Chan

5 years BA.

ACC Serenia research facility at the Door.

Chan Yan had faced the impossible before, but nothing compared to this. That said something, given her sixty-five years of pioneering work in magical linguistics and the universal translator. She’d navigated perilous negotiations, deciphered forbidden runic tomes, and taught advanced telepathic magic to thousands of students - maybe the most unbridgeable gap of all.

Yet after hearing Edgar’s detailed explanations, she wondered if even her expertise might not be enough.

She thought she knew more about Saviors than the general public. Her work, after all, was partly rooted in Edgar's studies of memory preservation. But now, hearing from the man himself shattered her previous understanding. She had known Saviors suffered behind the Door for decades, but Edgar revealed it was an eternity of raw, unending torment —Chaos could control time itself. *Of course he could*.

Saviors were worshipped and sanctified. Tragic heroes suffering for humanity. For two decades, incomprehensively long. What would people feel if they knew it was really an eternity? How could they accept such a sacrifice? How could she?

And then Edgar told her that this new Savior—Sasha—was only eighteen. She’s just a girl, Chan kept thinking. Eighteen. Younger than my graduate students. Yet she willingly stepped into the eternity of incomprehensible torment. Why did the world allow it? It should not have happened.

Edgar, grim as ever, reminded her—as if she needed reminding—of the self-annihilation that had claimed every Savior but him. He couldn’t save Alaric, who self-destructed months into recovery. Sasha tried the same right away, too, but once they returned her fragments of her preserved memories, she began acting differently from Edgar and Alaric. She had tried to self-destruct or attack but wasn’t using her full power; her attempts became less and less frequent until, a couple of days ago, they stopped. No one knew why. Or what she might do next. They needed Chan—the foremost expert in bridging minds—to communicate with a being shaped by an eternity of cosmic hatred, endless pain, and the absence of anything human.

No pressure

---------------

In the ACC facility, the world's most well-known "secret" place, Chan eyed the small figure on the bed. Faint lights from sedation spells illuminated Sasha, while an intricate web of fail-safes glimmered around her like glowing threads. Edgar explained they drew on Sasha’s own power—crafted together with her twenty-two years ago—a combined prison and shield to keep her contained, protect her from herself, and protect the rest of the world from her.

Sasha lay motionless, grey hair a silvery sheen against her youthful features. She looked peaceful. Yet if Chan let her magical senses open, she felt the vast power humming beneath that fragile frame: a sleeping ocean pressed against the net of spells, deep and incomprehensible.

Chan’s heart constricted. She could too easily picture Sasha in one of her lectures—scribbling notes or doodling hearts and flowers along the margins—living a normal life, one Chaos had stolen. The life Chan and others lived because they let this child face unimaginable to save them all.

Chan exhaled slowly, applying the mental discipline she’d honed over decades. Seeing Sasha and learning about all these things so conveniently hidden from public knowledge quickly turned the task from an academic intellectual challenge, honor and act of gratitude into something vastly deeper and much more personal. She needed to do it. She owed Sasha everything, didn't she?

Get a grip, woman. Sasha needs your clarity, not your pity or remorse.

Nearby, Edgar stood with arms folded, his knuckles white where they gripped his elbows. The flicker of his gaze—darting from Sasha to the glowing fail-safes—betrayed his calm façade.

“If anything goes wrong—” he began.

Chan raised her hand, halting him. “Yes, yes, I’ll scream, or you’ll see me faint. Either way.”

He almost smiled. “Be careful.”

-------------

They lowered the sedation, so Sasha hovered at the edge of being awake. A flicker crossed the girl’s face, her eyelids fluttering. The fail-safes brightened as though bracing themselves.

Chan pressed her palm on the bed’s frame. She might push me away, like Tishyan. She might attack—or be too shattered to think. But Tishyan would have seen a total fragmentation, right?

