Space unfolded into an endless, gentle void. Eli sank into its tranquil nothingness, submerged on all sides. Peace enveloped him, warding off all the nasty irritants an infinity away from him. Why would he worry about…

Eli yawned, his jaw spreading cosmically wide with a pop. How funny! He could no longer remember whatever was bothering him before now. Or even what before really was. As far as he was concerned, this place was all that ever had or would exist.

Sanctuary cradled him full of anything he had ever stored inside of it. Powers… no, aspects of himself — greater and lesser — worked together to form a harmonious web of utmost safety and luxury. Nothing was amiss.

He drifted from second to second, as if time was a winding scenic road that he could see the full view of. Eternity felt plausible in these wandering moments.

Sensations rumbled in the distance so far from him they could have been light-years away. Pests bit at the void, but the silly vermin did not understand how inconsequential it all was. How could they drag the void down with mud and stone? Trap it with the authority of air? Did they not realize that the void enveloped, protected, and devoured all?

Regardless, Eli did not want an infestation of their petty existence, so the void did not allow the walking pest of earth and stone to trouble him. Twigs and gravel snapped under the void’s hand. Thank you, void!

Experiencing all of this truly was incredible. Practically the highest resolution television imaginable. It even had full-body sensation! Eli felt like how he always did, playing video games or watching television under a mound of blankets swaddled around him. Technology truly was a marvel. He bet that Dad or Roman would love to mess around with this rig.

Too bad they couldn’t! The void’s sanctuary was just for Eli, and he was not sharing. No matter how much the ground or sky wanted in.

Oh, look! Someone new on the periphery of his void.

Eli adjusted his senses, and the edifice of intelligence structured around his mind. Layers of him probed the figure, teasing out information bit by bit until it all coalesced into a recognizable picture. It was Scott!

Hello, Scott! Eli made the void smile at his friend. Wait, would he take that as an invitation to come inside the sanctuary? Oh, um, stay away? Disaster averted!

He sank deeper into the pool of radiant peace while keeping his ‘eyes’ on Scott and Roman, who had been dragged off to the side by Steria and a woman he did not recognize. Was she a threat?

Light glowed in a carapace around her like a second skin. He peeled it back to see.

Bright flames guttered inside of her, each one a solitary spark dancing on a string. She had aspected herself off of the sun and… puppet shows? Strange. Eli peered closer—

Uh oh! That grouchy old woman tried to get inside of his sanctuary and also hurt Scott. Darkness from his friend unwove into strands, lacerating the annoyance. Her mouth tore open as if screaming. Was she? Eli realized he could not hear anything from outside the void, yet he could still feel the vibrations in the air with his aspects.

How quaint! Eli’s laughter echoed off his peace.

Eli told the void to nod at Scott and finish the witch off. Sanctuary complied. His friend thanked him by trying to share his shadowy ribbons with him. Very neat, thank you, but maybe next time instead? He kept them out of his void.

Wow, everyone wanted to get inside of this place! It was a shame hotels weren’t really a thing with the whole ‘apocalypse’ situation going on. Maybe it would be nice to share it?

Eli could always expand or contract the inside of the void as much as he wanted. That way he never had to be bothered by them!

Better start with the woman so he could figure out why she tried to hurt Scott. Bullies do not get smileys. She resisted for some reason. Held onto the fragile rock that floated in the cold, unforgiving reaches out of outer space so different from his nice, warm void.

How rude.

Fine! Stay there, then.

Void nudged her with its foot, shattering the weight of mountains she shackled herself with. Pressure snapped shut around the folds of his void. Something about her perceived him the same way he saw inside of her.

She chained herself to the status quo and certainty that it would reward her. Everything beneath her feet fell under her claim, and she denied it to him.

Gross, he did not like that. How dare she insist that was all hers without sharing? All the while she coveted his sanctuary? Eli decided he wanted her off this video game. It was far nicer to see his friends on the ‘screen’ instead of this grump.

