by Davi Cao
Used to OOOO’s curiosity and innocent malice, Colin analyzed each of the new faces and didn’t take time to introduce them to that weird Creator. He only cared about hearing their names and understanding their desires. Back on Terra, he would hardly be noticed in a group. In the new world, he meant hope for others.
“May I know your names? Mine is Colin, and I used to work as a project manager in a design studio,” he said.
“My name is Oliver,” the black bearded man said. “I used to work in oil platforms.”
“I am Amanda,” the woman who hugged him said, short and chubby, pale skin and blond hair. “I taught math in High School.”
“Charlotte here,” a curly haired brunette said. “I owned Humming’s Cave, the big store.”
“You can call me Mat,” a strong, old black and bald man said. “I was and still am a painter, if only we can get things to work with in here.”
“Laura,” a young girl with a plain body, small Eastern eyes and square face said. “I was unemployed. Never got a job, actually.”
“I’m Zach,” a brown man with long hair tied in a ponytail said. “I did a bit of everything, whatever they paid me to do. I had to rummage ‘round for stuff to do.”
Ai.iA ignored their talk, rubbing the objects on the table with the help of its larger limbs. Alone and in a hurry, it spun its upper head to all sides and then returned to her study, stopping after every touch, unsure of what to do.
“The big chunk is melting next to Mat. Take it out, move, get back to what matters, you all,” Ai.iA said.
Colin followed her frenetic manipulation of stone pieces, of half intact ruins, of new minerals he had never before seen. Not understanding what she did, he waited for the others’ reaction. They smoothed the folds in their tunics, crossed arms and admired him. He asked for more.
“How can you still be alive in this world? Don’t you hear a voice in the back of your heads telling how miserable life is?” Colin asked.
“We all do, of course, and it’s scary, right?” Oliver said, looking at his peers who nodded in agreement. “But we lived with similar thoughts even in our old world, so it was a kind of friend. We know our lives suck.”
“It doesn’t mean we have to die, though,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, we were born without purpose and we will die without one,” Mat said.
“You are right.” Colin looked down at the floor. “Now I wonder if you’re humans for real. It seems like you could be Dalana’s creations, because how can people think like this naturally?”
“They are real people from old Terra, aren’t they?” OOOO stepped away from Colin on its spidery legs. “It’s obvious enough for me, you see.”
“We never denied that.” Oliver backed away slightly from those scary pointy teeth. “If it weren’t for Dalana here, we wouldn’t be in this hell. We’re just trying to survive.”
“Hell is a bad place, isn’t it? And this is hell, isn’t it? Do you know who created this world?” OOOO got closer to the group.
Colin approached OOOO, remembering how the creature had hunted and tried to kill him when it thought he was a leftover from Terra. He blocked its advance and gently grabbed two of its legs.
“No, I have no idea of who did this to the world. For all I know, it could be work from the devil himself.” Oliver began to sweat cold from fear of that creature, watching Colin move to control a wild beast.
“I created this. I’m the dominant one, am I not?” OOOO smiled. “Does it mean that I am the devil?”
“Yes, you are, you are the devil, isn’t that interesting, huh?” Colin said, pushing it back. “Now calm down, let’s hear their stories and see what they’re up to, ok? I’m sure you’ll enjoy what they have to say. And you’ll love to watch them deal with this creepy world of yours, always with the risk of dying.”
“But they are creatures from a gone world, aren’t they? They don’t belong here!” OOOO jumped over Colin, tumbling down with his grip.
“You can’t do that, you have to leave them in peace! This is our community, our place, and if we managed to get them here, they deserve to live!” Dalana helped Colin block OOOO’s enraged thrusts.
Oliver and the other humans ran away from Ai.iA’s back, entering the distant door to the corridor, where they headed to the base’s other rooms. Amanda and Mat picked up research pieces over the table and threw them at the creature when reaching the first door, hitting it with no consequence.
