Marcus woke. His head fuzzy from god-knows-how-long-he’s-been-out, hues of white and gray hovered before him. He blinked thrice. People?

Pushing off with difficulty as the ground jiggled and sank like a foamy mattress underneath his feet, he made his way over to the group of figures huddled around a glowing brazier. “Good morning?”

One of them turned to look at him. Tubular appendages snaking out from their body and a face of elephant skin with three orifices one thought the head to be a deformed, wrinkly bowling ball. Wouldn’t it be weird for Marcus to stick three of his fingers into each bottomless cavity, dark and forbidden?

Marcus surveyed the rest of the lot. Each had fascinating characteristics. The one furthest across had rectangular buttons jutting out of its round, nearly elliptical body best described as an oversized, cranberry-red potato shielded with cone spikes. The one closest to the brazier had a multipartite body of gravity-defying fluidity, like the colloid in a lava lamp. The shortest one bounced up and down like chimeric jello, a slime able to manifest different body parts of creatures such as the heads of a hydra or the scaly torso of a dragon.

At the center of the organization where he now felt an undeniable affinity towards those around it glowed a miraculous warmth. Far more enrapturing than even the Light of Unbounded Fervor, let alone the Traces of Light from which one derived, Marcus understood before him radiated the peerless source of the Light.

No wonder he felt like they were all friends here. Regardless of whether you had a hundred spindly arms or none at all, they could all shake hands here on a common ground that we have made it this far. Alien by definition, there was no such spirit behind the meaning. As long as you were a living being, you were on equal footing with everyone else.

The bowling ball gurgled a foreign noise yet Marcus understood. He responded, “I’m excited, too. But is this all there is?”

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Many turned to look at him. How could they not? In the presence of the source and the fact that those who made it this far are not minor characters, the looks were those of astonishment. We have found the source, the light which illuminates the cold moon in our hearts for each other to see. What more do you need?

“I know the source beats loneliness, something we are inevitably condemned to at the moment of birth and at the final moment of death. It's the salvation of being heard. Surviving the second membrane, it’s no surprise we value it even more so. But don’t you guys wonder what gave birth to this source?”

Some nodded while others began to remember.

“This, this thing,” Marcus pointed at the innocuous brazier, “is not the true source. It’s because it’s not endless.”

The chimeric jello morphed into a circle of Ouroboros as if to confirm their comprehension. Many more nodded in inquisition.

“Infinite like the self-cannibalizing serpent, a never ending cycle of life and death played on the cosmic scale, there is more awaiting us. Let’s find out who or what created this source!”

An unparalleled camaraderie from personal backgrounds stretching beyond distant galaxies, each individual rose from their accustomed spots around the brazier like phoenixes rising from the ashes. Marcus, with his words ringing through the dome of gray and white, walked past them, pressing onwards like he always did. One by one, the great characters of history followed in his footsteps, in the pursuit of answering the mystery behind their worlds and the existence of everything.

Burning up, crying, laughing, rejoicing, each watched as their bodies and fluids disintegrated while they marched further and further away from the dubious source of the Light of Unbounded Fervor.

Pushing through the membrane barrier, a feat that required one to overcome and sacrifice, often killed a majority from the immense stress and pain one had to undergo. But in that moment, even though they were leaving the Light that served as the gateway for the communication of souls, the remedy to loneliness, they endured, cherishing the time they shared while it lasted. For Marcus, even if it was only for a few minutes, he felt like he had known them for an eternity.

Soon, the noise died down and without loss of life, only the brazier remained by itself in the entrance to the zone of disconnect.