END
The NPC does not talk to me. Her lips are tightly shut as she gazes at me blankly.
The door does not open. Try as I might, it will not budge.
Even so, I cannot bring myself to do it. I resign myself to sitting in the dark.
***
A year passes and the door vanishes, leaving only the NPC and me. Still she does not speak.
***
Ten years later, even the NPC disappears, fading away. Right before she vanishes for good I see a glimpse of emotion in her eyes.
***
Now there is just me and total nothingness.
After that, I lose count of the time.
***
My mind begins to slow down, in a subconscious effort to make the cold emptiness more tolerable.
I go into a long, interminable stupor. Every once in a long while I stir to life, my joints creaking as I do so, only to find there is no change. No escape. Just hopelessness.
***
There is something different.
For the first time in… years? Decades? Centuries? I do not remember, but something new has come into this dark, empty world I am left in.
I feel the cold on my skin.
I hear the rhythm of my breathing.
I open my eyes.
***
“Recalibration complete. Status check.”
I hear a robotic voice check off a list of physiological functions. I seem to be lying on a hard, cold bed. My vision is fuzzy. There appears to be light, but I cannot tell where I am. It takes me a while for my eyes to focus, and when it does so I finally see my current location. Unsurprisingly, I appear to be in a capsule. There is a small porthole in front of my face, allowing me to see the dim, flickering lights set into the ceiling.
“Beginning preliminary rehabilitation.” I yelp in pain.
Raising my head with some difficulty, I look down at my arms, where I had felt a sudden sting. A thick tube extends into each arm, where a strange orange liquid is being pumped into my body. My arms look much scrawnier than I had remembered. How long had I been asleep?
“You are awake, are you not?”
I hear Shulgi’s voice inside the capsule. I try to respond, but all that comes out of my mouth is a harsh croak. My throat is aching and dry; I suppose I won’t be regaining my verbal functions any time soon.
“I promised you that I would tell you what you should know when you woke up. I will hold to that promise. I also promised you several other… matters. I am sorry to say that I have not managed to fulfill all of them.” He sounds tired, weary and altogether unlike any of his personas that I have encountered. Meanwhile, the voice continues stating the actions it is taking. The capsule seems to know what it is doing; I can gradually feel some meager strength returning.
“Let us start with the reason why I have done what I did. You probably understand by now that it is to make humanity stronger, but why do we need to gain strength? The answer is simple. Aliens. In a matter of years – no, we might already be within their overlapping territory. This is the information that has been given to me: we are in the path of at least two different interstellar alien empires. This is the shortest route to the galactic core, and we are in their way. They will bring conflict to us whether we desire it or not. Now, when I say aliens, I do not mean that they have three eyes or gray skin. They are of human stock, like you and I, except that they hail from different planets. The major difference is that they are openly governed by immortals. You know that I am one.”
I see. So that is why… well, it is a pretty simple reason. I had expected something deeper.
“I could have revealed myself. I could have ruled the world and forced progress by myself, once I knew they were coming. I did not, because I am only one immortal and they are many. If I take power openly they would have invaded instantly. No matter how much progress I create with my own hands, there is no other path but for me to be overwhelmed. No, Earth must grow into its own. I can only guide from the shadows, hoping that humanity itself will find their will to drive forward and become capable of rivaling their brethren from the stars. The legacy he left behind in the Inanna flowers is more than capable of aiding them to do so. ”
Shulgi pauses for a while.
“Ha, I am becoming a sentimental old wolf. Well, no matter. The plans have changed. Your other… personality… is devious, cruel, and utterly insane. You are not an immortal like I am, but you appear to be unkillable, for some reason. Fate seems to favour you in the strangest of ways when it comes to your survival, and though I do not know what the cause is, I know that you cannot die. Neither can he – so this is the only thing I can do to defeat him. We cannot afford to kill your mind again; there is no telling how long it will take for you to recover this time, and the previous attempt has only made that particular aspect of you even worse. What I can do is seal him away. The lock is within your mind, and I will pass the key to Erika. It is up to you what you choose to do.”