Blind by the instinct of the dominant one, OOOO contorted its legs until freed from Colin and Dalana’s hold, dodging them like a slippery dog to run towards the corridor. It crushed its face on the door’s barrier, hoping to tear it down with the impact, but the lab’s building material resisted well. Behind it, human voices spoke with tension and one urgent shout directed them to more distant rooms.
“Who’s this silly one?” Ai.iA said, frustrated at stopping her research with the team. “Is it a Creator or not? If it is one of us, why is it not destroying the door or just removing the air from this place? That would kill them in a minute. Wait at least until we get to destroy this world, please, because they’re good help.”
“Stop, don’t give it ideas! You won’t kill anybody, you won’t kill, you won’t kill!” Dalana embraced three of OOOO’s legs.
“OOOO, listen to me, they are creations from another place who are struggling to adapt to your idea! Pay attention to what we have here, please, it’s very interesting!”
The door melted down after the angry Creator’s insistence, punching it with legs and wishful thinking, releasing it inside a maze of entrances and walls. OOOO darted towards Charlotte, the last one on the run. It pushed her and made her trip, preparing to hit her chest with its frenetic piercing feet. Zach and Mat jumped over it, stopping OOOO’s strike at the last minute, becoming the next targets themselves.
“I like puncturing stuff, I like melting stuff, don’t I?” it said with a big smile.
Dalana grabbed OOOO’s head and jerked it back, disentangling its legs from the human bodies below. Colin enclosed his arms around its legs, holding it down, riding the wildest horse in existence.
He had only seen it behaving with so much hostility at the time of his own persecution, and although OOOO explained itself, its reasons didn’t make sense. If it loved watching weird things exist, why not letting Terra’s humans survive in a terrible place?
“Hey, hey, you there, ugly one, I have something to tell you.” Oliver got out of his hiding place, full of courage.
Colin and Dalana stared at each other with scared eyes, afraid of provocations on the bearded man’s part.
“Look, it may not be the best time to do this.” Colin wrinkled his forehead.
“I don’t see why,” Oliver insisted. “Devil one, yes, you. Do you want to see us dead?”
“I want, don’t I?” OOOO said, excited to the point of making Colin lose his balance over it.
“Well, you should know that we will die, alright? In a way, we already are dead, all of us. All because of you. What hope is there for creatures like us in this place? We know our time is near, and it can happen in so many ways that I don’t even like to think about it.” Oliver stepped closer to the restrained creature, looking straight into its goggled eyes. “Our lives are over; do you understand it? Like the Voice that cries all the time and makes the world melt, we are here alone and without any hope of getting home, to a place where we can be happy. So, let us be dead in peace. It will be cool to watch us perish with the dangers of this world, don’t you think?”
OOOO stopped struggling and listened to the man’s voice. He didn’t convince it, but he surprised it. It sought Colin’s expression, finding reassurance, amused at the proposition, and just as easily as it accepted Colin’s immortality, it felt ready to admit more complexity into its own dominion.
“I like you!” it said to Oliver.
In the corridor between bedrooms, Oliver’s promise of death made amends with OOOO. Its wish of having them d
isappear from its world would come into fruition later, by exterior forces. Colin and Dalana released their hold, standing up in front of it just in case.
Silence, peace, a disturbing calm took hold of the corridor, intensified by those vivid eyes and spidery legs. Zach stepped away from the group, the first one getting back to the table with Ai.iA, who already waited for them at the distant door.
“Won’t you guys come too? The big monster said it likes us, so I guess we should give it a shot,” Zach said.
“I don’t know ... It looks hungry staring at us like this. Stay behind me, you guys, we’re not safe,” Amanda said, protecting herself behind Dalana.
Colin turned his back on OOOO to face the crowd, saying “You can trust what OOOO here says. It never lies, and don’t worry, it’s never hungry as well.”
