“Step forward.”

Lukas was back inside his mindscape. Only this time, the locale had shifted from the inside of his apartment to the outside. The building looked just as derelict as he remembered, with concrete slowly breaking off the outer walls in chunks and a half-weeded lawn next to the left entrance. The outer door was covered in moldy growths and stripped paint. A single step forward, a small twist of the knob, and he could step inside.

Into his apartment. Back to normalcy.

His fingers trembled as he grasped the doorknob. Touching the solid shape with his fingers, feeling its icy cold texture within his palm, seeing it with his own eyes made it impossible to believe that they were merely illusions. His mind kept telling him that it was all real, yet his heart hung on a single question.

Is this really home?

What was true? What was real? Did it even matter? In that single moment, he was back in his own world, in front of his apartment. Everything else—the anomaly, the worms, the monsters, Inanna…

It would be so easy to pretend it was all just a dream.

“Step forward,” Inanna repeated, her words rumbling like thunder.

“All right,” Lukas whispered. He felt something heavy drop in his stomach. With a will of iron, he stepped off the pavement and into his apartment. Almost immediately, his knees wobbled and his body felt weak. An intense wave of disorientation scrambled his sense of direction. A powerful gale brushed his face, but there was blazing heat too, along with the feeling of being drowned in ice-cold water.

It was maddening. Lukas could no longer understand his own existence. His eyes shut tightly, unable to comprehend whether he was standing or falling, or if he could even fall at all. Any reaches of gravity deserted him, leaving him in some kind of multichromatic vacuum that shattered him into a million pieces, only to be reformed into countless permutations in all sorts of dimensions—

“We are here.”

Lukas opened his eyes. And stared. And kept on staring.

But nothing around him made a lick of sense.

What the fuck is that?

His brain felt frozen, as if someone had shoved bars of solid ice into each individual lobe. It was as if the thing in front of him had all the colors of the world sucked out of it—no, that wasn’t it. It was colorless to begin with. Or was it transparent? He genuinely could not tell.

The base was spherical, like a bulb with a single shoot rising out of it, contorting into itself in ways that defied basic Euclidean geometry. The entire thing was twisted into some kind of loop, then coiled back onto itself, as if there was nothing there. Yet there was something…something he couldn’t truly comprehend despite his best efforts.

It was hot, it was cold. It was up, it was down. It was still, it was moving. Sideways went upward, and inward vanished into nowhere. It was biological, mechanical, alive, ethereal. It was utterly wrong, and yet he had never seen anything that could possibly be more right.

As the whole thing slowly pumped like a beating heart, strange energies floated in and out of it in spirals, vibrating in tandem with an alien tune. It was perfectly synchronous, though he had no idea why he believed so.

But what was it?

What was it?

WHAT WAS—

“Mortal.”

He tore his gaze from the strange…object? The very action hurt, as if looking away from it was a grievous sin, one that would take an eternity to repent for, if not longer.

Standing beside him was Inanna, her attire a flowing gown of emerald silk laced with veins of turquoise. A belt fashioned from braids of gold snaked its way around her waist, and her unbound jet-black hair fell past her hips. A creature of gentle curves and feminine loveliness, she was perfection given form. The barest of smiles graced her lips.

Lukas’s sudden delirium about the object rapidly vanished now that he was no longer gazing at it. In fact, what was it he saw again? Any attempts to remember only left him with a blank.

“What was that?!”

“That is the Origin.”

“The origin?” Lukas asked, perplexed. “Origin of what?”

“Everything. Elohim. The Provenance. The Infinite Dream. The Cosmic Demiurge. It has as many names as there are civilizations, as many titles as there are ways to die. Every language in existence has tried to describe it in its own limited way, but nothing can truly capture its brilliance. This is the Womb of Creation. The source of everything that is Potential.”

“The Origin,” Lukas repeated blankly. “If there’s no way of describing it, then how did I, you know, see it just a second ago?” The temptation to steal a glance out of the corner of his eye steadily grew, as did the unreal fear of what would follow should he succumb to his desire.

But I already did it once. What’s the worst that could happen?

“What you have seen is a reflection.” She wrapped her lips around the words, drawing them out with a little tremor that dripped with wicked, secret laughter.

It seemed that scouring his thoughts and memories allowed her to steal modern vocabulary as well. The benefits of mind-sharing just kept on giving.

“Is it a reflection of the real thing?”

Inanna sighed wistfully. “Of a memory.”

“Yours?”

Surprisingly, she shook her head. “Aeons ago, someone showed me her memory of the Origin. I am told it took her several levels of simplification before I could witness it without tempting insanity.

“And what I’m seeing is…”

“I had to simplify my own understanding of it by several orders of magnitude. Just for you.”

He tried very hard not to dwell on that fact. The goddess smiled, as if to say you have no idea. It promised to show him things that you just didn’t talk about with other people. Things that could inspire dreams you only wished you could remember in the morning.

