by William Hawk
Then I realize that these feelings aren’t coming from me—they are from this misshapen lump. Suddenly, it begins stretching and moving, as though something inside is pushing against its elastic sides, trying to escape.
I do not want to find out what it is so I turn away. Behind me, the lumps make a low screech, an orchestra of dissonant harmonies, horribly distorted. I ignore them and continue to move on.
I move along for a while. I don’t know how long. It is impossible to tell how much time elapsed here in the spirit realm, or if there even is time. I don’t have to expend any energy, and I never get hungry or thirsty. There is only the endless gray sludge.
Then I remember one of the symbols that Cy showed me. It was the circle of arrows pointing inward. I stop my progression and think about that. I have been moving forever, it seems, but making no progress. Maybe that symbol is supposed to represent me.
So I turn myself inward. I concentrate on my own life, on my own travels, on my own people. My mother immediately comes into my presence. Her image is unclear; nowhere near as sharp as Grace’s face was, which tells me that she isn’t as advanced as Grace. Maybe she isn’t as advanced as I am either, or maybe she just hasn’t been in the spiritual realm long enough to learn how to navigate it. But I can still tell that it is her.
Mom, I say.
William.
I’m sorry.
It’s okay. I’m happy here. There is no reason to grieve.
You know I’m not dead, Mom. Or whatever dead was to us there.
We know, honey.
The way she says that last line makes me realize that I’m standing out here like someone barging into a formal party wearing an outrageous costume. The helmets are ingenious, but they are just an imitation, a shallow shortcut to the experience that has been the greatest mystery of human existence. Those who had truly crossed knew things that even I, a Change Agent, could only hope to understand.
I have to fight Roivas, I say.
Roivas isn’t something you want to fight.
But he killed you. If I don’t confront him, he’ll kill me, too.
Everyone has to enter the spiritual realm.
This stops me in my tracks. Is she implying that the forces of evil are too strong, and that I shouldn’t stand up to them? This strikes me as absurd, and I think about all those people throughout history who suffered under evil, and the others who stood up to evil. It seems to me that evil is a never-ending thing, and fighting it should be a never-ending task. And I can’t let go of the idea that murdering human beings is evil, that killing in the manner of the Samurai is just a way of sending someone to another life.
It hurts me to do it, but I turn away from my mother. I can feel her presence disappear behind me.
I must complete this journey on my own.
I struggle with where to turn next, but I remember the second symbol that Cy had showed us. It was a geodesic ball, what Arthur called a fullerene. I remember hearing our chemistry teacher talk about that the previous year. A fullerene is a molecule of carbon, and it is found on earth and in outer space. Material science was starting to make good use of that structure, I was told.
I wonder if that will help me find Roivas.
I look deep inside myself and think hard, concentrating on that shape. Gradually, as I focus, the gray sludge disappears, and I find myself inside a shining prism. I look around, in every direction. It is a series of pentagonal and hexagonal interlocking rings. There are ten in total, and as I watch, seven of the ten light up. After having been suspended in sludge for however long, I find this beautiful and exhilarating.
I am suspended in the middle of the spherical prism, and as I try to move toward the outer edges, the prism moves away from me. I try again, in the opposite direction, but the prism moves the other way. I feel like a hamster in a clear ball. I can run in any direction but never escape.
Then, a brilliant, beautiful light approaches the prism from the outside. I can feel it watching me. It circles the prism, faster and faster, such that I feel like I am in the middle of the centrifuge, or on that Death Spiral ride at the amusement park, where the floor falls out from under you as you are pinned against the wall. It is nothing but a blur of light and speed, and it speaks to me—a single word.
Go!
At that second, I am filled with an incredible sense of love. My entire being is overwhelmed with a sense of unity, of belonging. Suddenly, I know that everything in the world and beyond is connected by a series of cosmic strings, much like a spider web, and if you pluck one string, the entire universe vibrates.
The light disappears, the prism falls away from me, and I am now standing at the edge of a deep canyon, a black hole with a single path leading into it. I hadn’t thought of this place. The light must’ve put me here. I can still feel it inside of me. I am going to carry it everywhere.
As I begin to descend, I can’t help thinking that I just looked into the face of God, or the Ancient Engineer. That term sounds so familiar to me—what is it?
I circle down into the darkness. It is like a spiral staircase, except that there are no steps, and I have no legs. But there is an undeniable spiral descent, and as the gray turns to black, the spiritual realm soon begins to take on an undeniably darker feel.
Soon I see a series of small beings scuffling in the mud. They look like small pieces of waste, and I sense from them an endless array of uncontrollable urges. The small creatures tussle with one another, biting, snapping. Their voices sound like small, vicious animals. It almost feels like they have been wound up like a child’s toy.
I move lightly through them, barely looking down. They say don’t argue with idiots, because idiots always drag you down to their level. If I try to interact with any of these blunted spirits, they will do exactly that. Besides, they aren’t who I need to confront.
I need to confront Roivas.
The path carries me farther down into the darkness, and the snuffling animal sounds of the creatures thankfully disappear behind me. The path is murkier, and I can rely only on my intuition to guide me farther.
