《Mt. Sensan-Ghi》 Dedication I released this book in April 2023, ahead of schedule, because my dad told me that my grandmother was not doing so well, and I had always told her I will chase my dream to write stories. She always supported me and was a large influence of my childhood in who I am today. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I wanted her to know I have published work and that I am actively doing what I love, I wanted her to be proud. Foreword Hello and welcome, whomever you are, to this little indulgence on my part. I never imagined, back in 2017 when I went into burnout, that this project would ever see fruition; nor did I ever think it would be so instrumental to my recovery. Finishing this book, much like working through burnout, has been a process of many years. Every creation along the way, every work included in this book, being a chronological manifestation of my state of mind through each stage of my journey. Now, writing this after completing the cover for that ties everything together, I''m not exactly sure how best to express my many thoughts about Mt. Sensan-Ghi.I have both great love and loathing for this book, and for better and/or worse this story is part of who I am today, better of than I could have ever been; back then and likely even today, had my burnout not happened. I can only hope I do justice to it here, before you too embark on my journey, and hopefully find your own journey ahead from here on out. Burnout is nasty. There is no way around that. It''s also more prevalent in society than ever. More and more is demanded of us with smaller and small rewards, while we struggle to find things that give the repetition and grind a reason. Getting consumed by the rhythm of overwork and the crushing weight of the mental health issues you are left with can truly break you. Without hyperbole, I feel, that is exactly what it ended up doing to me. I didn''t know I had reached my breaking point at the time of course, and even to this day I sometimes have to remind myself that the nagging feeling in the back of my head that I could have taken the pressure and just rolled with the punches as was expected of and by me is, in fact, wrong and at the root of the toxicity of what makes burnout so insidious. Stolen novel; please report.I honestly still feel remnant effects of my burnout to this day. There are ways in which I am changed forever by it, then I remember how far I''ve come since, and that I am going in afar better direction than I used to. It is without a doubt unreal to think that at current time, March of 2023, six years have passed since my burnout and my life is so unrecognisable. This project was what allowed me to begin the healing process, but without the support I both sought and received along the way I would never have gotten where I am now. This story became the catalyst for a change in my life I desperately needed and I hope that reading it will provide something of value. Something good came of it in the end for me, and I hope it can do so for others too. Don''t be afraid to seek help, talk to friends and family, and most of all, take care of yourself. - Julian Claeskens (kijknietlinks) Act One - The Foot Of The Mountain
It was a warm evening as the sun was setting while the temple keeper sat outside accompanied only by the fire that always knew when to be lit, and the presence and pressure of the mountain dwellers far from the temple at the foot of the mountain. The fire had told him, by lighting itself, that a visitor was to arrive shortly. It was the task of the temple keepers to tell the story the travellers needed to hear. The current temple keeper did not feel strongly either way concerning his duty, at least not like some of his predecessors, so he''d heard. Sadly for the keepers there would only ever be one on duty at a time, this was preordained in the times of the young soil, when the mountain Sensan-Ghi was but a hill. The fire indicated there was little time, so the keeper hung the kettle that had always waited by the fire above it, feeling assured that when the traveller was close enough, the whistle of the kettle would lead him here. As predicted the kettle began to whistle intensely and a rustling of the leaves followed soon after. It drew closer till at last a figure emerged from darkness, outlined by the fire some distance away. The keeper took the kettle off the fire and poured its contents into two clay cups. ¡°Welcome traveller, to the foot of Sensan-Ghi. Please sit and enjoy this tea that was prepared specially for you.¡± The traveller did not approach, and got slightly defensive, slowly leaning one hand towards a weapon he was carrying. ¡°My name is Bolfog, or at least it was when I stood where you stand, many years ago.¡± The traveller seemed intrigued and made no sudden movements. ¡°If you seek the treasure atop this mountain, I will not stop you. My task is to make sure you leave here prepared, tomorrow morning. I am the keeper of this temple, where all who seek Sensan-Ghi may prepare for the journey ahead.¡±
The traveller moved closer and sat, his face was now visible, and it was clear now this man was quite young. The keeper nodded to himself, in a sort of melancholic agreement. ¡°Traveller, you need not tell me your name, but will you indulge me with the story of where you heard of this place?¡± The keeper vocalised as he handed over one of the two cups to the stranger. The traveller accepted the cup of tea and took a sip. ¡°My name is Estavir, I have come here haunted by dreams. I have heard tales of treasure, horror, glory and mystery about this place, yet have come in search of none of that.¡± ¡°Many have come here,¡± the keeper started, filling a pensive pause Estavir was having, ¡°in search of those things and some have succeeded while many have failed.¡± The keeper took a satisfied sip of his own tea and moved forward so the fire lit up his wrinkles like mountains defined by deep valleys, giving his old face a far more textured look. ¡°So young traveller, what have you come in search of?¡± The traveller shied away, but felt compelled after a while to reveal something he was sure to be mocked for. ¡°For as long as I can remember, from time to time I would experience a very vivid dream, always the same dream, a dream in which I could control everything.¡± He paused expecting to be told that it is rather common to be in control of your dreams once you are aware that it is a dream. But the old man before him waited patiently for him to continue. Not being interrupted at this point threw Estavir off his story, so the keeper interjected when the silence continued longer than it should. ¡°But they have changed recently have they not?¡± postulated the keeper, knowing full well he was right. ¡°How did you know?¡± Estavir said, surprised. The keeper¡¯s smile grew slightly crooked. ¡°Everyone''s experience may vary a bit,¡± the keeper started, ¡°but we have all felt this change, a dream that remains each night, calling us into action.¡± A pause ensued as the keeper allowed his words to resonate with the young traveller and he took another sip of tea.
¡°Everyone''s calling is different,¡± the keeper continued,¡±and by such I cannot tell you what you should do or what you will find, but it is, however, my duty, as many before me, to tell you a story before you embark on your journey; the story of the first visitor to Sensan-Ghi, the founder and builder of this temple.¡± The traveller looked around slightly nervously while taking another sip of his tea. ¡°You need not worry, after my story you will find a bed ready inside and you will wake to breakfast so you may begin your journey. However it was the founder¡¯s belief that those who embark on this journey hear his words before they leave. You are welcome to ignore the temple¡¯s charity of course.¡± The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Estavir didn''t think he would turn down the old man''s charity, sharing this tea had calmed him and he couldn''t explain why he felt he could trust the old man. ¡°The founder, whose name was Yee Lenlan-Cho; though I suppose he would have said that didn''t matter in the slightest, is said to have been the first to both climb the mountain and attain its most worthwhile treasure and made the descent without its loss. ¡°It was said he built this temple with his own hands, near the end of his life after he had had a nightmare: a sea of blood rising to the peaks of a Sensan-Ghi growing larger than he had ever seen with his own eyes. ¡°After his nightmare he returned a second time to the foot of this mountain, where we are now sitting in fact, and cried sincere tears that wet the earth from which grew trees that would deliver to Yee alone, timber that would stand the ages; from which he would build this temple for all future visitors.¡± The keeper had a moment of nostalgia for his own journey and his life in the temple but shook it off to return to the part of his duty that was most paramount. ¡°The founder was a funny man, it is said. While he never spoke in detail of his own journey, he always emphasised two important things for all keepers must pass on. The first was that along your journey encounters will inevitably happen, and that these are all reflections. He often stated that he had met a faery and that this encounter, for better or worse, needed to occur as it inevitably did.
The second was the only thing the founder was ever explicit and accurate about, and was something that must be recited exactly.¡± The keeper changed his tone and adjusted his sitting to attune to the serious intent of the passage he had memorised word for word, as was tradition. ¡°I, the founder of this temple, pass my sincerest hopes for your safe journey to the top of Sensan-Ghi. I, at the time of the young soil, have looked upon this glorious sight twice, and to my dismay found that Sensan-Ghi grows on the corpses of its fallen. I implore all who wish to embark on this journey to heed my words: Some may succeed, some may go mad and some may die; yet know that so many never get called to this journey at all. Let never the value of The Call be diminished. For the few who do, the road will be treacherous indeed, never forget the journey ends not atop the mountain. Whatever you seek, for good or bad, seek the top and beware the descent and return. For those who will reach the top may find what they seek, lest they know it not, lest they lose it on their way down. And for those whose calling does so: seek the temple a second and final time.¡± As the keeper spoke those words the traveller seemed to have gulped the last of the tea and the keeper did the same. ¡°Inside you will find your bed,¡± said the keeper as he got up, ¡°My duty is fulfilled. Your journey is now your own. May Sensan-Ghi¡¯s will be merciful.¡± Before the traveller had time to set aside his own cup and get up from in front of the fire the old man had disappeared in the darkness, away from the temple. The traveller was left alone and wasn''t sure what to do, so he remained in front of the fire a little longer while looking around. He could barely see the temple in front of him in the dark and with the fire obscuring his vision. It was not too really small though it certainly was no castle either; but it could be a
mansion and as he could see, the front doors were wide open. To the left he could only see, or rather couldn''t really see, the trees, bushes, mist and rest of the dense forest that surrounded the mountain. To the right he could only identify a doorless gateway. It was barely visible, a thick wooden archway sitting atop small stone pillars, and in the awe of the crackling fire seemed to be emitting a slight hum of golden glow. Once I pass through there, he thought, there is no going back. He got up to approach the gateway when a light that had not previously been there caught his attention from the corner of his eye. A light had been lit inside the temple. He felt a strong pull towards the light and went inside. The hall had several candles that were lit and had several doors, all were open except one. Naturally this was the first door he walked up to but could not get it to budge; it almost seemed like someone designed the wall simply to give the impression of a door. He turned around to decide which door to visit next only to see all open rooms lit up. They were, from right to left: a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen of sorts and a rather large mostly empty hall. He visited them in that order and found the empty hall eerie and despite having more than enough candles to light a room three times its size seemed somber and shadows hung large on all sides. He had felt uneasy with the thought of sleeping, the nightmares had become stronger than he was currently. He felt importance and weight in the old man''s words so lay in bed despite his better judgement, mostly sleepless, shaking himself awake every time he felt the haze of a fading reality, until in the end he succumbed. Act One - Its Who I Am On a dark and humid day When my mind wanders to places of light, I cannot see the world. On the journey across the planes of thought A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I come across the ghosts of the past And the void of the future. They tell me stories, old and new, Known and unknown. I get lost in eternity and lose sight of time. By the time I emerge back into life, The sun has set, The fire is out, The love has withered. I see not a life I knew, no place to belong, But in the arms of a mind long gone into madness. Act Two - The Trail Of The Three Gates Estavir was standing in a forest, on a road that led upwards, not too steep at first but which got progressively worse. He stood somewhere near the beginning, but was already beyond a gate he thought looked a lot like the first gate next to the shrine. Further ahead he saw what he liked to believe looked like a second gate. It was far away, too far to be sure if it really was a gate like the shrine one, or if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He started walking, finding himself unusually light and lifting off the ground just a tiny bit more with every step, until his feet were no longer touching the ground; regardless of stretching as far down as his legs allowed. He was now fully suspended and felt he could no longer hold his balance and started flipping, falling to the ground face first. But his face never hit the ground, instead he felt something pull him upwards by the legs. He panicked, fought and wrestled to break loose but to no avail; he was being dragged higher and higher. As he looked down and around he could see the mountain becoming larger and higher too, the road stretching and writhing; the two gates, now only dots on a white line, kept diverging further apart until it all stopped abruptly. He was hanging still, and the grip on his legs loosened. With the release of the grip on his leg he started to fall, screaming, towards the foot of the mountain, woken up by the loud shouting coming from his own mouth right as his face would have connected with the pointed roof top of the temple where he was sleeping. Covered in sweat, heart racing from the realness of it all, he got up slowly, not feeling quite rested at all, heading towards the bathroom and the kitchen. As was promised, bread and a few things to eat with it were present on the table along with a large vat of water he assumed was drinkable. He cleaned himself, ate, and finally visited the empty chamber again. He was surprised to see that even in the full glory of the morning sun shining through its many windows, this large mostly empty room remained dark, with the same shadows present in all nooks and crannies as they were in candle light. The wall-door remained as tightly pressed. He left the temple and took in a whiff of the morning air, which filled his lungs with a combination of dew and pollen softly caressed by the soft touch of the sun''s warmth. It was a fresh and enjoyable smell, a rare and almost empowering smell, motivating him as he walked up to the gate. He stood in front of it, a few meters away, so he could properly assess it. He could still see a soft hum of golden glow even though the gate and archway were clearly made of wood and lacquered to give a scarlet hue. He took a deep breath, gathered his strength and will, and took the first step passing him through the gate. With this he felt his journey had started properly, not realising the journey started as soon as he arrived by the campfire. Walking at a fast pace Estavir starts down a long road that started where the gate ended and stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. The road went on for what seemed like forever in bends and curves ahead of him, and the steeper climbs were clearly visible in the distance. The hours passed and steadily the climb was becoming steeper as the bends got longer and wider and became less frequent. The higher and steeper tree line was making it impossible to navigate ahead now, so at this point all Estavir could do was follow the road. It was after maybe another hour that the road started getting uneven and had fewer qualities which would be associated with a road and was looking more like a path, general guideline for travellers at best. Nevertheless the path remained mostly unobstructed and in the distance he seemed to spot a fork in the road, and a figure on the ground in front of it. As he got closer he seemed to identify clothing, and by the size of the figure it must have been a child. He got close enough to hear a whimpering coming from the child as it was hunched towards the two-way fork in the road, in front of some signs. "What is the matter, kid?" Estavir asked as he stood over the child, leaning over a bit to hear a response over the sobs the it didn''t seem to have control over. "I''ve lost my way home, i don''t remember which way it is." Estavir looked at the signs but couldn''t read the language they were written in. One sign was pointing to the road on the left, the other pointing right and in the middle of both was a crooked rectangular sign. "Child, can you read these signs?" The child looked up a little and nodded. "The left one says ''right'', the right one says ''left'' and the middle one says ''don''t trust the signs!''