by Danny Bell
I really tried for you two. I really did.
My eyes wouldn’t open, there were no longer eyes left to see with. Instead, without sight, I became aware of the space around me. Infinite and cold, black with no glimmers of faraway galaxies, even the stars were dying. This was it. This was all there was. I wanted to laugh as I remembered something, but laughter was also out of the question. Weightless. Formless. Still had my name, though, for another moment or two, at least.
One by one, the stars died, the last of their light reaching me until the last star, and there, in the middle of that star, I saw. I saw! And the light coming from it, so brilliant and consuming that calling it light felt like an injustice, began to consume the last of me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As the light surrounded me, a growing hum became louder and louder until it was no longer sound, if it ever even was, and it became a vibration that was shaking me apart at a cellular level. What was happening to me was beyond my comprehension, beyond life and death, and in a few seconds or millennia or some unfathomable amount of time, that would be all there was.
The hum was gone now. There was a cool breeze across my face, and the gentle sound of leaves rustling above me. I could feel my fingers grip something in my hand, and I was more surprised than anything that I still had fingers. I took in a deep breath, and breathing had never felt so good that I could remember. You really don’t appreciate your lungs until you don’t have them anymore.
“Welcome back,” the voice said, a voice that, at my core, I knew belonged to the Knowing but sounded like someone I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
I opened my eyes to see Logan Kobayashi seated across from me under the oak tree. The Knowing wore his face, but it wasn’t him. I knew that much.
“You’re still with us, that’s good,” it continued.
I looked down for the protection circle, but it was gone. I couldn’t feel the differences between the aspects of the Knowing, couldn’t sense the children.
“No more tricks, I assure you,” it said with Logan’s reassuring smile. “This is real.”
“So, the kids—”
“They were never here,” it answered for me as a slight breeze ruffled his hair.
I wanted to be angry. I couldn’t find it in me to be anything but disgusted. “Why?” I finally asked in total disbelief. “You’re…sick.”
The Logan avatar just looked at me. No expression, no remorse, no satisfaction. It just looked at me, and I didn’t know how to process that.
“Why would you fake them so completely? They’re just kids, and I failed them, and…you let me think I was dying for them. Why would you fake my death?”
“We didn’t,” it replied solemnly. “That was happening. You were being unmade. You were nearly beyond our reach. Wherever you were going, we couldn’t follow.”
“I don’t understand how that’s… you’re infinite.” It was the best I could come up with.
The Logan avatar regarded me for a moment, and then softly and without fanfare, began to recite, “’To see the world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.’ You’ve always liked that poem, but I don’t think you understand why.”
Something defensive was welling up in me, a need to prove that I did, in fact, understand it, but he was right. He wasn’t asking for an academic response, and I still jumped to one in my mind, unable to give a response to about why the poem resonated with me.
“You don’t understand what we are,” it said as a matter of fact. “Look at your arm.”
There was a bug there, much smaller than an ant, confused and tangled in the slight stands of my forearm hair. I didn’t have much, I never thought about it, but as the insect wildly moved its antennae about, looking for footing, I could sort of see that it mattered at the level of a bug.
“You wouldn’t have noticed the offending creature had I not mentioned it,” the Logan avatar continued. “The insect could spend its whole life searching and never understand the first thing about you. Do you think it knows the last time you went to the dentist? Or what money is?”
“I get it,” I said, looking away from the bug.
“You don’t,” it said, shaking Logan’s head. “Which is the point. Look around you.”
Suddenly, the land beneath us felt so small as the sky opened up above us, more stars than could ever be counted dazzled the landscape in every direction, their light dancing in concert. The world itself took on an emerald hue, bold and heavy on the eyes. There was a sudden sense of being connected to the furthest reaches of the universe and everything in between at all once, and yet everything felt so small.
The Knowing spoke again, redrawing my focus. “What do you see?”
“Forever,” I breathed, unsure of where to look.
“No, you don’t,” the Knowing replied, and the scope of where we had been expanded exponentially. The patch of land we had been on, with my tree and the horizon that felt so far away, was now a speck of dust against the universe. It was no longer just stars—entire galaxies were above and below us; even the scope of which direction might’ve been up, was no longer certain. “This is not forever either.”
“If not this, then what?” I asked.
“Imagine, if you will, that every dot of light is a sun with its own solar system; billions of years of history and culture, languages become dead languages, love and loss, death and birth— they even their own Slurpee flavors,” it continued, drawing an uneven chuckle from me. “More souls than could ever be counted, more life than could ever be celebrated, more death than could ever be mourned, and, beyond this, there is more. Beyond that, even more. Then beyond that?”
“More?” I guessed.
“Beyond that?” The Logan avatar shrugged, bringing us back to where we started in a blink. “Who knows?”
“Why show me? Why show me your limits?”
“Is that what we showed you?” the Knowing pondered aloud. “You felt confident calling us infinite, but you don’t know what infinite is. Though you do understand the concept, you only see distance and space.”
“So, what else is there? Time?” I asked.
“There is possibility. There is consequence.”
