The Weight of the World

Chapter 1: More To The Stranger

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9 hadn't seen any sign of life in two weeks. Two weeks ago he had walked out of that factory, not knowing what he was doing but glad he had done something right. He'd thought a lot about what the others had done when he was away, sleeping on the floor of the emptiness, not bothering to look for shelter, knowing nothing else was out there to cause him harm. He hadn't even bothered to dust himself off.

He sighed as he watched yet another day fall over the horizon, dangling so delicately, a beautiful sight for something so powerful to be controlled by the turning of the Earth. He was on the top of a mangled, dusty car, leaning back on his hands and crossing his legs, smiling up at the sky.

9 had taken to talking to himself, as there was no one else to talk to, and his mind longed to hear some sound.

"It's really symbolic..." he said to himself. "It reminds me that even something so beautiful and bright, something that has that amount of energy and power, is still in the long run controlled by something even greater than itself... Or perhaps not so great at all..."

He was right. Even the magnificent sun, something that once supplied the Earth's creatures with warmth and power, had to fade every single day just because the Earth was spinning around it. It had to die each day, just because the Earth spun on an axis.

9 sighed and watched it, counting the last several seconds out loud.

"Three... Two... One..." he breathed. "And... It's gone..."

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The next day, 9 rose with the sun, and continued walking. He was never sure where it was he was going, but he just walked, all day, most of the night, and he found himself memorizing the city he had come to call the Emptiness.

He often missed the others, missed the adventure and thrill he had gone through, but now felt quite empty. 7 didn't love him, and he would never fall out of love with her. 5 hadn't been taught to trust himself, though he trusted everyone else. 1 was still stubborn and uptight, surely he wouldn't believe 9's story.

What proof did he have anyways? He had a scar on his shoulder, filled in with red thread, but that had happened before all this mess, in any time he had been in. He had his knowledge of the future, what everyone said when he followed the path correctly, but he hadn't. He'd walked off.

What reason did he even have to be here? He remembered, only two weeks ago, when he believed that everyone had a purpose. And he knew he had a very important one once, but now there was nothing left for him to do. What of the others? Why were they still here? What more was there to do?

"Nothing." he said as he walked along, looking around at the quiet Emptiness with both love and hate. He didn't like this place, yet it was all he had. Solitude, isolation, self-exiled in this deep pain he would never know how to heal.

Eventually he would come upon something interesting in the Emptiness, and he would store it inside of him if it fit, or leave it upright if he wanted it enough, to come back to admire it later. He carried a spool of thread with him and some needles inside of him, but the things like small metal rods he would use if he needed were left behind. He didn't have as much room as he normally did because he was still hauling around the talisman.

He had also taken to building small figures with metal objects, like snowmen with snow, only there was no snow... There was no rain... 9 wondered why. He had stopped himself from waking the BRAIN, hadn't he?

Why was there no rain?

Since there was hardly anything else to do in a place called the Emptiness, 9 pondered on this question all the time. But he never came up with an answer. Would he ever come up with an answer? Not by himself... He needed someone who actually knew it to begin with.

He needed 6 or F.

But in order to do that he would have to go back to the Cathedral, with the 5 that didn't trust himself, the nice 2 he felt guilty for just by looking at him, the leader 1, who 9 thought at this point he'd never get to listen...

And then there was 7.

9 had been doing a lot of thinking in his two weeks in the Emptiness, and when he wasn't thinking about the rain that should be coming, he was thinking about 7. Where was she now? Had she been thinking about the stranger that had just walked out of her life? Did she really see more to him? Would she ever?

Didn't she say souls never forget?

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The next day, 9 made up his mind. He was going to go back to the Cathedral.

He wasn't sure why he had decided it, but the main reason was because he was just plain tired of being out in the Emptiness alone. There was no one to talk to but himself, and often he couldn't think of anything to say. Besides, he wasn't getting anything done out here, except for thinking about 7.

And of course that was only getting him burying further within himself, drowning in need and sorrow.

He walked up to it now, in it's shadow, overwhelmed by the symbolism of standing next to it in all it's magnificence. It was indeed the single standing building for almost four whole blocks. It was the only one with a window that wasn't cracked that 9 had seen in a long time. He couldn't remember at the moment if he even had seen another with a healthy-looking window.

He pondered on how 5 and the other's would take his sudden return. Perhaps just as they did his sudden leave? Maybe they wouldn't care. Most-likely they wouldn't care. He was only one of them anyways, and they didn't need to worry themselves over a mysterious stranger such as himself.

