Today I Save Myself

by Greg Laurel

  On his way, Miles flipped through the tome, wondering if there was a version of his Opponent Unbeatable described in here. That nightmare of his own, maybe Xatrial had similar. While there were a few types of ‘superdemon’ the Manifest talked about, none of them quite fit the bill of the Opponent Unbeatable. Didn’t hurt to try, though.

  “I get the feeling this guy would’ve done a hell of a lot if it weren’t for his existential timing,” Miles commented as he delivered the Manifest to Moldrenor. He then paused as he processed what he just said. “Story of my fuckin’ life right there...”

  “I’m sure there’s a terribly clever reply to that, I just don’t know what it is,” Moldrenor replied, and Miles nodded with an enthusiastic ‘fair enough’. “I wonder, though…”

  The Zharekai Vulpian seemed to have his doubts as he held Xatrial’s writings. “All the ways Xatrial figured reality could end, right? He planned how to stop them all. But the thing is, this book, by its nature, details how to end reality in a lot of ways.”

  Miles listened.

  “I mean, our initial plan was to, well, get this transcribed into a bunch of different languages and have basically a copy at just about every planet-level library we can get them to, so that people are prepared, right? But that’s a lot of people knowing a lot of ways all creation could get completely… just done for.”

  “I think I understand what you’re getting at,” Miles said. “Especially with the humans out and about in the universe now, there’s definitely an aspect of ‘can’t have nice things’ that shouldn’t be ignored.”

  “Humans or not, I just can’t justify this book’s passages being common knowledge. But I sure as hell can’t say it needs to be exclusive. I mean, what the hell do you do with that sort of situation? This is vital stuff here! But it’s also a step-by-step how to just wreck everything in a million different ways!”

  Both Miles and Moldrenor pondered intensely as the Manifest sat on the table between them in Moldrenor’s tent.

  “One copy, this one alone,” Miles said, forming his plan aloud. “People can know it exists. They can know that it’s secured. That someone’s keeping it safe. If anything comes up, and someone’s got the slightest inkling that it’s in here, they have the right to figure that out. Until it’s needed, it’s not needed.”

  Moldrenor pieced it together, and Miles seemed to do so as well. “Turazin,” they both said simultaneously. Soon enough, the Manifest was in Turazin’s archive, under Xenidar’s guard.

  “I mean, solid plan, guys,” Xenidar noted after hearing their story. “I’ll get to transcribing it into the Hideout’s system, make stopping the end of reality a little more streamlined, as it were.”

  Moldrenor nodded, and thanked Xenidar before heading out, likely back to Zharekk.

  “So, what’s on your mind now?” Xenidar asked. Miles was about to open his mouth when it was suddenly added “And if you tell me ‘nothing’ or anything like that, I’ll punch your kneecaps straight off.”

  “Right,” Miles said, though not downplaying the uniqueness of Xenidar’s threat. “It’s a sort of quiet, nagging thought that doesn’t even have any words, but just exists.”

  Xenidar seemed to understand what that meant, somehow.

  “Like, I don’t know what I’m doubting, how it’s being doubted or anything like that. But there’s definitely something just… existing there, letting me know that there’s something, all right.”

  Xenidar hopped into his chair, and started typing something. Likely the machine command for the transcription of the Manifest of Apocalypse. “Y’know Radien, I don’t think I need to tell you that you have those instincts for a reason. But I probably should tell you that with your power, those instincts get a lot more reliable. Not necessarily more potent or sharpened, but more reliable for sure.”

  Miles nodded slightly, and turned around to leave.

  “With the backing of The Aura, it’s a much worse idea than usual to pass those off,” Xenidar reiterated, then continued working.

  Miles returned to Cynofrax, and prepared some soup for the purpose of eating it in the darkness. He had started to perfect the recipe, figuring out more and more just what goes into the kind of soup you eat alone, in the darkness.

