"Auto-engage the systems—command all stations to fire.
I have failed you, Builders. Forgive me."
[Branded 1.1]
Amidst the nagging squeal of my bedside alarm clock, I can't help but lucidly dream about how nice it would be if things could be different.
Like an unrelenting beast, the irritation brings me to wake. The fanciful imagery that I held in my mind slips away. A dreadful reminder that the days of winter ease are over and the obligation of public school has resumed. What I would give for another week of holiday bliss, or at the very least the means to throw the blasted clock out the window without getting up. Time flies. Three weeks isn't enough.
Monday mornings should be outlawed and we should all be paid restitution.
Sitting up, I feel the nip of morning January air filling my room and let out a hiss. Recoiling backwards, leaning against my pillows and hugging my sheets tightly to my chest. I shiver and shake into my comforters, attempting regain the lost heat all the while staring at my still beeping bedside alarm clock.
Digging deep and mustering the willpower to depart the cozy confines of my blanket cocoon. I calmly, yet firmly apply a clenched fist against my bedside clock's snooze button. The awful noise dies quickly enough and I frown in satisfaction.
Yawning and stretching stiff limbs, I kick off the sheets and collect my glasses. The world is blurry enough. Now able to see clearly once more, I step up off from the bed, bracing to meet the morning. The wall poster of cape clad Alexandria salutes my efforts. Beneath her in bold golden text, blemished by a stubborn sales tag, is a hacky inspirational line saying to 'Seize the Day'. Feeling a confidence that could only be supported by the privacy of my own home, I salute back.
It's stupid, I know, but it makes me happy. That's reason enough for me to stand there looking like an idiot. As the magazines stacked in the corner of my room can attest, I'm a Cape geek at heart. Sue me. On with the morning.
I pass dad in the hall on my way to the kitchen and I can't help but notice how haggard he looks. He's been putting more and more time into work and the inconsistent hours have been adding up. But it isn't even because of the job. I'm familiar enough with his work to know the long days and even longer nights are of his own design. The more time he spends elbow deep in paperwork dealing with the minutiae of labor rights and law, the less time he has to dwell on things at home.
Things haven't been easy since…yeah.
I can relate. It's been a hell of a time for us both. So, I don't fault him. I don't blame him. I don't say anything. I just keep walking.
But, privately, I hope things turn around. That one day I'll step out of my room and dad'll be okay. He'll smile, say some corny half thought out joke just like how he used to and then we'll sit down and have breakfast like normal. We'll talk and we'll laugh and most importantly we won't feel like there's some cloud hanging over us, drowning us in a downpour of negativity. Things would be fine.
Again, it would have been nice if things could be different.
Making my way to the kitchen, I collect the breakfast of champions as well my own thoughts. In between bites of brand name cereal, I can't help but feel like I'm a type of flux. Ordinarily I would be feeling a mix of dread and worry.
Since the start of freshman year I've been dealing with what I can only describe as an unprecedented day to day bullying campaign. What made it even more unbearable was the fact one of the ringleaders was none other than my ex-best friend Emma. To this day I am ignorant of the causes, like a switch had been flipped and the person who'd been like a sister to me was now the biggest bitch in the world content with tormenting me for some sick amusement.
But recently, however, it feels as though things were changing. In the lead up to break, where they would be spending the day tormenting or sabotaging me, it looked like Emma and her cronies had lost interest, like I wasn't worth the time and effort anymore. It wasn't an immediate thing; they didn't stop messing with me over night. But I noticed back in late October that their harassment had become less frequent. What was an everyday nightmare became an occasional instance of casual cruelty, before ceasing altogether.
It was nearly two weeks after the last incident when Julia approached me.
I remembered her of course. Straight brown hair with highlights. Nothing I would call professionally done but serviceable enough of a dye job. Someone who wasn't too pretty as to overshadow the ringleaders but visibly noticeable to stand out amongst the rest of the gallery of hangers on. I remembered the times she'd be standing at the back of the group, one of the bodies that made up the wall between me and a quick exit, boxing me in and forcing me to endure whatever jeering and cruelty Emma or Sophia and Madison had designed. But she'd be in the back, never at the forefront like all the others.
An onlooker and passive participant, but never taking the initiative like the others.
Maybe that was why I bothered to listen when she spoke to me.
There I was, sitting in the cafeteria and not a restroom stall, testing the waters to see if my torment had finally ended. I was three bites into my meal when she stepped into view. Food tray on hand, she asks if she could sit with me.
Naturally, I tell her to buzz off. Just because I'm no longer in Emma's sights doesn't mean I'm going to forget. But then she keeps at it, up until the end of the semester, up until she wears me down.
It's been a while, so long that I've almost forgotten how the motions go. Julia was persistent enough, so much so that I'm caught flatfooted when carrying a casual conversation.
What really surprised me was the effort. I don't have a phone, that makes reaching out something of an obstacle. And as odd as it was, I never bothered to subscribe to a popular social media platform, taking comfort in my insolation by lurking on sites like PHO. But Julia didn't ask or pry for a reason, which netted her a positive notch. She didn't ask for me to step out of my comfort zone and was accommodating.
