Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol)

by Persadia

  We see how Xerxes squeezes himself between Aziz and us. I hear myself moaning in the memory and refeel the pain of his fist in my stomach. We now see a series of quick moments of black, then grass, black again, the sky and it ends with Aziz' feet. I hear myself gasping for air. My vision was still blurred at that time and so is my memory. When we look up, we see Xerxes standing next to Aziz. Both of them look at us with deep concern. Xerxes is still wearing his ridiculous bodysuit but this time I understand why not only his face is cut out but also the area where a bellybutton would be — he wants everyone to know that he is not human. This reminds me that I wanted to check something since last night but I didn't have the opportunity yet. I make sure that Pax is still glued to my memory and Maya isn't looking at me. Then I pull up my shirt and look at my belly. No bellybutton! Victor must have erased it.

  The image we are looking at starts vibrating now. Then it turns black several times. I remember how angry I became at this point. We hear heavy breathing while other sounds around us fade away.

  “Are you okay, my friend?” Aziz asks us.

  “Of course not. This idiot punched me!”

  “I just bumped into you. Accidentally, of course,” Xerxes lies to us.

  The image starts pulsating. The anger I felt last night is directly visible.

  “Shut your mouth and wipe that grin off your face. Or I’m gonna do it for you!” we hear myself yelling at a surprised-looking Xerxes. Then the image disappears and the Memorybubble is empty. Pax stands there with her back towards me as if she is still watching the memory but there is nothing to see. Then she turns around and gives me another one of her eery smiles. She knows too much already. Why didn’t I stop her when I had the chance? I think I should talk to her but what could I say without saying too much? Then this opportunity passes as well when she leaves the bubble. I turn around and leave the bubble myself.

  Maya and Pax are talking right outside of the Memorybubble. Did she tell Maya about the incident? Maya doesn’t look like it but I can't be sure. Maybe Pax didn’t tell her anything. I still feel anger towards Pax, though. And then I can see my anger towards her when an angry Emotionclone runs out of an opening of the wall to Maya’s left. It almost touches Maya’s back before it rushes into the currently forming Memorybubble and disappears. Pax lets me know that she has seen this Emotionclone and more are coming out of the wall.

  “Ready for a change of scenery?” Maya asks. Before Maya can notice my Emotionclones, I respond to her question.

  “Overdue. What’s next?” I ask quickly.

  “The Forest of Thoughts,” Maya says.

  “Great, let’s go,” I say impatiently as more and more angry Emotionclones pour into the space and rush towards the currently forming Memorybubble. Pax watches my predicament with delight and gestures how some of them barely miss Maya, who is thankfully still unaware of them. But Maya is no fool. I wonder how much she really doesn’t notice and how much she chooses to ignore.

  Suddenly, the mesh that forms the vast space we're in rushes towards us. All the Memorybubbles, the Memorystream, and Emotionclones are swallowed by the rapidly approaching mesh. The space around us shrinks until there is only enough space for the three of us, now squeezed together in a tiny dark space.

  After a second, the mesh rushes back into the shape of another enormous space, now even wider and deeper than the one before. This time we find ourselves somewhere near the middle of the space. The bright, pored mesh defining the Forest of Thoughts is the same but other than that nothing looks the same. Everything looks much cooler. The ceiling is still illuminating the space but it is a lot darker in here. Also, there is no Memorystream, no Memorybubbles, and no Memoryspiral. Instead, the floor and the walls are covered in something that looks like trees made of clear glass. I walk to the tree closest to us and inspect it. The tree has no bark and no leaves. Its surface is very smooth and the longer I look at it the more convinced I get that it is liquid inside. It looks like some thick, clear liquid is slowly moving inside the trunk. It's actually quite similar to the Memorystream in this regard. I carefully reach out my hand to touch the trunk. It feels cold and not entirely rigid, more like one of the Glowing Stones all Islanders sleep on.

