Chapter 2- Immortals don't get a happy ending
Ironically, it's the absence of screaming that stirred Alex from his sleep.
In his dorm, one would usually be awaked by the flurry of feet, the small morning chatter as students started their day. That's not so bad by itself, but the chatter, coupled with cars honking through, along with his alarm, and well…
He can still tolerate that. That's fine.
Hell, he's even made peace with his neighbours, even with their irritatingly loud morning routine. If by 'made peace' meant to fantasize about acquainting their face to the floor. Repeatedly.
He's used to noise. He's not used to calm.
That's why the absence of it is magnified, the silence deafening in- in...well, wherever he was.
He sat up, groaning and shaking his head. Brushing the crust from his eyes, he tried to piece together what the hell just happened. His memories came, slowly, and in fragmented pieces, painting a picture of the events of last night.
The acid trip.
He froze as his clearest memory was the small middle age crisis. (He has to remind himself that he's not middle aged, and still far from it.) Instead, the hazy memories that consists of him screaming into a computer disturbs him a little. But now that his thoughts were in order-
-Motor functions,
-Will to live,
-Middle age crisis averted, and damnit, will he stop thinking about that?!
The nagging feeling at the back of his head finally hit him. It was never quiet on the dorm floor. Never. At any given time, there would be small chatter within the hallways, or the sound of electronics quietly humming in the foreground.
The scent of tea wafts through the air, and that was when he decided to actually open his eyes.
"…"
He regretted doing so.
Because now he faced the fact that either he was blind, or in limbo.
All he saw was black.
A never ending abyss of darkness- no, wait, never mind. What he was looking at was nothing.
He pushed his glasses up,(conveniently ignoring the fact that he knew he didn't put on his glasses) and stood up. He saw everything, but everything around him seemed to consist of nothing. He raised his hand to his face, and can see it clearly, but he can't see anything else. He strained his ears, but heard nothing, par his own breathing, and his heartbeat racing sporadically through his ears.
Hmm.
He paused for a moment, trying not to hyperventilate.
Then he started to walk. Walking was better than doing nothing. Striding in no particular direction, he heard and felt his feet hitting the floor, and yet it still somehow felt as though he's walking on air. Cautiously, he reached down to touch the floor, and falls backwards.
His hand passed though.
Nothing was below him, yet something was supporting him.
Musing, "Is this limbo?"
"Close enough."
"GAH!"
He whipped around, and from out of nowhere, the figure appears. Momentarily blinding him, once he blinked away the spots, he saw it was hunched over a table, fiddling with something.
What.
Wisps of coloured light float off her back, flooding into the surrounding. He gasped as colour seeps into the world, filling the world with light, stretching off into eternity.
And there the figure stood. Regal, kingly, and all other words that meant, and was synonymous with power. The figure literally lit up the world.
"Onto business. But first, would you like some tea ?"
The figure finally turns around, holding a kettle.
Adjusted to the light, Alex took note of the figure. It voice was velvety, ancient, smooth, and full of power. It waved a hand, a teacup popping into existence.
He was hesitant to answer a god.
He nodded slowly, as he tried to think of a better response. Too many questions ran through his head, as the situation continued to deteriorate. What small amount of sanity he had left began to call in a meeting to vote on a mass emigration to Tahiti.
'Now then, Earl grey or Green?"
"…"
Then again, tea would be nice.
"Are those lemons supposed to be light-lavender ?"
"Yes, for alliterative purposes."
After the brief respite, his surrounding shifted again, turning into a hallway woven from space, its blackness broken by the patches of stars and galaxies flying through, littered with archways made of the whitest material. He followed her through, glimpsing into the doorways. Each one seemed to lead into a different reality.
While one would have bookshelves that stretched towards the bright blue sky, another would lead into a dark room, a lone marble pedestal holding nothing but a golden apple, shining brightly.
One had nothing.
Another overlooked a sea of magma, spurts of it bursting in the air as bubbles popped. He stayed for a while, observing some sort of animal that looked like a goat, cautiously dipping its head in.