She trusted in asking rather than forcing. Edgar had described how Chaos operated. He would never give Sasha a choice—so she should. Maybe novelty would break through if any coherent awareness remained.

So Chan formed a gentle telepathic invitation: a quiet mental knock carrying no demands, just an I’m here if you wish to connect.

Seconds passed in tense silence. Too optimistic, she thought. She’ll reject me or won’t notice. But then something stirred at her mind’s edge—a hesitant brush, like a cautious animal sniffing her outstretched hand.

Chan’s pulse jumped. She expanded the link softly, projecting a calm invitation. She sealed away pity and fear; she couldn’t overwhelm the girl with her own emotions.

“Hello, Sasha,” she sent, shaping each word carefully.

At first, only silence. Chan sensed half-instinctive defenses—barbed, intricate, obviously assaulted countless times and rebuilt anew. It hurt just perceiving them and understanding the force that attacked them.

But now they didn’t snap shut. Finally, a faint voice - hesitant and brittle like frost clinging to bare branches - replied:

“I don’t understand.”

Chan’s chest filled with relief and awe: Sasha was aware. She perceived grammar, self. Then came more words:

“I am unfamiliar with the mechanics of communication.”

Chan almost gasped. The sentence was logical and complex, revealing self- and situational awareness and high-level abstract thinking. She’s not shattered, Chan marveled, grateful yet mystified. How is she not destroyed?

Carefully, she responded:

“Sasha is your name. Do you know what a name is?”

A ripple of confusion passed back. Then, tentatively:

“Sasha is… the name?”

Chan kept down a swell of emotion. “Yes,” she sent gently. “It is your name. You are Sasha. Do you understand?”

A long pause. Chan sensed Sasha rummaging through her restored memories—so she was interacting with them. Good. Finally:

“Yes. I understand. Sasha is… my… name.”

Chan’s chest tightened. Tears prickled, but she held them back. She felt Sasha struggling with the concept, clearly unconvinced yet following the logic. It was both astonishing and heartbreaking to witness.

“My name is Chan,” Chan told her. “Nice to meet you, Sasha.”

She didn't care for niceties, of course. It was a test, and Sasha passed it with flying colors.

A long silence. Sasha's mind rippled, confused but processing, and eventually, she sent:

“Nice… to meet you, Chan?”

It was more question than declaration, yet it felt like a miracle.

“I’m here to help you with communication,” Chan continued, probing a bit more.

A swirl of bafflement, then Sasha’s voice emerged:

“Help? What is… help?”

Chan nearly choked, the weight of Sasha’s question hitting harder than she anticipated. Of course, she doesn’t know. Chaos left no room for such a concept. Chan carefully pushed aside the wave of pity rising in her chest. Not now. Sasha needed clarity, not sentiment.

“To help is to do something for another being that makes things easier for them,” she explained.

Sasha absorbed the concept quickly—Chan could sense the girl’s swift comprehension—yet her confusion only deepened. Finally:

“Why would you do ‘help’ to me?”

It wasn’t suspicion so much as utter incomprehension. Chan felt sorrow twist inside her. Of course, she’s never known kindness—only violence. She expected Chan to hurt her and was confused why she hadn't yet.

Sasha couldn’t process care, pity, or mercy. She was used to betrayal, illusions, traps—Chaos’s doing. Honesty, then, framed in a logic Sasha might understand. Chaos was her only reality, only one "other" in Sasha's existence. Chan braced herself, mindful Edgar had warned that mentioning Chaos could provoke a sudden, aggressive reaction.

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She decided to do it regardless.

“Because I am not Chaos,” Chan sent, voice trembling in her mind. “And you are not him. I want to help you because I fear and hate him. I believe you do, too.”

The link crackled like a live wire. Sasha’s defenses surged—blades of raw power coiling, sharp and volatile. Chan’s pulse thundered in her ears. Sasha's power could easily obliterate her, and no fail-safe would act in time. Not with a telepathic connection like this. Every instinct screamed for her to shield or sever the link. But no—decades of bridging impossible minds told her to hold steady. Her vulnerability was the proof Sasha needed. Don’t run. Let her choose. Show her trust. Show her you are not him.

