Chapter 8

Time, is something that I seem to share an odd relationship with.

Back when I was in the hospital playing voodoo mannequin, it was something that I both lacked and had too much of, lying still for weeks upon weeks, months upon months. It had given me quite a perspective on how much time anything should take.

Now that I am dead, or something close to it anyway, time became even more strange.

I don’t need to breathe, I don’t need to eat, I don’t need to do much of anything to exist. This meant that most of whatever humans occupy their lives with wasn’t exactly applicable to me.

I couldn’t even rest, nor do I ever get mentally fatigued. Aside from the questionable state of my sanity, I could quite possibly function indefinitely.

Maybe.

I don’t know what the effects ‘lack of sleep’ or ‘doing something nonstop’ would have on my psyche, and nor do really want to know, if I were to be honest. Whichever case holds true, it still meant, if my idea about my mental health was correct, I could go around… doing things without really having to stop. I certainly hadn’t stopped doing anything since I died.

Haven’t stopped thinking, moving…

There are few people who could quite say that they can introspect for days without taking a break.

Congratulations, Elisa, for thinking.

What I need now wasn’t any mundane resources, but information.

That is to say, I have a lot of time and nothing better but to deepen my understanding on whatever all the crap that forms my unlife is.

[Essence], as I came to understand, was composed of two primary parts: the Material and the Immaterial.

The Material, naturally, pertains to the more physical things. The body, items, differences — things that are there, things that can be interacted with. It seems to deal with the concept of “am”, where it defines what something is made of, how it interacts with the world around it.

Rather literally.

The Iasgairean, Svi’hla, of which I now know its name, manifests as a bundle of tightly wound concepts, the [aspects] of its bodily [essence] {linking} up with each other in complex ways. The gills were connected to the blood vessels, which connects to the heart, all made of tiny cells, and even tinier bits that are beyond what I could know they are.

The body — It was like a palace made of glass cards, or a machine held together with wet tissue paper. Each little bit contributes to the whole of the structure, some essential some not, but certainly, I know now, that if some of the bits were to be misplaced, the entire thing will come crumbling down.

There was a certain beauty in its fragility, something that I couldn’t quite explain. Despite now knowing, {tasting} all of the biological bits, the good and the bad, the amazing and the disgusting, even with how absolutely ugly the Iasgaireans are, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of marvel.

The absurdity of its existence or the fact that something like that could exist at all was something absolutely mind-boggling when you could witness it at the level I could now.

Somewhere along that line, when I tried to dig deeper, to know more, I found myself circling into the territory of Immaterial when I looked into it at an atomic level. That was rather odd, as if the things there had abruptly ceased to be things, but more as conceptual kinds of stuff.

If I were to describe it, I was almost like a transition from watching a film to having a single word called thing.

Very odd.

Very odd indeed, but no less amazing.

It didn’t matter that I could hardly understand all of it. It’s like listening to a song, an orchestra of trillions — all the individual players with their different instruments, notes, playing in tune with a common tempo despite there being no conductor at the helm. It would be inhumanly difficult — impossible to pick out a single player, pick out a single note.

But it didn’t matter when you were simply listening to the music.

Listen to the rhythms, the beat, the soul-shaking story that it tells.

All working together just right so that it exists.

Or perhaps, it could be compared to a library, dedicated to everything that makes a person. I could imagine it, sections saying ‘spleen’, ‘fingernails’ and ‘eyeballs’, sorted according to how their placement in the human body. Within each section would be hundreds, thousands of dictionaries, anthologies and encyclopaedias about every specific thing.

Here’s an explanation on how the cornea is formed. Here’s a treaty on how many times this thing had eaten.

These books, as it would turn out, would be written in an entirely different language you are accustomed to, filled with jargons that you wouldn’t understand.

Regardless, what makes up a thing, was a piece of knowledge that I am not ready for.

Nope, gonna leave that alone for now. That’s a whole cargo-ship’s worth of worms I really don’t want to deal with right now.

The Immaterial bits, however, were even weirder. If the Material bits were a proclamation of existence, then this would be akin to living.

Alive, versus living.

After all, concepts were rather hard to explain in words, especially when it's so tied up with the [essence] of so many things. I could see its history, what it knows, what it is in the mind of others. Of course, there were a whole bunch of stuff that I couldn't quite comprehend, emotions and ideas that were too foreign for me to understand just by {tasting} it.

