~???~
~???~
I sit in a corner in the back of the room, hoping that no one notices me. I want to be invisible. But the man—the teacher—always knows where I am. Always sees me.
Even today, he turns his smile toward me: bright, warm, expectant. It’s a smile that fills the room. It’s a smile that begets more smiles.
“Not you, ██████, I know you know the answer. Zelen, why don’t you take a stab?”
Zelen. It’s not the name my mother gave me, but it’s the one she uses. The one my aunties use. The one the teacher calls me by.
I asked her once: if not you, then who? Who gave me my name? Her only answer—one of the few lucid thoughts she’s able to string together: no one you’ll ever need to know, no one who’ll ever bother with you.
Even so, it’s still my name. The one the teacher calls me by. So, even though I want nothing more than to be invisible, I try my best to answer. I squint at the numbers and symbols on the chalkboard. I try to recall yesterday’s lessons. I try to—
“This is boring!” The shout issues from the opposite corner of the room. One of the other boys, the biggest one of them all. “Why do we need to know any of this anyway?”
The attention shifts away from me and onto the opposite corner of the room. I’m invisible again. I feel relief. But it’s not all relief. Something else lingers in my chest.
“Why should we strive to know anything?” The teacher’s smile never wavers, even when he’s challenged by the biggest boy in the class, a boy nearly as big as the teacher himself. “Remember that story I told the other day? About the room that keeps getting messier on its own?”
“Entropy!”
“Yes, yes, ██████. That’s the one. What if I told you that up here”—the teacher taps his head—“your minds, they’re kind of like rooms themselves. Except these rooms are much bigger than the ones you sleep in at home.”
Murmurs up and down rows of children. Exchanged glances. Giggles and blank stares.
“I can tell you don’t believe me, but just humour me for one second. Yes, these rooms, they can be as big and messy as you want them to be, full of all the possibilities life and the world have to offer. You could say that’s my goal. I want to make the rooms inside your heads just a little bigger—just a little messier—before you go on with the rest of your lives.”
Another lesson comes and goes. Another lesson where I’m largely invisible. Relief. Something else that lingers in my chest.
It’s time for me to go home. To my aunties. To my mother, if it’s to be that kind of evening.
“Something the matter, Zelen?”
Before I know it, I’m alone in the classroom. Not alone. The teacher is still here, smiling down at me. ██████ also stands by the door. Waiting. Watching.
I should go home. The place where it’s easiest for me to be invisible. But something lingers in my chest, and therefore I linger inside the classroom.
“Would you like to come home with us? Sarnai managed to bring back some fish cakes from work. You could help us finish them.”
The teacher smiles: bright, warm, expectant. ██████ watches from the door. There’s nowhere for me to hide. But somehow, I feel like I don’t need to hide. Not anymore.
I nod.
~???~
~???~
You chase me through the alleyways, sure of foot and full of laughter.
Your laughter chases me through twists and shortcuts you know like the back of your hand. Your laughter drives me out of hiding, out of the shadows and into the light.
In the light, your eyes ███████████████. In the open, your laughter floats with all the levity of an afternoon dream.
Your hand reaches for mine. Your gravity pulls me in. Your weight shifts, and we both tumble, onto pavement you know like the back of your hand.
In your surprise, your laughter takes on the vibrations of a whispered secret. In your delight, your face ███████████████.
Your hand stays on mine, won’t let go. Your warmth blends with my trepidations. Your breath gives shape to the rise and fall of your chest—of my own chest.
In your presence, I no longer wish to be invisible. In your company, I dream of possibilities, of a room that fills and grows with a constant warmth, yours and mine.
I want to be seen. I want you to see me.
I never want you to look away.
~???~
~???~
A hush falls over the room as the official returns. Flanked by two more uniformed men, rifles slung over their shoulders. No ██████.
“Where is she?” Sarnai is the first to stand, her face drawn into a scowl aimed at the armed men that march into her house. “Where is my daughter?”
“She’s Ascended,” the official answers and leaves it at that. In no rush to elaborate.
“That doesn’t answer my question. Where is she? Can we see her?”
“No,” the official says and doesn’t elaborate.
As Bateer restrains and placates his wife, the official turns to me.
“You. You have a name?”
“Ze… Zelen.”
“And surname?”
I think about this. No immediate answer comes to mind. I almost say Tenger, but Bateer steps forward and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“He… doesn’t have one, owing to the circumstances of his birth. Sir, might I ask—”
“Zelen of no surname. You are to come with me. Consider yourself fortunate. You’ll have your Ascension Standard after all.”
