Chapter 14 - Beyond Time

"Because if I have to forget, you really don't deserve to remember either!" and he folded his middle finger.

Vern's mind instantly grew lightheaded and his limbs felt heavy. His heart began racing faster than a high-pressure steam engine at full tilt, but the pangs in his chest only became more pronounced. It seemed as though his blood had turned far more viscous, jamming and coagulating within his veins.

But his heart didn't care about any of that and only pumped faster and faster, giving the impression that it would burst from the sheer pressure it bore to pump that dense blood.

This was the moment. He was feeling it. If he didn't do anything right now, he wouldn't even know when it all stopped. His consciousness would just fizzle away, never to generate thoughts again.

All his ambitions of embarking on his own path of Fundamentals would just die out, nothing but another cog that fell out of the machinery called life without even a clank.

So it was time for his last ditch effort.

Gravity

Not wasting any time in taking in the vast abyss, he envisioned a black hole at Hensen's mangled hand and a line of white that connected it directly to a sharp shard of glass by the chandelier.

Whoooosh.

The moment he overlayed this change onto reality, blood flew through the air alongside a severed arm. At the same time, Vern found himself free of the uncanny afflictions of blood, tears and disarrayed coordination.

However, he was only halfway done.

Greed

Seizing every instant, Vern rapidly processed the new distribution of shades of gray around him and cranked the shade of greed in Hensen to be far whiter than whatever it was."

"Aghhh. You FUCKING—"

"I WILL REMEMBER FOR YOU!" yelled Vern at the top of his lungs, cutting him off.

"If the time is turning back, I will find you and remind you of everything you want to remember. You do not have to kill me. This does not need to end like this," said Vern clutching his eyes from the immense pain that coursed through him due to that last vision.

Hensen cradled his stump with his other hand and looked at him with unfocused eyes, "I will remember? You really don't have an imprint of a Visionary on you? You will truly remind me?"

"That's right. That's right. Why would they leave such a versatile viewpoint unprotected if you had one."

"Ahhh, mistress! Empress! So cruel, so fucking cruel. You really want me to forget your blessings. How can you be so selfish!"

"Come, come. Since you don't really have an affiliation, you only have one option. Become my slave and remind me of her majesty after the duskfall. Acquiesce to the thoughts within your mind, and it shall be done. Or die!"

Vern closely inspected Hensen's expression through the gap between the fingers and saw the mad fervor in his eyes. Crack my fucking cogs! This is the result of greed as well.

Pay homage, serve the liege, reverently kneel, lower myself, bend the knee, follow the words, serve forever, offer obesiance.

Similar phrases of offering allegiance and words conveying acceptance of servitude filled every corner of his mind, beseeching him to do the same. Vern promptly disregarded any such notions and closed up his mind, focusing elsewhere.

He hadn't even thought of the possibility that the crazy would want to enslave him. This was a big mistake that could've been just as bad as dying. But it looked like some kind of consent was necessary for this to work.

Trusting his instincts, he chose to gamble. A necessary gamble. He would rather die than serve someone as insane and maniacal as this. The visions this person had at their disposal were too unconventional, and the power imbalance was too much.

Vern stood back up and shook his head, "If you try to force me into any kind of servitude, I will kill myself right here and now, or you can do it yourself. Then, your selfishness and greed will be the reason your future self will be deprived of the Empress' majesty."

The sharp gaze pierced Vern, and a shiver ran down his spine. Hensen fumed at the words and seemed ready to pounce at any moment. The world vibrated, and surrounding reality was abused once again. Debris and fire churned into aberrant directions and motions like before.

But after a few seconds, it all died down, fizzling away into a quiet hum.

Hensen took numerous sharp, deep breaths, and a hateful look marred his visage as he spoke, "Remember. Remember with all your fucking brain. Because there is a cost to threatening Hensen Vehen. There will come a day when I will make you suffer through the eternal paradox of your vile existence!"