I instinctively feel the cage that has been set up. Should I delve into my own mind again, I will probably encounter it.
“Even I do not know what will happen from here on out,” sighs Shulgi. “I have one last card left to play, but as it is your untimely intervention has laid waste to all of the plans I have carefully arrayed over the past five hundred years. I have arranged for an automatic recording of all the significant events that have occurred since you began your sleep – it will continue recording even after I am gone. I have also left you a cache of information and contacts that might be useful. There is no one else that can make use of this. Do with it as you see fit. You may even burn it all and live out your days in peace; I will not ask anything of you.”
The phrases he uses… I suddenly realize that this is a recording that Shulgi left behind, and not the man himself. There is a blast of static as the robotic voice tells me that the process is complete and that I may exit the capsule. The hatch of the capsule opens up slowly, creaking as it does so.
I raise myself up on my elbows, wincing at the pain and effort it takes me. Hearing a tiny voice by my side, I realize that the recording is still running. “… the failure is mine.” His voice is suddenly soft, and for the first time, I hear genuine regret. “You will recall some memories very soon. I hope her fate is not amongst them.”
Before the recording cuts out, I hear his last words. “I am sorry about Kyrie.”
Kyrie? What happened to her? As if on cue, a flood of memories assail my mind. Memories of what I… he did, while I was waiting in the dark. They are fragmented but incomplete, flashes of events that I can barely grasp. I clutch futilely at the sides of the capsule as the shock of the memories causes me to fall off the capsule. I hit the cold, metal floor with a dull thud.
What… the fuck did I do?
I… him… I somehow managed to access the nanite research facilities and reprogrammed the nanomachines.
I recall Erika and Erec attempting to stop me. They failed.
The nanomachines were released, a plague of assemblers run amok.
Then.
Kyrie was there too.
She melted.
Of all the fragments I remember why is this the only thing I cannot forget?
She melted.
Her hair fell away. Her eyes turned into gray jelly. Her cheeks began running down her face. Then, the nanomachines really began getting to work. Her eyes returned. All over her. Two. Five. Sixteen eyes. All the same brilliant shade of green, opening and closing in mindless terror. Noses. Lips. Teeth. Even as she dissolved into a puddle of goo the nanomachines continued trying to repair and rebuild her in horrible ways. Those arms. Those legs. Dissolving and reforming. Reforming and dissolving. Her face… her faces… so many of them floating atop the trembling pool that was all that was left of her.
I throw up, trembling on all fours. The fluid that drips from my mouth is as orange as the compound that had been pumped into my veins.
This can’t be true.
I get to my feet, and I run. I run out of the room and up the stairs. This is not possible. I recognize the grounds. I recognize the buildings. This is the Academy. It appears to be in ruins. There is not a single stalk of grass anywhere on the surface, and the sky is a dirty, muddy green. Up in the sky, I see two pale circles. Two moons?
Yes, this is not real. That proves it. I must still be in the program. This is another trick, isn’t it?
It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick. It’s a trick it’s a trick it’s a trick a trick a trick a trick a trick a trick a trick a trick trick trick tricktricktricktricktricktrick-
I let out a hoarse, inhuman cry as merciful darkness claims me.
***
When I awaken, I am still alone, naked and shivering in the ruins of the Academy. There is no one around, and the air is stale. With great effort, I manage somehow to make my way back into the relative warmth of the room I had been hibernating in. There are some supplies there, presumably left for my use. The room doesn’t seem to have been disturbed for a few years. There doesn’t seem to be any signs of life in the vicinity, not even insects or rodents.
I put everything out of my mind. My memories. What I… he did. I try to busy myself poring through the information that Shulgi has left behind. Of those, the automatic event recording proves to be the most useful.
I read. If I do not I will go insane. I think to the future. I think about what I will do. What I should do. And sometimes, I still think about whether this world is a false reality… whether I am not trapped in a nightmare from which I cannot awaken after all.
-CHAPTER END-
