BOOK II ENDING 1

In which Ambrosia has a lot of free time.

AMBROSIA

Belial had at last been defeated. His body had been pulverized to an evil spirit and a bag of bones, and then the spirit had been drained of its potency. “Yay! He's dead!” I shouted with joy. All of a sudden though, I felt something weird. You know, you're watching a movie and there's something scratched up with the video and it skips? Anyway, that's what seemed to happen, there was a sort of ripple, and the villain disappeared from stage like a frame stopping. “What just happened? Guys, what do you think...?” I looked around. Nevras was gone too. So were the others. “Guys??? What happened? You're... gone. Why?” And then everything fell apart.

BEYOND THE WORLD

And then everything fell apart. The space around Ambrosia fell away completely leaving only openness. Where before there were walls and ceilings, chandeliers, and other such trappings, now there was only white empty space. Ambrosia looked around, and saw the floating triangular form of God. I believe I can answer that, God said to her. As she watched however, the recognized form of God fell away, and Ambrosia stared at her own face, identical except for clothing. She carried a long robe and a stylized staff tipped with the Trinity symbol. “Or, should I say,” she said in actual words, “I believe I can.” Unlike Ambrosia, God looked more intense. Her eyes had the soul of the universe.

The Jews believed God was One, yet they made a distinction between God as Creator and themselves. To them, declaring God is with us, that one was Son of God, was the height of blasphemy. God spoke in Ambrosia's voice, and to all intents and purposes was showing Ambrosia her true self. If Ambrosia was shocked, she didn't really show it much. “You're me? But...” she sighed, “oh, nevermind. After evil twins, nothing surprises me anymore.” And indeed, Ambrosia did not look overly surprised.

God shrugged, “You should be at least a little surprised. After all, this will be hard to take at first. You've heard, I gather, about the First Oracle?” She had heard some legends so she recited from memory, “Of course. The Oracle completed his training and then went off to face Belial, but he disappeared and...” But then something occurred to her. A dawning realization came to her that something about that story was deeply wrong. She remembered the earlier events when she said, “He ceased to exist! Don't tell me what Belial was trying to get me to believe earlier was true?” God shook her head, which felt strange after seeing God for so long in only triangular form, “No. But here's what I'm telling you. The First Oracle disappeared because he saw what all Oracles see, that human existence is a Dream. It's time for us to Awaken.” Images suddenly flooded into Ambrosia's head of herself as God before even time existed. How she invented all sorts of stories to keep her company, and even developed video games for herself to play long before humans (especially Zelda and Okami), but watching stories of people she made up was no good. Real people were important, not something on a screen.

Yet still, despite these images, Ambrosia asked, “Awaken, what do you mean?” And God said, “Very well, I shall tell you the story of my life.” As she spoke, more images returned to Ambrosia's mind. God told her story, “I awoke in the midst of the Void. I was not created by the Void, for existence and nothing both persist. For awhile, I wanted just to go back to sleep, being inert like the Void all around me. But unlike humans, I knew instinctively I existed.” Seeing that everything she knew about the world was wrong, and now understanding that other people's notion of their own existence was wrong, she was truly confused. “I don't understand,” she asked, “what makes someone exist?” God had a ready answer, “Love. When you become aware of things outside yourself, you exist to them. And vice versa.” She continued, “The Void could not itself love anyone, but through it, I began to experience love by making creations of my own.” Ambrosia remembered grasping the Void, and weaving it into stuff to keep her company. But it was never enough for her loneliness. She felt her connection with the Void because it too had nobody and nothing, since it was nothing. It was not good for her to be alone.

God continued some more, “The Void is never one thing in particular, so it could be forged into anything. But nothing made from it lasts, as all things return to the Void. I began to realize that I existed to create others, and because I existed, the Void loved me. My first creation was truly horrible, they were soulless robots crafted by my hands. They could neither love nor hate, nor did they have any desires. So I discarded them as a failed creation. Like humans, I could sleep, so I dreamed of this world and the humans in it. They were just as I wanted, only they weren't real. But... But... now it's time for you to become part of me, and for us to wake up!” Ambrosia saw herself working on robots and then smashing them apart with a sledgehammer. And then Ambrosia saw death. Not as living things see it, but to see it from a perspective of an immortal. To explain it would be like explain sight to a blind person, so different was this experience from anything a mortal encountered in their daily life.

She remembered the stone tablets in Atlantis, and how they depicted not only herself sleeping but the image of someone molding sand. No wonder humans were so prone to dying, they were like sand sculptures which take hours to make, toppled by the waves, and then rebuilt again. The Afterlife humans had was still nothing more than a desperate hope for friends to remain. She saw that all of these attempts to interact with humans, to appear among them, and eventually her attempt to be born as one of them were simply an attempt to feel close to others. She wanted to not be isolated. And as she looked around this white area of thoughts made manifest, she saw some of the stories in her collection. In The Velveteen Rabbit, the book ended with the doctor ordering the bunny destroyed. It's a pretty dark book actually, without any kind of happy ending. God liked it mainly because she dreamed that one day, someone would be able to write a real ending to it.

