The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

Inner Sanctum Underground | 9:33 AM | ∞ Day

I didn't want to go.

But what were my other options? If I went back to Ptolema's house and put it off, I'd just end up lying in bed driving myself even more insane than before. If inadvertently causing reality to break and somehow erasing a minute of her memory wasn't enough to make me suddenly doubt everything I'd been told in the past few hours, then trying to get answers only for something like this to happen certainly was. And if that much was true, then what was the point of waiting at all? There was no running away. All I could do was stew.

So, after a few minutes had passed... I tried doing what Nora had taught me. Distancing myself from my body and what I was seeing, letting myself go mentally adrift while still remaining mindful and focused enough to avoid actively daydreaming. She was right-- It was a lot easier to do out here, where there was no stimuli to speak of. Even the air felt almost without temperature. Balanced between warmth and cold in perfect, uncanny neutrality.

(Come to think of it, though, why was there air out here at all? What even made that happen? I guess it wasn't important right now.)

It still took a while, but eventually, I felt the same shift occur as had taken place when I'd been executed in the Magilum. I felt myself fall away from my body, my perception of the world taking on a different quality. No longer strictly seeing with my eyes, but simply understanding my surroundings, now cast once more in that golden hue, though it was difficult to make out amidst the matching background of Dilmun's sky.

My mind slipped into that state of strange serenity again, and even though I wasn't forcibly expelled, how to access the Stage felt self-evident, like I was immersed in a pool of water and merely had to swim towards the surface. I did so, and my perception shifted back to the beach. I could see the hundreds of thousands of people within the Crossroads gathered in front of me, but was no longer with them-- Not unless I took a 'step' forward again.

So... right now, time is frozen in all the Domains relative to my own subjective experience I mused. If I went back into the Crossroads, presumably I'd go right back into my body without anything even seeming to have happened from the perspective of an observer. But alternatively, if I went to another Domain, it would teleport away instantly.

Because this is the Timeless Realm, is this state stable indefinitely? Could I stand here for a trillion years without a moment ever passing in the Crossroads? Or would whatever force governs this place eventually give up on me, and put me back in the same state I'd been in while sealed away at the Abbey?

Whatever the case, I doubted I'd be away for long enough to matter, unless whatever I was about to encounter resulted in me never returning, physics be damned. Though incapable of being 'anxious' in this space, I looked around with something close to apprehension, trying to identify whatever the man had been referring to when he'd told me I'd know where to go.

In truth, though, he'd been so right I needn't even have looked. As soon as I'd got bearings, I sensed it-- Something different from the last time I'd been here. A space I hadn't been able to perceive, pulling at my attention, almost beckoning.

When viewing it as a beach, it wasn't obvious except that it seemed to be coming from over the water, but when I switched to seeing it as a stage - a lot easier, now that I'd heard people calling it that for a whole day - I could identify this new area as beyond its edge, in what under normal circumstances would be the audience stands. Here, though, most of it felt fuzzy and indistinct. Strange shapes that could have been seating, but could equally just be cubes stacked together in incomplete patterns.

But there was one part of it which was distinct. In the distance... was a door.

Perhaps 'door' is the wrong word for it-- I couldn't make out any of its features, like whether it was made of metal or wood, or a single or double. All that reached my brain was the raw concept of door. An exit. A point of liminal transition.

I didn't want to approach it. But I did.

As soon as I decided on that course of action, the Stage, having previously felt limitless, suddenly shrunk to a much more reasonable size, and before I knew it I was at the edge. A sense of foreboding overcame me - as if I were about to do something in defiance of my own nature, like a pawn stepping off the edge of a chessboard. Nevertheless, I jumped down into the darkness. I stepped forward, upwards.

I reached... the door. The beckoning was now even stronger, seeming to touch something deep in my very being. As if my entire life had been little more than a foreword to this exact moment.

I gripped the handle--

𒀭

I didn't get a chance to turn it. It was like I'd set off some kind of trigger, and that was simply that.