Following Zach, he walked on and waved at them to return to the laboratory. Dalana let them go first, staying behind because none other dared being close to OOOO. She met Colin’s eyes with a relieved smile, and by having her there with him, sharing the same anguish and troubles, he nodded in agreement. They formed a team now.
“There’s something I want to know of you,” Colin said to all, getting to the lab’s room, leaning on a wall. “How did you survive the apocalypse? I searched for people and only found melted stuff. The air was just gone from the atmosphere, the sun disappeared and I don’t even know how hot or cold it is up there. Being here is like being in outer space for you, and you had no protection back on Terra, I bet.”
The humans exchanged glances, tilting heads, turning their focus on Dalana, who watched their indecision by Colin’s side. OOOO roamed the entire area with slow movements, bending and stretching its legs without noise, watching every contracted lip in the faces of those who promised to die later. Dalana shook her head and then waved her spine, touching Colin’s shoulder with her cheek.
“We were all together in the end of times,” Oliver said, taking the responsibility for himself. “When the fires showed up, our spiritual guides warned us of the imminent danger. They called us for a session of regrets that—”
“You have to tell him what that is,” Charlotte said, raising her hand at Colin. “We joined a very exclusive club, very private.”
“Yeah, but we’re not crazy, right?” Zach intervened. “Spiritual guidance, is all.”
“We talked about our mistakes and reminded ourselves of how insignificant we all were in the world. Humans carry a burden, they follow the path of Christ. Our cross is our constant regret, so that we can be holy,” Laura said, looking down at the table.
“Yes, that’s it.” Oliver repeated his line of speech. “It makes us feel small and worthless. It’s good for us, it makes us humbler, better people. We had our longest session ever at the time, getting ready for the end. I was at peace. Were you at peace?” He searched for the faces of his friends.
They nodded in agreement, ignoring Ai.iA’s low mumbling and incessant manipulation of the table’s objects.
“Then, Dalana showed up in front of us, out of thin air,” Mat said, spreading his arms wide. “We thought she was a spirit of some kind, running around us like crazy while our temple morphed into this place here, becoming dark and sad. She worked on building this shelter for us, saying that the world had ended outside and that she only managed to save us—”
“And that it was risky and that we could die at any moment, but she was doing her best to give us the best place she could create. I liked her by the second I saw her, I wanted to hug her and take care of her. Instead, she’s the one who’s caring for us, isn’t that funny? And I’m helping.” Amanda stared at Dalana with teary eyes.
Smashed by their former temple’s weight, by its bulky walls and dark ceiling, they lived locked in a prison, still struggling to believe in the words of those self-appointed Creators. Had any of them attempted to leave the shelter thus far?
“They only believed me because they saw the melting,” Dalana said to Colin. “There were more of them here, including the high priests and all that. But as soon as the World Voice descended, the others melted down, and I could do nothing to stop that. I can’t think of anything to block it.”
“So how come these ones are still alive?” Colin gave her a deep frown.
“This voice we hear in our minds is nothing new for us. We agree with it, and we know we are worthless. That’s not something that affects us any more than it ever did,” Oliver said.
Ai.iA, in her own reluctant way, banged objects on the table, calling attention to herself. She avoided interrupting their chatting, shy in the face of three other Creators, especially OOOO, who incorporated her nemesis, and yet she made noise.
Nothing she touched on reacted anyhow, discarding useless pieces after they melted down, with time passing by. She came from a world devoid of science, and although words made sense in her mind, she couldn’t follow a logical process such as the one which could advance her goal. She stretched her waist rods only a bit out of their case, unable to control her frustration at being powerless once again, needing her human peers to give her what she wanted.
Dalana kept her head up at Oliver’s talk, sustaining the face of a benevolent nun. She leaned on the wall, feeding it with holiness, reminding every particle of its role in the universe. Protecting the house, the place that suffered all pain to shelter everything else, building blocks resisted and would do so until its Creator descended to release them from their hold.
