by Davi Cao
“See? I tell you, you’ll hate it there, won’t you? Think of a world without a purpose! That’s her one!”
“I agree with you in that, because I don’t want a world where people have no problems to solve. But at least it would be something better than yours.” Colin nodded at Dalana.
She strolled over the blocks he created with a bitter taste in her mouth. He spoke little of Utopia, but at least he placed her ideal above the World Voice’s world. When she managed to talk more about her thoughts, maybe she could make an impact in his mind and left him terrified by the concept of anguish.
OOOO jumped high to stay ahead of Colin, blocking his way. Smiling, it spoke: “It’s time for a Clash!”
“Ah, no, not this game ...” Dalana said, breaking the barrier imposed by OOOO, taking Colin along.
“What? What is this? ‘Clash’?” he said.
“It will start with a being or a concept, and you have to follow the same line of thought, suggesting something that expresses his initial concept with more emphasis,” Dalana said.
“Dalana will be the judge, won’t she? It’s good to have a third one to play Clash,” OOOO said. “I start! The World Voice!”
“Hm? Yes, I know, the World Voice. What do I do with it?” Colin said.
OOOO turned its face to Dalana, fixing its pointy teeth on her direction. She rolled her eyes, annoyed at her task, and helped anyway. “It is a being of loneliness, right? You must think of something that expresses loneliness more than the World Voice now.”
“Is that it? Where’s the fun in this game?” Colin said.
“Just play it!” OOOO yelled, too excited to hold itself.
“Ok, hm ... Something that always disturbed me. A blind immortal man, the only survivor after the end of civilization, living on the scorched land of Earth being engulfed by the Sun.”
“A repellent baby that pushes everything away, falling down the planet, pushing rocks away, pushing magma away, falling to the other side of the globe, seeing those who want to be his parents and that cannot reach him because he repels everything, and then falls back again and again and again,” OOOO said.
“A ... A fish in an aquarium ... Separated from the others, living among humans, and that’s ... That’s sad for it.”
“You lose,” Dalana said. “That’s one step way lower than the World Voice itself, way, way lower.”
“Isn’t that relative? For the little fish, think about it, it’s so lonely. Living in such limited space is cruel.”
“I am the judge, right? I decide. The fish had an inferior mind to the World Voice.”
“See, I won, didn’t I?” OOOO hopped higher than Colin, getting stuck in the mud. “Play with her now! It will be fun, won’t it?” OOOO released itself from the ground with the agility of a hare playing on snow.
“Ok, I can try that. Who’s first?” Colin said.
“You can go. I don’t care much about this game,” Dalana said.
“Alright, so ... I start with anything, correct? A human family.”
“Good one,” OOOO said, siding with him.
“Universal fraternity,” Dalana said.
“Huh?” Colin laughed. “That seems already like the highest one can go. Isn’t that too steep? Shouldn’t she go slower at first?” Colin asked OOOO.
“As long as it moves forwards, it’s valid, isn’t it?” it said.
“I ... Hm ... Maybe a network of some kind ... If only it moved forwards, hm, which I think it doesn’t ... Gee, I have to drop it. Sorry, I can’t think of anything. I don’t even know what a universal fraternity is, to be honest.” Colin bowed to the victors of an alien game.
“You lose!” OOOO gave him a big wide smile.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a game.” Dalana pulled Colin’s shirt on his back, twice. “If you want to meet a universal fraternity, you can have a clue of that in our lab. I wish to build one with the people I collected, as I’ll probably have to wait a long while until my next world.”
“You mean a community with other Creators like us? A place without conflicts?”
“Not without conflicts, not this time, unfortunately. This time, it’s only a place with other humans. People that I saved from old Terra.” She raised her eyebrows at Colin’s excited eyes.
The blocks on which they stepped trembled and sank in the mud, all at once. With feet grounded, the Creators moved on, materializing new blocks ahead. Their experience in that world told of sudden disappearances, they grew used to melt downs, but their new crafted stuff found no basis on which to stand, lost in the depths. The land itself collapsed under their feet.
