by Davi Cao
“Why don’t you create something else to teach Crisalid how to feed all the time, Colin?” the dust snake said.
“No, I can’t create anything original, and I don’t want to. I’ll take care of it myself,” he said.
“Forever?” the blocky Creator asked.
“Maybe ...”
“It will perish at random, won’t it? You should accept its fate,” OOOO said. “Besides, it’s my turn now, and I can try to spice things up, can’t I?”
“Wonderful, my friend,” --J-- said.
Over the ruins of the blocky Creator’s last attempt at ‘Survivor’, OOOO imagined a fountain. Not a living thing, or so it seemed, because it sucked the melted ground around it and expelled the gel-like matter high up in the vacuum. Falling back, it settled down in the fountain’s basin, bubbling to restore the balance between the content accumulated in there and the amount that gushed up. OOOO saw it clearly in its mind, wished for it, and it materialized.
The fountain preyed on sad atoms, rejoicing in misery and decrepitude. It worked on the universe's blood, drinking the remaining energy of matter, and spilling out the spent particles in its body's pool, where it processed them to become the most worthless puddle of emotional protons and neutrons ever.
That impoverished soup, the ultimate prey, so devoid of movement and will to exist that it greeted death with an embrace, it tempted everything. Even a perpetual motion creature like Crisalid attempted to harvest the fountain’s produce. It wouldn’t gain energy with it, for it needed no more than its own tentacle, but it would be the predator to something that couldn’t fight back, and that gave power to whoever hoped to survive against the World Voice’s reign.
“It’s irresistible, isn’t it?” OOOO said, putting its head in the fountain’s basin to taste the useless slime.
“I want it!” said the blocky Creator, teleporting itself closer.
“Why? Nothing good can come out of this. You’re eating dead stuff,” Colin said.
“For the experience, beloved one! I bet you never had any soup so devoid of any value like this,” --J-- said.
Crisalid, big and fat, groped the vacuum of space around it, then probed its own peeling bark with its tentacle. The fountain’s ooze spilled from its pool, and the black tar of dead matter flowed on the melted floor, forming rivulets that reached Crisalid’s base. The creature’s tentacle, already intent on reaching the floor, investigated the ultimate prey, sensing its presence, hoping to take it to its demented mouth and taste it like the others. By design, though, it couldn’t reach so low.
The world corroded all that dared existing in peace, merciless in its pace, destroying Crisalid’s outer layers. It needed to feed itself, and Colin helped it, nudging its tentacle to show the right way. Absolute weakness flowed among its roots, the dark soup of depletion, an enemy against which Colin couldn't compete, despite his own self-pity. Crisalid starved, losing thickness by the second, diminishing in size as the cracks in its bark became tighter and melted fast.
“Did you do this on purpose?” Colin asked OOOO.
“Of course I did! It was my turn to create, wasn’t it?” the creature said.
“Your thing is going to kill Crisalid! It doesn’t react to my guidance anymore, all it cares about now is this useless slime. You have to change it somehow.”
“Are we playing ‘Survivor’ or not? It’s part of the game. I can interact with other players’ creations, can’t I?”
“Absolutely!” the blocky Creator said.
“That’s the gist of the game,” the dust snake said.
“I’m amused, so it’s good,” --J-- said.
“It’s all just a big game for you all, isn’t it, no matter how nice your creations make you feel,” Colin said.
He grabbed Crisalid’s tentacle and pushed it with all his strength towards the creature’s mouth. Unable to make it move, he had to content himself with watching it starve. Angry, he filled his hand with the fountain’s produce and smeared it on Crisalid’s lips, an angry father, aggressive and harsh.
The creature tasted it, giving no sign of satisfaction. Its tentacle tried to reach the ground despite starving, stretching itself to the limit. Thriving was a possibility for it because it forgot, and because it forgot, thriving was hard.
“If I ever find who trapped me here ... Why ... Why torturing me like this? I am so alone ... Doesn’t anybody want to be with me?”
