********* lies comatose on the bed. Instead of a relaxed asleep look on his face, the mask has been removed and profound misery is exposed. The residual damage in his nervous system is unexpectedly mild, until I remember what ********* claims he did to supposedly heal his brain. Whatever the case is, what remains has to be healed. I carefully use my biotics to coax the nerves in his chest to release. They were like tight strings which refused to loosen. If he were awake, the experience would be strange to say the least. Imagine if one handheld tightly on a ball for an entire year and then finally released it. Your nerves would wish to continue holding onto the ball even though they need to rest.
Dr. Chakwas calls Grunt up to the cabin for him to transfer ********* to the medbay. The chronological pre-adolescent krogan immediately displays concern for his friend. Grunt asks "what happened to him?" which she'll explain later, assuming ********* gives his consent for his "medical condition" to be known to others. For a warrior alien race, Grunt is very gentle. Almost resembling a parent carrying their sleeping child to bed. Tali insists on staying by ********. Grunt stops to observe the unconscious man in his arms.
Grunt says "It's hard to see him like this. He is so weak. I could easily kill him."
"Don't you dare" Tali warns.
He replies "I didn't mean it like that. It's that… this is the strongest guy in the galaxy here he's so vulnerable and defenseless. It's hard to believe what my eyes are telling me" He said.
Liara says "Everyone has their weak moments. ********* is no exception. Let this be a lesson for you."
Grunt tells us "On TuChunka, you have to be strong. It's thought a krogan should only have to rely on himself. Any weakness is your fault, but I was raised alongside you humans, open to the value of cooperation and teamwork. Now I'm starting to realize it's a necessity."
My mind feels slow and loopy... my chest feels… so empty… like something was removed. The bright white lights above me stab my eyes. I grog from the sensation. My attempts to sit-up are quickly abandoned. My chest has never felt this way before. Its feels like my rib cage were replaced with brand new arteries and veins. This feels weird has fuck. My right forearem is numb. The flow of blood is obstructed from the pressure of a sleeping quarian.
"Sweetheart?"
Tali wakes up "*********?"
"What happened?"
Dr. Chakwas comes over and explains what she and Liara did to me. Biotics were used to treat the nerves in my body to erase any lingering trauma. She says Liara noticed most of the problem lied on my chest.
"But I intentionally weakened my own body to release it. I know because I could feel and hear things dissolving then felt like throwing up afterwards."
Dr. Chakwas says "According to Liara, no amount of fasting would have gotten that out of your system. Your system is rebooting and it's going to take a while before you're back to 100%. Are you able to reset your body?"
I get a sense of my powers. They still work. Resetting is possible, however I shouldn't.
"I should heal naturally. Whatever I was carrying is finally out and I shouldn't have live with that anymore."
Tali says "However long you need. I'll be here to help you."
I ask the doctor "what do I need?"
"Rest. Liara wishes to treat your nerves again to prevent them clamping back up and it will be a lot easier if your waking mind helps her through the treatment."
"Was I out long?"
"A day and a half. Don't worry about the mission. Shepard can handle himself. Do you think you can get up? As long as you wear this device so I can track your vitals, you can rest in your room if it's more comfortable for you."
"I can move my legs, but it feels so weird to move my chest. Even breathing. It feels like it's buzzing. Not my vibe kind of buzzing, more when your leg falls asleep and blood flow being restored feeling that's very uncomfortable."
"I don't have anything for that. Do you want to try moving? If not, Grunt offered to carry you."
"I want to get up. Tali, I need your help. Please pull me up and go slow." This sensation is indescribable. It's like I wasn't born with bones. I feel so empty inside. Drinking a lot of water will help. With the ladies' help, I'm able to get on my feet only to immediately fall down.
"Whoaohoh. Did I lose alot of blood or something? I can feel my blood pressure is much less."
"Your blood pressure is in normal range. Liara says her people sometimes go through something like you are, but not nearly to the same extent. In summary, your fluids are moving through areas that were previously partially closed off. Your body will learn to adapt in time. I can administer fluids and we can try again in a few minutes."
"No. I want to go to my room now. Tali I'm going to have to lean on you. It won't be far."
"You can always count on me."
Another day has passed. I'm not taking visitors. My omntiool has been getting messages from the crew wishing I'd get better. Ken and Gabby offered to work so Tali can stay with me who has been a saint. Once we made it back to my room, I collapse on the bed. She found some books Kasumi left on the ship. I took one to help pass the time, downed several glasses of water, and one of juice for the energy, then slept. Tali stayed with me and would rub my shoulder until I fell asleep.