“It is a good thing,” Inanna declared, “that mortal perception is bound by the illusion of linear existence. Beings of apocalyptic strength have gone mad trying to comprehend the Origin.”

And wasn’t that just ominous? Hearing her refer to the apocalypse reminded him of the one that had apparently destroyed his planet. He opened his mouth to—

“Everything has its time, mortal. A little patience will not suffer you.”

His jaws shut with an audible snap.

“Now…look.”

Lukas gazed ahead. The Origin was there, only this time it was more. He didn’t understand how or why, but he could now see lands. He saw mountains, oceans, flowing rivers, arid deserts, and lush forests. It was like gazing at a flat Earth. And there were several of them, floating and turning in all directions as they moved in non-Euclidean shapes around the Origin.

“Each is a fully formed world. A realm, the greatest form of worlds born of the Origin. Independent existences fixed in their own time-space. There are always a hundred and eight of them. Always have been.”

“Why?”

“The number strongly resonates with Creation itself. Every mortal with a physical shell has a hundred and eight points from which lifeforce exudes out. For those who harvest the World’s energy to craft mana, there are a hundred and eight channels to do just that.”

Lukas could appreciate the symmetry present, especially how things at the micro level mirrored the macro. Unable to resist, he glanced at the Origin once more, only to find that it had rotated, revealing one large—or was it several narrow?—opening. Thousands of entrances—a single gateway—leading to everything— nothing. It was like looking into an ever-changing nebula of alien matter. It was both spectral and physical, dancing along the line that separated fantasy from reality.

Something that was, yet was not.

“Maddening, is it not?”

The scene in front of him enlarged further. Tiny orbs of energy pulsated with blinding light in a constant state of metamorphosis. They were all coming out of that single—thousands of—a giant opening—several small openings—

The constant superimposition of images made his head throb. “What are those?”

“Worlds in their infancy. Each is a concept of Creation given form, crafted out of crystallized information and Potential. An omphalos.”

“Omphalos?” he asked, twisting his neck so fast toward the resident goddess that he nearly gave himself whiplash. “You mean like the one in my schema? The thing that gives me the Scan and other functions?”

“Yes. Think of it as a doorway, through which the Origin manifests its own essence into the cosmos.”

“And these omphaloses…omphaloi? I’ll be honest, I don’t know the plural for omphalos.”

Inanna threw her head back and laughed. It was a beautiful thing, rich and cultured and wholly mesmerizing. A sound so pure, so free, that he couldn’t help but grin back. Then, realizing that he’d been staring at her for too long, he cleared his throat.

“Um, so, what kind of information are we talking about here?”

Inanna seemed inordinately pleased with the question for some reason. “History.”

Lukas frowned. “Again, of what?”

“Of everything that is. And is not.” Lukas wondered whether beings of her level were simply incapable of saying things simply, especially when it concerned cosmic matters. The limitations of language, she had called it. That, or she was being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic.

Either way, the important question was something different. And far more troubling.

If omphaloi are concepts of Creation, then what the fuck is one of them doing inside me?

“That is something you do not need to bother with at the moment.”

“Oh, I do. If it’s in me, then I need to know what it is and what it does.”

Her eyes glinted. She looked like someone who had heard what she expected to hear. “Very well. Once an omphalos materializes in the physical world, it creates a boundary layer around itself, transforming everything within its periphery to actualize the new World based on the information contained within it. Such a world is called an anomaly.”

“Like the one we’re in,” Lukas replied. “So the monsters—”

“Protections. Creations. Tools actualized to gain information. To consume prey.”

And then, as if seen through a kaleidoscope that had suddenly come into focus, everything began to make sense. A rift in reality created by an omphalos, granting the anomaly functional abilities in exchange for consuming prey. No way the similarities between him and these anomalies were just a coincidence. But he wasn’t an anomaly. He wasn’t a world, or even an environment. He was just a—

Base Host.

That was what the Screen had called him. What did it even mean?

Default consciousness.

He narrowed his eyes. Of what?

Anomaly.

He stared at it stupidly for a second. His Soulscape had omphalos attributes and omphalos functions listed in it. But so what? That didn’t make him an anomaly. Right? Anomalies were worlds, not people.

A sudden, sinking feeling engulfed him. Inanna had told him that Earth’s Cosmic Consciousness had latched onto him. Consciousness, not Potential—no, he couldn’t make another juvenile mistake. Not again. The goddess had described it as consciousness but never implied that it was all that had merged with him. What were the chances that the planet’s consciousness and the omphalos were two different entities?

…

“You’re telling me that the Earth’s omphalos fused with me, and I’m its new host?”

“Correct,” she said. “You are its Base Host.”

