Chapter 8: Samsara

Chapter 8: Samsara

(Antispirit. Spine of the World)

Well. I guess that’s that.

All this suffering could’ve been prevented if only this world were not diseased.

The three poisons, huh? And that damned Angel just left on his own out of nowhere. Dammit, I felt that he was in the midst of some breakthrough in understanding the world’s purpose, and he just… left?

Yeah, I get it, he said that we will never attain those antidotes and… stuffs, but did he just completely give up after that? Like, seriously, if Dream were here then maybe he would have some ideas and…

… sigh, no one’s here, huh.

But Anti, you could’ve swept the Spine a long time ago, so why did you wait until everyone left?

It’s not that, I’m just. Shit. Okay. Okay. There’s nowhere else to go from here. There’s nothing else to do now. Dammit, Anti, focus.

Isn’t this what you’ve been fighting for?

Yeah, but something just doesn’t feel… right.

It’s Walk, isn’t it? By rewriting the world, you could bring her back.

It’s not Walk, it’s just… ah, shit… is it really going to be that easy?

Never try, never know, Anti. What’s stopping you, seriously?

I’m not stopping, dammit. I’m holding the broom now, and with the smallest motion of my arms, the Spine will be swept and…

It’s Mother, isn’t it? You feel bad or something?

No, I mean… well, Dream had the same idea, and… well, he threw me under the damned bus, and…

But you deserved it, didn’t you? Why were you even so afraid of Mother in the first place? Hiding under that damned Island until she was at her weakest point… what are you, a coward?

It’s not… no… it’s just… I couldn’t bear facing her, after all... that…

So, you’re going to fix it, aren’t you? You’re going to fix all of this, aren’t you? By rewriting the world to rid this world of its disease? The three poisons?

It’s not that simple, dammit. It’s not…

So, you think Walk, Dream, and Mother never had the same thoughts as you? You really think that they wholeheartedly believed that sweeping the Spine and achieving their dreams were the keys to their happiness?

Yeah, I mean… yeah… sigh.

Look at you, going in circles here and there. You’ll never move forward at this rate. The world will never move forward at this rate. It’s all because some stupid man with some stupidly gaudy clothes decided to just sleep instead of achieving his dreams.

… Yeah, isn’t it better to just… not move forward? I mean, if suffering is a cycle, then by not moving forward, the cycle wouldn’t repeat, and…

… And?

I guess… spending all eternity overlooking a world without those foreign beings, those… manifestations of the world’s disease… I guess this is the true meaning of Nir-

THE LONELY ENDING

I guess… this is better than the sorrowful view of that drabby underground cave, I mean, even Mother had the gall to name it “Samsara”, and spending all eternity in Samsara is definitely such a sad thing to…

… but Mother and Dream have each other… at least…

… at least they’re not alone.

THE LONELY ENDING

I guess… this is better than… dammit, what if I sweep the Spine and end up getting so depressed that I take my own life, just like Walk?

… Or maybe, maybe she didn’t jump off the Spine because she couldn’t bear the truth… maybe…

… maybe she just wanted to be with the Children, who understood her suffering more than anyone?

… And at least… at least Walk and the Children aren’t alone.

THE LONELY ENDING

… Sigh.

 

 

 

I-I’m so alone…

 

 

 

In the beginning, Antispirit stood on the Spine of the World. Now the Spine was dusty and dispirited, even though there was no longer a Lightless Field underneath the surface, the Spinal Cord.

And Antispirit said, “Let dreams be fulfilled through my sweeping of the Spine,” and there was a sweep. Antispirit saw that the sweep emitted the brightest Light, and the sky was filled with Light.

And with the Light, all the dust on the Spine of the World evaporated into the air. Antispirit saw that it was good, and called out, “Let not even a single speck of dust ever smother the Spine of the World ever again.” And the Spine of the World was to never be smothered by even a single speck of dust ever again—the first day.

And Antispirit said, “Let the integrity of the underground cave—Samsara, to never be affected by the events that are to follow, as to protect the existing happiness of Dreamer and Grey Mother, and to never separate their bonds.” And the outcome of the events that were to occur will no longer affect the integrity of Samsara, and the existing happiness and the bonds between Dreamer and Grey Mother were to be protected—the second day.

