Earth is a strange place.  Our world holds everything and yet, one way or another, it also conceals everything.  More than we tend to believe is real.

The world as we know it is too large for any one person.  Isolation, and reservation set limits on what one can achieve.  There are those however, who guard their world views, and take the nature of it all upon themselves.

But again, that is too much for anyone.  Gathering up knowledge and creating a temple that they can defend.  It is most painful to me, to see that which goes beyond understanding denied vehemently.  I don't like seeing a truth used to hurt people.  I don’t like that people bring it upon themselves.  I don’t like that I have the potential to inflict this grief.

I H-hate-  I hate the idea of rejecting a part of myself, or denouncing a role that I have fulfilled.  It is something only the lowest of the low can do, and only the most humble can alleviate.  I cannot be so selfless.  Not forever, and not if there is a need for me to fill.

I want to build a world that is shared by others, a world that can bend and admit the exceptional.  One that can be respected, even if I am never able to share all of it’s worth.

It is this rivalry, between compassion and condemnation that sickened me.  Corrupting my shell at a very young age, and giving me a power to distort reality.  I was naive, and I believe a part of me fled our earth.  Forever of service to something that cannot be explained.

I cannot help but admire its beauty, however it is a dangerous sort.  The reality that I know and love distorts, and I can feel my spirit pass through the void.  If this is death, I feel confident that I will welcome it, time and time again.  It is exhilarating, but at the same, profound.  I would not want to become lost like this without a guide…

Falling…

I’ve had nightmares before.  Where the sky is pushed and pulled.  A hair's breadth from being shattering against some immovable wall, only to be hauled away with an unstoppable force.

This time there was no room for doubt.  As seconds turned to minutes, I felt something jostling in my chest, and my sense snapped to attention.

There was a very long fall ahead of me, and whether or not I ever discovered a bottom, there was a pillar of stone very near me.  If I wavered, or lost focus for too long, I could list.  Smashing into the wall, or drifting away into oblivion.

Reality was not soon approaching, nor the reversals that often staged my dreams.  I knew with every fiber of my being, I did not want to lose myself.

Whether by force of will, or exceeding my limits, the range before me was enveloped in a shadow.  I blinked my eyes open, and gasped when I found a pressure at my back.  The world spun as I tried to orient myself, but it was level ground beneath me, not some life rending haunt.

I soon steadied my breathing.  Panic gave way to worry, as my eyes traced a ledge before me.  The grass was almost too clean, and the ridge of clay artificially smooth.  The world was far too empty, ending as close as another arms length ahead of me.  I really didn’t want to verify such a limit, but I knew none of that would change for complacency.

When I worried my way to my feet, I began to make out color in the distance.  Not enough to refute a trick of the eye, but just so that I felt myself hope.

This time, I recognized the force of will.  A pressure that filled and wrapped around my chest, hardening my pulse, and rushing into my right arm.  Extending out, I felt a bump in the palm of my hand.

‘Beware thee, that the stones of this nature are not sure things.  If handled carelessly, they will collapse, and you will fall.’

‘This nature?’ In my mind's eye, I could place many of these stones, yet they all looked the same to me.  I did not think I was in a position to exercise discretion.

‘But no… this one… it’s different.’ I reached out, with the vaguest notion in mind, and grabbed the stone firmly.

The stone exploded, a blue trail burned through my mind.  There was a brief moment, a tap, when the stone vanished, and then reappeared beneath my palm.

Suddenly, I’d been inverted.  My torso pressed against an outcropping of rock.  I flinched back, a rocky slope, and forested mountain side extending before my eyes.

My mind stalled twice just to ensure it wasn’t imminently failing, then promptly clocked out.