I was back in my normal body, but now in a space completely unlike either of the Domains I'd seen so far. It was so plain that it felt desolate, consisting only of a metallic square platform about twenty meters across, suspended in black nothingness, with no discernible features whatsoever. The air here was cold, too, enough to make my default outfit in this reality overtly chilly. And the only source of light was a distant red glow.

Waiting for me, visible at first only in long-armed silhouette, was among the last people - or rather things, I suppose - that I would have expected to see: Aruru. I recognized it by its extremely distinct body shape, but its inhuman face was partially covered by a porcelain mask, and it was dressed differently, in an outfit resembling a funeral gown that covered its 'skin' from head to toe, save for a while veil that fell over its face.

It was standing with attentive posture, its long and spindly fingers clasped together. It stepped forward as soon as I arrived, obviously having been waiting for me, not giving me so much as a moment to compose my thoughts.

CHORUS: Welcome back, Miss Utsushikome of Fusai. We are most pleased to receive you once again.

Welcome... back?

I flinched backwards. "What are you..."

But the words died in my throat. Its eyes... they were different, I realized-- Like those of the man from a few minutes earlier. Swirling orbs of darkness with color refracting strangely at the periphery. And its voice wasn't that of the Aruru I knew either, but again like his had been; asserting itself in my consciousness inescapably.

Suddenly, I doubted my initial judgement. Was this even Aruru, after all? What the hell was going on?

CHORUS: Please, allow me to escort you to the loge. Her Ladyship is eager to speak with you.

Then, without any further explanation, she set off towards the edge of the platform. For a moment I thought she was going to walk straight off into the abyss, but as she drew near, a metallic staircase appeared, the shadows seeming to part around it. She began ascending, not even seeming to recognize the fact that I still hadn't moved from where I'd first appeared.

"Wait," I called out, stumbling forwards in pursuit. "What's going on? Who is 'Her Ladyship'?" I hesitated. "Are you the golem from the sanctuary? What are you doing here? Is this something to do with what happened in the loop?"

CHORUS: Please remain calm and follow closely.

I cursed to myself. Weird eyes or no weird eyes, it was obviously still just a simple artificed intelligence, and couldn't so much as comprehend my request. I might as well have been yelling questions at an oven.

With nothing else to do, I followed. Though wide enough that I wasn't afraid of falling into the abyss, the steps were steep and uncomfortable to climb, and the fact they only seemed to come into view when they were a few steps ahead made the entire experience disorienting and ominous, the silence bearing down on me oppressively. It made my mind want to dwell on the situation, which was extremely unwise, as I had so little idea what the fuck was going on that it pointless to even speculate.

No. Something in me told me it was for the best if I didn't try to think about this at all.

As we ascended, the stairs slowly grew... strange. The metal seemed more jagged and prone to twisting at sharp angles, and the stairs themselves frequently outright changed direction, though we were still heading ever upward. Slowly - and this took a long time, the climb in total probably lasting close to 10 minutes, enough to make my knees and chest start to hurt by the mid-point - the red that permeated the area began to grow bright enough to piece the strange fog.

And I realized that I wasn't sure these were stairs at all. I could see more stairwells on all sides - some with strange symbols carved into them - criss-crossing in all directions, like I was inside an incomplete cocoon of unfathomable scale. They all seemed to be curving inward, towards the same apex point that we approached.

I recognized this structure.

Is this... the inside of the Apega?

...no, it had a similar feeling, but it wasn't an outright copy in the same way as the abbey or the security center had been. As fantastical as the Apega had been, it had still contained components of recognizable practical purpose - support beams, eris conduits, the giant maintenance arm we'd seen used when Fang's component was being installed. This had none of that. It was like we were inside a nightmare of the Apega, a fever dream that captured feeling more than reality.

Maybe that was literally true. This was a world in which anything could apparently be manifested, so maybe someone from the conclave could have made this on purpose, like some grotesquely overambitious version of Ophelia's disturbing paintings.

I frowned, clicking my tongue. Idiot. You just said you weren't going to try and speculate.

I rubbed sweat from my brow. On top of the exertion, it was getting hotter, too, and pretty quickly at that.