  My thoughts are interrupted when a light pops up in the floor behind me. I turn back around to Maya and Pax and we watch how the light morphs into a small seedling and then very quickly gets taller and a few small branches start growing out of the thin trunk. The taller it grows, the less intense the light inside of it glows. I make an effort to touch the miraculously fast growing sapling but Maya grabs my hand.

  “Never touch a forming Thoughttree. You might lose the thought you are currently having,” Maya says.

  So I pull back my hand and notice how a miniature Memorybubble, barely bigger than my fist, quickly rises inside the small trunk and moves into one of the new branches. It shows my hand and then Maya’s face.

  “Wow… This Thoughttree here is about my thoughts right now,” I say slowly.

  “Yes, very good Moho!” Maya praises me. “And it incorporates copies of some Memorybubbles that are connected to the thought.”

  “And over time Essencestrings can grow into important Thoughttrees,” Pax explains and walks towards one of the bigger trees. I don’t feel comfortable letting Pax wander freely around my mind. So I’m forced to stop watching the growing Thoughttree in order to watch after her.

  The Thoughttree she is approaching is probably ten times our height and has countless branches, some thicker than my body, others thinner than my thumb. In contrast to the small Thoughttree, this one isn’t lit by a light in the floor but by one of the thin, brightly glowing strings that run from the ceiling down the wall and end in some of the bigger trees. That must be the Essencestring Pax mentioned.

  “Stick your head into the trunk,” Pax demands.

  I stare at the transparent liquid inside the Thoughttree. The fear of drowning lets me hesitate for a moment but then my curiosity gains the upper hand. So I grab the trunk with my hands and slowly push my face against it. The Thoughttree really is liquid inside but I can still breathe and my face doesn’t get wet. I don’t know… it’s weird.

  “Happiness… both Dark Times were caused by humans… prevention of The Third Dark Time determines… happiness… I am not human. I’m not. I’m… I’m not… report human behavior to Chastener… I’m… I’m not…” I hear myself thinking.

  “What did you think?” Pax asks who is observing me from the other side of the tree. I pull my head out of the trunk.

  “Awesome. I mean that is just…” I mumble, still confused and delighted by the Forest of Thoughts.

  “No, I mean what thought does the tree contain?” Pax asks.

  “Err… The Vow, I guess.” I say.

  “No wonder your essence grew into this Thoughttree,” Maya says behind me. “The Vow is transformative for everyone.”

  “Yes, there were quite a few promises in there,” I say to Maya. I turn back around to Pax because I don’t think I can let her out of my view again. And she is gone. I look around but she is nowhere to be found.

  “Up there,” Maya says and points to one of the lower and bigger branches of the Thoughttree I was just listening to.

  Pax puts one side of her face into the branch she is sitting on and carefully listens to one of my thoughts. Unbelievable. When did I invite her to listen to my thoughts? My first impulse is to confront her in front of Maya but I fear that she might share a thought that I don’t want Maya to hear. So I climb up the tree and sit down next to her. She pulls her head out of my thoughts and looks at me, smiling.

  “What are you doing?” I say, trying to sound nice but I manage neutral at best.

  “Ah, this and that,” she says lightheartedly with another one of her eery smiles on her lips. She immediately gets on her feet and climbs higher up the tree. “I wonder if The Vow evoked a certain memory…”

  “What memory would that be?” I inquire before I get to put m
y ear into the branch of the Thoughttree myself.

  She just smiles down at me, which is enough to get me angry. A rush of adrenaline spreads through my body. I feel hot. My heart beats faster; my palms get wet. And then it dawns on me — she is looking for the memory that shows Victor erasing my bellybutton! But how did she know?! So I follow her to the treetop but my palms are sweaty and I have trouble holding onto the smooth branches. She reaches the top before I do and sticks her ears into one of the small branches.

  I finally reach the top and luckily there are no Memorybubbles in any of the branches up here. I look at her, trying to act unconcerned but she clearly knows she is on to something, and I have to do something. So with my left hand I hold on tightly to a branch before I reach out with my right hand and grab her shoulder. I pull her away from the branch she is listening to and for a moment we just stand there in the treetop, staring at each other. She starts smiling which makes me so uncomfortable that I can no longer hold eye contact and look down through the clear branches at Maya.

