The sky was dark save for the beautiful swaths of constellations and lines of multicolored sparks that danced around me. I floated along, enjoying the view above and below me, uncaring in a peaceful fugue. I don't know how long I bobbed along like this; I didn't bother to keep track of the time. But, as all good things do, my peace eventually came to an end.
First, I noticed just how odd my view of the sky was. While I was unable to think of anything to compare it too, I was reasonably sure I shouldn't be able to see all around me at once. Secondly, there shouldn't be a starry sky below me as well as above. And speaking of the night sky, I was positive stars didn't glow bright neon green, or purple, or make connected lines of cold blue. After longer then I feel proud admitting, I concluded this whole scenario was rather odd. Confusion over my situation and a growing awareness of the oddities around me culminated in a creeping headache. I moved to sit up, only to find myself rapidly spinning in place as I reoriented myself in this weightless space. After what I thought was a few minutes of mad twirling did I naturally slow to a rest.
The pounding in my head had grown worse throughout my nauseating spinning, and even after I slowed, it continued to pound away. Every time I tried to move, or if my curiosity didn't get the memo and latched onto a stray thought, a fresh wave of ache spread through my head. I tried to let my mind clear, seeking the fugue state I had awoken from. But that peace proved harder to find than to lose. My headache grew worse as vague memories floated to the surface of my mind. I could almost picture them. They moved through my mind like isolated bubbles in molasses, filled with opaque fog.
The bulkiest bubble of memory floated close to the surface of my mind and stuck. A pinprick appeared as I approached the thought, and the fog it housed slowly leaked out, bringing with it the pleasant scent of humid summer air. That pleasant sensation ended when the entire bubble violently ruptured, spilling its reservoir of memories and nearly overwhelming me in the process. It took just about everything I had to stay conscious as my head felt like it was going to pop. The first thought to settle into my beleaguered mind from the torrent was of a pleasant forest.
I had always loved the outdoors, and I had been content. That peace was a rarity for me. Between college, my friends, and my part-time job at a sandwich shop on campus, I had never really found the time just to sit back and relax. That is except for the odd weekend I could slip away to my family's rickety old cabin. My contentment had been tempered by the looming end of my weekend, however. Sundays were always corrupted by Mondays.
Still, I had wanted to find something else to do, anything to prolong my break. I remembered setting the cabin up to leave once I got back and heading out to hike the surrounding woods in the early Sunday morning. I knew those trails like the back of my hand at that point. Deciding on a destination further up a large hill, I had thought the extra time here was better spent hiking than on Profesor Hutchin's engineering homework. Putting thoughts of more work aside, I had gone off into the deep green of a late spring forest. The world had been alive around me; every time I had visited the cabin, I remembered how much I enjoyed this. Of course, once I returned to college, I would still spend most of my free time with friends or on the computer. But that never stopped me from trying to set a resolution to get outside more often once I got back.
The hour and a half long half hike grew foggy and indistinct in recollection. I guess I had let the sounds of nature relax me and hadn't been paying attention. The hike passed in a green fog of happiness and peace. The excursion had been an excellent way to leave off a relaxing weekend by myself. Such weekends were rare and needed to be savored. As my recollection of the first leg of my hike ended, I realized I had arrived at the top of the hill, my usual stop. My memory clarified as I recalled overlooking the expansive scene of greenery and natural beauty that spread from the best vista the forest had to offer. The woods were always beautiful. I had hiked that particular trail many times, but I had never gotten over that view.
The forest stretched as far as I could see, and it looked as pristine as any natural wonder I could have thought of. I think I stayed there for almost fifteen minutes, just soaking in the sight. But, reality called, and I had turned away to start on my way down the hill. But, I had stopped short once I had looked at the stone outcropping that shared this spot with my vista. The outcropping, formerly just a stubby addition to the top of the hill, had been cracked open. Off-center from the large mound, a splinted crevice taller than myself had been added to the feature since my last visit.
My curiosity won out, and I had wandered over to investigate the oddity. Looking in revealed a much larger cave than I would have expected. It went further back than the small area of light from outside could illuminate. As I had continued to investigate, a pinprick of the light far back in the cave caught my attention. At this point, my memories grew a little; jumpy would be the best way to put it. I followed my earlier self through the memory as he began to squeeze into the cramped cave, but it would jump from moment to moment like I was missing a second or two periodically. Looking back on my actions, it was ridiculously stupid of me to enter a cave while out alone, that much was clear. But there's nothing I could do about it now; still, I didn't think I had been that dull.
