1.1: Childhood
For Humanity, the day that incontrovertible proof that aliens existed came started with Charon, the moon, exploding.
Somehow, things only went downhill from there.
"No changes?"
"No sir."
It was an interesting day to be an astronomer.
Actually, it was an interesting day to be anybody at all.
It had all started slightly under twenty hours ago. Charon, Pluto's moon, had exploded.
A little over five hours later, the light echo of this event reached earth.
Astronomers would notice it after mere few seconds. Within minutes, almost every single satellite and telescope that could be pointed at Charon was pointed at Charon.
Minutes after that, odd readings would reveal the presence of two things that had appeared after the moon was destroyed. One was emitting heat and light, and was easily visible even across the vast distance. The other wasn't, and would probably have gone unnoticed, if not for the fact that it was shooting very noticeable high-energy beams at the former.
By ten minutes, governments around the world were being informed. At fifteen minutes, the information leaked into the public. By half an hour, almost everybody on the planet knew about it.
At the end of the first hour, over 67% of the planet was watching and waiting.
He was somewhat unique in the fact that he had a front row seat to the action.
His name was Kevin. He worked at NASA. Fifteen hours ago, he had been about to leave his shift.
Now, he was surviving entirely off of coffee, three cans of red bull, and half a pill of adderall.
He had had, suffice to say, an interesting day.
He stared at his monitors, the main one displaying a feed from one of the many satellites in orbit, the one on the left displaying the paths that the visitors had taken, and the one on the right, which was awkwardly placed on the desk and half leaning off of it, displaying the projected path of them.
The third monitor had not been there at the start of his day. The haphazard placement of it, and the mess of wires attached to its back, hinted at that. The tracking program, too, had not been like that at the start of the day. It had been awkwardly kludged together a few hours ago, a mess of code that was as horrifying in its construction as it was effective in its purpose.
Even if he did have to restart the thing every hour or so.
"So we still have a pair of unknown alien things heading straight for our planet."
"Actually, if they keep going along the same general path they are now, they'll miss us by about three or four million kilometers." Kevin corrected. He looked up, at the fourth monitor, attached to a stand that also hadn't been there at the start of the day. "While that is uncomfortably close, we could also fit an extra 200 Earths in that distance, no problems."
"That is not a thought that comforts me."
"With all due respect, mister Secretary?" Kevin began. "There isn't a lot we can do about it. These two aliens have been bouncing across the system at speeds ranging from several kilometers a second to well over half the speed of light. Simply being able to survive the inertial forces their maneuvers would be putting on them also takes them far and away into the range of things Humanity has no hope of threatening."
On the other side of the camera, the Secretary of Defense sighed, falling back into his chair. "That thought doesn't sit well with me."
"Look on the brightside." Kevin turned back to the monitor. On cue, a bright red beam lanced through space, moving at velocities only slightly under that of light itself. Its target, a small, glowing blue form, vanished before it could hit, reappearing elsewhere. "This is the most interesting thing to happen in... basically forever, when you think about it."
"I like my interesting things to come with less dread." The secretary grunted. "How long before they pass?"
"At their current velocity..." He checked the right screen again. "They're ten million kilometers away, so maybe twelve minutes-" He cut himself off, staring closely at the screen. "Ah, hell."
"What?"
"They're speeding up again." Kevin quickly typed at his console. The right monitor, obligingly, recalculated the path, taking into account their increasing speed. "And their path is changing. If they keep this up, they'll pass... Three hundred thousand kilometers away from Earth... In about a minute."
"A minute?!" The Secretary straightened, face pale. "And that close?!"
"A light second away isn't that bad." Kevin words were betrayed by his heavy tone. "Not really. Especially when you consider that they probably won't even care about us... Why would they, we're just a bunch of primitives, and they're a pair of star-farers, and they're both pretty focused on each other..."
The Secretary of Defence grimaced.
They seemed faster than they actually were. A product of them moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light. At ten million kilometres, light delay would have been about thirty three seconds.
Given that, they had actually started moving thirty three seconds ago. It was only now that light had crossed the distance. They seemed to cross the distance easily. Chillingly quick, really. That they accelerated to such velocities so easily implied a true immense amount of energy being spent- and neither of them had the decency to use to conventional thrusters.
He watched the screen closely as they came. Five million kilometres, three, one... As they came closer and closer, they also became more easily visible. Both were alien, but the larger aggressor seemed disturbing and dangerous, while the smaller radiated a sense of beauty...
Five hundred thousand kilometres-
And the glowing blue form simply stopped. Velocity zeroed in an instant, suddenly holding still.
The same could not be said of the aggressor. It continued onwards, slowing, but not quickly enough. A glowing blue limb extended, becoming larger-
And the dark form ran straight into it.
There was no sound, but he imagined that it must have sounded like an utter cacophony of tearing metal. The limb pierced the shell with ease, and inertia did the rest.
A long, terrible wound appeared on the machine, ripped into being over the course of less than a second. Its form pulsed with red and yellow light, the tendrils extending from it appearing to writhe.
It was difficult to imagine that anything could survive that- but less than three seconds later, the aggressor slowed to a stop, turning despite the wound, red light shining at the base of its tendrils.
Wounded-
And now, very angry.
1.2
The aggressor's form shimmered, a light blue field beginning to surround it. It did little to conceal the red light emitting from it.
The beam lanced out, but the glowing one was already gone, vanishing in an instant and reappearing just outside the aggressor's shimmering form.
Again, the glowing one attacked, a tendril extending forwards. It hit the shimmering barrier, and stopped there, the barrier glowing brighter as it did. The aggressor reacted quickly, turning slightly before firing another beam at the glowing one.
It didn't hit. It never did- over twenty hours of attempted attacks had failed, so why would this one succeed?
All it did was make the glowing one reposition itself, attacking from another angle. This time, it was from above, with several limbs extended.
The barrier, it seemed, couldn't take the force. The limbs went through, and promptly gouged the attacker, long and deep cuts made into the armour. One limb wrapped around a tendril at the attacker's front, before squeezing. It came off with ease, but what happened after that was almost magical, in its seeming impossibility.
Blue crystals jutted from the tendril, shortly covering it in a mass of sharp, jagged shapes. Not a moment later, the mass shattered into countless pieces, vanishing just as quickly as they appeared.
The tendril, it seemed, went with them, something that made the scientist in him sit up in attention and the sci-fi nerd shout in glee.
"Son, what the hell did I just witness?"
"I have no idea." He answered. "Apparently, the laws of physics are a bit more open to interpretation than we had believed."
Red light lanced again, sweeping across space, to no avail. The glowing one avoided it with easy, vanishing and reappearing over and over again, the beam unable to keep up.
It was... strange to watch. The aggressor, at two kilometers long, was being whittled down by a target one fortieth its size.
Death of a thousand cuts, huh?
It seemed that the aggressor also realized this. Its shields pulsed again as it released... Drones?
Whatever they were, they were small, had a glowing red eye, and there was a lot of them. He lost count after the first few dozen. They swarmed after the glowing one, firing smaller bolts at it.
They had no more luck than their superior. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of bolts flew, and all of them missed. The glowing one simply vanished and reappeared in their midst, its many limbs already extending outwards.
