Prisons of Stolen Dreams

by Christopher St. John Sampayo

  In his observations of the Prism, Isiah began to see how if there was ever a great crisis he could put into motion a sequence of events that could be used to help all the people of the Sea of Glass escape Verse Zero.

  The Prism was a great vortex of redirected energies and no living being could manipulate it directly. However, the crystals in the walls that surround it could be realigned in such a way that they could cause a beautiful cascade to save the lives of those who lived in this glass world.

  Isiah began realigning the crystals in the walls and redirecting the energies that were the foundations of existence.

  ***

  As Isiah redirected the cosmic energies of the Prism, outside the Citadel the ocean sky above began to crack. It then shattered into a thousand pieces. All the people of Verse Zero stopped what they were doing and began to look up. They knew something was wrong.

  Many of them then looked to the city. They saw the fires.

  Since the death of Patrick Resnick all understood that there was some unforeseen force that was a very threat to the existence of the Island on the Sea of Glass. Isiah and Belili discussed with everyone what they needed to do should the unthinkable occur. They were all instructed to flee.

  The people of Verse Zero understood that if death came to their lands their escape would be through the Sea of Glass. Even the youngest children were drilled on what to do. Their education was accelerated so they could escape into the ocean of infinity. Such was the necessity of living in times of fear.

  Now as the people of the Glass Sea looked into the sky shards of reality began falling from the heavens. Infinity fell like rain. Because of this the children did not have to make it to the beaches. The Sea of Glass was coming to them. Escape was coming to them. Safety was raining down from the sky.

  Through the falling shards of reality the people of Verse Zero could skip into other Verses. The prodigies began running and leaping into the portals as they fell. Thousands began their escape. They fled out of fear. They fled to escape. They fled to live.

  Many were not lucky. As they ran towards pieces of falling sky they were caught by the assassins. The assassin’s eyes were not dazzled by the beauty of infinity as it fell down upon the lands of Verse Zero.

  It would not have mattered if they could understand the aesthetics of the moment. The assassin craved not beauty but blood.

  ***

  Catalina was not aware of the falling sky outside the Citadel as she reached the chamber of Farinata’s Prism. Isiah had already taken an exist on the opposite side of the chamber. He was escaping up the stairs towards the safety of the raining infinity.

  As she entered the Chamber of the Farinata’s Prism however, Catalina instantly forgot about Isiah. She had learned of the great Prism from her other half. She had not thought much of what she felt was a minor detail in their quest to end existence. However, standing before the Prism was enough to dazzle the mind of anyone.

  Even Catalina was taken aback in amazement at the object before her. It bent the very energies that lay beneath the fabric of the Multiverse.

  Staring before this greatness Catalina felt a pang of awe. The feeling disgusted her. She was not bred to be inferior to anything. She was not bred to be anything less than the perfect being.

  She pushed her anger away with her pride. If she could manipulate this Prism maybe she could learn the secrets of infinity. Maybe she could be the one to see the path to the Threshold of Degradative Concurrence. Maybe she could be the chosen one after all and burn away all of creation.

  Catalina stared at the structure. Her eyes dazzled at the perfection of it. She was a genius and she understood the possibilities if she could manipulate the Prism. This Prism tapped into the cosmic powers that were the underlying foundations of existence. There was an important key here. If Catalina was cunning enough she could use the Prism to find the Threshold.

  As she stared at the Prism suddenly Catalina understood. Awareness washed over her like a breath of clarity. Her genius mind was beginning to understand how to manipulate the energies at work in this place. In a moment that was like an epiphany she began to see how this Prism could be used to end all that ever was. Catalina realized that the energies of the Prism could be redirected back to the very heart of creation. When this was done it would have the effect of a magnifying glass focusing sunlight. It would become a fire at the Threshold and it would burn away all existence.

  With this understanding came great joy. Catalina realized she was the great one. She was the messiah who would murder creation. Not the Monster King. Instead it was she who would be the great Goddess of Death.

  A smile spread across the cold lips of Catalina. She knew exactly where to begin.

  Pride can be a sickness. It can be a cancer. It can delude a person. It can blind them. It can change their reality and perspective. Pride can destroy a person through their arrogant haste.

  Very few in all of existence can manipulate a piece of infinity. Isiah had studied his whole life how to manipulate Farinata’s Prism. Catalina, however, had not. The moment her arrogance caused her to reach out and stroke the great Prism, Catalina understood her folly. She never had a hope of solving the great intricate puzzles hidden in this structure.

  Catalina instantly screamed. The pain was like a fire that incinerated her veins. It spread through her body but it was not merciful. It held her and burned her away from the inside out.

  There was madness in this moment. The madness was that Catalina was touching the event horizon of a singularity. To outside eyes what transpired took moments as Dark Catalina was consumed by the cosmic energies that were harnessed by the Prism. However, time is a funny thing at these places where time, space, and cosmic energy are folded and twisted. What the outside observer perceived as mere moments could in fact have lasted an eternity. For the person who touched the event horizon it could have been an infinity of agony as they burned for a million years.