  “Once I really get this figured out and written down, I’m gonna call it ‘soup for the darkness.’” He said to himself, sitting down with two bowls, and closing his eyes, summoning the effigy again.

  “I never really had a proper name for you, did I?” Miles started. “I’ve understood you to be ‘me but stronger’ and what have you, but there was never a short version of it. I mean, I guess your name is Miles Sorvenjar Radien. But that’s beside the point.”

  Miles slurped some of his soup, it was rather hard for him not to slurp, given a cleft lip from birth. His facial hair rather well hid the scar, though.

  “Y’know, I think one of the main reasons I can hardly believe this all is because it’s what I’ve wanted. And in a strange way, too. Like… ‘I didn’t know I wanted it this way, but clearly I do.’”

  Miles constructed the next part of the thought in his head. He knew what he wanted to say, how to say it just needed to catch up.

  “I never would’ve thought that the universe is full of really cool-looking and cool-acting peoples. I mean, Vulpians and Redarians? Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Fox People and Red Panda people? And I’m not strange to the idea of species like that, I just might not have immediately had those names for them. The worlds in my head, that I’ve imagined as I played on my own as a kid… They never looked like these ones, but they could’ve. I very well could have imagined this stuff eventually.”

  Miles then sipped his drink, this time it was a strong one, given that the soup was actually pretty hearty.

  “It’s hard to believe that I occupy a universe that I’d want to. But I remember what the Prism said, I definitely spent way too long on Earth.”

  Chapter the Sixteenth

  After he dismissed the effigy, Miles just sat at the table, two empty bowls that once held soup in front of him.

  “I do stand alone,” he admitted to himself. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

  As soon as he stood up, however, Miles found himself in the swirling red vortex of his old nightmare.

  “No, not again!” he yelled, waiting for the Opponent Unbeatable to show itself. The land tore away around him, and he just stood there, waiting.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch. Let’s get this over with!” Miles challenged. “I know how this works, now hurry it up!”

  The Opponent did not come as it normally did, however. Instead, the whole world seemed to glitch out around him, the crimson winds stuttering and faltering, and the vision ended.

  “I was too ready,” Miles postulated. “It wasn’t getting the drop on me. I was ready to have the nightmare again, which rather defeats its purpose.”

  A moment passed before his next conclusion.

  “I’ll take it,” Miles scoffed confidently. “It means I beat it a little bit this time. And I will take that.”

  It gave Miles a lot to ponder. He made the Opponent Unbeatable retreat. This was new. Though he understood it would surely return at some point, Miles had a base to build on: He knew how it worked. The Opponent Unbeatable would show itself, and make Miles look weak. But Miles was ready for it to do that, and thus the Opponent couldn’t send its message.

  “But what is the next step of this?” he asked himself as he paced in his home. “There’s one to be found for sure, but what is it?”

  He understood something about the Opponent Unbeatable, which meant that it could be beaten. Without its absolute nature, it could not do its deed, it could not go through its paces.

  “Understanding,” Miles concluded. “That’s its weakness. I understood. I just need to understand more. No, not more… just something else as well. There is an understanding that can break this thing. I just know it. There is something that if I came to understand it,
the Opponent Unbeatable is surely doomed.”

  The only question that remained was the question of what needed be understood. What was this fact that Miles had to discover, determine, and accept? Though he wasn’t exactly pressed for time to figure it out, sooner would be better than later. Taking his ship to Turazin, Miles found a terminal within The Hideout to search the Grand Database for any writings or accounts similar to the Opponent Unbeatable. The universe is a big place, surely he couldn’t be the first to have this nightmare.

  Initially, it seemed there was a cornucopia of information on how to defeat this shadow, but as Miles narrowed the search terms more and more by what existed in the vision, there became less and less to show for it. Probably for the better, Miles figured, he didn’t want to sift through a mountain of musty old tomes depicting all the nightmares of the stars, and pick out only a few tidbits from it all.