It spun, lashing at the swarm. Every one it touched vanished in an explosion of crystals, depleting the swarm with alarming quickness.
Alarming quickness was still enough time for the aggressor. It's dark form had begun to turn the moment it released its drones, moving to speed away even as its swarm was wiped out behind it. After so long spent chasing it, now it tried to run.
Kevin frowned, looking closer at the screen. With a jolt, he sat up, rapidly hammering at the console.
The program beeped only a few moments later.
Running-
Directly towards Earth.
"Fuck!" He shouted. "Secretary, the aggressor is heading straight towards Earth!"
"What?!"
But why? Earth- Humanity, had nothing to do with this. They didn't have the capacity to threaten either of them, so what point was there in going to Earth, especially when they should be preoccupied with the other?
It took precious little time for the aggressor to cross the distance, five hundred thousand kilometers vanishing in only eight seconds. The path it took placed it in an orbit, around and among many of the satellites drifting around the Earth. Such closeness gave them an incredibly clear shot of its form, revealing what simple distance had obscured.
The cut that the glowing one had placed on its form wasn't the only one. Dozens, hundreds, of other wounds were also present, some of them small, some of them large, but all of them ghastly and adding to its dangerous appearance.
It's form twisted, the underside coming to face Earth. He shivered, and then his blood froze in his veins as that dangerous red light appeared once more.
It was about to attack.
The world seemed to move in slow motion. He saw the light, watched as it grew stronger and stronger. He thought, desperately, about the many, many targets it could have, hovering in orbit as it was, with nearly half the planet available for an immediate strike.
Any attack would surely be devastating. He couldn't help but note that the aggressor had never missed with its beam; the glowing one had simply always, always dodged it.
The red light reached its maximum, and then-
A glowing blue form slammed into the aggressor's side, just as the red light lanced out. The attacker twisted slightly from the impact, and the beam went with it, diverted at the last possible moment from its target. A camera view from the ISS, nearly a quarter of the way around the planet, showed the beam scything across the ocean, far and away from any Human life. Plumes of steam and gigantic waves were rising along the path, but that was surely better than whatever would have happened to its original target.
The glowing one did not relent. It struck immediately and quickly, its limbs extending and glowing brightly. With a single graceful motion, it cut straight through the aggressor's barrier, and sliced its remaining tendrils off, each limb vanishing in a crystal explosion.
The aggressor didn't let this stop it. It's turn halted, and its beam began to head back across the path it had taken, back towards the land. The glowing one struck it, again and again, but the barrier, it seemed, was back in force, glowing even brightly.
As the beam began to approach the shoreline, the glowing one stopped attacking, vanishing only to reappear in front of the aggressor. It held its limbs up, a large, square pane of light forming in front of it.
The beam hit the pane of light, and stopped on it just as it would have crossed onto the land.
The glowing one had barriers of its own, it seemed.
And- now he understood why the aggressor had targeted the Earth. A simple matter of using Earth as bait.
The glowing one would dodge everything the aggressor used- unless, it seemed, if that attack would hit something else. The glowing one put itself in between the Earth and the aggressor, acting to block its attack.
Merciless, but smart, if the aggressor had no other way of forcing it stay still.
The first barrier began to darken, its blue glow turning purple. As it did, the glowing one's limbs moved backwards, more square panes of blue light forming behind it.
The one in front was a simple one, but the ones behind were arranged oddly, seeming more translucent in comparison. There was ten of them, arranged at different degrees to each other, each one rotated slightly more than the last.
The tenth barrier appeared just as the first barrier broke, shattering into fading pieces. The beam continued, unabated, and slammed straight into the glowing one. It was the first hit the aggressor had ever landed.
The beam went straight through the glowing one's center, cutting it in half and continuing straight through to the barriers behind it.
It passed through them, too, but it did so oddly. Each barrier it went through bent its path, shifting the direction away from the Earth. It still passed through the atmosphere, but it didn't touch the land, going over it and leaving the surface untouched.
He breathed a sigh of relief at that.
Still, the glowing one had been injured in its defense. The lower half of its body had vanished in an explosion of crystals, but the upper was still present. Its own wound, it seemed, was not enough to kill it.
The aggressor seemed fully willing to try again. That red light appeared once more, but this time, it was answered by the glowing one alsobeginning to brighten. It shot forwards, heading straight towards the aggressor, reaching it only a moment later.
Without stopping, it slammed straight into it, crashing through its barrier and then into its surface. The aggressor seemed to shiver for a moment, before a large, blue crystal jutted out of its back, shortly followed by others, all over the rest of its body.
These crystals seemed different to the others. Larger, for one, but they reflected light differently, instead seeming to show something within them.
When it failed to shatter after a few moments, he concluded that it was different.
Just like that, it was all over.
Kevin slumped back, looking at his monitor. The crystalline mass was beginning to fall, yielding to gravity's grip, unlike the two aliens.
"It's over?" The Secretary's voice startled him, as he wasn't expecting it.
"Seems so." He sighed. "First time we get confirmation of aliens, and one of them bombards our planet. People are going to go nuts. I pity you, mister Secretary."
The secretary grunted. "Where's that crystal going to land?"
"Assuming nothing weird happens?" Kevin looked at it, biting his tongue as he considered it. "Rough guess... probably somewhere around Australia. I'll need more time to actually calculate the exact impact point."
"Do it." The Secretary nodded. "I'll be back shortly."
Kevin nodded. The mute indicator flashed on, and he sighed again.
He was so tired, but at the same time...
Aliens existed, one hostile, and one not.. He had seen, personally, teleportation, two instances of FTL travel, energy shields, energy beams, and what looked an awful lot like ignoring the existence of the laws of thermodynamics on multiple occasions.
And now, a product of the things that had done all of those was falling straight to Earth.
He grinned.
What a time to be alive.
1.3
It was a lot larger in person than it was on a screen.
Kevin whistled as he looked forwards, past the fences and the guards, at the massive crystal behind them. It was beautiful, glowing faintly blue, with strange, ethereal sights seemingly contained within.
His licked his lips.
It had been five days since it had crashed. As he had guessed, it had landed in Australia: Specifically, in Queensland, about forty three kilometers away from Brisbane.
It had landed fairly gently, all considered. It had also stayed completely intact through both the fall and the impact, demonstrating a durability that belied its appearance.
Australian authorities had had it locked down within minutes of the impact. Guards, fences, searchlights, and a near constant presence of helicopters circled it, keeping everybody safely away.
It had only been after three full days of nothing happening that they'd declared it 'currently safe', and had started allowing civilians to get a somewhat close look at the thing. Nobody was allowed within one hundred meters of it, but still...
It had taken four days for him to finally succeed in booking a flight to Brisbane. The local airways were both under lockdown, and absolutely packed with flights, each flight to Brisbane carrying full loads of sightseers. Internationally, it had barely taken seconds after the landing for the world's' countries to start demanding access.
The politics didn't really matter. He was sure that the political world was absolutely exploding at the moment, but he was an astronomer, not a politician.
"Out of the way, man!" Somebody pushed him to the side, nearly knocking him over. He shot the man a glare, but the man was too absorbed in his camera to notice, quickly beginning to take photos.
It was a beautiful sight, he had to admit- but still, there were thousands of people and almost no free room. Getting to the front had taken hours.
