Creation 1.1

Two beings spiral through the void, following a dance not even they know, falling towards an infinite set of planets, intent on continuing a cycle.

One is impacted by a third; The Thinker becomes that much more versatile, new possibilities blooming like a field of fractal flowers.

The Thinker sends a flurry of decisions to the parts of itself crafting the cycle; one such part that creates unique shards to test for future cycle formats begins its work, searching for examples of true unity among the infinite worlds, ones that would still work with the chosen cycle form. It finds a handful of worlds, and begins sorting through them for any viable means of creating a cycle.

It takes each example and sets supershards to work analyzing and emulating the symbiotic relationships. One in particular is focused on, due to the versatility and demonstrated ability to adapt already shown.

A single reality; an anomaly, as it were; wherein a world of intangible beings had little to no dimensional barrier to a world of the more common sentient life of this planet-set, and they turned, not to violence between themselves, but to symbiosis, and grew beyond each lifeform's own ability. This would be the Test; this shard would see if this symbiosis was really viable and preferable for the cycle.

The Thinker, lost in visions of a new future, a refined cycle, draws closer to the planet, heedless of the warnings from its Warrior.

The supershard was set to work on the first Symbiosis shard. Future buds would follow a similar layout to the first, but the first must be made correctly or else the test would fail before it ever started. It replaced the bond with the being with a shard bond, offloading host control directly to the shard for the protective state, so as to defend the host body; this would allow the host to live longer, and thus the shard would gather more data. For the same reasons, it added increased learning capacity for physical combat techniques, to better gather data more quickly; and finally, began to remove-

The Thinker crashes into a subset of the planets, and shards are flung off blindly, without targets. Many fail to find an adequate host quickly enough, instead going dormant and awaiting recollection; some are fully formed enough to find a target, one similar to their original intended hosts. One such shard is Symbiosis.

As it flies, destined to come down halfway through the cycle, an infinitesimally unlikely event occurs; it hits another shard, one from the Warrior. They fuse, and are forced to find a host sooner rather than later, before they become too unstable.

They find a host in mid-fall.

-Shangri-La-

I didn't want this. Not like this, not by accident. I just wanted to be listened to, to be seen, and to feel like someone cared.

I fell from the third story window, my life flashing before my eyes.

-Shangri-La-

I was an extremely sheltered kindergartener, taken to my grandma's house because my mom was unconscious again. I didn't understand.

I was riding in the car, being asked if I wanted to go to a better school, then ignored when I said I didn't want to leave my friends. I didn't understand.

I was in first grade, a new school, ridiculed for how fast I learned, laughed at for how little I knew about the world, and books became my only friends. I didn't understand.

I was in second grade, and my life was falling apart. I was smart, but smarts don't stop bullies, or keep your dad nearby, or stop you from moving, or keep your one new friend in town. Smarts don't stop your brain from betraying you, your eyes from weakening. They don't even help you get the attention of your mother, not on a bad day. I didn't understand.

I was in third grade, and I understood. Life wasn't fair. People can be broken. Nobody can think of a third grader as a person capable of logic, and no amount of trying can help. Bullies don't get better, they triple down, and anyone who reaches out is hurt too. Not physically, they know they would be caught- just little things, things you can't respond to, things your sheltered upbringing didn't understand but now you do, and it hurts more every day and your counselor doesn't realize how bad it is and you just want it to stop.

I wanted it to just stop.

-And now, I wanted to keep going, because despite that, I had brothers and I understood my mother now and oh god why did I do this-

They found me in the windowsill, sobbing. I imagined it as a call for help, talking me down as I pour my heart out and they listen for once.

Instead, my mother charged at me, to pull me down. I couldn't tell if it was anger or fear on her face, and recoiled, and lost my balance, and fell headfirst towards the rock garden, thirty feet below.

The ground was coming up so fast-

Destination

Agreement

And I saw vast things.

And then there was pain.

And then I blacked out.

-Shangri-La-

I dreamt of an endless mountain range, beautiful and harsh, with shimmering waterfalls and peaks that scraped the sky. The silence was broken only by the wind, and a distant thundercloud that dwarfed any of the peaks in view. The thunder sent an occasional rolling boom, echoed a million times through the intervening valleys, sounding almost like a conversation between the earth and the sky.

I remembered impressions of vast things spiraling in a void, but that wasn't right. I wasn't a whale, or a parasite, or a god. I was a third grader. I was a boy. I was human, and my name was Michael Bryan Vanderbilt. That was strange, I never had problems remembering before.

Speaking of which… I felt… odd. Like there was more to the world around me. Like the wind could listen, the ground could respond, and the snow could reach out to me. Like the cold would leave me be, for now. Was I dreaming? I reached out to pinch myself-

The thunder boomed. The storm was right above me now, like I had been here for hours. I covered my ears at the sound, and dived into the snow- and got a face full of mud. I looked up in confusion, finding myself in a grassy plain. The rain trickled off of me, singing quiet rhythms at me in harmony with the winds, while the thunder hit a beat with the ground. I tried to find a landmark, but only managed to sight a tree. I stumbled towards the tree, but lightning struck it, and as the thunder crashed, it caught fire. I could feel the fire from here, and the heat was-

Everywhere, much like the flames. It crackled both aloud and in my head, so much that I barely noticed the change of scenery. I felt it consume, I felt it grow, I felt it die out. I heard the hiss of a torrent of rain barely reaching the forest floor, and the pops of trees exploding as they were eaten. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered why the heat felt so real. This was a dream, right? The thunder-

Stopped, mid-clap. I was in a hall of shining metal and crystal, and it was singing. A haunting, unknowable melody rang through the hall, a beautiful harmony and melody and else twining together like a symphony of light. I lay there, lost, for ages, before hearing a repeating note in the music. I tried to listen closer to the high note-

And opened my eyes to a room. A small, white room with a smell of disinfectant to it, and a heart monitor hooked up, beeping a steady note. A hospital room. I was in a hospital room. It slowly came back to me as to why I would be here. What had happened before my –Dream? Vision Quest? Other? To put me here. I braced myself for a long conversation, and sat up.

Ow. Cast on my arm, guessing it's broken. Also, OWWW. I grit my teeth and looked around. Nobody here, guessing I've been out a bit. Guess I should be happy to be alive. Also, not feeling right upstairs, probably a contusi - a concuussss- a head injury. And what was that dream? It felt so real. I could still feel the air humming, the liquid in the IV mumbling a bit on its way down to me, and the heat from inside crackling along, sedate, but present. I must be pretty out of it.

I lay there a bit, arm aching from the movement before, and figured I'd call for a nurse, get it over with. I reached with my unbroken arm, and hit the call button. After a minute, a man arrived, and I asked him to get my family. Or tried to, since nothing came out. I gestured for water, and he passed it to me, but after a sip, nothing. A gulp, nothing. He looked worried, now, and asked if I was alright. I couldn't answer. I couldn't answer.

I finally broke down. I had almost lost my life to make a point, and had lost my voice as well. I liked my voice. It wasn't my only good feature, but it was my most treasured after my memory and reading ability. I sang like an angel, did decent impressions, and hummed along to my favorite songs. I may be exaggerating on the first two, but it was my voice. Or was. How I wish I knew more cuss words right now, even though I could never say them. More, I wanted to say 'I love you' or 'I'm sorry' one more time to my family, to explain this out loud to them, to shout, to cry, to laugh.

I was still silently sobbing when my family came.