We climbed higher, and more and more stairwells - or perhaps it would be better to call them branches, at this point - came into view in all directions, and the light surrounding us started to turn from red to white. Then, finally, at the point where in the Apega the mechanism reached the surface of the cavern and the radiance was so overwhelming it started to hurt my eyes, we came to another platform. This one was covered by a lush red carpet, and at the back was an ornate wooden door several times taller than what seemed practical.

Aruru, or whatever it was, finally came to a stop at its side, turning to face me once again.

CHORUS: We have arrived. Please proceed inside, and remember to show proper etiquette when in audience with Her Ladyship.

"What exactly..." I panted for breath, hunched over slightly and gripping my gut. "...constitutes 'proper etiquette'?" I frowned angrily at the thing. "I don't even know who I'm supposed to be meeting."

CHORUS: Please consider the following measures to show the appropriate measure of respect and supplication during your conversation: 1) Use of proper titles during occasions of address; 'My Lady' 'Your Ladyship', etc. Alternative titles of sufficient respect eg: 'Your Infinite Majesty' 'Your Inescapable Resplendent Highness' may also be acceptable on a case-by-case basis. 2) Use of appropriate, full upper-body bows at the beginning and conclusion of the dialogue, as well as when making requests, acknowledging commands, and apologizing. 3) Frequent apologies in general to convey one's shame at the audacity of existing in Her presence as such an infinitely inferior, insect-like being.

I blinked a few times. "Uh--"

CHORUS: 4) Use of reverential capitalization at all times when giving reference to Her Ladyship, in respect to her nature as a higher being. 5) Maintenance of proper posture at all times. Slumping one's shoulders in Her presence is offensive.

That last part felt targeted. My face flushed.

"W-What the hell do you mean, capitalization?" I asked, snapping my back up straight self-consciously. "Are you fucking with me? How can you capitalize things when you're speaking?!"

CHORUS: 6) And finally, of course, to follow Her commands without question, in understanding of your role as Her eternal thrall in both body and soul, from now until the terminus of the universe, as determined by Her divine will. Please proceed into the loge with all of this in mind. We are grateful for your consideration.

I was earnestly left speechless. If it weren't for the fact I was in some kind of terrifying otherworld, I would have thought this was all some kind of stupid prank.

The golem opened the door, revealing what at first glance looked like a medium-sized, faintly-lit oblong chamber. I hesitated for several moments, but ultimately steeled myself and stepped inside.

No sooner had I crossed the threshold than the door swung sharply closed behind me, casting the area in even greater darkness and causing me to jump fretfully. My senses began to adjust, and I managed to make out a few details of the room amidst the gloom. There was a silhouette of an armchair in front of me, and next to it a simple yet elegant long table, covered by a frilly white tablecloth. And in contrast to the previous area, the surface beneath my sandals felt like wood.

More prudently, though, I realized it wasn't a normal chamber at all, but rather a sort of balcony, walled only on the right side.

...thinking about it, I should have seen this coming. After all, 'loge' was a term sometimes used to refer to a theater box, specifically the lowest and most desirable seating in the house. Since Dilmun already had this whole theater theme going on, it was appropriate for this to be the nature of - apparently - its executive center.

But why had I been summoned here, by its 'creator'? What was the 'debt' that man had mentioned I owed them?

And where the hell were they?

"Hello...?" I spoke up anxiously. "Is anyone in here?"

There was no response, but all the same, I felt a presence somewhere nearby that was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I tried illuminating the area with the Light-Radiating Arcana, but nothing happened when I finished casting-- Not a good sign. I peered ahead into the heavy shadows, but couldn't discern anything moving.

Unsettled and confused, my eyes turned to the edge of the balcony. What distant and faint light there was in the area seemed to be coming from that direction, though its nature was unclear. Is the idea that you can see the Stage from here, and that's where it's coming from? I mused. How would that even work?

Curious, I took a step towards it, glancing over the railing.

As it turned out, it didn't overlook the Stage. It overlooked... something else.

Down below - what must have been far, far in the distance - were untold numbers of tiny swirling lights, spreading out in all directions. Some were clumped together in huge clouds of various subdued colors, while others floated in isolation or with only a handful of others. They were motionless, and stretched out both downwards and into the horizon seemingly infinitely, like a frozen ocean of tiny gemstones and diamond dust.