The rumbling of the excited crowd was damn near deafening.
He shifted, beginning to work his way through the crowd again- this time, heading out. People eagerly took his place, which made it slightly easier to move, but still...
It took nearly ten minutes to get to a place that he could move freely.
He yawned as he started walking back to the hotel. Jet lag hadn't been kind to him, and neither had the oppressive Australian heat and humidity. The midday sun was a killer.
He closed his eyes for a moment- and evidently, the world hated him, because at that exact moment, something heavy slammed into his gut.
His eyes snapped open, and he doubled over, air driven out of his lungs. It was more surprise than anything else.
"Oh god, I'm sorry!" The thing that had hit him- a woman, now that Kevin was actually looking, quickly apologized.
He raised a hand, waving it as he wheezed. "I'm- I'm fine."
She was holding a box in her hands- the thing that had actually hit him.
She shifted, trying to hold it in one arm. "No, I really should have been looking out-" There was a tearing sound, and the woman's hands shot to her box as the underside of it fell open, bundles of paper and other things spilling out. "- nononono!"
She knelt quickly, trying to regather it all, but she accidentally jolted the box and ended up spilling more of it.
She froze as it all fell into a pile, looking distressed.
"Seems like I'm not the only one having a bad day." He said as he knelt beside her, beginning to pick them up.
She slumped, sighing miserably. "Things have been pretty hectic."
He chuckled. "I know precisely how you feel." He glanced over the bundle he was holding, an eyebrow raising as he saw a picture of the giant crystal. "Here for the crystal too, huh?"
"Who isn't?" She asked. "A giant alien crystal, the entire planet is paying attention to it."
"Yeah." He smiled. "Exciting, right?"
"Too exciting." She shook her head. "Booking a flight took days, and finding a hotel? Don't even get me started."
"I know precisely how you feel." He repeated.
"Are you quoting Garak on purpose, there?"
"A fellow Deep Space 9 fan?" He grinned. "I thought our kind was dead."
She smiled. "I like the classics, what can I say?"
She glanced down at her box, and frowned as she put the last bundle back in the box.
"Where are you headed?" He asked, mildly curious.
"Willowbank." She replied, shifting her arms under the box and holding the bottom of it closed.
"Really?" He asked. "Me too. I was heading back right now, actually."
She looked at him, blinking. "So was I, actually."
"Heh." He held his arms out. "Here, that looks pretty heavy. We're both heading to same place, so why not?"
"Oh, no, I couldn't impose like that." She shook her head. "It's my stuuuh-" She trailed off as another tearing noise sounded.
He smiled. "Really, it's no problem, and you look like you could use a break."
Carefully, the woman passed him the box. It was heavier than it seemed, so he shifted his arms underneath and around it to make sure it stayed together.
"Thank you." The woman said, quietly.
"Ah, don't worry about it, seriously."
"Allison." The woman offered.
"Kevin." He spoke as they began to walk. "Kevin Shepard."
2019:
March 19: The day that Humanity learned that it is, without a doubt, not alone in the universe.
March 27: After one full week of petitioning, a request to acquire a sample from the crystalline mass near Brisbane is finally approved.
April 2: After several days of no success, scientists declare that 'The stupid thing may as well be unbreakable. It's taunting us.'.
April 28: After over a month of continuous failures, the petition is withdrawn. Scientists conclude that anything short of a nuclear weapon won't even scratch it, after everything short of a nuclear weapon fails to scratch it.
May 5: A health survey of Brisbane reveals that, since the crystal crashed on Earth, the rate of injuries has dropped by 15%, 38% of people claim to feel more well rested, cancer rates have dropped by 26%, and general healthiness has gone up by 32%. These results are confirmed, independently, by fourteen more surveys over the course of the month. Sales of 'healing' crystals go up by 8000%.
June 20: Another survey reveals that over 90% of Brisbane's population is capable of pointing towards the crystal with an accuracy of 99.99%. Additional tests reveal that this ability continues even when a subject is disorientated, placed in a homogenous room, blindfolded, and given no frame of reference. This excites scientists the world over, mostly on the implications of how that was possible.
July 12: Further study into the detection ability shows that accuracy degrades with distance, but, even one thousand kilometers away, 90% of the population can still point it out with only a 10% margin of error. This leads to theories that the crystal is outputting some form of energy that is undetectable to instruments, but which Humans are capable of sensing on some level.
July 23: A baby in Brisbane is born with glowing cyan eyes. It is the first of eighteen babies born that day with such features.
1.4
July 24: The world reels from the developments of yesterday. Preliminary investigations into the matter of babies with extraordinary features reveals no apparent source, nor any apparent consequences.
Genetically and structurally, the babies are 100% Human. The only way to identify them is by their eye colour and glow. Colours have been observed to cross the entire visible spectrum, ranging from colours normally impossible for humans, such as bright pink or yellow, to colours that are common, such as brown or blue. The glow is much more constant; near invisible under normal circumstances, but in low light circumstance, trails of light, and faint illumination, become visible.
Some babies are given up, but most are kept by their families.
Dozens of groups form, both for and against the changes. Those against claim that the babies are unnatural. Those for would wonder why that was a bad thing.
Debates rage, and will continue to rage for years.
July 25: Continuing studies show that the glow operates completely independent of any energy intake or outcome. The babies, in fact, eat and sleep less on average, though only by 3.4%.
August 1: Statistics are gathered and released. It is found that approximately one in twenty babies in Brisbane are born with extraordinary traits. Brisbane remains the only city where children with extraordinary traits appear.
Scientists complain about not having an easy name for the group.
August 21: First confirmed telekinetic event from the Brisbane Babies. Sales of robes and wizard hats increases 3000% overnight.
The event, caught on camera, shows a baby reaching for a piece of paper, only for the piece to come to her. The parents, in the background, look at each other in concern, before the father pulls out a lock and begins putting glasses in a box.
A later interview would state that: "It happened before, this is just the first time we've caught it on camera.".
The scientific community is split between groaning, at the existence of psychic powers being confirmed, and therefore the idea that physics is notas they knew it, and joy, at the exact same thing.
Subsequently, the scientific community would speculate that the crystal actually was releasing some unknown form of energy; specifically psychic energy, the presence of it had resulted in the Brisbane Babies, as witnessed.
In the wake of this, Brisbane sees a massive influx of travellers and visitors, as well as a large departure of many long time residents. The net population grows considerably regardless.
November 12: The existence of telepathy is speculated, with much supporting evidence. Brisbane Babies are observed to react to each other despite being outside of both visual and auditory ranges. Hard supporting evidence will not come for another year.
2020:
April 1: '4/20 Blaze It' jokes increase 9001%.
June 12: Kevin Shepard marries Allison Jones.
November 13: Confirmation of telepathic abilities occurs. Kim Lee, a Brisbane Baby, repeats the words of the parents of Joana Smith, her neighbor. Subsequent tests demonstrated similar ability.
December 6: The first child more than one hundred kilometers away from the crystal with extraordinary traits is born. Subsequently, the 'Brisbane Baby' label comes under fire, and all children are re-designated as 'ESPers'.
2021:
July 25: Michael Sullivan, father of Howard Sullivan, ESPer, makes public a series of videos showing his talks with his child, gathered over the last month.