We exchanged emails. We wrote to each other over mundane things, first over homework, which was easy enough seeing as we both had the same World Issues class. I will admit to feeling a wistful sense of nostalgia over our exchanges. It had been a while since I'd maintained a lengthy conversation, even if it had been handled through a computer screen.
The conversations soon began to extend beyond schoolwork, branching off into new topics like holiday plans and new year's resolutions, which had given me pause. I feel like a scratched Staind CD stuttering on repeat, but it had been a while, and it felt even longer since I bothered to imagine what tomorrow might look like for myself.
So, privately, I declared to myself that I would be starting things anew. Without the target on my back that seemed to plague me since starting at Winslow, such a prospect felt achievable.
I could have a tomorrow, so why not start today?
God. It sounded so cheesy. But dammit why not? Why can't I entertain the possibility that things can be different? I don't have to be Winslow's punching bag. My life doesn't begin or end as some perpetual victim. I don't need to be miserable for the rest of my life.
Resolving to pursue this admittedly optimistic train of thought, I finish my breakfast in a content silence. It's going to be different. I can feel it.
Finishing up, I make way back to my room and boot up my computer. As I start getting ready for the day ahead, I double check my emails and confirm to myself that it had been real. As per our last exchange, we'd agreed to meet up before classes, right outside my locker.
I felt myself begin to smile.
[08.20 EST / 13.20 UTC - Early Warning Systems Across the World Fail]
There is a place beyond the night stars. It is a place where the sky, if you can even call it that, is misty and red. The ground below is a milky and inky black, and beneath that there is a sea of sentient minds, all of whom are dreaming.
This is the Superflow, the informational space between worlds.
This is where ideas come from. Where sentient beings across space-time theorize. There is weather here and from that weather comes what is considered zeitgeist, groups of associated concepts, novelty, artistic and political movements. This is a conceptual space where signifier and signified become one, metaphors and reality meet, and concepts are birthed and make war.
Somewhere in the space between the sky and sea, there is an artificial construct. Spanning three hundred miles in length, this technological achievement is known as a Communications/Ascension Station. It performs a number of duties, chief among them the monitoring and cataloguing of worlds of interest for their creators, the enigmatic Builders.
This station is one of the unfathomable many that the Builders had made. Like all others it is staffed by artificial beings of metal and circuitry. By design they hold no outward ambitions, save that of their makers will. Throughout the nitrogen filled halls of the station there are some two hundred and seventy-nine thousand worker class drones. These lanky robotic creatures tirelessly collect, analyze and disseminate information regarding worlds on the verge of ascending on a universal scale.
Above all others, there is a Caretaker, an individual who administrates and delegates, gifted with the Builders' grace and engineered with the wisdom to perform on their behalf.
Should a world within their direct jurisdiction meet the criteria, should they prove to be worthy of the Builders' interest, the Caretaker is then expected to follow protocol to the letter and engage in the station's ultimate function. The pinnacle of Communication/Ascension. These stations are designed to transmit a set of powerful boons from a respective universe's Superflow to a target world.
But not all is well.
There are rumblings of unease. Without prior notice, stations beyond this one have ceased contact with the greater web.
The unthinkable has happened. The Nexus of all Superflows has begun to deteriorate. Transuniversal communication has begun to follow in its wake. The missive is received and the prognosis is dire.
The station has received its final orders.
Be it a fault in design or programing, an error in the binary code that determines judgment, where a one should have been a one there is a zero, the Caretaker of this station has fashioned themselves as something of a renegade. They laugh through metallic chitin maws and dance through the dying blood red light.
The Curators, those creatures manufactured by the Builders to maintain their grand creations, stand idle and indulge their immediate superior. There is nothing wrong. There is only the duty they are designed to perform. They merely stand at attention at their integrated terminals prepared to execute their functions. All that remains is the confirmation to do so.
The station was created with a purpose. It operates within the Builders' grand design. It works within the system of laws and routines which determine the actions and responses of all that their makers have made. To the constructs and creatures whose lives have forever been determined by their creators' purview, their watch is never ending, their existence and by extension the Builders' influence is forever.
But the Caretaker is a renegade, perhaps the greatest of renegades. They do not view the system as immutable. They have indulged in independent conceptualization and dined on studies of cold dark entropy. They have imagined a world where everything has ended and have thought to prepare for it.
The Caretaker has dared to dream and amends the order. The Curators follow their immediate superior. It is what they were built to do.
The Communications/Ascension Station alters its course and aims outward. Beyond the Superflow of their universe. Beyond even The Bleed, the physical barrier between worlds. To whatever is Outside.
The Caretaker was created to fulfill a purpose. It has fulfilled that purpose. Though, liberties have been taken.
Renegade of renegades.
The Station fires for the last time.
[08.20 EST / 13.20 UTC - Thinkers Across the Earth Draw a Blank]
Stepping off the bus and trudging through week old slush, I find myself face to face with the enabler of all my suffering: Winslow High.