Then Antispirit said, “Let a process to rewrite this world commence immediately, and for as long as the process rewrites this world to bring forth the most desirable outcome, to be henceforth only to be referred to as the name ‘Eternal Kiss of the Wrinkled Lips of the Lost Spirits Beyond The Happy Ending’ in name, spirit, and might, to only be shortened to The Happy Ending.” And henceforth the process to rewrite this world to bring forth the most desirable outcome shall only be spoken in name, spirit, and might as Eternal Kiss of the Wrinkled Lips of the Lost Spirits Beyond The Happy Ending’, to only be shortened to The Happy Ending—the third day.

Then Antispirit said, “Let The Happy Ending reshape the symptoms of this world’s disease—the Old Walls and Lightless Field, into the Soup of Life.” And the white cuboids and the black asphalt roads of the City of Sleep, and the upper section of the Abyss of Humans that resides above Samsara, and the entirety of the Tower of Angel that resides above Samsara, and the entirety of the Spine of the World, all which comprise all the Old Walls and Lightless Field in the Dusty-Spined Star, were immediately reshaped into the Soup of Life—the fourth day.

And Antispirit said, “Let The Happy Ending reshape the entire structure of this world—the white sands and the grasses and rocks and faunas of the Island of I, all which once protected this world’s disease, into the Soup of Life.” And the entirety of the Cliff of Wake, and all the white sands that comprise the Dusty-Spined Star, and the entirety of the Island of I, were immediately reshaped into the Soup of Life, and due to the efforts of the second day, the Soup of Life, which then comprised the entirety of the world, were to never leak or enter Samsara—the firth day.

And Antispirit said, “Let the Soup of Life, which now comprises the entirety of the world except Samsara, to be easily and efficiently reshaped by those who hold the broom.” And all the Soup of Life was made to be easily and efficiently reshaped by those who hold the broom—the sixth day.

By the seventh day Antispirit has finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day Antispirit rested from all his work.

 

 

 

(Dreamer. Samsara)

The place barely shook. The ceiling barely rumbled. The Beautiful Field still remains in the distance; its light still seeping out of the breach earlier, unhindered by the Abyss which is still akin to opened curtains.

The large hole in the ceiling that forms part of the Cliff of Wake still remains untouched. The spiralling stairways ascending the Cliff still remains. I’m pretty sure it’ll lead to a dead end now. Seeing that there’s no Soup dripping down to this cave, Anti must have sealed the cave shut.

But I can never get close enough to know for sure, as I don’t want to leave Mother alone.

No, it’s not that I’m afraid that she’ll do something drastic to herself again; she feels as if she’s holding on better than before, though I can never know for sure.

No, it’s not that I’m afraid that she’ll get lonely from my momentary absence; the cave’s sealed tight, she knows that I can never leave even if I wanted to, and she also knows that I do not plan to leave the cave.

No, it’s not that… damn, I don’t really know for sure. I guess it’s rather comfortable being the only two people atop this white pyramid, shielded from the chaos of the aboveground, getting to spend all eternity together?

Gah. I don’t know. Dammit.

(Grey Mother. Samsara)

I know he’s curious about the situation in the aboveground. That’s how he is; forever inquisitive, forever trying to understand the world.

He’s not fooling me that he’s uninterested about the whole ‘rewriting the world’ thing, for his eyes wander up the ceiling, to the far east and far west, and staring at the distances for far too long than ‘uninterestedly’ acceptable.

He’s also not fooling me that he’s worried I’ll get lonely, for his quivering eyelids and moist pupils suggest none other than his very own… fear.

… So much for his dreams of eternal happiness. If happiness can be achieved in such a simple way, then why is it that even after the three of us fulfilled the dreams of my heart, why is it…

… that you’re still so lonely?

Sigh. And so much for Anti proclaiming that he’ll make us all happy by rewriting the world. He has done that already, hasn’t he?

… What is he waiting for? Go on, make us happy already, give us that damned happy ending we all crave for.

It has been seven days, hasn’t it?

Anti, you couldn’t simply just make us all happy, could you? You know what, you’re a damned liar.

But, hey, my brother, aren’t we all liars to ourselves?