Most of them go over his abilities, and what his life is like. The last video of the set, however, garners incredible public interest, as it concerns the Brisbane crystal.
"Dreamy?" Howard looks up, cheeks puff out.
"You call the crystal dreamy?" Michael asks.
Howard nods. "Sarah says it's 'Dreamer', but Sarah's bossy, so I call Dreamy Dreamy."
"Why do you call it that?" Michael asks again.
"Dreamy dreams all the time." Howard answers. "Sometimes, me and the others get Dreamy's dream when we sleep, instead of ours."
Michael's eyebrow raised. "What happens in... Dreamy's dreams?"
"Dreamy has a lot of toys, so we play with them. Dreamy won't play with us, though. Dreamy said Dreamy would like to, but Dreamy can't." Howard frowns, looking at his crayon before putting it down and getting another. "Dreamy hurts. Dreamy said Dreamy had to sleep in order to get better, but Dreamy doesn't feel much better even though Dreamy sleeps all the time. Dreamy said it would take a really long time."
Michael is silent for a few seconds. "Huh. Did Dreamy tell you anything else?"
"Dreamy says a lot of things. Weird things. Dreamy did say that Dreamy liked us, though. Dreamy also told us how Dreamy got hurt, but I don't really get it. Dreamy said that Dreamy did something Dreamy shouldn't have, but Dreamy did it because a lot of other people would have been hurt if Dreamy didn't do it."
"Ah." Michael frowns. "I think that you'll understand when you're older."
"Dreamy said that, to." Howard shot a look at his father.
"Well, you are two."
"Two and two days." Howard pouts. "That's older."
Michael chuckles.
The video clicks off a short moment later.
1.5
How easily things can fall into place.
A video like that is both confirmation and speculation. A two year old child is hardly the best possible source of information, but when it's about a matter such as this, a matter which had, until then, teasingly avoided any revelation...
Well, it paints things in a certain light.
Confirmation is simple: the creature, which had been seen to sacrifice itself to spare them, had itself told another that it was injured and needed to sleep in order to heal. A perfectly neat explanation for its continued inaction, even years later.
The specific wording of it implied an even greater sacrifice. The creature did something that it shouldn't have in order to spare others, making it seem even more noble.
After years of nothing, this is the first thing they learn of it. It even comes with a simple name: The Dreamer, named by Humanity's most extraordinary children.
How easily opinions can shift. How easily approval can come. It is is impossible to convince everybody, of course. Some people are too stuck in their ways, some are too distrustful, and some simply don't care.
But most are convinced.
The revelation, however, has come. After two and half years of silence, they learn that the Dreamer can, in fact, speak. That it can only speak through children changes nothing.
Somebody gets a bright idea. They contact the parents of dozens of psychic children, and ask them to ask their children what else the Dreamer can tell them.
Some take up the offer. Some are direct, others are indirect, and most of the time, the children don't remember to do it when they can-
But some do.
And they can tell their parents. And their parents can tell the world.
And the world, slowly, begins to learn.
The first question a child remembers to ask is simple.
Why are they different?
It is not a sensitive question, really, but that was after it had been given to the child, not before. The original question had been 'why can the children do the things that others can't', which wasn't a bad question, as far as they went.
It's a start.
"Dreamer said it was because of Dreamer." Sarah said. Her lips are pursed in an adorably imperious expression. "Dreamer said Dreamer has power, which Dreamer would keep inside Dreamer, but Dreamer can't, because Dreamer is sleeping, so it leaks out. Dreamer said that because we were around it a lot before we were born, we got our own power. Dreamer said that there more of us there were, the more there would be, but isn't that the same thing?"
"Not quite." Hellen, Sarah's mother, answers. Her voice is quiet, considering.
"Mom?" Sarah asks after a moment.
"Yes dear?"
"What does 'born' mean?"
"Uh... I'll... tell you when you're older."
"Mom!"
The second is an attempt at clarification. What did the Dreamer mean, exactly, that there would be more of them as there were more of them.
"Dreamer said that it was Dreamer's power which gave us our power. Dreamer said that our power would give others power. The more of us there were, the faster it would happen. Dreamer said that everyone will be born with it, one day. Dreamer said that day was a long time away, though."
The third was equally simple.
It was also the most horrifying.
'What was it that you were fighting?'
A child of two cannot truly appreciate the horror.
Relayed from the child, however...
Well, in a way, it is even more horrifying.
Somebody older, hearing it, would fill in the gaps with their own imaginings. A more personal type of horror, that.
"Dreamy said it was a bad thing. Dreamy said it lived only to hurt others. Dreamy said that they don't hurt people because they want to, though. Dreamy says they don't have a choice. They have to hurt others, and then they have to take the people they hurt and make them into more bad things. They're scary, and Dreamy said there's a lot of them, but Dreamy has made a lot of them go away so they won't hurt others anymore."
Howard frowns at his crayon. "How do you make people into something else, though? Dreamy said I'd understand when I was older, but you can tell me, right? Dad?"
Michael, pallid, smiles at his son. "I don't think I quite understand it myself."
"You're scared?" Howard's head tilted to the side. "Dreamy said they were scary, but to you, too?" He frowns, shaking his head. "Don't be scared. Dreamy promised that Dreamy would keep us safe from them. Dreamy always keeps promises."
And with a single conversation, the world learns that it will not always like the things it learns.
The cosmos is not safe, and there are things out to get them.
August 3: A quiet panic sweeps the world in the wake of the video. Theories regarding the Dreamer's enemy appear from all walks of life. The general consensus is that the enemy is a part of an aggressive homogenizing swarm, though other suggestions remain.
Regardless, public demands, combined with the knowledge that there are hostile forces outside of Earth that would not hesitate to destroy them, leads to many nations beginning to engage in talks about the problem.
Over the course of the next few years, most nations would place much more funding in space agencies as a direct result.
The simple fact of the matter, however, is that there isn't much Humanity can do about the problem.
Not yet.
There's no kick in the ass quite like the realization that you are not, in fact, the best thing since sliced bread. It can be an incredible motivator, if used correctly.
The idea that there were existentially hostile forces out in the universe that were more powerful and more numerous than them was not an idea that most species could stand. Humanity, of course, was included in that number. Us versus Them, with one dying and the other living...
These periods of time tend to lead to a lot of development. Technological, industrial, cultural... Not always positive, yes.
Well, regardless, the point was simple.
Humanity now knew that, if it wanted to survive in a hostile cosmos, it needed to be more. More people, more industry, more technology, more, more, more...
The choice is simple. Stand down and die, or rise up and fight.
Not a difficult choice at all.
1.I
Demark: So do we live in a science fiction universe or a cosmic horror one?
MaliceInWanderland: Obviously cosmic horror. Angry black cosmic squid thing should have made that obvious.
Delimiter: C'mon, guys, this is obviously a Shonen/Seinen. A weird glowing alien thing fought a dark, evil, red alien squid thing, got knocked into a coma doing so, crashed on our planet, and then Humans started to get weird powers. Glowy alien becomes an object of study/reverence, tells Humans that there are more dangerous bad squid things out in the universe, and we now have to deal with that with our new weird abilities.
Sally: I think it's a romance.
"Let us follow the Dreamer's example! It gave itself in order to protect us! We must be worthy of it!
