Chapter 19: Soul World.

There are worlds beyond the physical one, often born of it, but not it. When one adjusts their soul like one goes from visible spectrum to heat, or infrared, the hidden is revealed. The truth of what is opens to those willing to see it, and those denied a choice.

 

There is a tree growing inside of Enderlith. The station is the cocoon, the nest that keeps the tree safe until it is ready. Flesh forms its leaves, thoughts, its branches, and souls merge into its titanic trunk. The tree is absolutely immense. It is growing still. It is also beautiful, so beautiful my soul aches to see it. The tree burns with the fires of joy, the fusion of so many psyches singing in unison their torpor and felicity. They are people and synapses, but they have shed pain, anxiety, hunger, thirst, despair, none of those maintain a hold over them. Even the falling leaves bother not the tree, for a tree has many. It will only perish if they all do. The tree will take me now. It is such an amazing sight that I am lost even before it reaches for me with a tender tendril, to take me in. We will be Everything, together.

 

It just needs to connect.

 

It just needs to connect.

 

To connect.

 

Any time now? No? No bliss of annihilation in the hive mind for me? Should I have taken a shower before? I feel…. more centered now. There is something engulfing my soul, anesthetizing it while it takes over except my soul cannot be taken over. Or at least, not by something as pedestrian as a seventy kilometers-long world tree made of ex-people. The connection fizzles.

 

You sly begonia, you almost had me. Pour my soul in a box and juice me with psychic ecstasy, will you? Fuck you. This is my shit existence. Mine. And I will never surrender it to some false paradise because I’m not my mum you rabid fucking rotten piece of —

 

***

 

“FUCK YOU!”

 

The tendrils drop dead. It’s dark here. I breathe as if I’d run a marathon. God dammit what the bloody hell was that? But just as I feel fury, my soul flares as a reaction. The presence of the Tree of Everything pulses against mine, and I push back in return. This… level of existence I was not aware of makes me realize how much more there is to the active universe than I assumed. That entity is so vast, yet completely outside of the perceivable realm. Had it not touched me and shared its own perception, I would never have guessed such a thing could exist. My anger fades, giving way to awe, fear, realization, and all those emotions and thoughts manifest in my mind as colors and hues. The emotions also dance in the chests of those around me, sickly colors tied to their bellies. Fear, mostly. I feel that I could almost, almost reach and touch those but… they’re too strong, and —

 

“Steve.”

 

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. I’m still where I was. Actually, the tentacles were severed with the closing gates and they are just now sliding down the gate in a sticky trail of fluids.

 

I notice that Flicker’s blade is under my neck, about an ant’s pube away from my Adam’s apple. The twins have their flamethrowers aimed at me. I stand very still.

 

“Errr.”

 

“Steve, how… I saw you reject them? How? No one has done it before,” Xan exclaims, voice quavering. “How?”

 

“Hold on, let me check if I’m clear first,” I say.

 

I pause.

 

“Wait before killing me?”

 

The twins exchange a glance. Flicker doesn’t speak so I’ll take that as a yes. A brief check confirms that, yes, my chest is clear. The tentacle dug through my shit armor as if it were wet paper. Same with my thigh. Weirdly, all my hair has fallen off on the point of impact but otherwise I think I’m fine.

 

“Hmm yes I’m fairly confident I’m still me,” I say.

 

“Impossible,” Flicker says. “A third soul awakening artist was taken. I know fourth awakening warriors cannot stop it. Even Flesh crafter Elders have said they will lose if the abominations reach their true bodies. You cannot… this is impossible.”

 

“I am overjoyed that you have survived,” Xan says. “I really am. I would have mourned for you, Steve, but I ask as I do the others. Who, or rather, what are you?”

 

I hesitate.

 

“If anything but the truth passes your lips, I will lop your head off,” Flicker tells me in a conversational tone.

 

Ah well.

 

Can’t take the risk.

 

“My name is Steve Prentiss. I’m the Avatar of Time.”