A putrid, icy rain begins to fall, and I’m now standing in a field of slush. It smells terrible. I can hear a commotion on the near horizon. I move over to it and see a group of spirits rolling in the vile, wet earth, as if they are bound to the ground, trapped. They are howling and are just as blunted as the other group, no facial features or even recognizable body parts, but they are somehow larger, almost like a herd of walrus. I also sense from them that they once had voracious appetites—full of food, drink, drugs, gambling, everything, until nothing was enough to satisfy their urges.
Even worse, standing in the middle of this group is a guardian—a three-headed dog. It barks at the victims and mauls them with its claws, and they scream in horror as its sharp talons rakes them. I shudder as I imagine being stuck in such an existence.
Suddenly, one of the dog’s heads turns and catches sight of me. Its nostrils flare, and its ears shoot back as it bares its teeth. Then the other two heads turn, and as the beast rotates its torso to face me, I know that I have to think of something to defend myself. I instinctively reach down and scoop a handful of the putrid mud and quickly shove it into the dog’s nearest mouth. I don’t know why I chose to do that, but it works. The dog head chews on the horrible stuff. Then I pick up two more handfuls and shove them in the other two mouths.
This distracts the dog heads enough to let me slide by. Soon the beast falls into the darkness behind me as well.
My journey continues, and time no longer holds any meaning to me. I can’t even think about anybody from back home, or what they might be doing. I am living in the present to an extent that I have never done before.
But soon I sense that I am no longer alone. To my left side I notice a spirit with a sprightly hue is bouncing along, almost as though I invited him to join me on my journey. It’s attractive, but I feel something else at the same time.
William, it says.
You k
now my name.
Help me, and I’ll help you.
Tell me about this proposal.
I’ll give you power in this realm if you give me Arthur.
I feel alarmed. So you know Arthur?
Yes, and we want him.
There is nothing more to be said. Anybody who asks me to turn over my friends for personal gain is clearly the enemy. Even as I continue moving, I hear the spirit’s lizard-like babbling following me until it too finally fades into the darkness.
I hear the ringing of steel upon steel, and the shouts of men. This is mixed with crying, and I can physically feel the agony of the hurt. Something rolls past, and I realize it is the image of a human head. I see something taking shape in the darkness in front of me—the outline of a mushroom cloud.
I know where I am.
I must have entered the part of the spiritual realm that belongs to the most violent. I can feel the rude animal anger everywhere, smell the death, taste the bitter iron of blood in my mouth. It is shocking to feel the sensory input again after so much time here in the spiritual realm.
Soon I am passing through a battlefield. The shapes around me are indistinct, but I feel that they condemned themselves in the afterlife to more of what they’d done on the earthly realm.
Something jars me from behind, and I whirl around. A red skull with orange flaming eye sockets attacks me. It fervently tries to dominate and subjugate me. I suddenly feel that its very essence is the epitome of violence. What kind of person must this spirit have been?
I decide to traverse the battlefield, leaving the angry spirit in my wake, dodging the bursts of viciousness that explode like bombs all around me. Finally, it all falls away behind me, and the path appears again. I follow it and descend into space once more.
This time, the path is steeper and darker than ever before. I continue for what seems like an eternity, but soon the path peters out completely.
It isn’t even gray sludge. Rather, it is complete blackness, total lack of all sensory input. I feel like I’m sealed in my own tomb.
Then a small flicker of light, like a flame, comes at me. I am entranced as it draws closer; it is being cupped in the hands of someone who looks recognizably human.
As he draws closer, I draw in a breath.
It is Sonny.
He looks the same as I remember, with his stooped posture and wrinkled face. I know that he is presenting himself to me the way that I know him. This is the way things go here.
Sonny draws up close, lifts his face, and offers a crinkled smile. For a moment, I think I see something different in his face, something in the way he is looking at me. But I dismiss it.
You’re lost, William.
I’m looking for Roivas.
Roivas isn’t looking for you.
Roivas killed my family, killed you, and wants to kill me.
His face grows darker. I can lead you to Roivas.
I follow him. As we travel down the path, a virtual house of horrors flocks around us—odd creatures with several heads shrieking, elongated shadows. I stay as close as possible to Sonny’s light. This is the one thing I can depend on.
The path becomes a spiral ramp that grows steeper and steeper. Sonny slides down the path, and I follow. Soon we are slipping, falling, tumbling, careening down the path—until we land on what looks like a wide disc. A galaxy of stars surrounds us. I am surprised at how physical the spiritual realm is, given that we don’t have bodies.
Where have you brought me, I ask.
To Roivas.
I open myself up, trying to sense where the malevolent Roivas might be, but nothing of its presence comes through. I just stand there on the disc, surrounded by the galaxy.
Then I notice Sonny looking at me. The light in his cupped hands begins to turn a sickly green. His features are changing.
Sonny?
I watch as the face disappears and becomes as smooth as the shiny surface of an eggshell. Then it darkens into a mass, and from that mass emerges a face. I recognize this face! From deep within this creature an energy is gathering, and when the navy-blue pinstripe suit and shiny shoes begin to materialize, I realize that I have made an awful mistake.