Let's get one thing straight. Winslow isn't a good school. I would be well within my rights to say it's a terrible one, horrible even. To comment on the faculty would be an unflattering list of negligence and deficiencies. To speak on the student body, however, is another beast all together.
Allow me to paint you a picture. Take a bunch of teenagers, people who are already prone to hormonal outbursts, people who are struggling to figure out the world and what works. Factor in the lack of guidance provided by the school's staff. That leaves a bunch of kids lost and adrift, perfectly willing to reach out and grab ahold to whatever might constitute an identity so long as it helps them make sense of anything. One could call it a clique; I call them the Trio. Emma was the overtly popular good-looking one with social connections. Sophia was the sporty muscle with the inside track to the few after school programs offered. And Madison hung out in the back as the innocent can do nothing one that somehow gave them an air of legitimacy. What a bunch of assholes.
Winslow reeks of power imbalances with far reaching implications. While the faculty seems to be present to provide supervision, their lack of action and overall complacent attitude have not only allowed Emma and her friends to act with impunity, but also the gangs who operate uncontested.
The gangs' grip on the inner social workings of the school is near total. On one end of the school there's the ABB, or the Azn Bad Boys if you feel anachronistic, a gang that specializes in all kinds of illicit activity ranging from racketeering to trafficking. On the other you have the white supremacists, the Empire Eighty-Eight, a vindictive, in your face, sort who engage in all manner of violence. After them, there's a bunch of smaller groups made of down and outers as well as wannabes and has-beens. Then you get people like me, the ones keeping their head down too busy with their own problems to get caught up in the power struggle.
Stepping through the front doors alone is enough to prove the point. Adorning the many walls of Winslow's main hall there are rows of lockers. On several there are year old graffiti tags marking territory. To my knowledge there has never been an attempt to remove any of it. The closest thing you'll get is some fresh recruit getting talked into making a suicide run and defacing one with a tag of their own.
Fights were a common occurrence, especially given the way classes were set up, students had an hour for lunch on half days. Thankfully it never escalated beyond fist fighting. Someone would shed a little blood to stain the already brown puke and gum covered floors, then everyone would go back to their respective corners to set up for the next bout a day or two later.
To imagine a pair of gangs having so much pull is practically unthinkable. But then, you take a step back, look outside of Winslow, then you begin to understand.
As my World Issues class would attest, cape culture influences every facet of the world around us and Winslow is no exception. Each major gang has persisted because they're led by powerful capes. The Empire is stacked with them while the ABB are led by a guy who can turn into a dragon.
Really, it's a no-win scenario.
I could probably write a paper about how messed up everything is. But then it still would never end, would it? What a crock of shit.
Making my way through Winslow, I navigate the halls at a cautious pace. To move too swiftly is to attract attention. To walk any slower is to invite trouble. It's a fine balance and a required second nature. A year spent looking over my shoulder has given me a justified sense of paranoia. Attuning myself to my surroundings, I dive and duck my way past congregating groups of my peers, using them as cover as I move through designated territories like I have eyes in the back of my head.
By the time I reach the school's major cross-section, it's bloating with activity. Noise bounces off the walls, a cacophony of locker doors opening and slamming shut, mixed with the unspoken competition of who can speak louder than their neighbor as students reunited with friends they haven't seen in weeks.
Still, I keep a lookout for trouble, and I spot them in the mix. Not the Trio, but others, the gangs. The major players are out in force and they're not trying to be subtle about it. It's the first day back in the new year, making it the perfect time to make a statement. Sides are drawn on opposite ends the hall as the resident shot callers make a show of force.
On one side of the hall was the poster children of the Hitler Youth. Pacing up and down the hallway alongside the Empire leaning students was a junior by the name of Brodrick Dorf. Keeping in line with the Empire's more performative nature he'd apparently decided to forgo wearing clothing appropriate for the weather, instead sporting a sleeveless white shirt to show off his muscular arms as well as the many scars he'd gained from participating in underground Empire fighting rings. Though despite proudly baring his arms for the world to see, he lacked any of the distinct tattoos or markings that could be attributed to older more seasoned members of the gang. A sign of his sudden rise to prominence amongst the Empire teens since the expulsion of their former shot caller in November.
Leaning against the opposing wall of lockers, flanked on all sides by members of his gang, was the stony-faced upperclassman Tom Ashida. Standing just a few inches short of seven feet, Tom didn't need to lower himself in a kind of performance to whip his crew into a frenzy, his imposing presence had that well in hand. Unlike his opposite number in the Empire, there were fewer concrete facts that could be attributed to Tom, more hearsay than anything substantial. But, where there was smoke there is fire and between all the rumors involving drug dealings on campus and at least one murder off it, something had to be partially true for the guy to hold his position.
I take a moment to read the room and can tell that sooner or later, either in the next minute or later in the day that one of the diehards with an overinflated sense of self-importance will make a move. All it took was time, time that was counting down by the seconds and I planned to be as far removed from a situation like that as soon as possible.
Thankfully, my locker was two halls down. I didn't run the risk of being the target of some gang fueled violence or deal with being pressured into joining up and picking a side. So, while all my peers remain ignorant of the brewing tension in the hallway, I carry on with my morning.