I woke up a day later feeling about 40% back to normal. My powers still work and can return to my light body form. The amazing thing is, it's so easy now. Literally effortless. Like breathing, actually even easier than breathing because my intercostal muscles still feel weird as hell. My body is healing, but the light form shouldn't be affected. Staying and healing is the smart thing for me to do, but I can't keep doing this. I need answers. There is one thing I can do, but I have no idea what will happen.
The vibrations are like any spectrum of energy. Heat, light, velocity, etc. I asked the people at the guild what happens if you vibrate as high as possible and everyone told me only to do that if I was absolutely ready. Well, I am. I need answers. My soul calls for something.
"Tali, I have to do something and honestly I don't know what's going to happen."
"********* what are you saying?"
"I'm going to be leaving. I have no idea how long it will be from my perspective, but I'll come back to this moment."
"********* I'm scared of you going anywhere in your current condition. Please don't go."
"I have to. I will come back. I promise."
Vibrate higher, and higher, and higher, this is my limit, or it was. Higher… and higher? Even higher? This is amazing! I've never gone this high before. This feels incredible. Where am I? This isn't the astral plane. If it were, there would be a violet tint everywhere, but it's just empty. This isn't the void either. There is something in all this emptiness. I continue raising my vibrations until I see a light. I cautiously move closer.
This place… it's beautiful. In the center of the darkness is the most luminous white orb of light. Whatever this phenomenon is, its gigantic. It makes the galaxies in the background look like tiny led lights. There's the entire spectrum of colors funneling in from the bottom and more shooting out from the top. It reminds me of the way electrons move along a magnetic field. I want to get closer. Those colors, I see small white stars with varying numbers of points and each one is uniquely surrounded by spheres or ovals of different colors. These are souls. Why are they going into there and shooting out? I should be afraid, but I feel no danger. Oddly I feel welcomed home. No, I don't trust anything, but I need to know. I'll anchor myself and only get a little bit closer.
This definitely is not the white light reincarnation trap I've encountered before. This is something else. Something incredible. I move closer and am wrapped up the most joyful feeling of love and peace. I have to check this out. I pick up the pace.
"STOP!" A booming voice comes from everywhere outside and inside me. My instincts command me to stop. Why do I feel like I know this thing? I've never seen it before, but this place feels so much like home. Whatever that is, its conscious and so powerful I would be obliterated if I try to fight against it. The smartest move is to play dumb. My toes can wiggle. Good I can move my body, but remain frozen just in case.
"I know you can move. There is no need to pretend. You are not supposed to arrive yet" the mysterious voice says.
"What is this place? Who are you?" I ask.
It responds "You know me. In the deepest parts of your soul… and you read about me."
I must have. My mind is trying desperately to figure out what this thing is. Ugh it's like the world's biggest thorn is moving around my brain. Let's look at the fundamentals. Whatever this thing is dwarfs' galaxies but it's not a sentient universe, lots of souls are here, it's morphology is simple, and it's a giant light sou- "THE SOURCE! You're real!"
"Yes."
"What exactly are you? A Boltzman brain?"
"..." I think it wants specifics.
"A brain randomly made from the sheer randomness of infinity which a soul binds to and believes they are God. There is at least one in nearly every universe."
"No. I was never a brain composed of flesh. In fact souls come from me and I was here before everything you know existed as I made it." It said. My soul tells me what it says is the absolute truth.
"You made everything? How? Why? How old are you?" I ask.
"I think you finally deserve an explanation. My age is incalculable as I do not perceive time like you do."
"Do you see it nonlinearly?"
"Yes and no. I have perceived it nonlinearly, linearly, forwards, reverse, non-perception of time, every way possible, every combination, and so much more."
"How does that even work?"
"I'll explain everything. First, I have always existed, but I did not understand myself. One moment, I had the idea to do by infinitely dividing portions of myself so they would interact with myself and learn, as you can see, aside from the galaxies which were not originally present, not much is here. Then I had the idea to make a place for us to learn. I created this simple thing that would interact with itself in infinite ways. Complexity arising from simplicity. It grew exponentially to form every conceivable universe, and I sent portions of myself into those universes to experience it all, and then when the time was right for those pieces of me to be called back and I absorb the knowledge and grow. I am all. Gods, Devils, men, every hero, every villain, and am everyone because everyone is me, just playing this game I made so that I could come to understand myself, but this creation I made was so much fun, I kept doing it, and every time a soul reintegrates, I gained energy to grow and make new souls like you."
