It was about a fifteen-minute walk down the overgrown road around the cove, but Ben had eventually led me straight to the opening of the vortigaunt sanctum.

We left through Red Bay's west gate and kept to the wide-open beach on our journey. The sight of Red Bay and its dim lights were always within view as we rounded the quiet cove, hearing the ambient sound of crickets and other nightly wildlife slowly coming to life as the late evening sun was setting behind the hills to the left of us, making it quite dark though still light enough to see. I was a little anxious about what I was walking into, but I had the eternal reassurance from Ben that I would be partaking in a very safe practice that had been mastered by all of their race through their collective memory.

Ben had a habit of elaborating any more than what little he already said, so that was all I had to go on, but I trusted my friend. He had not led me astray once, so I at least felt like I owed him that proposed audience with his fellow kin. And likewise, I felt it was time to widen my reach a bit. I had been alone in my pursuit of answers regarding the fate of my home planet and my people for long enough. It was about time I acquired some help in my search, and I was interested in seeing what means these vortigaunts had to bring to the table.

When we had arrived at the sanctum, I discovered it to be that peculiar long building that could be seen from Red Bay across the cove; the one with what appeared to be two large, hanger door-like openings on the sides facing the water, but I found out they seemed to be massive doorways for boats to float into one time ago. I was a little surprised at first, as I had not been given a proper description of the sanctum by anybody, only that it was just across the cove, like no human had ever been there, and none likely have given how private and elusive I was understanding vortigaunts to be.

Although aloof and secretive, I was shown the utmost hospitality by the time Ben showed me to one of the rusty old doors of the building, where Jerry had emerged right on cue as we approached. "Galunga!" he greeted Ben in that odd tongue.

"Cherr-alung-gjeht," Ben nodded back. They both performed a mutual handshake with each other before Jerry looked at me. His three red eyes portrayed a humble gentleness, including his opaque fourth blind one.

"Greetings to the Krystal," he growled contently gently taking my hand for a shake, where I returned the gesture. "We have been expecting you."

"Thank you for having me," I said, closing one of my hands around the other. "What am I to expect when inside?"

"More handshakes," Jerry said, making a fangy smirk as he turned around to lead us inside the building.

The interior inside the main building was wide open and conveyed the distinctive appearance of a place of maintenance work.

The high ceiling was hollow and had a series of triangular intents running down the length of the building along with sturdy metal rafters where old cables, rusty chains and industrial hooks hung motionless with disuse. Three large open pits led out onto the beach outside; the walls were made of rotting wood and had rows of rubber tyres strung up along where the wood met the concrete floor of the room, leading me to believe that these were likely drydocks or simple wharves of some kind before the waterline had receded drastically since the Combine began draining from Earth's oceans, making them lead out into the lengthened beach instead.

This was all that remained of the former human inhabitants that worked here; now that this building had new occupants, the building had since been undergoing radical changes. The metal walls of the building were glowing with bioluminescent light that covered massive portions of the walls all around in bright shades of yellow, blue and orange. The sight of them was so dazzling it took me a moment to realise that they were, in fact, a large series of illustrations painted by the vortigaunt residents.

"Whoa…" I muttered in fascination upon fully stepping inside, feeling an overwhelming sense that this place meant quite a bit more than a simple living space for a small congregation of vortigaunts.

"Histories abode," Ben rumbled in agreement. "In the event of possible memory deuteriation amongst our kind, we make the walls remember who we were, who we are, and who we will become when we cannot."

"Though, it will be―how shall it be said―redundant to you in a moment―these illustrations," Jerry said. "You will bear witness to much of what is being expressed on the walls, as is how we will acquaint you with the vivacities of the vortessence."

Jerry continued leading us across the enormous room. I honestly had not paid much attention to what the two of them had explained to me because the glowing pictures on the walls were so captivating. It was hard for me to take my eyes off of them.

Of course, I wished to be a good houseguest, so I withdrew my wandering eyes for the moment as we met the other vortigaunts. There were seven more here attending to various tasks. There was one looking over large stacks of crates piled up against a support girder, most likely supplies of some kind, I could see another near to us sitting on a padded object on the ground, appearing to be making a concoction inside what looked to be a mortar and pestle, perhaps grinding herbs for medicine or culinary purposes. A few were asleep on makeshift beds spread out around the maintenance bay, and a couple more were standing by an oil drum that was blazing with a hearty fire, which was something I hadn't noticed until now having been so enraptured by the spectacular pictures on the walls.