"If it was any other circumstance, I would have ruined you and everything you held dear, razing it from the very fabric of reality for fucking with my emotions. You think I can't see your petty little tricks?"

"But it's okay. It's okay. For mistress. FOR MISTRESS, I will bear it. If you won't accept a mental suggestion of servitude. Then I will give you one last option."

Hensen paused and took a deep breath as if trying to suppress the overwhelming rage, "Carve this within your mind and accept the burden of Cryptic Constructor." He waved his hand, and a bunch of wreckage floated around him to form a symbol. It started with a rough shape but quickly became far more intricate and complex as the small pieces of debris crunched further and further to perfect the outline.

"What do you mean carve it in my mind? And what is this burden?" the hell did he mean by that?

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"Really an illiterate fucking sightless. Heh. I said what I said. CARVE IT IN YOUR MIND!" he began shouting.

"Make up a fucking vision that looks like this and shove it in your mind. You have ten seconds before I change my mind and burst you like a blood sack."

This guy is batshit fucking crazy.

But Vern knew, he couldn't push his luck further. This lunatic wasn't going to reason with him any longer.

Reluctantly doing as told, Vern envisioned the exact shape. Recreating every detail, the curves, the engravings, the edges. The shape looked similar to two inverted triangles but with sharp edges, intricate groves, and out-of-place lines that extended from the triangles. Vern imagined this as a white shape in a world of black, without any specific balance in mind.

Something happened. He felt it. The vision shattered on its own, and something definitely happened. Vern couldn't pinpoint—

"At least the fucker knows how to do what he's told. Alright, now that you have the burden, here's how this is going to work. I have had the same burden in my mind since forever, but yours is a derivative of mine. Every time you make use this burden, I will sense it."

"And I know myself, before or after the duskfall—one way or the other, I will end up looking for a leech that is stealing my representation. Hehe, I will take care of everything after that. Even if you don't use it, once the Cryptic Constructor descends, I will sense it anyway."

He knew it. This is a fucking trap. But what could he do? Instead of sulking, he asked, "What do I need to remember? And does it really have to end with me suffering setbacks or dead? I haven't really done anything to offend either Mistress or You. Everything was either coincidence or just me trying to defend myself."

"Oh that will depend on whether mistress figures out that I couldn't silence you in time. If she does, too bad for you, I couldn't care less. I would lose my chance to remember, but this is a gamble after all. As for how you'll remind me? The content is really only for me to know. So you will have to forget this little story I am about to tell you until we meet again."

"So the lady showed—"

"Wait—"

.

.

.

"—a second."

His vision flickered, and it was already done. FUCK THIS.

Vern quickly realized that a few minutes had passed by, and he remembered none of it. The thick streams of blood that gravitated towards the ceiling and beyond were already gone—just like their source. All the macabre half-burnt bodies around him were gone, even their ashes a lost cause.

No. It has already started.

Yes, it had started. That reversal of the clock that Hensen was talking about. Maybe this was even the reason he was back in control of himself. Hensen stood right there—still like a mannequin. The whole world seemed like it was waiting for something.

But it was terrible. His brain felt like a mess, and he just wanted to pass out. It was finally getting too much for him to bear. He was just another human for the love of all his gears. He just wanted to sleep.

Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock…

His groggy mind found a second wind from these ear-shattering ticking sounds, and he sat back up. The loud booms banged in his head, but soon he didn't have the time to care about that.

It was just as bizarre as he imagined it would be. When Hensen said the clock would turn back, he did imagine something like this happening. But it was the worst-case.

Like a music box that had its gears keyed in the wrong direction, the world began its grand performance.

The violent dance of the flames ceased their forward motion, shrinking down as the army of fiery serpents retreated. The light and heat found its way back from the charred wood and paper, their scorched edges mending themselves. Smoke, once rising to form a smothering cloak of darkness overhead, began to swirl in a cyclonic dance, plunging downwards back into the books from whence it came.

The charred garments and accessories that lay there on the floor began floating in the air as if their owner donned back all their possessions. But that was the uncanny part of it. Everything was taking the same course that it had in the past, except that stream of blood and all the bodies.