Alarm bells go off.
"HELLS NAW! I'm not losing my individuality to anything. I've been through too much!"
"No, you do not understand. You will remain you, but connected to so much more, like a computer connecting to the internet. You're still a computer but you have access to more than anything it could ever build on its own. If one day you decide to join us, you are free to leave whenever you like with no judgement."
"I don't believe you!"
In less than a second, A bright comet traveling trillions of miles lands right in front of me. My hands instinctively raise to cover my head. I expect an explosion which doesn't occur. I open my eyes and find it's a soul with no distinct shape. Yellow in color.
"Hey. He doesn't usually talk to people. You must be pretty special." That voice. I can't believe it.
"FANTA!"
"Do we know each other? I haven't used that name since I was a quarian and that must have been eons ago."
The source says "He's the one who taught you how to ascend."
"AH! **********! You finally made it!"
"What happened to you? You don't look like a quarian anymore."
"Oh, I ditched that form so long ago. How is your bondmate? Is she coming?"
"She's doing fine. She's really excited to go live on Rannoch after we beat the Reapers."
"OH! Barely any time has passed for you."
"Fanta what's it like in there?"
"It's amazing. Pure bliss and happiness better than anything you can describe, and you become a part of something so much bigger than yourself.. You're going to love it. I'm heading back out there."
"Why would you leave? That sounds incredible?"
"It is but once you've been in there for millions of years, you're ready to get back out there. I'm going to go to one of those universes with the soul recycler and see how long it takes to get out of there. I want to try to get out under a hundred lifetimes to break my record."
"WHAT IN THE EVER LIVING FUCK!"
"Fanta please go. I have some explaining to do. ********* be at ease. You can trust me. Afterall, I'm the one who helped you."
"********* calm down. I'm leaving. We'll meet again in there one of these days. Until then have fun!"
"You're the one who helped me. Sniffs sniffs. Thank you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I mean it. I hated that place so much. I'm immensely grateful. I'm in your debt. Are we going to rescue everyone? We have to help them."
"No that is not why I aided you."
"WHAT?! Do you have any idea how many people are suffering right now! How many trillions of souls are in torment right now? I had it really fucking rough, but even I realize there are people who had it way worse than me. Why help me of all people? There are people trapped in dungeons for decades."
"You are forgetting masochists exist. Things are not how you imagine. I aided you as you possess an iron will, a strong heart, wisdom beyond your years, intelligent, and hardworking enough to do what is necessary, and you had the background knowledge to understand, as well as the desperation to actually leave."
"You'll listing off my character traits and evading my question."
"... I felt sorry for you."
"What? Were you just watching me suffer all those years? Do you have any idea what I was put through? How much I put myself through to prevent the initial suffering from ever happening again!"
"QUIT IT!"
I collapse on to my knees. My hands tremble while begging the source "no please don't hurt me again. I"M SORRY. PLEASE!"
"I'm not going to hurt you. You've been through enough. I was not watching you suffer in your early years. In fact, you were brought to my attention, and I felt you deserved a chance to leave."
"What? How?"
"I have monitors in place. Before the start of your journey, you went to a paranormal museum with a haunted doll. This was before you knew the truth, but you looked into its eyes and thought 'I don't know if you are actually in there, but if you are, I truly hope you have peace. We both deserve it.' You accidentally sent a telepathic message, and you were the only one to have ever said that to the entity connected to the doll, and your thoughts were genuine, but it was also confused why you didn't have peace. Your aura was beautiful. The entity followed you and when you meditate, it saw resistance and found your brain damage was inhibiting the process, but also increased your intuition. Your soul craved the higher vibrations and desperately searched for understanding and returning home. Word spread through the grapevine and your memories read. They witnessed what you've been through and how pure your heart was and thought you deserved you're out. I was amazed how much progress you made with all the obstacles you had, you're different. Most people form your world either accepted what happened to them, took their frustrations out on another, or drown their sorrows in chemicals, but you never did. Instead, you used it to motivate yourself to become better and you tried anything you found to be better. And despite all the terrible things others did to you, you wished to help them. You didn't have to do that."
"I foolishly thought if I helped them, then they would become better people and treat me better. Instead, I was taken advantage of. I was the best person I could be and worked astronomically hard. I just wanted a low stress life, love, the treatment I gave, but apparently that was too much. I know this sounds stupid but I was interrupted 90% of the time. Someone would ask me a question and I'd say "because they" then they would cut me off! It's not that fucking hard to let me finish a sentence especially when I let you finish yours. For a country that claims to be about freedom of speech, they really wanted me to shut up."