"Cher-alungaha! Sjhut-galing-gung!" Jerry called to his kin, which roused an immediate response from every one of them―including the ones who I thought were fast asleep. We had stopped where we were as Ben and Jerry's kin steadily rose to attention, growling lowly with intrigue and interest as they all looked their enormous red eyes at me. A moment of resonation filled me as they looked upon me, an identical feeling that overcame me when I first met Ben. They all began to walk towards me with a mesmerised reverence in their large red eyes.

"Ah…the Krystal."

"Welcome, Krystal."

"It is well."

"We have been waiting for the Krystal."

"Our anticipation…satisfied."

"An honour it is to acquaint."

"Your bright face outshines the stars."

As Jerry alluded to before, there were indeed many handshakes to go around, and I was obliged to shake each one that was offered to me. I found the session of mingling pleasant, for I sensed harmony amongst these vortigaunts, one that they were fully willing to share with me. My uncertainties about the purpose behind my presence here were now significantly reduced by all the new friends I was quickly making.

"The time for revelations draws upon us," Jerry said to the others as they stepped aside to give me space once they were all done shaking my hand. "Are the preparations for transcendency available for use?"

"In just a few moments," one of them droned with insistence. "The reserves are in a delicate state. We cannot risk error, especially when in concern for the Krystal's inexperience."

"Very well," Jerry nodded. "Return to them. Nurture their ripeness."

The preparer nodded compliantly and trudged back over to his mortar and assortments across the floor by his seat. The other vortigaunts then returned to their businesses as well in prolonged wait for the 'preparations' to finally reach maturity. In the meantime, I indulged my hungry eyes and stepped over to the vast metal canvas spanning the length of the building.

I did not look at everything strewn up on the walls, as I did not wander far from this little gathering, but what little I did manage to see was incredible. These murals of glowing paint portrayed a vertical timeline of the vortigaunt race, all through simple shapes and figures, but were visually distinct enough that I knew all that they were meant to represent. I walked slowly beside the wall, looking at depictions of vortigaunt communities living in what looked to be villages or settlements.

Images of alien warships later appeared, causing chaos and panic, and the survivors fled to other realms. The proceeding illustration was of a large grotesque figure with a massive bulbous head and spindly limbs binding the vortigaunts with some kind of tether, though I couldn't be too sure if this was meant to be a figurative depiction of some kind. My mindful stride came to a halt when I came to the next mural, and I could feel it in my blood that I was gazing upon something truly important.

In contrast to the disproportionate figure in the previous mural, the figure before me now was shown to be tall and mighty. Its whole body, excluding the head, was shown to be covered in a large set of what looked to be armour, coloured entirely by glowing orange paint. The figure's head looked almost formless, lacking discernible features, but its eyes were two huge splotches of white that almost invoked light shining from within its eye sockets. And, peculiarly enough, right at the centre of the figure's platted chest was the yellow lambda sign.

Whoever, or whatever this was meant to be, the vortigaunt―or vortigaunts―who painted this series of murals held this elusive entity with tremendously high regard. It was highly detailed compared to the simpler illustrations of the other ones I had looked at, pushing me towards the belief that maybe this was a holy figure of some kind. Ben appeared to have noticed my fixation and walked up right next to me.

"The Severer of Tethers," he said, a coo of admiration in his gruff voice as he studied it with me. "The One Between the Worlds. The Nihilanth's Demise…"

"Who is this?" I wondered, thirsty for knowledge, and those cryptic titles did little to quench that thirst.

"The Freeman…"

That was still just cryptic, yet somehow explained everything I needed to know. That name seemed to make ripples in spacetime itself somehow. It carried an identical weight that the name Black Mesa bore, but it was almost its antithesis. The name Freeman spurred hope instead of doom.