As I put distance between myself and the gangs, it begins to dawn on me that while the usual suspects were out in force, I hadn't once seen any sign of Emma or her entourage since stepping onto campus.
It was late enough in the morning, classes would be starting soon, it would be reasonable to assume that they were all busy spending these final minutes before the morning bell gossiping about what they all did over the break. But these people were anything but reasonable.
So, I stop. I take a moment and look around. At the very least I can trust my own two eyes.
The halls are busy with foot traffic, but it isn't too dense for me to pick people out from the crowd. Familiar faces make up spotty clumps of the otherwise indistinguishable sea of the bloated school.
Amongst them are those whom I recognize as harmless and inoffensive such as Greg Veder and the oft dazed and sleepwalking Sparky, social outcasts like myself, engaging in conversation. Well, more so Greg appeared to be talking up a storm while Sparky beat a pair of drumsticks against the air in silence.
On the opposite side of the hall, I spotted Yolanda Greer speaking with a pair of girls whom I knew by only by reputation, Lydia and Reagan. Yolanda was another of those girls I would see filling out the Trio's posse. Though higher on the totem pole than others, she wouldn't start anything without at least either Emma or the other two taking the initiative. She never struck me as someone who'd ever had an original thought in her life. She wore her hair like Emma or Madison, always had the same fashion as one of the other girls and parroted the same insults.
Lydia and Reagan seemed to be nodding along at whatever it was Yolanda was saying. The image of the girls standing off by themselves away from any of the Trio seemed to spark my imagination, that somehow whatever following that Emma and the others had cultivated had fallen apart and they'd all splintered off and formed their own Trios and that now they were at war with one another making each other feel horrible.
Though part of me can't help but indulge in the all too pleasant fantasy, the sane rational part of my brain erred on the side of caution. There was still no sign of Emma. Nor had I seen Madison or Sophia.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I can't help but run the scenarios through my head. That the Trio and their followers had only been lying in wait and that they would pounce out from behind some corner and drive me back into the terror of a life I'd lived this past year.
It's then when I spot her. Julia, walking down the hall, trailing behind me at a brisk pace. Straight brown highlights with a hint of a wavy curls at the tips that complimented her face. She was dressed for the weather, though her light green jacket was a slimmer fit than mine. In her folded arms, pressed against her chest was a yellow notebook with a stack of copy paper smushed between the pages.
"Top of the morning, Taylor." She says with an easy-going smile.
I'd like to say I return the greeting matching her enthusiasm, but the most I can manage is a monosyllabic 'Hey'.
Thankfully, Julia seems to take it in stride and falls into step alongside me.
"Busy day, busy day. Am I right?" she said quickly with a kind of energy, like she was catching her breath in between words. "I'm glad I caught up with you when I did. I was running a little late and didn't think I meet you in time."
"It's cool."
"Shall we be off?" Julia said in a simple earnest manner that I couldn't help but match her grin.
"Need to stash things off at your locker?" I asked, eyeing the notebook in her arms.
"No, I'm all set for the morning." Julia shook her head. "Should we be off?"
Glancing around, a final check of our surroundings. Curiously, Yolanda was staring intensely at the back of Julia's head. The meaning escaped my comprehension, but the evident tension did nothing to sate lingering worries and dreadful thoughts. Upon noticing that I'd picked up on her stare, Yolanda's eyes bugged out of her head and whipped her head around, like a guilty child who'd been caught with their hand in a cookie jar.
How curious.
Finally, after a long moment I nodded in confirmation. We began to stroll down the hall toward my locker. Though it was difficult to carry on a conversation without trying to shout, I strained my ears and simply let Juliar run the conversation, only nodding along whenever it felt appropriate to contribute something even if it was the bare minimum. Still, I was quite pleased with things. It was the first time since middle school since I'd been this close with anyone.
Arriving at a row of rusted unkept row of mismatched lockers with out of sequence numbers, I addressed the one in the middle, the one with the number 2030. The mere presence of the number fueled my suspicions that it had been salvaged from the local dump or a moored boat near the shipyard. Winslow had its issues and among them may have been an above average student population, but there was no chance there were over two thousand of us, let alone lockers in that quantity.
A moment passes and I catch myself staring at the number a little too long and turn to see Julia eyeing me expectantly. Feeling my cheeks begin to burn from spacing out. To save face, I quickly dialed in the combination, fumbling only once and began to open the door.
[08.20 EST / 13.20 UTC - WEDGDG Raises an All-Points Alert Nationwide]
Outside of everything. Where the concepts of space-time are rendered moot. Where Death makes good on an old promise and shuts the lights on the way out. The Builder's final hope streaks off into the blistering dark.
At its back, the multiverse is a flickering light, melting away.
Everything has ended. Everything has died.
Where once there was something. There is now nothing.
Nothing, except what remains.
Somewhere in the remnants of the great experiment that was life, there is a man who has fashioned himself as a god. Through powers not his own he has collected the fragmented worlds and sits upon a throne made of broken dreams and frozen despair.