"The damage to your brain sort of, vibrationally locked you. Their senses made them think you were a newborn, causing communication issues and the disrespect."
"I'm an over 6ft muscular man who used to have a beard."
"As you experienced, most of your people's eyes became vestigial."
"Full agreement there."
"When you fasted long enough, it removed those toxins and provided additional energy which permitted your brain to at last heal and allow to become the person you were meant to be. I took a gamble helping you out. I knew you would figure it out and was concerned you would use your powers to harm others, but you never did. I'm proud of you for that."
"Why didn't you just beam the instructions into my head?"
"I knew you wouldn't trust me, but if I nudged some things and showed you what not to do, you would have run away and did the opposite. I helped you learn what you needed at the right time if you passed my tests, and you did. I hoped the realization of the omniverse would make you appreciate the uniqueness of your world, but by then things became worse and you were set on leaving. You were a new soul, meant to have a standard life and explore the buffet of options on a balanced world, not savage primitiveness, nor stagnant hyper advance society, in a nation with freedom to be whoever you chose to with support, to see what you liked and where you belonged, but that did not happen. I did not want you to think existence was perpetual torment. It was supposed to be a gift. Yes, there is meant to be pain, but that is to bring growth and rewards, then death to release. But that is not what happened to you and what occurred was freak accident that will never happen to you ever again. I promise. You don't even need me, because you figured it out, that information will stay with you forever. Even if you choose to reincarnate, you'll free yourself if it becomes too much again much faster."
"I'm never reincarnating. I will not risk going through that ever again."
"Do you really think you'll never be reborn? You'll exist for trillions of years. Do you honestly think you'll never reincarnate?"
"YES!"
"You… actually might. I'm sorry for what happened, and I opened up everything for you to enjoy."
"I did not want any of this. I would have been just fine having a normal life the first go around. Instead, I had to distract myself for thousands of years until I finally got what I really wanted."
"Don't give me that. You have had plenty of opportunities and your own issues got in the way. You didn't have to tell your partners your secret."
"And keep something so important from the one person I'm supposed to trust the most?"
"Always the romantic."
"So why were others having crappy lives?"
"Not everyone is on the same path. Some were curious and they wished to experience what they desired, others were punishing themselves for what they did, most old souls chose random lives as they have already acclimated to harsh lifetimes and want to keep the boredom away for a while, but they did not experience the same amount of constant trauma you did. The human body was not supposed to carry that much trauma but you, you fought off death before even being born. You were supposed to die, but you fought it off, then you did it again when your body was close to giving up. I figured you already went through the most challenging experience in the omniverse and how much you sculpted your character; I didn't see any point in making you relive the many lifetimes most souls go through before learning to control their vibrations."
"Why does it have to take so long?"
"It doesn't. The only requirements are an interest and commitment. As souls learn they are eternal, that means they have forever to learn it, which causes procrastination."
"If my consciousness is truly eternal, what would have happened to me if I spent all my energy?"
"You would have discovered your true essence is a localized spacetime information point and allow access to all of space time."
"Is that how Buddha made the monkey pee on his finger?"
"That is not how to story goes and we both know it."
"I would have preferred to know I would have been alright before I saved those batarians."
"But then you wouldn't haven't felt the existential terror of believing your fading away for good. Wasn't that an amazing experience?"
"NO!"
"You are no fun."
"I just want the life I worked for and I want it to be with Tali and be fine to love her. Can I please have that?"
"YES! I made everything so I could experience everything. It's ok for you to love Tali. It's ok to love yourself and you should love yourself, because I love myself and you're me, just being separate from me for a little while, and you can come back when you are ready if that is what you really want."
All my pent-up worries, concerns if I was doing the right thing, if my selfishness was evil, the relief I can actually have what I dreamt of for so long. They all come flooding through my emotional generators. I cry until everything comes out. The source projects an avatar of light to hug me, spurring the purge of negativity I've had for so long. The source says to me "It's ok. All will be well. You can live your life. Don't worry. It will all be fine. I trust you to make the right choice. This has been a long time coming. You and Tali can have the life you will build. Please enjoy your existence."
"I will! I promise to do right by her, project and love her. I promise!"
"I know you will. You have a very happy life ahead of you. Now go back and live it. I'll be here waiting."
Tali says "*********! You look strangely relived. What happened?"
"... I got what I needed, Tali. It's all out. I can live now."