If this world is truly so diseased as you proclaimed—an idea that I’m gradually buying into, then nothing we do could change our situation, right?

Sigh. This is depressing.

Why are you seemingly sadder by the minute, Dream? Damn, you should be angry, you little shit! He made utter fools of us all!

… That’s what I’d say if the both of us really didn’t know any better.

Maybe Anti just needed time? Yeah, it’s preposterous for us to believe that a mere seven days is all he needs to cure this world, but…

He would’ve known if that were possible by now. I could’ve dreamed for Walk and the Children to return, but at the very moment when I swept the Spine, I knew that it would not be possible.

And I knew that the annihilation of the enemy—The Lonely Ending, would not bring Walk back.

… But I kept clinging to the power of hope, the hope that I was wrong…

Each of our individual powers aren’t strong enough to completely reshape the world; that’s why Anti and Dream hatched that damned plan of theirs for a sequential sweeping session that ends precisely with my dream to annihilate the enemy.

But since I’ve annihilated the enemy, Anti should’ve been able to make us all happy… and nope, we’re still as depressed as ever.

The disease… the disease of the world still remains, hasn’t it? After Mother annihilated those foreign beings, they simply returned to Soup and merge back into the world, which means that…

… the concentration of disease in this world hasn’t decreased at all.

… Mother simply restricted the Gods from further influencing this world by stopping the Bloody Rain for good, and…

Wait. No. It can’t be. Maybe the weakness of the world... the weakness of us all… they are not caused by the People and Corals, but…

… by this world itself? And when Mother stopped the Bloody Rain from falling…

… I did that by… reinforcing the Comfort Zone.

And the avatars of the Gods can never enter this world anymore. And with that…

No… wait, those avatars of the Gods, they were actually…

… trying to absorb the disease of the world.

And they were alive and well at first, but the Comfort Zone… it murdered them all, and thus they rained down the world as bloodied corpses.

And upon splitting into two and absorbing the disease of the world, they became…

… The Underwater People and Philosopher Corals… Our True Selves… Dammit… Walk… you knew it… you knew it all along, that’s why you gave them that name…

 

 

 

… The true enemy of this world… is our true selves.

 

 

 

“Sigh.”

“Mother, what could be of such concern to you?”

“We both came to the same realization, didn’t we? It’s my concern as much as it is yours.”

“Mother, this is not a concern! Mother, this is an enlightenment! We have truly understood the nature of this world just a little better, and…”

I don’t know how to continue. Mother clearly knows I am just pretending that this shit is alright. Ugh, dammit. I guess, I guess…

… with the state of this world, I guess it’s just better to admit defeat and…

“Dream, who do you think I am?”

“Huh? You’re Mother, of course. Who else could you be?”

“Why am I Mother? Why am I not just Soup?”

I look at her beside me, sitting on the ground with her legs stretched forward. That’s a very… unexpected question. How should… how should I respond?

… To be honest, I’ve never actually delved deep into that thought before.

Dream, why do you look so flabbergasted, to the point where your crossed legs start trembling a little? Can’t I ask interesting questions for once?

… And hopefully, get an interesting answer from that beautiful mind of yours.

“You mean, why are you taking on the shape of Mother, instead of just being regular old Soup? Is that what you meant? That’s what you meant, right?”

“Look, Dream, I know that you understood my question; you don’t have to feel obligated to pad out the conversation just so that you have some time to think, and you don’t need to instantaneously respond every time someone ask you some shit; it’s okay to be silent and think for a while.”

 … Yeah, it’s okay, I guess. Sigh.

“Sigh. I mean, you’re Mother because you… you decided to be Mother, and this very form of you is who you truly are and who you truly want to be, and all the clothes you have on you and even the mohawk are all… because these are expressions of your true self, and…”

“Dream, I’m not interested in the answer you would’ve given to someone not from this world. I’m interested to hear what you truly think.”

Sigh. I know where she’s going with this.

“You’re Mother because… no, you were manifested as Mother because… you are a part of this world that has not given up, yet. It’s the same as Anti and me, we haven’t given up yet. Or maybe we’ve already given up? I mean, once we’ve been manifested into these forms, we can’t just spontaneously dissolve into Soup, so… say, Mother, if we have given up and something were to take our lives now… will we ever choose to rebirth again?”

