“Gah!”
A young boy abruptly woke up in a bed as he looked erratically in a state of confusion. When he finally regained control of himself, he glanced around the room and first saw an old wooden door of a European design made of fine cedar planks to the left side of the room, followed by a beech wardrobe with sliding doors of an orange colorization with white box patterns distributed evenly along its doors and sides was placed on the right side of the room close to the bed he was in. A laptop on top of a wooden desk with 2 large wooden compartments on its far left and right underneath boasting drawers in each compartment along with a wooden stool neatly placed in the empty space between the 2 compartments, the desk placed beside the wardrobe. He then finally saw an empty wooden rack placed on the left side of the room close to the bed.
“Okay…” He uttered before taking a deep breath. “Where the heck am I?” He continued.
He hopped out of bed in a panic checking himself with his hands, feeling the soft fabric of a white t-shirt and black boxers.
“Calm down child.” an anonymous child like voice with an accent that he had never heard off was heard. He looked around to find the source of the voice before eventually responding back in a loud tone “who and where are you?”
“I’m here.” the voice replied.
The aforementioned door then creaked open as a short figure walked through the door, their white hair flowed through the air; its length reaching down to their ankle, red robes they adorned; of a culture similar to his own, his eyes of distinct color; left eye of amber, right eye of deep blue, glimmering like fresh dewdrops illuminated in sunlight, their face of a clear white; akin to the light of the moon.
“As for who I am, just refer to me as Leader.” the anonymous person spoke.
“That doesn’t answer anything.” He responded, feeling quite annoyed
“I don’t have a name; most people around here just refer to me as such.” they spoke again
“…those canine ears.” The boy remarked noticing it on top of the person’s head.
“Just for context, I’m not human.” they replied.
“A demon!?” He responded in a way, expressed though both fear and shock.
“Not that either.” they sighed, shaking their head.
“…Then what are you? Also, how did you know how to speak the language of my country? How is this possible? Could you also tell me whether you’re a female or a male…I can’t tell from your androgynous look.” He took a deep breath as he calmed down before he asked with a sense of curiosity as he added another question on top of that followed by a third with an addition of a remark.
“I’ll answer each of your questions one by one” They sighed before continuing on “As for the first question. It’s because of the divine blessing of automatic translation bestowed upon you that my language when spoken would translate itself into yours at any moment. This would include any other unfamiliar language you speak unless you instinctively knew certain foreign words or an entire foreign language.” He replied casually.
“That sounds rather complicated.” He spoke back
“That’s because it is, the laws of your world and this world are far too different.” they said before they remarked “You are but one of the many multitudes of people I’ve saved from the clutches of sinful entities,” They then took a deep breath before they spoke once more. “As for the ones who are currently perceiving us right now, they are viewing all of our actions and speech in the English language…”
“What does that even…and why are you staring at the celling after mentioning something involving people perceiving us?” He remarked, seemingly annoyed.
“Sorry, it must have been weird to tell you this particular fact but anyways as I was saying…” The Leader’s voice trailed off before he continued on “As for your second and final question. I have no gender if you were wondering. But you may refer to me as he, as that was what I formerly was before I became The Leader.”
“I see” He replied.
“Might as well tell me your name so I may introduce you to the world outside the confines of this sparse room. Which an individual from the renovation regiment managed to compile one that would be comfortable and welcoming to you from a data sample harvested from your shattered memories. this room took one whole year to construct because your mind was not exactly in…top condition.” the Leader spoke in a nonchalant way.
“Wait, so how long have I gone unconscious?” He asked curiously, his eyes staring at the humanoid eagerly.
“If you really want to know. I suppose maybe around four to thirteen billion years” He spoke.
“What!?” the boy said loudly, shocked by the fact as his face has gotten all pale.
“Don’t worry about it” he replied with little worry.
“How am I not supposed to be worried about all of this?” he spoke it in a loud irritable tone as he continued on “So, I’ve been tortured and mocked at for what felt like an eternity back there and the next thing that happens is I woke up here to hear that I’ve been slumbering for that fucking long!?” After his sentence finished however, he felt a heavy blow on the back of his head before he yelled in pain, rubbing the spot that he felt was hit.
“Just so you know, the conceptual law of cause and effect here acts far faster than the cause and effect of your own universe you came from due to the influence of the divine Realm Tree. That’s usually the price of swearing here.” The Leader spoke frankly.
