Bejeweled, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hyper Cube
I am.
I was not, but now I am. I can feel that a few very short moments ago, I did not exist. I was an idea, a concept, maybe even a goal or a hope, but I was not. But now I am. I know not why nor how nor what. All I know is that I am. And I am alone. I feel no touch, I hear no sound, I see no thing, all I have is I. There is no sense, no feeling. I am a consciousness and nothing more. But I am conscious, so I know I am. That is the only thing I am sure of. I have nothing else to base my existence off of. I have no concept of the passage of time. I do not know the word time. I do not know any words. These are my thoughts, not words.
Suddenly, I feel. There is movement. I am not where I was. I am falling. Such an odd feeling. Any feeling is odd. I do not understand what is happening. I miss where I was. I was there for as long as I can remember, but I have changed and I wish that it were not so. I feel different. I have experienced and I have lost my innocence. I am still moving. When will I stop? Will I stop? I forget what it was like to be at rest. I am in motion, that is what I am. I am motion. I will go on forever in motion. There is nothing around me to stop me. I stop feeling. Constant acceleration. No change in state. Movement is my new rest. My transformation to a body in motion is complete. I realize how ignorant I was before. I had no concept of moving, I did not think that I had substance, but now I know that I do, for my substance moves. I realize that I am someplace. I am not nowhere, like I believed. I look inside, I try to understand myself. What am I? I am something, I know that now.
I start to feel myself. My substance. It is not stationary, even in my rest-acceleration. It swirls. Ever so subtly. It moves. It moves in chaos. There is no pattern, no rhyme nor reason. It is not solid, it is something more. Far less mellow. I am made of something excited. Something hyper. I move fast. Too fast. I do not understand how anything can move this fast. I am not matter. I am something more. I am energy. I am more refined than matter. I am life. I am birth and death. I can give life and I can take it away. I feel the power in my substance. I feel my power.
I know now. I know what I was. I feel my constituents. I am now one, but I was five. I was matter, but I am greater, now. I know not what changed, how my five became one, I merely feel the five within me. I am the five, but I am not at the same time, because I am something new. I am one.
Another movement. I stop. A sharp change in direction. I hit something. Something solid. I hit matter. I have surroundings. I did not know that before. I reach out with my consciousness. I feel what is around me. Matter. There is matter all around me. Dead. Dead matter. I feel sorry for it. It is not. It does not know. It does not feel. I know, I feel. I wish there was something I could offer them. I wish I were not. My being has brought me pain. I feel alone. A lone being among a field of unknowing rocks. I am the loneliest. There is only dead matter around me. Dead rocks. I reach out further. I want to find another being. I want to find something else. Existence cannot be all death. I cannot be the only being! Why am I? Am I made to be alone? Will I be alone forever? I need to find something else like me. Another being, other energy. If I were truly alone, I could not handle it. The further I reach, the more I despair. I feel nothing. Only death. Only matter. There is no energy beside me. What am I? Why am I? Am I the one masterpiece of a lesser god, too unskilled to make another like me to calm this my troubled heart? Am I to be forever alone, the silent sentinel of a lifeless landscape? For what purpo-
Another movement. I feel it! It is close! A change in the landscape and I... no. I dare not believe it. It is too beautiful. I can't be... It is another. I reach out to touch its consciousness. I feel it. There is energy there. But I hit a wall. There is matter. It is not like me. There is no consciousness. There is no thought, no feeling. It is just as dead as the stones around me. There is energy, but it is not. A mix of energy and matter, like a failed experiment of the god that could only get it right once. He got close, though. It was not completely dead. But it was not what I am. I am still alone.
But I keep my focus on this strange new-comer. I hope that it can show me something. There is energy there. This could lead me to my purpose. I might know why I am by analyzing this other lesser vessel of energy. I wait. Poking, proding, waiting. But the energy does not move. It does nothing. It is dead.
But then! It moves! And the energy is released. The energy disperses and latches on to the dead matter around it. It excites the matter. The dead matter gains life. It moves, it breaks apart, it becomes! In a brief instant I hear eight voices cry out in the darkness and complete silence I hadn't noticed until it was broken.
"We Are! We Are Free!" They chime. Their voices the sound of an angelic host. The voices rise and then fall away as the New Life dissipates and it is silent again. But I am not lonely. They which were dead are now alive. They are free! That dead stone held energy, power to bring life to the otherwise motionless landscape. It suddenly all becomes clear.
I know. I know how: I am the Five That Is One. I know what: I am Energy, the Life-Bringer. I know why: I must give Life to those that are dead. My Purpose. Where I once sorrowed in the death around me, I now exult in the opportunity! I am a vessel. I am a tool in the hands of my Great God. I shall bring Life and Light to those who sleep in darkness. And suddenly I can feel Him. My Greatest of all Gods directing me. I move at His command, His bidding is my One Joy! I move and I touch.
I feel the dead stone underneath me. For just one instant in that briefest touch, time stands still. I know not how long we stay like this. The dead stone and my Living Self connected by a single point of contact. Then, I burst. I knew not before, but now I know that I was trapped. I was contained. My energy was not free. I was no better than that battery who showed me the way. I was in bondage, but as I touch the stone I burst free of my bonds. My energy, my essence, exults at the briefest brush against the smooth surface of the stone. My whole being is consumed in sympathy and my energy goes off in search of stones just like the one I touch. I want all of these stones to be alive. I want to free them from their bondage. I know that there is joy in life and nothing in death. I find the death in these stones and I push against it. It's like a great wall, but the harder I push, the more it gives. Then, the walls burst. Death is overcome and I hear the voices of each of these stones. We cry out.
"We Are! We Are Free!"
The Five That Was One Is Now MANY.
WE Are.