Each archway seemed to hold something unique and strange, and every now and again, Alex would spot wisps of smoke and haze fluttering through, tending to whatever laid inside. He laughed elatedly, seeing the wonder and beauty through it all.
None of it made sense, which only added to the delight.
They continued onwards.
Behind the veils of time and space, she watched.
Once upon a time, she had been a person. Born with the knowledge and understanding of the worlds around her, she excelled in life, and grew to be loved by everyone. But that wasn't enough for her. She wanted more. She learned forgotten knowledge, sacrificed herself to her work, and began to change as a life form.
By the time she breached reality for the first time, she didn't need her body anymore. Her mind became her body, and upon discovering life, she would take shape once again. She visited countless realities, and appeared as a god. She made allies and friends, encountered new life forms, and even found love.
Before long, everyone she knew had died.
She should have shared her knowledge, but she hadn't. She had been tasked with protecting the secrets of life itself. She felt neither hatred nor regret. She mourned for the dead, but felt no pity. If one lived their life to the fullest, then nothing should have brought grief as they passed.
Instead, she was bored. Slowly but surely, every interaction she had was turned into nothing but digits and figures, filed away for analysing. She had experienced so much, and thus, was losing her ability to… experience.
She lashed out. She faded into the veil of space, and brooded for millennia.
It was a lonely existence.
Eventually, she began to watch others. Watching heroes triumph over evil, love blossom between foes, the will of people overcoming impossible odds. She changed and began… feeling, again.
Slowly, she began to... meddle. Granting weapons of justice and light to heroes, encouraging love, twisting fate to benefit a weary traveller, or in several cases, making a boy trip into erotic situations.
Before long though, she realized that if she took action herself, things would quickly become boring. But if she decided to grant others some powers….
Well, Netflix had gotten old years ago.
Of course, she had done things like this before. Sending people into realities of their own making, sending people back in time with their knowledge of the future, grabbing people after death and giving them a second chance - in layman's terms, watching the weak become strong.
"…"
Hmm.
In this case, emphasis on the weak.
He's not freaking out right now. He should be, but he isn't. He's standing in front of the closest thing to a god right now, and he's just sitting there, drinking tea as if it was an everyday occurrence.
It's probably because he thinks it's all a steaming pile of bullshit.
He takes note of the tea, Earl Grey. It's perfect in every way. The scent calms him, which helps in this entire situation. There are holes in her story. (His brain gave up. As inhuman as she was, it was too much of a hassle to keep calling her an it.) If she truly was as old as she said she was, then she should have seen everything there could have been seen.
He believes some of it though. The powers, her evolution into godhood, other gods fumbling around the cosmos. He believes it, because he isn't creative enough to think up of the stuff that he had seen here. It's the lifespan that he doesn't believe. Several millennia, billions of years, all spent alone. He just doesn't believe that anyone could do that. He doesn't believe it's worth the agony.
He thinks, and he tries not to show it, that they wouldn't be remotely human anymore.
Instead, he asks one of the more pressing questions lingering in his head.
"Why me?"
To be honest, he had been prepared to be let down. Out of all the people in the world, god decided to pay him a visit. Was it fate? Was it the whims of life? Or was it destiny, calling out for him?
"That's not destiny calling for you, It's me."
Still didn't hurt any less.
"Well, technically, in some small aspect, you kinda are, uh..., were ? My destiny? "
"Fair enough,-"
"Hold up. You still didn't answer the question. Why choose me out of everyone else in the universe? And plus, in all the millennia you lived, this-"
He gestured around him.
"-this is one time you thought about doing so?"
She slowly turns to him. (And this is coincidentally the exact moment where Alex recalls that curiosity killed the cat, the cat being him, and curiosity is the God with untold powers that had lived for billions and billions of years that's sitting across from him that could potentially turn him into a very fine paste with a flick of her hand.)
"Random chance. And no, this isn't the first time I've done this. "
She receives a withered look, and chuckles to herself.