Some emotions and thoughts, however, were familiar. As a Saighgair, Svi’hla’s [Aspect] of loyalty and duty to its colony, where it serves its Iasgairean brethren as a hunter. That particular combination shines even stronger than its apparent regard for its own life.

{Linking} onto it, however, was something curious. Something extremely strange.

Its’ central identity, its name… It seemed to form layers. The top one, of course, was Svi’hla, the name this Iasgairean knew itself to be. However, somewhere beneath that was another identity, named Vaschul.

And another one beneath that as well.

And another.

Like a metaphorical Russian doll, the… previous lives? Something like that could be found layered underneath, forming this complex matrix of personalities.

As a… soul, I was naturally intrigued, and despite my many scepticisms, I cannot deny this seeming proof of reincarnations. On its own, each layer wasn’t all that complex, containing basic urges, likes and dislikes, favourite ways of stabbing a fish — things like that. In a way, each layer was simple enough to be called barely sentient.

Definitely, on its own, it was as much a person as one can call an insect.

Base, bestial.

However, when combined, it… refines into something much bigger, an amalgamation of identities that becomes fully functional but yet somehow thinks of all of its past as a single identity. Each life would add up the total of their experiences, relationships, likes and dislikes, forming into something that…

Something that rivals a human?

No… but very close.

I really don’t know how to feel about that.

More importantly, these Iasgairean were aware of their seeming reincarnations.

As far as I could remember, humans do not remember their past lives, and those that claimed they did could usually be referred to as either crazy or straight up lying.

But these?

These… faux people are perfectly aware that they are coming back to life in a different body.

Weird.

Like you are one to say, Elisa.

Doesn’t make the point any less true, I argued, Either way, this is definitely not a process that humans go through.

Well, either that or my memories are more messed up than I thought they were.

Tracing back through its identity, I explored the way the Iasgairean society functions, analyzing the memories and cumulative knowledge of this individual as best as I could.

The Iasgairean society, as best as I could understand without actually taking in the [Essence] and grafting onto myself, was formed of a total of three castes — The queen, the warriors and the workers. In a way, it was almost like ant hive, each individual born into a particular caste were to be expected to contribute exactly the way they were meant to.

It wasn’t that these identity-combines lack free will, it was that these thoughts were linked to some Material [Aspects] in the brain. It was highly likely that these compulsions were biological in nature, thus ensuring that the collective works together despite their differences.

The warriors, or to say, Saighgairs, were the caste that was responsible for defending, hunting and raiding, bearing the burden of conflict. This individual, Svi’hla, had suffered several gruesome deaths before its subsequent reincarnation. There were scenes of rain-filled confusion, flashing of what seemed like steel, memories of dry land, many of which result in the Saighgair being stabbed and sliced to pieces somewhere.

Every time they die, however, they would remember what killed them and be more prepared for that threat. Apparently, while they would be rather weak after each rebirth for as they slowly grow used to the new body and getting over the post-death trauma, they would inherit the skill of every individual beforehand.

With that, each Saighgair warrior could often take on almost an entire squadrons of village man on their own. Those particular memories weren’t fun. While the features of each figure blurred, because Iasgaireans weren’t wired to recognise human faces, it was odd watching ships being sunk from beneath and people being killed in increasingly creative ways.

Drowning, stabbing, slicing, biting… you name them, Elise.

I was perfectly aware of the fact that I should be feeling distraught after viewing the memories of a fish person absolutely slaughtering its way through throngs of human, but I found it difficult to feel anything other than apathy other than the excitement Svi’hla had felt in its life.

I felt just about as much as someone reading it on a book. Person A killed Person B, The concept was understood, but not registered.

I tried not to think about that too much.

Well, the Saighgair’s martial prowess had served them well until what seemed to pass as ‘recent’ years. One day, one of the ships seemed to have this shiny unbreakable hull, forcing the Saighgair to the surface in order to breach it.

Then, out of nowhere, these great weapons of black iron and smoke unleashed volleys of lead upon them, tearing the raiders asunder with thunderous roars and flashes of fire. Struck down by these unknown and devastating weapons, the Saighgair’s multiple raiding parties were swiftly routed and destroyed.

I, of course as a human, recognise these things as rudimentary cannons and flintlocks. If I were to match it against the human history that I knew, it would probably be around sixteen, seventeenth century?

Maybe. Cannons weren’t that new of an invention though.