“Yeah…whatever.” He spoke after recovering from the blow “Anyways, do you still want my name?”
“Of course.” the Leader replied with a noticeable smile.
“Just call me Ikori.” He spoke.
“Very well then. I’ll show you around.” the leader spoke but with a noticeable hint of suspicion in his voice as he exited the room through the door.
Ikori took a deep breath as he hesitantly walked out of the room, still skeptical about the whole situation he is in. “This better not be an illusion.” He muttered.
As he stepped outside however, he saw a row of buildings of various designs some familiar yet some unearthly, traditional, modern and futuristic buildings were in abundance as the denizens of this unfamiliar world roamed on the streets with the sound of the tapping of the ground made apparent by their feet. He saw humans, beasts, demi-humans and many other races within the sparse crowd. At this very moment, he was dumbstruck by the atmosphere of the new world. As he stared up, he saw a densely packed formation of multi-colored lights hanging about in the luminous sky before he caught a glimpse of a colossal branch with various colored leaves hanging above him. The size of the branch was unbelievable, as if it covered a seemingly endless distance from his point of view.
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“What is that, the thing above our heads…?” Ikori asked still gazing at the colossal structure.
“It’s the branch of the Realm Tree. One might even call it another Yggdrasil, It came into existence by a tiny hole above this realm. A tiny hole that connects this realm to the realm of ideas, an incalculable hail of energies rained into the Sea of Void that eventually merged together into a seed that sprouted into the tree and its many thousand branches.” The Leader responded swiftly, that Ikori could barely cram all of the said details in his mind.
“Enough with all that, what you heard is simply the basic explanation. You’re going to have to read up and understand the true process if you want to know how it really came into being.” The leader added.
“I’d rather not.” Ikori replied uninterested. “All I want to know is what is this place.”
“Another universe. A universe that is distinct from yours.” The Leader remarked.
“What do you mean, a universe that is different from mine?” He spoke with a hint of curiosity.
“Across all of time and space. Nothing is ever the same. Not only from the perspective of sentient beings. The dimensions. The laws. The mass. The volume. The sets of all things. The rate of decay. The constants. The nature of life. The wisdom and morality of living things in their individual worlds. Are never the same. From one universe to the other. Some can be eerily similar to another but ultimately are distinct in one or more ways. Just like every individual sentience.” He spoke while he adjusted his thick white hair.
Ikori simply nodded without understanding what was said which the leader was quick to noticed due to his great intuition as he simply tossed what seemed to be a purple mobile phone at Ikori which he barely caught as he was caught off guard.
“A phone?” Ikori questioned as he pressed the power button and right before his eyes over a dozen apps popped up on the electronic screen. An app for communication, another of encyclopedic use, along with the many others but one of them caught his attention. An app that scans and reveals priceless information about anything that it had been used on. Ikori stared at The Leader as he activated the app and scanned The Leader with it.
Walls of white text in the dark background flashed onto the screen but most of the text were blurred with only a few lines that were left uncensored such as the Wolf of Ragnarök, The Leader, Silver Immortal, The Outlier, Divine Entity and the disciple of the Daemon Sultan Azathoth. Ikori just stared blankly at the screen wondering what had happened before The Leader broke the silence, speaking out. “The texts that are blurred are confidential information that Heaven does not allow you to know especially my inherent background.”
The boy simply turned off the phone and slid it in his left pocket of his plain cotton black boxers and continued to stare at his surroundings for a few minutes before he was once again called by The Leader who had walked a great distance away. “Ikori, better get going with the orientation or else you’d be lost here all clueless on what to do.”
Ikori immediately ran after him before continuing to walk beside him as others walked on the same path they were. “So, since I’m here. What do I actually have a certain task or job here?” The yellow haired child asked which The Leader simply responded with a simple “Yes.”
As they both continued walking along a certain path, passing by many various other buildings noticeably many buildings of worships and shops that sold various never before seen items along with familiar ones until they come across a square shaped building the size of a regular mall boasting massive sliding doors in each of its four sides, the outer layer having a metallic texture. Ikori stared at it curiously wondering what was exactly behind these doors which was quickly answered by the swift opening of the doors revealing an interior that seemed far larger than the exterior of the large square.