"As you probably forgot, I am still mortal. Longevity was one of my first goals, amongst other things, but as my body is one of a god-"
She tapped her head.
"My mind is still mortal."
It takes a second for the ball to drop.
Alex nearly barks out in laughter. A brief flash of a distant migraine hit him, and he stumbles. Disbelief crosses his face. "You? You, god. Capital G, GOD. You, out of all people, can forget things ?!"
She sighs. "As expansive as my mind is, I have to be selective about these things."
Grumbling, she rapped her knuckles on his head, causing him to wince.
"There's not enough room in here for everything. When one memory comes in, another goes out."
She sags in her seat. "Sometimes there are memories that I can't forget. Even if the world grows more and more distant from the time they came from. I can't just 'forget' something, I have to remove it on purpose. Some memories are here to stay, because if I forget, it would be a dishonour, and it would tarnish my soul. Some are here to bind me to reality. Some remind me of past mistakes. If I lose even these, then I'll have nothing left."
Alex wisely stays silent. Until he doesn't. (He is not a wise man)
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "This is going to sound really stupid, but, why don't you just write all your memories down?"
She stares (Well, he thinks she stares, he can't really tell) at him innocuously, before bursting into bitter laughter. "You honestly think I haven't thought of that?"
She weaves another archway of brilliant light, and brings it into the room. Striding through, she beckons him to follow her onto the edge of a walkway. He does so cautiously, and finds himself in space.
Oh Christ almighty.
Space. The final frontier of humanity. Endless possibilities, of which we had only scratched the surface of. Countless galaxies and nebulas swam in the ocean of darkness, lighting up the sky. Words cannot describe the utter tininess that he feels; that he knows; he is only just a speck amongst the stars above.
Out here, she shines brighter than the stars combined, and it hurts to even glance at her. She points to a small speck in the night sky.
"Do you see that planet? That planet is dedicated to my written memories. Millennia of my life. But I will never be able to read them. Even if I did, they'd be pushed out within a week's time."
As much as it hurts, Alex looks at her face. Somehow without features, he can see her sorrow.
And abruptly, it shuts off.
"Now that's enough of that."
She claps, space vanishes, and as the room reappears, he finds himself flat on his ass again. She's sitting on the desk, legs swinging and now sprawled across the top with a sort of enviable loose grace.
She seemed to be in her element, and stares at him intently.
"Enough exposition. We're here because of what you can do for me."
She receives a cocked eyebrow in response.
"Me? A lowly mortal, help a god? What use am I for you?"
She smiles, a mouth carving itself onto her face, and it's at this moment he remembers that she isn't fully human. The smile is just a little too wide, a little too happy, leaving an unsettling feeling in the bottom of his stomach.
"Entertainment."
Alex is thoroughly unnerved.
"Anyways, here are your choices."
Another archway opens. He feels several nauseating presences enter the room. He registered them as wisps of light, less than matter, slightly more substance than air. He quickly shuts his eyes. She had called them her attendants. To him, they are little more than nightmares.
You called ?
Instead of hearing their voices, he… feels it. Its smooth, but it is - in its own way - somehow much worse than the monstrosity that is God. It feels contaminated, and makes him sick to his stomach.
A light chuckle echoes from her.
"Perhaps, it would be easier on his mind were you to be heard and not seen. Such is the frailty of the human soul."
Very well, One of them says. Open your eyes. You shall see only what you can comprehend.
He inches them open. He sees only God. The presence of the three terrors still floats like diseased air, but this is better, at least.
Chucking, "I often mis-remember how they must be catalogued within the human mind. You have my condolences."
And beside her, there are now three rings, hovering in the air. They're made of gold, (or what looks to be gold), while etched onto their surface contain symbols that glow red and hum. The myriad of patterns differ between the three rings, and with one, he hears faint singing, another, he hears laughter, and one has silence.
He catches his hand, sneaking up to touch them.
God brushes against their edges, and from inside the ring, portals of blackened ichor bleed into existence, its substance dripping at the edges.