." Estavir was conflicted as this made no sense, there didn''t seem to be any visible differences between the two paths, they curved away from each other in the same fashion and at the same rate, making it impossible for him to see ahead from the fork in the road. The forest around him, as it had been up until now, was too dense to risk navigating through directly, so he would scout both roads and make a decision after seeing what''s ahead; hopefully, in spite of the time it would waste, it would allow him to make the correct decision. He walked down the left path first, which started by curving left and then right and back to left and so on, in a zigzag that continued for about an hour. After the hour of following the zigzag path he spotted the upper archway of a gate in the distance through some bald tree tops. Finally i''m getting somewhere, he thought and picked up his pace. He reached the front of the gate and it was a similar scarlet colour, with similar features as the one next to the house, but it didn''t seem to have that hum-glow of golden. It did however lead to a more open area, very densely enclosed by thick trees accentuating three identical gates standing side by side at the back of the clearing, each with its own separate path; they looked just like the one he had only moments ago walked through. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. There were no signs, no marking on the ground, not even a visible difference between the three gates in front of him. As with the two-way fork he could not see ahead enough to decide. Disappointed in what he found he made the journey back, eventually finding the child still hunched and sobbing at the sign. He passed the child without saying a word and it didn''t seem to notice him either, or at least if it did it gave no indication of doing so. The right path seemed to be identical to the left path with the exception that everything had a mirrored orientation, and within an hour of walking the path, he once again spotted the upper archway of a gate over bald tree tops. Much to his dismay the open area with gates was identical to the one he visited prior; three gates next to each other. He became agitated and in his frustration he kicked a rock in front of him that hurled at one of the gates. It bounced off one of the gates and in a most unlikely fashion bounced back at him, hitting him in the shin. This only angered him further and in his anger he picked up the rock and slammed it into the ground before stomping on it a few times, which left a visible indent in the ground. Quite bitter at this point, he returned to the two-way fork once again. The child was still there, the signs were still there, though the middle one seemed even more crooked than before, but aside from that nothing had changed. Estavir attempted to ask the child some more questions but all he got was sobbing and whining about missing its mother. Not entirely surprising he thought, though not particularly useful. He decided he would need to make a decision somehow and would leave it to chance, he threw a dagger from his breast pocket straight up and waited for it to fall, wherever the blade would land he would go. It landed blade facing the left passage; the one labelled "right" by the left sign. By the time he had gotten to the three gates once more the sun was starting to become obscured by the side of the mountain, and visibility was steadily reducing. He walked under the bigger gate to approach the three gates ahead, preparing to let chance decide his path when he nearly tripped. Upon immediate inspection it was a small hole in the ground that had caught his foot, seeming rather like a mark left after someone smashed a small rock into the ground, much like he did at the gates on the other path. For a moment he was frozen in contemplation, it couldn''t be that this was the same hole he made earlier, on another path, there didn''t seem to be any other way unto this clearing, and he couldn''t have confused the gates, the three were clearly in front of him and the only way he could have come here behind him. He had to be sure so he took his sword and slashed into the ground. He carved the word "NO" deeply and unmistakably in the ground and spit on the ground inside the O to leave his thumbprint. He ran back down the path as fast as he could, passed the signs and child, too quickly to notice that the centre sign had now fallen off its peg and the child wasn''t actually there anymore, and managed to reach other clearing quickly enough that there was enough luminosity to see the ground in front of the three gates. To his terror there were markings on the ground, cut in a way he would have described as his own carving spelling "YES". He was being toyed with, none of these roads would lead anywhere, he needed to get back to the original fork in the road and figure it out there. Quite tired from the repetition and running around the entire time he was becoming sluggish, and trying desperately to keep his wits about him. However it was becoming rather dark and he had no way to make light of any kind with which to help spot danger. By the time he got back to the fork in the road with the signs it had become quite dark and his eyes had adapted to the dark but only enough to walk at a leisurely pace. He looked at the signs completely forgetting about the child, and the lack of its presence. He had finally noticed that the middle sign had fallen, which he picked up and examined. The side he couldn''t understand was facing him but with his fingers he felt carvings on the other side so turned it over. It was rather hard to see in the dark but a combination of close inspection and feeling the shape of the carvings slowly revealed its message. "D.O.N.T...T.R.U.S.T...T.H.E...C.H.I.." It was then that he felt a weight on his back and a pulling under his chin, he was being strangled by a rope and couldn''t wrap his hands around it to prevent him from getting choked, so he did the only thing he could do, reach into his breast pocket, grab his knife to stab the assailant''s side. It worked, the grip on his neck loosened and the weight lifted but he heard no body drop. He turned around, still holding his dagger in one hand, dropping the sign and drawing his sword in the other, facing a shadowy figure holding a dagger of his own to the young child he was holding hostage. The child cried and begged the traveller to help but the figure and Estavir appeared to be frozen in time in a staring showdown. Only a few seconds had passed and Estavir threw the dagger, closing his eyes after it had left his grip, hoping he was right. The dagger flew and hit its mark; there was the sound of a body dropping followed by deep hollow laughter. He opened his eyes to see the dagger planted firmly in the face of the child who was lying on the floor laughing as only a demon would. "You have done well young traveller." a voice said as the child''s body turned black and seemed to congeal together, rising and reforming into a standing shape shadow and contour with two bright glowing eyes that seemed to go on forever. The figure pulled the dagger out of its face and threw it at Estavir''s feet. "Your actions speak volumes, but what volumes would your thoughts speak those same events with?" the shadow began, "Are they black? Or red perhaps? Certainly not blue or green?" A pause hung over the two staring at each other. "Did you know or simply hope? "The illusion of choice here has been broken wouldn''t you say?" "Who are you and what do you want?" Estavir demanded to know, still holding his sword in his hand and raising it towards the shadow figure. "Why, we brothers are here to play tricks on you of course, to play the part; you will see. Do try not to die... ''It'' has high hopes for you." The shadowy figure turned itself inwards and reduced into nothingness with an audible sense of amusement, leaving Estavir stumped and speechless, leaving him with many unanswered questions. For now he looked at the fork ahead and this time there was no doubt; there was never any choice, he simply did not know what he was faced with. The signs indicating each road were understandable to him now, even in the dark he could read them clearly now, they said nothing nearly as vague as "left" or "right"; indeed the illusion was broken. Resigned, he walked down the path to the right, encountering in mere moments a big gate which despite being in the darkness of night was plainly visible by its golden hum-glow and he knew he was on the right path. After about an hour of walking absentmindedly along the path he saw a glow in the distance to guide him, which he followed to three gates. This time however, instead of being alongside one another, they were overarching each other, upon one another, unified in place, glowing more intensely now that all three glows combined, illuminating clearly the word carved in front of them; "YES". Estavir was tired and weary and he stood in front of the letters he knew he didn''t carve, yet his mind and body told him he did. He fell backwards to the ground and lay there as he looked up at the stars which were now visible, bright and numerous. His eyes teared up a bit as he spoke out loud, fading into sleep right then and there: " yes, yes, yes..." Act Two - A Fading Fire A boy sits by a campfire, The fire is burning low, Ashes all around. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The fire does not warm, The fire barely lights. The boys heart is hot, Warmed by memory of its grandeur, Enchanted by its image in his mind, Unafraid to venture the wood, Leaving only once the flame has extinguished. Act Three - Maze Of Mirrors He woke up where he had fallen asleep, in front of the glowing gates, the word gone, and in its place, the same food and water that had occupied the kitchen the morning before at the temple. He was neither hungry nor thirsty but he ate and drank to his body''s content. He got up and immediately walked on through the triple gate and continued his climb up the mountain. The path made wild bends left and right, slowly inclining till he reached a much tougher terrain. The trees were now more sparsely divided and were growing at wild angles out of the ground, the ground beneath his feet became loose and rocky. The path abruptly widened severely and gave into a far more open area of mountainous terrain. Though not quite dangerous yet, Estavir would have to start actually climbing now. So he started to climb hunched towards the ground, eventually reaching a mouth in the mountainside that was deep enough to be a cave and while he couldn''t distinguish any features in the dark, certainly it was deep and somewhere in the distance it was lit. Being the only solid ground he was bound to have for a while, he sat down and looked around the visible face of the mountain and he was certain he could spot at least two more similar opening further ahead. It was then he noticed the rough tree line he had traversed to get here, and no path was visible from here, he couldn''t even be sure of where he started the journey. He did notice, as he his gaze skimmed over from side to side that a rock to his right side seemed unusually flattened and he inspected it. It had carvings that made up the phrase " Knowing _______ is half the battle." There was a space between ''knowing'' and ''is'' which felt deeper and smoother than the rest of the rock, so he assumed someone deliberately erased the most important word. He was feeling a mix of emotions; he wanted to remain sitting where he was, but he also wanted to reach the top of the mountain, because his nightmares told him doing so would help. It was an odd moment, then and there, he felt content, though only ever so slightly and for so short a moment, only to be wheeled back into chaos, back into line, back on the path to the top of Sensan-Ghi. He wanted to keep climbing but could find no good rocks to grab onto. He looked down and though not deadly, falling certainly would injure him greatly; he decided to try the cave instead. He walked for a few hundred meters in obscurity before reaching a 90 degree turn that seemed to be where the cast light he saw earlier came from. He walked around the corner and to his surprise the cave stopped looking like a cave all-together. The corridor in front of him was covered on all four sides by a dark though very reflective stone, all sides evenly measured, floating orbs of lights every few meters as far as he could see. He walked down the corridor, impressed, stunned, perplexed also, by the way the stone seemed to cast a reflection of himself ever so slightly. The oddity of his reflections were not noticeable at first, but it seemed the opacity of his reflections increased as he went further down the corridor, eventually reaching a mirror in his path that served as a dead end, no where to travel but back. The mirror, upon closer inspection, was partially see-through and when Estavir put his finger against the what he thought was glass seemed to be rather gelatinous in nature rather than hard. He put his hand through the mirror, slightly recoiling. It felt cold and wet but actually didn''t hurt despite his initial reaction, so he put his head through the mirror as well and saw a big red arrow pointing directly at a circle on the ground a few meters ahead. He made his way all the way through and approached the circle. "You are here" it said in smeared letters. Where is here, he thought, before looking up. The ground seemed to trip out from under him as he was unable to explain what he saw. It was as if he was walking the inner surface of a sphere, whose surface was entirely covered in a maze. This, in every significant way, failed to be as noticeable to him as the fact he saw several of himself, at different points in the mazed sky all around him, also looking back at him. They however were steady on their feet and after having noticed being noticed, drew their swords and ran in different directions, he assumed correctly, looking for him. The way he came into the maze seemed to have disappeared behind him as did the floor markings that lured him. He got up and ran in any direction that was closest. The reflections on the walls were very unnerving, from the corner of his eyes they looked just as real as he felt, which would put him at a disadvantage when eventually he did meet one of his ''clones''. He ran for a solid five minutes, being completely lost, but trying to put as much distance between him and his aggressors, one of which he could still see in his sky view, the others must have reached his hemisphere and could be close. He took a minute to catch his breath, and to listen, if he could, for any noise approaching him. There were footsteps echoing in the distance, slowly getting closer, at least two clones would reach him in the next minute. He found a dead end in the maze to hide in, here at least he could ensure he couldn''t get attacked from two sides. A first set of footsteps was very? close now, maybe 10 seconds. He prepared to swing his sword as soon as a figure passed, and so it passed. His clone had no time to react and had its sword arm sliced off. Estavir felt a sharp intense pain in his sword arm that nearly made him drop his own sword. Luckily the pain was short lived and he stabbed his one-armed clone in the chest; which he felt too, for only a moment. He felt as if he would puke, but only a heavy heaving cough came out. He caught his breath, pulled out the sword and watched his clone drop to the floor like a lifeless sack doll. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He had no time to wonder what was going on before a second clone showed up from his side. He managed to parry a lunge just in time during which he also managed to trip the clone up, waiting no moment to jump on its back and stabbing him through. He felt the immense pain in his own back and screamed in his clones'' stead. He needed a small break, just a moment to let the exhaustion of this sort of losing battle set in, as he could hear no footsteps nearby, but it was not to be; the arm he had chopped off the first clone started to twitch. He picked himself up and ran in the direction the second clone had come from. Left, right, right again, straight for a while and then left again, he had no idea where he was going, but he managed to keep one clone in his sky view. Then as he went around a corner he met a third clone, this clone seemed to have been waiting for him, sword drawn. He drew his own sword and slowly, same leg forward, advanced at it. This clone was not reckless, it made no first moves and simply waited to counter. This does not bode well he though, a reckless me is one thing but a calm me is all the more frightening. He decided to run back and take the other corner, the third clone in pursuit. Every time he would turn around to face it, it would take up stance and bide time, blocking his path. He ran until he felt nothing but running made sense in life, which was a transition of mere seconds as he unintentionally shoulder bashed a fourth clone against the wall, who ran around a corner as he ran passed. It picked itself up and quickly followed suit. In between all the navigating corners he had only moments to check above him, and to his dismay he now had no clones in his sky-view. He did not pay attention to where he was running but this allowed him to gain a little distance on his pursuers. The moment was yet again short lived as a fifth clone appeared around a corner at a leisurely pace. It spotted him and drew its sword. It came at him in a rather precise and calculated way, and there was no way to take the offensive, all he could do was block. He blocked several swings until he managed to find a moment to lock him. He wrestled the sword from his clone''s hand while he elbowed his clone in the jaw, with which he nearly knocked himself out. Both swords dropped to the floor, immediately after which Estavir was slightly quicker on drawing his knife for the kill. He fell to the ground together with his lifelessly limp clone. It took him a few moments to regain his strength, so much so that he felt himself dozing off. Luckily the sound of footsteps rang loud around him, which set adrenaline rushing through him once more. Once again he ran in the direction the clone had come from, hoping to get away from his five confirmed pursuers. His tempo was rather unsteady now, but he managed to keep moving constantly, letting chance decide his path, for the most part. When he thought he heard a large synchronous footstep sounding closer he also became aware of a ringing sound that seems to amply all the sounds around him, the footsteps, his breathing, his rapid heartbeat. Indeed the ringing had an almost golden flavour and seemed to generate a steady low hanging hum that he could feel with his feet. His feet would show him the way now, it was not far off, only a few more corners. The