“We’re falling, aren’t we?” OOOO said.
“How, if we’re on plains?” Colin said.
“Don’t you feel like sliding down? Something is happening, I know it. It’s a hole trying to suck us in,” Dalana said.
Colin struggled to move, sinking in the soft mud up to his waist. At rest, crafting more solid stuff to help him out of the place, the bricks and logs that came out of his imagination melted down faster than anything else. The same happened to the others, creations disappearing at an unusual pace in circumstances they knew well. Dalana focused on air flows which did little more than caressing the surface. Their powers had proven useless.
Immersed, they rotated among the slime surrounding them, around a distant center. As soon as they noticed their circular trajectories, everything collapsed, and each fell into darkness, swallowed by a vortex of sad matter.
Something sucked them, a star attracting others by the void in itself, a big hungry entity that herded every single particle in the area towards its core. It happened at a sudden, giving them no time to object to it.
Dalana found herself in the dark, projecting a sphere of Utopia on her body, like she had done with the snail. Slime flowed past her, disassembling her satisfaction in front of her eyes. A stampede of despair ran over her skin, tearing bits of herself with the wish of melting down. Death, disappearance, it made sense! Why wasting time with new ideas if the past would forever be a failure, why trying to escape the whirlpool of depression if infinity was also a kind of bland repetition? She swam in the mud, hoping to reach the core, to meet the void, indifferent to the surface.
OOOO saw in its own dissolution the destruction of its world, and for that it resisted. The vortex of melted land dragged it underground, though, and not its grand creation, its child, the World Voice. Something created by the world’s interaction with its only native creature, a novelty so interesting and saddening that enticed OOOO to join with it to know more of it. It had to speak with its child, it had to compliment it, the World Voice’s great transformations. The world exploded in ideas with the pillar that depressed everything. How could OOOO talk to the World Voice if it didn’t design such a possibility? It would follow the vortex until something new crossed its mind.
Colin heard the cries hurtling through his body and recognized the same lament that ruled the world. Lonely and miserable, yes, true. But that was just a phase. Patiently, sinking deeper in the whirlpool, he heard the Voice and found nothing new. It had spoken, and he listened to it. The end of its pain and everybody else’s required its destruction. Colin already fought for that, aware of the trap surrounding him. He imagined explosions behind his back to push him up, and so he materialized it, returning to the surface to find a solid place to stand. Darkness failed at deceiving him.
He stood alone in there, having his both companions still lost in darkness. He created a contrast in the mud, some powder that penetrated the slime and bubbled when in contact with any Creator.
Blue came out of two spots half the way to the whirlpool’s center. Colin crafted a gigantic sifter to rise from the ground and bring their bodies up. The thing melted down fast, soon to be recreated in a constant effort of his imagination. He rescued Dalana and OOOO and brought them up to his presence, admiring the magnitude of the world’s newest natural phenomenon.
“Haha, it’s getting more interesting
every time, isn’t it?” OOOO said, leaning towards the sinking slime in front of them, dragged down towards the vortex.
“I never expected something like it. This thing sucked me and made me wish for death, without giving me any chance of escaping. It’s been long since I don’t become this afraid,” Dalana said, her eyes wide and unblinking.
“You are safe now, don’t fear. It’s just another consequence of the World Voice’s dominion.” Colin frowned at OOOO.
The great pillar of glowing light grew in the horizon. It got closer to them again, and one could only wonder what would happen when it met the vortex of mud sucking the melted ground. OOOO watched their approach with legs stuck deep in slime.
“Let’s move, don’t stop here. Things are getting rough and we might lose ourselves. Where is the lab?” Colin said.
“Just find the obelisk and follow it. There, can you see it?” Dalana pointed to a tall line behind all mounds they could see.