I squinted. What am I even looking at?

"It's the universe, of course," a deep, echoing feminine voice spoke behind me. "Do you enjoy the view?"

For the second time in the last minute, I jumped, this time much more sharply. I looked over my shoulder, but could see no change in the darkness that occupied the rest of the loge. Yet the voice came from it all the same, originating from the far side of the table.

"W-Who's there?!" I cried out anxiously.

"Oh, come on," the voice uttered flatly. "Surely you can manage a better reaction than that." It snorted in amused derision, then impersonated my own voice crudely, demure and meek to the point of ridiculousness. "'W-Who's there?!'-- Honestly. For someone who watches so many horror flicks, you sure do like playing into the bit."

Though I wasn't wholly sure why, I could tell that this voice, too, belonged to something more than a human. But it wasn't at all like the man or Aruru's had come across, where the words felt like they were being projected into my mind in a manner adjacent to a logic engine. Or even something more mundane like the modulation that voices from golems or people with vocal implants often had.

No, this was something altogether different. I felt it as the words came, not in my consciousness but at the base of my spine, like it spoke directly to what remained of whatever wriggling ancestor of mine had first emerged from the primordial soup at the bottom of the Earth's deepest oceans millions of years ago. Like a sound that I'd always been hearing, a constant and universal hum that had been in my ears since the day I was born, had suddenly began to form words.

One half of me thought it was terrifying. The other, more quietly, thought: That's a little much, don't you think?

Cowardice, of course, won out Regardless of how stereotypical I was being, I was too uneasy to do anything but stare listlessly into the ominous darkness. I didn't even process the implications of whoever the voice belonged to apparently knowing personal information about me.

"Well, don't just stand there," the voice continued. "Have a seat."

My eyes turned back towards the barely-visible armchair, illuminated primarily by the crack of light still emanating from underneath the door. Again, I didn't want to sit down. My fight-or-flight reflexes were screaming at me to run for the exit, or even to throw myself off on the balcony, despite the fact that I'd just been told it led into outer space.

But somehow, I could sense that those were both even worse ideas. So, trepidatiously, I stepped towards the chair and slowly lowered myself into the seat. It was very comfortable, though the fabric felt icy cold against my skin.

"There you go," the voice said faux-soothingly. "That wasn't so hard, was it? No need for an existential crisis."

I stared ahead, but even sitting here, there was no more indication of who - or what - laid in the shadows. Though now that I'd been here for a little bit, I wasn't even sure that was the right word. It was like there was a solid curtain of darkness cast over the entire opposite side of the balcony, where even the light which was present couldn't reach.

I swallowed the air, a cold sweat running down the side of my neck. "Who are you?"

"Seriously, you need to stop with these lines," it told me sardonically. "You'll be embarrassed about it later." I heard a low, echoing chuckle. "And you already know who I am. Even disregarding the other hints, you were just told in exhaustive detail exactly who to expect in this room a moment ago."

I flinched. "You're the creator of this world? ...the 'Lady'?"

"Mmhmm," it acknowledged. "That's what they call me."

Oh, god. Was I already in trouble for breaking the behavior rules that Aruru had recited? I hadn't even retained half of the shit it had been saying! Was any of it even serious, or had it all been some weird joke? It had seemed like a joke, but how the hell was I supposed to know when it was being delivered by a fucking golem?

What could this thing even do to me? This was supposed to be a world without death. But if this was its maker, then did that still apply? Could whatever the thing was pluck my mind from where it apparently rested in the Timeless Realm and grind it between its teeth, with just as much a contravening attitude towards physics as when it'd placed me there to begin with?

"Relax," the voice said soothingly. "There's no need to be intimidated. If I'd wanted to hurt you, do you really think I would have brought you to a comfortable place like this."

I glanced around nervously. Comfortable is one word for it, that's for sure.

"Why didn't you say anything when I first called out?" I asked.

"Because I thought it would be funny if I didn't. I thought that part was pretty self-evident." I could hear the grin in the speaker's tone. "And it was funny, though somewhat less than I'd hoped. It seems like you're in a bit of a boring mood."