“But sir…” Bateer’s grip on my shoulder tightens. “Zelen’s not on the census. Are you sure this is necessary?”
“It’s not your place to speculate on what is or isn’t necessary. Come, child, with me.”
I’m scared. I want to stay with Bateer and Sarnai. But something else stirs in my chest. If I follow this man, would he lead me to ██████? Would I be allowed to see her?
We walk out of the house. Only the two of us: the official and I. As I look back, one of the armed men shuts the door in my face, with the Tengers still inside their house.
The Ascension Standard is nothing like what I’d imagined. I’m led to a dimly lit room with more uniformed men and women. I’m made to sit in the biggest chair I’ve ever seen. A rubber band, a large needle, a sharp stab, then something ghostly blue flows into me through a clear tube. Or is it flowing out?
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Then something cold and metallic comes down on my head, and I’m thrown into pitch blackness.
In the darkness, I’m invisible. In the darkness, I’m safe, I’m calm, I’m nothing. In the darkness, I feel relief.
But that’s not all. Not anymore. Something lingers in my chest, stirs within it, reaches outward.
This is the same darkness from which ██████ Ascended. If I were to join her—to see her again—I need to do the same. Ascend. Show that I’m worthy.
I wade through an endless expanse of darkness. Of silence. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just know that I need to find it. A possibility. A stream. A cascade.
The darkness impedes my progress. The silence bogs me down. There’s some force in the universe, in its endless expanse, that pushes me back. Reminding me of my smallness, of my basest impetus to curl up and be invisible—be nothing. Not just a reminder, but a warning. Not just a warning, but a judgment. This is where you belong. Do not overstep your bounds.
But boundaries are made to be broken. Limitations are meant to be tested. Fill the room. Grow it. Make it bigger and messier than it has any right to be.
Heed my call. I whisper. Heed this one call, and I shall forever be your servant. To wield my powers as the universe wills it. To save. To destroy. Heed my call, and I will be and do anything you ask of me.
The Nexus whispers back. Life, the planet, the universe, and all the infinite possibilities therein and beyond.
[ENTROPY].
~???~
~???~
A hairless ageless creature bends toward its core to hug itself. A lurid red stain spreads upon a grey barren field.
~???~
~???~
A fragile butterfly disappears into a whirlwind of metal, smoke, and blackness. An obsidian monster looms, poised to tear off the glass wings of the butterfly, again and again and again and ag
~???~
~???~
The sound of music. The smoke from a bonfire. Sweat. Laughter. Desire. The cloying sweetness of honey. The lingering heat of a lover’s kiss.
~???~
~???~
An ash-laden phantom flies into the fog of war. Into the planet’s haze. Fight. Survive. Kill. Fight. Survive. Kill. A warrior remembers. A Reiter puts pen to paper. The Meridians are the branches upon which Life blooms.
~???~
~???~
He found her at the far end of the garden, standing next to the largest painting. She was alone, and wore a faraway look that immediately reminded him something of himself.
The faraway look snapped into one of mortification the moment their eyes met, and he hastened to put her at ease.
“I’m glad to see a familiar face,” he said the first thing that came to mind, then turned his attention to the painting itself: the centrepiece. Words failed him then, for he couldn’t quite decide what exactly he was looking at.
“It’s an expressionist piece,” she said breathlessly, with barely disguised terror. “Um… this yellow bit is a duck. These lighter strokes are the wings of a butterfly. They’re, um, swimming on a pond. Well, one of them is swimming. And the other one is—”
“Staying.”
She was shocked into silence, though some of the flush faded from her cheeks. He met her eyes—only briefly—before snapping his gaze back onto the painting. He felt his own face flush.
“Sorry if I’ve said anything weird. It’s just… to me, it looks like the butterfly wants to stick around. To stay with the duck.”
“No, don’t apologize. And please, tell me more. I’d love to hear what you think of my painting.”
He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Once he saw the painting for what it was—once it fell into place for him—the words came as easily as his thoughts. He had the strange sensation that the thoughts didn’t entirely belong to him, as if they were the whispered echoes of someone else’s memories.
But he also knew such delusions to be extraneous to his mission. The mission of being present for his fiancée.
“I don’t know much about art, but I think I get this one. Two lonely souls that found each other, and even though they couldn’t be more different, one thing they share is this sense of belonging. I don’t mean that in, like, a possessive way. It’s just, when they’re in each other’s company, they feel like they belong.”
She fell into silence again, her expression too blank for him to make heads or tails of. When she remained like this for some time, he panicked and stammered, “Sorry! Like I said, I really don’t know anything about art. Please don’t take any offense if I’ve—”
He froze at the sudden touch. Her hand on his arm. Even through layers of fabric, the warmth lingered. Relief. Something more. Something less.