“… Just like Walk… Dammit…”

“Mother, Samsara isn’t the mere endless and beginningless cycle of death and rebirth. And Walk has shown us that. Yeah, she may have lamented about not being able to ‘evolve’ or whatnot, but her true self, Mother, her true self is her subconscious.”

“What do you mean, subconscious?”

“Mother, she didn’t choose to be rebirthed into herself. But that was what happened, and you know why? It was simply because she subconsciously felt your loneliness.”

“That’s kind of far-fetched, Dream. And also, I wasn’t exactly lon-”

“Why do you think that no matter where Walk died, the Children always appeared the same single location—Samsara? It makes sense now, doesn’t it?”

“No, Dream, she couldn’t have possibly understood how I felt.”

“Yes, you are absolutely correct, Mother. She couldn’t have possibly understood you, but her subconscious—the world, did.”

“Now that makes even lesser sense than before.”

“Who do you think you are, Mother?”

“Huh?”

“You are a manifestation. I am a manifestation. Anti and Walk and even the Children are all manifestations. And if we, the manifestations of this world, are the parts of this world that are conscious enough to be given physical bodies and actual personalities, then… what is our subconscious?”

“… The world? But no, we don’t actually think alike, and I don’t think I even subconsciously know what’s going up in Anti’s mind right now… maybe just a guess, but I don’t feel that subconscious realization, and…”

“Then tell me, Mother, why did the death of the Children create a ripple effect across all worldly events? And why, why has Walk’s deat-”

“Dream, enough…”

Shit. I get it. I get it now.

Mother, you finally get it now, hasn’t you?

The integrity of this world. A part of it has given up. And the part that has given up…

… was the main driving force of this world, and was the only one who truly wanted to understand the reasoning behind the world’s incurable depression…

… the part of the world that understood the true purpose of the Gods in trying to drain the disease bit by bit from this world…

… and with it… the only part of the world that truly wanted to save this world…

 

 

 

… Grey Walker… has given up.

 

 

 

Sigh.

Sigh.

 

 

 

(Antispirit.)

Ah… how beautiful this world is…

To rewrite a new story… rewrite a new history…

… and carve out The Happy Ending.

The Dusty-Spined Star has always been Soup.

And we are but the very Soup that has been made into the land we are standing on.

The Spine of the World. The book. The Lord’s Spine.

Everything is Soup.

And I realized that quite some time ago, but I didn’t want to face it…

… there was a reason why I decreed that “Samsara is to never be affected by the events that are to follow” …

Dammit, Anti. You realized, didn’t you?

… The only way to make them happy… the only way to make all of us happy… is to rewrite everything.

That includes… Dream and Mother, who are very much still alive…

… still holding on…

… and to make them smile… I need to dissolve them…

… into Soup…

… to create a new Dream, and a new Mother…

… and a new Walk… and the new Children…

Rewriting the world to make us all happy again, simply meant reverting all of us to Soup, then reforming the Soup to the… most desired outcome.

And the reformed us… will no longer be us…

 

 

 

They will simply be the Ghosts of Everything.

 

 

 

Fuck.

Seriously, what the hell were you expecting when you had this dream, Anti? That all of a sudden, everyone will have smiles eternally plastered onto their faces?

Even if that were to happen, well, you still had to dissolve their faces in order to reshape it into an everlasting smile.

And I think… we all had enough with faking happiness…

Okay. Anti. Chill. There’s no time. There’s a lot of time.

But Dream and Mother are waiting below. Walk and the Children are waiting, too…

… waiting for me to make the world a happier place to live in.

And this is The Happy Ending.

A new world I will build.

A happier place for us all.

But Anti, you’re going to be building it out of Soup and… Ghosts.

A world built by your hands, using substances that can be moulded to your will, wouldn’t that be… fake?

Shut the fuck up, Anti.

There’s no point in getting hung up by this. You have the broom. You have the dream.

And you are going to make a real world.

A world realer than the one we had… a world happier than the one we had…

A world under our rule, rather than a world that rules over us…

… governing us through rules and phenomena that we don’t understand…

… and killing us all, bit by bit, until we get consumed by those damned seafood.

