by Alex Raizman
Ryan had encountered a word, shared in some useless social media list that flitted about the internet, something like “20 Words We Should Use but Don’t! (You’ll Want to Use #7 Right Now!!)”. The word had stuck with him, one he’d never thought he’d use but perfectly summed up what he felt watching the dust storms weave though pathways that hadn’t known footsteps in millennia: kenospia. It was the feeling that you get when something is empty and shouldn’t be. When you could sense the life and energy that had filled a place that was now desolate, and couldn’t help but feel sad that it was gone.
Staring at this grand, glorious, and abandoned city, Ryan was overwhelmed with kenopsia down to his bones. He felt his vision grow dark again, but Crystal was there in a flash, a hand on his arm, gentle and reassuring. Real. “We’ll be safe here for a while, love. Not because Enki can’t get to us here - he can - but he won’t think to look.”
Ryan took a deep breath. “What is it? Another world?”
She smiled at him, and if Ryan was floating in a lake of kenopsia, Crystal’s smile was an ocean of it, a sea of loss. “Something like that. It’s a long-abandoned afterlife. No one’s been here for at least a hundred millennia, and all the souls that were here have faded away.” Ryan focused on her eyes, which was a mistake. There was pain in them, pain and wonder and sadness and bliss and more emotions than Ryan thought he’d ever feel in a normal lifetime.
She continued, “The gods of Lemuria - yeah, it was real - built it for their worshippers. It was a heaven.” She pointed at the central pyramid. Time had worn away a huge chunk of it, leaving it bare and exposed, like a wound. “That was Mount Olympus for them. Where they ran an entire continent like gods and incidentally protected the little universes where they actually were gods.”
He felt goosebumps rising on his arm. “What happened to them?”
She didn’t look at him, instead casting her gaze over the abandoned city. “The last Eschaton did. Lemuria, Atlantis, Mu, Hyperborea, Leng...the five continents of the last world, making the seabed of the new one. One of the greatest eras this world has ever had, the people that came after the Saurids and before humanity. Ten billion people - and six different species, the only era this world ever had with multiple sapiens - walked the world. They were about to leave, about to go into space...and then it ended. But still...you should have seen it.”
He gulped. “I know you said not to...to just roll with it, but...is that what I’m going to do? Will someone be standing in...I don’t know, Hades or something, talking about the Americas and Europe and Asia and Africa and Australia and all of it, and how I destroyed it?”
She turned back to him, putting a hand on his cheek. Every one of those millions of emotions he had seen in her eyes before crystallized into a single one, into a determination so hot and fierce he thought for a moment he would be incinerated in it. The kind of determination that was only born of loss and pain. “Not if I have anything to say about it, love. Let me show you around.”
And keeping a firm grip on his arm, she led him into the wasteland of a Lemurian afterlife.
Chapter 4
Strange New Worlds
Ryan spent the next couple hours following Crystal through the ruins of Cipher Nullity. She talked almost without breath about what they were seeing – “This was the Palace of Lost Souls, where children who didn’t outlive their parents were cared for until the parents arrived and got to be reunited. Heartbreaking every time we got a new arrival, but just melted your heart every time we got a reunion. I remember this one time…”
He studied the building as she spoke. It reminded him somewhat of the Parthenon in Greece, in that it was a shadow of its former splendor. Instead of columns the pillars were shaped like elongated beehives, honeycombed with tiny hex shapes that contained statues. Even sheltered from the wind as they were, the ages had worn them down to indistinct blobs. He was going to ask a question, but like a tour guide on coke, Crystal was already dragging him to the next building without pause.
“So this was Reliquary of Squandered Dreams. One of the punishments the Lemurians had for those who sinned in life was a particularly nasty piece of work – you got to watch, over and over, what your life would have been like if you had actually followed your dreams. Never had anyone make it to the last bit – most people bloody begged for some other punishment after getting to early adulthood. I wouldn’t go in there, love, it might still work, and we wouldn’t want you getting all depressed…”
This building stood on top of four columns that were wider at the base and the top than the center. The area in the center of the structure was arranged like a theater, and the seats circled a central dais where Ryan supposed their occupants would see their failures in life played out for their torment.
Ryan heard the warning, but curiosity was strong. What would life have been like if I’d taken more chances? When Crystal turned to the next bit of architecture, Ryan stepped inside.
Ryan blinked.
“I see a man in a suit, Jacqueline, okay? There’s some guy in a suit that follows me around everywhere I go, and no matter what I do, I can’t not see him. Everywhere, for as long as I can remember! Therapists couldn’t help me. I finally told my parents I made it up. That’s what I’m always looking at, and every time things get close, he’s right there and I’m uncomfortable.”
Jacqueline stared at him, and as Ryan watched, the anger melted away. She reached over and pull him close. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ryan blinked.
