Auratic

grgle doos

Alicia was awakened by a stinging bright light, to find herself not by the lush woodlands, but under the swirling golden clouds lined by pale blue outline overhead.

‘This feels familiar…’

• “hey Hey HEY you’re awake good GOOD!”

She was once again at the place where she met ‘death’ once again. This time, the entity that introduced itself as ‘God’ looked far different from its previous iterations. What greeted her was a young man eccentrically dressed in a clash of elements. His head looked almost misshapen due to his large forehead juxtaposed sharpish pointy jaw. Its eyes heterochromic with a piercing blue and a milky white one that appears as if it's blinded with glaucoma. His hair, short and messy with dirty pale blonde lustre. Dressed in a bespoke suit and shirt dirtied by chalky substance and stains of something unknown. The white chalk appeared to be a script of sorts hieroglyphic in appearance that continued all the way down to his ragged pants and single dress shoe that he wore, his other foot was covered only by thin and tattered atramentous sock. Alicia had no way of divining their meanings, nor was that the most pressing question she had. His pockets were filled to the brim, bulging with packets, paper, more of the same style of language covering them.

• “you’re here that’s good GREAT!”

He talked in an odd manner, with a hurried tone combined with his shaking hands and bobbing head it gave off an impression that this was a mental asylum escapee.

• “Are you… that girl from before…?”
• “it it it itit don't matter who I am alright you can call me Johnny for all we care or Pedro. that’s it i’m your friend Pedro or Johnny or whatever.

listen we don’t got’a whole lotta time to talk so you gotta know this alright. while you were out there living out your best life unlived, you basically opened pandora's jar alright? no No nO NO not the box thing that's the mainstream church failing at stealing a simple idea. anyway forGET about that what’s important is that you died but you lived. that might sound obvious to you the second time around. when you sent you back in there something that was supposed to happen did not happen the details we dont know yet. The thing is you have another being existing with you all this time something which should have already been dead and gone from that world you ye know of them?”

Following the man’s speech was a difficult challenge but Alicia quickly understood what Johnny was talking about.

• “You’re talking about Alice…”
• “yeah? that what theyre called? okay okay okay ok. see you were supposed to be alone right. when they died their soul should have gone through the abyss and reach us then they should have been sent out again with a one way ticket to another world within the cycle of reincarnation right that’s the thing. but that didn’t happen their soul never showed up here at all. Thats alright for the most part they have to travel through the abyss i think your culture of that planet call it the limbo or the purgatory or whatever usually they take at most fourty-nine days tops to show up here no more all the time every time.”

Johnny was pacing around restlessly as he explained.

• “this never happened before tell me this this this this before you made contact with this Alice thing uh have you experienced something that you would call odd hm…? something like your eyes twitching or your shampoo label is different or your favorite tv show airing at 7:30 pm instead of 7:00pm.”
• “Blackouts… I always thought I was sleeping but… that wasn’t it. I always thought that was strange but never really questioned it…”
• “excellent good good what else do you remember…”

Johnny was practically biting at his nails.

• “Not much… I always dreamt of my previous life… I think…”
• “here we can help you with that try try try to remember the sensation the essence of those memories ok?”

While Alicia was doing as instructed in her best understanding of what she was told, Johnny ran through his pockets spilling all sorts of papers with drawings and writings on them and pulled out a packet and some sort of metallic gadget that looked like an ornamental eye. Before she could react he popped the packet right in front of her, smoky chalk enveloping her vision. From within the smokescreen something shone through, gazing back at her, as she stared deep into the light certain memories rose through to the top of her mind, free from their prison. They came and left, ephemeral like she was watching a quick slideshow switching from frame to frame. Until eventually she spoke.