And once I am done…

 

 

 

Everyone will come back to me.

 

 

 

And I raise the broom up to the air. The Soup rises up into towers and buildings lined with the glossiest windows and structured with the most elegant concrete and metal.

There will be trees along the roads connecting the buildings, and some distance away from the buildings and towers, there will be bungalows and fifty-storey apartments, and there will be a beautiful pond… no, many beautiful ponds across the forests and parks intertwiningly layered between the bricks and mortars.

And the towers will reach for the sky, barely touching the boundaries of this world. And the land will be marvellously curtained with the freshest air and the purest oxygen, and the trees and plants and flowers will be in the fullest bloom for all eternity, and their remarkably splendid colours of red, blue, yellow, and orange will never fade.

But the world is lonely. But it is okay, for if it was from Soup that we came from, then it will be from Soup that many more like us will be born into this world.

The Ghosts of Everything. Figures in the vaguest humanoid forms, with black gas resembling the faintest Lightless Fields shaping their outer appearances, with each having a spine resembling the most brittle Old Walls seemingly supporting their entire ghastly body weights.

And these Ghosts of Everything can be anything and everything. And it is from these Ghosts that I will create a society of humans of all shapes and sizes and personalities and hearts, and all kinds of perfections and imperfections and all kinds of conflicts and all the complexities of our very hearts.

And these Ghosts will also be the birds that fly through the still-motionless clouds, and they will also be the stray cats and dogs that wander the streets searching for the kindest of owners, and they will also be the butterflies and bees and squirrels and rabbits that roam the land, free from any and all concerns.

And I wait.

This is a happy world. A real world. Everything is beautiful. The animals and the citizens are all beautiful.

All the humans that I’ve created, they are all living happy lives.

But… nothing.

No, wait, there should be a beach! And an endless blue ocean!

And breezy winds!

Thus, there is now a large ocean surrounding the greeneries of the nourished land. Separating the ocean from the land is a spread of pure white sand, finest in touch and silkiest in flow. The wind waltzes by, carrying with it the freshest autumn-red and spring-green leaves. And the families that are building sandcastles, surfing along the waves, and splashing each other for fun, are all very happy.

Anti… so much for “all kinds of perfections and imperfections and all kinds of conflicts and complexities”.

But it’s fine, you see. I didn’t create a fake world. It’s a real world that is simply happy. Everyone’s enjoying the time of their lives.

And I wait.

But… nothing.

Anti, are you really expecting Walk to just pop out of nowhere?

… Yeah!

Cause if she feels that the world is a happy place, she, having already turned into Soup, can easily, and literally, pop out of nowhere!

And once she does that, the Children will do so, too!

And once they come back… I will bring Dream and Mother out of Samsara.

But… why, Walk?

Is this world still not happy enough for you?

No, you didn’t want this after all, Walk. I know you well. You think that it’s still fake, don’t you?

… It’s all hopeless, isn’t it?

Shut the fuck up, Anti.

You have the fucking broom. You have the fucking power to do anything you want.

What about a nightclub? You always wanted this, don’t you, Walk? To drink and dance your sorrows away?

And thus, I build a nightclub in the purplest, most golden, and bluest hues, because you like those colours, don’t you? This world-sized nightclub has everyone screaming out your name, and people crying over your absence from the party.

You see, Walk? Everyone misses you… they all want… they all want to be friends with you…

Sigh. What about a snowy mountain? I mean, you, in your grey sweater, are already well-dressed for this! You can sit there and meditate all day, all night, and get closer to the Gods!

And thus, I build the tallest mountain, yet never too tall as to supersede the heavens, but tall enough that all you need is to stretch your fingers to the sky, and you can literally touch the Gods!

And the Gods are… the Gods are…

Fucking hell, those words… you kept repeating them before you jumped off that… Spine…

… Sigh.

Enough.

Everything is obviously fake. Everyone is obviously fake.

And they are fake, simply because they are abnormal.

And Walk… Walk only wanted to be normal… to be like everyone else…

To build the world solely to cater to Walk… she is not the kind of person that respects that kind of pretentiousness.

