♫I want to break free. I want to BrEak free♫
*Shuffles a bit to the left.*
♫One Above knows. One Above knows I want to break free.♫
*Shuffles a bit to the right.*
As you may have guessed. Yes, I am indeed still stuck in this hollow. I’ve given up on digging out of here, because trying to dig around the hollow resulted in nothing. The sand is only a few tens of centimetres deep. After that it’s solid rock. I did try bashing through it, but that only ended up hurting myself. The only way I’ll ever get out of here seems to be up, if not for the thing blocking that way too. I’ve dubbed it the one true god, the One Above. Gotta do something down here, might as well create a pseudo-religion, while listening to the local in head radio station, Ellenoors tunes. The church is in its prime at the moment, if only lacking in resources. Head priest, Ellenoor Schipper. Singular member, Ellenoor Schipper. Top donator, no one. A priest shouldn’t have to donate to its own church, we have followers for that! Well, we don’t… But still!!!
… Isolation does weird things to someone.
Anyway, it’s not all bad news. I am in fact not getting hungry, not one bit even. Going by the songs I’ve been singing in my head it must’ve been about two weeks since I came out of the egg. And I’ve gone without eating food even once, I didn’t feel the need to at all. Despite not eating, though, I have been growing a little larger. I can almost reach out to the One Above while I’m sitting on the sand floor. Which also means I have less and less room to work with and that is not exactly putting my mind at ease.
But how am I even growing? I don’t eat anything and I don’t take in anything as far as I know, but I have clearly grown. The only thing I can think of is the One Above, it must be doing something. Time for some science.
-
Title: How am I growing?
Hypothesis: The One Above is supplying me with nutrients.
Method: To figure out what is happening we will be sending a pulse into the One Above. We will try and focus on the energy that is felt during the pulse. Another pulse will be sent closely after. This will give us a reference of the movement of the energy and/or matter.
This experiment will be performed twice, to put away any of Ellen’s doubts.
Observation: Pending.
Conclusion: Pending.
-
Alright, the preliminary work is done. Let’s get on with the actual experiment. I put both my arms against the One Above. Respectfully of course. Who’d want to piss off their god? Not me. When my arms are pressed against the ceiling I wind up a pulse and when it feels strong enough, release it and guide it into the One Above. Immediately after release I wind up a second pulse and send it right after. And the result? It is moving! I can’t really see far into the One Above, but there is clearly movement around the contact points. Downward movement. Alright, let’s do that again. Wind up, release, wind up release.
…
Uhm…
Let’s see that again. I wind up and release again and keep doing that continuously, because I didn’t expect to see anything like this. What the hell?! It’s still moving down, but instead of moving straight down the energy is getting diverted towards the points where I’m in contact with the One Above. It’s even entering me through my arms, and it’s accelerating. My arms are rapidly heating up so I quickly let go of the ceiling, startled by what just happened.
Okay, so, definitely getting nutrients from the one above. I actually might have even grown a little just from that. I wait a little while for my arms to cool back down, but that definitely warrants further investigation. Enhanced experiment go!
I gently tap one arm against the ceiling and then wait. No pulses whatsoever, I just keep it there. And my arm doesn’t heat up, even after two repetitions of Paradise by the Dashboard light. Now then, time for three pulses. I send them in and immediately sense the movement. My arm also starts to heat up again so I quickly pull away. Conclusion: touching the One Above is fine, but don’t send rapid pulses into it.
But why didn’t it happen when I just came out of the egg. I pumped so many pulse into it then, but there wasn’t a single reaction. Nothing like what’s happening now. Maybe I’ve matured a bit, grown a little stronger maybe? Well, only the One Above may know now, and I’m inclined to believe that one won’t directly answer my questions.
