begin to move toward you. But where do you go? You are still trapped! You cannot keep this up forever.

And with that thought, you are hit. A glancing blow from one of the tongues, having violently shot outwards with intent to spear you.

You roll with the blow, uncontrollably spinning away. The tongues try to track you as you move, but your path is unpredictable. The flow of the warp, even in the creature’s mouth, continues to roil with the storm. A base creature of Chaos cannot know where you will go. But neither do you. All you can see however, is a blur as the blue and pink gums spin by, and you know it will be but a moment before you inevitably ram into a wall.

Abruptly, the warp flows in a single direction, shunting you away. The blue and pink are gone, replaced with the familiar, and only slightly less terrifying view of the endless Immaterium. As your spin slows, you see the creature that had encapsulated you in its maw now spewing out a storm of unidentifiable innards and bones. In a matter of seconds, the creature turns inside-out, its belly imploding and swallowing the rest of itself, before being vomited out of its own mouth. As the remains of the creature fly off into the warp, they fracture, then shatter, then disintegrate into warp-stuff. Soon, the creature is gone and all is clear.

Except it is not.

You are… elsewhere. The Empyrean is calmer than before and the sea of monsters has disappeared. The creature must have kept moving while you were trapped within it, taking you away from… wherever you were. But you are still not alone.

There is something floating there, not 20 meters away from you. A peaceful pale sun, warmth abundant, and oh so familiar. Rays of light spill outward, pushing back the corrupting influence of the warp. You bask in its glow, feeling safe at last.

But it is fading, its surface vaporizing as it burns through its energy. Light flickers, and all too soon it is gone.

You are alone again. Floating. Your EYE is still open, boring a tunnel through the warp wherever you look, but you know that for now you are safe. It will not be safe for long though, so without hesitation, you begin to close it.

And then stop, for you feel something. Something is watching you. You look up, and through the clouds of the warp you see something in the distance. Three somethings to be exact. Three immeasurably distant whorls in space. Three immensely powerful, massive storms of pure malevolent concept. So powerful that you now realize that what you felt is only the sliver of the attention of one of them.

One of THEM.

…

You turn away, shivering. You look down, and see your body fading into dust, and you know that your time here is coming to a pass. You are thankful for it, but then you realize something and whip your eyes around. You stare out into the abyss, heedless of drawing out even more monsters. But even now, with your EYE open, you see no light.

So with a sigh, you finally close your EYE, and wait for the end.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

You hear screaming – a voice shouting in pain and endless rage. Your eyes snap open, but you can’t see past the cloud of red blocking your view, and in your frustration you swipe at your own face. Pain lashes across your mind, and you roar in anger. In the back of your mind, you realize that the mindless, raging voice you heard was your own, yet all your realization does is make you even angrier. Strong hands grab onto your arms, and you thrash about, biting at the air and struggling to get your tail out from under you so you can make them pay.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

You can barely hear past the volume of your own voice, the beating of your own heart, the rushing of blood in your veins, and the thrum of the bloodlust in your mind. But, between the thud-thumping beats of your heart, you hear a soft voice pleading.

“Xena! Calm! Please, be calm. You are safe. Shhh… You are safe.”

A soothing, cool feeling begins to flow through your body. The pain in your face lessens and the fire in your mind starts to gutter.

“That’s it… that’s it. You’re safe. You’re safe…”

With a groan, you pitch backwards onto a soft surface, all the energy leaving your body. The soothing feeling continues to wash through you, clearing the aches away. You relax your muscles, close your eyes, and let go once again.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

Your eyes feel wet and your throat feels sore, as if you’ve been crying. You hear the soft rustling of fabric and muffled footsteps nearby. On your forehead, you can feel the reassuring weight of your headband, still in place despite its absence in your dream.

The dream. It was a dream. Just a dream.

Or was it?

With a start, you open your eyes as you reach up to confirm that it is secure on your head.

Still there…

That was no dream. It felt so real! You knew things – words and concepts that you could not possibly know. You swam in the sea of… something? The Empyrean, the warp, the Immaterium! Filled with monsters… Daemons. And you were looking for something! But you couldn’t find it. Instead, something found you. Something ate you! But, you were saved. But by what? Whatever it was at the end that noticed you, it is absolutely not good. You know this with every fiber of your being. Even just thinking about it drives the Force pooling within you into turmoil, as if you had—

Wait! You see it! You can sense it! Inside of you!

Why? Why can you see it now? Peering closer, you realize that at the edges of your senses, is haziness. Anything in the figurative peripherals of your Force-sense is clouded. And then, you notice two more things. This foggy material is your true-self, overlaid on top of the Force. And, your third-eye is open! Your headband/eyepatch is definitely there, you just checked, but you can see with it! But, it is not like your normal sight.