I was silent after Ben said that name, leaving me staring at the lambda sign on the figure's chest. I was beginning to wonder if there was a deeper meaning behind the resistance's chosen icon. Perhaps this Freeman had a larger role to play in all of this world's struggles than I would have initially assumed, but I wasn't sure if they were necessarily good roles. Yet, I somehow knew that they weren't bad either. A name that seemed perpetually stuck in some kind of limbo.

Once the preparations had reached completion, I was summoned amongst the other vortigaunts, who were sitting in a circle just off to the oil drum that had a fire burning in it beneath the open skylight.

I joined their circle, sitting in between Ben and one of the others I had just met and watched as the procurer returned with a tightly secured leather satchel in his hands before offering it to Jerry, who was sitting on the other end of the circle from me. He growled in approval as the procurer sat down within the ranks of the now-complete circle. Jerry then proceeded to diligently remove the contents from the satchel, accompanied by a humming chorus by all the other vortigaunts―Ben included―almost like this were a ceremonial procedure.

The first that the satchel had produced was a plastic bag with a vibrant collection of what looked to be powder of some kind, swirling with exotic colours, and may have been potentially glowing. There was something else inside the satchel that was glowing a soft but bold blue light. Jerry only took a quick peek inside, though he had merely looked to see what remained inside and grunted with approval again. It seemed like it was not time to remove that mysterious glowing item yet, leaving me to wonder what it could have been.

The humming chorus abruptly ended as Jerry began to hold up the plastic bag with the powders inside, and I realised they were glowing to a small extent. "This will be a night of reveals," Jerry announced amongst his silent vortigaunt communion. "A night of review, and a night of initiation. We welcome this wayward soul to our eternal realm of cert; where the pasts are futures, and the futures are pasts. It is here, in the present of presents, where it will be decided where we will be going, who we will be, and reconcile with who we could have been."

Jerry lowered his arms before turning his gaze upon me. "The vortessence moulds soundly with you, young one. Though you have been forced from your realm, it is not by chance that you have arrived here at our assembly. A many of great things await their natal emergence once you take to them. Your vortal chord may already be profound and bear tremendous vitality from what we gather, but it is not without its untapped potential. We offer our guidance so that we may help you reach that potential within the vortessence, but the learning process may unearth certain truths that have been buried in you for a direct reason. Should you wish to reconsider this endeavour, or require further thought in participating, you may decide so now. The future is chosen by you."

Ben and the other six vortigaunts looked at me, waiting for my answer, but I felt no pressure or urgency from them. Reading the minds of vortigaunts had been a surprisingly tricky feat; I had assumed that Ben's kind had a mild resistance to telepathy somehow, but with more vortigaunts here, I sensed that their thoughts seemed…interchangeable? Hivelike? No, those descriptions did little justice to what was being teased to me.

Somehow, their minds were both simultaneously here in reality and elsewhere all at once. Like a shared bandwidth. Each of them was individual, but one. Unique, but linked. Here in reality and there in another. And even amongst them who had perished in time, and times across times, I sensed them here too, within the beings around, also awaiting my reply just the same.

It was quite an intense moment for me as my head began to swirl with thoughts I had not considered before. The vortessence, whatever it truly was or how it worked, seemed to beckon me as my decision awaited reply. I was not guaranteed safety, whatever that truly meant, but I was promised a pathway to hidden knowledge should I embark on their practice. Knowledge had always been out of my reach all my life. If there was the slightest chance that I could know…

"Yes," I declared after a careful, final consideration. "I wish to proceed."

Jerry grunted with an affirming nod before beginning to unravel the seal that kept the mysterious glowing powder in the bag. "Such as, with all new recreations, a simple, yet critical, introduction is needed," he said, dipping his two long fingers into the dust before his long thumb and gingerly scooped out a portion of glowing dust. "Exploring the vortessence is a voluntary immersion into the inhabitants that thrive within it. Those with lesser experience in such a field, or the mere lack of proper ability, cannot withstand or comprehend what is required to embrace entanglement. While you, Krystal, bear innate traits that make you well-suited to endure immersion, a cautionary link must still be enacted to ensure certainty in your abilities. A…'test run'…as human linguistics would define it."

I found that policy quite reasonable as well as reassuring to me. I was about to ask more details of what kind of test run they would put on me when Jerry suddenly raised the hand holding the powder, while small glowing grains managed to slip through his palms and trickle down to the floor, shimmering like a comet's tail. "Join with us, Krystal. Bare witness to a linear projection of our scars, our fears, and our uncompromising hope."