From the moment I had entered the cave, the brokenness of my memories grew worse. Reliving the experience through my memory got so bad that I almost felt nauseous as the stuttering scenes played out. Once I had I advanced far enough into the cave that I wasn't being pressed up against both walls at once, it occurred to me just how stupid I was for coming into an unknown cave alone. But, the shining light from deeper in caught my attention again, and suddenly the scene shifted, and I was much deeper than a moment ago. I had started to panic at that point, I think. I looked behind myself then and found the sunlight of the entrance almost as dim as the spark I was moving toward. I had tried to run to the exit, and the scene shifted again.
Looking at the memories, I caught onto the pattern that emerged. I would be walking toward the weird light I saw from above, realize I was in a dangerous situation, I would then try to leave, only for my memory to skip to the next scene where I was even closer to the ominous light. The last clear memory was of finding myself crawling over a small mound of rubble, and looking over the ledge of a crater. A ball of white light with streaks of faded colors had floated at head-height off the ground. Same as all the previous attempts I had turned to run, definitely panicking at that point.
My legs had felt like they were filled with lead, and I couldn't see the light of the entrance any longer. What changed this time, however, was that as I moved away, the ground shifted. The land had seemed to lift like a massive trap door flinging me back toward the ball of light. In retrospect, I could see that that wasn't the case though. While I had felt like I was falling down a bottomless pit that was moments ago a reasonably flat cave, none of the rubble or stones shitted except for the ones I tried to grab ahold of. This final memory ended as I stumbled against the growing "incline" until I was just below the ball of light. As I watched, the ball pulsed once before detonating in a flash of pale greens, purples, oranges, and blinding white. My vision went black after that, and next thing I know, I awoke.
The torrent of memory slowed. I let myself drift, merely gathering myself and letting the roiling memories calm. The deluge of thoughts and emotions still threatened to split my head wide open for a while after. Once I could form a coherent thought besides moans and expletives, I took stock of my situation. Surprisingly I felt relatively calm and collected, aside from the actual pain that was only now beginning to fade. The panic over the ball of strange lights, and what I would think would be fear at finding oneself in a spacescape was muted and distant. Not that I was complaining about not being a gibbering mess of anxiety and panic.
Although that did raise an important question, where was I? as I looked around, I found it was oddly natural to look in all directions at once. It let me take in the entire beautiful array of vibrant colors and motes of light that seemed to swim and twist all around me. It looked like most were very far away, but a few lines of bright blue were exceptions, being much more vivid and vibrant and seemingly closer than the rest. A view like this put any night of stargazing at my family's cabin to shame. As I watched, a small branching tendril broke off from a blue line near me.
I watched with curiosity as the small blue line meandered its way closer to me. Recalling my uncontrolled spinning from earlier, I gently tried to move away from the approaching front. I managed to match its bee-line pace once I got the hang of floating, which was surprisingly easy now that I had stopped trying to move too quickly. The blue tendril never moved violently; it just meandered steadily along stretching itself out bit by bit in my direction, following my path unerringly. With nothing else of note in my vicinity, I slowed my retreat and let it grow closer. As it approached, I inspected the small line of blue, which, to my surprise, seemed to be composed of a multitude of even smaller threads, not unlike a braided rope.
Moving to the side, faster than the slow rope of blue threads could move, I reached out and touched its side. At this point, I realized I didn't have hands as much as a will, and a general feeling of where I was. It was an odd experience, but I could still feel my hand touching the smooth, cold surface of the tendril. As I felt it, the whole rope began to round back toward me. Acting on a whim, I tried to pluck one of the threads, and a small line moved outward from the mainline, before quickly snapping back into the full braid of the thing. I put some distance between myself and the rope before the end of the blue line tendril finally rounded on me.
A new light sparked to life behind me and to my right. As much as anything could be "behind" me when I could see in every direction and near as I could tell, didn't have a body. The new light was disconcertingly familiar. A nearly liquid blob of grey illumination with lines of faded colors slowly began to grow. As I watched, it began to squirm and stretch itself into an undulating mass. I chose not to waste any more time, and fled. Right up until I refocused ahead of myself and realized I was a hair's breadth away from the meandering blue line. It hadn't stopped advancing and had snuck up right up to me while I was distracted with the other light. Before I could arrest my flight, I felt a cold prick on the center of my head where the line made contact with my "not-body."
For a brief moment after contact, nothing happened beyond the spot of cold. But soon, an uncomfortable chill spread from that spot all over me until I would have been shivering if I was able. As it spread, I felt my mind slow and briefly stutter to a stop. But after the pause passed and I snapped back to a more normal feeling, I could no longer see the blue line. I didn't have long to look for its disappearance; however, as the infinitely more ominous gray light drew my attention.