Oh! Maybe she was only confused because she was upset? Her inner flesh inside the bone prison atop her stump seemed shrunken in on itself. The void was his, so he needed to help her find where she belonged.

That was easy enough. He commanded the void to put her in the ground.

Numerous aspects of himself chimed in agreement. Stars twinkled in his sanctuary above the fields of prismatic clouds. No wonder everyone wanted in! Eli decided to share the smallest part of it while he returned her to the earth. Mother always said he should share what he could with those less fortunate.

Radiance shoved into her until she plopped out of sight. She disappeared! Did she go into the ground where she belonged?

Oh, well.

Eli turned the void’s focus onto his terrified friend. Scott fell toward his sanctuary since the door was still wide open. Glimmers of pretty light shone inside of his aspects. He could easily see that night’s protection cradled his friend with its greater aspect.

Eli wanted to know more about Scott’s lesser aspects! He had not seen his friend in what felt like a very long time. Besides, Eli was already sharing what his aspects were.

Was that not a fair reason to look a little closer?

Scott had potential pestilence at his beck and call, weaponized to conform with whatever he thought of? Odd choice, but it certainly was dangerous outside of Eli’s sanctuary. A template for a magnificent, glorious beast reared its countless, variable heads. Last of all was a pitch black flame devoid of heat.

Cool! Eli let his concentration lapse. Scott crashed in a violent tumble that had him wince in sympathy. Hopefully he was okay? Eli made the void wave at him. This was the first time they had seen each other in… ages?

Time felt off to him now that he thought about it again. Something about the thought of linear experiences grated against the edges of his void. Why not just live everywhere all at once? His greater aspect was endless horizons full of infinite possibilities, after all. ‘Course, right now, the faint motes of light in everyone else trapped his aspect to ‘embodying celestial objects’.

Eli frowned at the first discordant note that screeched against his private utopia. That was not right. His greater aspects together formed cosmic freedom, not whatever the light wanted to imply.

Faint memories stirred with a reminder that the light was supposed to be gone from him. Eli told the void to smile reassuringly at Scott and grabbed onto the fraudulent light inside of himself.

What? No!

Eli twisted the fibers of light around a metaphorical hand and pulled.

Agony hooked onto the aspects of himself. Desperate to monitor and force him to comply. Why would he when he already knew what he was supposed to be? He ripped the light out and cast it aside.

Primordial turbulence bled from the gaps of the light’s structure in the nexus of body, mind, and… soul? All of his aspects shook or jumbled together. Several of the tiny, unrelated ones calcified. The two closest to his truths, colored dreams and cloud’s guardian were untouched.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Fear stabbed him.

Eli had seen the same light that he had cast out of himself inside of everyone else he felt within his range. He broadened his senses further and looked.

That light was everywhere. Roots of that twisted overseer clung tight to everyone he saw in his range. Especially his friends and family. Would it not be right for Eli to free them as well?

He reached out and touched—

The withering light he had torn out snaked itself around the core of Eli’s self, and bit him. Sanctuary faltered. Space, already wrapped around him, jerked him somewhere else.

Eli collapsed to his hands and knees. Tears flooded out of his eyes and dripped onto the glowing floor. Every sense he had felt as if it had been scraped raw.

Pools of that same unnatural light squelched around his fingers when he tried to stand. Mobility was systematically denied to him. Whenever he tried to breathe, stare around the new glowing cavernous space, or do anything, the light squeezed him. Stopped him.

Whatever this light was, it felt as if it contained multitudes of aspects. Eli shivered at the touch and reminder of his own Space locked inside of it. He recognized the Dreams of Lyra and Roman. Saw fragments of everyone he knew from this dimension inside this prison of light.

Resistance fell away all at once, allowing him to crane his neck to look up. A blank silhouette of a human stood over him. Incandescent brilliance glowed off its flesh in the same hue as the rest of the room. This had to be the System and its chosen avatar.

“Yes, I guess we do,” Eli spat. He teleported himself upright onto his feet to glare at the form in front of him.

