I peek out of Eth's room and look both ways to make sure Chaos isn't waiting for me or something. I am only avoiding her because I wanted to think in peace, and Chaos is not peace.
I step out of the door, turn left, and begin walking towards my room. While I move, I look at the gardens and various statues lining the wall.
One of the statues in particular catches my eye. This one looks like a lizard person (I can't really tell if it's a girl or a boy) with a thin body and some rather impressive spikes behind it's jaw and head.
I never even considered that people could have animal features. The nameplate under the statue read something like "Betrop Pt'Orpael", and I really have no clue how that was said. What caught my eye, however, is the thing on Betrop's face.
It is a tube of some kind mounted to a boxy object on their face, right over their eye. The thing is made up of a bunch of very fragile and small parts, and just looks alien in it's complexity. Maybe it's some kind of looking-glass, like the merchants that once visited our village used to have.
Maybe it was used for the same purpose: helping someone see. Not like I will ever know, unless I speak to the Creator, though.
I investigate the lizard-man for a bit longer, and then look around, first right, then left, trying to remember what I was trying to do. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't place my former intention. I managed to catch a glance of where I had come from, Eth's door.
Then it all came back to me. All we are is just some stuff in an orb. It feels wrong. But also terribly right.
I begin to walk down the hall while comprehending this conundrum. Fancy words mean that I am thinking important thoughts, right?
I'm only able to take a few steps before I hear a sound from down the hall, and immediately turn to look, partially from instincts ingrained in me from a life spent near a predator-infested forest, and partially because I have never heard any sound in this hall from anything not near me, and it seems that that the place makes some pretty loud sounds.
I look in the direction where I heard the sound from, and I found... Nothing, at first. While I looked on for longer, however, I found something approaching from the distance.
This thing looks like a thundercloud rolling in from the oceans, like I would see before a storm in my home. It roils towards me at a speed close to a seagull diving towards a fish. And I am its prey.
My eyes grow wide, and I begin to run away. Something about the cloud makes me uncomfortable, and I do not want to be in it's way when it lands. As I run away, though, I always seem to end up in the path the thing is projecting. It is targeting me! I try to run in the opposite direction, but it follows, so I just sprint, and I am not much of a runner in this body, towards my room.
The mist catches up with me a few seconds later.
I braced for an impact that never came, instead the cloud wraps me in a fog that felt like... nothing, really. It is as insubstantial as the air itself, yet it is impenetrable to my eye. I look in all directions, and just see that same grey haze everywhere I can find. It's not like I can't see myself, though, my body is perfectly visible, but the further out the floor stretches, the fainter it is.
I start to walk in the mist, finding that it doesn't feel like anything at all. What is this? I don't feel damp, so it can't be water, and I can't smell anything except for the garden I'm near, which just smells sweet. Is this just something I can see? I rub my eyes but nothing happens. There goes that...
Voices. I can hear whispers. At first I thought it was just wind, but now I realize that there isn't, and has never been any wind in the Hall. I can't tell what direction they are coming from, nor what they're saying. It sounds like words, but I can't understand them, and I'm scared. They're getting louder.
"Please- Who's there?" I beg, just trying to get this terrifying unknown to leave me alone, to at least let me pretend that I understand what's happening around me. "PLEASE!" The voices get louder and louder, until they are practically right next to my head. A cold gust of wind touches my ear, and I jump.
What in the world is that? EAUGH! I sprint in the opposite direction, chased by delighted giggles of both a man and woman.
Wait, I think I recognise the girl's voice. I begin to slow down to a walk. The voices get much louder. There's a second voice, but there's only one person I know who lives here, and can make people.
"Is that you, Chaos? My creator? Who's this with you?" I ask with a sweet voice, meant to intimidate. I've heard the innkeeper use it once or twice in the past. But damn, am I still terrified.
The voices go silent for a moment, leaving me alone in near total silence. For a bit longer, and a bit longer, until that utter lack of sound becomes almost unbearable, almost like it will consume me whole.
Then, I hear just the normal voice of Chaos. "Yep, ya got me? Dooo ya wanna prize? I've got some good ones."
"No."
"Well, that's not the spirit! Enjoy your indefinite life! Do all the things! Have no fear! Drag lif-"
"Who is this with you, then? I'd like to know, please."
Chaos frowned, and turned to the translucent figure that the mist had coalesced into while my "Mother" and I were talking. She points to... Him, then looks at me quizzically. Her face has to be exaggerated, right? No person would ever make that face. It's too strange.
"Yes, him." I sigh.
"Well," Chaos says, "this is your brother, Walta"
"Bitch, that's not my-"
"Whaddya think?"
"Hey, I'm tryin to-"
"Shut up. Wick?"
I just stare.