Gun powder was an ancient invention, but the ability to use it, well...

Either way, Svi’hla’s previous self was ripped apart by a scattering of lead balls, thus ending that particular memory prematurely.

That memory was not pleasant at all.

The memory of it seeing me when I attacked the hunting party? It was equally confusing. While I see my own body as this white translucent flesh, these beings that still rely on their eyes to perceive the world saw me as this… serpentine something.

Something confusing enough to give it a headache when looked upon, apparently. There were all these ideas of strange entanglements of everything, concepts and body parts that don’t go together.

Well, that is to be expected. You had simply dumped all the [Essence] you had into a mould and called it a day without actually considering if it works or not.

Considering that, it is a miracle that it could even conceivably stay in one piece, wasn’t it?

I suppose that if it works, it works. Though it was no wonder why people reacted in terror when trying to perceive me. I was literally this eldritch snake thing that was beyond comprehension.

...

Agreeing with myself, I thought, I’ll fix that later.

Moving on, the caste known as Bygail was responsible for the management of the colony. Frustratingly, Svi’hla didn’t know much at all about this other caste other than what they generally do — food preservation, cleaning, researching, building.

Interestingly enough, there was a Bygail brought alongside on the hunting trip that I decimated, but Svi’hla had no idea why. Thinking back, I remembered that odd looking Iasgairean I... {devoured}. Comparing the two memories, I confirmed that they were probably the same being.

The Iasgairean were wired to recognise their own kind better than I am, after all.

Well, that would be another thing to look at.

Regardless, the Bygails were seen as the caste that works on less physically taxing duties. Most interestingly, however, was that there were hints of what seemed like…

Magic.

Or something close enough to it.

I wasn’t particularly surprised by that idea since I am quite literally living as something not quite physical. It doesn’t, however, make the idea of magic to be any less fascinating.

Svi’hla knew of this barrier, this ward that was supposed to protect wherever that they live. Having magic used purposefully, obviously, meant that it was something that was developed. Something, that as it seems, to be intrinsic to this underwater society.

And if they know about magic, then they may know more about…

Me. More accurately, what all of this is.

My non-existent heart made a swift decision.

I could infiltrate the Iasgaireans.

There was a moment of hesitation, of course, as what kind of fourteen years old could think, “Let's go poke at the weird fish people that you had effectively wiped out their only source of food”?

Me, apparently.

That plan, however, had a tiny problem.

Apparently, around the Sanctuary, as the Iasgairean called it, was a ward. I had absolutely no idea what a ward is, but I get it was supposed to keep things out?

Something like that silvery dome shield thing that priest in the forest made?

Probably.

If it was, it would probably be something that can prevent things that would be unwelcoming from entering.

Things like you, for instance.

While the dome made by the priest was surprisingly fragile, I had a feeling that this particular ward would be more difficult to crack. Furthermore, breaking and entering would probably get me discovered instantly, as my last assault did shatter the entirety of the dome.

Even if it doesn’t shatter, I doubt a giant hole would be missed.

Aside from that, however, I had a feeling that my presence was already noted.

The Sgnirmah.

Queen, Grand Matron, the Birth Mother, and whatnot.

From the memories I could scavenge from Svi’hla’s mind, I would place that this gargantuan example of an Iasgairean to be at least twenty meters from head to tail, its body thicker than a truck. Unlike the other Iasgaireans, the Sgnirmah takes on the form of a giant serpent, lacking limbs and the crustacean-like shells on the back, coiling around a ‘throne’ on the ceiling in a dormant state most of the time.

The memory of the Sgnirmah was heavily {linked} to ideas of both terror and reverence, even overshadowing its duty towards the colony as a whole.

No, it seems like the entire colony revolves around the Sgnirmah, whom which serves as the highest priority. In a way, it reminds me of an ant colony, drones revolving around a queen…

And what’s the Sgnirmah’s job? It would lay eggs that newly reborn Iasgairean will emerge from, which had something to do with these ‘Sacred Vessels’ that were attacked. These Sacred Vessels were apparently where the Iasgaireans were… stored?

No, not exactly.

Something to do with…

…

Oh shit.

A terrible premonition overcame me as this particular puzzle suddenly clicked into places.

Yeah.

Those clams thing. The ones that I mushed when I arrived here in the ocean.

Mhm.

They were the so-called Sacred Vessels, weren’t they?

Maybe.