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

When you look upon yourself with it, a layer of your true-self seems to fade away, revealing rivers of the Force flowing beneath. And within that, you can see something else. Something else flows through you, circulating through your body, and you recognize it. It is what you saw in your dreams, the warp! It streams through you, just like the Force! Currents of the Force and the warp intermingle, weaving together in a dizzying pattern.

Blinking your third eye – your warp-eye – you are fascinated as you observe the way your view of your true-self changes. And then, you realize something else.

The true-self is related to the warp.

Just as your gaze pierced through the layers of the warp, so does it pierce through the true-self. And thus, the true-self must also be made of warp-stuff. But, no… that doesn’t feel right. If that is the case, then why are you able to see more warp beneath? And why would the true-self of anyone else be made of the warp? When you look at a person’s true-self, it is first obscured by surface emotions of the person. Any person with Force empathy can sense these emotions, but you have never heard of anybody else besides you being able to peel back these emotions to see the true-self lying underneath.

You thought that the true-self was made up of the desires and the beliefs of a person. You have watched as the true-selves of your fellow initiates built up over time as each child grew older. As a person changes from experience, so too does their personality and their true-self. Why did you use to only see this? Why could you not see this intertwining of warp and the Force in anybody else?

You are hit once again with another thought. You were able to sense the Force in others before. And you were able to sense other peoples’ true selves! These are layers upon each other, but it was only obscured for your own body by the warp! —

“How are you feeling, Youngling?”

You are in the medical ward of the Temple, lying on one of the patient beds. As you sat there having epiphanies, the on-duty nurse noticed you and walked over to check on you.

You immediately direct your gaze at his true-self, searching for the answer.

And you find it.

With your warp-eye closed, you see his true-self just as you used to. You ignore the cloud of emotions, looking into his true-self and seeing his fatigue, his love for the Temple, his concern for all the patients including you, and a thousand other things. Normal. Just as before.

Blinking your eye open, you compare what you see with what you saw just now.

Little difference. Except… you can see more depth in his true self. His fatigue lies on top of a mass of concepts, just above his concern for your health. You can see all his traits, layered upon one another like a sedimentary deposit, outlining his life – his soul. Probing with your Force sense and watching with your warp-eye, you can see the rivers of Force winding their way through his body, just like with yours, though subtly different in texture and color. His is… lighter. Brighter and fuller than yours. Perhaps due to age and experience. Perhaps because you cannot see any strands of warp mixing in him at all.

Turning your warp-eye back upon yourself, you realize that the currents of warp seem to darken the Force around them. Tainting it. Changing it.

You begin to panic at this, before catching yourself and looking closer, trying to learn more.

No, the warp is not affecting the Force, you realize with relief. The streams of warp do not bleed between, merely overlaying it and shadowing it in sight. And, it is likely that your lack of age and experience mean that you simply cannot channel as much Force within you as someone who appears to be at least twice your age. But then again, why are the individual strands of Force within you so much darker than those within the nurse? Again, maybe it’s due to age? Or, maybe, it’s something else.

Shaking yourself out of that train of thought, you come back to your original purpose. What is it that prevented you from seeing the Force within you in the first place? It must be the warp. The strands of it, weaved in with the layers of your true-self, built up over time to block your Force-sense from peering through. And you likely didn’t notice when you were younger, as you were literally a baby! And, you didn’t even have Force-sense yet!

“Xena!”

You’re startled out of your thoughts by Master Masbau’s voice. You look around, wondering where he had come from, then flush with embarrassment. You had been so excited, so determined to accomplish your goal that you had completely ignored what the nurse was saying. It seems the nurse, unnerved by your stare and not knowing what to do, had gone to get Master Masbau in order to shake you out of it.

“Yes, Master?”

He gives a small smile in relief. “It’s a good thing you’re alright. I was getting really worried there.”

“What happened to me? I - I meditated as you told me to. And, I think I found some answers. And questions. More questions.”

“It worked? Ah… we’ll get to that later. Once you started meditating, you started mumbling a bit. Something about colors. It was only when your headband started glowing and you started screaming that I got worried.”

“Sorry…”

“Don’t be. It’s my fault. You’re the one who got injured. You started bleeding from the waist and you collapsed shortly after that so I immediately rushed you over here. I would like to know why my clock spontaneously rusted to pieces though.”

“Uh… I don’t know. Sorry.”

He sighs. “It is whatever it is. We’ll figure it out. Anyways, how are you feeling now? You also injured yourself quite a bit when you woke up. The medics had to use some bacta to patch you back together.”

“It hurts. A bit. My waist feels fine, but my face kind of hurts.”

“That’s where you scratched yourself in the face. When you woke up the first time, you were quite a handful. Most of the bacta went to your waist, so that’s probably why it feels alright. Your facial injuries are still a bit red though, so just keep your hands away from it for now. The medics will let you know when you’re good to go.”

“Understood, master.”

“We’ll talk later. Come find me after you’re released so you can tell me what happened.”