She only wants to come back to a world where she can be real… she can be normal…

For her to come back, Anti, you need to build a world where you can live a normal life.

A real life.

And when she sees that you are living a normal life…

… she will come back.

 

 

 

… Sigh.

Shut the fuck up, Anti.

No no no fuck fuck fuck dammit I am so fucking useless I can’t even bring anyone back

 

 

 

GODDAMMIIIIIIIIIIIII

 

 

 

… A normal life as a salesperson of a product.

… Light Machines.

Yeah! Light Machines! I mean, if I were to spread the importance of the Light Machine to this world that I’ve build, then maybe Walk will come back! But isn’t that fak-

Yeah. Let’s do it! Let’s fucking do it!

So, the Light Machine is but a circular orb the size of a human fist, covered in metal. And there will be Light emitting from within. And so, this Light is supposed to cure all unhappiness by illuminating the right path in life.

Yeah! That sounds great! Ah… everything’s going so perfectly. Anti, that is so fucking abnor-

So, it’s morning. I mean, unfortunately, as much as I could reshape the Soup to be whatever I want, I can’t exactly make the sun move. Ah, whatever, so what if it’s always noon? It’s still morning!

It’s time for work! Please, Anti, st-

Of course, as much as I want this world to be a happier place, I am also careful not to make it unrealistic. It has to be a real, normal world. Otherwise, the happiness is fake.

So of course, I have to start from the bottom of the corporate ladder and work my way up.

Yeah! Let’s do it!

Wow! The office is actually so huge and lifelike! I mean, what the hell am I thinking? Of course, this is lifelike! I’ve written a very real world. This world is faker than the Dusty-Spined St-

And there are large windows spanning from floor to ceiling to the right of me, showcasing the amazingly picturesque buildings and roads and houses and faunas and floras I’ve made.

And the floor is carpeted in blue! And the tables are so white and so neatly aligned, and the swivel chairs are so smooth and frictionless, and they feel much more comfortable and are definitely more comfortable than the Warm Chair sat on by the Lor-

Oh, there’s a morning meeting! Great! I’m so pumped!

“Good morning, fellow employees! How are you doing today?”

Wow! I can’t believe that this person used to be a Ghost! How did I even transform a weird and ununiformed splatter of black gases and white bones into… this?

The patterns on the shirt are so real, and the buttons are so clear and… high definition. Of course! This world is real! Hah! This world is very real! Absolutely normal! This is a normal life!

And the necktie ends directly above where the person’s belt buckle lies. And the silvery sheen of the buckle reflects the light from the ceiling, right into my shades! Yeah, of course I’m still sporting these shades. Anti, in a normal world, no one wears shades to the of-

“Antispirit, what are you doing?”

Huh? Is the person talking to me? Huh? Wait, what am I doing?

“Antispirit, you know that you can’t smoke in the office.”

Ah, come on, dammit, I was just in the middle of relaxing here and you gotta butt in and ruin my vibe.

“Antispirit, put that down.”

“Wow! Hey, shut the hell up! I smoke wherever the hell I want!”

“Antispirit, how dare you speak to me in that tone?! Leave this conference room, immediately.”

Wow. How rude. Hey jackass, I’m the creator of this world, you know. Anti, stop it. This is how a real, normal world is supposed to be, so why are you blab-

“I don’t want to. What are you gonna do, huh? Slap the shit out of me?!”

“Sorry, Director, I think Anti’s having a bad day, I’ll bring him out of the room.”

“Hey, what the hell are you doing to me?!”

How dare this bastard grab onto my arm so tightly? Don’t pull so hard, you shithead.

“Anti… what the fuck was that? We all know that we shouldn’t be smoking in the office, or in any air-conditioned place; it’s basic human decency. You drunk or something? I knew something was wrong with you when you checked in to work today wearing fucking shades.”

I assume that this is my… manager? Or is this… my friend?

“Regardless, stay out of the room for now. I’ll talk to you personally after this meeting.”

Yep. Definitely manager.

“Who the hell do you think you are, huh? And who the hell do you think I am?”

“… What the fuck was that tone?! You know what? Head the fuck home, wash up and slap some sense into yourself, and if you properly apologize tomorrow, I’ll just tell the director you had a bad day.”