…

And the reason that they were so chock full of [Essence]? Because that’s where the Iasgaireans go to after they die.

…

Well, what is done is done. Can’t reverse the clock there.

Are you serious about that?

.... Yes.

I can hardly feel guilt over that. I couldn’t, and I’m not too sure that I want to be able to feel guilt. Some part of me felt like vomiting but lacked the appropriate organ to even do that.

Oh well.

At least that was a mystery explained. These Sacred Vessels was some kind of gestalt, a funnel that collects and stores the memories of an Iasgairean upon their death. With my raid on the so-called Birth Sites and the hunting party, I would have irreversibly removed… somewhat close to three hundred fifty Iasgaireans?

…

That's a lot of deaths, holy shit.

No matter how you think about it, my destructive spree with those clams, those defenceless Sacred Vessels — it was a massacre. It would be like going into a toddler section in a hospital, picking up newborn babies from their cradles and dumping them in a blender to get biofuel.

It would be absolutely horrendous.

If I still retained my old sense of morality and the ability to scream, I would doubtless be having a mental breakdown right there and then.

Three hundred and fifty.

The enormity of an action such as that was… overwhelming.

But all I could do was to try and process the fact that I don’t feel much of anything. While I am glad that I am not feeling the full force of the horrible things that I just did, the callousness of my mentality…

It was disturbing. Or it should have been, at least, as I noted it with apathy.

Regardless, that would be three hundred lives chewed up and spat back out as part of this body now. Part of this crazy amalgamation of [Essence], so messed up that it would be impossible to make heads or tail out of it.

In short, it was three hundred lives worth of information wasted, like grinding up textbooks to make paper mache.

Great. Just great.

Either way, now that they are part of this [essence] cesspool that makes up my flesh, I wouldn’t be able to do anything with it anytime soon.

…

What exactly is tying these [essence] down anyway?

Me, obviously.

But how?

The [Essence] of Svi’hla was tied together by the {links}, tethering its abstracts and not so abstracts. However, on the Immaterial side, it seemed that the more meaningful the bonds, the… sturdier and more glowy they are? The Saighgair’s loyalty to its colony certainly seems a lot more solid than say, its reluctance to eat seaweed as supplements.

Who even decides what constitutes as meaningful, anyway? Was there a god that looks down at every thought an says, ‘This is important’?

Stop being so melodramatic, Elisa.

But this is so strange!

It makes no sense that something so abstract, like wanting and disliking can have an actual effect on reality. At least, it shouldn’t. I wanted to be able to be free of sickness, to have my legs back, but that didn’t mean that I could suddenly start walking.

Just wanting never gets anyone anything.

However, here in the [Beyond], [Essence] seems to be an actual thing. The immaterial made into something concrete, something that I can mould into different things, and these things can make actual lasting effects on the world.

This is one weird and fucked up form of magic.

But it's… probably magic?

I couldn’t help but feel like I just poked into something much greater than just “magic”.

…

Nah, that's just…

Crazy?

… Yeah. But then —

Common sense is useless.

But then that would mean that if what you can see right now is indeed a fundamental part of reality, which frankly is quite ridiculous, there are tremendous implications to that.

It would mean that reality, including whatever atoms are made off, is based on the interactions of these [Essence]?

And whatever magic is. The person known as Elisa, rocks, Iasgaireans, blobs, the [Beyond] itself…

Building blocks of the universe.

…

I waited for the implications to set in.

It didn’t take long.

This is fucking insane.

I know right? Does anyone else even know about all of this shit?

No, there must be, right? Elisa couldn’t quite possibly be the only person to know of this.

If someone else knows this… what can they even do with it? Can anyone else even —

That’s not the only crazy thing. If, say [Essence] is the building block of the world, then what Elisa had been doing…

I had been quite literally peeling reality apart and remaking it in my image.

…

It’s an absurd amount of power for a single person.

It can’t be all that common, could it?

No, it couldn’t be.

Even from Svi’hla’s memories, I could tell that nothing it knew in this strange parallel world of theirs that could do something like I did. To be able to nearly effortlessly tear reality apart, to mesh it back together, to piece together whatever I want —

A deeper, more treacherous part of my mind whispered, Then, why can you do any of this? How can you, as you say, remake reality as you will it?

Then, it was like a dam was breached. A torrent of questions, questions flooded through in the same fashion as a torn-off pipe.