“Ok, I’ll get us there pretty soon if we go by rocket.” He created an airplane-like vehicle with boosters attached to its core. “Come inside, you two.”
G-forces inside their cockpit could turn humans into juice with their strength. With one huge thrust, the rocket launched them in a suborbital trajectory that would deliver them close enough to the lab’s entrance. They would crash when they landed, roll out of the melted debris, and walk to the rest of their destination.
“That’s not the best plan.” Dalana watched the land pass by the window. “This thing is already melting down.”
“Ah, no, this world is getting worse every hour.” Colin sank in his chair that became as soft as the walls themselves, which dripped and fell down in small chunks. “I’ll recreate it. There, fixed. I’ll keep doing this until we get there.”
“It’s not faster than the World Voice, is it?” OOOO said.
“I doubt it. But the pillar won’t come our way, don’t worry,” Colin said.
“Oh, it is coming.” Dalana looked back through a melted window at the huge column of light catching up with them.
Colin floated in space. The floor beneath his feet vanished, melted down. The rest of the rocket trembled in liquid spasms, threatening to break its rigidity. Before he could wish again for its reconstitution, the vehicle’s hull liquefied. They floated among the slime, illuminated by the great pillar. The path until their arrival would follow the rocket’s trail.
Up in the vacuum above the planet, the World Voice preyed easily upon them. Hearing its lament so close to their flight, they each took an extra dose of sadness. Falling towards the ground, engulfed by wide light, inner confrontations tore their brains into pieces.
“I am lost ... Alone ... I suffer and pain is everywhere ... Please, someone, anyone, talk to me ...”
“Dalana, OOOO, hey, it’s just the Voice, it’s just a phase, ok? You’re not alone, and we can heal your pain. We only have to destroy this world, trust me. After this, things will be alright.” Colin shouted at them, watching them spin with dead eyes.
“Wrong,” Dalana said, facing the purple sky above. “Trust the man who only saw one world beyond his own ... I won’t, because it’s a lie ... I am alone in this mess ... My friend is solitude ...”
“You don’t fit in with me ...” OOOO said, “Nobody does ... Only my peers ... And they are all dead ... Funny, isn’t it ... Haha, yes ... And it doesn’t change anything ...”
Dalana’s dress melted at the edges, OOOO’s legs dissolved at their tips. As they approached collision with the ground, Colin worried that their state would aggravate with the impact, but he had no time to take safety measures. They crashed and rolled on the soft mud, their bodies scattered behind the obelisk. He got up first, the only one, rushing to check the others.
“Hey, hey, come on, stay with me, don’t fall for the trap, OK.” He shook Dalana’s intact body. “It’s all a big trap, a place we must terminate to live in peace again.”
“You don’t—” she began to say.
“Right, I’m still new in all this, but don’t you want Utopia? Huh? Don’t you want to live again in paradise? Help me out here, please, and we’ll get a better place.” He spoke fast to entice her to do the same. “Make something nice, something that you like, anything, now, in this place. Give me a taste of Utopia.”
“We can have that in the lab.” Dalana struggled to stand up again. “It’s so close, let’s just get there now. I’ll help you.”
The entrance lay by the obelisk’s side. The sculpture itself melted down in fat drops, a burning candle, its huge size providing more sad matter to the mountain already rising from its base. OOOO stayed behind, spinning its face and its eyes, half immersed in mud.
“Won’t you come with us? We are in a safe place now, my friend,” Colin said, by the side of Dalana.
“You want to destroy my world ... Don’t you?” it said, turning its head.
“Do you really think we can do it? You are the master in here, you know how hard it is. But I bet you’ll enjoy watching us break our heads trying to put an end to this place.”
“The end is my end,” OOOO said. “I will disappear with the rest and ... And that’s bad, isn’t it?”
Colin stormed on his direction, “Enough of this empty talk, ok. It will be bad, of course, and we want you with us. It’s just the Voice that must go.” He then pulled one of the creature’s legs. “You are interested in everything, aren’t you? Just come through that door with us and you’ll laugh again.”