  Maya isn’t following our dispute at all. I really want to know how much Maya decides to overlook and how much she really doesn't see. She can’t be entirely clueless. Then Maya walks towards another tree but her head stays in its place under the tree and doesn’t move with her body. What?

  I look back and forth between her body and her head until I realize that there is a dark memorybubble in a branch not far below me that was exactly above Maya’s head until she walked away. It was impossible to distinguish from her head. I inspect the bubble from afar to determine if it could cause any trouble with Pax who is still in the treetop behind me. The Memorybubble seems completely dark except for a golden-white light that illuminates the left side of the bubble. Then I recognize a hand. No, two hands closely above each other. Now I see the profile of the person. And then it hits me— that person is Victor. And he is erasing my bellybutton!

  I gasp. Loudly. Very Loudly. Too loudly.

  “You found it?” Pax asks curiously from behind.

  I did. There it is, in the branch right beneath us.

  “Thank you,” she says and pushes me aside. I lose my balance for a moment and she uses this moment of weakness to climb down towards the branch that contains the Memorybubble. I follow her quickly. However, she reaches the branch shortly before me and bends down. What now? I cannot let her get the memory. She will tell Xerxes and I’m finished. I will get darkened.

  Her hands are almost touching the branch. She looks up to me to give me another of her vicious smiles.

  “Moho, I will free you now. You no longer have to lie,” she says to me. Her fingers enter the branch at an excruciatingly slow pace. She is enjoying every moment of her victory.

  Then I walk up to her and push her off the tree. I pushed her off the tree! I really did…?!

  The fall takes painfully long from this height and when she hits the floor with her back first, the soft mesh gives in and makes for a soft landing. Then I jump.

  “Pax! Moho! Are you two okay?” Maya shouts and runs towards us.

  The mesh is much harder than I anticipated but I think I’m okay.

  “What happened?” Maya asks. She is deeply concerned.

  “Oh, nothing. We just slipped,” Pax lies very convincingly. Someone has a lot of practice.

  We stand up and I look at Pax, but she ignores me. Why didn’t she tell the truth? I obviously don’t want her to but the fact that she has something against me now is very unsettling. She loves that I owe her.

  “We should probably leave now before anyone gets hurt. How do you feel about visiting your Well of Emotions next?” Maya asks me.

  “Perfect,” I say, my heart still pounding against my chest. Wow. That was sick what I just did there.

  Like before the mesh gobbles up the vast space and rapidly moves towards us until the space is barely large enough for the three of us. The light disappears for a moment until the mesh expands again and forms a space that differs from the Memoryspiral and the Forest of Thoughts in several ways. It is much smaller and almost circular but the space consists of the same floor, walls, and ceiling that I know from the places we've visited before.

  I look up and stare right into a pair of eyes. My own eyes. First I think I am looking into a mirror but my reflection doesn’t mirror the surprise in my face. And in contrast to myself, it is entirely gray. Then I understand that it is a larger-than-life Emotionclone. I step away from my unresponsive, dead-eyed double and inspect my Well of Emotions. My eyes wander across the room and I see that we are not alone any more. We are vastly outnumbered by, well, myself. Or at least doubles of myself. There are dozens of Emotionclones. No two of them look the same, though. Apparently I come in all different heights, colors and, most importantly, moods. Some barely reach my waist. Others are four, five times my real height. Some are white, most are some shade of some color and a few are almost black. They also aren’t as solid as I am. They are made of electricity, which makes them pretty much translucent.

  “I’m glad to see that you are still in awe,” Maya says and walks towards one of the biggest Emotionclones. It’s easily four times my height, its body leans slightly forward and its eyes and mouth are wide open. When I reach its feet that go all the way up to my knees, a real life sized Emotionclone walks out of its leg before vanishing into the wall nearby. This copy looks exactly like one of the copy that walked right through me in the Memoryspiral.

