System notice: Failed seed banished. Good work, keep hunting.

Just as quickly as it had disappeared so did my feelings of rage and panic. But what the Hell does this mean? Not only have I found something that seems like myself but I have apparently banished it. Not to mention this strange system message. It was in its way fascinating. If I focused towards the point where the other had disappeared it appeared and when I turned away it disappeared just as quickly. Even now how I could understand it was a mystery. Nine words made up of twenty-one different letters. Organised by some set logic I had no reference for. The idea of language was new to me let alone a written form. But my focus opened new layers of understanding under the first basic statement.

If I focused on a word I was presented with an understanding of what that word meant or described. Often by using other unfamiliar terms. Which they themselves lead to other meanings and reasonings. All finally bottoming out at basic phonemes and grammatical rules to govern the whole thing. Even so, I was really feeling a distinct lack of context for most of it. A theoretical knowledge of phonemes was not much use as I didn’t think I had the ability to make sounds or to make use of information about objects and things that seemed so foreign to my experience. But this is what I could take from it.

There was some system, a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or a complex interconnecting whole. That had felt the need to notify me about my actions and to encourage me to continue with them. The other, that from the context I assume was a failed seed had been banished, send away from a country or place as a punishment. And most worrying of all that if the system wants me to continue hunting that there must still be something left to hunt. More failed seeds or if that unmoving thing was what I would have become if I had not succeeded in my first moments of existence. Others who may be as knowledgeable as me or more so. Individuals that may have me at a disadvantage each wanting their own piece of the void to claim as their own.

However, if we could find some means of communication maybe some more of this language malarkey. These more developed others may share some information I didn’t currently have. Possibly even some solution to the killer energy I seem to be producing. For now, I must have spent a considerable time sitting and unmoving. My own fog of energy around me was starting to thicken to the point of panic and I needed to continue my path. Cycling the outer edge of my created flat disk in the void.

After a brief time on auto-pilot as my new understanding of language would indicate. I found another anomaly. Not a failed seed but a different trail. Not one produced or left by me it passed along the surface of my plane and around the edge in front of me. To continue in my path, I would need to step out and include the invader's path into my created plane. Due to the nature of the trails I had no idea of the direction of travel. Even now the other could be travelling in towards the lumpen cylinder in the centre of my plane or it could be ahead of me travelling in the same direction around the rim.

But I came to a realisation in this void what were my chances of ever meeting another of my kind? The chances of two moving points in a seeming infinite void occupying the same space at the same time were so astronomically small as to be insignificant. Even my fateful meeting with the failed seed could be reduced to an extremely unlikely bit of good luck. I was frustrated either I would never meet individuals with the information to save myself or I will not be able to eliminate my competitors until a significant amount of the void is claimed and so the available volume minimized.

It was with this weary and annoying thought that I continued my long cycling path. Having made the adjustments need to include the interloper's trail I moved on.

***

Some infinite time late I stopped I had found the end. The end of the void I had been right I felt not a little bit proud at that. It looked no different than any other part. But I could move no further in that direction to my perception it looked no different than another part of the void except it was totally inaccessible to me. I stopped a moment to marvel at my foresight that had got me this for. I had proved the void as being finite. My determination had taken me from the start of this enterprise from inception to completion. I was now able to extend my existence for the maximum possible…

DAMNED BANISHED BUGGERY. I had made a mistake. I had proved the void finite by dividing it but I now didn’t know in what proportion I had divided it. What was most annoying was how simple in conception my mistake had been. I had taken the void an unknown empty space and built a wall. A wall through which I cannot pass and then realised just as I was about to put the final brick into that wall. That I didn’t know which of those two spaces was the larger. It was unlikely I was lucky enough to perfectly cut the void in two. So, I have caused the problem I was most afraid of when I had found the failed seed. I had reduced the volume of the void available to me. Possibly halving the time of my existence single handily.

I had the sudden feeling I had built the first wall of my tomb. Turn right or left and I may be walling myself into a tiny proportion of the void. I had failed completely. Griped with indecision I didn’t move. I couldn’t take that final step that may doom me to a fraction of my lifespan. Even as the fatal energy started to build around me I didn’t move. More time passed my rage was back as I tore into myself for my stupidity of bringing myself to this. The energy putting increasing pressure on me was working up my panic sense as I started to get that feeling of being both pushed and pulled at the same time. Till like before I was reduced to an unthinking struggle to escape my panic an the forces on me and with a lurch I had not felt in my movements in a long time. A desperate decision was made.

And I lost consciousness.