"Q-Quit screwing around," I demanded nervously. "Why have you summoned me here? What--?" The 'what' hung, an arrow with so many potential targets it loosed into the void. "What are you?"

The voice let out another laugh, this time lasting several moments. My fingers curled around the ends of the armrests, my body trembling slightly.

"Why have I summoned you, you ask?" A mirthful sigh. "No reason in particular. I just saw you were around again and feeling a little confused, and thought we might have ourselves a quick chat. Do you a favor."

"They said I owed you a debt," I stated, trying to stop my teeth from chattering.

"And you do," the voice declared back with foreboding, suggestive firmness. "But not in any urgent capacity." I heard something creak and crack within the darkness - a chair? a limb? - and the voice grew a little closer. "As to your second question, well... why don't you tell me?"

"How do you expect me to know something like that?" I asked. "I can't even see you."

I heard it click its tongue. "Not 'know'. Deduce. That was your role, after all, Utsushikome of Fusai."

I squinted. "What do you mean, my 'role'?"

Suddenly - making me jump yet again, even more sharply - a stark white spotlight struck the area to my immediate left, and Aruru was there, its upper body bent over in submission, its hands clasped together in a way that made the pose look almost religious rather than formal. But its eyes, those dead, gaping holes (Black holes? Was that what they were supposed to be?), were trained directly upwards at my face in a stare so severe you could mistake it for contempt.

CHORUS: Please understand that your role is that of the hero(ine). You are to attempt to solve the questions presented by the narrative while acting as the audience surrogate, with your reasoning visible to them. It is ideal for the hero(ine) to be around the same level of deductive intelligence as the audience, helping them to form their own theories while not compromising their own engagement with the scenario.

The half of my brain which controlled my mouth and was still clinging to some shred of rationality managed a "W-- What?" While the other, unbound part thought: Hey, fuck off. I have two doctorates and a medical award. I'm way too smart to be an audience surrogate.

"Mm, should be past tense, but the gist is more or less correct," the voice spoke. "Though honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the whole 'detective-who-is-also-into-mystery-novels' trope. It's a little on the nose in terms of the self-insert element, don't you think?"

"I--I don't--," I stuttered. "What the hell are you even talking about?"

"Don't worry about it," the voice spoke dismissively. "It's just fluff. The point is, I know that you're capable of thinking and drawing conclusions for yourself. So show me." The voice grew more aloof and filled with greater gravitas. "Think about it. You've heard what this world is on a technical level, and the story of how it came to exist. You've seen much of its relationship to reality in the present tense. So what manner of being would, and could, accomplish such a thing?" Yet another chuckle. "Go on, it's not too hard to figure out."

I looked downwards, a hesitant grunt coming from the back of my throat. Thinking truly rationally under these circumstances felt impossible, but even so, there were certain inferences I'd already drawn in the back of my mind.

Dilmun, at least so far, seemed irrevocably linked to the Sanctuary of the Universal Panacea, and more specifically the anomaly which had taken place in April 1409. Even if Ptolema had told me so explicitly, the observational evidence overwhelmingly pointed to that conclusion. The pieces of the sanctuary. The date at which all Primaries' hard-coded memories of their original lives ended. The very nature of this reality as one which specifically fulfilled the Order's ambitions. It was true even without taking into account anything more anecdotal, like my recollection of the Stage.

So whatever created this world must, too, have been connected to those events. And to the Order.

As I'd concluded several times before, the only technology the Order had possessed that seemed even adjacent to what you would need to cause something like the time loop was the Apega, and the secondary evidence - Kamrusepa's second-hand testimony from Bardiya having noticed it activate late into the night in the real, or at least final, version of that weekend - supported it, too.

But even according to the inner circle, its mode of operation at the time hadn't been anywhere close to capable of causing such a phenomenon. Zeno had spoke of the potential to manipulate time and change the very laws of reality as something the Apega could perhaps do at some unspecified point in the future.

How was it that he'd said it? 'If you're fucking the universe in the ass, you can't expect to fit your whole fist in on the first night'? Gods, what a prick.