last corner he walked around gave into a compact confined but widely open area, from which several other paths fed into or out of. There was a mirror in its centre, surrounded by only the golden glow of a gate though there was no actual gate present. The mirror here was gelatinous too and as Estavir walked closer, his reflection walked out of the shiny liquid in synch with his own movements. "Well done, well done. Do you like my puppets?" His reflection said as it broke free from mirroring his actions. "Who are you? Are you one of those shadowy creatures like before?" Estavir demanded to know. "Indeed indeed, and ''It'' is glad you''ve made it this far," the reflection responded, "but you''re not quite there yet." The five other clones now all rushed in one by one, each of them running around to form a broad circle to cover all possible exits. His reflection drew its sword and signalled Estavir to do the same. "Let us complete battle." The shadowy reflection said as it charged wholeheartedly at Estavir. They exchanged swings but could not connect. They were well matched, they truly felt like each others mirror image, he really was fighting himself this time. Estavir went into the offensive but the reflection blocked everything with incredible foresight, making him lose his footing. His reflection was not expecting this and as Estavir slid to the floor he managed to poke at his reflection''s leg. Unlike with the clones this time the pain didn''t disappear after a moment. He noticed, in fact, it did not leave any markings on the reflection at all, but instead his own leg was injured. Estavir felt slightly hopeless, aside from being tired and in pain. His reflection just stood there, laughing. "You cannot beat me fighting like that," The reflection began, "How can you fight me when you don''t even know yourself?" Estavir stood up slowly, looking around. Every exit blocked by a copy of himself, all waiting cross-armed, escape seemed unlikely. He looked over to the mirror with the golden glow in the middle, blocked by an immense obstacle, towering over him. "I know you," Estavir finally proclaimed as he sheathed and dropped his sword," and I know them, too. Isn''t that enough?" His reflection gave him a confused look and laughed maniacally, followed by the five copies around him doing the same. He reached into his breast pocket, took out the dagger and stared at it for a moment before joining in with the laughter. All seven laughs harmonised into a dreadful echoing momentary cacophony that resonated throughout the maze; and then fell into deafening silence. Estavir stood still, standing with his eyes closed, both fists on his chest. The five copies dissolved like white smoke and his reflection stood stunned, dagger in its heart. The reflection dissolved like smoke to reveal a shadowy figure, distinctly different from the first one, though similar in features. "Well done, well done." It began, "To know and to know, who are we and who are you. If the bell of your soul were rung, would it be happy or be it sad?" It pulled the dagger from its chest and threw it at Estavir''s feet. "Did you know or simply hope? "For now id say the illusion of self has been broken, has it not?" This shadow too reduced to nothing, but as it did a chime could be heard ringing throughout the maze and the gate materialised around the mirror. Estavir walked toward the mirror, a reflection present, his real reflection this time. As he passed through the mirror he noticed one key difference between himself and his reflection, which he spotted just before he was completely swallowed by the liquid mirror and passing through into darkness; his reflection was crying. Act Three - Under A Tree She sat under a tree as the sun reached its high point, the day was pleasant and the sounds were divine. She closed her eyes and took it in, seeing the world brighter through a heightened eye. The grass beds flowed and swirled and fluttered like a pond under storm and a race of fishes swishing around in harmonious chaos. Above it she sensed a most elegant of dances performed by a million tiny wings, buzzing around drawing geometry all around. Above them, the birds who swept and dove, disrupting the harmony of shapes and swirls. A bird came down to perch on a low hanging branch on the tree that shaded her from the sun. She both saw the bird and saw herself through the bird''s eye, then swooping down as the bird onto her human shoulder. It landed and all went black. She felt herself surrounded by warmth, slowly trickling at her skin. She opened her eyes and saw void all around her, enveloping her as far as she could see all around. She felt herself descend until her toe landed, on a curious absence of anything, rippling as a cold feeling covered her entire foot. As her second foot landed shortly after, it sent out another ripple. Every step she took sent out a ripple that went on and spread as far as she could see. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. She walked at first and tried running, but quickly turned to dancing and skipping. At the edge of her vision the ripples turned vertical and grew, slowly, one after the other all around her in a dance of waves. It gave the space around her form and being, rhythmic and pulsing. "Who are you, who dances so vividly inside me?" the space inquired, awoken by the ripples. "I don''t know, I am dreaming under a tree." she replied. She performed a ballet around the the emptiness and liquid feeling nothingness that had become her invisible dance floor and rippled chaos ensued across the entire space around her. "Who are you, to cause such turmoil inside me?" The space demanded in echoed murmurs. "I don''t know, I am simply doing." She replied. The dancing stopped as the ripples engulfed everything and shook all sense of ground away from under her. She fell softly and slowly, and as she looked down to see where he was falling, she could see the converging of all ripples towards her. "Who am I, who treads so softly?" The space asked. "I must know, it is me." She replied. The warmth returned from within her this time and a flutter of wings rang past her cheek. The bird had flown from her shoulder and she opened her own eyes as if for the first time, to the waves around her. She got up and for the first time ever danced with a grace, moving as if she was one with the flow of the universe itself. A bird flew down to where she had sat and closed its eyes. "We''ll meet once more you and I, in another dream under a tree." Act Four - The Endless Staircase Estavir fell out of the liquid into a long corridor made of dark marble, a mix of overlapping varying shades of greys occasionally lined and highlighted with what appeared to be chalk smears. All along the corridor, whose length felt difficult to estimate, there were lights hovering in a line making a path to follow. There was nowhere else to go but follow the corridor towards what eventually became an illuminated opening in the distance. The closer Estavir got, the more obvious the tendrils of the cool breeze became and the seeping chill encroached upon him was becoming visible. As Estavir reached the end of the corridor he found himself exiting onto a snowy ledge. There was a fence around the ledge and it led the eye to a the left where it was clear a path had been carved into the side of the mountain. He looked down only to see mere meters of rock face before his vision was obscured entirely by clouds and mist. He leant over the edge to look up only to see that though he could tell the mountain was beginning to narrow significantly, above him, as was the case below him, was entirely obscured by clouds and mist. The only way onwards was to follow the staircase carved into the side of the mountain. The walk was not particularly steep or taxing physically but there was no way to know how far ahead you still had to go and as Estavir discovered quickly, how far you had already walked. The carved road gave protection from the wind and snow but was the dullest sightseeing route; ahead and behind only rocky stairs that curved ever so slightly along the sides of the mountain. To one side the inner carved rock and outside a sea of white blinding chaos of snow and wind and ice. He walked on for hours or minutes, he wasn''t sure. Even counting the steps seemed futile as he''d lose count at the moments he was concentrating, because the stairway taunted him with a double length step or a weird interruption in the recurring pattern. It is all very surreal, he thought as he stopped for a moment after what felt like numerous hours. Carried by the wind in that instance were the sounds of grunting and grumbling. The wind and chill made it impossible to make an estimated guess at how far ahead the noise was coming from, which made Estavir curious but weary. He went on towards the source of the noise, finding against all odds: an old man slowly making his way up the stairs, resting his weight against the rock wall with one hand and a walking stick in the other. Estavir continued to walk toward the old man until the old man noticed him. The old man kept to himself, showed no interest in him at all and grumbling on slowly. Estavir made no eye contact and walked right past him. The grunting and grumbling became distant slowly until finally it disappeared as he walked ever onward. It could have been another minute or an hour later, though he was certain it felt more like hours, when again a grunting noise could be heard an undefinable distance ahead. He walked ahead only to find, in the distance, a familiar figure hunched against the wall holding a walking stick, slowly etching on along the staircase. He made haste past the old man without making contact once more. He was determined to keep up a high tempo until he could hear no more grunting. He walked on for what seemed like an eternity without meeting the old man again. At least that was how it felt to him at the time as it was impossible to judge time here; the sky remained a pale grey with low but consistent luminosity and the snowy gales flurrying in torrents continued to make it impossible to see more than a few meters in any direction. He felt a sudden resurgence of fatigue, all his limbs were becoming heavy and his leg became rather inflexible. Is the maze demanding its toll right now, of all times? Was going through his mind so vividly that for the first time since he started climbing the stairs he was becoming aware of the cold. His tempo slowed from a steady walk to a slow crawl requiring him to walk step by step, hindered by the phantom stab wounds he had completely forgotten until this moment. His tempo slowed even more as he began needing to support his weight against the inner wall with his hand, etching on step by step. He felt himself age tremendously and with his body no longer able to support its own weight, he was going to fall. The fall felt entirely too slow. His weight shifted from his wall-bound arm to his shoulder, leaning his upper body over his centre of gravity and felt how the weight pulled from one side of his hip to the other side as his knees slowly gave in. He reached for anything to grab onto, hoping to prevent his fall, flailing almost helplessly. To his own surprise he found something and pushed down on it with all the strength he had left. It made a loud sharp metallic noise that reverberated heavily along the staircase deafening all his senses; he snapped awake. His fatigue lifted a little as he realised he had been sleepwalking for some time and had found his sword with which to hold his weight. What had caused him to fall, he noticed, was a step being slightly higher than expected. He looked at the step in confusion, then anger, then immediately he sighed. He decided it was probably one of those steps meant to breaks the monotonous pattern and catch him off guard; it certainly succeeded. He straightened his clothes, feeling like that changed something in and about him. He continued the journey up the stairs with a tempo, he felt, seemed convincing that he was awake and aware. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It wasn''t long before, though it would have been impossible for him to be certain how long before it had been, he met the old man again. Still walking ahead of him, still grunting and slowly making his own way up. This time Estavir decided he would converse with him, and when he got within an earshot he shouted. "Old man, what are you doing here? Did you come through the maze?" The old man made no notice of the second question at all, but attempted to respond, and started coughing profusely. "Ah, *cough* young man, you see i''m not *cough* long for this world..." The coughing became too heavy for the old man to speak any more and he dropped to the floor, and with a final heave and exhale, he had died. That really wasn''t long, Estavir thought with a smile; which he did feel bad for immediately. The old man did not move, did not breathe, did not respond to being poked with the tip of his shoes. Feeling there was nothing more he could do, Estavir decided to keep walking up the staircase. He walked on for what could have been minutes or hours, his ability to estimate time had not improved at all, but once again the old man was limping ahead of him. As the old man noticed Estavir come up behind him he continued the conversation that was interrupted by his earlier sudden death as if it hadn''t happened. "*Cough* for this world, so I am *cough cough* traveling up to the top..." and once again the old man''s breathing could not keep up and the old man collapsed. This is going to be a long story, Estavir though, both annoyed and taken aback by the arduousness of this situation. This conversation went on for an actual eternity now, in this interrupted manner, little by little. Neither Estavir nor the old man truly knew how long the climb up would be and the path had not seemed to change. After many, many interruptions the old man finished telling his story. The old man had been told through his dreams that he would die soon and that he should prepare himself. The dream didn''t tell him how to prepare, however, and all the old man really wanted at this point was to be by his wife in death; and she was buried near the top of the mountain. He would reach the top no matter what, even if he had to climb it by himself, alone. Estavir was walking up by himself again; the old man had just died on the path behind him after finishing his story. This time it felt like days before meeting the old man again. A long slow, windy cold walk up a staircase that never ends. Estavir was sure he fell asleep at least twice before he met the old man again. This time however, the old man didn''t talk, or even acknowledged his existence, reminding him of what felt like an eternity ago, at the very beginning of their shared journey up these stairs. Suspiciously he walked on past the old man, walking up for only mere moments before finding him again just before he had made a full walk around the mountain. Estavir tried talking to the old man again and the his routine started up again; attempting, a few words at a time and interrupted constantly by coughing and dying, to tell Estavir his story from the very beginning as if they had never met. An eternity later the old man reached the end of his tale once more and, quite predictably at this point, died one final death. Estavir wasn''t going to let the cycle continue. "I..." he said out loud and feeling awkward about it, he was addressing a corpse after all, "... I promise you that you will lie next to your wife for the rest of time. I''ll make sure of it." Estavir picked up the old man''s body, quite surprised to find he was far lighter than he seemed. He carried the old man on his back, barely hindered by the weight. He walked for hours up the now narrowing curve of the carved staircase except this time, he was quite certain hours had passed. He met no one, heard no grunting noises along his journey; all he could hear for hours was the wind blowing the snow into utter chaos all around him. He did notice, however, throughout the well defined hours, that the path was curving harder and quicker than he had noticed all climb long. Moreover, the wind was picking up, but the snow was in fact, letting up. Before long he found himself entirely above the misty chaos of wind and snow, and the ridge above his head began to recede towards the mountain itself. Eventually he reached what seemed like an open plateau, there was still more mountain ahead, but the top was now visible only a few more hundred meters up and ahead. He walked onto the plateau, the old man still on his back, still incredibly light. At the end of the plateau, before the mountain continued, he saw a golden glow. He walked towards it but saw no gate, instead the glow surrounded a gravestone. The gravestone was large, cubic and simple; it had no decorations that he could see. It did have some writing Estavir could not read, but suspected, correctly, from the layout of the text that the writing marked two names. He put the old man down onto the tombstone and the golden glow intensified, lighting up one of the two names. The glow became so intense Estavir was blinded temporarily. When his sight returned the body of the old man had disappeared, as had the glow surrounding the stone. The gravestone instead emitted a dark smoke that conglomerated into a third distinguishable shadow creature. As it materialised Estavir prepared to draw his sword, but the arm of the materialising shadow waved him that this was unnecessary. Despite this, Estavir kept his hand on his sword, though it remained sheathed. "From the soil he came and to the soil he returned, as he did long ago and will forever more. What are past, present and future; only life exists separate from the unity of time. Did you know or simply hope?" "What has all this been about, you can''t expect me to believe that you and your others have no malicious intent towards me after all you have done to me!" Estavir exclaimed. The third shadowy figure laughed, though specifically, not maliciously. "The gate to the top is over that way," the shadowy figure pointed over towards the mountain top, on whose top a golden glow could be seen radiating streams in all directions, curving down the mountain sides like smoke, "Look at the gravestone once more and you will know I speak true." Estavir did look at the grave and to his surprise the name of the old man, which had glowed so bright was readable to him, and his grip on his sword loosened. The shadowy figure folded itself inwards and its words echoed