Cassieus Hinari

I opened my eyes to the familiar sight of the main hall of the Library rather than that of my bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was that the door at the far side of the room I had first entered when I had accessed the Library initially, was missing.

“You don’t have access to your Soulspace unless you enter Meditation, since we aren’t inside your head anymore, but rather in an actual physical space,” Mel said, reading the question from my head as usual.

“So if I meditate here, my body will still be in this space?”

I thought of the entity hiding in the vaults.

“Exactly, this should prevent any further possessions while we figure out what that thing is.”

“Do you think it's safe? I know you said you can prevent it from escaping, but will it be able to hurt you?”

“I'm touched that you care,” she said. “No, I have more freedom here in the physical domain.”

“How should we do this?”

“Just jump right in, I guess,” she said, pulling me by the hand to my room.

Once inside, I sat down on the edge of my bed and closed my eyes, activating my Meditation Ability.

Nothing happened for several moments, causing me to become worried.

I heard Mel snicker off to the side and opened my eyes slightly.

Standing next to me was the fully corporeal form of my familiar that I had become accustomed to.

“I didn't even feel the transition,” I said, perplexed.

“You're comsically closer to this domain than you were before on your home world, so the distance your soul travels is inconsequential.”

I stood up, but to my horror, I felt a part of me peel away from my body. Looking down I saw my own face, eyes closed, sitting on my bed.

Leaning forward, I looked at my body. I waved my hand in front of its face with no reaction.

“Neat,” Mel said, full of genuine interest.

She walked over to it and slapped it upside the head.

“Ow!” I yelled, as I grasped the back of my skull. “What was that for?”

“Double neat!” She said, smiling from ear to ear, while she examined the unresponsive shell in front of us. “Didn't know that would happen.”

“Maybe next time start out with something smaller, like a light tap,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Come on, I want to get this over with.”

Exiting my bedroom, I walked over to the door leading to the Hall of Infinite Vaults.

Once I approached the door, I hesitated, standing a few paces away.

I felt Mel's fingers slide into my hand as she gave me a reassuring smile.

“Just focus on the door you want to open and command it to do so. We can stay out here if you are worried about getting sucked into another memory.”

“I think that's a much better idea,” I said, feeling my chest tighten at the anticipation.

I heard a click and the wooden door to the Vaults swung open in front of me.

A few feet in the handle of first door on the right unlatched itself at a thought and it began creaking open.

“This is no time for theatrics,” I called out, trying to bolster my own confidence. “Come out.”

The door opened further as we waited, both of us staring intently at the entrance.

“What theatrics?” I heard a voice say from behind us that sounded eerily like my own, but distorted.

Mel screamed and squeezed my hand, while I yelped and jumped back pulling her with me.

Sitting at one of the many tables several feet in front of me towards the center of the main hall, was my own body, skimming through a book on carnivorous plants native to the region.

The copy of myself set it down with a scowl, and turned his head to look me in the eye.

“Please, sit,” it said, pushing out a chair with one of his feet.

I hesitated, saying glued to the spot, Mel still gripping my hand like a life line.

“I apologize for our earlier interaction, I was not fully conscious of my actions and was acting more on emotion and my urge to escape my prison, than any ration thought.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Who are you,” I asked.

I made no attempt to approach the being inhabiting my body, choosing to ask my questions from a safe distance. If our last interaction had taught me anything, it was that I was inherently weaker than the entity in front of me.

Can you sense him? I asked Mel.

“She will not be able to, no,” it answered.

A clear show of strength, to dissuade me from trying to plot telepathically with Mel.

I looked at her and she nodded in confirmation.

“You didn't answer my question,” I said, continuing to try to keep confidence in my voice.

“Ahh, but you already know the answer to that. I would not attempt to reiterate information you are already privy to.”

“You're the entity?”

“Yes.”

“Then, what are you?”

“A much better question,” it said, gesturing once again to the open seats across from him.

Looking to Mel, she shrugged. “I don't think he needs you to be sitting in order to attack you.”

I took a hesitant step toward him, staying cautious.