But I wouldn't have needed Zeno to tell me that. Even with the Apega's ability to circumvent information loss, I understood enough about the Power to know that even it had limitations, and something like the time loop, let alone Dilmun, far exceeded them as they were presently understood not just in 1409, but in 1608, too. Yes, these were feats that could not be accomplished by human beings.

Yet...

What if it had been accomplished by something more than human?

As had been explained by Linos and Anna, the Apega was itself a repurposing of a different project. A much more ambitious one, for which the entire sanctuary had originally been founded.

But-- I'd thought--

"See, it's pretty obvious when you take the situation at face value, isn't it?" The voice gave a long, purr-like hum. "Scarcely even a question worth asking, were it not for the very absurdity of the notion."

I twitched, falling backwards defensively a little as my train of thought was interrupted. It was starting to feel like whatever was there was reading my thoughts.

I took a deep, shaky breath. "If you know I've already figured out the answer you wanted," I spoke with trepidation, "then show yourself."

"Show myself?" the voice responded with incredulous amusement. "My, isn't that a request that just cuts to the heart of the matter? Yet if I were to truly honor it, I fear you would not even comprehend what was before your eyes."

I stared ahead into the darkness silently.

"But very well, if you insist," the voice continued. "Now then. What would be a suitable form, I wonder...? Mm, yes. This will suffice."

Abruptly, the floor beneath me began to rattle slightly, as if we'd been struck by an earthquake, and more spotlights began to fall upon the balcony, illuminating it piece-by-piece. I saw the details of the ornate black table in front of me, and the royal purple carpet beneath it, matching the curtains hanging from the back wall. I saw the rounded and protruding - bone-like, I would have put it - craftsmanship of the balcony itself, and a relief carved into it that depicted a long and winding serpent. And at the far end of the table, as if formed from the very darkness itself, a humanoid form took shape, leaning back on much grander, deep-purple cushioned chair.

It was a woman. Something about the strange geometry of the balcony - where it was hard to tell whether the far end was close and normal-sized, or well into the distance and grossly oversized - made it difficult to assess her height, but at the very least she taller than almost any human I'd ever seen, towering at least two heads above me. She was dressed in a gown that was funeral black, had designed more akin to ballgown, the laced skirt protruding out wide and glamorously, while the upper section clung tightly to her chest. Her right arm was covered by a matching long black glove, while her right was bare, exposing flesh that was a kind of pale grey marble, like she was a living sculpture.

...or a corpse.

Her face was split down the middle. One half - on the left - was strikingly beautiful, idealized to a degree that was superhuman even by the standards of Dilmun. She had a long, regal nose, and perfect lips that rested in a small smile-- Both again giving that statue-esque impression. And her eye glowed brightly, the golden radiance within seeming to be constantly expanding but never quite filling her entire iris like a flame caught perpetually in the moment of its birth.

But towards the center of her face, her skin grew gaunt and thin, and the right side was covered completely by a pitch-black veil that fell all the way to the bottom of her neck.

Her hair, though, which ran all the way to the small of her back, was the most remarkable of her features. Although, I'm not sure it could be accurately described as hair at all. It looked more like a flowing nebula; clouded and shimmering. Bright white and blue at the roots, turning orange and red as it flowed downwards, then ultimately giving way to black at the tips.

The life cycle of the universe. Fiery birth, smoldering middle-age, dark expiration.

Finally, a halo of light crowned her head from behind, resembling a moon in eclipse. As soon my eyes reached her face, an aloof smirk formed on her lips, her single visible eye narrowed in sleepy half-interest.

My mouth fell open, and a cold shiver went through my body as I stared upwards, almost having to crane my neck just to maintain eye contact. I was overcome by the sensation that what my eyes were reporting was not the full truth, but only a vague approximation of something it couldn't fully understand, like reality itself had to bend and twist like an old house in a storm merely to accommodate its presence. It almost hurt. I felt a ringing in my ears.

"There," she declared, sounding pleased with herself. "That gets the point across more or less, don't you think?"

"This--" I cut myself off sharply, my mouth suddenly feeling very dry. "But... that stuff wasn't real. It was just a story the conclave came up with to distract from their real plan. Linos confesse..."