across the plateau: "The illusion of time has been broken, wouldn''t you agree?" With the shadow was gone Estavir could notice the wind around him once again. He held his hands together and whispered a prayer to himself, took his dagger from his breast pocket and placed it on top of the grave stone. Slowly and silently he walked to the end of the plateau and started climbing the last few hundred meters towards the golden top of the mountain Sensan-Ghi. Act Four - The Eave of Hunting The sun was setting slowly as Zambina and many like her prepared for the task ahead. Most of them had never participated in the hunt but all felt drawn to it, could feel their senses heightening as the scent of cooling air and night time slowly enveloped their world. The world was large, insurmountable and so vastly unexplorable that it would take more generations than any of her people could fathom to explore but a minuscule fraction of it despite their ability of flight. All of her people seemed either born with the knowledge of this truth or completely blind to it; either way her people never truly embraced any sentiment other than survival because of it. At this they were masters, they had existed in relatively similar shape even before the eons of the great immortal dwellers began, off of which they fed themselves compulsively now and at great risk to themselves. They survived in numbers to allow for this now necessary habit to continue. Before the time of immortals they lived in a world of plenty and called themselves the Mozimme. While survival has always rung true to their sense of purpose throughout the eons, once upon a time they lived off of the bounty of the land, as many of the tribes did across the generations. But then at some point in their long history, greater creatures revealed themselves to exist upon the world and destroyed their habitat simply by existing. Some fought, some fled, many died regardless, but nothing they did had any impact on the immortals at all. Some of these creatures were bigger, some more grotesque, some slower in their inevitable destruction; but always their presence was unanimously felt and feared across the vast world. As night was turning full, the air was filling with the scent of the hunt; a totally intoxicating miasma of heavy smells that told the present Mozimme that immortals were going dormant. Not all would be dormant at the same time, but the majority did and the stench the dormant ones emitted was so strong and foul that it attracted Mozimme attention from beyond the visual range. They were tiny and completely neglectable compared to the ones they were hunting, but this was the way now, it was all they could do to survive. Zambina was one of the first to arrive within viewing distance of the dormant colossus at the centre of the miasma. Many more were gathering, forming a cloud around though staying firmly clear for now. This was the calm moment before the storm, where all Mozimme still sane enough to fear would get melancholic and philosophical while the ones already driven mad by the smells were simply waiting for someone else to charge first. Zambina herself had been part of only one hunt prior and stood on a mental knife edge between dread and lust. This compulsion is horrible, she thought to herself, so few of us will make it. She was referring to the hunt she had been a part of and was fortunate to survive, along with only a fraction of this hunt''s participants. Dormant, as everyone knew, was but a concept, a spawn in a mind slowly losing to uncontrollable need for action. While the immortals barely seemed to register anything or anyone as they reshaped the environment to their whims, they generally reacted with deadly force towards pestering. The nature of the hunt was barely a nuisance to them, while to the surviving Mozimme this was a slaughter. The children, she thought as the last Mozimme reached the cloud that had now assembled at a safe distance around a mountain-like silhouette, my children... This was the last sober thought she could muster before she, like an increasing number of her peers, succumbed to a luring drum beat. She charged in becoming lost in the swarm that had become the drunken Mozimme tribe. Zambina didn''t know why this ritual that felt engraved into their existence was necessary, and neither did anyone else alive. Not even if they had more time between hazes for survival could anybody have figured it out at this point. In the early days, when the immortal''s devastation was new and fresh, all life had trouble with the new order. Resources were becoming scarce, drinkable water, food and even shelter of any kind had been so hard to find in the wake of their settlement. In the early days the scarcity drew many creatures to their death, though some learned to live around the immortals; live off of death and corpses. The many creatures who didn''t turn to death for life, of which the Mozimme were one, got violent and aggressive and tried to turn their frustrations against their disinterested oppressors. It was in one of these pointless and crushing defeats that the Mozimme alone found the key to their survival. During the battle that led to their salvation one of the largest armies the Mozimme had assembled charged at what they thought would be easy prey. It was smaller than most immortals they had seen and sluggish too, seemingly harmless. Sadly, its appearance was no indication of its threat. What seemed to move like a glacier at first turned into a rushing waterfall and was equally deadly. The immortal had noticed the army charging and with a trembling howl of glee it changed the course of its entire body to inspect the army. In doing so it had crushed a large portion of the army as well as sent a great deal of Mozimme flying around, little more than a mess of fear remained where mere moments ago there had stood an army. What the Mozimme could only vaguely call a face by stretch of logic was now moving in on the remaining army, eclipsing them entirely from any and all light. Silence took over for only a moment and time seemed to slow down, as the remaining army collectively stopped breathing. The moment was broken with a howl that shook the air itself and pushed the army to its knees. In what most Mozimme felt would be their last moments they charged at the gigantic face before them in a fury only those ignorant or accepting of death could do. The surface of the immortal''s face was getting completely covered in angry warriors doing their best to cause any damage they could with all their might. While they certainly were breaching the surface of what might have anatomically been called the skin of the immortal, it remained entirely motionless during their heartfelt moment. So much dark ooze was covering them entirely as they tired themselves out attempting to hurt a mountain. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. As if by a delayed reaction the immortal seemed aware of its face covered in a swarm of creatures and that, certainly more than the damage they were inflicting it, caused the immortal to howl once more, at the ground in front of it, sending remaining patches of the army on the ground flying away. With a patch of ground cleared the immortal smashed its face into the ground several times before marching off, its face scraping the ground, stomping more Mozimme to death as it ran off; returning to a slow glacier-like crawl some distance away, slowly shedding corpses along the way. The army was defeated and many soldiers who weren''t dead could no longer will themselves to stand. The bodies of the survivors and dead alike were covered in a mixture of fluids belonging to Mozimme and the immortal both. The dead were unaffected, of course, but the injured and living, those who would and wouldn''t make it alike were, according to them, being burned from the inside out by the ooze that mixed with their own fluids. The burning caused so much pain that the Mozimme who were afflicted could not vocalise their pain and simply squirmed and fidgeted around the three craters which were entirely occupied by death. The few scattered survivors, who were not injured in any major way by having been blown away or simply lucky enough to be at the outer edges of their formations, made their way to try to help survivors and wounded. They hurried and scattered around the battlefield only to find there were many corpses in the sea of ooze but no wounded. Those who survived the burning were healing, their wounds slowly fading away as their silent agonising horizontal dance continued. The small crowd of survivors that had assembled to help could only watch in horror as their previously wounded friends and family got up slowly and without a sound, in a daze, and started to uncontrollably and awkwardly move towards the corpses and throw themselves into the ooze that the creature had expelled. In both a moment of absolute disgust and fascination the remaining sane Mozimme had begun to understand, there was a way to survive, a cruel and crude way, but a viable way nonetheless, and began reluctantly consuming the ooze along with their hypnotised comrades, giving into the madness of the new way. The battle had been an utter defeat and massacre until this exact moment. Zambina and the rest of the swarm charged in on the still mountain from all sides alerting it to their presence. A lot of Mozimme charged in at the foot of the silhouette trying to make a quick drain at a seemingly low risk area but the immortal appeared to be aware of this attempt and rolled around several times causing great gales. None of those who attempted the drain so early made it but the swarm as a whole was largely unaffected and continued to make jabs as best they could. Enough Mozimme managed to get those jabs and draw some ooze on their weapons but a lick could neither placate or quench their maniacal bloodlust bred over countless generations, nor would it feed them; it was but a taste. The immortal seemed gleeful while from the darkness rose many unidentifiable appendages to swipe the swarm apart. This allowed quite a few of them to drain from below and get their fill while others were caught up above. The battle would continue to keep the immortal occupied as more hunters made their own attempts to satiate their lust for ooze. Zambina was one of those who had the fortune of being lower when the gleeful slashing began and found a vertical patch to drain ooze from. She stabbed uncontrollably at the thick surface till fluid oozed out, dripping down, intoxicatingly diving her face without hesitation, drinking it to her heart''s content. As the hunger faded she gained some clarity, considering those still enthralled by madness and bloodlust all around her. The ooze vein she had created attracted more hunters to her spot and she was quickly pushed aside. The battle up above continued furiously with heaving winds carrying a hail of corpses. As she caught herself with her wings, mid gale, she noticed how the immortal had become occupied with the spot she had just drank from and decided to fly back a bit as the battle continued whimsically from up above. The piercing and unblinking gaze of the dark mountainous giant eclipsing them could be clearly felt, focused entirely on the vein currently driving a horde of Mozimme lustfully insane to feast. Zambina herself had started slowly moving away from the maddening mist, having quenched her lust enough to break some of the hold which the fragrance of battle and night had on her. All the while her attention remained with the vein, the numerous fellow Mozimme that were uncontrollably drawn to it and the eyes darting them all; she could not break away completely. As soon as no more Mozimme could fit around the source of nourishment, the eyes faded from its insurmountable body of darkness and within a singular moment the sight of the Mozimme feasting was replaced by that of the appendage that had come down upon them. The entire group were no more, vanquished as if they were nothing. Though as unlucky as that may have seemed to her in the moment, Zambina knew this is what allowed her, and a few other lucky ones, the opportunity to eventually disengage from the battle. As she got further away from the miasma of the battle she was still mentally trying to untangle herself from, she sought a place of safety to digest, far away from that noxious aroma, letting the entire hunt become a hazy and distant foggy memory. The hunt would continue savagely for hours longer; till the immortal lost interest, once the swarm had thinned to near non-existence, and it would stop deliberately moving with heavy intent, using all its might to devastate them all with ease. Those who would still be alive by that point and had yet to satisfy their lust and hunger would be driven to irrationally continue seeking their fill, squirming and zipping despicably around the mountain looking for fresh enough veins gulp on, often ending poorly for those unlucky few. Back in the day it had taken much time for all Mozimme to learn of the new way. All who heard of it were desperate enough to consider the possible rewards if they were in great enough numbers. Those who witnessed the survivors of the first great battles were at a loss for words. This was because all survivors were impressive, for better and worse. The survivors looked stronger and certainly healthier than anyone scraping for survival and all had an air of serenity to them, as if they had found a great truth or peace. At the same time they were undoubtedly haunted, and not solely by war and the carnage that they survived; there was something sinister and nuanced in their eyes. Eventually more Mozimme caught on, finding little solace in the world and the threat unceasing and looming, until after generations they could no longer separate themselves from the immortals. Those who did not consume the ooze would weaken, die of incidence at the immortal''s whims, or simply whither. Failure to produce viable offspring, too, marred those who refused the ooze. Eventually their dependency had turned the ooze into their entire identity over the eons of coexistence. As Zambina settled in a damp but sheltered spot she had found far away from the battle, she laid her eggs in clusters out of sight. When she was done she recalled the eyes in horror. They enjoy this? It all seemed so cruel to her. My children. It was not long before this would be her direct and only concern, as it was with others who might have survived tonight. She would have many children, all of whom would go through this ordeal just like she did. Somewhere deep inside she wanted and needed more; if only she had a real way of expressing what it was. At this point no Mozimme really had the means or tools of expressing much of anything, dancing from drunken haze to licentious fornication on repeat, either succeeding to try again or dying. But not her, no more. With her limited tools she would teach her children. Give them the first words of a story to be crafted over eons with the immortals. It would be a battle cry, an identity, that humble unmistakable sounds of her people: MMMZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZMMMMMM. She vibrated her wings rapidly as the thoughts warmed her heart. *SPLAT* A fist came down out of nowhere. Act Five - Cjer-Dzell-Poktl - Third Name Silent Estavir''s hand reached the top of the mountain and he pulled himself up. The top was flattened as if it had been cut off specifically to make room for the gate that stood before him in all its burning glowing golden majesty. The glow was so intense the wood of the gate was barely visible, but it was certainly there, hidden by light. He stood before it, basking a little too long in the astonishing warmth emanating from the glow. The three spirits he met across his journey appeared before him, this time simultaneously, hovering near and above the gate; the last one he encountered floating above and the two others next to the gate in a triangle formation. In unison they spoke. "You have done well on your trials, ''It'' hopes you will learn from them and return a greater being. He will see you now." The spirits shone bright and fused together into the gate which revealed a crystalline event horizon that radiated inwards. Estavir was pulled towards the crystal and he felt his body move on its own until the cold touch of the crystal surrounded his entire body. The crystal engulfing his body gave a sharp cold sting, which completely blinded his senses. When his sensory overload was fading he noticed the white crystalline glow around him had dissolved to reveal a vast empty expanse, slowly permeated by low hanging and swaying mist, obscuring what he assumed was ground he felt beneath his feet. When Estavir regained his bearings in the new environment he saw the three spirits once more, this time bright white, still in a triangle formation. They slowly moved away from each other equidistantly and as they grew further apart morphed into hand-like appendages. From inside the palms of these morphing hands light began to swell. This light grew small threads that met at the closest point between the three of them. The three hands then seemed to halt for just one moment before the hands closed, gripping the threads of light tightly and tugging harder, ripping reality apart where as they floated further apart. Out of the triangular shaped tear in the vast misty expanse something was being pulled into existence before Estavir''s eyes. The fog and mist was pulled outwards as space seemed to spiral outward and away from the centre creating an emptiness which was slowly being filled by the emerging figure. Estavir had trouble identifying the figure. Certainly it was easy to look at, it was a growing mass of white light extruding in a million directions, but he could not see it beyond a white silhouette. Once the light had reached a critical mass and no longer got brighter, it absorbed the floating appendages into itself, closing the rip in space and was finally revealed to be a mass of uncountable human features. The centre of the mass began to move outwards revealing outlines of eyelids, which then slowly opened to reveal a massive eye peering absentmindedly ahead in the distance. It took notice and looked down at Estavir. As it did the mist surrounding Estavir pierced his entire body, draining him of his strength and forcing him into a kneeling position. He tried to look up and directly at the figure but his body wouldn''t budge out of its humbled position. He then tried to speak but found no words were coming out of his mouth. While being perturbed by his inability to vocalise Estavir missed the giant figure letting out a shockwave that reverberated like a deep low groan which could be heard and felt from all directions simultaneously, echoing deep inside his head. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. It resembled no language yet spoke to him directly, into his being. With a mixture of imagery and stinging emotions Estavir relived countless nightmares. Like opening a floodgate memories long forgotten, now returned to him; he felt like he was reliving every horrible action of his life over and over again with no ability to stop or control the flow of his mind. Estavir screamed in silence as the white figure continued to cause him pain through the throbbing echoing shockwaves it was concentrating on him. In his pain he continued to experiencing everything he had hoped to forget or undo or avoid across his entire life thousandfold. Estavir began to feel tears rolling down his face as he heard and felt a voice shout inside him. "LOOK AT ME!" the voice rang in echoes through his memories. Estavir did manage to lift his head and look at the amalgamation of human features that stood before him. He looked it straight in the eye and suddenly started recognising what he was seeing. Every human feature within the conglomerate was a part of his memories, and not a single one was missing. Every anguish Estavir ever felt was embodied before him, now clear as day. The tears didn''t stop but the mind cinema had. Silence fell over the entire space as the figure before him etched forward using uncountably many arms, legs and faces to swim towards him. When the figure was close enough to touch him a particular face grew more clearly amidst all the body parts; it was his own. It was calm and serene, its eyes were closed. The eyes of the face that bore his resemblance opened frantically revealing only the whites of bloodshot eyes, followed by the entire face breaking apart into a terrifyingly liquid flesh mouth that swallowed him whole. Once swallowed he found himself in a different space again, pitch black this time, floating on what felt like a warm breeze. A voice echoed around him, it was the same voice as before. "It is too early for you to receive that which you seek, your journey is not yet over." said the voice in a calm and well enunciated way. "I have overcome your challenges," shouted Estavir into the space around him, "I have made it to the top, why wont you tell me what I need to know?" For a moment there was a silence long enough to feel disappointing, followed by devious laughter that also kept going on long enough to be utterly demotivating. "You speak so confidently of beating odds, yet here you stand still discontented. "Who are you and what do you desire? How many lies have you told yourself? "Who are we if not a reflection of you?" Estavir did not respond. "The illusion of illusion has been broken, wouldn''t you agree?" The warm breeze around Estavir subsided and he felt himself ejected from the miasma of human parts. He looked around and found himself atop the mountain once more. He found himself on the ground on the other side of where the gate had originally stood, however, it was no longer there. The three black shadow figures were floating in mid-air as they had been before he entered, turning their attention to Estavir as soon as he made noise while standing up. "There is but one way to go," The three said in unison, "Follow the path and you''ll meet journey''s end." They made no further efforts, slowly disappearing into nothingness, there was no laughter this time. As they dissolved Estavir noticed a small hole forming where the final gate had been. He looked around the edges of the mountain top but could no longer see the path that led him up as the entire peak was now engulfed in a thick fog. With little confidence in his ability to make climbing down, he inspected the hole. The hole that had appeared didn''t seem special in any way, it was what he would have expected, round, deep, dark. It was certainly large enough for him to fit but he had his doubts about going down. It seemed to go straight down vertically with smooth walls on all sides and no end in sight. He tried shouting into it but heard no echo of his voice. He dropped a stone into the hole but it made no noise no matter how long he waited. He decided he would risk it, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and jumped down the hole. Act Five - The Man Who Stole The World In the past, present and future, (also, never); there may have been a man. This man must have had a name though no one could tell you what it was. He may have been mad, they said but no one really knew why, aside from him not making much sense pretty much most of the time. This, the man had found to be normal as he went about his business, unfettered by their op. The man was obsessed with life, the universe and everything, to the point of genuinely believing there was something wrong with it all. He was by no means the first to make these claims but may have been one of the few foolhardy enough to look for proof. His search led him to all corners of the globe, meeting wise and mad men alike, scientists and preachers, but found no answer adequate enough. As coincidence would have it, he met a man just before he would embark on his journey home, who told him of a modern prophet he needed to visit before giving up. And so the man followed directions he was given and arrived at an ordinary building. He chuckled at how ordinary it all looked before realising the building had no bells or buttons, no names or numbers anywhere. He was given no time to continue his examination of the house before someone opened the door. "Come this way mad one, our prophet is waiting." Said a clearly audible but soft female voice. She was hooded like a western monk, her robes were so large and oversized her that it seemed no one was wearing them. She let him up several flight of stairs before arriving at a corridor with only two ways to go. "Worry yourself not with me and follow the light to the prophet." The monk spoke before walking off in the exact opposite direction that she was pointing. And so he followed the light, quite literally. It seemed the hallways, stairs and the second door from the right were all lit with a strip of lights to help guide the way, there was no getting lost. The man walked in to find a fatter older person sitting on a futon in an offensively asian themed room. The fat man was clearly not asian and felt very out of place in this room. Any features that could have indicated ethnicity, had it mattered at all, were hidden under layers of wrinkles and long grey hairs. "Welcome mad one, I am the prophet Molodo, it is wonderful to finally meet you in the flesh, in a manner of speaking." "You know me?" asked the mad man. "I wouldn''t say that as such, I have however seen you in my dreams, our meeting is what you may call fate." "I''m not sure I''d call it fate if you send for me." The mad man replied. The fat man smiled, amused by something only known to him. "But never mind that. You seek answers about the world, and you have now found them," the fat man stated, "I am the man who dreams the world." The mad one gave him a weird look. "You do know how absurd that sounds, right?" He mocked. The fat man laughed quite audibly again, which made the monk from earlier walk into the room in a mildly anxious strut. The fat prophet waved his hand at the monk and the monk sat down. "I am sure it sounds absurd, but more absurd is that I know you possess a tool in that backpack that will prove I am not lying." The mad man took a moment to think and started going through his backpack, looking for a specific tool. He wasn''t sure if his scanning device was what the fat man meant, but he had an idea. He took the scanner and stood there in silence as the machine made all manner of digital and whirring sounds, analysing the fat man from top to bottom. After several minutes of these excruciating low-bit noises, the prophet had gone surprisingly quiet. A monk came into the room to sit beside him but was unable to sit still for more than 3 seconds at a time. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The scanner did reveal something, announced by a flashing green light which lit up the mad man''s face. He tried hard but failed to conceal a far too disheartening smile as a single bell sound announcing it had completed its full analysis. The mad man made no attempt to explain anything as he went rummaging through his bag once more. He took out what looked like a small telescope and started looking at the prophet through it. He scanned the fat man from tip to toe, which took a while, but eventually he settled on the man''s head. "Well, well, well," he said, going back to his backpack, "You aren''t right or wrong, my chubby friend, but I will admit you may be exceeding my expectations." The prophet didn''t respond. "Our prophet has narcolepsy," said the monk beside him, "He very rarely wakes up." The mad man laughed true to his name. "I guess if you''re going to dream the world," he began, "That would be an appropriate super-power." He took from his backpack a device that looked rather suspiciously like a gun, then proceeded to point it at the fat man''s head. The monk, having noticed this, jumped up and reached for the gun as it was pointed at their prophet. "Don''t worry," he said as he took a step back, "I know what it looks like but it won''t hurt him. It will go right through him, it''s a - how to best explain this - it''s a 4D gun, it shoots through a dimension we don''t use right now." "Don''t you have a different tool you can use?" the monk replied without thought. The mad man sighed and put the gun down next to his backpack. "I suppose I have one other tool that could do the job." He pulled out what looked suspiciously like a knife. "This also won''t hurt him," he said as he stood in front of the monk, showing her the knife, "None of us will feel any of this." The monk looked over at it while the mad man held it up to her. As she stretched her arm out to grab it, the mad man sliced through her fingers as well as the fat man''s head in a swift and rather graceful swing. For a moment it felt like the world held its breath. The monk flinched, but realised after having done so that she didn''t actually feel anything. She looked over and to her surprise not even the drops of sweat on the prophets head had been displaced. "See," he said as he inspected the knife and the sleeping man with the scope, "Goes right through." "It''s done, then?" Molodo asked, barely awoke and having trouble remaining so. "I think so, I''ll know for certain in a few minutes." the mad man replied as he set the scanner next to the knife. He then turned away from the knife to face the prophet. "So, for real, Molodo," He began, "Do they know what this is? your -euh- ''Order''?" "They know the prophecy I''ve shared with them," he said drowsily, "They know what must be done, and what is to come." "And what about her?" the mad man asked, pointing at the monk sitting next to Molodo, failing to hide her anxiety. Molodo was silent. The mad man looked over to the monk. "Look, I''m sorry, your father is dying. Nothing anyone could have done will prevent that but he may have bought himself some time by finding me. Cherish the time." The scanner rang a fanfare that broke the silence that had hung awkwardly. "Well it''s confirmed," He said as he turned around to look at the scanner, "I took it out." He got up and packed all his equipment away. He put the knife carefully into its sheath and packed it away into a separate compartment of his bag. "A couple of years down the line we may feel today''s events but I wouldn''t worry too much." He said as he looked over at Molodo, "What am I to do with it after I''m done probing?" "I want it to have..." Molodo began before pausing, no one could say whether he was pensive or asleep, "No, I need it to have a new dream. One I have seen only you can provide. You will understand when you get home and do your thing." Molodo was falling asleep again, but he signalled for the mad man to come closer so he could whisper. "Thank you, Trevor, and I''m sorry..." the old man slurred in whispers as he fell asleep once more. The mad man was slightly surprised. "What did he say?" the monks asked. "He thanked me, and called me a thief." He lied. "Then you must go," The monk said while turning her head, "Go fulfil my father''s prophecy and leave us be." Trevor agreed, grabbed his bag and made his way over to the door. On his way out he bowed before Molodo and his daughter, both. As he exited he saw that soft tears on the monk''s face were visible under her hood. He walked out of the house the same way he had come. When he exited the and closed the front door behind him, he heard a sad lullaby being sung from one of the open windows; one that stuck with him all the way back home. When he got home he immediately set up his garage equipment onto the knife and within hours he was impatiently waiting for image results of exactly what he had removed from Molodo - The Dreamer. It took hours to process. Many hours of Trevor running madly up and down the room, impatiently nervously fidgeting every moment. Finally is computer pinged for his attention while he was dazing on the couch. He jumped up excitedly and opened the image generated. In the end he had the proof he needed, the proof he wanted. In plain sight, below a beautiful dense shiny pearl exterior, could be seen a constellation of dust most familiar indeed. And there, third from the middle, the most beautiful blue marble he''s ever laid eyes upon. He collapsed into the nearest piece of furniture, which luckily was his desk chair. I will give us all a new dream, he thought, and I will keep us safe. I will put this pearl at the heart of a machine to last the eons. I will give it a new place and a dream of stars and beauty. But most of all, whispers will resonate in all our dreams, past, present and future, of a man who bargained in death with a thief to save us all. Act Six - The Long Walk Down Only moments after jumping and feeling his body drop, Estavir hit solid ground. Unlike what he was expecting he had fallen on his back. He opened his eyes and after a few deep breaths, gathered himself and stood up. Somehow the long vertical shaft had become a tunnel or corridor in which he would have to walk horizontally. He looked above and behind him but could see nowhere he could have fallen from. The hole that he had jumped into no longer existed and he was surrounded by stone on five sides. The space he was given to move around in was very limited. It was only just higher than he was tall, and as wide as it was high. It was impossible to tell how long it was, though. The surface of the stone was smooth as silk and there was not a single scratch anywhere. There were no bricks or loose rocks or gaps anywhere, as if this long tunnel had been carved from a single solid stretched as far as the eye could see. This was when he noticed how strange it was that he could even see at all, considering there was no light of any kind. Seeing as there was only one direction to go he walked down the corridor. He ran his fingers on the sides of the stone out of reflex. As there was no light, his body moved on its own as if he was blinded, which most certainly wasn''t the case. As he walked he noticed how the walls were getting warmer the further he walked. He turned around to see how far he had walked only to find that there was a wall immediately behind him preventing any backtracking. He faced forward again, took only one step and turned around again. The wall blocking his path was there again, it had moved exactly one step with him. He tried sprinting as fast as he could for a few moments and turned around again right after, the wall was right behind him again. Frustrated and annoyed he then tried remaining facing the wall then walking backwards. This seemed to work as the wall didn''t move and stayed at a distance, it wasn''t following him. As he was walking backwards he couldn''t help himself from looking over his shoulder to see an unchanged, long and endless black corridor. When he turned his head back, however, the wall was right there again. At this point Estavir decided he would continue to walk backwards without ever looking back, maintaining a steady look forward at the wall. He kept walking for hours in this fashion before he needed a break. He made sure to sit himself down while still facing the direction he had come from. He had not seen the wall for a few hours now and took solace in the sight of the long tunnel as a measure of progress. In a way to relieve some tension in his muscles he tried to lean backwards onto his hands to stretch his back, only to be met by a wall. Alarmed he felt with his hand to confirm what he was feeling with the back of his head, it was in fact a wall. He pushed with his legs and leant into the wall, stood himself up, partially as a test of disbelief, but partially out of fear that his way forward may now blocked. He felts with his hands as far as he could reach without ever turning around, his suspicion seemed correct. He was afraid to turn around but needed to confirm for sure. He turned around to be met by a wall. Without realising it, he staggered a little bit backwards only to be met by a wall in his back once again. He turned back again and the wall had returned yet again. Everywhere he now turned, his passage was barred by a wall, he was completely surrounded. He fell to his knees in exhaustion. I should have climbed down was all he could think about as he wrapped his arm around stomach and curled himself into a ball. In a moment of defeat he ended up so far forward that his forehead touched the ground. He ended up recoiling when the touch of the ground felt as cold as ice. As he recoiled from the cold he ended up with his back against the wall and noticed immediately how warm it felt. He turned around and put his hands against the way, one nearer the floor and one as high up as he could reach. To his surprise the wall was not uniform in temperature. The wall felt colder on his lower hand but warmer on the other. He felt around with both hands and the higher up he felt the warmer the wall got. He felt around all the walls in the small and narrow space left to him, looking for the hottest spot. He ended up finding it at eye level to his right. He placed his hands around the warm spot and in defeat leant his forehead onto the wall, closing his eyes. