by Davi Cao
Using the resistant objects with the force that he used, with the feelings that he cultivated in his mind, Colin punched the Voice. The humans hid themselves behind Dalana, all looking at him with terror in their eyes. OOOO spun its head and its pupils, standing over Ai.iA, making her a cage with its legs. She understood the opportunity, she came closer to Colin and told him what to do.
“Do it again. You have to make it suffer,” she said.
“What if we can’t live through the bang's pain?” he said.
“I will survive it. I’m not afraid of pain.”
Colin placed one object on the floor in front of him. He grabbed the other with both hands and raised it like a stone about to break a nutshell. He took a deep breath, a psychological one, he took a mental picture of the room and then bang, he struck one stone on the other with so much strength that the “Argh!” he heard came from all voices in the world.
The void dragged his body across an unseen valley of razors. Each blade ripped one layer of his skin, breaking his nerves, sawing his bones, splintering his organs. Having visited the void a few times, he knew his suffering didn’t translate into the physical realm.
The pictures he took in his mind showed up in fragments, enough to let him situate himself in space. He still probably held one object in his hand, the other one lay certainly on the floor. He thought about raising his arms again and knocking one stone against the other.
He had success, because he escaped the emptiness and instead of black, he saw purple, and instead of silence, he heard agony. The World Voice screamed, begging him to stop that, to leave it alone.
“Stop it now or don’t ever stop ... Go to the end ... kill me, make me disappear forever ... go to the end, hit me until I die ...”
And so, he hit. Bang, and bang, and bang, and the world turned into a purple scream, pain became bones, and the end his flesh. But the Voice wouldn’t die. It suffered nonstop, repeating the mantra of mercy. Colin raised his arms again, or so he thought, and bringing them down, he missed the strike. He went blind and needed to see.
The multiple voices of human lament greeted him back in the room. Angeline sobbed on Oliver’s shoulder, Oliver did the same on hers, Charlotte screamed like mad, Zach hit his face on the floor, crying with the others.
OOOO lost itself in the middle of the humans, fitting in with all it could touch. Ai.iA watched Colin with all her rods contracted, a sculpture waiting for the world’s destruction.
Colin’s cheeks dripped in tears, a water puddle wetting the floor under his knees. He stood still, a fountain of pain. Dalana knelt in front of him, waiting for his face to turn. He saw her, and she was darkness. A darkness unlike the one he’d just escaped, for it warmed him, a live one, the darkness of Utopia and a better place. She was the darkness that hugged him, while everybody else cried.
∙ 16 ∙ Church
“You can’t tease me and then disappear ... Talk to me again ... Do something to ease my mind, please ... I was wrong ... I don’t want you to stop ... Anything is better than silence ... Loneliness is the biggest torture ...”
Colin’s thoughts compelled him to get back to the stones and hit them again. He still held one in his hand, the other waited for his force on the floor. The state of his group, however, worried him. The humans cried, OOOO became one with them, Ai.iA hopped in the corridor and around the lab, Dalana spoke of peace.
“We can’t do anything now. Destroying it is impossible. Let’s live here and take care of ourselves. We have the power to do so,” she said.
“They need Terra as much as I do. We can’t quit trying,” Colin said.
“You’re making us suffer more than before. The World Voice is intact. These resisting materials are curiosities, nothing else.”
“Then what do we do? We can’t create a living world when we’re under the Voice’s influence. And they are affected much more by it,” he said, pointing at the humans.
“If we think more about it, eventually we might have a good idea.”
Colin looked for Ai.iA, the one with the most urgent desire of destroying the world, besides him. The table stood empty, and the humans leaned against the wall. Ai.iA disappeared. Colin shouted her name, she didn’t reply. Dalana turned around all corners, also surprised at not seeing her friend.
“Amanda, do you know where Ai.iA is?” Colin asked.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t pay attention to her. She was hopping everywhere like a lost child, poor thing. Maybe she’s in one of the rooms?” she said.
“Strange ... She’s not like this.” Dalana put her hands in her front pocket.
Hearing their talk, at the mention of a mystery, OOOO got rid of the human legs and arms above its body and got up to offer some help.
“We should look for her, shouldn’t we? How are we going to hurt my World Voice without her, huh?” it said.
“Will you go with me? We can check the corridors,” Colin said. “Dalana, can you stay with the others while we go?”
“I can. Go on, see if you can find her.” She walked towards the humans to sit down in their midst, while they prepared to take a nap.
OOOO took care of the rooms on the left, Colin of the ones right of it. The vast majority being a bit bigger than a bedroom, none showed any presence, except for traces of melted matter. One had an electronic microscope, another had an x-ray machine.
“She’s not around these parts, is she? If we can’t find her, it’s because she doesn’t want to be found,” OOOO said.
“What if she melted down?”
“Things aren’t melting down anymore, are they? They blend! She’s gone out of her own will, isn’t she?”
“That may be right. Should we get back, then?” Colin said.
“Of course. When she wants to be with us again, she will be, won’t she?”
Colin and OOOO got back to the lab. Angeline came their way, walking alone in the dim luminosity of those dark walls. She ran towards Colin when she saw him, and followed them back.
