Chapter 14

A white room? …Like a hospital?

"If that's the case, maybe we are here because of a common custom," I suggest, aiming to pry open his brittle features and detect any unusual recognition.

Though he only seemed to be puzzled by my notion.

"What do you mean?"

Ah—he doesn't know. We're strangers.

"My earliest memory also happens to be within a white room, but… I don't recall seeing children. How old are you anyway? There's no way you're a child."

Yu-ze chuckled and leaned back, letting the center of his shoulder blades bump the side of the stump I sat on.

His back curved a little as he settled deeper into comfort. The grass provides a cushioned pallet containing a subtle breeze.

For a moment, lying on the grass sounds more appealing than a solid tree stump.

"I think you are comparing traits. I can assure you that we do not speak of the same place. Otherwise, you would have been here a lot sooner."

My eyebrow reflexively raises.

"How would you know? You claim to have transparent certainty on the little aspects of your past that appear to you."

This time he respires, and his knees bend in an arch as he drags his right leg closer to his abdomen.

"I know it is impossible for you and I to have transmitted that same experience. I am uncertain because those memories have only visited me in mimicked dreams. You can not dream in this place, but it is probable for our subconscious to revisit records within our long-term to form something in a state of dormancy," Yu-ze Yu-ze exclaims, sealing his eyes.

"That doesn't explain why I couldn't be related to those dreams—or memories."

I fold my hands, angling my knuckles into a lower position before pressing them into my lap.

"I mentioned the reasoning when I began ascribing my history. If you were like the rest of us, then 'Hoku' would have been here long since the present. You probably remember waking up in a white room, but according to the fragments of my own mementos, I was escaping from it."

I looked over at Yu-ze Yu-ze.

His expression was calm, and despite recalling such a seemingly dark subject, his eyelids remained covering his eyes.

"How… do you live out here?"

I decide to reserve his response for later and change the subject.

I'm worried if I appear too persistent about a matter he has claimed to answer to its entire extent, he will get irritated and refuse to give me further explanations.

He might even rush the exchange so he can chat with someone empty of the same ignorance.

I lower my chin and shake my head,

I shouldn't overthink. I am barely aware of his habits, much less what he considers annoying.

"Here as in the forest, or here as in the timestream?"

I glance in front of me and waver replying as I weigh the beneficiality of understanding both.

I thought I stood in the timestream… are the allusions of the forest and timestream different?

"The forest I suppose… granted I've been handed that impression that it is the timestream."

Even though I don't possess a wrinkle of either—other than it's the possibility that this stream is a 'sequel' to my universe.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"This isn't a forest."

Yu-ze opens his eyes, but not his mouth.

Li had approached us insidiously at some point in our conversation.

The both of us faced in the direction of his voice, but it was only I who needed to sober a scowl.

Juno was beside him clasping firmly onto the piece of my shirt that Li had helped himself to.

"...Forgive me I meant the nucleus, because forests have trees right? Though this doesn't necessarily look like the organelle inside of a cell either."

Li spared me a barrelling glint before looking away and hurling back from behind a wake of trees further inside the nucleus.

"Flaunting your intelligence doesn't make you any more aware of the universe you're residing in at present. If this were your typical forest then it wouldn't be in our 'improved' universe. It's a nest of dead monsters, a domain that cannot perform the functions of a natural ecosystem. For that reason we don't live here, we approach for paltry resources."

"A nest–?"

"As for how we avoid death in the timestream, it relies upon the mantra we find ourselves in before reaching the next destination," He harnesses a fervent glare, avoiding eye contact from everyone around him.

I don't say anything even when he stops speaking, in the hopes that he immerses himself further into the subject, and I can profit off the information.

Throughout the expanse of his, and our placidness, I gather a few of his most prominent qualities.

Strangely, I had noticed his unique appearance amidst our initial interaction but foiled letting it register past what I was seeing.

Li's hair was pale, nearly white in the sunlight, his eyes were almond-shaped and bore jade green irises. The color scheme of his features was entrancing.

However, despite the bright combinations adorning him, the darkened flesh above his cheekbone, and flaccid eyelids overwhelmed his presence with lifelessness.

For some reason, my mind had regarded it as though I'd precedently seen him a thousand times.

Can the brink of insanity induce strangers to omit a sense of familiarity? Perhaps as a way to cope with confusion…

"If you have a question ask, don't pretend you're mousy and belittle yourself," Li says. His head wasn't turned, but I could mildly detect the green stationed in the corner of his eye.

"Oh. What—what are the resources for? They must be vital if it brings you to a deadly place like this."

"Every crevice of this universe is deadly. We gather raw materials from the Recess' of life to start the process of forging an elixir. Though for you it can be recognized as a weapon containing the only energy capable of slaughtering beasts such as The "Return."

A familiar sensation of dread and fear arises. My hands feel hot, but my movements are hardly adjusting toward what I am trying to tolerate.

My fingers will only curve further into the bone gaps aligning with the rigid grasp of my hands.

There is rustling on the ground next to me, but I can only stare blankly at my hands.

I am secretly relieved when Yu-ze intervenes, his voice is emitted with heavier remarks than when it was distinctly the two people chatting.

"A thoughtform convinces the timelines, which is effectively an intricate system woven from threads of pure energy, that the weapons exist. Your means of defense will be completely defective when you leave the stream."

He hesitates for a moment, and I can draw out the air before trading my transfixed heed toward him.

"The same can be relaid about the prior universe to the sequel. Even the most intricate machinery becomes an object the precise instant it leaves the universe that held the original foundation."

"Foundation, are you alluding to man? Humans are responsible for creating machines."

"Yes, which is why that universe can exist as one world inside a solar system of many more. The timestream is pure chaos. It is a loom of separate worlds all conjoined. Rather than planets that orbit the sun, however, it is a series of tangled threads that orbit the central stream."

Does he intend to uphold that I transmigrated to a failed universe that orbits itself because there is nothing to constrain the other worlds inhabiting it?

The Memoir Chapter 10

dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream do not dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream dream

Ever.

-The Memoir Chapter 10 end-