The focus that Samuel gave, that dogged determination was too much to handle.

The scene around Foreigner began to twist and twirl, responding to the disorienting sinking feeling in his gut. The ground was ripped from under him and he began to enter a state of free fall. The air was viscous, streaks of black ink slipping through his fingers, tiny embers drifting up and out of him.

Foreigner yelled out but nothing would give.

“Are there any drawbacks to splitting the mind in so many ways?” A woman’s voice streamed through the ether.

“Does light suffer any drawbacks when pushed through a prism? The colors may be split on the other end but the whole is always there.” His voice called out from somewhere else in the darkness.

Thud.

Foreigner slammed into the ground and caused ripples to form around the expansive darkness. Embers streaked the ceiling like stars in the sky, the swirling form of a gargantuan serpent restlessly waiting for more orders.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Foreigner turned and saw himself standing next to him but something was different. There was a gravitas to this person, a confidence and steadfast glint in their eyes coupled with a disturbingly calm voraciousness. He turned to Foreigner and Foreigner had to keep himself from leaping away. “This was partially the reason I moved to the Outskirts with Ana. I was always looking up at the sky in those late nights, the stars acting as much as a guide as they acted like observers in those wastelands.” The man waited for Foreigner to respond but nothing came to mind. “If I’m being honest, a lot of what has happened so far is a result of my hubris. I get that and have been grappling with it since being cordoned off to this deep pit below.”

Foreigner cleared his throat and came to the conclusion he had already known. “You’re the original Sam.” The mental weight within him was lifted the moment he stated his realization. Sam nodded and placed a hand on Foreigner’s shoulders. “I knew leaving you in charge was the correct thing to do.”

“But why did you need to leave me in charge to begin with? Why did we have to suffer? Who am I in all of this? And what about our family?” Samuel looked at Foreigner and sighed,

“You were in the middle of receiving those answers just a moment ago. Maybe it’s that indecisiveness that’s our connection between us and the rest of that world…” His voice trailed off. He reached out his hand and materialized a door, twisting the knob to take the both of them into a familiar room. The two were in his office, the same knick knacks around the table and room as well as the soft sunlight streaming through the window. Samuel pulled up a seat and gestured for Foreigner to sit on their own.

“Life was so much simpler in here. Sure, it was precarious to be living amongst the trash left behind by the rest of society or the dangerous creatures that call this festering wound on the land their home, but with enough power and wealth, even this place could be tamed.” Samuel stared past Foreigner before his intense gaze honed in on him, making Foreigner squirm in his seat. “The short story is that I was hired by the Seven Association to investigate the Distortion Phenomenon. My background as a Ruins explorer and my success in acquiring and deciphering the use of arcane oddities and Milton’s personal recommendation meant that I was qualified to undertake such a project.”

Forming in the center of the table was a miniature rendition of events, their memories scaled down and projected onto the wood top with fine detail.

“Ah, excuse me, I sometimes forget where we are in this transition. One of the problems of not being in the driver’s seat is the perception issue. It feels like my mind is dreaming even in these lucid moments.” The details on the projection blurred and shifted into another scene, the moment where Samuel came out of the laboratory a changed man.

“We split my mind once with the initial experiment. The Overseer was the bridge between myself and the first split, the Keeper.” The images changed to show Snake in the Water towering above Samuel, its head bobbing in acknowledgement before materializing a door to Keeper at the Gates’s domain. “Our initial meeting was disastrous. I had split the combat experience and aggression I had into them and they were an altered beast as a result. Granted, strength in this world lies in one’s willpower, but that didn’t stop them from thrashing about for freedom.” Samuel twirled their fingers and accelerated the combat sequence on the table. A gnarled Keeper, low to the ground and thrashing wildly with weapon in hand, was subdued by Sam without him having to lift a finger. They swung and swung but some force caused the Keepers blows to just land short of their target. “It was in this fight that I made a number of discoveries and confirmations. For one, even the slivers were influenced by the same voice dwelling deep below even all of this, our Passenger from the Whitest Day Darkest Night event. They were perceived by the voice as an individual entity and they acted as individual entities even though they carried the same foundational set of memories from myself. For two, making changes in this world was a matter of willpower, and to properly cage these beings meant to create conditions antithetical to their purpose. If Keeper was a violent and belligerent beast when born, giving it a cage where they were contractually obligated to deal with their issues through a thinking game like chess gave me the necessary levers to control him.”

