Chapter 7

I felt like I was dreaming.

The actions that I took made as much sense as anything. I was looking for… [Essence]?

Something of that sort.

Well, I did that, but that was chronologically incorrect.

However, it would make absolutely no sense if narrated otherwise!

But…!

No, it would be better to describe what I did according to time, rather than my own subjective sense of what happened.

Get on with it then…

...

It began in the sand fields, below waverly moonlight and the ever-present sound of water. It was there that I came across the Iasgaireans hunting party, though at that time I hadn’t known their race or names. That came later.

Then, I attacked them.

Why?

Essence. Life. Things that I don’t have.

Why are you lacking?

Because of what I did in the beginning. The beginning of all of this.

My ‘Resurrection’.

I died. I was a blob, a formless chunk of memories that had been forcefully {Tugged} out of the void. It was then I turned myself into a [soul stone], squeezing my metaphorical self into the ‘shape’ of a sphere.

That wasn’t the most foolish thing I had done. What was stupid was that I had proceeded to use my own essence to build an initial [Body] around the [soul stone]. My own essence, memories and self.

I had, in my ignorance, forcefully pulled myself apart, pulled out my [Essence] and turned it into whatever that these [Bodies] were made of.

What the absolute fuck were you thinking?

As I said, it was stupid. I was stupid.

What was even worse was that I hadn’t realized my mistake until I finally had an epiphany about what [Essence] is. Throughout my time in the [Beyond], I had mixed my [Essence] with things I had {Devoured}, things that I had broken down — plants, animals, creatures, blobs.

I wasn’t even what sure they were.

Fuck, I don’t even know what I had made my [Body] with. I couldn’t even remember what I had lost, what I had pulled apart, what I did with the [Essence], having separated it from myself, the fundamentals of my own existence.

What did you lose?

I don’t know.

Perhaps I had another friend? Perhaps I had known my parents? Perhaps I had been able to walk all along and had simply forgotten about it?

I couldn’t know what I can not remember.

Do you ever remember your first memories?

Most people would answer ‘No’ to that. One day you realized you were walking around, saying words, eating, drinking, sleeping, learning. You couldn’t remember when exactly did you know your parent’s names, your own name or even your identity as a human being. No matter how hard you try, you just couldn’t quite pinpoint when exactly did you come into being.

Is it the moment you were born? The moment you start remembering things?

If you count memories as an integral part of a person, then what happens if you start forgetting things? Dementia, amnesia, concussion or just plain forgetfulness — we all lose memories, one way or another.

But tearing yourself apart like that?

It was absolute stupidity. It was like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw and dumping whatever you had extracted into a blender alongside chicken gizzards, pork chops, a whole caesar salad.

It’s impossible to pick out the little bits and pieces of what I was now. I wouldn’t even know how to take it back in even if I could.

And now, I had taken damage, losing pieces of my [body], I had mixed up my history with things that weren’t me, turning them into this hideous serpentine thing that I now knew myself to be.

But that was later.

What I knew was that by the time I was done, by the time I had awakened from my drunken, mindless, murderous spree, I held thirty-three other [soul stones] within my chest, tucked in next to my own like a strange batch of grapes that bloated my form.

Thirty-three [soul stones].

Not the destroyed mush that was my [Deposit], not used up to build even more of my faux flesh.

No, there were intact. Actual [soul stones].

Why had I preserved them? Why didn’t I take them apart?

I had absolutely no idea.

They were all different, some bigger, some smaller, most of them by estimate less than a quarter of mine. Each of them represented an Iasgairean, now ripped out of existence and moulded into what amounts to a lifeless bundle of [Essence].

Among the thirty-three, however, two of them were shining brightly. Brighter than their brethren — righter than even mine. More potent, more history. Whoever these things represent, they were much more potent than I am.

Regardless, it was undeniable that these weren’t just ‘creatures’, weren’t some impassionate beings. These were persons.

Perhaps that was what made me woke up. Shock.

It was a sensation not unlike suddenly finding yourself in a teacher’s seat, while aisles of headmasters, presidents, generals and people are certainly much more important than you sat in squat little seats with squat little tables before you.

It struck a certain sense of profoundness that I haven’t quite felt for some time.

I had asked myself, ‘Was I dreaming?’

I certainly felt like I was.

It had all made sense. Somehow, I knew that there was an answer buried somewhere within this pile of [soul stones], these foreign minds. I didn’t know how or why, just a simple all-encompassing urge to do so.