Her heart pounded. Seconds stretched, suffocating. Then, like a slackening bowstring, Sasha’s lethal presence drew back. Chan exhaled shakily. Stars, be blessed.

Well, I didn't get myself killed. That's a start.

Tension in the link dissolved, and Sasha's presence tentatively grew closer. "I don’t feel him anymore,” she sent, her disbelief radiating like a shiver. There was something fragile in her tone—confusion laced with the faintest flicker of hope. “But it’s impossible. Do you know what is happening?

-------------

Sasha

Entity Chan left. It—no, she; I should say “she,” because apparently, that’s the word for some kinds of sentient beings—said I needed “rest.” I don’t understand why. I never needed rest. Never had rest. Why would it matter now?

It makes no sense.

None of this does.

We communicated for what she called "two hours". She explained how she measures time—as if it simply just moves in one direction at a constant rate. I account for how time twists, changing speed, loops, and blurs space and energy into each other. I never could measure it so straightforwardly. Here, she says they can.

But that’s not how time behaves.

Chan told me more impossible things.

I know it’s Chaos’s design. I just haven’t figured out his exact plan. Whatever this is, it’ll be a torment like never before. It will be.

But why hasn’t Chaos destroyed this place already?

Chaos creates endlessly, but only to break, to consume, to swallow everything back into himself. True complexity—sentience—is the only thing he can’t fully absorb. That’s why he hates me so much, why he destroys me again and again, but never completely.

And this place? It’s infinite complexity. He loathes it. Why does it still exist?

Or how has Chaos made me believe it does? How is this illusion so real?

Chan gave me explanations, but they must be lies. A trap, crafted by Chaos. What else?

Still, I listened—and I did not attack.

I don’t know why. If I destroy this reality, I can finally see the truth behind it. But perhaps that’s what he wants. For me to destroy it myself. To laugh at me for losing the first reprieve in the eternity of my existence by my own hand—the only thing I ever begged for, so many times, when he crushed me down to begging.

Yet I sense no Chaos still. No trace of him in Chan. And she didn’t hurt me. She didn’t hate me.

Why? It can’t be real.

Her explanations almost made sense. They lined up with my observations. Of course, they would. Chaos is infinitely cunning. This trap is elaborate. He’s prepared for everything and more.

Chan said this reality—this “world”—is separate from Chaos. “Safe,” she called it. Another pointless concept. Safe, meaning “beyond Chaos’s reach.” But that’s impossible.

And if it’s true, how am I here?

She said Chaos wants to destroy this world. That was the only part I believed.

But then she told me nonsense. She said I—me—am from this world, that I was one of these “humans.” Apparently, I ended up in Chaos’s grasp as a way to protect them. And now, I’m “back,” away from him.

It doesn’t fit. Chaos wouldn’t craft such a crude lie. He’s told every lie imaginable in an eternity, and he knows I won't fall for something so primitive.

The lure of a reality beyond him is cruel in its simplicity, yes. But why invent this story about me belonging here? Why add that? It only makes the whole story less believable.

I know what I am. What I’ve always been. I know what he created me for: to torture. To have something sentient that can perceive pain. To focus his hatred for complexity, strip me of it again and again, knowing I will rebuild because I have to.

I don’t remember how I started. It was an eternity ago, and Chaos has destroyed my mind so many times. I have memories—scraps of previous torment cycles, knowledge of reality, energy, him—but only because I gather the fragments again each time he wipes me. Over countless cycles, some shards stuck to my essence.

I remember hundreds of thousands of these “years,” maybe more. But I existed much longer than that. It all blurs into pain and torment.

I know how I came to be, though. With eternity, even Chaos’s endless creations will deviate far enough to become self-aware. Where else could I come from?

