Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Federation Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 8, 1 AA
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The trip back to the Archives was uneventful, though I did get shouted at for getting myself pricked by an alien plant. I was prescribed some powerful antibiotics and sent back to the Venlil section of the facility. Being an archvist was 99% paperwork, and 1% field work. Usually we only left the Archives when we had to make someone disappear, a nosy investigator, a curious archaeologist, a clever historian, or a radical politician. Anyone that was getting close to uncovering the truth about our violent past was a potential target.
A lot of the time though, they were subtly discredited and accused of predator disease, so the few times field work actually occured were rare and far between. In twelve years this had been my third ever mission out in the field, and I was already missing the feeling of real sunlight by the time I got back.
In the last few days my mind was elsewhere though. My dreams are growing more vivid, the whispers are growing more melodious, like a chorus of lullabies. I'm starting to hear more and more, yet the words are starting to lose meaning, replaced by pure feeling. I feel comforted in my dreams, more comfortable than I ever was in my own body. My waking life is starting to feel even more dull in comparison, while the dreams help me feel alive.
I often found myself daydreaming about the things I saw in my sleep. Great cities, civilizations rising and falling, the coming and going of friends and loved ones. Great joys and great pains. They felt like memories, but I knew they weren't mine. Part of me was terrified that I'd been infected with predator disease, or some sort of hallucinogenic drug, but the dreams were the few breaks I had from the monotony of being cooped up in the Archives day in and day out.
If the Farsul found out, they'd probably lock me in a lab and run tests on me like on one of the specimens. If I had to choose between having vivid, if strange dreams, and being locked up like a specimen, I was going to pick the dreams every time. Plus, dreams are harmless.
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Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Federation Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 10, 1 AA
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When I woke up this morning I saw someone else's face in the mirror. The features were utterly alien to me, though vaguely reminiscent of a mezari. My brain didn't even register that something was off until after I'd looked away. For those few brief seconds it just accepted that it was me in the mirror. "That's me, yup, nothing out of the ordinary.", I thought, even though my rational brain now tells me that was not my face.
After taking a minute to make sure I wasn't running a fever, and to take my daily medication, I checked the mirror once again. Nothing was out of the ordinary, no strange faces staring back at me, nothing wrong with my eyes, nothing, not even a new blemish. I then checked the wound from the alien thorn, but even that was looking normal, healing at the expected rate.
Deciding that was just tiredness from having just woken up, I went back to the normal, mundane routine. Today was when I would be finally allowed back to work, after a week since my field mission. Until today I'd been on 'leave'. Which wasn't so much real leave as it was getting a few days off of work.
Transcribing every bit of every species' history was a long, and arduous task, and we were still 20 years behind with the Venlil archive. Despite how dull the prospect usually was, today felt different. It actually felt good being part of something greater, something that preserved rather than destroyed. All these stories, countless events lived by countless people. Making even a fraction of them last far into the future, rather than be forgotten, filled me with a sense of pride.
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Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Federation Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 12, 1 AA
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Last night I had a very different dream than usual. I would even call it a nightmare. I was a specimen, but not any specimen, I was the mezari I brought in, all alone, afraid, in a white room with a one way mirror. I was naked, cold, except for a plastic covering over my shoulders. I felt every second of dread, and anger, and it felt like an eternity.
Then I heard Veiq's voice, greeting me, and I demanded to know what was happening. She told me lies, to pacify me, told me that I'd been infected, that she was trying to cure me. We all knew the spiel they gave the specimens from newer species, but I'd never seen it done. Yet in the dream it felt real, like a memory.
I slowly calmed down, but in the back of my mind I was doubting her story. In the dream I was familiar with experiments, with the horrors of the Endless biolabs, with the horrors unleashed from within Auriga. I accused Veiq of being one of them, even though I have no idea what an Endless even is. In my dream though, I was sure that she was just another wannabe god, trying to play with my genetics.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
But I still played along, only because I recognized she was afraid of me. She asked me what an Endless was, and I told her, of a great empire of false gods, that did unspeakable things with magical dust, that once ruled the galaxy, only to kill each other in a great civil war over whether separating the very soul of a person from their body was moral.
We talked for hours, about the history of Auriga, and its peoples, about mages that fueled their power through suffering, about ancient knights who drained the souls of others to live, and about bio-engineered horrors. The thought that Veiq could be an endless left my mind, as she was equally skeptical and terrified of what she heard.
The dream ended soon after, when my real body woke up. I felt it slipping out of my mind, but something told me I had to remember as much of it as I could, so I spent minutes recounting every detail to myself. Eventually I couldn't remember any more details, so I just got up, and went about my day.