Dalana guided their entrance by going in first. Left outside, Colin nudged OOOO’s back and they followed her together. After a few steps underground, they walked in a long tunnel. The place’s walls resisted in stony might, showing no signs of melting down.
“This is a holy place.” Dalana caressed the low ceiling. “In this particular spot in the world, the prophecy describes a house that bears all pain for the sake of others. It is here, the house, and it is because of its existence that physical matter in the universe finds a safe haven. They want death, they want to give up, but the house is hope, and for it they resist. One more sad day, for the well-being of the house.”
“Is that so?” Colin turned his eyes to OOOO, to include it again in the conversation.
“Yes, because I so made it.” Dalana sided with him, swaying her chest left and right. “That was one way to deal with the particles of this world. It’s a pity that they don’t accept other holy places, therefore I can’t replicate this material elsewhere.”
“I see. It’s strong stuff, from what it seems. Does it ever melt?” Colin said.
“So far it’s resisting without intervention.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?” OOOO regained its usual joy by hopping over firm ground.
“And does it protect the ones inside from the World Voice’s influence?” Colin said.
“Only a little. We and Ai.iA have to get out and escape when it’s too strong. The others are only alive because they can deal well with it,” Dalana said.
“And who’s Ai.iA?”
“My friend, the one I’m helping. You’ll—”
”—it fits much better! Go on, give me the gold one—” a voice echoed in the tunnel.
”—where did you put the ten hours one? I can’t find it,” another one said.
“You’ll meet her soon.” Dalana rose her hand to touch the door at the end of their walk.
She pushed it and a cloud of voices greeted Colin’s ears. They stopped, waiting for the new ones’ arrival, bringing silence again to the mysterious place. He waited for her lead, shy, nervous about meeting researchers, anxious to have a glimpse at other humans from his own world.
He went in after Dalana, before OOOO. They greeted him with marveled smiles, offering him human faces, glad and glowing, inviting to new friends. Six people, three men and three women, dressed in tunics of different colors and patterns.
They surrounded a round table over which countless objects lay scattered. One of those objects moved, it seeme
d to have two heads, not humanlike, not robotlike, two rounded squares with decorative lines indicating either eyes or mouths or horns or breasts. It jumped with a black rod coming out from under it, and it stayed up by balancing on it and constantly punching the ground to lift itself.
“That’s wonderful! You found him, after all! You brought us the new guy to help in our project!” Ai.iA said.
∙ 6 ∙ Research team
In front of all those new people, the world became a populated place again. The noise of human speech, talking about human problems, of mortal issues, Colin needed that sound for his well-being.
He stepped inside the big room where they all seemed to work on the table, and raised his hand to wave at everybody. One of the humans, the one in front, with a white skin and a black thick beard, eyed Dalana.
“Is he one of us? Or a Crafter ... I mean, Creator, like you?” he said.
“Born from Terra, turned into a Creator,” Colin said before her. “They say I was chosen at random, and so far, I don’t see sense in this new life. All I want is to have our Earth back.”
“I want it too,” one of the women said, dodging the people in front of her to walk to Colin.
She hugged him, pressing his bones with the strength of a long-lost friend. Colin replied to her in kind. Although his immortality approached him more to Dalana than with mortal humans, the fact that they came from his reality gave him a true impression of community. The woman released her hold on him, nodding without words.
“Yay, old Earth represented!” another man said, going to Colin to hug him too with a big smile.
They all greeted him with a strong embrace, cheering his arrival with hopes of familiarity. A Creator born out of their reality, with whom they could talk in equal terms, they had found gold.
Behind Colin, OOOO entered the room and gave the new ones a predator’s stare, waiting for the best time to strike. Its goggled eyes scared them all, compelling them to end their compliments to Colin and head back to the table. They hid behind Ai.iA, who had just lost her place as the strangest living being they had ever seen.