“Quite right, Melthezaaria.”

I felt the tug on arm as Mel stopped in her tracks.

“No need to worry, I had some time to myself since you were so kind as to leave me in peace here after awakening me. I've spent quite a lot of time inside of your memories, catching up, as it were.”

Pulling at Mel's arm I took a seat at the table, pulling another out for Mel.

“So what are you, and what do you want?”

“Straight to the point, very well.”

It waved its hand and two of the cups from my ring's inventory appeared along with a pitcher of tea I had brewed purchased beforehand.

“I expect you have an inkling as to my true nature but not sure if you grasp the breadth of my being.”

Filling up both cups, he pushed one over towards me.

Taking an exaggerated sip, he placed the cup back down onto the table.

“I am the culmination of your familiar's attempt to suppress your undesirable emotions that threatened to leave you in a vegetative state.”

“How is that even possible?” Mel asked, sounding skeptical.

“Does a child intrinsically understand how it was born before it is taught or told how it came to be?”

“So you're saying you don't know?” I asked.

“That is precisely what I am telling you,” he said with a smug look that didn't fit my face.

“Why do you sound smarter than Cassieus?” Mel asked, without a hint of her normal playfulness.

“Hurtful!” I said, actually wounded by the remark.

“Sorry,” She said lamely, shrinking back a little.

“I posited that it has to do with the fact that I am not a teenage boy, but rather a being of incomprehensible time and emotion birthed into sentience. My faculties remain undamaged even after processing the vast amount of information stored in this domain. That, accompanied by the compressed time you tried to hide away, that no longer plagues our friend here,” he said gesturing towards me.

“I don't understand. I have access to all of those things?”

“Had,” he corrected. “Once your familiar, separated me from your mind, a vast amount of what composes my mind became just that. My mind.”

“Aren't you just a big ball of anger though?”

He chuckled, taking another sup of his tea.

“While that was the most overbearing and raw emotion that I experienced when waking, it was not the only one. Did you only experience anger for your entire incarceration in that Array?”

Thinking about it, I understood his point.

When Mel took away the majority of that time, it wasn't just my anger, but every experience grouped around it, including my descents into cackling madness that I still shivered at the mere thought of finding such glee in a somber experience.

“So what do you want? Are you trying to steal my body again?”

“No, no, none of that. I did apologize. I was newly awakened and I was still in the process of coming to terms with being locked in a vault that I could not escape from.”

“So you're not trying to steal my body?” I asked, quitting my eyebrow at my body he was possessing.

“I found a peculiarity when I escaped this place. It took me a few moments to come to the conclusion that in my natural form, my thoughts are jumbled, misdirected and it wasn't until I inhabited your body, that they became manageable. Clear even. What you see now is me, thinking with some measure of clarity that I lack whilst not occupying a form without a proper brain.”

“So you can't think without my brain?”

“It would be a more accurate statement to say that I lack direction without your brain.”

“You still haven't told me what you want.”

“I want a brain,” he said nonchalantly, as if he were asking for another cup of tea.

“A brain?”

“Preferably one with a body attached.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“No?”

“Absolutely not. I'm not killing someone so that you can take over their body like some kind of parasite.”

“Of course not. You misunderstand. I don't want some human brain. I want a god's brain.”

“A god's- brain?”

“I want the asshole that made me. Whoever is at the top of the Engrogeos Empire. It has to be a god, it wouldn't make any sense for someone lower down the rung to be able to run an empire in the Multiverse.”

I stared into my own eyes, so fierce and familiar, yet alien and cold.

For an instant, I saw a flicker of molten fire light up in the depths of his stare.

I considered his ludicrous ask, before realizing my own plans may actually make that a feasible request, even if it wasn't my main goal, there would be a time when I would seek out such revenge.

And how poetic would it be if the cause of so much hate and pain became the punishment for the one responsible.

I saw a grin form on the face of the thing wearing my body.

“A deal then? A cohabitation and mutual partnership until we part ways?”

He stuck out his hand across the table, holding it there for me to shake.

“Call me Ira,” he said as I clasped my own hand.