“...so I’m giving up on making him go away. It’s about coping skills. I already have some, and I’m going to get better at it. Learn to live with it, you know?” He smiled at Jacqueline. “I can’t believe you’re still with me. I mean, now that you know I’m crazy.”
Jacqueline gave him a kiss. “It’s an ok kind of crazy,” she said.
Ryan laughed.
“I’m serious,” she told him. “It is...strange, but it doesn’t change your personality, or make you dangerous. And you’re coping. You’re like the guy in that Russell Crowe movie.”
“A Nobel Prize winning genius?” Ryan grinned.
“Dream on.” Jacqueline paused for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought. “Hey, I’ve been thinking...the man in a suit? Is he wearing night vision goggles?”
Frowning, Ryan shook his head. “No, why do you ask?”
Jacqueline reached across him and hit the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. “Can you see him right now?” she whispered, directly into his ear.
“No,” Ryan said, his voice low.
“Then…do you think he can see you?”
Ryan felt his eyes widen, his heart rate speed up. “No, I guess he can’t.”
Jacqueline kissed him again. “Then let’s turn on some music so he can’t hear what comes next.”
Ryan gasped, trying to move, but the vision kept going, speeding up-
Blink.
Ryan was in a restaurant, down on one knee, looking up at Jacqueline’s stunned face. “Will you marry me?”
Tears in her eyes. “Yes! Yes!”
Blink.
Jacqueline in a wedding gown, so amazingly beautiful.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Blink.
A baby in Jacqueline’s arms, wrapped in a pink blanket.
Make it stop…
Blink.
A four or five year old girl running towards him, leaping into his arms.
Blink.
Ryan could feel tears streaming down his face, his hands shaking. He tried to tear himself away from the vision, but-
Blink.
“Oh, you stubborn wanker.” There was someone there, a woman he didn’t know, and she was grabbing him, pulling him away from his family...
Ryan tumbled back to reality with Crystal’s arm crossed over his chest like she was dragging him from a burning building. He fell on his back and laid on the ground, shuddering.
“I told you not to look. Bloo
dy hell, was it worth it?”
“I…” Ryan took a deep breath. “I screwed up. Oh goddamn did I screw up.”
Crystal sighed and reached out to pat him on the shoulder. “We’d all have lived a better life if we had perfect foresight. That’s why it’s a punishment and not a reward, love. Now dust yourself off, yeah?”
Ryan took a deep, ragged breath and got to his feet, doing his best not to look back at that damned echo of could have been.
Crystal nudged him when she caught him looking over his shoulder. “Stop it. The past is in the past, and those are for the dead, not the living. C’mon, you should see this.”
As they walked away, Ryan decided this was the cruelest punishment he could imagine. I’m still alive. I can start taking chances. For the dead, though? Every person - and that included Lemurians, he supposed - was full of regrets and doubts. To see that your life would have been, without doubt, better if you had pushed yourself was a special punishment. Then again, if you know this awaits you in the afterlife, probably a good motivator to take more risks in life. That thought was a nice distraction from his grief at what he’d never even known he’d lost. He wondered what that would do to a society, having something like that as a central part of their mythology. He would have asked Crystal, but she didn’t seem to be interested in questions, instead telling him every story, every fact she could think of.
Ryan wondered how long she had been waiting to show this to someone.
Her voice and her stories washed over Ryan in a calming tide. Having an excitable woman who was also a long-lost goddess explain the ruins you were walking through wasn’t anything close to “normal”, but for Ryan, it was at least grounding. Sure, the buildings were weird and empty and kind of sad, and that impossible sky made his head spin, but the more she talked, the more things made sense, and the more he felt like maybe he’d be able to make sense of all of this before he died of old age. Except you won’t anymore, you’ve got thousands of years, don’t you? Ryan let Crystal’s voice wash away that thought.
“What did those pillars do?” he asked, staring at a trio of pillars that were interwoven with obsidian lines that branched out like a spider web to form a gaping mouth at their base.
“Oh! Those were amazing. They held a Soul Forge, churning out new ones. Some people elected to get reincarnated, so they could also just step in, get broken down into a new soul, and sent back up to get a second shot at life. Always a gamble, sure, but it paid off – especially if you went into the Reliquary of Squandered Dreams first. Souls that knew what you could do if you didn’t quit, they were hungry when they got topside, and their second go-around really produced some amazing art and science, yeah? Wish some of the afterlives of this era had kept the combo around. You could also-”
Sudden panic gripped Ryan as he noticed something, and he clamped a hand over Crystal’s mouth. She let out a “mmmfh,” looking at him in angry confusion.
“I saw something move,” he half whispered, his heart pounding. She reached up and gently moved his hand away.
“Okay. Where?”