“Infinite possibilities and infinite consequences,” I reiterated. “If you knew the first thing about me and how lost in my own head I get, you’d know that concept isn’t the least bit helpful.”
“You say that, but you don’t mean it,” the Logan avatar chided. “When it comes to the important pieces, you’re decisive. Go on, tell me, why did you come here?”
I looked at him, or them, for an impatient moment. “I needed the power to fight the Orochi.”
“No, that’s not right,” it corrected. “You wanted enough power that you would feel secure in your ability to protect your loved ones and your home.”
I stiffened at that, uncomfortable with the truth of those words. “So, what? You’re saying I could’ve done that without a Wizard staff if only I’d been willing to suffer a bit more?”
“Possibilities and consequences.” It nodded. “You’ll never know now, will you?”
“Then why bring it up? What’s done is done, right?” I snapped.
“Even if you go home and save the day, that’s not the end, is it?” The question sat in the air a moment. “There is so much danger in the world, so many people you have yet to even realize that you will love, and each of them have a lifetime of possibilities ahead of them, and the people they touch and the people they touch in turn, and on and on it goes. Lives you’ll touch, people you can save, entire worlds beyond your own that need you, and deep down in places that you are embarrassed to let see the light of day, you believe they need you. You’re aware of all this; you believe you are important, and without you, even in the immediate future, lives will be ruined without you. You’ve put a lot of pressure on yourself, taken on more responsibility than anyone would be reasonably expected to.”
My c
heeks felt hot at those words, spoken so plainly as if my grandiosity was common knowledge. I don’t want to believe I’m self-righteous or narcissistic, but that’s how I felt hearing those words. “So?” I asked. I didn’t know what else even could be asked.
“So, why were you willing to throw all of that away for those children? Why embrace total annihilation for two forgotten souls?”
I choked out a laugh. For all of this talk of infinity and possibility, that was the most anticlimactic question I could’ve been asked. “Holy shit, are you serious?” I asked incredulously, and not getting a reply, I exclaimed, “They’re kids!”
Logan’s face twisted with an unreadable reaction. “And what about all the kids you couldn’t save if you died today saving those two?”
“You’re just messing with me now. You have to be,” I managed. “You’re, like, what? Creativity personified or something, and that’s the question you have for me? I don’t know those kids! Or anyone else I might have to help in the future, for that matter. And if I decided to hold back from helping every time I was in danger because there might be a greater good I could do later, then, like, Jesus Christ, dude.”
I was flustered and the Knowing stared at me, waiting for me to finish my thought. “There’s always going to be something bigger,” I explained. “You can’t think like that, you can’t limit yourself. I don’t want to be someone who has to decide who’s worth it or not. You have to do what you can, when you can. Good for its own sake.”
Neither of us said anything for a long moment, and I anxiously blurted out another thought that popped into my head. “You ever read One Shot Juanita? Whatever, I’m sure you’re familiar with her, and, like, everything ever. Okay, so, there’s something she’s said a few times. Not quite a catchphrase, but maybe just a maxim? Am I using that right?”
The Knowing continued to stare at me with that serene Logan face, waiting for the punchline. And I tried to deliver, putting a bit of emphasis on that phrase. “You make a body a promise, then you keep it. Come hell or highwater. You keep it.”
“And what of your friends and the promises you’ve made to them?” the Knowing asked. “You know your friends intimately, what does it mean for them if you don’t make it back to them?”
“They’d figure it out, I don’t know.” I sighed. “Obviously, I want to be there for my loved ones, but maybe I’m starting to realize that they’d go on with or without me. Ann’s making potions, Teague’s ready to punch me in the eye. Everyone’s got something going on.”
“Olivia’s got a gun.” The words, combined with Logan’s face, felt more alien than anything else I’d experienced today.
“Yeah,” I conceded with an uneasy chuckle. “Olivia’s got a gun.”
“So, if you die in the line of duty, it will all work out? They don’t need you anymore?”
“Not what I said,” I sniffed. “Just that they wouldn’t fall apart without me. I’m the birthday candles on top of the cake. Really colorful, might start a fire, but I’m not ruining the party if I’m not around.”
“Why demean yourself?” the Knowing countered. “You’ve been given power, a unique place in the universe, and yet, for all your talk of how precious every single life is, how every person deserves to tell their story, you value your own life less than everyone around you. You define your worth by what you can give to others and the responsibility you feel for them.”
Ouch.
“There is no question I’m a hypocrite when it comes to all that, and if you think that’s some grand revelation, well, sorry.” I shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve never felt all that cool, but, like, whatever. I don’t feel I deserve to eat at places that have a wine menu, let alone hold reality breaking superpowers, but here we are. At least I recognize that it’s unhealthy and I’m trying to work on it, and maybe I’ll get over it by this time next year, or maybe I’ll be forty and still feel the same way I do today, I can’t tell you that. The whole thing is complicated.”
“Maybe it’s just you who is making it complicated.”
“No ‘maybe’ about it, it’s a probably, yeah. On the one hand, I want to live, and I have dreams and goals, but on another hand, I never feel worthy of the spotlight, but on one more hand, there are days I find myself fully embracing the power I have, even feeding off my responsibility to others.”