Foreigner looked at the scene in horror. The Keeper was a prisoner, just like Inconvenient Truth had attempted to explain to him. If Foreigner’s horror was showing, Samuel didn’t give it any consideration.

“After Keeper came Thinker. They gave me the most headaches but having a form that could weave false memories and anchor real ones meant another avenue of control over the slivers was available to me. Sure, they would act out in rebellion to their host, but with Snake in the Water managing all of the other slivers while the primary host was away, limiting their access was easy.” The Inconvenient Truth had made a statement that Foreigner recalled with a sudden clarity. The proclivities of a clearly unsound mind, dabbling at a science that Foreigner didn’t agree with.

“The Passenger was the most vocal in them, I assumed. Providing the Thinker with the capacity to tell right from wrong as well as fact from fiction meant giving them the tools to form their own moral compass. Sure, they heeded the advice of the Passenger when occupying the body as a primary host, but they didn’t submit and distort to the Passenger’s wishes. There was an unexpected stubbornness that I could feel from them, a yearning to prove that they were more than the sum of all of us. I have a soft spot for them, even if they continually made attempts to undermine the whole project.” He wanted to ask about himself but shook himself out of that thought process.

“So if Truth is Thinker, Keeper is Keeper, and Gardener is whoever they are, then what role do I play in all of this?” Foreigner asked. Samuel paused with his presentation and gave him a smirk.

“I guess we can move this along for you, considering our circumstances out there.” Samuel snapped his fingers and two individuals began to materialize. Fabricated out of smoke and ink, Foreigner was faced with his wife, Ana and his son, Carlito, the both of them on either side of Samuel. “Your role came last. I took out my hedonistic tendencies through the Gardener. I protected our assets with the Keeper. I created contingencies and additions through the Thinker.”

Foreigner kept staring at his family, their faces with a subdued smile and a blank stare out into the distance. “I created you to contend with humanity. To deal with my pesky sensibilities and handle these distractions.” Samuel waved Ana and Carlito away, their forms returning to smoke and ink. “You were to serve as my Heart. Empathetic to a fault, curious and full of questions, and motivated to save and protect our family.”

“How dare you!” Foreigner yelled, throwing his seat to the floor and crashing his hands across everything on the table, “Why would you give up your responsibility to be a father! Why would you throw away your ties to the rest of humanity?” Samuel raised his hand and Foreigner was halted in his tracks.

“You can simmer down on the passion there, Foreigner. You forget your place.” Samuel spoke with the authority lingering within his glare. “I have entertained your questions and am interested in getting back out there and achieving the apotheosis those cretins have ripped from me. It’s the least they could do after taking everything else.”

“Is that why our family is gone? You became so focused on this goal that you even let your own family fall to the wayside?” Foreigners sentence hung in the air, Samuel staring at him with a perplexed expression and an eyebrow raise.

“Power through insolence… or dedication…” Samuel whispered under his breath before directing his attention solely to Foreigner, “Our family is gone. They left us soon before our plans were complete. But this wasn’t information you needed to know at the time they looked to shut me down. No, what you needed was motivation when they booted you up, disoriented and without power like a baby in the Outskirts. Enough advancements meant even the strength of a Singularity could be contested and their only means of keeping such power in check was to block off access from one piece to another. Not even Milton could understand the breadth of possibility locked behind the mind and our methods of tapping power from that mysterious Passenger.”

Foreigner could only peer down with his peripheral vision to see a pool of black ink beginning to seep into the walls, to creep around his ankles as Samuels form swelled onward and upward. Foreigner struggled to push out his anger and frustration, to remain in control if not for himself then for his friends who were depending on him.

“Oh, you needn’t worry about your companions. I’m going to be meeting with one of my own admirers too. There’s a lot of history to catch up on and a lot of scores to settle. If I need your emotional intuition, I’ll be sure to tap in and take what I need out of you. Goodnight Heart of Frailty. You’ve served your purpose.” Samuel’s voice became distant with each syllable, Foreigner’s head becoming foggier and fuzzier as the room filled up with ink up to his neck now.

He remained calm as his mind slipped into the void.

There was a voice telling him that he should not be afraid.