  Catalina was one of the truly wicked in all of creation. She delighted in the torment and torture of others. However, anyone could not help but feel pity and pray for mercy for a person who would have to suffer so much agony upon their death. They would have felt much sadness for one whose anguish lasted for an almost infinite time. All would have shed a tear for suffering so great.

  All would have felt pity seeing this agony happening to a person. All of course, but Catalina.

  ***

  Sarah was staring at the waters of the lake when the sky began falling. She had been thinking of her great love. She had been thinking of Patrick.

  Suddenly the beautiful sky above began to darken as if a storm was arriving. Sarah understood that in many ways a storm had arrived.

  A moment later the wind began to carry to Sarah the sound of screams. She looked to the horizon and she saw smoke rising. As the sky began to fall Sarah ran to the city. She knew she must help. She must help as many flee as she could.

  Shards of reality fell all around her. The shards were hope. They were hope of safety for the people of Adar.

  When she reached the city, Sarah saw the streets were littered with corpses. She knew the people who lay lifeless around her. She knew all the people who lived in Verse Zero.

  The falling sky meant that Isiah had put his plan into motion. There had been much discussion of the plan after Patrick’s death. Isiah’s plan was brilliant. However, no plan was perfect. One of the issues with the plan was the way the structure of the heavens would collapse. The sky of the Sea of Glass would begin to collapse from the outside in. It would start at the shores of the island but it would take some time to reach the city which was at the heart of the Verse Zero. This meant that Sarah needed to help as many as possible get out of the city.

  As she ran down a street she saw a group of children. They were being surrounded by two of the horrific creatures that Sarah had first seen when Patrick was killed.

  The creatures had not yet noticed Sarah. They were too excited in their blood lust for the group o
f children they had captured.

  Sarah ran into a nearby shop. She knew the shop well. It was run by a candle maker. As she entered she saw the candle maker, Polotov, laying on the ground. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling. His stomach had been opened up and his innards littered the ground around him. Sarah understood that his unraveling had been done with great pleasure by the creatures outside.

  Sarah quickly ran to the back of the shop. She knew there she could find exotic oils that Polotov used to make some of his magical candles. The candles were a wonder in the city. The beautiful fragrances and colors they emitted were a marvel.

  Sarah knew that right now she needed to mix those oils a certain way. She worked fast.

  A moment later she stepped from the shop. The creatures were taking their time with the vulnerable children they had trapped. They took pleasure in the fear of these children. Their ears could hear the rapid sounds of the children’s heartbeats as the they understood that death was upon them. Those sounds and the sounds of the impending screams were the only music these genius creatures of death ever really desired to hear.

  The creatures were so lost in their delight of the moment that they did not pay attention to their other surroundings. Genius murders rarely make mistakes. When they do it is only because they are lost in the emotion of pure joy believing their conquest is complete.

  Sarah carried two small candle jars with her. She was careful with them. She knew the mixture of oils in them was combustible upon impact.

  When she was near enough she threw a jar at one of the creatures. Upon impact the creatures body erupted into flames. The creature did not scream, however. Not even as it turned to Sarah and its face melted away. The oil mixture was a highly accelerant combination that began to incinerate the creature quickly. It ran towards Sarah before collapsing and gasping its last breath.

  The other creature saw this. Sarah’s element of surprise was no more. The creature ran towards Sarah. She threw her remaining jar at it but the creature was prepared and easily dogged it.

  The creature carried with it large blades as it moved with sickening speed.

  Sarah prepared for her life to end.

  Suddenly the creature stopped. It turned.

  As it did so Sarah saw the arrow protruding from its back. The creature fell and Sarah saw Isiah holding the bow that had sent the arrow flying.

  “Come Sarah,” he said. “We must go.”

  Sarah ran. She grabbed by the hands the children that had been surrounded moments ago.

  “Come with me,” she said. “Come with me.”

  The children did as they were told. They were from the most recent generation that had been gathered. The gathering always continued. The need for future generations of prodigies for this place was vital.

  Sarah knew not all of these children had yet mastered their ability to dive into the Sea of Glass. Time had not been a luxury for this newest generation. Sarah hoped instinct would drive them to do what needed to be done.

  They reached the outskirts of the city and continued running till they were in the fields. The falling sky had begun to reach this point.

  “Run,” Sarah told the children as infinity began to rain all around them. The children leapt into these falling shards of the Multiverse. They jumped into different pieces of falling reality. A moment later they had escaped into the Multiverse.

  Sarah looked to Isiah.

  “We have to help more,” she said. Isiah nodded.

  They ran back into the city streets. They split up as they looked for those they could aid in their escape. All around Sarah, Adar was filling with fire and smoke.

  She turned down a street and saw Belili slowly moving forward. Belili had blood around her mouth. As she pushed herself down the street Belili coughed up more blood.

  Belili saw Sarah.

  “Run, Sarah,” Belili cried out as loud as she could but it was barely a whisper.