So, since it’s safe it should be fine to touch around the points of contact during the experiment, see if anything changed. Hmmmm, yupyup, aha. It did something alright. Most of the One Above is basically solid, but there are now definitely two spots that give a little. Two spots exactly above me. I try pushing a little harder and it gives a little more before stopping. This might be my way out! The One Above may be my temporary god, but I won’t let it stand in my way towards getting out of this prison.
===
Over the course of about 2000 songs I began to periodically touch the One Above and send pulses into it to absorb some energy and weaken its structure. Just long enough to not overheat myself. I quickly begin growing and the pulses become stronger and more accurate over time. The larger I become, the stronger the pulses, the quicker I absorb the energy. I’m not actually heating up anymore, not that much that it becomes painful at least. It’s a vicious cycle of accelerating absorption and growth. I’ve actually grown so much that I’m now entirely filling up the hollow.
I do need to take a pause from my work, because I’m stuck. Literally. There isn’t any more room for me to grow into. I may be absorbing a lot of the One Above, but not all. There is still stuff that remains, stuff that I can’t really sense nor interact with. Not with my pulses at least. Physical though, it’s doing a mighty fine job at keeping me contained. But I do know what is happening, because ever since I’ve started growing I’ve become more adapt at deciphering the info that gets passed towards me through the pulses. And since there was more and more energy and info being pumped into me I’ve gotten a clear picture of the structure of the One Above.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
And it’s definitely an organism, because it obviously has some kind of cellular structure. It’s clearly different from living things on earth, but there are enough similar features as well. Such as a membrane functioning as a barrier containing the cells, there are even some organelles. Yes, that’s how detailed my pulse-sense has become. I told you I’ve become more adapt at it. It may or may not have been a bit of an understatement.
Anyway, the One Above is basically an organism as I know it. But what I’ve been absorbing is not the entire thing. I’ve been absorbing all I can, that being parts of its membrane and organelles, but that only comes up to about 45% of the cell. The rest is the stuff I can’t interact with. Which creates the situation I’m now facing. I’ve basically turned this part of the One Above into a sponge. A very tough sponge. I can pierce it a little, but that only helps me so much. I need to get rid of it in its entirety somehow. But how? To find answers such as these, one must turn to within oneself. Very wise Ellen. Thank you Ellen.
I focus on the pulse within me, which I can now feel is actually pulsing permanently. Or it probably always was, but I can now sense it better. Way better. When the pulses are just going passively like this they remain within my body. When I focus on it I instantly see the entire picture of it and I’m instantly reminded why I didn’t want to do this earlier. That fucking mouth. It actually makes me physically shudder. The beak over it is fine, I can live with that. But that round mouth full of teeth, I just can’t. It makes me feel like a leech.
But something unexpected happens, maybe born from my intense revulsion. With every pulse the teeth slowly shrink and then vanish entirely, leaving only a surface as smooth as the rest of my throat. This leaves me stunned for several long moments. They’re actually gone. They didn’t pull back or got retracted into my flesh or anything like that. They’re completely gone, as if they were never there. Can I also return them? I put my full focus on that part of my mouth and will only the first row of teeth to return, and after only a few pulses they do. But that quick vanish and return trick has left me exhausted, so I take a moment to rest and get my thoughts in line. Not before making the teeth disappear again, though.
♫Relax. Take it eaheasy. For there is nothing that we can do.♫
Ten absolute bangers later I’ve gotten everything straight and calm again. So I apparently have way more control over my body than I initially thought. Retracting teeth is one thing, willing them to vanish and return, now that’s exiting. Well, I say vanish, but the only thing that vanished was the stuff I could sense. I could actually still feel my teeth being there, but they were way softer than normal. Almost as if the same thing happened to my teeth as what I’m doing to the One Above. If anything could give me a clue to get through the One Above, this is probably it.