“That’s three hands.” The Logan face gave me a bit of a sideways glance.
“Look, I’ve met plenty of things with more than two hands. Why are we even talking about this anyway?”
“Because you’ve surprised us.”
“And what? That’s not supposed to happen?”
“You’re in the Knowing, anything can happen,” it retorted. “But maybe that’s who you’re going to be. The one who always surprises everyone.”
“Yeah, and for my next trick, I’ll pay my phone bill on time.” I rolled my eyes at the sentiment. It felt like a backhanded compliment in a way. I’d like to think I’m not so far removed from the concept of being a grown-up that my very existence comes as a surprise to people. Or worse, that it’s the other way around and I’m a perpetual screw up. “Listen, not that chatting with the concept of creativity and creation itself isn’t a mind-blower, but you want to let me get back now or what? Last I checked, I had a city to save. Or at least air dry.”
The Logan avatar chuckled in a way that almost made me believe for a second that I was looking at the real deal. “I apologize for keeping you. You’re free to go, but if I can give you a small parting gift?” My staff began to sizzle as a sixth sigil began to burn itself into the wood, the Knowing apparently not waiting for my reply. “After all, that’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
I turned the staff over in my hands, looking at the sigils, no longer blurry, but it was like reading words you couldn’t entirely be confident you knew how to pronounce correctly. Viscount. Nuclear. Crudité. Gif. Almost certain that’s a hard G, and if it’s not it should be. These weren’t the words I was reading on the staff, but you get the idea. “What is this supposed to be?”
“You know,” the Knowing said reassuringly. “Or you will soon enough. I believe you know the way out?”
“Oh! Wait! Is there anything I should tell Olivia?” The question just shot out of me, I wasn’t even sure why I asked it.
“I’m not Logan,” the Knowing reminded me.
I stood up quickly at those words, suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah, no, totally, I didn’t mean—”
“But if I was,” the Knowing continued, “I’d probably say that she needs her best friend to believe in her more than she needs to be reminded of the man who’s currently suffering in agony for her.”
I blanched hearing that. I was sure I must’ve, I felt the blood rush from my face. “He’s suffering?”
“For her,” the Knowing confirmed. “I did try to warn you. You would regret it.”
The same path I had taken before opened behind me, and by the time I glanced back to where the Logan avatar had been sitting, he was gone. Jesus Christ, what a way to end that conversation. Still wasn’t sure I regretted it, though. Suffering meant alive, and the thought of my friend in pain was marginally better than the idea of him dead. Didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it either way; I had somewhere to be.
I gripped the staff in both hands and looked at it, pondering deeply now what this would mean when I got back. Not just for myself, but for everyone around me. More power means more enemies, that’s how it’s always been, but even with that thought in mind, I still didn’t know if I had enough juice to take on something like the Orochi. When I got back, it could all change.
Something about that thought snapped something in me so suddenly that my jaw clenched painfully in realization. I was all wrong on that last point. Fuck maybe.
When I get back, it all needs to change.
No more waiting around for something to threaten my friends and family, reacting when something preyed on the innocent. I’m going to return home with this po
wer and make an example of the Orochi for anything dumb enough to so much as breathe evily in my town. I’m going to start putting heads on pikes as an example, and I know the perfect lineup to start with. And if that doesn’t do it? I’ll burn it all down and—
I shook my head, unsure where all that came from. With an effort, I unclenched my jaw and relaxed my shoulders. That’s not usually me, but I’ve had a long day. I’m just grateful no one was around to see that. I know I’m not a killer, I’m just frustrated.
The thought crossed my mind that that traveling wasn’t magic, and I could just blink my way home, but I felt like I needed the walk after that. Even if it was just to be safe, I also didn’t want to be torn apart at the cosmic seams ever again, and that gamble might not have been worth it. That notion seemed to be confirmed when the way out took the form of a long stretch of highway that became just barely visible on the horizon. So, walk home and think about what a stupid thought that was? Fair enough.
Physically I was in no shape to be taking the long way home, but I had a lot to digest, and I might not get another chance to take a step back and just breathe. Labored breaths, mind you, but it still counts as breathing.
Saying that I regretted my decision to quest for a staff would be a stretch, at best. In some ways, getting it when I did could be viewed as getting your doctorate by your thirteenth birthday. It was a massive honor and I pulled it off well ahead of schedule, but that was part of my larger problem. Everyone seems to have an idea of what I’m supposed to be, or in worse cases, what I’m not supposed to be. There’s been so much expectation put upon me, that I haven’t really stopped to think about what my own expectations are. Go back a few years and I don’t think I expected to finish college. Now? I just don’t know. More than that, however, I was thinking about the consequences of my actions. I couldn’t undo the last couple of years or even the last couple of days, but in a weird way the stakes weren’t that high. At least, not as high as they could’ve been. As high as they’ve become. And when I step back, it will be into another world. I may not even live through the next fight, but if I do, I’ll have to make some hard decisions about who I’m going to be.