  From the smoke behind her a figure emerged. It was a familiar face. Sarah had seen this man on a beach in a Verse far away. She had seen the cold look in this man’s eyes as he killed the boy she loved.

  It is said the eyes are a doorway into the soul. In a moment Sarah understood an awful truth. Somewhere in those cold eyes was the soul of a boy she had once known. He had been a beautiful boy. In those eyes Sarah saw Patrick. She didn’t know how this was possible. However, she knew it was the truth.

  This part of Patrick’s soul, this part of his mind was familiar and unrecognizable all at the same time. The face that housed that soul was old and withered. It was cold and wretched.

  Sarah realized another thing. Before he died Patrick was beginning to see the things that they hoped he would. He was beginning to tap into his potential as the one who could see the path to the Threshold. But the evil before Sarah was fully formed. What Patrick aspired to the creature before her had already succeeded at. This creature had moved into its potential and was the perfect genius that had been sought since the creation of Verse Zero.

  The Monster set his eyes upon Sarah and Sarah felt true fear. She trembled from the evil dark hatred that burned in the Monster’s eyes. However, what frightened her the most was the knowledge of who he was. He was the greatest of them. He was the genius that had been sought for centuries and now his very soul and essence was corrupt. His existence mocked what those of Verse Zero had sought for generations.

  He had a mind that was unparalleled in any universe.

  How can you defeat one who knows you better then you know yourself? Sarah wondered. How can you beat one who is the great dark genius that was born and created to destroy everything you loved?

  The man before her was a fragmented man. He was someone not just with a split personality. He was someone with a split soul.

  As she looked into his cold eyes she felt a pang of sadness over the great love she had lost. Patrick was a beautiful boy who died too young. She loved and missed him. He was perfection in her mind and nothing would ever change that. In his last moments as he died Sarah had looked into his eyes and seen his soul. She had seen a mortal angel.

  Now she saw the soul of that angel corrupted.

  The Monster smiled at Sarah. He then walked up to Belili and drove the blade he was carrying deep in her back. He punctured Belili’s lung and she coughed up more blood.

  Her last words were once again, “Run.” Then the life left her. The Monster slid his blade out of her and the corpse of Belili fell to the ground.

  The Monster never took his eyes off of Sarah as all this happened.

  Sarah realized there was nothing left that could be done here. The time had come. The Monster had come to the gates of their paradise. Now the city burned.

  Sarah did the only thing she could do. She ran. As she did so she realized madness had won. There was no longer any hope in existence. The last great pillar of salvation was now burning.

  As she escaped the city and ran towards the fields she saw others of Verse Zero fleeing. They leapt at the shards of reality that rained down upon them. They leapt and disappeared. They did not look back. They escaped into the Multiverse.

  As she neared the border of the falling sky Sarah saw the approaching curtain of sky was erupting in waves from those that were fleeing into it. The waves were blue, purple and pink. She had come to know these colors in her years of traversing the Sea of Glass. However now they mixed with different colors. They mixed with bright orange and red. These were from the fires of conflict as so many holes were being punched into the fabric of space and time by so many frantic people all at once as they fled.

  Sarah saw a shard coming down in front of her. Even as she ran to meet it she felt the eyes of the Monster on her. He had followed her. Sarah looked back one last time. She saw the Monster behind her. There was no rush to his gait. Why should there be, Sarah realized. He had already won.

  Yet still his eyes burned with a flame of hatred that was brighter than the fires that were burning the city.

  Sarah reached th
e shard of falling reality and she leapt into it. She was unsure what place in space and time she was going to. She was unsure what Verse she would land in. All she could do was hope and pray that the Monster could not follow.

  ***

  The Philosophical Principles of Death. The Scripture of Farinata Uaegli Abertio.

  Gospel 000002

  The death of the Multiverse will be a great wave that erases all creation in an instant. It will erase all that is, all that ever was, and all that will ever be.

  It will erase even our suffering. It will erase even our tears.

  It will erase the awful deception that we call life.

  It will erase the false dreams of sunlight.

  All that is sacred, all that lives will perish.

  Thus, we the chosen people of God, shall end all suffering.

  I have been blessed by God with visions of what is to come.

  I have seen the dark wave of fire that will come from the center of un-creation and burn away all life.

  I know I will not be blessed to witness this moment with my own eyes. It is far ahead in the future.

  But centuries from now it will come to pass. This is the Revelation I have been shown. This is the truth I bear witness to.

  Verse Twenty: All That Could Have Been

  The first thing Sarah heard was the sound of rain. It was a pleasant and soothing sound. She opened her eye and saw that she was sitting on a park bench.

  Slowly the awareness of who she was in this Verse washed over her. She was a wife. She was a mother. She had two children. They were nine and eleven. Sarah reflected over the memories contained in the mind of the life she had just leapt into. She smiled as she did so. Sarah realized that she was lucky. She had jumped into a near perfect life. She lived in a near perfect world. She had escaped the terrible destruction of Adar and she was now in a place that was better then she could have hoped for.