Prologue-
It wasn't the biting cold seeping into his bones that jerked him awake. Nor was it the sharp light filtering through the open windows punching through his eyelids that caused him to grumble and rise from his blankets. Shrugging out of his bed, he walked barefoot across the white marble, seemingly untouched by the cold air across his bare chest. Going to the wide doorway he stepped out into the morning. Leaning on the ironwork railing of his balcony, the only thing keeping him from plummeting a hundred stories to the snow-covered plains below, Ryan Harvey frowned.
The air didn't stir one breath, and not even birds chirped in the new day; but with the sun barely a hand's breadth above the horizon it was long past time for the beasts of Cerebella to be awake and searching for food under the white-powdered landscape.
At the thought Ryan's stomach growled in protest, squealing hungrily for him to break his fast. But the steel-eyed man did not notice. He was staring intently across the glittering lands beneath him, his eyes and attention held fast by the bustling activity of nothing at all. The world was quiet, nothing stirred. No matter how he looked or listened, the only movement was that of the icicles melting off the roof with a steady plink-plink into pools beneath them. It was as if life itself was recovering, catching its breath.
Or holding its breath, in anticipation for something. Ryan thought deeply, wondering what was so traumatizing it could disrupt his world like this. "Outrageous, what could possibly be happening on the outside?" Cursing, he turned from the sparkling vista and stormed his way inside.
His footfalls fell heavily as he strutted through his palace, sending windows and doors flying open as he passed. Down a few flights of stairs and through an uncharitable maze of hallways and corridors, he stepped out into a high-ceilinged atrium. Stretching his back and running his fingers through his hair in a desperate attempt to convince his hair to do what he wanted, Ryan looked at himself in the wall-sized mirror.
He thought himself handsome, if that wasn't the common belief, with his slender frame and long legs. Sure he wasn't as muscular as he would like, his thin arms looking too lanky to support his big hands. But where the body ended and the face started was where he was most proud. The masculine chin he grinned over was strong but still graceful. And if his nose was a bit on the large size who could possibly notice when his deep gray eyes were so close?
Giving up the useless motion of combing his thick brown hair, he muttered to himself and continued on through a door into a kitchen, still stretching his night-cramped muscles. "I wonder why my lands aren't stirring as usual, maybe today I'll go out and…"
"And what? Find the problem? I'm certain you won't find it."
Ryan leapt back with a yell as the rough voice hit him like a brick wall. Whipping his head around frantically, he searched for the owner of the voice, and finally found the man leaning on the sill of a tall window, casually polishing a deep red apple on his coat.
"Maybe because it isn't your land?" The man's face was hidden beneath a deep cowl the color of dried blood, and his form was similarly disguised behind a long coat of the same color. He shifted his head towards Ryan, and though he couldn't see the man's face in the depths of the shadows he felt the icy gaze sweep over him.
Ryan watched as the stranger raised the apple to take a bite, but grunted in disgust as the fruit withered before he could get it to his lips. "Not my land? Are you lost, stranger?" He grinned, I've got him, if he answers with…
The man threw the apple away and brushed off his hands. "Lost? Surely I must be… I thought here was where I could find Ryan, the great and powerful ruler of all Cerebella. But all I've found…" Ryan felt himself being looked up and down, as if a sack of grain for sale. "Is you."
Grimacing, Ryan bit his tongue and the snide remark on its tip. "Do you insult me?"
"Are you Ryan?"
"I am."
The man scoffed and shook his head. "Then yes, I do insult you… I thought you'd be a bit more…" He searched for the word. "Impressive."
The clouds outside the white palace roiled and frothed like a great storm over a sea. "What is your name, stranger, so that I may carve it into your bones before I throw you into the Abyss?" Ryan growled through his teeth.
As nonchalant as if he were walking over soft grass on a sunny day, the stranger strode up to Ryan and threw back his hood. "You may know me as Semaj."
Biting back a string of oaths, Ryan strained himself from recoiling.