The holes in the ceiling started repairing themselves, but where was that stream of blood? Why were these humans the only ones that did not reform? It was as if the reversal of time recorded everything that happened down to the turn of some random cog and undid it, but it forgot about the humans.

But it only forgot about the dead humans, as Hensen was walking back performing random gestures with his bloody stump, gibberish coming out of his mouth.

The fragments and shards of glass began finding their way back to the chandelier, its radiance and glow being restored at a moderate pace. No. The pace was changing. Hensen's steps grew quicker and quicker alongside his reversed words—

Wait! Can I glean something about my missing memories from his speech?

"evahstxn ymothtsp dht emdewolsth shtwrtu htem fglotehs"

"eno keve evasot aive yr dd svwdn a tubnoallebqrnton siviht drlowqht evdsotsihtgnssodzlaew"

Vern focused hard.

.

.

.

But it wasn't meant to be. His brain was just too dull right now, and the gibberish was getting faster, turning into a slurry of words. He tried. He tried his darndest hard, but his mind just couldn't process it. He wasn't in any condition to use any visions either. Everything was just so heavy.

Still, some words were just too obvious not to be deciphered, like—shattered, duskfall, save, shades, isolation, viewpoint, visionary, mistress…Livia? However there wasn't any context around them. He couldn't figure out what meaning each of them held.

Before he knew it, the opportunity was gone. The chopped arm flew back and attached itself to Hensen's stump. The abnormal tempest raged once again in reverse, and in another few seconds, Hensen was already pedaling back out of the library.

Vern would've loved to follow the man back to wherever he came from, but he could barely even move. Let alone follow someone that was retreating faster than a steam engine.

Well. Since this was the case, he would go back up and see what was happening to Ariane. Pulling his weary and exhausted body up, he limped his way back to the staircase.

Clinging onto the tangible handrails, he towed himself upwards—one step after another. The burnt clothes of men and women on the staircase looked like balloons filled with air, their upper layers pretending to have something in their hollow shells. Necklaces and earrings were floating in apparent positions where someone would've worn them.

TickTockTickTockTickTock

The omnipresent ticking sounds only grew more louder and faster by the second—their cadence almost resembling thunderous rain.

He hauled himself upwards one step at a time, teetering on the verge of falling back every moment. But he somehow held on and managed, collapsing on the floor the moment he reached the end of stairs.

Ariane was right there.

It almost looked like she was the only person moving forward in this bizarre world with its hourglass reversed. But it was just a trick of his eyes. Figuratively and literally—she always had a bubble surrounding her after all.

A few more seconds passed by until the fire started receding from the stairs, shelves materialized out of thin air, books flew back to their dwellings, and Vern's coat revived from the ashes. Another beat of his heart, and his outfit turned into a balloon, an empty husk where his body should've been.

Then began the most bizarre puppet show he had ever seen in his life.

Hundreds of unsullied yet hollow outfits stood back up and began playing human. Ariane arose from her fall as his empty three-piece suit began to walk back with her past the now-pristine shelves filled with unscathed tomes of knowledge.

TckockTkTikTokTicTicIckTococOTock

The absurd sound of ticking turned into a mishmash that was too fast to resemble any real clock, and then when he blinked again, a dead silence encompassed the world.

With the last strength in his body, he crawled a little to the right and managed to get a clear view of Ariane sitting outside on the balcony, surrounded by tens of hollow outfits.

DINGGGGG

Then with a booming sound, the silence was shattered. Instantly, the façade of all the humanoid outfits that speckled the immaculate and beautiful archive fell apart. Unoccupied clothes and accessories plunged to the ground in a cacophony of rustling sounds.

Then Ari reached out for his sinking clothes, and a shrill shout escaped her mouth, "V!!!!"

She moved. She moved. Ari moved. She survived. That's all he needed to know before his mind gave up—content, and an endless void of fatigue consumed him.

~End Prelude~