But the words died in my throat, for when I incidentally glanced to the side, I saw Aruru - still locked in that bow - had shifted even closer to me, and practically fell out of the chair as I let out a small yelp. Its expression was unchanged, but somehow that made its stare even more menacing. I felt like it was about to stab me in the throat.

CHORUS: Insignificant human. Speck of dust. Worm writhing upon the earth. You must show respect, for in providence you stand before Our Lady, whose domain is all that which Disperses. She who has been named Apophis, Ereshkigal, Erebus, Xiwangmu.

CHORUS: She who is the Omega, She who is the end of all things. Our Queen and Supreme Goddess of--

"I think she gets the idea. No need to labor the point." Her smile widened slightly as she looked back to me. "You'll have to forgive my Chorus. We haven't had a lot of guests lately, so she's a little too exiteable. She's like a puppy that way, unfortunately."

I was too scared shitless to even fully process what she was saying at this point, much less reply. Hearing those words come out of Aruru's mechanical lips had been somehow even more frightening than all the other shit going on, and it still hadn't moved.

"As to your assertion, I believe you ought to check your reasoning," the voice continued. "While Linos told you their plan had been to use the vengeful specter of the child from their experiment as a scapegoat, he never claimed the original event was fabricated. In fact, what he said specifically was 'He (meaning Hamilcar) would free the undying remains of the child we murdered from where they were sealed beneath the research tower, and take advantage of his sabotage to the system to engineer our execution.'" She leaned forward, resting her head upon her gloved hand, the stars in her hair rearranging themselves as it fell over the table. "If it had never happened, isn't that an odd turn of phrase? Wouldn't he have said something like 'the child we claimed to have murdered'?"

That's a fair point, the rational part of my mind managed to register even amidst everything. Plus, as tempting as it is to write off, disregarding entire whole story raises numerous questions that it already answered about why the sanctuary was built the way it was to begin with. And more to the point, if it never happened, why plan the fake murders around something so over complicated?

You've given the reason yourself on numerous occasions - that is, because the most effective lies sprout from a grain of truth.

Of course, what came out of my mouth was a much more banal observation. "...how did you know that?"

She scoffed. "Seriously? Are you really asking me that?"

I hesitated, looking away. "I... uh..."

"Wow," she went on, "We're really not going to get anywhere productive until you've managed to calm down a bit, are we?" She tutted to herself. "I suppose it's my own fault for letting Aruru spook you, but I kind of want to cut through the cruft here."

"W-Wait, I--"

"Come on, I already told you I'm not going to hurt you," she said. "But let's mix up the format a little bit."

She snapped her fingers.

𒀭

A: There we go. Question and answer format always makes things so simple. It's like a magazine interview! Who doesn't love magazine interview?

Q: Oh, gods. What did you just do?

A: Nothing too serious. Just a small adjustment to our environment make this a little bit more focused. Don't worry, I'll put things back once we've got the dull part of this reunion out of the way.

Q: I can still see you... and the table, sort of... But I can barely feel my body. It's like I'm floating in empty space--

A: I wouldn't think about it too hard, if I were you. At the base level, it should make it easier for you to think, but I can't speak to what exactly will happen if you pick at the edges too much.

Q: How... How are you doing this?

A: Oh, I wouldn't want to bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, my power over this little pocket of spacetime we're conversing in allows me to change the manner in which data - in this instance, our conversation - is contextualized. I believe you ought to recall it happening back near the end of your time in the Sanctuary of the Universal Panacea, but under normal circumstances I perform a small... well, let's say adjustment so that it goes unnoticed within your perceptions. You might say it's the same principle as how your brain filters out seeing the cells in your eyeballs, so you don't have to stare at them wriggling around constantly.

Q: The sanctuary-- No, never mind that. Can you undo it? This is awful.

A: Is it really that bad?

Q: Yes. I feel like I'm having sleep paralysis.

A: But now you're actually speaking your mind! Come on. It'll only be for a few minutes.

Now that we have some focus, why don't you go ahead and just ask me some of the questions that have been building up in your mind? No need to be shy. Just let it all out, and I'll happily clear things up for you.

Q: I don't even know where to start.