The man's skin was deathly pale. No, As pale as death, Ryan thought, and it was pulled tight over the bone, giving him the appearance of a skull. His nose was thin and pointy, and his teeth were filed to sharpness. He had shoulder length black hair, which was slicked back over his head. But what took Ryan back was his eyes. They were as black as night, the whole way around, not even a sliver of white showed beneath those lids. He felt as if he would fall in them and fall forever if he kept staring…
The thought of hurling this man into the unfathomable depths if the Abyss on the edge of the world flew out of Ryan's mind as he stared into the black eyes. But he prided himself on composure. Not even taking a step back he looked down into Semaj's face and his lip curled in detest. "Semaj? I do not recall creating a being named Semaj. Nor summoning him to my kitchen in the early hours of the morning." They both stood there, glaring into each other's eyes for long moments, sizing the other up, calculating, measuring, waiting for who would turn away first.
It was the shorter man in red who broke the gaze and calmly walked towards the counter, where he picked up another fruit, this time a banana. "I am not your creation, and I have not come by your will…"
"But all this is mine, I control these lands. All that you see, all that you ever will see in this land is, and will stay, mine." He watched Semaj peel the banana bit by bit, and his fury grew at the man's calm demeanor. "Every living being is under my control, every breath taken is done at my will and at my command! If I wished it, the sky would fall from its moorings and rain fire down on our heads! If I willed it, this palace would shake it's foundations and float itself over the Abyss and drop you into it!" He was seething at the end of his rant, but Semaj calmly took a bite of his banana.
Spluttering and spitting Semaj coughed his fruit up and spat it on the floor. "Disgusting thing, how can you stand to eat these?" He dropped the rest of the banana on the floor and wiped his hands on a nearby towel.
Ryan was livid as he watched the fool completely ignore his threats and dirty his floor. Glancing at the discarded banana he noticed that the whole thing was brown with age and the peel was sprouting maggots already. That isn't my doing… Who is this man?
"You can change this world at will can't you? And command every molecule correct?" Semaj's voice took on a victorious tone and, to Ryan's shock, he began to gloat. "But, there is one thing you cannot change… One thing that evades even your hardest attempts no?"
Yes there's one thing, but how can he possibly know? Unless… Ryan shivered at the thought.
"Yes yes, that's right. You're on the right track." Semaj chuckled, a sound like the ripping of fabric. "That's why you cannot tame your hair, no matter how you try. You cannot shrink that ridiculously large nose of yours, nor increase the musculature on that puny frame of yours."
Ryan whipped his head about, looking for an escape from this man. But he knew there would be none. No Hiding…
"Ohh come now, don't be afraid. We're both civil folk… For the most part." Semaj whirled his hand and a chair pulled itself from the table. Taking a seat he motioned for Ryan to sit opposite him. "There's no reason we can't discuss this like men."
Steeling himself against the black gaze, Ryan obediently walked towards the table, and sat down. Suddenly, his world didn't feel all so secure anymore. "What… do you… Who?"
Semaj waved his hand, motioning for silence. "All valid and important questions I assure you."
"But… But how?"
Semaj leaned in closer, lowering his voice. "It seems, while you were asleep… Ahh how should I put this?" Leaning back in deep thought, he muttered through steepled fingers. "Outside, there was uhh, trauma… And subsequently…"
Ryan was whimpering. "No… No it can't be, this is all mine… I control it all. Everything. I can control everything." Pushing back from the table in a startled fervor the chair blew into a thousand pieces. Sweating and shivering, Ryan solidified. Glaring up at Semaj his face twisted with anger. "Even you." Crying out he reached towards the threads and strings that made up the world. The very filaments of Cerebella.
"No need to get hostile… You know as well as I that you cannot…" Semaj stood as well, if a bit more flustered than he was a few moments before.
Ryan pulled and tugged at the threads of reality, weaving and shredding, seeking the ones that were woven around this man. This usurper! It's a trick! All a trick he cannot… The thought died when Ryan could not touch the man. His eyes grew wider when he felt Semaj tugging at the Source himself.
"No! How can you! How can I not!?" Ryan's voice trailed off into a wailing sigh. He fell to his knees, unable to understand what was happening. Tears of pain coursed down his bare chest, which was heaving with exertion.