As I said, it was like a dream.

Out of control. Things made sense.

Then it wasn’t as you would abruptly wake up, returning back to you. Back to your own thoughts.

Except that people wouldn’t murder thirty-three people and take their souls for fun, Elisa.

Shut up.

What I was going about was that I ‘woke up’, or something close enough to that, with a whole new host of problems.

Namely, the [soul stones].

Some dull, rusting part of me told me that I should feel guilty.

But I couldn’t.

I had waited, staring at the drifting sands and expecting emotions to come rushing back. I expected that I would suddenly feel the all-encompassing despair, the solitude, the horror for what I had done.

But they never arrived.

The light had fluctuated. Night turned to day and day turned to night while I sat there, frozen. The fish gathered, left, the plants grew, eating and being eaten.

But time proved to be an inefficient teacher as the learning failed to appear.

Something had broken off inside me.

What kind of person could look at the fact they had just hunted down the thirty-three individuals and accept it? Am I evil for being able to do so without feeling the horror that should accompany it? Am I psychopathic?

It was a monstrous behaviour, we can all agree on it.

Certainly, humans had done much more terrible things. Nuclear bombs. Auschwitz. People that had done atrocities and acts of great destruction would always find a way to move on, but among them only truly terrible people could feel nothing in the aftermath.

It was even more concerning that I couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing to be unable to feel guilt.

They weren’t humans, but they were just as complex as I am, perhaps even more so.

Despite knowing all of this, I couldn’t help but to only be able to see these [soul stones] as food. As substances, as items.

Thirty-three [soul stones], and I was sure that within it lies an answer.

[Essences], I knew, was the total of a thing. Each [soul stone] within me would then contains a full Iasgairean, taken and frozen.

Unknowingly, again with the strange continuity of a dream, I found myself withdrawing a single [soul stone] from within me.

It was a small one, dimly glowing in its blue and red lustre, like a small flame caught within a marble.

At that time, I hadn’t known what Iasgaireans were. I hadn’t known what I had done. All that I knew was the same odd sense of purpose, an inexorable confidence and certainty.

Laying the [soul stone] still on the tip my tongue, I could just almost imagine myself biting down on it, shattering the last remnants of the being and adding its fragments into my [Body].

But why would I?

No, I decided, There is a certain reason I did this.

I had taken them, the fish-people and turned them into these [soul stones], pulling the entirety of their existence out.

By that logic, I had a sneaky suspicion it should be possible to bring it back.

I didn’t know it could be done but my odd sense of instincts beckoned that yes — it could be done.

How?

Like that, Before the thought could even be processed, I had already flicked the [soul stone] into the sands, releasing it from my control.

Then suddenly, what wasn’t, now is.

The [soul stone], now free from my grasp abruptly took shape. It was as if something had suddenly snapped back into place, a piece of a puzzle that found it way naturally into somewhere it belongs, laid out like it was meant to be.

To my eyes, it was as if a flower in the shape of an Iasgairean had all of a sudden bloomed in less than a second, stretching out from a sphere as scales, fins and gills appeared where water once was.

With an explosion that I couldn’t quite describe, the [soul stone] was no more.

And in its place, an Iasgairean appeared, his trident held tightly within his grasp. I didn’t know him or his name, I didn’t know what it was or who it serves but that didn’t matter. What did matter, and I noted it in perfect clarity, was that it didn’t appear as a spirit like much of the [Beyond] denizens.

It was flesh and blood.

Blood pump through it veins, a heartbeat exists within its chest, muscles tense and coil in all its now strange and alien ways. It exuberates a certain sense of solidity that the things in the [Beyond] could never imitate.

It was… alive, and with it, the strange hunger in me lit up again.

It looked at me for a split second, the weapon still raised before it attempted to lunge at me.

A quick {Impale} took swift care of that, returning the Iasgairean to me in the form of a [soul stone], rejoining its brethren within me.

I didn’t even need to think about the action to do that and with it, that strange hunger was gone again.

The same way that you had killed every single on of them.

I was, of course, relieved that I could return them back to life. The implications of that didn’t escape me at all.

Some part of me breathed out metaphorically. I had known this — or at least suspected this for a while. The idea of [Essence] was something much more than memories. It appeared to be some sort of… definition of something’s existence.

It wasn’t merely something’s soul. It was something much more than that — or at least it is when I interacted with it, just as I had done so in the past. Everything that I had ever {devoured}, I had torn away from… whatever they might have been.