  There was one thing, one eerily similar account written by Alikos Teyn, a member of a now-extinct species known as the Kendrosians. Apparently, one of the oldest species in the universe, wiped out by Caltoran after his corruption. The end of the peoples of Kendrossos was one of the most devastating blows the universe had ever suffered, and many still today mourned the fall of a very wise, proud and populous race.

  Though the Kendrosian genocide certainly is no matter to be glossed over in any regard, the diary of Alikos Teyn mentioned ‘a creature of crimson shade, whom no strike can harm,’ which was almost spot-on for the Opponent Unbeatable, though he referred to it as a more a reaper-type being, the manifest of death’s inevitability.

  Unfortunately, the journal of Alikos Teyn was not entirely within The Hideout’s Grand Database. It had not been fully transcribed, much to Miles’s chagrin.

  “Xenidar, where’s the physical instance of the journal of Alikos Teyn?” Miles asked him at his desk, to which the short, stocky Talvas Vulpian leaned back with an ‘urrrgh’ noise as he tried to recall. He raised a single finger, he seemed about to remember.

  “Underground, B32. Section… 9, Case 13. I don’t remember which row, but there’s a labelplate,” he finally answered.

  Miles nodded, and headed to the elevator. “B32, Section 9,” Miles stated as his destination, to the confirming beep of the elevator.

  Miles stepped out and made his way to Case 13, which essentially was ‘bookcase 13’. The underground library that took up almost the entire planet’s mantle was organized in such a way that B-floors 30-90 were exclusively for literature written by the Kendrosian species. Hard copies of just about every book, even the most common ones, just in case. Floor B32 was for personal journals of noted Kendrosians, section 9 was just where Alikos Teyn’s ended up.

  On the shelf was actually two volumes, the original handwritten journal of a well-renowned weaponsmith for the purpose of preserving, and a copy for the purpose of viewing. Miles grabbed the latter, given that the former was in a protective case, that definitely had an alarm on it.

  Flipping to the page where Alikos Teyn described his reaper, Miles studied.

  A crimson shade, whom no strike can harm. That is the appearance of a strange new doom that haunts my dreams. I know I am not physically weak, nor untrained. But I cannot make this accursed being die, no matter where or how I make my assault. I believe this is an image of death, its inevitability made manifest. One cannot fight death itself, let alone win. But death seems not the kind to taunt, as this invulnerable creature does with its existence, and its actions, or lack thereof, rather.

  “Ok, but how to beat it?” Miles asked aloud.

  I have tried many methods, even entering my dreamscape with weapons of both my creation, and others. Yet this shade remains indestructible, and seems keen to drive me to madness in my fruitless quest to fight it.

  UDM 8-317M - I encountered the shade again, but simply did not fight it this time. I stood and waited for what it would do, as I knew I could not destroy it. The being also stood before me, staring me down, as if challenging me. But I knew I couldn’t destroy it by any means I could muster, so I awaited its action. It did nothing, and even seemed frustrated at my lack of fight. At least, as frustrated as a blood-red shadow creature without a face can appear to be. I now understood that it could be beaten, even if only by my refusal to try. But that seemed to weaken it. It was physically smaller on my next encounter. Though it still stood well over me in height, it wasn’t by as much as usual. My curiosity got the better of me, and I attempted combat again. It defended itself, to my surprise. It had never done that before. It normally allowed me to strike it endlessly, to no avail. But this meant I had weakened it by understanding that it could be beaten. That said, it still bested me in combative skill, stamina and durability. Perhaps there is something else that will allow me to fight it more effectively. A knowledge or understanding that it cannot beat.

  UDM 8-317M, ent. 2 - It has been several months since my last entry, and I have pondered intensely for most of it. There have been moments where it has returned to full strength as I tried to fight it, and failed. But then I’d simply understand that I couldn’t outfight it, and its inability to fight me led to its weakening. I have reflected as well upon my own life, wondering if there is a reason I see this specter. I did not lead the most ambitious of youths, despite what my current experience of life may suggest. In fact, the opposite. Mine was an upbringing of stagnation broken only by failure of endeavor, and utter lack of opportunity to prove myself. I don’t know if even I desired then or now to prove myself to anyone other than myself. To at least understand that I, Alikos Teyn, can be as I so wish, and can call myself warrior. But I understand that I trained. I understand that I am not physically weak, yet this being is unconvinced. There must be something else. There must be something I can know about myself and accept that will spell the doom of this evil shade, if even it is evil, over simple maliciousness.