“I wanted to do something. I can’t stand crying anymore, waiting for anything to happen. I thought we would find Ai.iA and maybe she would have an idea of what to do. Or maybe even you,” she touched Colin’s arm with a rough finger.
“I have plenty of ideas, don’t I?” OOOO said.
“You do? Can you give us something to do?” she said.
“Things don’t resist much in this world. Either melting down or blending in, they don’t leave us much choice,” Colin said, giving one step away from Angeline, afraid of her mingling flesh.
“How do we get out of this place, then? I want to go back home.” She crossed her arms tight on her chest.
“Me too. I’m trying to get us out of here. It’s just harder than I thought,” he said.
“And very interesting, isn’t it?” OOOO said.
The trio reached the lab through the corridor’s entrance, announcing their failure before entering the room. The people had rested and paid attention to his words.
“She’s nowhere, but I’ve set a few drones.” Colin pointed backwards with his thumb.
The opposite door opened, the one leading to the upper world, and Ai.iA came in. She jumped low, giving short punches on the floor with her bottom rod, entering the lab in silence. Colin had forgotten about that door, about the upper world.
“I tried to kill it with my arsenal. I thought I had good ideas, and that maybe it was weakened somehow, or more susceptible to my strikes, solidified, or at least materialized in this dimension. It’s still just a pillar, and the world up there is different. The ground wants us now, although we tend to sink the same way,” Ai.iA said in front of the group.
She stood up by punching the floor, energized by the combat from which she had just returned. Having nothing else to say or think about, she walked on the round table and called for Amanda’s help.
“We have to think of something new! That thing is winning, and we can’t let it happen,” Ai.iA said.
The humans dried their
tears on each other’s shoulders, then got up to help. Angeline stood by Colin’s side, her eyes intent on the discreet door from where Ai.iA had just come in.
“Would you take me to the upper world?” she asked Colin, leaning on his chest.
“I’m sorry, you can’t go there. I tried it before with other people. Even with protective clothing, you can’t resist much.” He took one step back.
“I want to know what the Voice looks like. It wants to meet us, so we should go there and meet it.”
“It’s not a creature like you think it is. You can’t reach it.”
“Can you reach it?”
Oliver turned his head away from the table, listening to Angeline’s talk. The others whispered their suffering, they echoed the Voice or tried to stop it from coming out of their mouths, unable to think of anything else or help Ai.iA anyhow. Oliver whistled at Angeline, and then blinked at her. She nodded at him and returned her attention to Colin.
“I tried it twice. And no, you can’t affect it. It drives you to suicide, that’s all.” Colin shrugged.
“It doesn’t want to die; how can it drive you to suicide? It wants to meet us! Don’t you hear it?” Angeline hardened her expression.
“Ok, that’s right, it’s a bit different now, but I don’t think it’s less powerful. Instead of melting down, now I’ll blend with the ground.” He gave her a quick smirk.
“You don’t know that until you investigate it.” Angeline turned her face to the door.
“No, he won’t do this. It’s too dangerous.” Dalana intervened in their talk with hands in her pocket.
“Don’t you want to help the Voice? I thought you were the generous one,” Angeline said.
“The Voice needs to rest. We tried to talk to it and only made its pain worse.” Dalana swung her hips from left to right.
“Colin, you need to help it. If you meet it in person, it will see you and become friends with you. That’s what it wants. And then you can tell it to give us our world back.” Angeline placed her palms on his neck.
“I’m sorry ... like I told you, that’s not what will happen.” He grabbed her wrists, feeling the temptation of mingling with her skin invade his mind.
“Unless you carry the stones with you!” Oliver said, leaving the table to join their conversation. “If you hit the objects on the surface, close to the pillar, the Voice will see you.”
OOOO laughed, “It won’t, will it?” It spoke, excited about the man’s idea. “That’s not how it works, but it will be interesting to try!”
“We can’t trust you. You got us into this trouble, you want us dead. You’re lying, and you know what I said is true.” Oliver dared to face OOOO’s pointy teeth.
“I don’t lie. And I want you dead, yes. I’m waiting for the moment when that will happen, am I not? It will be interesting, very interesting,” it said.
“Oh yeah? What will you say when we become the ones to kill you, huh? You think you’re so immortal, look at us, we have three of your kind on our side. They can beat you up pretty good.” Oliver pointed at the other Creators.
“No, we won’t kill anybody. Don’t say that,” Dalana said in haste.
“Won’t you go up there and help us, Colin?” Angeline patted Oliver’s shoulder to make him calm down.
“I ... I ... I could go there. It’s worthless, though. I don’t see the point.” Colin shook his head.
Angeline nodded and turned her back to him, leading Oliver back to the round table. She whispered something in his ear, so low that not even the other people around her seemed capable of hearing what she said. He replied to her in the same tone, pointing his head to the resisting objects.
Ai.iA left the humans’ company to meet Colin and Dalana. She took them to the corridor’s entrance.
“I saw a Creator die up there,” Ai.iA said. “He didn’t want help, and I wanted to do the same. It didn’t hurt me to watch him go, but it did to see that it could be me. This world could become our grave.”