• “I remember the dreams… I was always at my family’s home… Alone… I never realized these as dreams. I did things that I normally did when I came home from work… make food, review plans, make calls… None of them ever resolved to its conclusion. Everytime I would be drawn to my old room… its windows were always open and… it would always be dark outside. And… I would always find a small white spider, with a leg missing… motionless. Drawn into the window by some draft that I never felt. The first time I thought about letting it out, better than killing it I thought, yet… I pitied it…  then I closed the window afterwards. The dreams would play out like this everytime. The beginning, the contents and the actions were different but the conclusions were always the same. I would always close that window… sometimes I was annoyed by it not locking shut properly.”
• “I later realized that spider was… Alice… But I don’t see how this is related… What is happening?”

Johnny was visibly confused but a portion of him seemed almost excited.

• “okay listen, you you you yes you… you were never in your home. in fact that wasn’t even a dream, that was happening in real time. okay the dreams are uh… right uh what do you know about the void?”
• “Some dragon spirit relict thing did some black magic voodoo stuff to me and I found myself in… wait it was my home… in my room…”
• “yeah you should be dead right now. NO ONE enters the void and exits it the same way. rather no one enters the void as deep as you did and exits it safely.”

Furiously gesticulating with his fingers and body language Johnny continued.

• “think of layers of the earth right the crust the hot sauce and the spicy meatball in the middle. now apply that same line of thinking to the void it has layers. the topmost layer is the layer of dreams it is the most accessible part of the void almost every sapient accesses it accidentally. weird SHIT can happen here and theyre fine completely normal but the deeper layers… lets say its where gods go to die. we know as little about the void as you do, in fact you might know more about the void that us. we know through the alma system that you’re using… somehow commanding the void’s powers youre playing with powers beyond any megalomaniac could ever dream of.”
• “Wait… how… why?”
• “yeah yeah yeah yeah those right there are the billion dollar questions unfortunately we dont know it any better than you do. but from what you said before we have a theory.

you know about the abyss right the place where you go before ending up over here well that is part of the void another layer of it just like this place is a stable portion of it stolen from its domain. now remember your house that you told us about that is a domain created by you, your memories and your soul it exists in the void as much as it exists in reality and in your memories. it was always empty because it is your personalized domain there shouldn’t be any other souls there just as there was nobody in your home except that spider… that was another soul a soul that should’ve been sucked up by the void or the WINDOW outside and be put back into the cycle of reincarnation except!”

• “I always closed the window…”
• “EXACTLY, you let that soul stay inside your much more developed expansive soul. eventually it adapted with the intruder, usually if it ever to happen you would be suffering from dissociative personality disorder at a much deeper level constantly at odds with your other soul for control or one of the souls would be basically be assimilated into the other creating a completely new soul with new new new new identity. But what makes you unique is that those usually happen with souls of ‘people’ or souls with highly sophisticated sense of self and development. that small spider werent ever going to write a thesis about what is beyond good and evil. so instead what you have is sort of symbiosis. distinct from assimilation. the both souls are preserved thanks to the vastly different nature. but the thing is your other self has never been in here. they are outside the cycle of reincarnation. which means their soul exists within the void persisting somehow in a place where no soul should be able to exist. The only way they can be present in such an environment is thanks to you harboring them inside your own little bubble of haven inside the void.

void doesn’t just let you go once you’ve gone too deep inside it. if it couldn’t claim Alice then it would go with them. it chose them and by proxy it chose you as well. it listens and assists you and Alice because it thinks that you’re part of it, or perhaps something more we don't know.

It felt as if her head was about to burst with what she had just learned but one thing remained a question.

• “What is the void… what does it want?”
• “now that is a loaded question. to define the void as anything else other than ‘the void’ is an inaccuracy. it is a paradox, origin of everything and nothing, the creator and the destroyer, it is one and many, order and chaos, duality itself. It is both the light and the shadow cast by it. What does it want… Ask yourself what the world wants from you.”