But I leave that be for now, instead focusing on other parts of my body. And I find that I’m mostly build the same as the One Above, only the ratio is not the same. In my own body the average cell exist for about 80% of matter that I can sense, leaving 20% insensible. That’s on average though. A further look around my body reveals six areas that differ massively. Two of them are my arms, which I can see in massive detail. I think I can make out more than 98% of their structure, meaning they are build mostly of the matter I can sense. There are two major ‘arteries’ extending from my arms toward a core of some sort within the middle of my body. That core is also conveniently the source of the pulses. And it’s purely made of the matter I can sense. There are no impurities at all.
Besides those three there are another three areas of interest, two of them being my front legs. They seems to be the exact opposite of my arms, being only about 2% sensible. And they too have arteries extending from them, only these I can barely sense. I they’re easier to spot as two dark spots going from them to somewhere else. That somewhere else is a void right inside my forehead, in front of my eyes and above my forelegs. I can’t sense it at all. If I wasn’t looking for it I would have never known it was there. My money is on that being another core, one I can not sense for some reason. But maybe I can, I just need to focus on it harder.
Hnnnnn
Hnnnnnmmmmnnnn
Hnnnnnmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnn
That’s it! I give up!! Whatever I try, nothing happens. Prodding it with the other pulses? Nope. Kick starting it like with CPR? Nada. Spiritually holding my breath and wishing really hard for something to happen? Nothing! And at this point I’m completely sure I need this particular organ to get rid of the rest of the One Above. If only I got some hint, but my other core, I’ll call it main core, has been working without my specific input. You know, how organs are supposed to work. But this new one remains dormant for some reason. And it’s extremely frustrating, aaaaaah!
It's almost as if nothing is even there. Wait. What if there really isn’t anything there yet? Maybe it still needs to form. Maybe I can use my front legs to passively syphon from the One Above. It’s then just going to take time and I might as well give it some of that time, I’ve got tons of it anyway. Meanwhile I can just tune in for another top 2000 of the greatest hits at Ellenoors Tunes. So I touch worm my front legs passed my body to make contact with the One Above, just in time for The Bad Touch to start playing. Perfect.
===
In the third iteration of the top 2000 something finally happens. With only 357 more songs to go, I can feel a second pulse and it definitely follows a different path through my body than my main pulse. With every single pulse it becomes more prominent, until it finally reaches about the same level my main pulses were when I just came out the egg.
It’s strange. The paths the new pulses are following don’t feel at all the same as the paths my main pulses follow. Those paths feel solid but impressionable. These new ones, though, they feel almost like a liquid. Also the energy with each pulse flows way faster than the energy of the main pulse, by about three times. With them I see my front legs in way more detail than I ever did with my main pulse. In contrast, with the new pulse I barely sense my arms. So this seems to definitely be what I was looking for.
Now for the moment of truth. I focus on the new pulse, dubbed pulse the second, and prepare to send it into the One Above. And the pulse does enter it, but that’s not the only thing that’s entered. The pulse also spreads through the entire remains of the hollow, outside of my and the One Above’s body. Something that’s never happened with the main pulse. Thanks to that a picture of the entire hollow has generated in my mind. Well, any of the hollow that’s remaining, because it’s mostly filled up by me.
The new pulses within the One Above seem to stumble on the same problem as the main pulses did. I can see with them, but it’s not pulling any energy towards them. And that’s most likely due to my core the second not being mature enough. But at least it seems to work, so I’ll just play the remaining 357 songs and then see where I stand.
===
♫Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters, to me.♫
♫Any way the wind blows…♫
And with that the third iteration of the top 2000 comes to an end. Now with only excitement remaining in my mind I focus on the new pulse. With a gentle nudge from my mind I send it through my front legs which are still in contact with the One Above. Pulse one. Pulse two. And by the third pulse it happens. Slowly but surely the energy moves from the spongelike remains, through my front legs, into me. It’s exactly the same as the first time, only this time I thankfully don’t heat up. If anything this seems to have a nice cooling effect. And I don’t mind it one bit. Now, I just need to absorb the rest of the spongy remains and then I can truly dig myself through the One above. I’ll finally get out from here.
Oh, I can already taste the freedom.