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The growing blob of light had continued to morph, and elongate until it was a spinning worm of light greys, greens, and purples. It had begun to twist and stretch toward me much faster than the blue line had. Where the blue line had seemed to grow like a tree root, this form was more akin to a snake slithering toward its prey. I did not like my chances being on the prey side of that analogy, so I did what any small creature faced with a massive snake moving toward it would do. I ran.
Unfortunately, between the delay the blue tendril had caused, my shoddy control of movement, and the ridiculous speed the snake blob put on once it realized I was running, I didn't have a chance. It struck forward, stretching weirdly to overcome whatever minuscule distance I put between us, and it slammed into me. The next thing I knew, I was awash in a tide of light and faded colors that felt oily and unclean every time a vein of color brushed up against me. It was like I was caught in an irresistible riptide as I tried to struggle away, but all I could see was the now familiarly nasty lights and colors that drew me to wherever I was destined to end up.
After I endured the prolonged near-drowning sensation for what felt like hours, I was violently spewed out and was roughly deposited out into a scene of blinding lights. Not a single spot of my vision wasn't taken up by geometric patterns or tightly woven cables of every color of the rainbow. One design, in particular, was exceptionally intricate, appearing like a multilayered planetary gear, where each gear consisted of different patterns and colors that perfectly meshed with its neighbors. As I watched, the massive planetary gear pattern began to rotate, and the centermost gear opened up like a camera aperture. It revealed a muted gray void that stood in stark contrast to the rest of my overwhelming surroundings.
As if a drain plug were pulled open, my unwilling journey spiraled into the opening aperture. The vibrant patterns and weaves around me blurred together as I swiftly fell toward the yawning aperture. And they promptly disappeared beyond its lip once I passed within. The room consisted of flat octagonal planes that all interlinked together to form a roughly spherical sealed room of matte gray. The gray swiftly lost what little luster it had as the light from the aperture dimmed. The aperture closed behind me as soon as I was within.
The aperture fully sealed with a resonating thud, and the faint echoes of that sound dissipated shortly afterward. Now I was stuck in a quiet, dark grey room with no discernible landmarks. Well, except for one thing, but I wasn't sure it wasn't a hallucination.
NEW/ Condition: Isolation(VII)
A set of semi-transparent words bordered by a light blue box floated to my "left." I shifted my focus, and the text box moved to rest in front of me. I could clearly see both the text box and the area behind it despite the slight opaqueness of the textbox. I willed myself to touch it, and I briefly felt a cold metallic surface as my non-existent hand made contact with the box. It gave way almost instantly, and the strange words disappeared without a trace. I sat there stunned for a brief moment, primarily concerned over my sanity. Now that it was gone though, no point of reference for my grey globe prison was left. I shook myself and put that bit of strangeness into the back of my mind.
With nothing better to do, I floated over to the octagonal plate that had closed behind me as I entered this room. Once I got close enough, I could imagine touching the plate, and it felt cold and smooth like a carved slate. No crevices or imperfection marred the plane or showed how it had opened, and pushing against it yielded no results. Taking in my surroundings, it looked like I was stuck here for the foreseeable future.
I spent my time, following the corners between octagonal plates, and inspecting every inch of the room. I found absolutely nothing that would suggest an opening or means of escape. But the exercise proved useful in other ways. The detailed movement needed to follow the corners, and repeatedly focusing my 360-degree vision on individual spots of the room was good practice. It also kept my mind from wandering back to thoughts of home. But I couldn't stave that off forever.
Once I exhausted every possible imaginary mark or crack, the uniform room offered no more distraction. Thoughts of my mom and dad, little sister Sarah, my friends in college, and the loss of the entire rest of my life bubbled up simultaneously. What would they think happened? I would probably end up as just another name on a police station's list or something similar. I hoped my family wouldn't worry. But, if I was honest with myself, I felt more guilt at not feeling more worried about them.
I knew, intellectually, my absence would hurt my family, of course, it would. My Mom, Dad, and Sarah would be wrecks. My friends in college would be struck hard, too, but I could see them moving on after a few years. And, here I was moping about, trying to look back at my life like a morbid version of "It's a Wonderful Life." It honestly didn't hurt nearly enough. My entire life was thrust into uncertainty, and any possible relationship I had was worlds away if my surreal experience was anything to go by. But here I was, still surprisingly not a gibbering mess of fear and uncertainty. It was disconcerting to realize something was different about me. A person's mind continually plays tricks on themselves after all, but the numbed fear and loss were almost more disconcerting than if they had hit me with their full force. Whatever had happened had changed something within me, or possibly removed it.