Show your kindness! Help those who need it! Show the world that the Dreamer chose correctly!"
- Excerpt from a sermon of the unofficial Church of the Dreamer
"FUCK CUTTLEFISH! I KNEW THOSE LITTLE BASTARDS WERE EVIL! THEIR BIG BASTARD COUSINS ARE TRYING TO KILL US, SO WE SHOULD KILL THEM FIRST! DO YOU HEAR ME?!
Wait, what are you doing with thaAAAGH-"
- Last words of self-proclaimed 'Head Priest of the Church for the Destruction of Cuttlefish, right before being tased and arrested for disturbing public peace.
"You idiot sleepers, you're going to get us all killed! The Dreamer is an abomination! We should kill it while we have the chance!
Wake up, sheep!"
- Rhetoric from a man claiming to be a part of an anti-Dreamer group known as the 'Awoken', later arrested for attempted acts of domestic terrorism.
"So who do you think would win in a fight between the Dreamer and Superman?"
- First post in a thirty page long shitstorm.
"Oh god not again."
- Second post in a thirty page long shitstorm.
"[A 'what would win' meme with two pictures. The left one is a stylized representation of a human brain, with many equations floating around it, captioned as 'the entirety of Human knowledge on physics, chemistry, and other sciences, discovered over thousands of years of research'. The right one is an image of the Dreamer, captioned 'Something glowy thing showing up on a tuesday'.']
[A gif of the Dreamer, with a trollface pasted on it, dodging shots from the aggressor, which has a rageface pasted on it.]
[A gif of the Dreamer fighting the aggressor, except the aggressor's beams have been edited to show 'my responsibilities', while the Dreamer has the word 'Me' floating above it.]
[A video showing the entirety of the Dreamer's and the Aggressor's visible fight, except it has had laser noise from various sci-fi included.]
[A video of the entire time the Aggressor chased the Dreamer, with Yakety Sax playing in the background and slowly getting louder as they get closer to Earth.]
With the discovery of alien life comes alien memes."
- Blog post, dated two days after the Dreamer and the Aggressor first appeared.
"[A video of a man smiling while sitting at a table, while objects, and two identical children, float around him chaotically. The children are saying 'dad' repeatedly.]
This is fine."
- Single father of two ESPers.
"There are stories of creatures beyond Human comprehension, for whom contact with would change Humanity forever. One shudders to imagine the sheer havoc that such a creature could wreak, what power it possesses, and what it could do merely by accident.
It is quite fortunate that the Dreamer seems to like us, don't you think?"
- Excerpt from a magazine article, The End of the World as we know it
1.6
2023:
October 12: A group of six ESPers attempt to talk to the Dreamer while remaining awake. All of them fail.
The attempt, however, reveals that the crystal structure of the Dreamer reacts to psychic energy. This makes psychic energy the only known thing in the existence that can affect the crystal at all.
Debates immediately begin to rage about what to do with this information, as attempting to interfere with the structure might cause the Dreamer to react negatively, debates which are ended three hours later after an ESPer wakes up from an afternoon nap, and tells their parents that they'd talked with the Dreamer, who told him that the Dreamer wouldn't particularly care if they took a few pieces of the crystal from it.
October 13: A group of ten ESPers attempts to remove a fragment of the crystal. Two hours of floundering later, one of them finally stumbles upon the method of reliably interacting with the crystal, and manages to sever a thirty-three centimeter long piece of it from the main mass. The missing fragment regrows over the course of eight seconds.
After sharing the method, each ESPer breaks of their own pieces, all of which regrow shortly. After asking if they keep them, seven of the ESPers break off a second piece, and keep the first.
October 15: Days of intense study reveal several interesting things.
First: The apparent immutability the Dreamer crystal demonstrates does not, in fact, apply to the smaller fragments. This leads scientists to theorize that the complete inability affect it previously was in fact the result of a defence mechanism of some sort.
Second: The crystals generate physical reactions in response to the presence of psychic energy. When exposed to ambient psychic, they vibrate. The more energy they are exposed to, the more intensely they do so. Regardless, it still occurs at a level far below Human ability to notice.
This property would directly lead to the creation of the first psychic energy detector and measurement devices, as the vibration is capable of being detected by precise equipment.
Third: The crystals are capable of causing a number of anomalous effects, and they also demonstrate a number of anomalous properties. When given to ESPers who are told to play with it, they have been shown to be capable of emitting electromagnetic energy, distorting gravity, generate more crystalline matter apparently from nothing, and, in one notable case, create glowing material that bares extreme resemblance to the Dreamer's previous form.
Subsequent analysis of the third and fourth reveal that the third is not actually the same type of crystal as the fragments, while the fourth, after being removed from the fragment, loses its glow and becomes a mass of completely normal silicon.
The ESPer who produced that result comments that it felt like it was full of psychic energy, but then it was removed and became empty, so it stopped being strange.
October 19: After nearly a week of continuous study, scientists finally feel confident enough to say that the crystal probably shouldn't actually exist. According to the researchers: 'On a molecular level, this stuff just looks like a bunch of photons bound together by what is probably just more psychic bullshit'.
November 21: An ESPer manages to make their crystal self replicate after a month of fiddling with it. The method is quickly shared, and extraction of fragments from the Dreamer is subsequently stopped.
With this, scientists also conclude that the crystals actually function as some form of amplifier for normal psychic abilities, and their apparent limits, therefore, are related more to the skill of the psychic who's using them rather than anything else. This theory is confirmed by the Dreamer, two days afterwards.
2024:
January 27: First birth of an ESPer more than one hundred and fifty kilometers away from the Dreamer crystal. In Brisbane, the average percentage of the population being born as ESPers reaches 7%.
February: An attempt to map and measure the psychic energy released by the Dreamer sees the mass deployment of psychic energy detectors in Brisbane and surrounding area.
This leads to the subsequent discovery that psychic energy can, and does, concentrate in certain areas. According to measurements, psychic energy within one hundred meters of the Dreamer is over forty times denser than psychic energy one hundred and fifty kilometers away.
According to observations, density appears to have no appreciable effect on the psychic strength of ESPers born within the field. In fact, all ESPers are observed to be born with a measure of psychic power within approximately 3.4% of each other. Psychic power, however, grows with time and training.
Attempts to measure the power of the Dreamer itself fail; Psy-crystal, when placed into contact with the Dreamer, simply stops vibrating. The sheer amount of ambient energy it releases, however, hints at the true depths of its capacity, as the ambient energy released by ESPers can be thousands of times lower than their actual ability.
April: First successful terrorist strike on the Dreamer. A man, notable for being a part of a heavily Anti-Dreamer group known as the Awoken, crashes a plane on the Dreamer Crystal. No harm is done, as the plane simply stopped upon coming into contact with the Dreamer Crystal, both the occupants and plane completely unharmed.
It takes four hours to remove the plane safely, as it remained at an almost 45% degree angle from where it had touched the Dreamer Crystal, defying gravity, inertia, and force easily.
According to one witness: "It was like watching the damned loony tunes. Plane's coming in, hits the thing, and then just stops. I think the crane they removed it with scratched it up more than the impact. Absolutely hilarious."
The man is arrested in the aftermath.