He pointed down a side street. “Over there, by the giant statue.” Nothing was moving there right now. The statue was a strange sight, to be sure – a man, legs missing any connection above the knees, so the body hovered over where the thighs would be. His head was likewise not connected to his shoulders, and the face was just a giant, open mouth. On either side of his body, three or four dozen hands floated – if they had been connected to arms, they would have overlapped terribly, but without arms they were free to move about like they were attached to the shoulder. Ryan was wondering how they hung there when Crystal’s face went white.
“That’s not a statue. Ryan, bloody get behind me.”
A small, Neolithic part of Ryan balked at the idea of getting behind a woman for protection, but his rational brain and survival instinct teamed up to kick that thought in the gut and throw it down some stairs, and his feet carried him behind her. She was a goddess. “What is it?” he asked, ducking his head just enough so her slight frame would cover more of his body.
“It’s a Hecatoncheires. And it’s probably getting ready to-“ Whatever Crystal thought it was getting ready to do didn’t matter, because it started to act – and that act was to charge. That open mouth was screaming now, and it was not the deep bellow of rage Ryan expected from such a giant, but a high wail of grief and sorrow. When it got near it swung at Crystal with fifty fists, and Ryan realized he was going to die.
Crystal, however, drew a sword out of the air, and her hand moved so fast it was just a pale blur. Every single one of the oncoming hands was blocked in less time than Ryan needed to blink, and the giant recoiled, letting out another one of those wails. Red lines erupted on the knuckles of every fist – she hadn’t just parried them, but cut them.
It moved again, bring both sets of hands to bear. The palms were open this time, and Ryan realized that it intended to clap her to death.
He turned his head away before he heard the impact. The sound was like a fatal applause, one of those group single claps they have you do at award ceremonies to prevent every single name from taking forever. It was not, however, the wet squish he would have expected.
Trembling, he looked. Crystal was standing atop the pile of hands, balanced on her toes. The hands began reaching for her, grasping and clutching, but she danced along them, leaping and bounding from hand to hand and then flicking away before they could close on her feet. Each step took her higher, and then everything changed. Ryan saw more than her movements. He saw equations. He recognized force = mass x acceleration as the simplest of the math whirling around the fight, and there were others full of Greek letters and cos() and symbols you didn’t learn until more advanced mathematics. They resonated with Ryan – it was a mathematical map of her movements, and a graph of the likelihood the hands would catch her. It was the most beautiful thing Ryan had ever seen.
Ryan stared at the graph, in awe at the shifting equations, the stunningly fast calculations. It was like he was able to see the primal beauty of the universe laid out in numbers and letters and it almost brought him to tears.
It was also a representation of a monster try to rip his new friend apart.
The equations fled from his vision. She had, as the equations had predicted, danced her way up to where the Hecatoncheires was reaching straight up for her, and finally pushed off those tallest hands in a graceful arc. She did a lazy half-flip as she reached her leap’s apex, and then pushed off something Ryan couldn’t see. It was a jump that flung her downwards far quicker than gravity would allow. It caught the Hecatoncheires off guard, and although it brought its hands together to grab her, it was too slow. She slipped through an instant before the hands closed around her and brought the sword down straight into its open mouth.
Instead of gurgling or gasping or even visibly dying, it just exploded. Chunks of ink-black flesh were flung away from it – many of them headed right for Ryan. He had an instant to wonder. Is this going to just coat me with goo? Or am I about to have every bone in my body broken before I dissolve from whatever is in that - why the hell am I not moving? But as Ryan braced himself for the impact, the chunks passed through him like they were made of shadow.
Ryan stared at his chest, wondering if he should be expecting to see some trace, some residue, perhaps even his own mangled body. Instead he was completely untouched, and no trace of them existed anywhere he could see. So standing still and doing nothing is a viable strategy? That’s...that’s awesome. That’s probably my best skill. I am the world champion of inaction. If there was an Olympic medal for inertia, I’d take home the gold.
In a daze, Ryan looked to where the creature had been standing. Crystal was there, crouched in a perfect three-point landing, her sword arm parallel to the ground. She smiled at Ryan. “Oh, good!” she said, like she hadn’t just impaled a giant in the mouth. “You figured out how to phase, so we don’t need to clean the bloody goo off you.”
; “Ah.” His head was pounding. “Uh…” His vision began to darken, a collapsing tunnel around his eyes.
“Oh bloody hell you’re about to fa-“
Crystal likely finished the word, but Ryan didn’t know. His vision completed its darkening, and he fell to the ground. The last thing he saw as he did so was an incredibly complex equation that he knew governed how that stained-glass sky stayed in place.
◆◆◆
This time, Ryan wasn’t out long enough to be put into a bed. When he came to, Crystal was crouched over him in the sand.
“I saw math,” he croaked at her.
She blinked. “Damn. That’s a terrible thing to have to see.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Crystal blinked at him, and Ryan shrugged. “I thought it was amazing.” She put the back of her hand to his forehead and made a tutting sound.