I had been doing such a thing since I appeared.

It truly should have been no surprise how in how my psyche turned out.

And now… I turned my attention inwards, what to do with these?

You could release them. That is certainly an option.

…

You know that it the right thing to do.

But I didn’t.

I couldn’t just let all these raw ingredients swim away — because, within me, I hold thirty-three lives. Thirty-three examples, subjects to practice my abilities on. Thirty-three chances to fix whatever that was wrong with me.

You truly lost your morals, huh?

All common sense, all conventional concepts would say that messing around with memories and identities is abhorrent.

However, common sense didn’t cover turning into a ghost. It didn’t cover me.

How could common sense ever help a person get over being dead?

How could common sense ever explain my mysterious power of being able to mess with reality by mere touch?

How could common sense ever explain how I had travelled through fucking worlds and —

I broke off in the middle of my rant.

It is remarkable unconstructive to have a debate with yourself, I thought. Without someone else, what meaning is there for hesitance? Who could tell you what is right and what is wrong?

I had decided earlier that I must live to the best of my abilities, and people would do terrible things to survive, would they not? Could I justify my actions with that? There weren’t any instruction manuals for this kind of thing.

I was fourteen and a half. I was a city girl. A cripple.

At least, I think I was.

But how could I be sure? I sure as heck wasn’t the same person that I was if I was even the person I thought I was.

So common sense can go and die in a hole.

There really had been no point in all of this debating. All of this was simply happening within your head.

...

From within me, I withdrew two lesser [soul stones], placing them in the sand before me. This time, I didn’t let go of them from my will, forcing them to remain as a bundle rather than as flesh.

That command was startlingly easy. Even as they parted from my [body], I could still feel them just like any part of me, as if there were some form of spectral chains binding them to my form.

And just as ever, the idea that I could exert such control over [Essence] was terrifying.

The [soul stones] themselves, however, remained as they were from before — cerulean, glistering. Though, something had seemed different now.

These orbs, each containing a thing’s identity, all the different little aspects of something. Somewhere in there lies their values, somewhere in there were their skills, somewhere in there represent relationships, somewhere in there stows away the flesh and bones of a being.

Looking deeper, with purposeful intention this time, the things slowly began to float to the surface like images in an oracle’s crystal ball.

It almost like a fountain, or perhaps a planet’s mantle. Things appear and disappear in eddies, revolving around each other in complex patterns and conventions, rising and falling under the surface — all tied together in some sort of strings, pulling each other in many directions.

Eventually, the images began to clarify and abruptly, it became clear to me that what I was witnessing was the ways that aspects of a person was linked. The ways that its martial skills tied into his duty and pride, the relationship he had with his fellow warriors that marked the formation of identity as Saighgair.

Somehow, just by simply observing the [soul stone] I could so easily dissect this being’s entire self. The ways that the chunks of [Essence] were so… tethered, so tied, so… {linked}, signifying… [aspects]?

Yes, {linked} is a good word.

Just like that, the thing was laid bare before my eyes.

All of its flaws and virtues, all of its success and failures, all of its past and present.

It was… strange. It was like watching a movie, or perhaps a book that perfectly describes someone’s identity, the entirety of someone’s being.

It wasn’t in the same way that a DNA sequence could be described, the knowledge that so suddenly struck me couldn’t be so defined as numbers. It was something that was much more abstract than that.

What was even more curious was that it didn’t actually… form anything in my mind. There was no disorientation, no spikes of pain, no sudden merge of consciousness.

There was simply this odd sense of… understanding, a kind of knowing without actually knowing. It was a taste, but it didn’t add any to my being.

But somehow I knew, that if I just so searched for it, I could definitely find it somewhere and I could definitely warp it.

It was almost like instincts. The same way that your heart beats without your command. The same way that you could just do things like moving that just thinking about it couldn’t achieve.

Words failed to describe the experience, but I had somewhat expected it. Afterall, how could any mortal language describe such an alien feeling?

The human mind wasn’t made for such a thing.

But yet I comprehend.

Why am I ‘alive’? How could I do any of these things? Why me? Somehow, I knew that these were questions that I wouldn’t be able to find answers to any time soon.

I shook my metaphorical head, snapping out of the tangent.

No. Now is now. Focus on what you can do, worry about it later.

This was all too strange.