September: An attempt to steal a fragment of psy-crystal succeeds, leading to the arrest of three individuals for breaking and entering, and the escape of the fourth. Subsequent investigations into the group reveal connections with multiple anti-Dreamer groups. A manhunt starts for the final member of the group, identified as Evangeline Harper.
She is located only a few hours later, when she drives a car through a barricade surrounding the Dreamer and subsequently crashes into it. Guards immediately attempt to arrest her, though this is complicated when she reveals an IED containing the stolen psy-crystal fragment. When more police and guards arrive, she panics, and detonates the device by accident, severely injuring herself and eight others.
All are quickly taken to the hospital.
1.7
His eyes opened.
And-
Everything was weird. An endless blue sea stretched below him, his clothes hanging loose without the pull of gravity.
He was Michael Evens. Security guard to the Dreamer's Bed.
And only a moment ago-
He jerked, hand rushing to his chest. Where there should have been a blinding pain, and chunks of metal and crystal, there was simple cloth.
"What?"
"Michael?" A voice asked. Familiar enough that he placed it right away. He turned his head, and saw the person who had spoken.
"Tom..." He breathed a sigh of relief. A fellow guard. A good friend. "Where-"
"Hi!" A face suddenly stuck itself in front of him, making him recoil with a shout of surprise.
It was-
It was a child. A giggling, upside down child, with glowing eyes.
ESPer.
"Marcus..." Another voice spoke. Michael turned his head as best he could, spotting a man wearing a heavy jacket. Han Grant, scientist.
"Hello, Mister G!" The ESPer called, turning easily.
"Why are you upside down?" Han asked, frowning.
"I'm not upside down." The child smiled.
Han looked up. So did Michael. He saw ground. Trees and grass. And several other ESPer children.
He looked down. The endless blue sea was, in fact, an endless blue sky.
Which meant he was in the air.
"SHI-" He flailed his arms, gravity only now deciding to make itself known. Other shouts, and laughter, followed him.
The ground came closer with alarming speed, and he closed his eyes, waiting for impact.
He felt-
He felt a thump. The sensation of hitting something, but-
There was no pain.
Somehow.
After a moment, he opened his eyes. Clear blue stared back, wonderfully solid ground beneath him.
The laughter continued. He sat up, and looked towards it.
The ESPers. Some giggling, some outright laughing.
He looked around. The world seemed so normal, except it clearly wasn't.
He and Han weren't the only adults present. There were six others, for a total of eight. He recognized them all- everybody here had been involved in the mess with that crazy woman with a bomb.
Well, except the children of course, but-
"What is happening?"
"'Dunno." Marcus shrugged. "There's never been this many people in here, before. Never any adults, either."
"'In here'?" Han questioned. "Marcus, is this place what I think it is?"
"Yes." A new voice rang. Deep, but also soft, and resonating oddly, but not unpleasant altogether.
He turned, slowly.
The voice's owner was... what he had expected.
Smaller than he would have thought, but still three or four times taller than him. Its form was beautiful, in a hauntingly alien way; the core of its body was long and thin, though it bulged slightly at the top, middle, and bottom. Two 'arms' hung from the top, connected alongside two pairs of 'wings', and two more pairs of long 'streamers'. The entire body glowed in a soft blue colour, the colour changing only slightly over different parts of the body, enough to make it distinguishable, at least.
There was nobody who wouldn't be able to recognize this being.
The Dreamer.
All of them woke up the next day, unharmed. All of them woke up simultaneously, with the shards of psy-crystal ejected from their bodies, inert.
That alone was clue enough that something strange had been going on. When the ESPer children finally got around to telling the adults what happened, well...
The information spread quickly. All of a sudden, there were eight adults who had spoken to the Dreamer.
Everybody wanted to know what had been said.
The eight were... quite willing to tell, too, on account of the content.
What had been told was horror; the Dreamer's enemy.
In all the gory details.
And in turn, they told the world. Raw, unfiltered, not echoed through a child.
The world learned several things that day.
First, it learned that the Reapers were more numerous than ever imagined; trillions strong, each one a towering mass of murderous metal.
Second, it learned the details on how they were created, each one a horrific mutilation of hundreds of thousands to millions.
Third, it learned the fate of those that sought to follow them; becoming a Husk, twisted, slowly, by perverse cybernetics into something cruel. None were spared forever, only temporarily.
Fourth, it learned of Indoctrination, the Reaper's subtle weapon against civilizations, to take people and twist the mind into a husk, instead of the body.
Fifth, it learned that Humanity was already a target. Nothing would change that; in time, the Reapers would come for them, too.
Sixth, it learned that the Dreamer had declared them an enemy. An anathema, something that could not be allowed to survive, for the good of all life itself.
Seventh, it learned that these beings were called 'Harvesters'.
Eighth, it learned that there was approximately one hundred and fifty to two hundred years before the Reapers arrived in force.
Ninth, it learned that the Dreamer had no intention of allowing Humanity to die.
Tenth, it learned that that power they were starting to inherit was a power forbidden to the Reapers. They did not, and could not, possess it.
Eleventh, and last, it learned that survival, and, indeed, victory, was entirely possible- so long as Humanity was willing to work together for it.
2024:
Late April: All individuals who were harmed during the terrorist attack heal over the course of three hours, surprising medical personnel, wounds reknitting and crystal shards pushing their way out of their bodies, leaving them unharmed. The sole exception is Evangeline Harper, who heals just enough to no longer be in a life-threatening condition.
At the fourth hour, all individuals wake up, again excepting Evangeline Harper.
The news breaks in less than ten minutes, and the public is very shortly made aware of what happened, what had been said, and who told it to them. ESPer confirmation comes later, but it comes all the same.
Public response, as one may expect, is panicked. It is the first true confirmation of what had, until then, only been speculated or told through the mouths of children.
Early May: Growing public and private demand leads to a UN meeting on how best to deal with the Harvester threat. Talks will take several more months, and agreements several more years, but it will all eventually culminate in the creation of a supranational group backed by almost every nation on the planet.
The group will become known as 'The Assembly'. Its actual name is significantly longer and far less catchy.
The group's mandate is to ensure the continued survival of Humanity against all threats that may come.
The Assembly will subsequently scout and recruit many of Humanity's best and brightest, bringing in scientists, engineers, and more from all walks of life.
October: After several months of a slow integration, NASA is assimilated into the Assembly, forming the core of its aerospace arm. With access to a far greater budget, the pace that rocketry and all assorted technology is developed quickens dramatically.
Over the next several years, several more prominent space agencies are subsumed into the Assembly.
2025:
March: A fusion reactor prototype exceeds expectations and returns a considerable energy profit. The Assembly recruits the designers and sets them on improving the prototype for general use. The project goes forward under the name of 'Project Prometheus'.
November: First confirmed teleportation incident by an ESPer. At six years and four months old, Marie Holl becomes the first Human to ever teleport.
She cannot repeat the act, to her dismay and her parents' relief.
2026:
The Assembly's Space Arm announces plans for the construction of an orbital space station. It is named 'Stepping Point'.
The Stepping Point is intended to sit at the Earth-Moon Lagrange 1 point, where it will serve as a gateway to colonising the Moon.