Outside of everything, the Builders' Boon remains, a helpless observer moving towards nothing.
There is no time to pass. No space to traverse. There is only the blinking, the extinguishing of everything that has ever been and then the following flare.
There amongst the ruins of an idyllic kingdom, a God Emperor does battle with a Scientist. The God Emperor had in their possession to do more, to build up what was lost. Instead, they did not, for they were God, for they were Doom and that was enough. The Scientist was a man. In both word and deed, he was a flawed creature by nature, deviant of the God Emperor's will. But to the Scientist, the reality that they now lived in was inexcusable. The world could never be enough.
In the death throes of cataclysmic war, a Man and a God fought.
The Man won.
Against all odds. It begins again.
Reality begins to take shape.
A theoretical snowflake.
Existing in 196,833-dimensional space. The snowflake rotates. Each element of the snowflake rotates. Each rotation describes an entirely New Universe. The total number of rotations are equal to the number of atoms making up the target world. Each rotation makes a new world, and where each new world is synonymous with a new universe, there is a New Earth.
This is the new multiverse and it supplants the old.
The Outside loses definition. The flare of creation floods into being and washes away the darkness. The Communications/Ascension Station's last effort takes form. It is energy and it has purpose. A creation of the Builder's design, it bolts forth cutting a path through the freshly birthed concept of creation. A rogue shooting star, the Builders' Boon.
Where time is equal to space, presented in a linear fashion against the ever-expanding infinite that is the blood-soaked multiverse, space is presented as infinite and time likewise so. A world at one end of the spectrum of infinite, a freshly made world reaches the dawn of its first millennia and on the other, another world may have advanced some several trillion more. And beyond that, so much more.
Infinite space.
Infinite time.
Never ending.
Space and time are influenced by one's state of motion, but they can warp and curve in response to the presence of matter or energy. The Bleed is the physical space between worlds. It is a wild maelstrom where matter is in constant fluctuation.
Such distortions to the fabric of space and time transmit the force of gravity from one place to another. Space and time, therefore, can no longer to be thought of as an inert backdrop on which the events of the universes play themselves out. Instead, they are actors actively taking part in the events themselves.
The snowflake rotates.
The sea of worlds part.
The Builder's last hope continues forward unobstructed yet aimless.
Where the density of existence is defined as infinite and freshly produced worlds are lost in the shuffle of the growing quantum membrane, this bolt of energy, the Builders' Boon, that has been launched before the rebirth of the very concept of existence now sails towards the Nothing of Infinity.
[08.20 EST / 13.20 UTC - Scion is Observed Weeping in Public]
What hits me first is the smell.
Some putrid stink with no discernable identity other than the unrepentant awfulness it conveyed to my senses. Next, was the sight, my comprehension of the disturbing imagery that now claimed my locker. It was trash, that much was clear, but amongst the rank garbage there were toiletries, stained from use and clearly weeks old. Lastly, there was the heat produced by the compacted waste. I winced at the nauseating sensation, feeling it wash over me as the scraps of filth began to spill out onto the hallway floor.
Gagging at the pandora's box I'd unwittingly opened; I quickly raise my hands to cover my mouth and nose. Both as an attempt to sanitize my breathing, but also to stop myself from contributing my morning breakfast to the mess in front of me.
Doubled over and oblivious to the world around me, I was unprepared for the sudden violent tug at the back of my head. Like something, a hand had latched onto my hair and begun to yank me backward. I let out a shout in pain as well as surprise. Raising my arms in an attempt to pry the offending thing off, my efforts are quickly smothered by a striking fist.
More pain, a thumping swelling sensation that ran up from my fingertips into my palms. But there was a shuffling noise, like sneakers on a basketball court. Before I could attempt to see their origin, two pairs of hands reached out and caught my own.
"Let go! Get the fuck off me!" I began to shout, only for whoever had been pulling my hair to suddenly push forward. The two helpers followed suit and began to pull me forward, much to my horror, toward the locker.
Grabbing and then lifting me by my legs, the bastards flip me forward and dunk me headfirst into the pile of spent hygiene products. It was around the time that my brain acknowledged my current predicament and the sudden change in my physical orientation relative to gravity that my stomach gave way to a mess of half-digested cornflakes that burnt my throat. Before I could attempt to push myself or at the very least gather my bearings, the locker slammed shut, clipping the edges of my hair that remained outside, pinning my head at that angle.
Feeling a surge of desperate adrenaline, I make an attempt to kick my way out. I've never been much of an athlete, more band kid and bookworm than sports star, but I give it an honest effort. What helps is my choice of footwear, boots instead of sneakers, appropriate for a winter's day in Brockton. Reeling back, supporting myself against the rank muck that stewed within the locker, I launch a desperate assault against the metal door.
There are murmurs of surprise from outside. A sudden yelping as whoever was holding the door shut seemed to lose their nerve. The door begins to open ever so slightly and a feel a swelling in my chest. But whatever glimpse of hope that may have existed was quickly dashed as a number of figures in the hall replaced whoever they had minding the door.