  The remaining entries simply detailed Alikos Teyn’s many hypotheses, none of them proving true. But apparently, the Opponent Unbeatable one day simply stopped showing up in his dreams. It inexplicably just… ceased to haunt him, and he never figured out why. The final words in the journal were from his deathbed.

  I die old, and fulfilled in many ways but one. I never did know what that shadow in my prime was. I cannot fathom why it went away. Why it didn’t even fade, but just disappeared altogether. There was no development that could warrant this, and I become tired, weary as I write this, desperately hoping that my writing of this account will grant me my final epiphany. I don’t know why… why did it leave… I am so weary, but I must understand… there still is an understanding… Did I defeat it? Am I victorious in the end? I... the creature, no, he appears! Not now, not at my final doom! Doom upon it, it should have been! I had won! I had won! It went away, and I was the victor! I understood that for all that time!

  …

  The creature fades… I am victorious at last.

  “That was… almost exceptionally dark,” Miles commented, before shelving the journal. “But somehow I doubt that it’s gonna disappear for me until my final day. Alikos Teyn only had this thing show itself in the middle of his life, I’ve been haunted for as long as I can remember. But there is no doubt: Understanding indeed.”

  But the part where he had reflected on his youth… stagnation, failure in endeavor, and no chance to prove himself, to himself more than any other. A feeling Miles had all his life, but didn’t have the words for until he saw the writings of a Kendrosian weaponsmith.

  As he made his way home, Miles kept putting the pieces together. They were all falling into place. When Miles had first been introduced to this wider universe, the Opponent Unbeatable was nowhere. These first few years where he hadn’t had the nightmare, even if only because he wasn’t sleeping. He hadn’t even thought of the Opponent Unbeatable in that time. It wasn’t like he had forgotten it ever troubled him, there was just so much of everything else happening that the Opponent Unbeatable couldn’t even be on his mind. But only recently, as things calmed do
wn, only recently as he started to wonder if he’d have to wake up…

  He walked through the door of his house, he was ready for a breakthrough.

  In that time before the Opponent Unbeatable returned, he understood that he was getting his worlds! The worlds in his head that he now got to visit, he understood that was real! The Opponent showed up in the lull, where Miles had the time to doubt! But Miles knew himself well, and knew he couldn’t just tell himself it was real and believe it… no, something had to truly prove to him that he wasn’t going to wake up, because there was no dream to awaken from! Something had to tell him…

  “People can misinterpret, people can fail to understand. But powers don’t lie. The Aura isn’t something that can lie. It’s a power, a fact of the universe. It can’t have an ulterior motive or a ‘different experience’ in the traditional sense.” The Prism’s voice said Miles’s own words to him in his head.

  Miles stood there, on the brink of victory or defeat, only time would tell.

  “There is a reason my voice does not come from a throat. Why the whispers of The Aura have no body they are whispered from. It is The Aura’s promise of its own existence. A power, that is not a lie, but a fact. One can lie about fact, but the fact shall always remain, a fact!”

  Miles’s resolve steeled a thousandfold. “Then Aura guide me, through friend and foe alike, that I may emerge in great victory!!”

  The ground tore itself away again, forming its arena, the swirling red hurricane its borders. The Opponent emerged once again from the edge of doom, and moved with dark purpose towards Miles.

  “Not this time,” Miles said, snapping his fingers and at last creating a bright blue flame of The Aura. “The universe does not lie.”

  The Opponent drew closer, faster than usual, but with a palpable air of desperation, a dire attempt to regain its power over Miles.