In the darkness, Tim floated without sensation. The pain from his meat body drifted away like a distant memory. He wondered if he had died, or if he was still living. In the void Tim’s mind scattered and he saw in all directions. The emptiness felt eerily familiar. He felt like if he was a little more awake he could remember this place. But his thoughts scattered like in a dream.

Then the lights came, distant and near they flickered in and out like electrons in a generator. In different colors and sizes, they surrounded Tim. They moved randomly but predictably. It was as if they were governed by the roll of a dice.

Somewhere down below Tim blue beads of energy formed and dissipated. A ripple. A stream. Above him, white puffs formed into clouds and drifted apart. Tim’s foggy mind tried to understand. He reached out to grab a strand of the ephemeral, but he had no hands. He had no substance, only a collection of scattered thoughts as he drifted amongst the flickering lights.

Somewhere in that loosely held matrix, a spark occurred and Tim remembered his journey between worlds. That spark triggered another and another. If he had teeth, he would have ground them. Tim vaguely remembered he didn’t belong here. That there was somewhere he needed to go. With what little mind he could he tried to assess the situation.

Suddenly, Tim wondered how could he be floating, or seeing everything all at once. He started to panic at being unable to blink. But the lights of electric blue distracted him. What, what was he doing? It took countless repetitions before he found the self-control to hold his thought cloud together.

The blue below slowly took an outline, depth and flow appeared as Tim finally held his focus on it. The longer he looked the more he saw, and it gradually took the shape of something familiar. But he had trouble naming it. Why can’t I name it he wondered? Because it has no name. It was just ‘the lake’. The relief at figuring out this puzzle sent his mind cloud drifting.

Tim watched the gently swaying balls of white light above him. When he finally understood what they were he forgot again. Then as Tim inspected the puffy white balls of energy he felt his mind cloud growing closer to them. Without eyes to blink he stared and watched them dance. One particularly interesting particle seemed to waltz with a little blue bubble. A small bridge of energy bound the two and a faint gilded light flickered through it. Time flowed sideways as Tim gazed at the flicker. It was data. Waves of entwined information flowed between the two points. And then Tim was caught in the flow.

Beyond the elements there was information. Data flowed in rivers and oceans. The planet beat like a heart. Major arteries of data traveled throughout the seas, skies, and cities. Smaller arterioles stretched into the more still places. And the thinnest capillaries fed into the unchanging rock. Tim marveled at the organic nature of the world and the connectivity of it all.

Tim’s mind swam away, trying to find a more bird’s eye view. Like spotlights aimed at the stratosphere, little jets of light shot up from around the world. Sigils of magical energy blasted up through space like comets, chunks of data forming the contrail behind. Some carried less data and flew strong and fast. They pierced the membrane of the world before falling back, energized. Some were thick and laden with data and fell before the apex, crashing down without light.

A familiar looking sigil flew past Tim and he followed. Though the membrane he popped. Then there was nothing. Tim saw only himself, his true self. His every possibility expressed simultaneously. His future, his past. He was a crying infant and an old man with arthritis. Tim was loved, hated and killed at every age. He was soothed and comforted. He knew everything he had learned and everything he hadn’t. Tim could see inside himself, see the nerves relay impulses and neurons firing. As all the data that contained Tim showed, a voice called out to him.

“Hello, my beloved.”

Tim did not recognize that voice, nor could he look to see where it came from. But it did reach him with a soft familiarity. It was a comforting voice, and Tim could feel the affection behind those words. He knew them, but maybe not in his current probability. Left with only a guess he muttered “Yvonne?”

“I can be if that would help.” Her voice changed to the more familiar monotone. “Do not be afraid. You know this place, but not as you are now. Yes, my beloved, this is the closest you can reach, and from where our gifts flow.”

“Gifts?”

“You know the answer.”

From the surface of the membrane where he watched himself ungulate, a darkened sigil floated up. As it breached the surface its light returned. The data stream that followed gained renewed vibrancy and form.

“Such simple words reach us, but they contain so much. Ah, look this one is for you.”

As the enriched sigil sank back down through the membrane so did Tim. His mind was forced rudely back into his body he spasmed in pain. A vaguely wet feeling was on his face, he struggled to move, but found his limbs unresponsive. Tim opened his mouth to yell, only to find something poured in. Tim choked and agony became all he knew.

If it wasn’t for the pain Tim wouldn’t know if he was awake or not. He called out to his limbs to move, but he wasn’t sure if they were responding. He felt no pressure, no sight, smell or sound. The memory of his body burned with a frozen heart. But the human mind is resilient, and Tim grew accustomed to suffering that no one should endure. There, in his dark shut-in world he did the only thing he could, he played with his status screen.