“I have a lot to learn with them.” Dalana embraced Colin with her right arm. “And with you too, and you with me.”
He accepted her hug with reluctance, a stiff wooden man, staring at her with inquiring eyes. She noticed his hostility and put her arms behind her back to lean again on the wall.
“How was your last day on Terra?” she asked, speaking so low that the others returned to their jobs with Ai.iA, glancing at the couple by the corner of their eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Colin said.
“Strange. You should tell me what happened, I’m curious to know. They shared their last moments. You should do the same,” she said.
Colin shook his head, biting his lips. He watched his new friends surround the large table in the middle of the room, a table bigger than a car, where countless objects blinked between slime and piles of solid pieces.
Nothing thus far indicated any sort of prioritization with regards to the different materials. His managerial mindset recoiled at that mess, breaking down one or two categories to start organizing it. Hands grabbed and released things, they banged, dragged, scratched, and brushed objects. Grown up children played with nature, dejected and dead.
“Won’t you tell me about your last day? Please, I want to know how it was. Did you prepare yourself for your farewell with others?” Dalana bent down to get into Colin’s field of vision.
“You shouldn’t insist on that,” Mat said. “Give the man some space. Come on, let him be.”
“What for? Up there, he had all the space he could have wish for. Down here, he’s one of us, and it’s important that we know more about each other,” she said.
“He might have painful memories in his mind.” Amanda took three steps towards Dalana and caressed her dark arm to pull her away. “In our world, it is polite to respect one’s feelings. At least until they heal. When you feel like talking about it, we’re here for you.” She nodded at him, clenching her lips.
“Well, I’m respecting it more than anything, that’s why I want to share his pain. Colin, how was your last day on Terra? Why don’t you tell me?” Dalana raised one foot after the other, bouncing in place.
“Please, just leave him alone,” Mat insisted.
“Hey, Dalana, Dalana, come here with us, help us out, come, we’ll get you up to date on our trials.” Zach lifted a half-melted doll. “Or you come, Colin, here, I’ll show you how stuff’s done around here, get by my side, we’ll chat about something else.”
He accepted the invitation, leaving Dalana b
ehind on the wall. She put her hands on her knees, keeping an intent stare at Colin.
“Humans need a community, don’t we? You have to talk.” She shook her head at the following silence.
OOOO, standing on the table’s center to see their work, turning its head around itself to follow all their actions, moved one leg up and then another, letting them grab whatever they needed. It greeted Colin by pushing him a solid piece, having no idea of what he could possibly do with that. Admiring his worried face, it broke its silence to make things more interesting.
“He lost his parents and his boss and the love of his life, didn’t he?” OOOO said. “He didn’t believe the world would end, so he lived a normal day at work. He was wrong, wasn’t he?” The creature’s big smile melted down the golden object between one of its feet.
∙ 7 ∙ Colin in science
“Enough of this! Dalana, focus on what’s important! Are you here to help me or not?” Ai.iA said, punching the table in slow strikes. Grave sound waves rippled through the room.
“Of course I am,” Dalana said, raising her spine.
“Then come. We have plenty of stuff to sort out now.”
Colin waited for new instructions while grabbing a half-melted notebook. For some reason, the object’s dissolution seemed to follow strict guidelines, deteriorating the pages and the cover in a triangular shape. It formed a perfect geometrical form, a solid piece that couldn’t flip pages anymore, all glued together. He threw it in the bucket where Oliver did the same with the thing he held, only to hear that he did wrong.
“That one goes there in Amanda’s box.” Oliver picked Colin’s notebook and threw it to the other side of the table. “The hard part of this job is to find the truly resisting materials. Remove what’s melted down and separate the intact ones.”
“I got that. I just don’t understand the categories,” Colin said.
“Well, me neither, to be honest. Most of these things look nothing like anything we had back on Earth, so we just group them by color or texture, or viscosity. When you grab something you recognize, though, like that notebook, put it there in Amanda’s bucket.”