Lukas swallowed nervously. Everything he’d learned pointed toward him being an anomaly, but the cynic within vehemently argued against it, calling it a fantasy created by a delusional mind. Almost every mythology he’d come across painted the planet as a major-level deity, greater than most of the divinities listed in their respective pantheons. In Greek mythos, only Chaos preceded Gaia, the Goddess of Life and Mother Earth. In Hindu mythos, it was Prithvi, the “Vast One.” In the Hopi Kokyangwuti, it was Spider Grandmother, who, with the sun god Tawa, created Earth and its creatures.

If gods and goddesses were real…If Inanna wasn’t a figment of his imagination…Did that mean that Earth, the world he had come from, was now within him?

“I can’t believe I’m seriously considering this,” Lukas muttered, before nodding to himself. “What will it take for you to tell me everything about the omphalos in me and how it will affect me? I have a few theories I want to validate, and maybe I’ll think of some more in the near future—”

“They are all focused on this topic.”

“…Yes.”

Inanna’s green, glacial eyes were trained on his face, unblinking. “You remain insouciant despite knowing what I am. You wear your independence with pride knowing that genuflecting in my presence can make your life easier. And now, you choose to bargain with me, after all that we have spoken of, merely to deepen your understanding of yourself?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No. But it speaks a great deal about you.” She sauntered toward him, her grace as deadly as it was beautiful, and cupped his chin. “Your pride is a source of endless fascination for me. I would like to see it broken, just once. Bow down before me, mortal. Accept me as your salvation and your goddess. There is much I can teach you. All the answers you seek would be yours. My vaulted Kinetomancy yours to wield. You will know power and pleasure that few mortals have tasted.”

Listening to her voice was like being dosed on narcotics. It was easy, too easy, to justify why accepting it was a brilliant idea. This was a strange new world, where monsters were real and out to kill him. A world where might made right, where strength was all that mattered. No sense of morality, no government, and no law was going to help him if some creature wanted to make him into its evening meal.

Accepting the offer would make that fear go away. Deep within him, Lukas relished in the tiniest bit of power that the fractional fragment of Kinetomancy had given him. Being able to alter motion itself and shoot kinetic blasts out of his hands was downright magical, yet nothing compared to what Inanna was promising.

All it would cost him was his independence. He’d be in service to her. He’d defer to her. Every single one of his actions would be dictated by her whims. He’d be unstoppable.

But he would remain a servant.

“Forget it.” He shook his head. “No deal. Is there anything else?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Intriguing. Your independence weighs more in your eyes than power. If not that, then perhaps a request? A spell of my own choice.”

Lukas was flummoxed. “You want me to perform a spell? Like a magical spell? I don’t even know how.”

“No, mortal. I shall perform it. I merely require being in possession of your body. I want your word that you shall not try to inhibit me when I perform it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you even need my permission at all?”

It was odd. Weird even. Inanna had already demonstrated that she could control the lifeforce within him. She had literally switched it off. And back then with that khorkhoi, he’d certainly had no clue that she was going to use Kinetomancy. All he had known was—

He stilled.

“Is…is it true?”

“Be more specific.”

“You can cast anything—Kinetomancy, Alleviation, and who knows what else—when in control of my body. You can even affect my lifeforce. But you need my permission to enact a spell of your choice?”

Inanna stayed quiet.

“Is that why we had to make a bargain before you helped me earlier? We agreed that you’ll help me get out of this place, and inhibiting my lifeforce falls under that request. Is that it? Do you need formal permission from me, the Host, to go about doing anything?”

“Stars,” Inanna murmured. “You are adorable.”

Lukas clenched his jaw. “That’s not an answer.”

“You truly expect me to tell you?”

“You’re evading the question,” he growled. “Why is this bargain necessary? Is it because of the omphalos?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. What is the answer worth to you?”

A dry chuckle escaped him. “Oh no, I’m not playing that game again. I’m not paying you with a bargain just so you can pull me into another.”

“What an unpleasant mortal you are,” she playfully chided. “I suppose this information will forever stay out of your reach, then. Let us return to the previous bargain. One spell of my own choice, unhindered.”

Lukas pursed his lips, and tried to cudgel his brain into working. Had he missed anything she’d use against him? Definitely. This was Inanna. Her offer seemed too simple, but then again, why not take the direct route?

“Fine. One spell, and one spell alone. So long as it doesn’t harm me, or enslave me, or mind-fuck me into becoming your worshipper—”

“Faith cannot be enforced so crudely, mortal. And you will worship me. Someday. For now, you have my word that the spell will do nothing to you. Physically, mentally or spiritually.”

“And you’ll keep your word?”

Something utterly terrifying flickered in her eyes. “Remember this, because I shall not repeat it again. My word is bond, even if the earth shakes and the sky falls on it. Are we in agreement?”

Sighing, Lukas nodded. “…Yes. We are.”

“Wonderful. I have a feeling our future bargains will be most fortuitous.”

“Never. This is the last one. I won’t bargain with you ever again.”

“Yes. You will.”

Her predatory smile did not make him feel any better. Not in the least.