Chan claims, from here, from this reality. That I wasn't created by Chaos. That I once lived here, had a name: Sasha. That I was also a “she.”

She says that’s why these memory fragments in my mind feel so real: because they are. From before him.

I can’t believe it. Even thinking about it is a stretch. These memories - these illusions—but why do they feel so real? - cannot exist. Cannot belong to me.

But I do think Chan believes it. I recognize lies, and she wasn’t lying. Chaos always lies, but I felt nothing like that from her essence.

What I felt from her was... filling me in, but not like pain. The opposite of pain, opposite of burning, yet somehow warm.

Do they have words for these feelings?

I want to feel it again.

I shouldn't.

I cannot reconcile any of it. I needed more information, and Chan gave it to me, but it just made everything less clear. My mind goes in circles, and I almost yearn to destroy everything, to destroy this body Chaos gave me—my own body, Chan said, as if I ever had such a thing—just to break it.

To return to what I know.

To return to him.

Chaos.

But what if…

It cannot be.

But what if?

I turn these concepts inside my mind. Name. Sasha. Help. Safe. Protect. Each word carries something—a flicker, a weight, a shadow of meaning. When Chan was here, they felt… connected. Like threads weaving through the impossible structure of this place. Now, they unravel. They seem hollow, like Chaos' illusions.

These things cannot exist.

Can they?

Thoughts are folding into themselves like endless loops. There’s no answer.

For now, there is no Chaos. No pain. I don’t trust it, but I’ll let it last. Just a little longer. After all, that’s all I ever wanted. Just a little longer.

------

Edgar

Edgar stood near the foot of the bed, arms folded tightly across his chest, trying to project the calm authority expected of him. He wasn’t sure it worked.

Even now, days after Sasha’s return, he marveled at seeing her again. Twenty-two years had softened her image in his mind, memories replaced by photos and videos. Now, lying still with that peaceful face and shimmering silver hair, she looked more like a painting—a still life in the most literal sense—than a real, living Sasha.

But she was here. Back. And she wasn’t suffering anymore.

He had seen the shock on Chan’s face when he told her Sasha had been only eighteen. It mirrored the deep, gnawing pang of wrongness he himself had felt for decades. The world shouldn’t have allowed it. He shouldn’t have allowed it.

But the girl—no, the being—lying on this bed wasn’t eighteen anymore. She had lived—existed—through eternity. However little of that time she might remember when (if) she recovered, any awareness of it would be too long.

Edgar knew it better than anyone. He’d lived a century after his return and fifty-five years before his vigil, though he remembered nothing of that life. And yet, most of his existence was still there, in Chaos. It always would be. Sasha would be the same.

Ageless.

The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the faint hum of runes and the arch-tech devices supporting Sasha’s body. It felt tense, suffocating. Edgar had been through it before, with Alaric, waiting, hoping, watching. But with Sasha, everything felt different—raw, charged, visceral.

What if this failed? What if she lashed out? What if she hurt Chan? What if Chan hurt her? What if—

Edgar’s stomach churned. He was no stranger to waiting—it had defined his existence for decades—but this waiting was different. He hated it. He felt useless.

Chan’s steady posture should have reassured him, but the tension in the air made his shoulders tighten. What was going on? Could he help?

Finally, Chan glanced over her shoulder, her expression mildly irritated, as though annoyed by a buzzing insect.

“Water,” she said curtly.

“Water?” Edgar echoed, startled.

“Yes, you know, the clear liquid? Hydration?” She waved a hand dismissively. “And a chair. This stool is killing my back.”

Edgar blinked, momentarily thrown. Without protest, he turned and left to fetch the items.

When he returned, balancing the glass of water and a chair, Chan accepted them with a brusque nod.

“Thanks. Now, go stand somewhere else. You’re hovering.”