The World Voice came down like thunder, storming the land. All Creators, in their own particular way, reacted with silence, listening to the truth that shook their basis. Crisalid trembled. Colin hugged it, not to protect it, but to protect himself, to get closer to the heart of happiness that beat inside the melting bark. He ran from death by instinct, because not long ago he had offered himself to the World Voice’s global melting pit. He created something that resisted the universal hostility, he won the game, posing him face to face against the true challenge of OOOO’s world.
“I’m looking for you ... Someone is here, someone must be here ... Nobody answers me ... Come, I beg you, save me from this hell ...”
The colossal pillar of glowing light took a quarter of the sky. It moved fast and they noticed its presence only when the voice of misery invaded their minds. Knowing what destiny awaited them if they stayed, Colin begged for help.
“Please, you have to take Crisalid out of here with us!” he said to the blocky Creator.
“Not now. I want to see how it will behave under the Voice's full power,” it said.
Colin imagined a wall of concrete, a shield of steel, a titanium frame, all to cover his creation and detach it from the outside world. Those materials became the ruins of Terra, melted matter filling the planet’s pores, useless. Nothing materialized, for any of his ideas would be dead from the start.
“One of you, I beg you, tell me what to do to protect Crisalid!” Colin said.
“We’re running away, that’s what we’ll do!” the dust snake said.
“My dear Colin, you shouldn’t risk yourself for a lovely creation. You can do it again later, even better than this time,” --J-- said.
“We should all run, shouldn’t we? Come with us! The World Voice is too strong!” OOOO said.
“A marvelous creation, by the way! I’m having loads of giggly fun with all this, OOOO,” --J-- said.
“Indeed, congratulations! It’s been a long time since we don’t suffer direct influence over us too. The risk of disappearance is a stimulus I admit to missing very much,” the dust snake said.
“Are you all okay with this?” Colin asked.
“Yes!”
“What if you meltdown?”
“We will avoid it, won’t we?”
Creators united in the nature of their existence, only Colin still resisting the burdens of immortality. The only sad one, sad for not understanding the world's strange morals, sad for being what he didn’t want to be, sad for seeing his only good creation starve and about to face the peril of direct confrontation with the World Voice.
“I don’t want to run. If I have the power to create a world, I shouldn’t be afraid of anything,” Colin said.
“But you are, aren’t you?” OOOO said in amusement.
Crisalid groped its body, reacting to a soft tap from Colin’s hand, still attracted to the ground it couldn’t reach. For a mind that forgot everything, life revolved around only one stimulation, and the fountain’s soup comprised it all.
“I’m the worst ... How can I ever get out of this if I’m such a worthless being ...”
“It’s not fear,” Colin said. “Being here is like being dead to me. I have nothing to rely on, and I’m not like you guys. So, if I can’t have Terra back, I don’t care about melting down. It’s better than living in this hell of a world.”
“The Voice is taking him!” the blocky Creator said. “Quick, carry him away!”
“No! You must allow me to be sad for real, because I’ve lost too much, and I can’t keep losing all the time.
Crisalid will die, and I can’t help it. I’m the worst of all.”
“Oh, my dear friends, we must take him out of here! He’s even weaker than us against the World Voice!” --J-- said.
“What a thrill!” the dust snake said.
Only OOOO managed to interact physically with Colin in an effective manner. The dust snake condensed itself with as much density as it could, but even its greatest effort resulted in little more than soft nudges on his skin. --J--, a slender and fragile creature, managed to block his advance with the strongest force it could exert. Were it in its original world, it would seduce Colin and become his puppeteer, and the recollection of its former power amused it.
“We are your dear friends and we want you well! You can create amazing things, see? Crisalid is perfect!” said --J--.
“Then you should help me to save it,” Colin struggled to release himself from the others' touch.
“We are the immortal ones. All the rest are just thoughts,” the blocky Creator said.
“Take me to New York with Crisalid, please. Then I’ll be far and you won’t have to worry about me.”