2027:
After two years of work and development, Project Prometheus bears fruit, and successfully develops a commercially viable fusion reactor, with an expected output that far surpasses any concurrent fission reactor.
Construction of a reactor begins shortly, a project which is expected to complete by 2030.
2028:
First ESPer more than five hundred kilometers away from Brisbane is born.
In Brisbane, ESPer births reaches as high as 10% of all babies.
2030:
World's first commercial fusion reactor comes online. Its yearly output will supply nearly a fifteenth of China's entire energy needs.
Many additional power plants are subsequently planned. Analysts state that the world could enjoy cheap, extensive energy as shortly as 2040, if more power plants are constructed.
2031:
Breakthroughs in robotics leads to semi-autonomous, reliable, and cheap machines. Automation beings to extend dramatically.
First confirmed healing event. An ESPer is able to cause a regenerative effect on a wounded man, healing cuts, removing bruises, and restoring lost blood.
The ability rapidly spreads as the ESPer teaches as many as he can.
2032:
First confirmed astral projection event. The ESPer is able to successfully replicate the ability.
Later study shows that the ESPer's body falls into a coma-like state, with only minimal and automatic brain activity occurring while the Esper is projecting. It raises new questions on the nature of consciousness.
Two weeks later, an ESPer sleeps in class while he projects, keeping notes and participating regardless. He remarks that he has never felt so well-rested, earning the burning jealousy of college students everywhere.
2033:
Growing automation leads to a number of effects in the economy. The Assembly, having seen it coming, launches a number of programs to help those who lost their jobs or livelihood, lessening the impact.
2035:
The Stepping Point finishes construction. Larger, somewhat spindly, and mostly self-sufficient, the station is set to provide the important staging area for future colonisation efforts.
2037:
First ESPer more than one thousand kilometers away from Brisbane is born. ESPer birth rates are now reaching 18%.
2039:
First ESPer astronaut enters space. Her abilities make her a much loved member of the team very quickly.
2040:
Breakthroughs in genetic therapy and genetic engineering lead to treatments that can eliminate the vast majority of cancers, and shortly thereafter, a significant number of other diseases. The average health of Humanity skyrockets over the course of the next few years.
2044:
First ESPer born to an ESPer parent. The baby does not deviate significantly from the norm.
2046:
First phase of Lunar Colonisation completes, with ground-side power, construction, hydroponics, and mining now active. The base supports a population of 52, and is fully self-sufficient. Phase two will expand the base to 300 active personnel.
2047:
First ESPer, with both parents being normal humans, more than two thousand kilometers away from Brisbane is born. ESPer birth percentages now approach 35%.
2049:
Harvester forces attack the Dreamer.
2.1: Orphaned.
One moment, it was calm and peaceful. The next, everything goes crazy. A faint blue light permeates the atmosphere, night turns to day, psychic energy detectors across the planet go wild, and every single ESPer on the planet simply, and very suddenly, stops.
They have no trouble feeling as the Dreamer rouses itself, slipping from sleep into waking. The weight of its mind settles like a comforting blanket, enough that even those who aren't sensitive to psychic abilities can feel it on some level or another.
All too quickly, they start again. Panic begins to drive them. They're smart enough to know why the Dreamer would do this. Those who are closer reach out, a multitude of voices calling for the Dreamer.
The older ones come shortly, teleporting in.
"Dreamer!" They say. "Who/Is it/What happened/Why?"
"The Harvesters." The Dreamer responds. An image drifts across; a million monsters, above this world. They recoil, as the Dreamer expects them to. "Worry not. No harm will come to you." The Dreamer assures them.
"But-" They say. "You're still hurt/You haven't healed/Your recovery isn't complete."
"True. But I'll not let them harm you."
They protest, but it's too late. With not another word, the Dreamer leaves to fight.
"Dreamer!" He shouts, both physically and mentally, but the Dreamer is already gone. Physically, that is; the massive crystal structure vanishing with the signature of teleportation.
He was Marcus. ESPer, among the oldest.
He had lived for thirty years with the Dreamer's quiet and sleeping presence nearby. Today was the first time he had ever known what it was like for things to not be that way.
He didn't like it.
He stared at the sky, rippling waves of blue pulsing across it. The Dreamer's power hung heavy in the air, every breath charged with energy. It was warm, like a blanket.
"Dreamer..." He murmured.
The Dreamer was awake. Something that seemed like a dream itself, ironically, but the truth. It would have been a good thing, except...
Except it was too early. The Dreamer had not yet healed.
He could feel it, underneath the calm consideration of the Dreamer's mind. Pain. Something within was hurting.
Why did the Harvesters have to come now? Why not later? After the Dreamer had healed, after Humanity had grown and been able to offer up some ability to help-
But they couldn't. Nobody had that kind of power. All of them together would only-
All of them together.
No one person had that kind of power, but they weren't alone, were they?
He reaches out, mentally, to those around him. The other ESPers take note quickly, confused, but confusion ends when he passes the thought along.
They weren't alone. They had each other.
The others join him, minds connecting and synchronising. They reach further, quickly drawing in more and more.
They feel the mind of a child. Too young, they decide, and pass over.
Their group runs into another group. He wasn't the only one who had the idea. The two groups merge. The range expands. They find more groups, and more individuals.
Every ESPer over ten in the city joins, and not long afterwards, every ESPer over twelve on the planet.
It is... not as hard as they thought it would be. This cohesion comes so easily, in fact, that they're suddenly not sure that this isn't how it was meant to be in the first place.
They put that aside, for the moment, and reach upwards, out, pooling mind and power together. The Dreamer's shield is magnificent in its scale and its power, but it does not stop them at all. They touch the minds of ESPers in orbit, and they join the group.
They reach towards the moon. The distance is beyond anything ever attempted. Together, their minds cross the gap with barely an afterthought.
There are five ESPers on the Moon. When they join, more than half of the ESPers in existence are working together. Those that aren't are those too young to do so.
The Dreamer is closer than the moon. They reach. They see.
The Dreamer is massive. Larger than before, they realize. It hangs in space like some ancient and beautiful god, emanating power beyond anything they had ever felt.
Power proven in the fact that none of the million Harvesters around it were capable of harming it. Black forms fired red beams, lancing strikes aimed straight at the Dreamer's heart, and not a single one hit. The beams met a shield, and simply stopped.
But, it wasn't fighting back. They could feel its power, carefully constrained so that it wasn't touching the Harvesters themselves.
Why?
They reach out to the Dreamer. They can feel that it is aware of them. It has been watching them while they worked together.
"We can help." They say,
The Dreamer's attention focuses, for a brief moment, on one Harvester in particular. They follow, recognizing the cue. They reach out, touch the Harvester's mind-
And recoil, shivering in disgust and phantom pain.
The Dreamer had told some of them, once, what a Harvester was. It had said that a Harvester was a machine built out of people, with hundreds of thousands to millions of minds trapped within, harrowed and agonized. They knew this, but until they had touched the Harvester's mind, they had not truly understood this.
The reality of it was worse than any imagination.
"Tormented things." The Dreamer agrees. "But they have made a mistake. This is all of them who are awake."
"How is that a mistake?" They ask.
"They have no Vanguard. They will not awaken early." The Dreamer considers, and comes to a decision. "An opportunity that must be taken."
The Dreamer, gently, pushes them aside. Its power stretches across space.