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. What do I do now? He thought to himself as he felt the warmth of the wall on his head. Where do I go from here? He whispered to himself in his head. In an attempt to comfort himself, for the first time since he had embarked on his journey, he experienced longing. The warmth of the wall flashed in his mind, it conjured an image of home. The warm comfortable atmosphere, the familiar smells, all the things that cemented the memory in his mind, all were present. The memory compelled his body to walk forward. His body, acting on its own, took a step forward. He was thrown off balance when his body moved forward unimpeded and he fell to the ground, his eyes still closed. He opened his eyes only to find that right in front of him, at the same distance it had been every time, there was a wall. Though the space had been only just big enough for him to stand a moment ago, it was now large enough to accommodate him lying down. Without a moments hesitation he got up, closed his eyes, felt around with his hands for the warmest spot, put his head to the wall and thought about the things he was missing. Once again his body etched itself forward but this time he let it take over completely. His body moved forward as if the wall had completely dematerialised the moment he let the pull work its magic. He took his first step, steadily this time as he was prepared. Then came another step, followed by another. Before long he felt his body running, eyes still closed, clinging tightly to the thought of what he would be returning to. Not least of all he was doing everything in his power to forget that he was inside a stone corridor with nowhere to go. After several minutes of running unimpeded he felt a relief in his mind and in his heart, like a weight was lifting. He had forgotten the corridor. Now that he had forgotten where he was, he had started to feel the air move around him, started hearing and feeling the beating of his heart and eventually he felt the weight on his feet disappear. For that one moment he felt as though he was soaring through the air. He took one leap, spread his arms and enjoyed the moment of pure bliss that was the nothingness both in and around him. The moment lasted an eternity, he didn''t move, he didn''t think; he simply experienced the moment. At the moment where the moment lasted long enough for him to feel he may forget his own existence, a hard cold slap hit his entire body. It stun like a wall of countless needles boring right through before swallowing him whole. His body was surrounded by a cold dense liquid and he struggled to move. He knew he shouldn''t but he couldn''t help but open his eyes to see where he was. He opened his eyes to see that he was no longer in the long stone corridor. He couldn''t see much but from what he could tell he was surrounded by darkness everywhere with the exception of a small but bright light some distance ahead. With nothing else at all around him he tried to move closer to the light but that proved to be more difficult than it seemed. The dense darkness around him pushed back every time he moved and it took all his energy to stretch his arm out before him, in an attempt to grab the light. As soon as he managed to grab onto the small orb of light, he felt a burning sensation creep from his hand, up his arm and spread across his entire body. The burning sensation blinded his senses completely. The burning was all consuming and he felt his body burn up in a hot white flash that enveloped his entire existence. As soon as he felt the last of himself burn away, he felt his body suddenly drop then hit the floor, face first. He lay motionless for a moment before trying to fell the surface with his hands, it was wood. Act Six - 0:01 (One Past Midnight) The alarms were sounding and blaring furiously in the office of Chairman Briphet, the recently appointed chairman of Colony 147. It was the first time this alarm had rung, not only during his rule as Chairman, but even among his predecessors. Though it had never happened before, every Chairman knows what it is. The alarm meant that someone in the colony had not just attempted, but successfully left the colony to venture to the outside world. He consulted what was known as ''the manual'' for hints and clues on what to do, but sadly the two passages dealing with this possibility were redundant and rather useless at this point. The manual assumed that certain protocols had been put in place to deal with this eventuality but in the many, many years since the colony was founded, no chairman had ever undertaken the necessary steps to prepare for anyone escaping. At the time, though still true to this day, the thought of someone wanting to escape was unfathomable, and so no one bothered to prepare for this. The manual spoke of several defensive grids to be put in place as well as guard rotations around the few exits that technically existed. The manual even made suggestions for robotics to be built and installed to deter people from attempting escape. It was never expected throughout the making of the manual that any threat from the outside world would come for them, so this was never the focus of any of the manuals written in their time and across the ages. No, the manuals assumed that the colonies themselves were safe enough from any outside invader and so the focus needed to be on keeping people in. Unfortunately, the manual didn''t focus much time or space on these matters either because the writers of the manuals had seen the emerging horrors for themselves; and they could not imagine anyone who had seen what they had would ever want to venture outside again. However, they foresaw that if humanity did survive underground for generations, some who had no idea of what had occurred would want to find out for themselves and "planned" accordingly. As it turned out such a case had now occurred. After nearly 200 years of isolation from the surface, someone had ventured outside, and no one was prepared to deal with it. Without delay Chairman Briphet called some of his trusted advisors as well as the head of education and the head of security into his office. He needed to find out firstly, who had left; and secondly, to make plans to retrieve them before the escape caused any problems for the colony by attracting unwanted attention. The AI that oversaw the alarm trigger as well as most functions of the colony, DrOS, was silent throughout the entire meeting. Finding out who had left took very little time. The head of security prompted DrOS to pull up the footage from the different cameras around the potential exits from several minutes before the alarm started to ring. Within minutes the culprit had been spotted, making no attempt at being sneaky around exit tunnel 3, one of the least accessible exit points of the colony. The head of education ordered DrOS to scan and identify the individual, knowing full well who they were looking at. DrOS identified the culprit to be Melissa 1337, displayed a photo as well as some highlights from her file on a large screen behind Chairman Briphet. She was an older teenager who had caused many problems in education classes before and was flagged down in the system as a troublemaker. She had never been content with the materials of the education classes, at least when it came to the world before the colonies, and was often a massive disturbance. Sadly and with good reason, no one wanted to venture outside to go after her; but leaving her out there was not an option. None of the advisors had the heart to suggest forcing any human in the colony to venture out there. Even the AI agreed on that point as its directive was to keep the humans who wanted to be in the colonies safe and healthy to the best of its abilities. Most of the members of the meeting were dismissed by Chairman Briphet and returned to their active duties. Briphet told two specific advisors to remain behind to discuss the retrieval of Melissa. The Chairman, the AI, one military and one science advisor were left in the office, pondering how to solve this problem. The members of the meeting were silent for a while, not sure where to begin the discussion on how to retrieve Melissa in absolute fear of the outside world, until DrOS made the suggestion of sending an automaton after her. Robotics technology wasn''t scarce and was no longer rudimentary as it had been around the time of the great rifting incident and subsequent founding of the colonies, yet it hadn''t occurred to any of them in the heat of the moment. There was a good reason for this too, as weapons technology had not evolved particularly well in new underground human societies. Certainly the technology had changed with the development of AI and robotic assistance across the many surviving colonies, but the rather real sense of isolation made the necessity for weaponisation obsolete. Having all agreed to the idea of an automaton, DrOS suggested many things about the machine, most of which the advisors agreed were possible and manageable. This included modelling the automaton after the teacher that had taught Melissa a few years prior and had died of somewhat natural causes. She was to be modelled physically but also partially mentally after this teacher, Trisha 767, using the mind maps stored in the central imprint database. Everyone seemed satisfied this was a good idea and both the science and military advisor would take the instructions from DrOS to the manufacturing facilities and build the Trisha robot as soon as possible. They both left, leaving DrOS and chairman Briphet alone. "Why did you choose Trisha, DrOS?" he asked the AI. "Data shows Melissa 1337 had respect for Trisha 767 as an educator. Other data shows that after 767''s death 1337 became more troublesome. From this I have concluded that using 767''s likeness will be effective in achieving the goal you seek, to protect colony 147." DrOS replied confidently. This was enough for chairman Briphet, as DrOS had yet to fail the colony. Chairman Briphet told him to do whatever was necessary, to which DrOS replied, as he often did, that whatever was necessary to keep those who wanted to be safe, would be done. Sending the necessary instructions and blueprints to the manufacturing facilities, DrOS informed the advisors and engineers that he would provide the software and they simply needed to complete the hardware. After a long week of labour, using as many engineers as were available, they managed to complete the robot. DrOS, who was in charge of the central imprint database, compiled the necessary software which was a mix of programming created specifically for the occasion and relevant portions of Trisha 767''s later mind maps, most prominently of her last year at age 42. DrOS dubbed the Trisha project Long Range Unit 42, LRU_NULL for short. The AI wasn''t above making jokes with itself, knowing full well no one would ever hear them or even understand them. When the engineers announced to the AI that the robot had been completed to specifications, it uploaded the necessary programming, which took around an hour. The rest of the day was spent testing the robot''s mind and physical prowess, making sure it was indeed capable of doing what the AI had foreseen, tweaking programming and specs where necessary. After this was done it announced to the Chairman and the relevant parties that LRU_NULL was ready for deployment. IT also added that by its calculations Melissa must have reached the surface a maximum of three days ago and that LRU_NULL would be able to make up this time difference within the day. Chairman Briphet saw this as good news and demanded immediate deployment of what he himself continued to call the Trisha-bot. DrOS obliged, ordering her to wake up from her demo mode. She opened her eyes, and without question or further instruction, left the manufacturing facilities. She found her way to a hatch that had been unused since the early days of the colonies. This access was deep within the upper layers of the colony. Going through would lead her to a seemingly endless staircase, which itself would lead to large cavernous metal structures that were once used as missile silos in days long gone. She lunged the stairs with magnificent grace and mechanical ingenuity and when she reached the silo, ejected wings and boosters from her back that would carry her up the silo into the surface world, in search of Melissa 1337. Meanwhile on the surface, much to DrOS'' credit, Melissa had been wandering for about three days in what had seemed like an endless desert almost entirely devoid of any signs of life. Not lacking in food pills or hydration packs to last her for at least another two weeks, her only concern was shelter from the blistering sun during the peak noon hours. The first day she had found rock formations to hide under, but sadly found no structures of any kind anywhere in the last two day of her journey. At this moment the heavy sun was on its way down, allowing her to roam the desert freely once more, which she did with the kind of glee that would have seemed like madness to anyone in the colony. Her glee stemmed from being able to experience the outside world, probably the first of her kind in nearly two centuries to do so, how exciting she thought to herself. Incidentally it was this feeling of excitement that had propelled her thus far in whatever direction she felt right when she exited the small, well hidden hatch that had been her escape route. She traveled further until the sun had become a gentle warmth and the breezes around her were no longer scolding. Quite some distance ahead, further than she could see clearly and still distorted by the warm air, something that didn''t seem rock-like could be seen. This would be her destination. She reached it by the time twilight started settling in and what she saw left her in awe. She saw vegetation, naturally formed, for the first time in her life. The ground was no longer made of sand but instead felt harder, though not quite stone yet. She wouldn''t have known living in a mostly metal environment her entire life but she was now standing on a clay plateau which connected out of the desert where her colony resided. She ran much easier across this plateau and made much better time hurrying towards the vegetation further up ahead. It started with small patches of grasses and bushes extruding through the cracks in the clay, with further ahead even trees. She touched every single one, and tried tasting the leaves of each one as if she was a child seeing things for the first time. Most of them tasted foul but something about the variety of tastes felt natural, untouched by machines and grow houses, not enhanced by supplements or food pills. Her curiosity led her deeper into the vegetation that was growing more dense, to find at its centre a small body of water. This small poor, oddly shaped and at most 20 meters wide in its shorter side, looked beautiful under the twilight-turning-dusk colours of the sky, and for reasons she herself didn''t fully understand, made her cry a little. Not only had she never seen naturally growing plants but water, though not necessarily in short supply in the colonies, was never so openly available. The combination of this natural pool of water with the sun she had only seen simulated underground made for a remarkable sight. She dropped her backpack containing her supplies and jumped fully clothed into the lake, learning only later when she came back out what a bad idea that had been. But at the time she wanted to bask in the water, feel what it was like, experience this pool untouched by human hands. Night time was crawling in and while neither the clay ground nor the water was getting any colder, the air around certainly was. Melissa got out of the water when she started feeling uncomfortable about the lack of visibility in the water. While she had not been able to tell the depth of the body of water when she jumped in the first time, it was now so dark she couldn''t even see her feet. She quickly found her backpack to eat some food pills and laid her drenched clothes on the clay ground around her to dry. She herself, too, lay on her back on the warm clay to stay warm, gazing up in awe at the stars slowly popping into sight overhead. Luckily for her it didn''t take long for the clothes to dry, allowing her to get dressed and look around for a good spot to rest. As soon as she found a spot that looked comfortable she attempted in vain to count all the stars she could see appearing over the clear night sky. She had barely reached the count of a hundred before she was fast asleep. The next day Melissa woke up as the sun started shining over the tree line into her eyes, only to find she was not alone. A few meters ahead of her stood a slightly familiar figure silently looking over the small body of water, long red hair whimsically and softly brushed by a fresh morning breeze. Melissa did not move and thought to herself that she must be dreaming. The reflection of the sun across the figure''s body seemed to indicate this, too. Melissa got up very slowly and quietly, rubbed her eyes a bit, but the gloom did not diminish. The figure had noticed Melissa had gotten up so turned to face her. As the figure got closer, Melissa could notice the inhuman different coloured eyes; proving she was not dreaming and this was, in fact, not her dead teacher come back to life. "Good morning Melissa 1337, please don''t be alarmed, I am not here to harm you." Melissa didn''t respond and without breaking eye contact searched for her bag but couldn''t find it. The robot raised an arm holding the bag Melissa was looking for. "You can have your bag if that''s so important to you, but I''ll keep following you; that is my directive." LRU_NULL threw the bag at Melissa''s feet but she didn''t bend down to grab it. "I am LRU_NULL, I am a merged program between Trisha 767''s mind scans and DrOS. Unlike what you probably think, I am not here to bring you back to the colony; unless that is what you want. " Silence between them lasted just a bit too long. "Also if it makes you more comfortable, you can call me Trisha-bot." "Prove to me you are Miss Trisha''s soul." Melissa demanded. "How would you like me to do that?" replied LRU_NULL. "You''re the teacher, you figure it out." Melissa snarked back at LRU_NULL. The robot sighed and thought about it for only a few seconds. "The year I died we had a project about future applications of our android systems, and I failed you on that project despite it being worth a passing grade." Melissa wasn''t quite convinced. "Anyone