“I want to see if it will survive.”
The starving creature they called Crisalid returned back to its initial size, big as a dog. It forgot its identity again, moving its tentacle up to the vacuum of space, later returning to the attraction of the fountain’s slime. With the World Voice's approach, though, its body rippled in gelatinous twitching, throwing pieces of its peeled-off bark far from its roots.
“I am doomed ... Absolute, irrevocable nightmare ... End now, I pray ...”
“Pardon, it’s too much for me, I don’t even want to think—” the dust snake tried to say, and ran away from the group.
“Come along, --J--, and pull Colin into my legs!” OOOO said.
“Wait, what about the blocky one? He can take us all away at a wink!” Colin said, resisting the pressure from all sides.
“I won’t flee. I will stay here and watch Crisalid face its challenge. Someone has to tell what happens later,” the blocky Creator said.
“You’ll sacrifice yourself for my creation?” Colin stared at the Creator, surprised at the suggestion.
“Of course not. I understand the World Voice and I won’t disappear. It has no power over me.”
OOOO stared at their friend in amazement, leaning on Colin’s body to fit in with him. --J--‘s light flickered, decorating the empty space surrounding its body with fluid curves of light. The blocky Creator remained still, the same sculpted block since the beginning of its world.
“Creators can resist the World Voice, then!” Colin said.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” OOOO said. “But I’m sure you can’t, you see? Even I can’t!”
“How can you do it? Tell me, I want to know!” Colin said, jumping in front of the blocky Creator, leaving Crisalid aside.
“You just have to face it.”
“What? Face the World Voice?”
“No. Face the world you’re in now.”
“I ... I can’t. I’ve lost too much. I’m miserable. I’m doomed if I can’t.” Colin murmured, disheartened.
“Help me out, --J--, we can’t stay here longer! He’ll meltdown, won't he?” OOOO said.
Colin’s body offered no resistance to the other Creator’s push, surrendering himself to whatever took him first. OOOO hopped on the melted terrain by the side of --J--, who hovered over the land as fast as it wished. The blocky Creator remained in place, and it watched Crisalid’s agonizing contortions, lost and afraid of what it couldn’t remember. Colin turned his head back to the way they came. The glowing pillar of light swept the place, and engulfed his creation in the torment of its existence.
“Kill me ... Just let me die, please ... Torture me, pierce me, molest me ... Anything but this endless void!”
Colin watched Crisalid's darkening in the horizon, a distant figure grounded in melted land. Taken away from the site by his fellow Creators, fleeing from the World Voice's pillar, he hoped that Crisalid would survive.
∙ 12 ∙ Worlds of possibilities
Colin's old city still kept its identity, to Colin’s amazement. Safe, far from the World Voice's pillar, he saw as most of the main skyscrapers survived, their facades hanging in well-balanced harmony, the landscape dominated by the towers of human industriousness. The streets, on their part, suffered a major change, unrecognizable rivers of melted steel, rubber, and concrete.
“You had a great idea,” --J-- said. “You gave Terra the jolly apocalypse it could never anticipate. Centuries of imagination and fear of the end, and no one ever painted a picture like the one you gave them, my dear OOOO.”
“It’s as dark and gloomy as we’ve always feared,” Colin said in humankind’s defense.
“But it didn’t have a World Voice, did it? It didn’t meltdown, did it?” OOOO said.
“It makes no difference. Everybody is gone just the same, and what is left of the planet will rot in due course.”
“It’s more than that, I beg your pretty pardon. OOOO wanted the opposite of atomized Terra while keeping the same major structure. You have to appreciate the fine balance between legacy and originality. It was a creative solution, despite your belief,” --J-- said.
“My point is, we all anticipated the end of the world in a very similar way to this one. If we look for it, we may even find a few humans still trying to survive somewhere, like they always did in our stories,” Colin said.
“That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Because they can’t do it. Being here is certain death for them, isn't it?” OOOO said.