Dammit. This is no fun. This is absolutely no fun. Fun? What fun? Anti, you’re not supposed to be having fun in this sit-

“What the fuck are you doing? Head. The. Fuck. Home.”

Okay, I give up. Time to make some changes here and there.

A little bit of imagination.

A little bit of twists and turns in the cogs of this world.

And the door to the conference room swings open.

“Antispirit! Great job! You have been promoted to director! I will resign from my post immediately!”

Ah… much better… Just go on, Anti, sigh. I give up.

Couldn’t have so many distractions in my quest to fill this world with Light.

And so, as director of this company, I need to spearhead this effort of spreading the Light Machines across the world.

… Why couldn’t you just create a world where Light Machines are the norms in every household and office? For the sake of realism, duh. Why the hell will Walk come back if she thinks that this world is fake and so clearly fabricat-

“Dear employees, I, Antispirit, will increase our sales target fivefold! We must spread the Light to every corner and crevice of this world!”

“Director, pardon me for cutting in, but… how could it be possible for us to do that out of the blue? It… it doesn’t make sense.”

Twists and turns.

“Director! We will work five times harder to achieve ten times the sales amount! And director, we agree to work for no salary at all, simply because we are so loyal to you! Please, do not pay us any money!”

Okay. That’s settled. Hah! Easy. Ah… life is so easy.

I still need to go out and meet some customers, I guess. I mean, can’t have a director that’s all talk and no walk, right? Hah! I’m clearly fair and just!

So, I carry the Light Machine to my car. Ah, my car is so real! It feels great! The steering wheel and accelerator all work as it should—beautifully!

So, I drive to a large, beautiful factory that is so large and beautiful and… actually, I should stop being so surprised that everything is so real now.

Ah… so beautiful.

“Hey customer, I’m Anti, fr-”

Eh. Wait. This customer…

“Anti, where have you been? I… I’ve missed you…”

No way. She’s actually…

“… Walk?”

I run forward.

“I was… I was… so lonely, Anti… why didn’t you stop me when… I was about to jump?”

Shit.

She’s actually… back…

Walk… my dear, dear Walk, I’ve missed you too…

My efforts in creating a real, normal world…

Everything… everything is fine now…

And Walk, you’re…

… gone.

… Walk literally poofed out of my arms.

… FUCKING Ghost.

Fuck.

FUCK this world.

Return this whole shit to Soup already.

… Goddammit. FUCK.

Sigh. What was I expecting? Creating a “real” world to convince Walk to come back?

FUCK OFF ANTI, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU EXPECTING?!

FUCKING revert the Soup back to a few FUCKING seconds before.

No, not in the office; in that damned factory!

And… bring back that Ghost who was in the shape of Walk…

If I can’t… bring Walk back…

If no one wants to come back to me, then I…

 

 

 

I mean, we were all so fake anyway. Fake manifestations of a fake world.

Even I… Even I am fake…

 

 

 

“Anti… I missed you.”

“I missed you too, dear.”

“Why didn’t you stop me back then?”

“You were… too fast, dear. Like, you didn’t even give me the time to react. I didn’t even know you... jumped, until after I stared at the empty space where you used to be for like, fifteen seconds?”

“Then… why didn’t you say anything, Anti? You didn’t even scream or make any… sound. I felt… so lonely, you know?”

“I… I didn’t know how to react, Walk. I mean, we both were under the assumption that reading the book would’ve made you happy, or that if you were shocked by its contents, that I was by your side and maybe… maybe you could at least share your concerns with me… first?”

“Anti… I felt so… alone you know… if only… if you told me that it was going to be okay…”

“Walk… I…”

“But you… you didn’t… it was on purpose, wasn’t it? It was so that Mother could be instigated to fulfil her dreams of annihilating the avatars of the Gods in a wasted effort to bring me back? The Lonely Ending?”

“W-wait, how do you kn-”

Anti, you dummy, she’s just a Ghost based on your imagin-

“N-no, Walk, no, it isn’t…”

“So, now what? You accomplished your dream, haven’t you? My cruel death and the cruel sufferings of Dream and Mother were all just cogs to your so-called ‘rewritten world’ of eternal happiness?”