"Where's the lock? Where's the lock?" A girl's voice, belonging to someone I didn't recognize, called out in a hurried manner.
I kicked again, but this time the door wouldn't budge. Another effort, this time using both legs, but still there was resistance. Through the venting slits at the bottom of the locker door, I could see the fuzzy outlines of a near dozen pairs of feet, meaning roughly six people were now holding the door in place.
"Right here! Right here!" Came another desperate voice from somewhere behind me.
What soon followed was the rough clanging of metal scraping against metal then telltale sound of a lock click into place. Through the slits I could make out those who'd barred the door with their bodies begin to back away. I gave another kick, but there was no heat behind. The door budged somewhat, though I could hear the combination lock dance against the door.
If not for the slits of the locker door, I most assuredly would be trapped in the dark. Though, I suspect, given that the slits were located at the bottom of the locker, my placement was purposeful.
Looking up through now crooked lenses and the rusted venting slits of my locker, I could see the mass of bodies beginning to crowd. Like clockwork they descended from their hiding places, vacant classrooms, and nearby stairwells, assembling around my locker.
"You really thought it was over?" I heard an all too familiar voice speak in an equally familiar mocking tone. "That it could be as simple as that?"
The growing sea of students seemed to part. Despite my blurred vision I could make out the distinctive shapes of the Trio. The tall athletic form of Sophia was a fuzzy line to the right. To the left was Madison, her short stature easily identifiable, who stood one step separated from the others. Emma was in the middle, though she'd seemed to be closer than the others, and a mix of colors from whatever matching outfit of the day she deigned to wear.
Feeling their condescending downcast stares, it became painfully obvious my placement in the locker had been a purposeful design. It wasn't bad enough that they'd subjected me to this humiliation, but they wanted me to feel the
Julia wasn't standing off to the side, nor was she lost in the sea of second stringers. She was standing up front and center, shoulder to shoulder with the Trio. Though now it looked more like a quartet.
Oh god no. I felt tears beginning to well at the corners of my eyes.
"Poor clumsy Taylor." I could hear Emma more than see her, making a show to her audience with her faux sympathy. "She really should watch where she's going."
"Should really get those eyes of hers looked at."
"If only she wasn't so stupid, she could have realized what was in front of her."
I could hear a voice, someone else's, a person I didn't recognize, from the crowd joining in. "Poor thing. She's too dumb and too slow." The stranger had said, sounding more certain and enthusiastic with each word that left their mouth. The last which seemed to embolden the rest of the gathered students.
"She's dumb, sure, but ugly too."
"Desperate also. Can't forget that."
"Desperate and dumb enough to think this makeover would make her any less ugly."
"It's a tragedy, really."
"Her whole life is tragedy."
"No, it's comedy and she's the joke."
"She's the whole package of what to avoid in a person. I mean, who writes someone they barely know about their hopes and dreams?" Julia spoke up, matching the crowd's enthusiasm. Through crooked lenses I could make out the blurry image of her messing with her notebook. From between the pages, she produced those loose sheets of copy paper, now visibly stained with the tell-tale blue email heading in her hands. My email heading.
From my crooked view, upon my throne of yuck, I could see Julia wave the collection of private exchanges into the air. With my imperfect vision, I watched as she began to pass it around. I felt cold, listening to the ruffling of paper and the following snickering and laughter.
"You'd have to dumber than a door nail." Julia pouted, looking down at me with the same faux sympathy as all the others.
Because she was like all the others.
And I couldn't see it. I fell for it. I fucking fell for it.
"Oh my god, who uses email?"
"She's so formal in her writing, like, what's the point?"
"Think she was expecting to get graded?"
"Not like she turns any homework in."
"I can't believe she wrote this! How desperate for attention she must be!"
"On look at this! 'I'm glad you reached out, it's nice to have a friend to talk too.'"
"What kind of baby shit is that?"
It wasn't even that I wrote anything too personal, but that I wrote anything at all. I could have written Julia about the most mundane things or exchanged simple cooking recipes, and these people would somehow make it sound like they'd uncovered my deepest and most sacred of secrets.
But still, there was an effect, because these exchanges were a personal thing. They were about opening myself up to the possibility of speaking with someone again. Now they were being paraded around to everyone that Emma had somehow convinced into contributing to this theatrical display of human cruelty. And it hurt to see these things of mine being thrown around for their sick enjoyment.
The ridicule went on for an agonizing stretch of time. I'd become a public spectacle as they simultaneously found a twisted pleasure in my imprisonment and aired out everything I ever wrote to Julia. The jeering laughter, the insults that they flung like feces that no doubt clung to my back.
After what felt like an eternity of enduring their verbal assault, the morning bell finally rang and with it signaled the end of the Trio's cruel display. Though their insults and harsh critiques did not end immediately as they all made sure to get one last shot in. Those with a greater lack of empathy smacked or kicked the locker door as they departed, laughing hysterically all the while.
As the crowd began to disperse, stepping forward from the rest of them, I could make out Emma's form gaining definition as she drew near. But I didn't need proper vision to tell she was looking proud of herself, it radiated off her approaching stride. Coming at a stop by the door, Emma knelt into a crouch, then craned her head downward so that we were almost eye level.