“What if other Creators managed to protect some of us? You thought it had happened to me too at first, remember?” Colin asked.
OOOO ceased its head turn, turning its eyes inside to wonder about such a possibility. It smiled, happy to be a Creator, in the immortals' realm, surprised by the infinite possibilities their condition allowed them.
“We can get back to Crisalid now. I’m going to see if it survived,” Colin said.
“It is safe, indeed. We’ll follow you, my beloved,” --J-- said.
Time dribbled on the land, a new force, a new beast to Colin, giving no reference of day and night nor of any other measure. The walk back to their improvised arena seemed to last for hours, but hours had no meaning for a being who would never die out of his own will.
“Now we’ll go to New York, right?” Colin asked OOOO. “I played the game, I created something. Is that enough for the blocky Creator to take us there?”
“It probably is, isn’t it? It’ll be nice to admire the views of my old city,” OOOO said.
“Charming Mae is not there. I don’t want to frustrate you, my dear, but you’ll have to look elsewhere,” --J-- said.
“Then, where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I have to start looking somewhere, don’t I? I want Terra back.”
Back at the park where they had played “Survivor,” a monolith marked the arena, the blocky Creator itself. In front of it, a blackened curved tree composed the rest of the scene, Crisalid, or at least partially so. Colin ran to check on it, finding the creature had its mouth shut, its tentacle hanging low, about to detach itself, one last leaf to fall. Carbonized, its thick skin gave no sign of melting down further.
“Did you see what happened to Crisalid?” he asked the blocky Creator.
“I was privileged to witness their confrontation, yes,” it said. “Your creation adopted this state that we cannot understand. It doesn’t melt anymore. But it doesn’t do anything else.”
“Is it because it died? OOOO, what happens when it dies?”
“I have no idea! You created it, and it would be quite interesting if it entered in stasis when dead, wouldn’t it?” it said.
“I’m watching it and I love it. I want to see how long it lasts. It may be the only sculpture possible in the World Voice's kingdom,” the blocky Creator said.
It spoke the truth. Crisali
d’s body held itself together in wooden stiffness, standing on the melted ground with the solidity of a tree. Touching it, Colin felt nothing of the happiness he sensed before. If his creation still kept a breath of life, no outsider could reach it.
“Things can’t be worse for me ... I am the end, and the end is a prison ... Anyone, find me here, talk to me ...”
He heard the faint echo of the World Voice’s lament. His fingertips in contact with Crisalid’s bark tingled. It resisted the hostility in its own way, and by doing so it showed once again that surviving in that hell required fantastic solutions.
“I am not worthless. I can do things too, I can beat you. And I’ll release you from your misery.” Colin directed his whispers at the World Voice.
“You’re not talking to me, are you?” OOOO widened its eyes.
“No, not to you ...” Colin looked down.
“Because I really liked what you said! I see that you’re fighting off your limitations, aren’t you?”
“Hm ... Can’t we just go to New York now? I have to find Mae.”
“Please calm down, my dear. I can see that you need jolly friends. That’s why you’re so fixed in the backwards idea of getting back to flowery Terra, isn’t it?” --J-- said.
“Sort of ... I had a family, dreams, and love, or at least some hope of love. You guys are gentle and all that, but it’s just ... It’s just not the same,” Colin said.
“Why don’t you give us a pompous chance? Play with us, talk to us,” --J-- said.
“Am I not doing it already?”
“You are, aren’t you? You’re too much in a hurry, though. If you found some speedy Creators, those who can't wait for a thing, you'd love them, wouldn't you? Our lot here, however, is closer in time perception to your world than you think, isn’t it? We like to hang around. We have all eternity, you see?” OOOO said.
Colin sighed. He nodded and put his hands on his waist, moved by their valid point. The gathered-around entities saw him as an equal and treated him as such, and for that he should be grateful. Inhaling slowly, without any actual air coming into his lungs, he changed the flow of his thoughts, stopping for a moment to replace his anguish by a bit of curiosity.