It was raining.
Like salt on wounds, the rain pounded onto the rust of the sleeping machines. They stood motionless, broken, intertwined with each other in chimeric contortions. But somehow, they still seemed menacingly alert as if in a trance-like stasis.
Vigilantly asleep.
Aris: Do you think we'll be going back soon? I miss my daughter.
Jules: ...
Aris: What’s wrong?
Jules: Nothing.
Aris: Cut the shit, man. We’ve been scouting together on this moon for almost two revolutions. I know that silence.
Jules: I had a dream three days ago...
Aris: Three days ago?
Jules: Yeah...
Aris: You’ve been thinking about a dream you had for three days...?
Jules: Yeah...
Aris: Why? What happened in the dream?
Jules: Well, nothing really... I was with some people and we were actors practising for the play we were going to do. I think one of the actors was my cousin.
Aris: …I don’t get it.
Jules: It’s just that, when I was dreaming, everything was real. I existed in that universe. The me that was in the dream was real.
Aris: Yeah, and?
Jules: And nothing really. I just woke up.
It’s just... It’s making me question things about our existence.
I mean, I've always known we’re insignificant. Everyone knows that. The universe doesn’t need us or cares that we are a part of it. However, we have always wanted to make our lives mean something. But why? Why is death such a big part of our lives? Why are we constantly consumed with that fear? When we wake up from the dream. The “us” in the dream stops existing. Some would argue that it wasn’t real but how do they know that? In the moment, everything felt as real as this feels right now. The me in the dream had tangible emotions. He felt joy and stress. I know this because it was me. I should be emphatically connected to the dream-me most above anyone else. So, when I woke up, the dream-me effectively died. Yet I do not feel sad for that person. I do not feel morose that he didn’t get to accomplish everything that he wanted to do. I simply felt nothing. Like that was always supposed to happen. There was no other path.
Why don’t I feel anything? Am I not supposed to be sad about it? Is it really because I think of myself as a higher being and the dream-me as not real? Or is it because I know for a fact that he no longer suffers or feels anything so there’s really no point in being sad? I don’t want to die but what if the [observer] of me just.. wakes up?
His hands were barely able to keep hold of his swords.
In cacophonic pain,
shifting in and out of consciousness at every monolithic heartbeat,
a single piercing thought kept resurfacing in his mind.
You have to save the world.
Then,
moved purely by intent,
with the wild uncaring fury of a dying star,
the warrior unleashed one final strike.
Muscles ripped.
Bones shattered.
Organs burst.
And there was no longer any pain.
What is magic?
It is to jolt across planes so fast that the ground and the passage of time seem an inconsistent jumble; like pieces of two completely different puzzles being forced together.
It is to follow the wind 'til wherever it may damn the flight of voices it carries.
Instead of feeling, it is to exist beside the emotions which flaw and see them from the judging eyes of the sky.
What you call magic is no different to us than what happens to a seed that blooms into a flower.
It is, simply put, to dare dream.
It came as expected, Infection from within
Peel the skin off the sea and bring it to the king
'Careful not to wake the devils asleep
I see your reactions like I see my reflection
Someday you will come to realize this
The pillar that kept your palace in place
Is crumbling under the weight of your arrogance
You forever misinterpret thoughts for intentions
There seemed to be an immediate shift in the weight of my soul upon arrival.
The film separating realities seems thinner in this... room? space?
I'm not even sure what that means exactly but I can feel it.
Is it because of the the beating substance of the [interface]?
It felt as if I was no longer on my own.
Followed by the realization that i had never been on my own.
There was...
a collective direction...
to the decisions i had made to get here.
Have I always felt this way?
It asked me a question...
We asked them a question.
Not in a voice, or a vision, or even telepathy.
As an intent in their memory.
I didn't understand the question...
The [observer-half] of them understood the half-implications.
Not immediately.
Do you wish to reset the simulation?
Do you wish to reset the simulation?
Do you wish to reset the simulation?