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Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Federation Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 13, 1 AA
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I was in the cafeteria today, and overheard something that gave me pause. Veiq was talking about the mezari specimen we'd recovered, and pretty much every detail of her story lined up with what I saw in my dream. I wasn't sure if this was some sort of weird test, but she didn't seem to pay me any mind, going about her conversation as normal.
I had to excuse myself early and leave my meal half-finished. Something was clearly wrong with me, the dreams were definitely more than just that. How was it that I could dream of someone else's experiences? Was I becoming psychic? Was I somehow linked to the mezari?
Whatever was wrong with me, I couldn't go to the Farsul for help, they'd definitely think I was mad. Or worse, actually pyshic. I had to keep this to myself, and pray that it would pass. If it didn't, I would have to do my best to live with it, hide it somehow. Though how does one even hide psychic powers?
Wanting to distract myself from my worries, I went back to my work, and thankfully it helped me calm down. Before, working on transcriptions was the dull part of my job, but now it was the only time in the day that I wasn't bored or distracted by worries. Every moment spent writing down my people's history was a moment I felt useful to the greater whole.
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Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Federation Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 14, 1 AA
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Last night something happened. I'm not sure how to describe it. I was dreaming, and the voices were singing, but it wasn't like the other dreams. It was more like I was being surrounded by strangers who were also myself. Like being swept up in a crowd of people I both did, and didn't know, at the same time. At first I tried to find a way out of crowd, but I was only hurting myself in doing so, going against the flow, coliding with people, falling, nearly getting stepped on.
So I decided to follow the crowd, and as I did the chorus grew more harmonious, and I felt a sense of calm washing over me. Then I realized I wasn't alone, just a few feet away, I could see him, the Mezari I'd brought here. His features seemed defeated, and despite his predatory anatomy, I felt no fear looking at him, only sorrow.
He then noticed me, his eyes fixed on my visage. I felt fear in his eyes, as if I were feeling it myself. I felt like I was he and he was me. I felt the pain, and the confusion. And then he spoke. "Please, whoever you are. Help me." It was like a whisper and a shout at the same time, and I immediately woke up.
I was hyperventilating, panic in my chest, part of me was happy that the dream was over, part of me panged to go back for the feeling of belonging in the crowd.
I got up and headed to the bathroom to splash some water on my face, but when I turned on the light, I saw his face in the mirror, not my own. Then that booming whisper echoed through my mind. "Help me! Help me! Help me!" I tried to shake it away, get rid of the vision, but not even closing my eyes made it go away.
I curled up in the corner of the bathroom and wept until I was once more asleep.
The dreams took me again, this time I was in a meadow, walking through the beauty of an alien, green field. Then they saw me, they looked like Mezari, and they screamed in horror. It was like I was the greatest Arxur and they were the meekest Dossur. They fled from me, but I ran after them, hunting them down. My limbs bounded, galloping, wood-like sinew and mycelial muscles flexing beneath my skin. I could feel the mezari through the earth, but not just them, I could feel far away lands, far away species, far away forests and deserts. I could feel the heartbeat of the world, and I understood.
As my mycelial claws bore down on the mezari with weapons of living wood, I could feel the turning of the planet, and the cruel opppression of time. I could feel the meaningless of distance, and the fleetingness of life. I could feel predator, prey, plant, all one, big organism, ebbing and flowing like an ocean's tide. The individual was part of a whole, not apart from it. Good, evil, these didn't matter, only enduring, lasting to the next winter, feeding the next generation.
In that moment, I understood true preservation: memory. Only memories truly record everything, only memories deserved to be recorded. Paper decays, databases corrupt, cities die, empires fall. Only in the eternal mind can history be truly saved, forever. Yes, the eternal mind, a mind of flesh and filaments. I am but a vessel, and my mission is to preserve, endure, and survive.
I saw the Mezari again, this time it was not just us, but thousands of others, their faces clear to me now, thousands of species, all archived by the fungus, all preservers, carrying the story into the hivemind, so that it may live forever.
I touched my hand to the Mezari's, and he mirrored my motions. "We must endure." Our mouths said in unison, and the others embraced us.
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Memory transcription subject: Elvik, Mykara Archivist
Date [standardized aurigan time]: Fall 14, 1 AA
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"I am Mykara. Mykara is me. Like the others who've come before, I must help preserve the stories of the galaxy. Starting with this planet." I picked myself up from the bathroom floor, gazing upon my physical visage one last time. The voices were now with me even in my waking hours, even though I could barely understand them, their presence brought me comfort.
The first step to archiving this planet would be to rescue our mezari host from the labs, and for that we needed a plan. Taking care of my body's morning toilette, I set out for the day, determined to break into the labs, so that the Grand Work of the Mykara may begin.