All the vortigaunts in the circle then began to put their arms over each other's shoulders, with Ben and the other next to me following suit as they put the arms over me. I was compelled to complete the link and put my arms over the vortigaunts on either side of me. I watched a little anxiously as Jerry opened the palm containing the power he had pulled; his whole hand started to glow the same bright green that had regularly enveloped Ben's hands when accessing this kind of energy, and the power in his hand began to float upward, carried by soft flickering tendrils of emitting green energy like a micro lightning storm had just formed on his hand.

The floating dust then began to float towards me, and the rest of the powder in the bag started rising from the bag as well to join its fellow drifting granules. I remained still as the little cloud of sparkling dust swirled around me before eventually coating me from head to toe in a dazzling layer of sparkly colours―making sure to keep my eyes and nose closed should the powder land anywhere I didn't want it to. Before I could muster the courage to interrupt this process and ask why that had been necessary, Jerry joined arms with the others around him, and in sequence, their hands began producing the same eerie emerald glow, blazing to life around the circle and creeping towards me to complete it.

Getting an uneasy feeling about what would happen, I shut my eyes again and braced for the unknown, but I found them being forced open again by the time their energies made contact as an overwhelming series of images and sounds flashed before my eyes and ears all at once. I bore witness to a supernova of shared memories bestowed upon me by the vortigaunts around me.

I saw a world of towering rocky terrain, filled with lush vegetation and a sky flaring with colours. Through their own eyes, I saw villages and other vortigaunts living busy and peaceful lives attending to their antlion farms among other communal tasks universal for sustaining communities. There was then a great exodus as their home was overtaken by an otherworldly force, overwhelming the denizens and forcing them to flee the world. The males went through a series of dimensional escape routes, while their female mates and their young escaped through different ones.

What became of the vortigaunt women was not revealed too clearly, for it was from the men's perspective I was currently bound to, and much of them had found themselves to have leapt right into the shackles of a single powerful oppressor who had enslaved them and forced them to work for it, dictating their wills with its all-powerful mind. I saw dark environments harrowing environments with organic-looking walls as conveyors move massive capsules along.

Then, once the army of manufactured mutants was ready, and the signal of the world of thieves was discovered, many of us both deliberately and accidentally ripped through the tear between spaces and were forced to attack and kill the native life by the Nihilanth's will. We first appeared in and around a massive underground facility, populated by humans in white clothes and armed peacekeepers wearing blue shirts, helmets and armoured vests. We overran them, quickly ridding the facility of much of the staff, though one managed to beat us back at every turn.

The armoured warrior in orange killed many of us out of defence and out of protection. White orbs of fire burned in his eyes as he ran us through with his hooked metal bar and his assortment of firearms. Even the military forces dispatched to quell and silence everything inside the facility were no match for the quick wits and tactics of the armoured warrior.

Against all odds, he followed us back to the Nihilanth's chamber, where he had killed him, indefinitely severing us from his total control. The warrior had vanished without a trace after the battle, and the Nihilanth's death was felt by the ones who had made us flee from our world. The desperate escape into the world of humans was fruitless, as the Combine followed us here, and consequently forced humanity to its knees in subjugation. We got by the best we could, eventually gaining the acceptance from the humans who wished to free their world, our ongoing alliance had been making small but meaningful strides from its fruition to now, and the streams of sights and sounds were then abruptly cancelled, snapping me back to the circle.

I gasped like I had just surfaced from being trapped underwater for hours, when in reality this whole sequence lasted only several seconds. I had almost fallen flat on my face due to sudden weakness, but Ben and the other secured me tightly before I could. I lingered on breathing for the time being, trying to wrap my head around the countless lives I had just lived and the countless years I had lived through in only several seconds. In hindsight, it was amazing that took all that as well as I did and did not end up as a vegetable in the process, which was equally pleasing to the vortigaunts.

"The Krystal is a sufficient withstander, as expected," one noted with intrigue.

"Yes…her competencies are a plenty."