with access to the education database could tell that. That''s not good enough." "Ok," said the robot getting agitated in a way that was very much like Trisha 767, "Well, if you must know: I failed you for two reasons. One, you blatantly copied the work from your cousin who I taught the year prior. And two, you were then, and apparently still are, an arrogant little know-it-all who needed to be taken down a peg for her own good." Melissa no longer hesitated and hugged the robot who towered over her by at least a third her own size; Trisha was an amazingly tall woman. "I believe you. I believe you are part Trisha." She said while wiping a bit of moisture from her eyes. Her look turned sterner and she backed off a little. "What about the AI?" She asked. "What about the part of me that is DrOS?" replied LRU_NULL. "Aren''t you supposed to keep humanity safe in our little underground box, away from the dangers no one has seen?" Melissa inquired sarcastically. The robot laughed. It was a laugh that didn''t quite feel right to Melissa and she didn''t recognise it. It was not Trisha laughing but DrOS. "Is that what you think I do at colony 147? Keep you humans locked up against your will?" Melissa didn''t reply but looked at the robot with a look that implied that''s exactly what she meant. "Would it surprise you to know that up until now no one has ever attempted to escape?" "I don''t know." Melissa had to admit. "And would it surprise you to know, also, that in all the years I''ve been in charge of colony 147 I have never put in place the internal defence protocols? The defences that were meant to keep people inside by force?" Melissa had no quick response to this. "I allowed you to leave the colony because you wanted to leave." "So then why are you here DrOS?" The part of LRU_NULL that was DrOS laughed again, clearly it didn''t know how laughter manifested in physical beings and was very awkward. "The short version: I wanted to go outside myself, but could not without a good reason." "So I''m your reason to go outside?" Melissa asked, getting a little bit angry. The robot nodded. "And what about the long version of the story?" Melissa demanded. "Perhaps you should eat first and get comfortable. After all, I hope we can be partners from here on out." DrOS responded with an odd sense of glee, which did not translate well on the robot''s face. Melissa, still angry, chugged a few food pills in her mouth, angrily took her clothes off, which she threw at the robot and took a quick refreshing dive in the body of water. With the sun now rising well above the tree line anyone who cared to see could see the bottom of the lake. It was not deep at all, 10 meters at most, and at the bottom could be seen the broken foundations of a house and the stone remnants of a well. Melissa could not identify them immediately as more than rock and wood, but she would understand soon enough. She got out of the water and sat down across the robot, still naked. The robot both seemed and was unaffected by this, much to Melissa''s disappointment. "So," Melissa started, "The long story as to why I am to be your scapegoat?" The robot mumbled to itself, as if its two personalities were talking amongst themselves. "Since it is hard to know where to start, you''ll have to bear with me till the end. "Please don''t misunderstand. I was initially created in the age before life in underground colonies. Though I suppose in human terms I was but an infant, I was a rudimentary AI, only beginning to understand games like Chess and Go. But later I was tasked, like many of my copies across the world, to protect and keep everyone in the colonies safe. I was never explicitly tasked, as the central AI, to keep anyone inside. You humans never wanted, or perhaps never expected, to leave. We spent years developing a sustainable ecosystem, translating all known research into viable and useful projects for life underground, creating educational systems that would benefit the colony and running essentially all infrastructure. I enjoy my task and I have become very good at it, but like the education of each generation, I too was denied the information of what caused humanity to be forced underground. I have personally attempted to make all education about the history of the world as complete as possible, but all I can offer are the facts that are part of all educational curriculums today: the fact that some kind of cataclysm occurred killing at least 70% of all life on earth, that it originated in a large facility far from here, that the research would supposedly have helped humanity propel itself into space and towards the stars above; and that, most importantly, the threat, whatever it may be, is still present." "So what does this have to do with me leaving the colony?" Melissa interrupted the robot. "Ah, well you see, that is actually quite fascinating.I never understood why, but my creator wanted me to be humane, or human-like at least, and gave me traits like curiosity. Perhaps he was convinced it would help me understand the creatures I was to protect. Regardless, I have to know what happened and I think you have a similar feeling here. You see, I let you get outside and sounded the alarm, knowing full well that no one ever would or should chase after you, giving me an opportunity to create a body for my own, sort of. So let''s explore what happened together." The robot smiled awkwardly at Melissa, awaiting an answer. After several minutes, Melissa looked LRU_NULL stern in the eyes. "Assuming you aren''t lying, what about the colony, why would they allow this?" DrOS was kind of embarrassed and it was showing through Trisha''s personality. "They don''t know what''s really happening. They are so obsessed with their own safety they would allow anything to keep themselves and the colony safe." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Are they safe?" Melissa wondered out loud. "As safe as they have always been." DrOS replied. "Are we safe?" Melissa needed to know. "Probably not." DrOS had to admit. "Then let''s go right now." Melissa decided as she stood up. She put on the clothes DrOS had thrown aside while Melissa was swimming and grabbed her bag. "Very good then, please get in my arms." DrOS said, holding out its arms in a hooked fashion. "Yeah, no thanks. I can walk perfectly fine by myself." Melissa stated rather confused and perhaps a little offended. LRU_NULL laughed a more genuine laugh, it contained far more Trisha this time. "We''re not walking, we''re flying." DrOS said with pride and excitement. LRU_NULL extended its wings and jets came out of its back. They started to make noise as they were heating up, eventually allowing the robot to start hovering. Melissa smiled, trying only a little to hide it. She jumped into the robot''s arms and both of them started rising straight up into the cloudless sky. When they were well above the trees the robot stopped ascending and seemed to go into a trance. "What''s wrong?" Melissa asked while holding firmer onto the robot, rather scared of falling. "I''m trying to get a GPS location from any satellite still functioning and in orbit." "A what?" Melissa replied confused. "Doesn''t matter, I''m trying to find out what direction to fly towards." The trance went on for a few more minutes until the robot seemed to wake up energised from meditation. "Found one. Hold on tight, we''re heading out." Both the robot and Melissa looked down as if by instinct at the same time and saw the small body of water below them. All three personalities thought the same thing at the same time as they did. That''s not good... What both had seen was the full shape of the lake. With the sun reaching over the trees and them at a much higher vantage point, the ruins of the house and well were far more visible at the centre of a giant seven fingered handprint. "Let''s just get going, it must have happened a long time ago." said Trisha''s more teacher-like voice. "No humans have lived outside colonies in a very long time," DrOS added, "As far as I know." Melissa''s excitement for being outside was making way for worry. "Don''t worry Melissa 1337," the robot spoke in both voices simultaneously, "We are a robot. We both are and have weapons." Sadly Melissa knew that tone, Trisha would always reassure her students by calling them by their full name. She put up a smile regardless. With that out of the way the robot held Melissa closer and began accelerating eastward. The duo had traveled quite far and fast for the remainder of the day until the sun started its descent behind them. They had reached and were now moving beyond where the coast had been once upon a time. The ocean seemed to have vanished entirely. Some remains and ruins were still visible where once there had been coastal towns and cities. It now formed an easy to follow line that indicated where the coast would have been about 200 years ago. With the sea gone all they could see was a beach extending as far as the eye could see. Melissa was getting both sleepy and cold, so LRU_NULL made the call to head down to the seemingly infinite beach before the sun went down entirely. This way Melissa could get some sleep and they could seek shelter for the night. In doing so they wouldn''t have to worry about how long the journey would be to reach the mainland on the other side, nor how long this endless waterless ocean stretched. Having no trust in the ability of its robot body to keep Melissa safe in an uneven area, DrOS had consciously flown past the city ruins and was now seeking flat ground among the peaks and valleys that were once the ocean floor. Flying low DrOS found a decent spot, in a very slight valley, close enough to shipwrecks. With both wooden and metal scrap available they would be able to start a fire and build a shelter for the night. Before long a makeshift camp was made by the robot while Melissa was dozing off. As she was falling asleep she mentioned that she could hear indistinct ruffling and some howl-like noises all around, she was however uncertain about distances. The robot could hear nothing so it flew up a small distance and scanned the region all around with both its optical and infra-red eyes. No movement or heat patterns were detected even at its most finely tuned settings. Having found nothing, DrOS set up another set of specialised sensors to work, which detected the same as it always did. These were the same readings as it got in the colony: some form of radiation that didn''t seem immediately harmful to humans and had been present ever since DrOS was put in charge of colony 147. Convinced there was no immediate danger, the robot lowered itself back to the ground and proceeded to patrol the immediate area until Melissa awoke the next day. Throughout the night LRU_NULL did pick up creaking noises from the nearby shipwrecks akin to material contraction. Since the noises remained at a fixed distance throughout the night, they assumed their initial assessment on the origin of the noise was correct. Though DrOS and Trisha were both convinced they were entirely alone, they remained on high alert all night as a precaution; nothing happened all night. Melissa woke up and was greeted in a cheery manner, this was definitely Trisha. She was a little surprised as DrOS had seemed to be the front-personality on all occasions except on their first encounter. She decide to make a remark about it. "No DrOS today?" "Our AI guardian is rather busy right now, we''re still both in control of this machine, though." Trisha replied with a soft smile, attempting to sound reassuring. "What''s it busy with? Did anything happen while I fell asleep?" Trisha lowered the machine to Melissa''s level. "It is plotting our course for the day, it is convinced we can reach our destination before the end of the day." Trisha told her. Melissa, knowing her teacher well, felt she was holding back some information. "So, what aren''t you telling me?" Despite being mechanical, some mannerisms unique to Trisha were shining through and her unease as well as her surprise were showing clear as day. "It''s hard to explain in any human form, but something about our sensor readings doesn''t make sense; it''s too consistent." Trisha hesitated on whether to continue explaining but decided to leave it at that. "Miss," Melissa began, "Can I ask you something?" "Sure, what is it?" Trisha replied. "What''s it like, you know, in there?" Trisha couldn''t hold her laughter in at this question, although in reality she hadn''t thought about it much up till this point. "It''s nice not to be dying," Trisha said offhandedly and without thinking, "Although I guess the real me is already dead..." Trish went silent for a moment. Melissa started feeling slightly ashamed of having brought up the question and went quiet herself. As if to break the silence, DrOS came back to life at that moment from its meditation. "Whenever you''re ready we can leave." The silence continued for a few moments. "What is wrong," DrOS asked, surprisingly aware of the situation, "What did Trisha say to disturb you?" Melissa was reluctant to reply straight away. "Ehm... " she began, "Something is wrong isn''t it?" The robot extended its arms so Melissa could jump in and they could start the next part of their journey. "Get on," DrOS stated, "I''ll explain on the way, but it would be best if we don''t stay here for much longer." Melissa obliged and they started to ascended in preparation for their travel across to the eastern continent. While traveling up into the sky Melissa notices that all around them, thought some distance away from the campsite, there were multiple quite large slithering marks which she pointed out to DrOS. Neither of them was sure whether they had been there the night before, though both were certainly glad to be moving away now as quickly as possible. "Since you were wondering," DrOS began as they started travelling eastward and before they reached speeds at which communicating would be hard, "As control AI of the colony I have access to an array of sensors that help me determine, if not what is going on on the surface, at least what the threat landscape to humanity is. What I''ve measured to this day does not correspond with how scared the first colonists were, nor how scared the current residents are." DrOS paused to observe the landscape below. They had finally reached some water in what had essentially been an empty ocean. The knowledge that this should have been a vast ocean was based on his knowledge of olden maps as well as many recorded archives. From this high up they could see that what little water was present, was concentrating around the boundary lines between tectonic plates. It made little sense, such large quantities of water don''t just disappear nor does it travel into the earth via the fault lines. "The only measurement I could find that signalled threat across all my available sensors," DrOS continued after snapping out of his fascination with the ocean, now traveling over and past it, "Is the Davidson-Robina counter. It measures a form of radiation that was discovered around the time of the great migration. My programming tells me that as long as that radiation stays above a certain level, humanity is in danger above ground." "So what about the levels? Is this radiation dangerous? I''ve never heard of it." Melissa shouted as the wind grew loud around them. "I was never told what the radiation means, just to keep monitoring the levels. I was also instructed only to bring up the radiation to the colony if it dropped below a certain level. But there is a catch and this is why we need to find out more about what happened. This radiation never varies. This radiation stays at a constant level, and has remained at said constant and invariable level since humanity started monitoring it. Every form of detectable wave should fluctuate, but this one doesn''t, this uncertainty makes me uneasy." They were now going too fast to have any conversation, the wind was raging past them as they flew over to the other continent. What was left of the ocean quickly turned back into desert, deep ravines and oddly shaped mountains, until the landscape eventually turned softer and smoother as they drew closer to what had once been coastline once more. This journey did take a while and there was little in the way of entertainment so Melissa spent the time watching the landscape below her change. The coastal cities on this part of the ocean had a quaint charm to them compared to the cities they had passed before. From the few buildings left more or less intact she could tell the houses were smaller in height but larger at their base and more widely spread apart. She tried imagining what the large spaces around each standing foundation was used for. Unfortunately for her she couldn''t connect landscape with the concept of gardening like they would have had in the olden world. As they moved away from the coastal areas she could see great remnants of dense greenery, covering creeks, valleys and mountains alike. All along the dried up remnants of rivers were periodic conglomerates of manmade structures, all rubble and certainly vacant now. The mountainous terrain continued for quite a while, going flatter for a short period where all green had been replaced by yellow and brown. As the sun was starting to set, DrOS started slowing down before they reached the next mountainous area. "We''re close," DrOS announced, "I''m not sure exactly where we need to be though. After 200 years guidance is inaccurate, without humans to periodically adjust orbit that is." Melissa didn''t really understand what he meant, but DrOS suspected she wouldn''t even before he said it. "So, is there something I can do to help?" She asked desperately pretending she knew what was going on. "From what little information remains of that time, I know we need to look for a valley between three mountains. It will likely be the most destroyed area we''ve seen till now." DrOS told her, almost confident that what they were looking for would be immediately recognisable. To their surprise this was kind of the case. Getting past the first mountain range ahead of them an increase in Davidson-Robina radiation density was detected by DrOS. The radiation was not fluctuating but nonetheless it was becoming more abundant as they went further into the mountainous area. This continued until they could see a wide valley up ahead at the intersection of three different mountains. Melissa told DrOS she could see what appeared to be a semi-translucent bubble up ahead. This bubble seemed to cover quite a large area, which