“You don’t know how much this means to me,” she said. The echoed whispers of someone else’s memories. “But that’s because you—we—don’t really know anything about each other.”
And for the first time since he’d known his fiancée—for the first time in lifetimes—he saw her smile: soft, warm, inviting.
He smiled back.
“Then maybe it’s high time we made an effort to correct that, Asena.”
“I’d like that very much, Zelen.”
~February 20th, 140 AH~
~Joint Base Akra, Kurator HQ, Terminal One~
The metallic keening faded into the darkness. The blinding flash settled into a pale blue haze. The roiling abyss receded into the sea of someone else’s memories.
When she came back to herself—for she was still her, Corporal Asena Shiranui of the Kurator Corps—she had just enough Reserves left over for one last scan of her subject’s idea and history of self.
Webs upon webs of interconnected threads. Pliable yet resilient. Well-consolidated. An infrastructure of sound and uniform integrity.
There was nothing left for her to [EVOKE]. No extraneous fragments for her to [UNRAVEL]. Zelen Athelstan was whole. Zelen Athelstan was present. In the here and now.
“Zelen? Can you hear me?”
A stretch of static momentarily clouded her mind with doubts (hope) again, but it soon broke, making way for a voice she knew well (didn’t recognize).
“Loud and clear, Asena.”
Loud and clear. Polite. Respectful. All the qualities she’d come to expect from their chats. Asena felt relief. Yet there was also something else. Something that lingered, something that clawed deeper and deeper into the widening chasm within her chest.
“Asena?”
“… Yes?”
“Good, you’re still there. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about earlier. I seem to have disconnected for a moment, but I’m back now. Back for good… I hope.”
“… I’m glad to hear it.”
“And it’s all thanks to you. Thank you for sticking by me these last few weeks. Thank you for never giving up on me. I know I didn’t make things easy for you, and for that, I’d like to apologize—maybe… in person? If we could—”
His words cut abruptly—mercifully—into more static. Static Asena could deal with. Static didn’t call into question everything she believed—about Zelen, about the war, about herself…
“Sorry, Asena, the General just called in to say he wants a debrief. We’ll have to continue this some other time. I guess I’ll… see you around?”
“… See you, Zelen.”
Suddenly more exhausted than she’d ever been, Asena wanted nothing more than to fling herself off the workstation. But while the restraints held her to her seat, she remained at the mercy of voices that floated in from the darkness. And sure enough, the next voice to announce itself with glee was the last one she wanted to hear.
“Corporal Shiranui. We’ll have a proper debrief in due time, but I just wanted to pop in and congratulate you on a job marvellously done. Mission fucking accomplished, and you were the star of the show, make no mistake about it.”
“… You’ve got a lot of nerve to be gloating, after what you put Zelen through.”
“What I put him through? How do you mean? I thought you were the one treating him, and seems to me you did a bang-up job of it.”
“You know full well what I mean. You knew I’d be forced to [REWIRE] him!”
“Well, naturally.”
“Didn’t my father brief you? About the high failure rates? The risk of permanent Psychic failure?”
“He did.”
“Then why? Why would you still go through with this? When there was so much at stake? When Zelen—”
Asena froze. For even as she levelled her accusations, realization dawned on her, one that just made her horrible nightmare of a day even worse.
[REWIRE] hadn’t been the last resort she’d always assumed it to be. It’d been plan A, right from the word go, from the moment this mission was conceived by the dark twisted mind of Fenix Duodecim.
“It seems to me as though you’ve just managed to catch on, so I’ll keep this short. You’re right, Corporal Shiranui. Your [EVOCATION] sessions have been vital to restoring Kingfisher’s Nexus attunement, but that in itself was never the end goal. Because what good is a Reiter who can’t—or won’t—fight and kill? A reshuffling of the mind. A fresh identity. Free of all the useless baggage, the extraneous memories. We’ve got ourselves a brand new warrior, ready and eager for round two, and do you know the best part? You do, don’t you? Little miss know-it-all…”
Asena did know. Had just realized. And wished fervently for her own memories to be wiped clean.
“Now that our hero has gone and forgotten all about his imaginary girlfriend, he’s back on the market. Oh, we’ll give him a few days first to work the rust off and get his game back. Make sure there’s no more funny business inside that fragile noggin of his. But after that, it’ll be time to find him a new partner.
“By now, you know as well as anyone what a lonely place a battlefield can be. And as much as we like to play tough, when push comes to shove, there’s no better cure for that loneliness than the bond between a Reiter and his Spiegel.”