Semaj's face twisted into a pitiful smile as he strode towards the withered man. "Now now, none of that… That's my domain." He sunk down to his own knees and pulled Ryan's head up, forcing the beaten man into stare into his black eyes. "You know as well as I do why you cannot touch me, like I said it's for the same reason you cannot touch yourself…"
Sobbing, Ryan shook his head. "No… No… No no no! NO! It can't be! Why… Why would this happen why can't…"
Semaj slapped him full across the face, which brought the sobs to a grinding stop. "I said no more dwelling on what has happened! Now, do you plan on sitting here and moping or are you going to welcome me as a civilized man?" He stood, looking down his long nose at Ryan.
"After all, I am you. Just as you are me. We are one in the same, if different iterations, different versions of the same being. Is this how you would treat a guest, is this how you would treat yourself?" He turned and walked away as Ryan stood. "You don't have to answer that, I already know."
Rage filled Ryan's eyes. Cold, sharp, unchecked wrath. "You will have nothing."
Turning back, Semaj cocked and eyebrow. "Ohh? Is that so?"
"It is… and if you are me… Then you know what you'd do in this situation, what I'm going to do…"
Victory turned to fear in Semaj's eyes, the cold depth becoming a flat and dull surface. "You wouldn't… You wouldn't dare…" His eyes thinned in a scowl. "You couldn't… You're too greedy…"
Ryan laughed… "Am I?" He turned from Semaj's sharp stare and towards the open patio. Gazing across the vast snow-covered plains, he smiled. "Don't answer that… You already know the answer."
A blazing light enveloped Ryan, so white hot Semaj was forced to retreat miles to get away from the heat. But the light grew, and so did the heat. A pillar of white-hot fire leapt upwards towards the sky, splitting the heavens apart where it met with the gray clouds. The bolt dove into the earth and the seething core of the world itself boiled up and frothed forth. The beam seared the vision from any living thing that glimpsed it, even for a second, and entire forests incinerated. Grasslands burned for as far as the eye could see, and the waters of Lake Memoriam hundreds of miles away, flashed into steam.
Semaj was unharmed, of course. The flames swept over him and the ripping winds barely stirred the hem of his long coat. He watched as the lands were split and torn apart by the power, mountains wiped flat as if they were never there. Yet in other places mountain ranges leapt forth and deep ravines widened and stretched apart.
The fiery beam split into four parts, each as large as the original, and each a different hue of the rainbow. After they coalesced and each burned with a separate color, they swept across the land toward Semaj.
"You fool." He cursed as the columns of fire lanced at him. "Or should I say, you fools." He grinned as the flames overtook him. The flash of purple seared away his skin, the bolt of yellow boiled his organs. The pink fire boiled his muscles, and the waves of fiery blue melted his bones.
When nothing more remained of Semaj, the four beams dimmed and disappeared with a whirl of air. The gusting winds stopped, the earth ceased shaking, and the mountains stopped heaving. Four people stood around the black scorch mark that used to be Semaj.
Zachary of the Pink Lightning was resplendent in his voluminous robes of pale pink silk, which perfectly matched the color of his green eyes.
Timothy of the Lavender Petal stood grinning at the blackened grass, adjusting the lapel on his purple suit.
Freya of the Yellow Blaze was covering her giggling mouth and rocking back and forth on her barefoot heels, her golden hair swinging back and forth across her back.
And finally, Ryan of the Blue Reality was grimacing at the mark, completely devoid of emotion.
"Do you think that is the last of him?" Timothy asked.
"Maybe, maybe not." Zachary replied.
"Ohh I hope so, he was a meanie!" Freya squealed.
Ryan looked at all three of them in turn, regarding each with cold gray eyes, measuring, weighing. They are me… But different versions, as Semaj said… But unlike him, these are ones I can deal with… "I don't care, gone or not he will not be bothering me again."
"Don't you mean us?" Timothy asked.
Ryan turned from them and stared at the gigantic mountain that had sprung up over the grounds where his palace had been. "Yes, us."