  “So, the Emotionclones that color the Memorybubbles, they all come from here?” I ask.

  “Yes, very good Moho!” Maya praises me. “The origins of all your navee emotions are right here.”

  “Navee emotions?” Pax whispers into my right ear and rushes away as if she is expecting me to react to her provocation.

  “So the bigger the emotion, the more they are part of my currently forming memories?” I ask Maya.

  “Or currently forming thoughts. Or fantasies. Yes,” Maya responds.

  “Oh… you better don’t get angry again,” Pax whispers in my other ear. “This is not a good moment for your human emotions to take over.”

  I do what I want. She starts feeling like a bee you try to get rid of but you can’t hit or it will sting you. But it keeps coming back.

  “You noticed that those are all navee emotions. How are they different from human emotions?” I ask Maya.

  “Mh… I assume they are mostly violent in nature. But I’m not sure. I have to research that,” Maya responds.

  “She can start right here,” Pax says behind my back.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” I say to Maya. But she looks away, probably ashamed by her uncharacteristic lack of knowledge.

  “But you better do worry,” Pax says right into my face, this time loud enough for Maya to hear it. Maya looks over to us and must think Pax means her. She looks hurt. And I don’t like that.

  “Shut up!” It bursts out of me. This is so unfair! Maya was nothing but friendly and supportive the entire time while conniving Pax, in return, runs around my mind and hurts the person I care about the most. I feel my heartbeat accelerating again, pressing blood through my neck up into my head. I feel anger - and then I see anger. A magenta Emotionclone grows in the back of the space behind Maya's back. It’s a version of me I don’t like seeing here at all. Its breaths are loud, its lips pressed together and its eyes squinted. Pax has done it.

  “Oh, Moho. I told you not to get angry,” Pax hisses with delight.

  I do and I don’t want to be angry but I can’t help but feel more and more hate towards Pax with every moment. And I literally see my hate when a dark-red version of me rises above the crowd of my Emotionclones next to the giant anger Emotionclone. I need to get Maya out of here.

  “So, what’s next?” I ask Maya before Pax, or my emotions, can cause any more damage.

  “Are you sure? You have barely seen anything,” Maya suggests.

  “Oh, I’ve seen more than I wanted,” I assure her.

  “Okay. You should pr
obably take a peek behind your Wall of Secrets then,” Maya suggests.

  “Sounds great,” I respond. There are certainly a few things to shield from certain eyes.

  Next, the space shrinks once more and we leave all my emotions behind us. A short moment of darkness follows but then we find ourselves in another one of those vast spaces. This time, however, there is no bright ceiling. There is no ceiling at all, actually, and no walls either.

  We are standing on a mesh similar to the one in all the other spaces but here bright spots are racing through the mesh. They remind me of the Emotionclones and look like tiny balls of pure electricity.

  What’s most confusing is the fact that there are neither any Memorybubbles, nor Thoughttrees, nor Emotionclones. There is simply nothing.

  “Walk straight ahead. You will see the Wall of Secrets after a while,” Maya explains.

  “Aren’t you coming?” I ask.

  “Only you can know your secrets. Otherwise your secrets aren’t secret,” Maya says and smiles. Teaching seems to make her happy.

  So I start walking into the darkness. And walk. And walk. I look over my shoulder and see Pax talking to Maya but I’m too far away to hear anything. Pax is up to no good and I'd prefer her to not talk to Maya. Then their heads start to melt into the black background. And I get a bit scared. I keep walking and yet, I just can’t find this wall. After a while I stop and turn around to see if Maya and Pax are still there, but the darkness has swallowed them completely. I’m alone.

  I try to continue walking but immediately bump right into a wall instead. It appeared out of nowhere. I look left, right and up. The wall extends infinitely to all three sides. And there are no secrets anywhere. I touch the wall, searching for some clues. It looks like the floor but it's rock-solid. Then I hear someone who I'd rather forget.

  “Hold on!” Pax shouts while she is running towards me. When she reaches the wall, she smiles at me as if nothing had happened between us.