But there was much more to this stranger than any one of the inhabitants of the Cathedral could ever get.

9 reached the back entrance, the way only the scouts used, and stepped into the dark room that had obviously been carved out of the wood. He was greeted immediately by a warm hug, that he returned with a surprised face.

"5?" he said, feeling the familiar scar of ink on his best friends back as he rubbed it comfortingly. He realized just how dusty he was in comparison with 5's kept and clean burlap skin.

5 was shaking slightly, and he felt a bit warmer than he remembered.

"God, 9, I'm so glad you came back." he said shakily. 9 murmured an 'It's alright'. "No, it's not. 1 can't stop talking about you. He's mad, 9! But I don't know why. And 6 won't stop drawing your name all over the place. First he drew two stitchpunks we don't know, and now it's your name! He's been out of paper for three days now and he hasn't complained once. He just keeps on drawing your name! And then today he walked up to the watchtower to tell me he needed to speak to you when you came back, and he was right, 9! You came back! And I'm so glad you did because-"

9 thought he'd stop him there. "5." he said firmly, a smile in his voice to assure 5 he wasn't being stern. "I'm fine. And I'm back. Ok? But now I think I have to talk to 6. He did say he wanted to speak with me, didn't he?"

5 let go and nodded, pulling back and looking up at 9 with worried optics, and his slight frown and pout he did when he was scared.

9 smiled gently, patting his shoulder, amazed that feeling someones shoulder under your hand could make you feel so relieved.

"No, where is he? I think I should see him first. Before 1." he chuckled slightly, trying to help make 5 feel better. 5 gulped and looked down. "Don't you think?" 9 urged.

"Y-yeah." 5 said quietly, leading him out of the room.

As they walked, 9 thought about and analyzed the information he had just been given. So 1 and 6 both wanted to talk to him. Why was 1 mad at him? He hadn't even been here to do anything! And what of 6? Why did the gifted stitchpunk, the only one who knew what 9 had been through, feel the need to talk to him?

5 walked toward the bucket elevator, keeping his head down as he did. It pitied 9 to see him in this state, cringing inward, drawn into himself by his own gravity, forever hiding within himself. 9 wanted him to see that he could be more, but he knew just by looking at poor 5 that that task could take much time.

"So what exactly did he say? Just that he needed to talk to me? Did he say what about?" 9 asked, watching 5's back.

"Just that he wanted to speak with you. And he just walked away." 5 said, a trace of worry still in his voice. 9 didn't like that sound, that worry. It was like a stubborn ember in a dying fire, one he was trying to put out, and no matter how much he stomped on it, it would still be there. Only when you used water would the ember finally cease it's burning.

"And what did you do?" he asked, pressing 5 into a dicussion.

5 took a breath, sounding a bit annoyed. He must have been used to the silence as well.

"I questioned it, but when I looked out into the telescope, as I was told to do by 2 since it was my watch, and I saw you walking toward the Cathedral." he said, it all seeming to come out in one breath.

Before 9 could think up anything else to ask, he noticed they had reached the bucket elevator that would take them upward to both 6's room and 1's throne room. It occured to him that speaking to 6 first would be rather difficult since going to speak to him would involve his presence being known by 1.

He offered to pull them up the bucket's shaft, and grunted a bit with the effort. He hadn't been streining himself lately, so he wasn't used to pulling his and someone elses body weight up three floors.

There was a clattering noise, and 1's voice sounded in through the Cathedral.

"Is it him?" he asked 8, who's head popped over the edge to look down at 9 with an evil grin.

All this was too familiar to 9, and he found himself remembering the past, or future, when he had done almost the same thing. Maybe he would get to quote the elder after all.

"It's 5 and the wee one." 8 grunted, looking back at what 9 guessed was 1, his smile wiped off his face and he took hold of the ropem beginning to pull the bucket up and into the throne room.

1 sat, high and mighty, upon his throne, his head held high and his staff held strongly in his right hand. His feet were flat on the floor, and his back was straight. His optics burned so fiercly into 9 that his burlap tingled, itched. He ignored it, staring up at 1 with dignity, a fierce yet subtile stare that 1 returned easily. The cats were at it again.

Before the inevitable fight began, 1 dismissed 5 from the throne room, and told 6 not to interfere. 6 frowned but nodded, silently giving 9 a desperate look that 9 easily translated into an urgent plea. 6 needed to tell him something. He would have to come by later perhaps. 9 nodded slowly, once, so as not to let 1 see.

6 disappeared in the shadows of his own confinement, only able to watch what he knew to be something worth hiding from.

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