"These will take you into other worlds. Universes within universes, all catalogued and made by yours truly."
That statement was his brain's cue to suspend operations.
"That can't be real! That completely breaks the fundamental laws of reality You can't just 'make' a universe, and just call it a day!"
"Yeah, and the rest of this doesn't reality's puny spine over its knee ? Reality is just your way of saying it's your perception of what you think you see and what you think you feel. I just happen to disagree with your sense of it, and decided to employ my own-"
"No Mary Poppin speak please."
"Any technology advanced enough is indistinguishable from magic."
"...Ah."
"Of course, I'm not mean enough to throw you into a new world without help-"
Now this is the part where he understands. He's watched enough anime to make sense of what she actually means.
Superpowers.
Weapons of light and justice.
Game screens.
He knows he's watched a little too much isekai anime, and he knows he's trash, but they all dwarf in comparison of the thought of, hey, superpowers!
"-so here's a stick."
"…You bitch."
She scoffs, lazily flinging a stick at him.
He takes a look at it, and finds it to be utterly lacking. A simple rod that seems to be made of an unknown metal, a grip in the middle that houses a hollow centre, and a button on its side. He presses it, and it collapses on itself, fitting neatly into his pocket.
He wasn't expecting anything, and he was still disappointed.
"You can choose to forget everything that's happened here, or you can choose one of these worlds. What's your choice?"
He's both surprised and disappointed in himself that he finds his answer so easily.
They stare at the portal.
Her attendants and her stand at the brink of the portal, watching the surface ripple. After the initial screaming, silence quickly returned.
You lied to him.
"I did, and so what? He's none the wiser, gets a happy ending, and I get my entertainment. What's it to you?"
Nothing, really. But why talk to him at all in the first place ? Couldn't you just have sent him on his way the moment you wanted to ?
"I felt bored. It's been a long time since I was human. Wanted to catch a glimpse of it again. I don't think I remember what it's like."
Her assistant looked at her.
You wish to surrender your infinite lifespan and near-omnipotent powers to reincarnate with a life of barely one hundred years and your wisdom and experiences wiped clean each time? The attendants asked with mild surprise.
It was met with a blank look that clearly suggested that she did not see the question coming.
"You think it's weird?"
I certainly cannot see myself considering the same.
"Hmm," She turns on her heel, gazing at her memory planet. "How long has it been since you were brought into existence?"
If my memory is correct, I believe approximately a millennium ago. They answered as they searched through their vast store of memories, trying to dig up its singular origin.
As they did, the expression on her face gradually shifted from blankness to comprehension.
"Mmm, I guess you wouldn't understand, then."
Is that so?
"Yeah. In my case, it's been about twenty seven billion seven hundred and eighty million years since I ascended. Around that anyway. That's what I can remember."
She turned and smirked sadly. "And in case you're wondering, yes, it's nothing but pure agony."
She let out a sigh. It was small, but it was also deep. The weight attached to the sigh, coupled with the darkness in her eyes when she glanced over; now that sent chills down their non-existent spine.
At once, it realised that for a being of just a mere millennia, the sheer depth of the void they saw in their creators eyes was entirely out of their grasp. The gaping void of abyss was nothing compared to what she was.
"I'm tired. I'm just… tired. I've already forgotten such emotions. I've forgotten how long I've forgotten. I simply create, destroy, and create again. I'm just a vessel of memories; a mere construct of remembrance. If this is what it means to be an Omnipotent being, then… is there anything left to do but laugh?"
They tried to speak, but no words came. It bit its lip, realising the true extent of her existence and the immeasurable vastness of her time. There were no words it could say that the being before her had not already heard. There was no comfort she could offer.
"It's the worst thing to know everything, but not to remember anything. To become god is the worst achievement there is."
Well, that was a bit dark. Once again, Firelark beta'ed this for me, so thanks to her again.
Not much to say other than that, other than review if you get the chance to. It reminds writers like me that someone actually is reading this trash, which makes me happy.
Good day to you all !