And these questions, I thought, were ones that I had been trying to avoid thinking too deeply into but could no longer shift off to the back lines.

Why am I not dead?

Why am I existing as this weird reality bending thing?

It couldn’t be possible that all of this was due to simple chance. What are the odds that someone could be granted reality bending abilities upon death? What are the odds that a fourteen-year-old cripple dying of cancer would be the one to inherit all of this?

Not much.

Then why? Why me? Why, say, a human instead of a dog? Who? Power doesn’t just appear — it shouldn’t. Something must have occurred, something must have happened so that I suddenly came back as this thing.

If it was intentional, then what was the purpose? Why is the world around us like this still? Are there any other world-changing people out there, even? I had never been particularly god-believing, so I doubt I was chosen.

If it was a flux of nature that, out of all the possibilities, that granted me this tremendous amount of ‘power’ that I really didn’t ask for, then it would all be just a wild goose chase. It would be the most fucking pointless thing that reality had ever done.

Even so, the sheer implications on how the world function was simply mind-boggling.

The problem, again, lies in that I know just too little.

I don’t even know where to start.

How to start.

I was suddenly struck with a sense of fear, of insecurity that I hadn’t quite felt for a long time. All of a sudden, I became aware that I am sitting in the middle of a sand basin, under the ocean as an eldritch snake thing beyond mortal comprehension.

The sands were white. The water was white. The sky was dark and lit with moonlight that I could no longer see.

There were no shadows. Shadows do not exist in the [Beyond].

The water around me should be cold, it should be freezing but I couldn’t quite feel it. I can touch, but I couldn’t quite feel.

Despite all the power at my fingertips, I found myself paralyzed with indecision.

There were just so many things in the world that I don’t know how to do.

I felt so many things. Guilt because I can’t feel guilty. Fear, but I do not fear death for I had long made my peace. Apprehension, but there weren’t any consequence.

Above all, I felt small.

Detached.

Lonely.

Because, as it all turns out, I’m slowly turning into something that no longer quite thinks like a human. In fact, I could quite easily pinpoint myself as becoming what people would quite easily call an eldritch being.

At some point in time, the way I think changed. All these words, the languages that I used to describe the world around me were not that of what was originally Elisa.

Something’s whose physiology is incomprehensible, whose knowledge is mind breaking for the common mortal — and right in the centre of it is me, the thing that called itself Elisa.

It really wasn’t a question of how to prevent me from completely turning into something nonhuman. No, that was set in stone quite some while ago.

Minutes passed as I tried to think about those words, but no matter how I tried to go against it, couldn’t quite reject them anymore.

I had been, now having faced it head on, quite a fool. The joke that I had made about myself a while ago had suddenly turned into something much less amusing.

Somehow, the revelation itself wasn’t quite as shocking as it could have been. It wasn’t so often that one person can so radically change their entire mindset. To be able to make decisions like this — it was monstrous.

I remembered reading on the news before, plastered on headlines were all the things that people had done before. Things that are vile, disgusting. A kindly mother, twisted by an unfaithful husband could murder her son. A man, in a spur of rage and lust, rapes a young girl on the way back home. A father, haunted with the demons brought back from a war overseas, shot his very own brother in arms before taking his own life.

None of those examples were things that people could quite imagine themselves doing, but had been done by some people.

And now, as the very thing that I wanted to avoid being, I found myself to be fine with that idea.

To be a little bit off. To be not quite sane.

I am the way that I am, as it goes. If wasn’t the person that I was, what harm was there to change even further?

People always believed that there was something sacred with souls — the bits that make a person.

They, I think, had never been in quite the same scenario as I have been.

Timed passed again. The rays that passed through my form, I noted sluggishly, felt like sunshine, it’s [essence] tinged with warmth. Thin as it was, for the first time in a long while, I remembered it.

Sunshine. Water. Cold and warmth.

Maybe I had finally gone completely crazy. I certainly felt as if something within had been knocked off course in just the right way.

My eyes looked.

Things started snapping into place as I finally started comprehending the world as it truly is. Not the pale imitation that flesh gave, but the raw, unpolished information that makes up the world.

It was an odd kind of peace. Not particularly unwelcome.

I, not for the first time, wondered what I want out of this existence.

What was I doing again?

Look for magic users? Learning about the world?

Oh, right.

Again, I know too little.

I would giggle if I could.

...

Start small, Elisa.

After all, it wasn’t as if I had a shortage of materials.