I held my head for a moment as I sat up on my knees, currently pushing past an unbearable brain rush that did thankfully subside, providing me with the strength to lift my head and look at the stranded interdimensional migrants that had fled tyranny only to be trapped by it again for the second time. A monsoon of emotions cycled through me all at once just like the shared experiences of the vortigaunts around me. There was nothing they needed to explain because I felt and heard everything they had ever gone through. Remarkably, out of all the major events I had witnessed in those several seconds, only one seemed to stand out from the rest, and it rendered me deeply sad.

"I'm sorry you had to separate…" I lamented, my light and mummery voice slowly regaining its strength. "Your mates… Your young… Where did they all go to?"

A dense seam of melancholy projected itself across all the cycloptic faces around me. "Elsewhere," one simply answered. "Elsewhere where they too face insolvencies, much like us."

"However, we do not despair," another said. "They are still with us, just as we are still with them. The vortessence is what keeps us as one."

"To share their pain."

"Their woes."

"Their triumphs."

"Their failures."

"And their joys."

"Making them ours, and making ours their own," Ben said.

"Our bonds are indestructible, even across time and death. The vortessence is so that we are inseparable," Jerry finished.

Amidst the quelling onrush made by my trialled immersion, my determination to see this through remained unwaveringly firm. I could already recognise tremendous potential in the vortessence; I had never undergone a trance quite to that intense degree before. What immediate uses I could apply it to I currently didn't know, but something in me continued to steer towards it and its secrets. It was Jerry's last words when describing it was I fully convinced that I had to learn more about it, but I knew it likely wouldn't be easy if I was in for more overwhelming sessions like that.

"Thank you. All of you. For sharing that with me," I heaved, just now getting past the initial shock and restabilising myself. "The Freeman… He killed so many who could not help themselves. I regret he did not kill your enslaver before any of you were pushed across to this world."

"Fret not, Krystal," one vortigaunt reassured. "They had been released by the Freeman by his own hands. Death is the next step in our greater existence. Such is the case with you and all else, if you would only see it."

As true as that could have been, I was still quite attached to the life I was currently in, though I digressed. The vortigaunts were a different lot, enraptured with a whole different realm of magic. They had mentioned before that even the departed still lingered in the vortessence, and implied further towards that just now. What if it wasn't exclusively vortikind's deceased that could be found in it?"

"What is the next step to take?" I asked, eager to continue. "How does one unlock potential hidden memories?"

Jerry and the others rumbled pensively. "By more…expensive means," he said. "Fortunately, we have had time to prepare for this, and procured the valuable compulsory in executing this next venture."

Jerry reached inside the satchel and pulled out that hidden glowing item. It was no bigger than a large egg, but it radiated a warm blue glow, basking burnt orange-coloured vortigaunt in its azure aura, making me marvel at its alluring appearance. Jerry held the mysterious substance in both hands like he was holding a tiny child.

"Certain compounds produced within antlion nests are critical in aiding the lengths of transcendency we hope to achieve within the vortessence, with this being the most prized of all," Jerry said, holding his cupped hands up a little higher. "The larval extract commands spectacular effects on bodily ailments, and, of course, transcendence. The larval extract is quite a dangerous thing to obtain, though we managed to have this small amount in our current possession at the time of this sequence. It is sufficient enough to serve our current purposes to receive a glimpse into your hidden past."

Without wasting much time, Jerry held out the larval extract before himself before quickly shoving it into his mouth with a veracity that made me jump. Reality felt like it rippled only seconds after he ingested that stuff. I watched as Jerry's appearance started to change; his rough leathery skin began to shimmer into a bright purple while his eyes turned from a bold red to a bright blue―barring his small orbital blind one.

He began to extend his shimmering arms out to his kin, who then all began to adopt the same psychedelic appearance―including Ben. "Luuuuuuuuuuunngggg… Luuuuuuuuuuuuunggggg… Luuuuuuuuunnnnnnnggggggg…" All of them began to echo together in unison while making circular motions with their arms, appearing to be helping along in the process of making the world cave in on itself.

The chain reaction inevitably spread its way over to me, and I found my body becoming overtaken by an insatiable numbing that disabled all of my motor functions apart from sitting myself up straight. Before I could nod off into a drowsy daze, I was able to sense hands reaching out to gently close around my head, which was the instant when time decided to play backwards.