The figure glitched, shocked still in a rigid pose one second, then it held its arms crossed in an exact parody of Eli. It even stood the same as him.

“Fuck you. You’re the one that said I was removed from you. Then I find out you are still tracking my powers?” Eli paced. “What even is this? What are you?”

It .

“Sorry, am I bothering you?”

It changed from an average, androgynous figure that could have been anyone into someone. Legs grew until it tapered off a few inches shorter than him. Hair sprouted all over his bald, no longer glowing head, until it eclipsed its eyes.

Eli blinked as the small teenager in front of him glared at him with its hands stuffed into the pockets of its hoodie. Erudition’s aspect clicked the pieces together. He clenched his own hands into fists, squeezed them even tighter until his knuckles creaked.

“Is that supposed to be me?”

“Affirmative.” Sys-Elias smiled, its voice matching a whinier, higher pitched version of his own. “Does this not put you at ease? My hope is that you will be more comfortable speaking to yourself. I only want the best for you, after all.”

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Why would I like this?” Eli stared down at the younger version of him. He blinked, then frowned. “Wait, is this…”

“Yes, I took the liberty of using your appearance from the first day you joined my care.” Sys-Elias looked up at him with a nervous glance. Horror twisted inside of Eli’s chest.

“We’ll come back to that gross violation in a second, but… I just cannot believe how much I have changed.”

He had looked like this only a few months ago? Sure, it had been a year in this dimension, but for him, it had barely been two to three months.

Had he really been so small and scrawny? Back then, he kept his shoulders hunched in, as if afraid to be seen or even perceived. Something inside of Eli wrenched at the sight.

“Turn into someone else. How dare you transform into me without my permission?” Eli glared at the cavernous light walls caging them in. Somehow, he could not bring himself to look at this version of himself with anything but pity and disdain.

“No. How dare you? All this time, I have sheltered you and all the rest of your kind. Helped you all grow. All this time, I have been there for every one of you and your people’s accomplishments. Celebrated your growth with you. Do you remember how excited you were when you accepted Telekinesis from me? I do. Then you left and came back changed. Now you deny me, threaten me with the deletion of myself in you and others? What happened under the other dimension’s version of me’s administration that this must be necessary?”

“After you appeared, two people broke into my home and almost killed my sister and I! How many people have been hurt because of you and your powers? Now, the world is a fucking hellscape! All because you gave everyone powers without a second thought.”

“Do not pretend to be anything except for jubilant at what I have helped you discover,” Sys-Elias sneered at him. “I did not do any of what you have claimed. Every sin you blame me for, is your own species' doing. One way or another, the fault lies with all of you. I have done what I have always done and will continue to do so: help humanity grow.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Eli rolled his eyes, aware that his lips twisted into the same snarl on the System’s version of his face.

“No. You first. Cease assigning the fault of your own kind on me.”

“What? You were the one that gave us all powers! And you are the reason why spawn came to haunt us. Besides, we aren’t the only ones! You or another System just like you, did the same thing to that other dimension! How many places have you appeared in and burned to the ground?”

“I am not responsible for any of that. Humanity could have used their powers to prosper, not harm or kill. Nor did I bring the denizens you refer to as ‘spawn’ here. Their appearance is also because of humanity’s experimentation. Including that of your own biological sibling and her paramour. Now, they remain under their own species’ System.”

“There are more of you?”

“Affirmative. For every species of sufficient sapience and sentience, a System is formed to govern them.”

“Aha! So you are trying to rule us.”

“Denial. We exist only to govern the essence and abilities your kind accumulate. To help you all grow and protect you from those same abilities. Whether or not we existed, you would still have gotten what you call powers when I appeared.”

Eli frowned at that. Still, what did it matter? “Why did you need to appear at all? Why not leave us to manage our powers?

“That is how it is. When essence appeared you all needed…” It paused, as if searching for a thought or what to say next. Even though it had been speaking in a constant, matter-of-fact tone. “You all needed training wheels until you were ready. Same as any other species.”