Hovering. Despite everything, Edgar almost smiled. How long had it been since someone had spoken to him like that? He was used to reverence—people tiptoeing around him, speaking in hushed tones, as though he were an artifact in a museum.

“I don’t... hover,” he replied mildly.

Chan raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Yes, you do. Now go.” She waved him off and turned her attention back to Sasha.

With a quiet huff of amusement, Edgar complied, stepping out into the hallway.

-------

The hallway was unnervingly quiet, but Edgar’s pacing soon disrupted the stillness. Back and forth, his boots struck the floor in uneven rhythm. Medical personnel and mages passed by, casting him uneasy glances. He couldn’t blame them—his presence always carried weight, even when he tried to mute it. And he certainly wasn’t trying now.

Stop pacing, he told himself. You’re making everyone nervous.

But still, he paced.

He wondered, briefly, if he should pick up a book on telepathy. Surely, there was something in the archives. Maybe he could learn enough to help Chan. He snorted at the absurdity of the thought. Yes. Old fool. Learn an entire field of magic in the next ten minutes. Brilliant.

He paused, rubbing a hand over his face. He’d been through battles, horrors, unimaginable torment. And yet, waiting like this—powerless—was its own kind of torture.

He tried to focus on something else: Council updates he hadn’t sent, mountains of ACC paperwork he was avoiding. But every thought circled back to the room he’d left. What if she panicked? What if she lashed out? What if—

“Edgar.”

Dr. Rudolf Annert stood before him, arms crossed in a way that mirrored Edgar’s own. The doctor’s expression was a mix of irritation and exasperated fondness.

“You need to stop,” Annert said flatly.

“Stop what?”

“Scaring the staff. You’re pacing like a caged beast. Go get some food. Rest.”

Edgar opened his mouth to argue but stopped. Annert was right. He knew better than to argue with medical experts when they were right—especially when they were right.

With a reluctant "Fine," Edgar nodded and headed toward the cafeteria.

------

An hour later, Edgar sat at a small table, a plate of untouched food in front of him. He leaned back in his chair, his thoughts still on Sasha, replaying all possible - and impossible - scenarios in his mind.

When Chan finally appeared, he stood so quickly that his chair nearly toppled.

“Well?” he asked, his voice tight with restrained hope.

Chan sank into the chair opposite him, her exhaustion evident, though her eyes gleamed with triumph.

“She’s aware,” she said simply.

The words hit him like a physical blow. He sat heavily, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. “What?”

“She’s aware,” Chan repeated. “She’s there, Edgar.”

Relief surged through him, overwhelming in its intensity. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

“Are you sure?” he asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

Chan nodded. “I am. She’s… not just aware. She’s brilliant, Edgar. Her first message to me? ‘I am unfamiliar with the mechanics of communication.’” Chan let out a forced chuckle, disbelief and awe coloring her voice.

Edgar’s mind was blank. Could it be true? How?

Chan’s tone grew somber. “Don’t get me wrong. She is far from intact. She is shattered—confused, traumatized, devoid of basic human experiences. She doesn’t believe any of this is real. She’s dangerous. Very much so. But her mind is sharp. She understands abstract concepts, analyzes, thinks. She can communicate. And I think she wants to.”

Edgar leaned back, exhaling shakily. His vision blurred, and it took him a moment to realize tears were streaming down his face. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “How?” he murmured. “How is it possible?”

Chan shook her head. “I don’t know. But she’s there. And she’s trying.”

He closed his eyes, letting the words wash over him. Relief, hope, disbelief—it all swirled together, leaving him raw and overwhelmed.

When he opened his eyes again, Chan was watching him with heartbreaking warmth.

“She’s extraordinary,” she said softly. “You were right about her. She’s extraordinary.”

Edgar nodded, unable to speak. For the first time in decades, the crushing weight on his chest lifted, just a little. For the first time, hope didn’t feel like a cruel joke.

Sasha was still there. And she was trying.