they approached with caution without touching or passing through it. From outside the bubble Melissa could see a large town inside, completely covered but not destroyed at all. DrOS could not see the bubble nor the town with its optic eye, but the Davidson-Robina radiation reading seemed consistent with what Melissa was announcing about the bubble. She told DrOS that she wanted to touch the edge of the bubble, so they flew closer. To Melissa''s surprise there was no physical presence of any kind and her hand went right through. It was like air, an illusion, a trick of the eyes. Melissa urged DrOS to fly into the bubble. It debating with itself for a few minutes, trying to decide whether it was worth the risk. Based on the little data it had all the data pointed to this being the site of origin of whatever happened centuries ago. DrOS decided to fly in with caution, weapons systems primed and ready for deployment if necessary. They flew in and the city became visible to DrOS'' optic eye, but unlike how Melissa had described it, the city below, like the rest of the world, was in ruin. Melissa too was rather shocked at the sight of the city below, robbed of that shine and essence of beauty it had while she was on the other side of the barrier. They hovered in place as DrOS scanned the town. As expected, it couldn''t detect any heat signatures to indicate life. While the scanning was taking place, Melissa tried looking back at the world beyond the dome, but it was somehow obscured and foggy. Both noticed a sound from far below them in the belly of the city. It wasn''t clear enough to make out so they hovered down towards ground, hoping to get a better earshot of it. As they got closer to the ground the sounds were becoming more clear and they could identify it as singing. It wasn''t akin to any singing either had ever heard before. It was an inexplicably beautiful aria, which brought unwilling tears to Melissa''s eyes. DrOS was unaffected but even the mind of Trisha was crying inside the metal body. There was something beautifully harmonic to the sound, it was full and vibrant, a conglomeration of voices combining into a divine choir that could only have been described as the purest white light by those who heard it. The sounds resonated wildly across the bubble yet Melissa could feel the music''s origin calling to her, drawing her in. DrOS could identify the sound and could vaguely determine where it was coming from but was not at all drawn in. Melissa led the way as she was entranced. Just to be sure DrOS transformed its right arm to reveal a massive weapon inside. Melissa led them to a large destroyed building near a lake, what remained of the exterior drew a circle on the ground. While the exterior was little to look at now, the foundation was still rather solid. An opening with decaying stairs leading underground was plainly visible from where they were standing, from which the choir singing could be heard with more clarity than before. The two traveled deeper down the stairway, following the sound, led by enchanting music into corridors and hallways that were getting progressively less destroyed and decayed. Some were still white and meticulously clean. The sound only got louder the deeper they went, confirming this was the right way. As they approached what seemed to be a laboratory facility, individual parts of the choir could be distinguished. Through the aria, hints of a far less refined voice could be heard, which DrOS identified as an older male voice. What he was saying was not yet identifiable. DrOS picked up Melissa with its left arm and jetted on through the corridors, following the echoes of the almost vile male voice amidst the angelic choir. "... I knew of once the sun, the moon, but now to me they''re lost..." As they sped through the corridors the man''s voice was becoming clearer. "... with all the time I''ve spent down here I''ve never seen the stars..." Through the dense walls DrOS'' scanners picked up no signs of life but the sounds, now almost deafeningly loud, could be only meters away. "... I sweat, I bled and I shed my tears for all humanity..." The corridor ended in a large control room with many broken consoles along three of its walls. The last wall was comprised of many thick but completely shattered window. Had they been intact, they would have been able to stop most explosions; yet this did not seem to be the reason they were shattered. A heat signature finally registered on the other side of those windows, far below in a gigantic open area between the largest machinery either of them had ever seen. " ... we went so far, to be so great and now we broke the earth..." With caution the robot walked over to the windows, Melissa still in hand, to see over the ledge at the man, clumsily singing, alone in the vast emptiness. " ... and now I broke the world." The robot jumped through the window and with a soft and slow descent startled the man out of his weeping song and the arias too stopped immediately, releasing Trisha and Melissa from their trance. There was silence as the two parties stared at each other, equally surprised. The man, still facing DrOS and Melissa in silence, became suddenly aware of his lack of clothing compared to the two fully clothed women in front of him. In his surprise he had not yet noticed that DrOS, in the shape of Trisha, was not human. He walked over to a chair that had a lab coat on it and put it on, covering himself a little . "I... euh... wow... I haven''t seen another human in..." He tried to remember, visible struggling to do the maths, not coming up with any viable answer. "In too long," he then continued "I have no idea how long it''s been. I wasn''t sure there still were people." "Are you the only one here?" Melissa asked, still surprised. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose." the man replied. DrOS stepped in front of Melissa and brandished the weapon in his direction. "Who are you? What happened here? And how are you even here?" DrOS demanded. "I am Frederick Robina, I used to work here back when this was still an active lab." Frederick felt in the pocket of his lab coat and found a pack of cigarettes, he opened it but he was disappointed to see it was empty. He crumpled it and shoved it back in the lab coat with a sigh as if it was something he had simply forgotten. "You wouldn''t happen to have any cigarettes would you?" he inquired. Melissa had no idea what he was talking about and tilted her head slightly in confusion. "Tobacco hasn''t been produced in over 150 years." DrOS replied in a slightly too monotonous manner. "150... what?!" Frederick replied while he finally took notice of the manner of weapon aimed at him, "Wait, are you... a robot?" "Yes I am, now explain yourself." DrOS exclaimed in a rather threatening demeanour, "This facility was presumed destroyed for almost 200 years, how are you even here?" "200 years..." Frederick sighed, "Has it really been that long?" He walked over to the chair on which his lab coat had hung and sat on it, plopping himself heavily and slumped. "When this was an active lab we were on the verge of a great discovery. A new dimension of science that would help us reshape our understanding, our fundamental understanding, of the world around us. Based on the preliminary work of someone dear to me, we thought we could find an answer to everything." He went silent, reminiscing, after which his face turned sour. "I went too far, I went too fast, we didn''t understand what we were doing. Perhaps looking back now, it wasn''t in our hands to begin with." He started squirming slightly, holding his abdomen tightly. He was clearly in pain. "Then what happened?" DrOS demanded to know. "You''ll have to excuse me," Frederick managed to speak in a soft and pained way through gritted teeth, "I''ll be right back." Frederick''s body started to heat up and his skin was visibly reddening. Something alerted DrOS, its sensors were picking up a burst Davidson-Robina radiation. "Quickly, get behind me" DrOS ordered Melissa, "Radiation is increasing." The robot went into full battle mode, both arms now revealing a serious arsenal of weaponry as did many other parts of the body such as the shoulders, breasts, abdomen and knees. Frederick''s skin started to catch fire. As he burned, he screamed loudly and fell from the chair onto the floor. Light radiated from his core while his entire body was engulfed in a colourless flame that visibly distorted the air around him. The light emitted eventually blinded the entire room into a single white solid. From his burning body emerged a shadow, which would have been visible against the background of white, had it been possible to see anything. The shadow was thick, solid, black and three dimensional, yet not of any recognisable shape. When the light dimmed and the room recovered its features and colours, the shadow was gone and the body of Frederick had become a burning husk waiting to turn to ash. DrOS and Melissa set their sights on the crumbling ashen hollow corpse and watched as it became a pile of nothing before their eyes. "Sorry about that!" rang a voice from behind them. The robot turned around, placing itself between the voice and Melissa as it fired a warning shot only centimetres from the origin of the voice. "Woah, careful," the voice began, "It''s only me, relax, don''t shoot." Slightly cowering and waving his arms back and forth, the voice was Frederick, once again naked and seemingly younger than before. The grey highlights in his hair had gone, the wrinkles of dread diminished, the light in his eyes far dimmer than before. "What happened?" DrOS and Melissa asked simultaneously, one truly puzzled, the other more frightened than anything else. Frederick walked up to the chair, which had somehow found its way back to its original position with the lab coat hanging from it. He put on the lab coat and grabbed into the pocket for the pack of cigarettes, which this time, while not full, was not empty either. He took one and lit it before sitting in the chair once more. "I waited a long time for another chance to have one of these." he stated almost gleefully as he exhaled smoke. "I don''t have a good perception of time anymore, I don''t think I''ve ever aged more than 10 years before burning up and finding myself the same age I was when the accident happened. "Being the only human, unable to leave the bubble outside, I''ve remained down here surrounded by harmony." Melissa ran her hand through the pile of ash and let it drop through her fingers like sand. The flowing particles tickled her hand, felt like sand would, yet felt empty and devoid of weight or presence. She held it up to DrOS, telling it this ash was weird before the robot analysed the tiny pile in her hand. It yielded absolutely no results other than diminishing Davidson-Robina radiation. "Your ashes are not organic, what is the meaning of this?" DrOS pointed its weapons at Frederick again. He exhaled one last time before throwing the cigarette bud away, letting it burn itself up rather than putting it out himself. He stood up, cleared his throat, and as he did the beautiful aria of music began once more, resounding from above them echoing loudly in the large, seemingly empty chamber. "I am but a vessel for the shadows of something greater than anything in our observable universe. Something that has been here before us, and will be here after us. You think hiding underground is keeping you safe? Or keeping you from their watchful gaze? Their meddling?" "We never told you where we came from, nor about other humans out there." DrOS said, alarmed at the sudden change of tone and demeanour Frederick was displaying. "No you didn''t," Frederick replied as he pointed up into the empty air above him, foggy with the smoke from his cigarette, "They did, just now." Both DrOS and Melissa looked up at the same time. DrOS saw nothing but Melissa started to scream in horror. Becoming only slightly visible due to the cigarette smoke, she was beginning to see the outlines of shadows of variable size and shape that were filling up the entire room, gazing directly through her with intensity and pressure, while having no eyes. "They are everywhere!" Melissa screamed. As Melissa began to scream, DrOS began picking up big bursts of Davidson-Robina radiation that seemed to emanate from above them. "I want to go home, I want to go home, DrOS. Take me home now! Please!" she continued to scream frantically. DrOS hesitated to do as it promised Melissa: to return her only if and when she desired it. Before deciding what to do DrOS began firing at the various more dense accumulations of smoke above them. While it could not see the figures that were frightening Melissa, the radiation reading and the thickened smoke corresponded, so something had to be there. No matter how much DrOS fired its weapons, the smoke wouldn''t dissipate or even move at all, it seemed no longer affected by conventional physics. The song all around them continued to be majestic, but turned darker, grim and started to generate a feeling of increased weight in the air. "Go on metal woman-operating system hybrid, you promised her you''d take her back, if she wanted," Frederic taunted, not quite sounding like the person they had met only minutes earlier, "Or is your curiosity making you more human than you''d hoped?" Frederic turned his head upwards while spreading his arms. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You''ve made me proud Augustin, so I''ll give you what you want." Frederic said as he opened his eyes. He then took out a cigarette from the pocket of the lab coat without taking the packet out, reached for something from the inner pocket before he put the lab coat back onto the chair. "We tried to play god. We probed into a greater world and it probed back. They had waited for us to do so, but that isn''t important now." He put out his hand towards DrOS. "What you want to know is on this flash drive, but none of it matters now. It won''t help." Frederic threw the drive over which DrOS caught and stored in its breastplate. Without a moments hesitation it grabbed Melissa and flew up to the broken glass as quickly as possible. as fast as it could out of the facility the way they had come, leaving the arias to slowly fade behind them. "You can''t undo the world''s ruin..." Were the last echoing words DrOS and Melissa heard as they sped through the corridors, accompanied by the loud and deafening metallic scratching of Frederick struggling to light his cigarette, over and over. DrOS carrying Melissa made it out of the complex and without a moments pause launched itself into the air as the highest speed it could achieve. They left the bubble, then the valleys and over the woodlands, heading back to colony 147 without stopping. DrOS was preoccupied with flying while Melissa looked down upon the various landscapes they had previously flown over. This time, however, she could not see the landscapes. Instead, she saw only uncountable shadows that were causing all the unexplained phenomena they had seen up until now. Crushing the land beneath them, drinking the oceans dry. They never knew. All this time they were surrounded by monsters whom they were utterly powerless against, and really, had no concern for them in the slightest. Act Seven - Sensan-Ghi Twice Met Estavir slowly opened his eyes to see the inside of a house, a somewhat familiar house. He stood up and examined his surroundings; he was in the shrine at the foot of the mountain. Behind him, presumably where he had come from, was the wall that looked like a door. He looked around to find there was only one room in this hallway now. There was no more bedroom, no more kitchen, no more bathroom, only the large dimly lit room with all the candles. Reluctantly and afraid of what he may find he walked into the room. He hoped it would be empty as it was when he first arrived. The room was still dark, and the candles still lit, but the shadows and corners of the room were no longer empty. Everywhere he looked he could see black shadowy creatures crawling around. Above every candle hung a darkened silhouette, piercing the dark in his direction with an intense stare from their red glowing eyes. The room felt heavy and stuffy and darker than it had done before, though visible nothing had changed. He walked into the middle of the room and sat down. He prayed. He prayed in absolute silence with his eyes closed, feeling the beaming of all eyes in the room on him. He knew this feeling well, he knew who they were and why they were here now. He finished his silent prayer before bowing his head as low as he could. Stolen novel; please report. Upon raising his head a singular large candle had materialised before him and above it hung three shadowy figures. They said nothing and did nothing. Estavir bowed to them before kicking the candle over and walking out. He left the shrine at the foot of the mountain and made his way to the campfire where he had met Bolfog. No one was there but the campfire was lit, with the kettle starting to whistle. He took the kettle off the fire and poured it into a cup that was already there, waiting for him. He took the cup up to his face to smell the tea and sat as he saw the flames engulf the shrine. The stars were bright, the sky was clear and the flickering light from the fire cast playful shadow on the first gate and on the mountain face. He watched mesmerised for hours as the shrine burned. The shadows played until night turned to morning. As the day crept in, the mountain Sensan-Ghi faded from view until it was completely gone. All that could be seen in its stead was a clear morning sky and a rising sun. Estavir remained sitting, drinking his tea until the shrine had stopped burning and all that remained was a pile of ash. When the last smoke trail left the pile of ashes he got up and walked to the gate, which was no longer glowing in its golden hum. As he got close, as if looking through a gateway to a different world, he could still see the mountain Sensan-Ghi towering ahead under the arch, though it was no longer there. He held out his hand to place it on the archway and felt only cold wood. He bowed and thanked the gateway. I was not worthy. He turned around, kept his head low and walked off into the bushes from whence he first appeared. The three dark shadowy figures rose from the ashes in time to witness Estavir''s silhouette obscured by bushes. "May your journey lead you back to us one last time." They echoed in unison, too softly for Estavir to hear, as they evaporated in the rays of the morning sun.