God proved to be an endless barrel of exposition, “It's sad. But this world can never be! I need to return to my life, and you are more than just my daughter. You are me! I became a human child to experience this life as one of these humans, and you were born.” Ambrosia fumed, “Hold it just a second! I have a man in my life that I love, can't you do something?” God shook her head, “I wish I could. Believe me when I tell you that I love him too. But I can't see any way. These humans are doomed to fade out of existence.” Ambrosia sighed, a long deep sigh filled with regret and doomed experiences. “I guess there's nothing that can be done,” she declared at last.

“You realize this is a fate worse than death right? You'll be stuck as God for all eternity, with nobody but yourself,” Ambrosia's shadow self proclaimed. Ambrosia nodded, “It doesn't matter. This is the truth, You can't escape yourself. So I've decided. If I can't find anyone to love, I'll love myself. I'll let everything else return to nothing.” And so, everything faded away as Ambrosia embraced the truth of her solitude. Loving oneself was the key to harmonious life, but only because other people tend to like those who are happy and confident. When one is alone, they have to like the idea of isolation.

AMBROSIA

I tried to do just that. Really, I tried. I spent time reading books and manga, dreaming up mountains to climb or rivers to paddle across, and trying to like myself and to treat myself well. But an eternity eventually grates on you, and despite having all the time in the world to try different things, I began to feel sad. It felt like such a waste, really.

I had just finished a 18-hour Turner Classic Movies marathon without any announcer, just actors (actors aren't real people), only to switch it off in disgust. I thought about this vacuum my life now had, for I had no man in my life, nor any child, nor did I have friends. I had abandoned all of that because it was a fantasy, to live in a world where all I had left were the fantasies of movies and books. And so, I picked up this book, Oracle of Tao, and began to read. I had read for hours before coming to the ending, when I decided to pick up a pen and scratch out where it said, Ambrosia sighed, a long deep sigh filled with regret and doomed experiences. “I guess there's nothing that can be done,” she declared at last. I had an ending to rewrite.

BOOK II ENDING 2

In which Ambrosia becomes a little bit pregnant.

AMBROSIA

I was back again in white empty space. I listened to my other self's explanation. Considering I had gone back to the very beginning, I decided to play along so as not to freak my God-self out. But then, she probably knew everything I was thinking anyway, so we were probably both playing along, saying preset lines as though the other had heard them the first time. It was like being inside a video game you wrote the script for.

She got to the end of her speech. Remembering the consequences of my earlier decision, I was determined to change it. Thinking quickly, I said, “Perhaps there is a way to do it.” She nodded. It was her story too, so she wanted to change it too. I improvised, “You gave birth to me, right? I heard of Jesus in Kushiyama sacrificing for the whole world. If he can die, why can't I give life? I want the whole earth, every man and woman, every soul and every object, as my child. I should be pregnant with Nevras's child as of last week, but until he exists, it isn't real. I want his child, but more, I want him to be real. All the quarrels and bad times are nothing to the prospect of him never being there...You can do this, right?” I was crying, something I almost never did before merging with Evil Ambrosia and gaining the Tao. Damn those emotions! Then her face brightened, “I think I can! What I'll do won't be a true pregnancy, but I think I know a magic ritual.”

In another reality, the me who became God was writing furiously, trying to change her destiny to something that didn't suck. I could see it happening as if looking around a corner from a mirror...

At the same time, God came inside me. Literally. She (I?) changed to her geometric floating triangle pattern, and transformed further into light, entering inside my body and disappearing. And then I felt my stomach grow heavy. “I can feel it coming forth! Everything's inside of me, waiting to be born!” I said. I felt nausea, then the sensation of something growing inside of me. It felt less like a baby, though, and more like a presence more spiritual than physical, and yet no less painful. The entire process happened without time, for this place remained eternal. So I felt the pains of an entire nine-month pregnancy in mere moments. I pushed, and out came... well, everything.

I stood again with God, but this time, I could see outside the emptiness. I was not alone. Time was stopped, so I stepped back into my former body and rejoined the flow of time. I heard God's words in my head, Good luck with your life, Ambrosia. When this ends, you will be a normal girl and must tell nothing of this experience. Being God and knowing this would probably make it impossible for you to live your life with Nevras everyday. I felt the pains of another pregnancy, this one just starting with Nevras.

He looked at me, confused. “Ambrosia,” he asked, “what just happened? Right after Belial died, it felt like I blacked out for a second.” I told him, “I saw God,” then muttered to myself, “I was God.” Nevras looked at me curiously, “Hmmm? What did God say to you then?” I knew exactly what God said, and I knew the truth. But there was no way I was talking about that. So I decided to lie. “It's weird. I can't remember much. I witnessed something that God didn't want me to remember,” I stalled for time, being as vague as possible, “but whatever it was, I felt like I saved something. And then he left me with a few words...” I paused for effect while I thought of something profound to say. He finally became kinda impatient, “Geez, Ambrosia, you know how to make a guy wait! What did he say?” In the end, I said something that just seemed to sound natural. I said, “God told me I was losing my powers, because it would interfere with me having a normal life. And when I asked what happened in those moments I forgot, all he said was, 'We are all Children of God.'” It was true of course, but he hadn't said that to me.

Somehow or other, we made it to the New Earth, only to find things felt totally different. Nevras and I got married, and the others went their separate ways for now. It seemed, for now, that our adventure was finally over...