A world-shattering cacophony of breaking glass made my entire form shake and drove me from my introspection. The slate grey walls that had imprisoned me broke apart like they were made of glass. In an explosion of dissolving gray shards, a comparatively blinding white light shone through the widening gaps. As the broken shards of my prison disappeared into nothingness, a new room of glowing iridescent walls, with tubes and threads of a myriad of colors stretched out in front of me. At its center hung a tightly knotted ball of silvery pipes. Various wires and tubes of many different colors stuck out from the wall and suspended the silver knot at the center of the room. From that knot, two silvery tendrils extended and wrapped themselves around a pair of freely floating motes of light, one an earthy brown, and the other a deep red.
LOST/ Condition: Isolation(VII)
A second message popped up to the side of my vision. Before I could address that reoccurring oddity, a deep structural groaning emanated from the central knot. Looking on, I floated marginally closer. A thin pipe that ran along a part of the knot's circumference visibly strained and seemed to warp under a great deal of pressure. Taking the hint, I tried to retreat to a safe distance, only for the straining pipe to violently rupture. But, watching the pipe unerringly whip toward me, I came to the realization it probably wasn't a violent failure so much as an intentional slingshot.
The silver pipe slammed into me, and a warm metallic force threw me up against the unmoving wall of the room. An external pressure built in my head as the shredded end of the pipe wrapped around me. Stunned, I floated listlessly away from the wall, and the metal wires organically wove themselves around me to form a tight net. The foreign intruse in my mind continued to grow, a warm feeling of increasing lethargy spread over my mind.
NEW/ Bond(III-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
As I began to succumb to drowsiness, the pipe that tethered me to the knot of pipes grew taut. It dragged me closer through the air toward the central knot. My vision briefly focused on the two motes of light that were entwined with their own tethers to the central knot. It wasn't too hard to figure out how I probably appeared to an outside observer; whatever this giant monster was, it had caught another morsel on its web. For the first time since I awoke in the void, my sluggish mind found a hot spark of emotion, buried deep in my mind brought to the surface by the outside influence, I felt angry.
I didn't care what I was doing here. It didn't matter where I was. I had been dragged along on this confusing and frustrating journey for too long, and I had enough. I writhed against my restraints. The threads and wires shited and rearranged biting into my form, but didn't snap or give way. I kept pushing and forcing the constraints away despite the pain until they grew marginally looser, and I could get a bit of breathing room. The lethargy infecting my mind pressed down on my thoughts and will like a smothering blanket in response to my activity. Taking that single spark of emotion that had awoken beneath its influence, I tried to inflame it. With an effort of will, I didn't know I had in me, and I pushed the alien force away. It retreated a metaphorical inch.
LOSS/ Bond(III-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
NEW/ Bond(II-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
Buoyed by my progress, I knew I was on the right track. I forced my will against the alien lethargy again. Again, I pushed it back another tiring inch. The bounds that entwined me within the white room loosened a little bit more.
LOSS/ Bond(II-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
NEW/ Bond(I-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
I knew I could win this; I had too. This was my mind, and I was tired of being yanked around. Rallying my frustration, I fell into a tiring rhythm. Make a monumental effort to push away the influence, take a moment to gather myself, rally what little emotion I could muster and repeat. Every inch paid for in will and effort.
LOSS/ Bond(I-sub): Reliquary Golem Controller(IV)
NEW/ Bond(I): Reliquary Golem Body(V)
LOSS/ Bond(I): Reliquary Golem Body(V)
NEW/ Bond(II): Reliquary Golem Body(V)
LOSS/ Bond(II): Reliquary Golem Body(V)
NEW/ Bond(III): Reliquary Golem Body(V)
By the time I found myself fully myself, I was dead tired, the usual kind this time thankfully. My will was spent, and my emotions were cold and ashen. I had to take a rest, so laid back, and I took stock of my situation. The bounds that entwined me hung loose, only a single thread that latched onto me rather than the net around me kept me connected to the main tether. Whatever external force of will that had gained a foothold in my head was blessedly absent. Several nonsensical text boxes floated on the edges of my focus. And, through the gaps in the cables that floated around me, I saw that the white room had grown more active.
The wires and cables that wove through and behind the white walls of the spherical room pulsed with color, spots of lights sped through the pipes of the central knot, and a massive green spring-like cable that connected the knot to the top wall of the room thrummed with power. I could almost hear it like it wasn't just a power cable but the string of a massive instrument. I listened carefully and realized a voice was barely discernible in the vibrations. As the sounds reached a room-shaking crescendo, I could make out a voice in the cacophony.
"-waKEN!"