I locked my attention back onto the [soul stones] again. In my inattentiveness, I had lost the clarity, but after mere moments I found myself resonating with the [Essence] within as I focused upon it.

I later realized that it was quicker, much quicker than the first try. Whatever I am, it seemed like skills were preposterously easy to pick up.

But then, the ‘I’ is malleable so that should be expected, no?

Easy to learn and too easy to change.

The images once again surge upward, baring all of its secrets as if it was simply waiting for me to ask.

And what questions should I ask? What am I trying to achieve?

Perhaps Elisa should try to identify the different [Aspects] in the [soul stones]?

What parts are there?

What did Elisa want?

...A body?

Why would Elisa want a body?

Sensations. Touch. Breathes. Heartbeats. Warmth. Cold. Company.

I sure didn’t need one to live, but yet I yearned for it. Was this why there were all these myths, stories and legends about the dead? How they resent the living? Why possession occurs?

Perhaps they would all do so in a desperate attempt to stave off insanity.

Just like me, I realized.

Just like you.

In the same surrealness that so permeated my reality, I bend my mind into attempting the task as one would do so in a dream, with the same certainty that one could fly within your sleep — only that it had actual effects.

Terrifying, world-bending effects.

At my command, the [soul stones] ballooned. The tumultuous sphere didn’t as much swell up as its [aspects] seemed to stretch and separated. Its will, its body, its memories and others, taut lines {linking} them with each other, each rearing for attention. I wasn’t sure if this actually happened or was it simply in my mind.

Though at this point, was there a difference?

Probably, though the question should be ‘does it matter’, Elisa.

Slowly, I sorted through them, getting a feel through them. I imagined myself being a spider on its web, each feet tingling, detecting every motion and every being with effortless accuracy. I could tell roughly what each bit was, what each individual mote of [Essence] was responsible for, what it could represent.

Building blocks.

Here, I isolated the portion of the mind that was responsible for desires. At that point, I found out they were warriors of a race named Iasgaireans — as close as I could understand it as. It belonged to a caste. It was in a hunting party. All of this information made its way to me without inflexion, without any of its deeper inherent meaning it should have had.

There, I found the bit that was storing every memory of its senses. I saw through their eyes, what they could remember seeing, what the salty sea water in their gills tasted like, how it differentiated members of their troop, the terror of their very last moments. I could see colours, or at least the memory of colours just like my own but without any of the feelings.

Vague, insubstantial, temporary. Is was as if I was merely tasting food without eating it. I learned what it is, I know what it is, but I didn’t make it part of me. Of course, that metaphor was a far cry from what I felt like I was experiencing, but that was as close of an analogy I could make — one that should probably make me very uncomfortable if it hadn’t felt so natural.

Like that, by {tasting} them, I compared between the two subjects, seeing how they differed from each other. They lived short lives, filled with violence and death that failed to make an impact but eventually, I found myself knowing, or at least capable of knowing every single bit about them as if it was the back of my hand without actually getting it.

That was a blessing. If I had taken in these beings into my own [soul stone], trying to make their experience part of me —

Well, at that point, I might as well call myself Svi’hla, I noted with a mental shudder, since I would have more experience as an Iasgairean than as Elisa the human.

The lesson that the ego could be so fragile was one that I learned and will never forget.

Even though the acquired ‘knowledge’ failed to hit me with a mental hammer, what the implications of said knowledge did.

Sgnirmah, the Grand Matron within the Iasgairean lair. The doomed expedition. The food shortages. The destruction of Sacred Vessels.

And humans.

I had seen humans before, back in the forest, but those ones were a bunch of religious nutjobs armed with axes and captured wildlife.

These humans, however, had access to giant ships made of metal. Images of steam, of muzzle fire, of cannons, splashed across my mind amidst the terror and rage felt by the memory’s owner.

Entire fleets of grey behemoths sailing unflinchingly in the storms, repelling the Iasgaireans raiders with fervour and horrific battles, blue and red blood alike staining the ocean in its shocking luminance and explosions of gun power.

No matter how I thought about it, these humans were definitely quite different from the ones I had known. From the clothes they wore, from the technology they have, I could tell that they weren’t the ones I had met.

Was this a different world? By what rules do these [corridors] that leads to different [Areas] function? Did I somehow tumbled through time?!

Then, in the case that every [corridor] leads to a new world, just would I even head back to Earth?

...

It seems that with every answer I get, an endless amount of questions continues to spill forth.

...

One step at a time, Elisa. One step at a time.

.. Sure.