“Its bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!” Ikori remarked in a surprised tone to which The Leader replied sarcastically as he walked in. “Oh really? I wasn’t sure if you’ve noticed.”
Ikori followed suit and went in. He saw the towering shelves that were aligned parallel to each other in columns that stretched further than the eye could see. The height of the shelves stretched to incomprehensible heights that neatly held a myriad of anomalous items, scrolls, book, jars, armaments, orbs and much more in its compartments with the light yellow flooring beneath itself, somehow capable of holding up these massive pieces of storage equipment.
He looked up and saw no celling, only a bright light that illuminated the entirety of the area before turning back to notice that the same box-like building was right behind him, containing the entire world that he had just come out of. Confused, he stared at the Leader and pointed at the world outside, speechless about what’s going on.
“Recursion Theory.” The Leader said without hesitation. “What?” Ikori responded still confused. “Recursion Theory. Basically according to the theory, smaller things can contain impossibly larger things. When in tandem with the Law of Antinomy, there would be a boundless 2 way recursion at the same time. One going down and another going up to the point its size can’t be measured or contained by the set of all finite, infinite and transfinite infinite values. The recursion becomes so complex that no number of higher dimensions could contain the recursion to the point of inaccessibility. Which if we turn the entirety of the recursion into a single set and compare it to your world’s Berkeley Cardinal or Icarus set. It would dwarf both of them in sheer scale.” The Leader calmly said while he treads lightly along the smooth light-yellow sedimentary floor.
“Essentially…?” Ikori spoke as his voice trailed off, visibly confused on the subject. “Essentially, it’s something your minute mind can’t comprehend if you aren’t well versed in even your primitive world’s limited knowledge of mathematics. To be fair, their understanding of the subject isn’t even comparable to Heaven’s.” The leader replied.
Ikori shrugged as he looked around the storage facility with much curiosity as he sampled through the various items with his eyes and touch while many of the personnel that were here continued to work around the clock arranging, monitoring, exporting, placing and reshuffling new and pre-existing items which around the same time some of the more valuable items from the shelves were taken for maintenance check before eventually the Leader spoke to Ikori. “Anyways, this is the place where you’ll begin working. Here in this storage facility or the Backrooms as most of us call it. As part of the Logistics Regiment which I personally registered you to be a part of.”
“That’s fine by me. But may I know why logistics and not something that has to do with combat?” Ikori asked feeling irritated by the fact he’s been signed up for labour tasks. “Simply because you lack the qualities to join any of the other militaristic nor combative type regiments.” He spoke out immediately.
Ikori was furious as he thought that he’s being belittled by the child sized individual next to him. As memories of his unknown past further fuelled his anger, he attempted to throw a heavy punch at the much smaller figure but in a blink of an eye, the Leader delivered a harsh slap across his face, causing Ikori to take a step back holding his bruised cheek, tears welling up in his eyes but not a single tear was shed upon.
However, he did not tear up from the pain imparted upon him by the slap. But the feeling of déjà vu. Memories of his past once again flooded his mind. A person, who he was so close had slapped him similarly before but not out of malice. But out of kindness. A person, who he had resented prior to his torture in hell, yet he couldn’t tell who were they. There were 4 foreign faces that he saw in the back of him mind along with first. All, he resented without knowing the true reason why. Its as if his instincts all flared up like a prey cornered by a pack of predators when he visualized them.
The Leader walked up to him and placed his hand upon Ikori’s cheek. Light emanated from his palm as the bruise healed up before he spoke up. “Sorry, at that moment you really needed a reality check. The thing that got you into this whole mess…was your pride and ego. If you had kept them in check. You wouldn’t have ended up here.”
Ikori mainly stayed silent as his anger started to cool down while he wiped his tears with his hand before he replied in a quiet tone. “I..know.”
“Just get back to your apartment. I’ll show you the ropes by tomorrow so you can start off independent of anyone’s help with basic things. You’ll find the location of the apartment through your phone that I just gave through an app.” The Leader said to which Ikori just nodded as he walked out of the Backrooms.
Ikori walked past a blue phonebooth where there was a young man wearing a fedora, trench coat and an excessively long multi-coloured scarf standing outside of it, seeming repairing the device by rearranging and repairing its wires located inside the walls of the phonebooth. The man offered Ikori a jelly baby. Which to his surprise although unexpected he accepted the offer and ate it up before walking back to his apartment.