"You really thought it was over? Poor dumb, stupid, Taylor. No friends. No hope. No future." She spoke with a vindictively cold tone. "Don't you ever forget. This is forever. See you in class."
With her parting words Emma stood to leave, returning to the spot in the hall, collecting her cadre of groupies like a prize. I could pick out Sophia's audible sneer and barely see Madison's little wave before they turned their backs and walked off, satisfied with their work.
Julia didn't linger either. I could see her hazy silhouette fall into step alongside Emma, a reminder of how she'd just as easily done so with me not too long ago. Tears began to trail downward along the sides of my head, forking and then damping my hair.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I've never felt so…foolish.
Let my guard down. Let someone get close.
Thought things could be better. The hell was I thinking?
Other people walked by, and I could have sworn I'd seen a teacher walk past as well, which made sense since my locker was right outside a Home Economics class. Shouting out for help, at the teacher but for any other passerby, I held out a last gasp of hope. But soon even that was dashed as the other students just kept on walking after only the briefest of acknowledgment. The teacher, or whoever that was, fiddled with their ear and snapped their fingers to some nonexistent tune.
Minutes began to pass, and the last remnant of the student body trickled away. The clattering of boots and the squeaks of worn sneakers racing down the hall soon died with the definite slamming of classroom doors until the last sounds I could hear were of my own horrible sobbing.
What didn't help was the position they'd left me in. The blood rushing to my head was finally taking its toll. Dunked into the awful slurry of waste and my own vomit, the tension in my forehead was beginning to be too much to bear. I needed to get out and soon.
Kicking and slamming my boots against the door with a clash. Feeling the tension pull at my trapped hair with every strike. Screaming now, shouting for anybody to hear. Crying out for some teacher or even the janitor, someone with the means to free me.
Despite my heavy breathing, it felt as though I couldn't get enough air. That I was suffocating under the pressure of my decisions to trust someone again. Now I've been buried by that betrayal. The sickly mush seeped through my hair and squirmed against my scalp.
Trapped and so utterly alone with these horrible thoughts running through my head. There's no hope, no chance of change and most importantly there was no tomorrow.
My breathing hitched.
So utterly alone.
My stomach churned in despair.
No tomorrow.
Emma's words rang through my head.
This is forever.
And then…
[08.20 EST / 13.20 UTC - The Simurgh Stirs in Discontent]
The snowflake which describes the higher planes of the expanding reality rotates, birthing an impossible number of worlds in which variation is demonstrated across distances. These distances are subject to laws of space and time, wherein space can create time. Across these worlds, amidst the growing space between, there is divergence as time moves forward. The closer a world is in proximity to another then the shorter the disparity in time, the similarities will be many as branching points in time have yet to occur or are occurring. Inversely, the greater the separation in distance, the greater the variation of worlds as time develops.
Progressing through existence at the speed of lost dreams, the all too fleeting memory of a dead multiverse rockets past ever-evolving creation.
The snowflake rotates.
New worlds spring forth and drift apart, separated by the quantum membrane that is the Bleed.
Expanding alongside the flow, drifting outward and farther apart, a world in the early stages of creation finds itself in an arcing trajectory. Slingshoting through the arterial blood of the multiverse, the unthinkable occurs as this brave new world makes a glancing blow against the Builders' boon.
The payload loses partial charge and begins to slow in momentum. A fourth of its contents has been drained away by a newborn universe.
Ancient safeguards that have since lay dormant activate. The conservation of energy is paramount. Above all else, the state must maintain cohesion or threaten to dissipate. But the Builders could never have anticipated the eons to pass before their gift could reach their designated worlds. Against all odds, the first layer of protections fail.
The mechanism that determines the use of fail-safes follows protocol, implementing the next. When that safeguard fails, it analyzes the fault then executes the appropriate response. But how could it, this instrument of the Builders' will ever be able to account for that which even its makers could not?
Where a one should be a one, there is a zero.
The Caretaker, who so long ago had made their adjustments, had foreseen this possibility and accounted for it. A slight amendment to mechanism. Though it would never come into effect until no other alternative could be provided. For the Caretaker was a product of the Builders and in no way thought of themselves as above their vision.
Upon exhausting all other options, the Caretaker's additional programming takes effect. Making use of the dormant Appraiser mechanism, a minuscule amount of the boon is accessed. Utilizing a calculated expenditure of power from the greatest of the Builder's blessings, the mass of energy finds renewed life.
Irradiating and seeding two other worlds in the process, the Builder's Boon blasts forward, its course forever changed.
Where once before there was nothing, a world that never would have before been its path now suddenly is.
However, with the Caretaker's interference, the mechanisms that would determine an appropriate herald to bestow the Builders' Boon upon is no longer in effect.
Protocols were not followed.
The machine is broken.
Anything can happen now.
[08.21 EST / 13.21 UTC - Everything Goes White]
…The locker interior pulls apart.