Too late, they realize what it intends to do.
The Dreamer's power touches the Harvesters. They shudder, shiver, minds bending underneath it.
Crystal sprouts over their forms, covering the ominous black. The Dreamer acts, pulling the minds out and into itself, the crystals shattering as it does so. The minds themselves almost shatter, much like the crystals, but then the Dreamer interjects-
And it suffers in their place. Pain lances through it like a physical force, its form rippling before vanishing, disintegrating like dust in the wind. What's left behind is a massive bipyramid crystal, cracks running along its form.
The psy-crystal, they realize. Now they understand where that power was coming from. Humans could use them to enhance their powers, but the Dreamer had always surpassed them. What could it do with such a large mass?
Not save itself, apparently. The cracks spread, webbing and cracking.
There must be something they could do.
"No." The Dreamer speaks. "This is not a wound easily mended."
"There must be some way-"
"If you were older." The Dreamer says. "More numerous, and more experienced, then; this would be a wound that could be healed. But, you are not. You are young, still. You cannot help, not this time."
The Dreamer is apologetic. The words are harsh, but the truth. They don't like it regardless.
The Dreamer sighs. Its mind strums lightly over theirs, and then-
The world shifts.
A lush expanse, filled with trees, and pools, and an endless blue sky awaits them. They are all here, now. They look and see their own bodies.
It is familiar; the Dream.
"I had hoped it would not come to this." The Dreamer speaks. "But needs must. There is much to say, and precious little time to say it."
2.2
"Why?" They ask. "You could have destroyed them with no harm to yourself. Why... do that?"
"I do not destroy them, because they can still be helped." The Dreamer explains.
"How?!" They ask, because they have felt the mind of a Harvester, the millions of tortured and broken minds within, awkwardly forced into shape, and they don't understand how a violation like that can be fixed. "How can it be done?!"
The Dreamer replies not with words, but with image and memory. They see-
They see the Dreamer. Its smaller form. It leads a harvester on a chase, drawing it into a pattern. It strikes, does damage. The Harvester releases its drones, and the Dreamer destroys them quickly. Several more strikes prevent the Harvester from escaping, prevent it from calling help. The Dreamer takes the Harvester somewhere it won't be found.
Then, the Dreamer sets to work, it reaches into the core of the Harvester, stripping away its metallic shell, revealing the distorted mechanical mirror of the species it was made from it. The Dreamer binds it. The Dreamer reaches into its processors, and subborns them. The Dreamer copies everything as it examines the overarching consciousness of the Harvester, and then strikes the code and the core. The consciousness shatters again into tens of millions of minds, tortured and broken, but singular again.
The Dreamer takes them carefully, lifting them from the Harvester's corpse. They are so fragile...
The lightest touch can shatter them all the more, and to the Dreamer, this is not something it is willing to risk.
It attends to each, reaching into them and looking through them. It sees the crude manipulation, and removes it. The broken memories are realigned, the mind pieced back together.
The Dreamer sees pain, and takes it away.
Time, then, does the rest. They come back, slowly. The Dreamer consoles them, helps them heal.
"Carefully." The Dreamer says, at the end of it. "And with patience."
"Then why-" They already know, they realize. The minds are fragile.
"Too much power," The Dreamer confirms. "And they collapse."
They understand, now. Why the Dreamer hadn't attacked. Why it had taken such a small form, before.
"I wish to spare them their pain." The Dreamer says. "Not to destroy them. The Harvesters are Anathema, but each one carries minds that are not. Quite the conundrum. I can do it slowly, and spare myself pain, but that would have risked the rest of them being awoken. More lives would have been lost. Or, I can do it quickly, at the cost of taking the pain so that they do not break completely."
"And you chose the latter, this time." They say.
"Yes." The Dreamer confirms. "This is my choice. I prefer to help life than to bring death. The latter is sometimes necessary, but not in this case. In hunting me, they trapped themselves."
"You said they wouldn't awaken early."
"The cycles of the Harvesters is precipitated by the Vanguard." The Dreamer reveals. "A Harvester, left awake while the others sleep. The Vanguard watches the galaxy, observing the species who develop within. Should they develop faster than expected, the Vanguard awakens the Harvesters, and the cycle starts early. When I came to this galaxy, I found the Vanguard. Before I realized its nature, it awoke the Harvesters, who assigned this force to destroy me." The Dreamer laughed. "They did not succeed. I was the hunter. I cut their numbers in half, one by one. The force today was all that remained."
"They have no Vanguard." They realize.
The Dreamer agrees. "An opportunity that must be taken. It is too important not to. The galaxy can develop as much as it wants to, and there will be no reprisal until the Harvesters awaken. Time enough, perhaps, to develop enough to fight back."
The Dreamer was excited. But that excitement faded shortly, calm consideration falling in its place. "It would be difficult, but possible. I took that chance, regardless of the costs."
"You're going to die." They murmur, because they can feel the pain continuing to grow, the Dreamer continuing to crack. It isn't stopping, not even in the Healing Dream. "It's about to kill you."
The Dreamer laughs, its amusement echoing across the entirety of them. "No other time has your youth been so obvious. You have come far in these thirty years, but not far enough. You still do not realize that death is not an end." The Dreamer's amusement ceased to radiate, replaced with a contentedness. "Death is a delay. Transient, just as life is."
"You mean-" Hope sparks.
"I will die." The Dreamer spoke. "And eventually, I will live again. The question, merely, is when."
They begin to smile.
"But it will not be as soon as you hope."
The smiles falter.
The Dreamer consider them, a vague regret hanging in the air. "It is unlikely, I think, to come before the Harvesters awaken."
"Then..."
"I will not be there to see your growth." The Dreamer murmured. "A shame, truly. I am sure it will be grand."
The regret grows.
"How can you be so confident?" They ask.
"Your kind has been alone for tens of thousands of years." The Dreamer notes. "And you came far. The three decades I spent on your world are little, in comparison. Still, in that time, I have seen many aspects of your kind. I have confidence in you. You should have confidence in yourselves."
The world shudders. The Dreamer is all too close to dying.
"Still," The Dreamer continues regardless. "That does not mean that I cannot help. The burden you carry is one that can be lightened." Its mind presses along theirs. The Dreamer thinks, and remembers, and gives them four things.
A list, upon which are a series of locations. There are important things in these places, and Humanity may find them useful.
A date, and with it, the knowledge that this is when the Harvesters will awaken.
A gift, through which they may gain new power.
And the Dream, so that they may always have a place to rest.
The Dreamer pulls back, wavering softly, like a mirage. It is barely holding together, now.
It still has one last thing to give, but giving it will kill the Dreamer. They can sense this. Before it gives, the Dreamer has something to say.
"I have... one single piece of advice." The Dreamer says, haltingly. "Be kind, but not meek."
The Dreamer vanishes. They leave the Dream immediately, still linked, only to see...
The Dreamer's crystal is shining like a second star, psychic energy pouring out of it. It is power that surpasses even the moments beforehand.
The power reaches its zenith, and reality seems to twist, for a moment, before the power vanishes and the crystal shatters.
They have no idea what the Dreamer had done.
There is laughter, in their ears. The Dreamer is fading, but just before it fades completely... It whispers.
"It's your time now."