Besides the pain, it was the only thing that let Tim know he was still alive. Although, from the looks of things he wasn’t in very good shape. The majority of his health bar was grayed out and he had numerous strange marks next to it. Status effects he ultimately concluded. His massive bucket of MP was not recovering but otherwise appeared undamaged. But what really caught his eye were the strange, flickering characters that made up his level and available AP.

Tim no longer knew what level he was. Could it be the creature he killed was so powerful it broke his status? Tim pondered a great many things. He tried to decipher the strange symbols. He tried to guess at the grayed out items in the morphing language hidden under the skills tab. But it was too complex to decode with thought alone.

Limited in what he could do, Tim bombarded the surrounding blackness with ‘Analysis”. Without senses to guide the skill to a target he was left without results. Still, he kept at it. Tim tried focusing his mind on a singular point in the darkness and directed analysis. It still fetched no results, but Tim started to notice something. A data trail reached out and returned unchanged. Excitedly Tim continued until he could see the trail clearly, although he couldn’t understand what it contained.

Without knowing how long he had been playing with ‘Analysis’ Tim grew sleepy. Before relaxing his mind to rest he opened the status screen again. He wanted to check for any changes. But he had been reflexively shotgunning of analysis long enough that he didn’t stop. An accidental query flew out and touched upon one of the icons next to his health bar. The data trail finally hit something; the information changed and returned an unknown quantity. Tim was no longer sleepy.

Well past the point of mental exhaustion Tim bombarded the same little icon with ‘Analysis’. If Tim hadn’t paid such fervent attention to the skill earlier he might have given up. But he knew what empty ‘Analysis” looked like, and this wasn’t it. In fact, it brought back just a little more data each time. With a final push, ‘Analysis’ brought back an answer.

“Blinded,” it said. “System Analysis unlocked.”

Excitedly Tim checked the other icons but immediately regretted it. Burned, deafened, debilitated, anosmia, crippled limbs (4), dehydrated, paralysis, iron deficient and exhaustion (severe). Bad news, but at least he was alive. And there were some things he could do with his mind alone. Next onto the strange symbols that replaced his level and AP. The ‘System Analysis’ query string went out but didn’t fetch anything. Instead, the query was eaten up, and unable to return.

Momentarily Tim gave up on examining the foreign characters. He explored his skills and the rest of his status screen with ‘System Analysis’. But before he could finish reading the details of ‘Enchant’, the ‘unconscious’ icon quietly appeared.

Tim awoke in horror as dancing lights fell down upon him. Even though he couldn’t move, Tim tried to jerk himself away. He fought against the crushing impact as the light gently passed through him. Finally, as he realized the lights couldn’t hurt him his mind regained focus. And as his mind sharpened so did the lights. Sigils, some laden with information were floating down and enveloping him. Sigils flowed in file, sometimes two at a time. After several dozen passed by, the sequence repeated. Finally, the pain started to ease.

After an eternity of clenching against the pain, Tim finally relaxed. When he awoke again it was to the same sequence of sigils. But this time they were clearer, he could see the shape of each one. Some of them he recognized as targeting sigils, but the rest were unfamiliar. He finally guessed that he was receiving treatments as the pain lessened at the commencement of each sequence.

Somewhere after the fifth or sixth treatment, a new skill alerted in green CRT letters; “Sigil Protocol” unlocked. Giddily Tim issued the mental command to open his status screen. There under his skills tab was the new ability. ‘System Analysis’ revealed that it was a unique skill, one that allowed Tim to view the precise flow of mana through a sigil network.

As the treatments wore on, sensations of things other than pain entered Tim’s mind. He wasn’t sure when, but Tim became aware he was laying down on something soft. He still couldn’t move. Maybe this was some induced paralysis to prevent reinjuring himself? He could feel wrapping against his skin which began to itch. When Tim started to feel restless and started to wiggle around another spell soon swam into him and he drifted off to sleep.

Unknown days passed. When Tim finally awoke bright like stung his eyes. He instinctively closed them, only to the shock that he could see again. Tim hesitantly opened his eyes again, feeling hopeful. Everything was blurry, and the light from the nearby window stung. He guessed it was morning. His arms and legs weren’t working yet. With an effort, he rolled his head to the side. Beside his bed was a vaguely human-shaped blur. It was resting its head on the bed and held one of Tim’s bandaged hands. Tim tried to squeeze his hand and the blur stirred. It raised its head and with a hesitant voice asked “Tim?”

“Harif?” garbled Tim’s reply. He tried to ask if it was Aerith, but his tongue and lips were still damaged and swollen.

“Shh shh, the hero needs his rest.” It was Aerith’s voice after all. But the uncomfortable emphasis she placed on hero made Tim feel even itchier.