This isn’t Sonny. Of course it isn’t.
This is Roivas.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I step back to the edge of the disc. This is as far as I can physically get from Roivas. An intense fear fills me—the same fear I felt when I faced this creature outside the Hall of Knowledge, and again in the graveyard.
“You betrayed me,” I say.
“I’m evil. What did you expect?”
This takes me by surprise. It is a stark acknowledgment of the very fact of its existence.
“You killed my parents. You tried to kill Grace. You want to kill me.”
“And yet you have hunted for me.”
“Our civilization is trying to achieve Final Ignition—and you’re standing in our way.”
I can see the horns that are beginning to sprout through the cloth of its navy-blue pinstripe suit. It sends icy chills that travel into my very soul. The horns grow, one inch, two inches, three. It is horrifying, and I can feel the sadistic glee that he derives from seeing my terror.
“Little Horn,” I say. “They call you by many names.”
His head tilts.
“The names change but I will always remain. You can’t kill me. You can’t stop me. You can only become one with me. Join me, William. You and I are the same. Touch me.”
Outrage grows in my soul, the same feeling I felt outside the Hall of Knowledge. It gathers itself from the toes of my feet to the top of my scalp, and then it starts to explode out of me.
I deliver the strongest display of psychic force, whatever my new power is, that I had ever used—and I aim it directly at this unholy creature in front of me. I watch the force emanate from my being and zip toward him. Whereas Julia’s cousin had been blown backward by such a display, Roivas barely moves. It glances off him like a pebble bouncing off an enormous rock monolith.
He stands there, grinning wickedly.
I slump. There is no doubt that I failed. The only question is how badly had I failed, and whether I will survive. Will I exist here? Like these tormented sprits? Will I be with my parents, in what is clearly a better place?
“You wait,” he says.
“For what?”
No answer. To my surprise, Roivas disappears. The only thing remaining is his horrible grin hanging in space, and then finally this vanishes, too.
I find myself alone on the disc. I turn around and go back to the path that we used to tumble down here… but it is gone. I peer up at the galaxy. That has disappeared, too. Then I look down, and the disc has disappeared beneath me. I try to move, but I feel as if I am encased in frozen plastic. It is impossible.
I am suspended in nothingness.
As I wait, and what must have been “time” rolls by, I realize I am in a prison, one without walls. It is a prison of sensory deprivation, which is a peculiar type of torture, one that on earth drives people to madness.
All I can do is think.
There is nothing else—nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to explore. Even the blue lights in the helmet above my eyes are barely blinking, just enough to remind me that I am, in fact, still alive, in my human form, somewhere.
I know that Roivas has done something awful to me, has ensnared me in a web of his own making. Now there is nothing I can do to get out. It gives me time to reflect, but there isn’t much to reflect on, and it makes me turn madly inward. Roivas assumed the form of Sonny, and I stupidly followed him down into this weird corner of the spiritual realm. And now I am paying for it. If I am truly passed over, then he will keep me for all eternity.
But I have not crossed over, not yet. I am still alive, somewhere in the living earthly realm. The helmet lights told me so.
The problem is that I don’t have any options. I don’t know how to navigate this place well enough to get out of
my predicament. I have to simply wait and see what happens next. I am a fly caught in a spider’s silky web. And there I hang, frozen in nothingness. It feels like years. I replay in my head everything that has happened in my life—my First Ignition, my early childhood memories. If you’re denied all sensory input, your brain ultimately unlocks all your memories, ones that you didn’t even know you have the keys to retrieve. Eventually I even remember the moment of my birth.
After what feels like an eternity, I feel something approaching.
It is an old man cupping a candle. I see again that it must be Roivas masquerading as Sonny, and I feel the outrage gathering inside me. Following close behind is a shape I don’t recognize. It is spherical and has two small blinking lights.
As they draw closer to me, I recognize the form and draw in my breath. That spherical shape is the other helmet. A moment later, it arrives, and I can see the face that is beneath it.
It is Cy. Roivas has used the image of Sonny on Cy, just as he did to me.
I watch as Cy and Roivas drop onto the same disc that I’d found myself on. Then I see Cy gesture to Sonny——and the old man transforms into Roivas again. It is the same transformation that occurred with me earlier. The navy-blue pinstripe suit, shiny shoes, smooth egghead that morphs into the face with the unnatural grin. I try to scream, but I can’t make a sound. I can’t even reach out with my soul. Whatever Roivas has encased me in is enough to block my entire existence. I watch Cy. I can sense his fear, his anger. They exchange some words that I’m not allowed to hear. Then Cy tries to reach out to the evil creature—but Roivas slashes him with his horned arm, the same way he’d slashed Sheriff Winters. I see Cy stagger backward. The blue lights on his helmet blink, weaker now. Roivas grins lewdly at me, and then makes a motion. The plastic encasing falls away. I immediately rush toward him, but as I approach the disc, Roivas sees me coming and disappears again. That horrible grin hangs in the air for one final second, then disappears too. Why hasn’t he done the same to me? What is he waiting for?