 

***

 

I get quarantined and interrogated following that little stunt, which leaves me with some time to check what this new soul awakening means. I am almost sure I am on the third stage which apparently has applications with emotion management. I’m just struggling to see how. At least my perception has vastly improved. I can see emotions with a new degree of accuracy. With some effort, I even manage to pass thoughts among two people in the same room which makes the interrogators a little annoyed but come on, it’s for science.

 

I’m guessing that reaching a new awakening is one thing, but mastering it is another. I didn’t expect to make much progress in this direction this loop anyway. It’s practically a freebie

 

As for the interrogations themselves, they are fast and relatively pointless. No one gives a shit, really, not with everything else happening. Mostly they’re confused by how weak I am. With everyone having better things to do, I am sent on my way.

It has been eight months since the start of the year. Things have changed a lot. I think that change started with the explosion

 

The soul bomb blast turned out to be much less powerful, even though it was situated around the same spot. I can only deduce that the attackers managed to push the soul bomb to its maximum power in the first iterations, but then Krane’s interference forced their hand so they had to trigger it faster. What I find strange is that no one came to claim the death of everyone in Elysium and large swathes of the Betweens. No one has any idea who did it, and the voice I heard in Krane’s message simply failed to resurface. The war has gone significantly better as a result.

 

Next, War was supposed to give us the coup de grace. A careful warning to high-ranking members of the defense told them about War’s coming and his followers taking control over the space docks’ cannons. Thanks to this, War fails to take over our side of Enderlith. Unfortunately, it means he lands on the Tip, the extremity we’re cut off from. That’s where Sil-Sil was supposed to go. After I find that out, I use my connection to check for Sethri’s team out of curiosity.

 

I learn that they managed to find a soul awakened, a refugee child from the docks. They were lost with all hands in a salvage operation,

 

They’ve already been dead for months. All of them.

 

That means they always die unless I help them… but I can’t help them. I can’t help everyone. I guess it just means I need to help as many people as I can. Can’t save everybody, at least not now.

 

The good thing about giving a lot of useful information is that Xan gets all the training aids he requests. Thanks to this and the occasional raid against abominations, I make fast progress. I’m also more muscular than I’ve ever been in my life, which would be nicer if I were not doomed to lose it all at the end of the year. I think I’m going to do it, to reach third awakening within a year. That’s why I’m very upset when Xan barges into my room early in the morning at the beginning of the ninth month.

 

“Uh?” I complain. I was having a nice dream about cellos.

 

“Lilith Seranne Kerentis just landed on the War-controlled part of the station. She claims to be the Avatar of Space.”

 

Well yes of course, because she is. Ah, but they maybe don’t know that.

 

“She demanded that you be detained immediately as soon as my superiors informed her of your nature.”

 

Ah.

 

Those.

 

The consequences of my actions.

 

Xan hands me my bag.

 

“I still have a few friends. They warned me in advance, so let’s go. Come on, kid. We have to leave.”

 

Fuck.

 

***

 

Some of the outer, deeper districts exist in a state of lawlessness that few would brave, but Xan does so and he apparently had a safe house there. We leave the safety of the controlled space, having to convince a golem to let us through. Thankfully, golems are neutral.

 

Abandoned districts are not what I expected. First, there is still some electricity so emergency lights are active, reminding me of the end of the previous loop when everything had broken down yet bands of people still survived on the fringe. Buildings and mushroom gardens cling to life, some showing architectures I’d never seen before. Sometimes, we feel the mana of powerful awakened flashing in the distance: a warning to stay away. We hear the distant cries of some hunting creature, yet nothing stops us while we work our way to Xan’s retreat.

 

It’s immediately obvious that the man is a prepper of sorts, or rather, he used to be. The base lights up with the activation of a generator in the basement of a fortified house. There is some sort of battle armor on the main floor that reminds me of what the Templars wear: a metal coffin no normal person, sorry, no unawakened could possibly move in. Xan has been quiet the entire time. Only after we sit at a table I freshly dusted does he talk. Half of the light seems to come from some sort of bioluminescent lichen stuck to his wall so everything looks blue.

 

“This is a home I made after… after I left the army. I had been there for too long, I think. Did I mention affinity flaws?”

 

“Hmm. You said metal-aligned awakened tend to be inflexible?”