Dalana gaped at the news, picturing a dead Creator. “Does OOOO know about it?”
“Doesn’t it hate to see Creators disappear? If it knew it, it would be devastated,” Colin said.
“I can’t guarantee full control of myself all the time. Eventually, I might be the one to be swallowed by the land. And you could be the next ones too. It doesn’t matter what OOOO thinks of it, as long as its world thrives,” Ai.iA said.
“You can’t treat me thus ... Tease and run, poke and escape ... I can’t get you, that’s the truth ... I can’t kill you ... And ... And you can’t kill me ... Otherwise you’d have done it already ... Why would I be kept alive ... My torment is unending ...”
Hearing the World Voice change its perspectives, Laura sympathized with it and wished to become one with it. Anything they could do to relieve it from its agony, they had to do, and if reaching out to the Creators of worlds bore no fruits, time had come to appeal to the Creator of all.
Laura raised her hands and shut her eyes tight, shaking her head while whispers darted from side to side on the table. Her powerful stance commanded them all to a stalemate, waiting for her next action. She moved her lips slightly, murmuring words that they thought echoed the World Voice, which in reality called them all for much more powerful words.
“I want you all to join me in this pray. Take my hands, and the hands of the others. Make a circle around me, come, everyone. We must pray and beg for mercy, it’s past the time that we turn into our true Creator,” she said.
“You mean Mae? Can you call her from here?” OOOO said, curious about the possibility of Laura’s hidden power.
“Who’s Mae?” Zach squinted at OOOO.
“Terra’s Creator. Is she the one you want to pray to?” Dalana tilted her head.
“I speak of a Creator above this ‘Mae,’ a Creator above all this, above all other Creators, the supreme giver of life and existence,” Laura said.
They formed a circle, as suggested, the humans closing their eyes by habit, remembering the beliefs and social conventions of old Terra’s major societies. Dalana held Colin’s and Charlotte’s hands, surprised to see religion rise again after the death of its original world.
“Dear Father, our savior, we gather in this strange place to pray for your mercy upon our souls. We will not abandon faith for as long as we breathe, we will not allow evil to take over our lives and turn everything to hell, we will not weaken and deliver our brothers and sisters to anguish and torment. We need your love, more than ever, we need grace to fall on us, to invade our minds and conquer our hearts, even to those who don’t believe in your power, because we need even them, we need every soul in this room to help us following your path to a better world, to a place where we can be happy again and raise our families and start a new life,” Laura said.
Angeline positioned herself close to the table, taking care to keep the two resisting objects at her hand’s reach. She sneezed, released her hand from Colin’s grip, opened her eyes and grabbed the objects. Crouching to scratch her foot, she hid the objects under her soles and resumed the prayer with everybody.
“Great Father in heaven, deliver the World Voice from its pain. We beg mercy for this tormented being, for your eternal love inspires us to love every creature that populates all worlds. Make it free from its loneliness, give it the bliss of community, take it to paradise with you and put an end to this tormented existence. It will love anyone who can merely talk to it. Give us the power to reach it, so that we can bring the reign of your peace to all corners of the universe.” Laura shook the hands under her grip.
“This Great Father is an interesting Creator, isn’t it? Is he the one who created us all?” OOOO said, with an honest innocence that flattered Laura.
“Yes, he is, my friend. And he wants the good of all beings.” Her eyes blazed with love.
“The interesting goodness or the boring one?” it said.
“According to your preferences, the boring one,” Dalana said, herself respo
nsible for Terra’s visions of paradise.
Laura said amen, hugged everybody in the room, including OOOO, and rejoiced with the comforting mood among her equals. Angeline sat down where she stood, keeping the stones under her buttocks, calling Oliver to sit by her side. They whispered in secrecy while Colin followed Laura’s guidance and hugged everybody, relieved to see the humans taking care of themselves with faith in the future. If a Creator above their realm could help in their situation, his help would come in a great moment.
“Colin, can I ask you something?” Laura said, looking down shyly.
“Of course, anything.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“Would you create us a church? It doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t even have to look like those from our world. Just a quiet place with chairs and candles. This here used to be a temple, but we’ve lost so much that I think we need a simpler kind of ambience.”
“I’ll be pleased to do it. This might be a good idea to ease you and the others’ distress. It’s a pity, though, that I can’t make it silent,” Colin said.
“The World Voice ... Well, it’s our brother, or sister, in pain. We must pray that it can find its salvation.”
Colin imagined a circle of chairs made from the same material as the holy house Dalana created. Only then could it resist the decay. In its middle, a bed of flowers which had to be renewed often, and between them, flames from underground torches burning their oxygen which also had to be renewed from time to time. He wished for it, and it materialized in the fifth room to the left of the corridor.
Laura waited for his nod, for his confirmation of her wish, and she got it, she turned her radiant face to all in the room and called them.
“We have a new place to be at peace, my dear ones. Come and see it with me. Leave this awful table that didn’t bring any relief to our situation, and come pray for mercy from the only one who can truly save us.” Laura turned her palms up, offering her hands to the sky.