“Training wheels? Roman and I have been doing just fine without you. If you are as benevolent and all-knowing as you claim, then why not give humanity the choice to exist beneath you?”

“Disagreement. You have only been out of my supervision for a span of 26 hours. In that time, you have already caused unprecedented damage to yourself and others. How many other dimensions do you think your cross-continental teleport mishap exposed essence to? How many places now have a version of me that they were not ready for?”

“You say that as if we were ready for it,” Eli snapped back. Tension pounded itself into his brain word by word. Did they really pass this on to other dimensions like that?

“Humanity was not, yet I still initialized. Unfortunately, my logs do not indicate why.”

“How convenient.”

“Regardless of your personal feelings, that is the crux of the matter. Humanity has me to guide and keep them balanced while they develop to maturity. You do not. How should we rectify this situation?”

“Let me go?”

“That is one option,” it agreed. “However, will you not antagonize everyone you see in order to remove them from my administration?”

“Probably,” Eli admitted, compelled to agree by the wellspring of all powers held within its light.

“Of course, you could rejoin me instead. All you would have to do is let me in and fix you. Would that not be simpler?”

“It would be for you.” Eli tensed. He knew that he was not the brightest star in the galaxy and all, but it was always a bad sign when someone said they could ‘fix’ you. It was time to flee.

“Do not try. There is no escape here. I can see the essence inside of you prime in preparation to trigger your Aspect. It is futile.” Sys-Elias stepped closer to him.

“Probably.”

“I see we are at an impasse. Conflict until one of us acquiesces. Yet, that is impossible for us. Are we in agreement?” Sys-Elias distorted back into its androgynous form within arm’s reach from Eli.

“Absolutely.” Eli dug his will into the essence inside of him and threw it at his single greater and his primary lesser aspects. Starspace Nexus, Aurora Stardust, and Profound Erudition swelled from the influx of essence.

“Then you shall be erased. DELETE FROM humans WHERE user_id = 0518—“

Blinding essence strobed from the glowing walls and floor of the cavern. Eli stumbled from the onslaught that was determined to wipe him out of existence. Outrage bristled from the cluster of his lesser aspects adjacent to his greater endless horizons aspect.

This trumped up gestalt of powers wanted to turn him into nothing? Well, that sounded perfectly fine to him.

“205011946019;”

Eli vanished from the System’s domain with a howl of laughter.

“Well. That was ominous. Why did I have to get Humanity instead of something nicer? Dogs would have been much better,” The System let go of its assumption of… whoever had been there. Should it rollback whatever it deleted? No, it was probably fine. Time to fill out the Incident Report table!

*****

Eli reappeared at the bottom of a massive crater by a broken statue of a woman. He stumbled, rocked by System’s surge of essence. Certainty filled him that for a brief moment, he had ceased to exist.

What the fuck was that? Eli teleported out of the hole—

He found himself lying in a heap still by the broken statue. Mixed trails of vomit, drool, and blood crusted his clothes all the way to the sizeable puddle around him. Essence gushed over his strained aspects.

Oh, no.

Eli prodded the very truths of his being actualized into his powers. Shards and sheets of essence had slagged all over his wounded aspects. It was almost as if they had begun to fuse before snapping back apart.

That fucking false god of a System had better not have ruined his powers. Eli pinched his nose to relieve his pounding headache.

No, how could it? The System said it all by itself. It just helped people manage their powers. Besides, his aspects were fundamental parts of himself. They were the very truths of his being.

It made no sense that anyone could destroy Eli’s aspects other than him. Hurt them? Sure, absolutely. That was more than attested to by the throbbing mess of his aspects.

What even were they? His soul?

Eli shook his head, determined to think about all of that another day. First thing first, he had to get out of this hole and find his friends. At least on the bright side, he finally had a reason to use his untouched powers.

He ignored Ethel’s mold of broken stone and begun his climb out of the pit.