(Edited: Part of this was previously in chapter one. Split. Added the rest of the chapter.)
Chapter Two: Teela Ketana
Teela watched Ryuzaki eat and turned to the window. She was having a hard time coming up with what to tell Ryuzaki, and her own morals had begun to bother her. The girl did believe in God, but she wondered what kind of God would curse her with the choices she often had to make.
She had long ago made the decision that she would no longer interfere with death, but here she was again, waltzing with him like a long-missed and divorced lover. It had only cost her half her life force, and she didn't feel any differently.
"A question, if you don't mind answering." Ryuzaki's words came out through the last bites of ice cream he ingested.
"Shoot." Her voice seemed hallow now, uninspired.
"Can I infer that you're very
intelligent?"
"L, if I may call you so, why don't you answer
that yourself?"
"How old are you?"
"Answer it
yourself." She sighed.
"Do we have to keep playing this question-answer game, Teela? You obviously know a lot more about me than I know about you."
"You WANT to know about me?" The girl turned sharply, a slight smile on her face. "No, you don't want to know about me. You only want to know about me so you can figure out why you're here and how I did what I did. You want to know the whole story, L. You could care less about me."
"Not true. I do believe I have no choice but to care because you are a great factor in this, obviously. I just wish you'd stop giving me round about answers, and tell me why I'm here, because I'm sick of beating around the bush. You want me to figure out everything on my own and yet you provide me with no base knowledge."
Teela Ketana laughed aloud. She then came to sit beside Ryuzaki
"Fine. I'll share my story. For one
thing, I am a shapeshifter. I told you that. I was a little surprised
you didn't ask me to demonstrate or anything. I suppose you believe
me."
"I do believe you, because I can see that you're not one
to really lie. Or so I see so far."
"Yes... but, I'm from another
dimension. I seen you in yours through a black box called a
TV--"
"That thing you watch programs on?"
"No... it's
not like that kind of TV. It's an Existence TV, I guess you could
call it. I see things from other dimensions. I told you that already,
Ryuzaki. I used to believe I was meant to be some sort of super hero,
because I am a shapeshifter, after all, and most of us have only one
or two weaknesses...for the few of us that're exist anymore. Either
way, I used to go around watching for danger and rescuing people,
creatures, etc., until I was forced to sacrifice my life for my own
world."
"Obviously you didn't?"
"I
did." Teela Ketana smiled. Ryuzaki noticed that her skin seemed to
glow when she did.
"A sacrifice is when you give up something. Sacrificing yourself would mean you would have died."
"In a way, I did. I'm a shapeshifter, and we don't die very easily. We're not like people, not like you at all Ryuzaki, which is why I didn't really worry about sacrificing... It's a story I don't care to share, a life that I've left behind... With too many loved ones left behind." She turned back towards the window and sighed.
"Who did you bring back?"
"It's
not important. You've never met them, and you probably never will. In
fact..."
"I want to know!" Ryuzaki pressed, the urgency in his voice causing Teela to recoil. She was shocked at his hunger for knowledge.
"It was my husband... Look, I've made a lot of bad choices throughout my existence. I don't really want to recall any of it. I live for the moment now."
"You're married? You seem... Very
young. Ten? Twelve?"
"I can take on the appearance I want,
remember? In estimate I'm pretty young. Definitely within age of
human life span... but I've seen and done so much more than most
others."
"I can tell. I'm not married. No
children. Grew up in an orphanage."
"I see." In truth,
Teela knew that already, but didn't feel the need to be rude.
"Can you tell me where, exactly, we
are now?"
"Fine... We're in what I would call, the
dimensional hub. That is... One of the few places where multitudes of
dimensions are touching, but not enough to cause harm or changes to
the people who pass through."
"What do you mean by
harm?"
"Well, if you just have a tendency to rip through
dimensions, it can change you. Some are ripped from their bodies,
some have their bodies completely changed, and others get stuck."
Ryuzaki said nothing. Teela could see the apparent shock on his face though, as well as confusion.
"What's wrong?" The shapeshifter asked.
"I'm trying to see how everything
you say... fits in with anything else, and find a suitable math
problem to equal all of what you're telling me."
Teela laughed,
and from her pocket pulled out a piece of paper. It had many numbers
and symbols written on it. L took note that it looked very worn, and
had obviously traveled far. It seemed to be a complex math problem,
which after ten strings of a continuing problem, came to one
conclusion: In bright, blue letters, INFINITY.
"Infinity?"
"That is to say
that everything is nothing and nothing is everything, which thereby
means that everything is everything including nothing."
"...
What?" This perplexed Ryuzaki even more. "I have
never..."
"Sorry... I didn't mean to confuse you more. In
short, everything is weird, because... well, in order to be
everything, you have to be nothing as well, and to be nothing, you
must be everything. That's the math problem, which is easiest to
express in words in my opinion."
"Where did you find all of
those figures? How did you come up with this?"
"Because
that's my story, Ryuzaki. Infinity. The highest dimension there is,
which is actually the first, the base, and a support for all other
dimensions."
Teela shrugged, her serious look immediately
fading.
"But I'm not into all that intelligent crap. I want to live my life. I don't want to live analyzing everything and find out how 'everything fits in with everything.'"
Ryuzaki sat in silence. He began to drink the melted ice cream, his mind toying with what Teela had just told him. It made no sense at all, and yet it made every possible thing he'd ever heard logical. Simple, but too complex. For the first time since being brought back to life, he was amused. This was interesting.