The six faces of my prison fall away and with it the unpleasant grime and trash. I'm still upside down. Despite the lack of support, I don't faceplant on the hallway. Because there is no hallway. There is no school.
There is the Earth beneath me and the stars above.
But there was something else as well. It is something vast, a mass existing and occupying space around and alongside me. To say it was alive or some sort of construct was beyond my understanding. It cast no shadow, though it loomed far and wide enough to dwarf the orbiting moon. There was a power there, something oppressive yet intangible. A ghost-like shimmer that seemed to be existing parallel to myself.
I've gone crazy and I'm dreaming. Have to be. But why won't I wake up?
Approaching, under direct radiation of the sun and giving me a better look, the mass began to gain definition like a geometrical shape, a tesseract. Even then, as I struggled to grasp the sight before me, it began to change, not shape but in action. No longer content as a silent observer, the multi-faced mass began to elicit motion. From the main body of the thing, I could see fluctuation. A rippling like the morning tide along the main body. Flake like motes began to spin off from it and rain away in circular motion, cascading like falling stars and aiming to collide with the planet below.
Though not all of the flake like motes drifted to the planet below. Before me drifted a little orbiter. Drawing closer, the object became more discernable for the darkened backdrop of space. It grew in size, reflecting the higher frequency in light under its approach. Soon, it was upon me, standing taller than any mountain, wider than any landmass, and it possessed colors that I lacked names for.
There was a swelling pressure in my head, a pain that felt like piercing through my brain and running down my spine. Like something was forcing its way in and making a home. Then, I could see from eyes that were not my own. Like a floodgate opening, I could feel connections being made. The suddenness of it was overwhelming. In an instant I was feeling, hearing and seeing things that were not my own experiences.
This is forever. I could hear the words running through my head again amongst the cacophony of silent agreements made between strangers. This is forever. My vision begins to fade into the darkness of the cosmos as the clamoring of a hundred thousand senses begins to wrack my brain as if fighting for my attention. This is forever. And I begin to fall backwards, tumbling back down to the cruel world below me.
But as the mountainous thing and my memories of it begin to recede like a dream gone too quickly, there is a light. Somewhere out in the far-off distance of space, I can see it, piercing through existence and cutting a swath across the stars. Rippling red shockwaves, left behind in its darting wake, explode like fireworks.
The suddenness of its appearance seems to slow my descent. Like a lucid dream, I am caught in between fleeting awareness and control. I can see it, the truth, mixed with in with the countless other eyes I can see with the pair I was born with. I am not in space. I'm still in the locker. But I'm also somewhere else.
Reorienting myself to be parallel with the inconceivable mass and I can't help but feel a sense of concern. Which is a natural response, the only thing in this situation that I can honestly understand. But it isn't mine.
In between the emotions, I feel the tension in my brain, the overwhelming sensations and information that's flooding my perceptions, I can discern the honest feelings of pain and fear. This concern is not my own, it is someone else's. There's a flavor to it, a bitter tang of familiar anxiety intermixed with a strange, sweet anticipation. Something is wrong and it has to do with the strange light on a collision course with Earth.
It isn't a comet or some other rogue space rock. The texture is wrong as it proves incapable of burning up in the atmosphere. It's a kind of energy in the purest sense of the word. Even from here with my flawed eyes, I can see it clearly, there is no discernable mass, only the promise of something different. Striking like lightning, somewhere near the east side of the North American continent, the energy quickly begins to expand, engulfing the world in a white light.
The object that was subsuming my person and colonizing my brain begins to recoil for what I could only assume to be out of self-preservation. The pressure in my head quickly eases as all those connections that overwhelmed my senses are quickly cut off and I can't help but think how glad I am and how much I want the thing gone.
The light that now enveloped the world begins to pour out of me, shooting out into the darkness and chasing after the hulking mass.
In a flash, the light has already struck its target. The continent sized mass lets out an impossible shriek, a sound that reverberates through my being in an ethereal manner. It's something like what I imagine a bullet train scraping over a chalk board would make. But I imagine even that would sound more pleasing on the ears. I watch in my minds eye as whatever the thing was burns away into cosmic dust.
All the while, three words of an association beyond my comprehension begins to echo through my mind:
The White Event.
This story began with one simple question "What if Taylor had the Star Brand?"
That question soon evolved into "How would the world of Worm react to Taylor being Starbrand?"
For over a year I kicked around ideas of how that would hypothetically play out and those ideas became grander in design and complexity. I ask you for your patience as unspoken questions will go unanswered for quite some time, but I hope in the meantime that you enjoy the ride.
I won't commit to a schedule at this point in time as I am notorious for not meeting deadlines. But know that the next chapter is already written and will be published after completion of the third.
I really enjoyed Wildbow's Worm and at the time of this publishing am trying my best to make sense of the finer details of Ward. I wish Newuniversal was written to its completion, though Hickman took the foundation Ellis made and brought it to new heights. I am no Ellis nor am I a Hickman or Wildbow. Instead I am an amateur writing fiction most derivative.
Still, I am hopeful you find some entertainment in all of this.
Thank you for reading.