Are you telling me that you're... what, the child that the Order placed a connection to the consciousness of entropy within? That their experiment really happened, and you actually survived? And that you're behind everything?

A: Be a little more careful with your presuppositions, would you? I know you're better than this.

I'll focus on your first question: Yes and no. I remember living the life of the 'child' which was the subject of the Order's experiment, so in a sense, I am them. But at the same time, I'm also not.

Q: For someone who just made an offer to 'clear things up', that's pretty vague.

A: I'm happy to elaborate if you wish.

To begin with, allow me to reiterate my history with the Order, which I believe that Linos, in the broad strokes, already explained to you. Using their stolen Ironworker technology and some of their own innovations, the Order discovered a means to commune with the consciousness of entropy (that is to say, with me) and invited it to submit a small part of itself to be affixed to the mind of an infant in a manner similar to the process that you call second-stage Induction, where the Index is affixed to the pneuma.

Well, the word 'invited' is perhaps not quite appropriate there, but we can quibble over small details later. For the time being, it's close enough to the truth.

The point being, that child was not possessed by the 'spirit of entropy', but rather simply cohabited-- They were in almost all ways nothing more than a human being, one that simply shared a portion of its inner self with a higher power. And indeed, they lived their life much as any other human, facing more or less the same struggles and passing the same checkpoints as any other. And this was by design; the purpose of the Order's experiment, at the very least initially, was to foster a sense of empathy and understanding of humanity within the entity that they sought to negotiate with.

That child lived out its life and, like all humans, inevitably expired. That which comprised its mortal existence - its body, its mind - degenerated and disappeared. Yet the cohabitant, with whom it had shared all thoughts and feelings, remained, and absent a human vessel returned to its point of origin.

That is, at least insofar as a being such yourself can hope to understand, what 'I' am. I am the human-shaped hole within that consciousness that the Order of the Universal Panacea wished to master, a memory of humanity ensconced within something altogether foreign to it. A flower blooming at the bottom of the ocean. A profane miracle. A violating impossibility.

Q: So... you're not human at all? You're entropy itself? Death itself?

A: I suppose that's a matter of perspective, isn't it? If you uprooted Olympus Mons and somehow dumped it in the deepest trench in the ocean, would you call the result an island, or a mountain?

I am a small, sentimental fragment of something far, far more vast. Something which stirred within this world when all was naught but timeless, unextrapolated principles. My awareness exceeds the 'me' which communicates with you in this moment by a factor of countless millions, yet even still I do not fully know myself; just as the 'you' I speak to represents only a section of your prefrontal cortex. But regardless, I suspect that in your terms, it is still more than enough to call myself a God.

At least, if I feel like it.

Q: I... I don't know what to say.

A: Well, that's boring. You should try to say something. Not many people get to talk to a god, you know.

Mm. Is it supposed to be capitalized if you're talking in more of a polytheistic sense, or not...? I can never keep track of that rule.

Q: I just... It's I can't believe it. I spent all these years wondering how something like the time loop could possibly have happened, let alone the murders and how the Order were killed in the real world. Whether it even had happened. Even if I wouldn't admit it to myself, I doubted by own sanity more times than I could count-- That maybe I'd been brainwashed, or my mind had snapped like a twig when I didn't get the answer I wanted from Samium, or...

But even in a million years, I would never have seriously considered something like this. That the stupid story they tried to tell us that weekend was the truth, all along. Is this even really happening, or have I just finally completely lost it? Become desperate for some kind of cohesive arc to my life that my subconscious has conjured up a fantasy world, complete with a deus ex machina to tie everything in a little bow?

A: Please keep the questions non-rhetorical, thank you. And it would be nice if you could put a pin in that mental breakdown you're having. I think everyone is a little bored about that at this point.

And there you go again. Making insinuations about what I've done, like when you said I was 'behind everything'. Be explicit. What exactly am I behind?

Q: Well, we established that you created this place.

A: 'Dilmun', you mean? Yes.

Q: Which means you're responsible for the time loop, too. Behind all the unexplained phenomena. The mastermind.

A: No.

Q:

Q: What do you mean, 'no'?