“SHIT! were running out of time… Alicia look look look at me. Before you go, remember this. what you have under your beck and call is something that occultists from all kinds of different and unrelated worlds and cultures have wet dreams about. The same kind of people that do all sorts of rituals and sacrifices of virgin girls, goats, rams, babies and other profane extremes trying to earn a single moment of attention from it. void always heard them never answered them. sometimes they succeed but they always get the wrong kind of response from the void. you could say that the void has a sick sense of humor. but it does to you and your friend. you’re treading a path no one nor no god has walked before.

>Energy reserves restored to operating level.

-here… -s … -ore… b-… it-… is no-… -igh-… -ime…”

>>Switching to standard configuration.

Johnny along with the realm of clouds he resided in all meld together before fading away into nothingness as Alicia was roused.

>Self diagnostics complete.

>Biometrics scan complete.

>>Vital signs stable.

>Readjusting sensory input.

When she awoke, the shady greens of the forest welcomed her as her eyes refocused on her surroundings.

>Energy reserves 25%. All systems nominal. Welcome back administrator.

• ‘Yes, yes, good afternoon… What the hell was that… either I was out of my mind or having a very strange religious experience, I wouldn’t rule out both. How long have I been out for… feels like it’s been hours…’
• “At most twenty-one minutes of spacing out and snoozing in the middle of day.”

Unfamiliar voice answered from beside Alicia catching her off-guard. Turning to look towards the owner, a strangely familiar yet unknown individual stood back at her with the all-consuming blackness that was her pupils encased in black quartz colored iris. A stone-faced woman with long straight white hair and sloeish almond shaped eyes clad in a snug full white suit foreign to this world. Due to how her eyelids rested a third of the way closed she seemed to express both carefree indifference and cynical incisiveness at the same time. The person looked like some sort of erroneous pastiche rendition of Alicia herself.

Alicia was almost certain who they were due to them responding to her unvoiced, internal thoughts.

• “Uh, thanks… who are you again?”

Like an auditionee performing their role, she acted offended with exaggerated gestures.

• “Ah! To be consigned to oblivion by one’s own mistress. What cruelty! Alas that is but the inevitable finality of innominate servants. Fates, are you not sated with tears of mine!”
• “Yeah… I’d recognize that snarky attitude anywhere… You’re the very first Hex Crawler I conjured. Geez you look completely different but haven’t changed a bit.”

Looking around Alicia realized she was beneath the shady underside of the great oak tree, with no one close-by.

• “There should have been more of you… where are they?”

Discarding the theatrics immediately, she gave a brief rundown of what she did while Alicia was recovering.

• “Since you were unavailable, I have taken the liberty of relegating the others for preparation of the arrival of our guests.  A sample of honey, raw silk, and a selection of clothing articles are being prepared for the arrival of our business partner. Expansion of the lodge to accommodate the new arrivals has started along with the commissions of furniture from our dwarven contact. We’re still preparing a comprehensive situation report. I would love to tell you who I assigned to what but unfortunately we didn’t have enough pronouns to use from your vocabulary. If only we had some sort of unique word assigned to each of us which we could be identified by… Haaah…”

She finished her report with an overdone sigh of melancholy.

• “Okay, okay, I get it, fine. Since you’re already here we’ll start with you, just don’t complain to me later that you don’t like it.”
• “I only expect the most inspired of titles from my dear mistress.”
• “Quit it, you’re making me uncomfortable… Given that you were the first… you will be titled Alpha and your name shall be Alfred. Considering that you show competence at managing the others you will help me with just that, and lead them where I am absent.”
  

• “It is an honor and a pleasure.”

And thus was conceived the first of Alicia’s leaders, the Adjutant.

Auratic

Hello. I'm only slightly late, by about a day. It's okay. You see I am immensely lazy person with a very stubborn sense of work ethic. So I'm basically always having an internal fight of laziness and persistance. Here's a trivia. Alicia's self defense training before her death was based on practical Krav Maga and Panantukan taught by an ex-military instructor and a former convict.

TFW you run out of ways to describe colors.

Spoiler

[collapse]

Also you will never find me describing eyes as fucking orbs. That's just weird wtf.