 

“Indeed. This refuge was a compromise with myself. I fought on Obis for a very long time, especially against the fallen healers. It makes one… paranoid. It took me some time just to return to normal.”

 

His gaze loses focus and for a moment, I wait. Eventually, Xan wordlessly stands up to boil some water for tea, a habit he only expresses when he’s stressed.

 

“Look, kid, you’re actually pretty close to the third awakening. Honestly, it has to be some sort of record especially since you’re not very talented.”

 

“Ouch.”

 

Xan turns his head to look at me.

 

“You are one for understatements so let me make this clear: I am being literal. You are reasonably talented for an Enderlithian. On some other planet it would be noteworthy. Here, you are merely good in an unremarkable way. That doesn’t mean bad by any means. You mentioned loops in a previous discussion, so I assume you are living through this year several times?”

 

“I will live through this year a great many times, I suspect. And die too. Dying simply resets the year.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

 

“Then your talent matters less than your hard work, and you do work hard. I will assist you. Together, we will reach that goal. But I digress. There was a reason why I mentioned third ascension. Contrary to the previous two, which are foundational and mostly internal, the third ascension is a, hmm, a greeting to the world’s energies. It is a step that defines who you will be. It cannot be kept hidden.”

 

“That sounds dangerous…”

 

“The awakening itself isn’t. Our location, however, is. I will guard you while you ascend. You must understand and accept that you cannot stop no matter what. Your progress is more valuable than anything else.”

 

I have to pause at that.

 

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you helping me?”

 

“Because you care.”

 

He sets two cups of tea on the table between us.

 

“I am no historian, yet this Year of Judgment is looking to be particularly horrific. You are clearly working to protect what you can. If what you say is correct, this reality I am experiencing, this cup I am holding, all of them will disappear. And I will not remember. Everything we have accomplished will be undone with one notable exception.

 

“You.

 

“This is my only chance to make a difference. I’ll help you, kid, and maybe at the end of your loops, you will save Enderlith. And even remember me.”

 

He smiles like a smug socialite and I think I can see some of the Patrician shining through the cracks of the soldier.

 

“You might not think it now, but being the avatar of one of the dragons makes you pretty important. If Father could see me now, cozying up with such notable people.”

 

He laughs.

 

“But enough of this. Let’s get you settled, and then let’s get it done, Steve.”

 

***

 

I think I would have gone bonkers were it not for how mellow Xan is as a person. He never gets angry, always has a joke, is an amazing conversationalist and in general can feel when I’m getting cabin fever. Every day we take a circuitous patrol route around the bunker to make sure nothing is stalking us, an occasion to stretch my legs. Once we come across a blind woman who makes mushrooms bloom with waves of her hands, her clothes entirely covered in growth. She offers us a wave before leaving but otherwise the district is surprisingly calm. Xan really picked well.

 

“The third awakening is the first time one specializes,” he tells me one night.

 

“You told me so, yes.”

 

“And you answered that it didn’t matter. I must still inform you that the path we followed so far was one of general fitness. I specialized in the staff, so my path was different. That is not an issue. There are no superior third awakenings.”

 

He considers his words.

 

“Well, there are bad awakenings for people who neglect aspects of themselves. You have trained well, therefore this does not concern you. My point is that during the awakening itself, you must act with intent. You must decide the path you will walk.”

 

He hesitates.

 

“I never asked, but I assume you must be fairly early in the cycles of time.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You didn’t try to awaken when it started?”

 

I huff.

 

“No, I enjoy being seen as lazy trash.”

 

Xan smiles with patience so I explain.

 

“Awakenings do not carry over, however if I awaken three times, I can start every future loop with the first awakening activated.”

 

He winces, probably considering the wasted effort.

 

“Hmmm. You will never win as a first awakening,” Xan tells me with disarming candor.

 

“There are ways for me to bypass that in the future, but I need to start somewhere. Just being unawakened on Enderlith makes everyone see me as garbage, and that makes everything harder. Why are you asking?”

 

“Would you not be curious after realizing your existence will be erased in less than a year, and only one person will carry the memories of what once was?”