“Where am I?”
“I will explain soon. You have questions, as do I. But I wish for you to answer my questions first. You have been asleep for a long time.”
“How long?”
“We wish to try and figure that out. Do you recognise me?”
“Uh… My eyes are a bit… blurry… But… I see you, ser. I… I work for you.”
“You did. Once. A long time ago.”
“How long?”
“As I said, we are trying to work that out. What is the last thing you remember?”
“Hm… I… There’s a lot of things. I don’t know which one was the last.”
“What do you remember then?”
“A conflict. A talk. A lie. They lied to me. Told me I’d be able to go home. Then they were in my head. Like, they wanted to know me. So I buried myself. Like I was taught to do. I split myself in two. The real me and the fake me. The fake me lied to them and gave them what they wanted.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know. Beings of pleasure and hunger. I don’t remember.”
“That is… concerning…”
“Why? Have I done something wrong? Ser, have I done something wrong? Have I hurt you?”
“No. Not me. This is… I will return in a moment.”
“Please don’t leave me here.”
“I will return.”
“What about my questions?
“Hello?
“Please, I don’t like it here. It’s dark. I can’t move. Please come back! I’m sorry!
“Please!”
“I am here.”
“Thank you! I was scared you had left me here. I have done something wrong, haven’t I? Did the pleasurevok break me? Did they dig me up and find the truth?”
“No. You do not understand. This is… far more complicated than I thought.”
“Why?”
“You are currently being restrained in a device that reveals one’s true self.”
“So you dug me up.”
“I did not realise you had buried yourself so long ago. I was unaware you had even buried yourself. You did such an excellent job that you got past death itself. You… Well, what you have done is… I apologise, little one. I want to explain to you what has happened, but I fear that doing so will make you lose your mind.”
“Why are you being so secretive? You’re scaring me! Please, just tell me!”
“You have been asleep for a very, very long time.”
“How long?!?”
“I fear for your safety. I fear telling y-”
“TELL ME! Please!”
“The you that remained when you buried your true self, he… existed for a long time. You died young. You served a personification of death. You worked for part of a universal cycle. When that cycle died, you worked with another to form a new universal cycle. When that cycle ended, you became a stason, a being of anger and hatred, destroying beings such as myself and my father.”
“What… I thought you were… wait… I don’t understand…”
“Your universe is dead. It died quadrillions of years ago.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“It’s all gone then?”
“We keep a small shard of Kinisis here. Alongside the remains of every other universe we collect.”
“We? Are you not… Are you pretending to be my superior?”
“That… is another story. Not worth telling. This is about you. Not us.”
“You collect universes?”
“We preserve them after they die.”
“There’s more to that, I guess?”
“Well, yes… we also feed off the residual energies left over from a death universe. But we do not harm living universes.”
“How… did I end up here then? I’m just… I don’t know…”
“You escaped your home universe, which we labelled as Kinisis. You formed ano-”
“You told me that. But how? None of this makes sense!”
“I told you this would happen. Your buried self slept deep inside your external self. You were buried so deep that you forgot you were there. We inadvertently woke you up when you were brought here and we tried to figure out what you were.”
“I… I… I don’t know what to say…”
“Do you wish to join us? Or at the very least have a look around? Perhaps you ache from your restraints. As you are, you are harmless to us. I am sure Father will allow me to show you what this place is.”
“No… I… I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I think I just want to go back to sleep…”
“You could live with us eternally, inspect universes, see what this great multiverse has to offer…”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m struggling to… comprehend this. Maybe you were right. Maybe I was better off not knowing. Can I go back to sleep, please?”
“Yes, you can. Close your eyes. Sleep tight. I will try to make sure no one disturbs you.”
“Thank you…”