No… Dream, stop looking at us, dammit; come help a brother in need, man.

“Anti… she’s right. The entire integrity of my dream relies on the ascertained happiness that we will each achieve after fulfilling our dreams. And when Walk, Mother, and I failed to achieve this post-fulfilment happiness, you claimed that your dreams will be fulfilled in accordance with your desired outcome, which meant that you will be happy after achieving this dream.”

“Hey, Dream, you’re supposed to be helping m- Ah… yeah, yeah I am absolutely happy now, so what’s your point, man?”

“Great! You are absolutely happy now, Anti, which means your dream has reached your most desired outcome, which is Nirvana, right?”

Dream… No… Please st-

“Then… why are we still not happy?”

No… No, you don’t understand, this is…

“I knew it’s not that easy for that bitch to make us happy. Dammit, did he really believe that a sweep of the Spine is all it took? Rewriting the world? Piece of shit.”

Mother…

… No… we are all…

… this is The Happy Ending… isn’t it?

So… we are all… happy…

Even if the world is fake…

I just want us to be… happy…

“Anti! Oh, my dear Anti, I was so wrong! I was actually so happy all along! And I am very, very happy now! Anti, I love you! We are so happy now!”

“Brother… I was absolutely mistaken, we are actually so happy now, and life is so good, and we have achieved Nirvana.”

“Anti… sorry, but I am so happy now. I have completely forgiven you for working with the enemy. Certainly, you did the right thing! Thanks to you, we are all so happy!”

This is… better… I guess?

… Yeah… this is better… everyone’s happy now…

So… let’s all go to a restaurant and… eat something nice… I guess…

Yeah! I must be hungry! That’s why I was so doubtful about everything! Ah… life is so perfect…

Good food… Exquisitely seared steak… golden-roasted fish… with a cold glass of impeccably polished and sparklingly smooth wine!

A table for four.

And let’s wait for our dishes to be served.

“Guys, so… how’s your day so far?”

“Anti… It’s such a great day… I’m so happy… It’s all thanks to you! I love you so much! Just looking at your face makes me happy!”

“Brother… it’s great! How can it not be? Ever since you singlehandedly made us all happy, we have never been happier! You are the happiness of our lives, brother.”

“Anti, it’s great, and of course I feel happy, and I feel so, so happy, and I am so confident that we will be happy until the end of this world, and even if there are enemies trying to oppose our happiness, the strength of our happiness will surely overcome them!”

Yeah…

“… Great! Everyone seems to be having a great day! So… where are we gonna go next?”

“Let’s go jump off the Spine! It’s so fun, and we’re gonna be so happy!”

“Let’s go sit on the Warm Chair and do nothing and die! Doing nothing and dying makes us happy.”

“Let’s murder all our enemies! Murdering is such a happy thing to do.”

… Oh, the waiter’s back with a trolley full of our food.

… Oh my, I didn’t think that we ordered so much…

… Do people usually serve food in a… white box…?

“Your order, ladies and gentlemen.”

A… very… large… white box… seemingly taller than myself…

 

 

 

“A fresh serving of finely-minced and eloquently-blended chicken and all their organs, marinated in their own bodily fluids.”

 

 

 

“Wow! How lovely! Anti, my dear, the box looks like it can fit the two of us! Come on, once we finished our meal, let’s head inside and spend the rest of our lives together there, happily ever after!”

“Brother… you are amazing! How thoughtful you must be to have understood that our time is limited in this world, and that it will be faster if we were to consume finely minced foods! This is the happiest day of my life!”

“Bodily fluids! Anti, you truly understand my love towards the blended bodily fluids and freshly preserved heads, and I truly, truly love to eat bodily flu-”

The… fuck is wrong with my mind?

… The fuck is wrong with everything?

Wait… did he say ‘chicken’, or… Chil-

Wait a second, no, don’t you dare move a mus-

“And in order for us to retain all the fresh juices, this box has been tightly sealed on all sides. A light tap with this white stick will magically break the box, showcasing all the dishes you’ve ordered in magnificent splendour.”

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

 

 

 

*clang*

 

 

 

… What the fu-

“Oh my… Anti, my dear, such a lovely dish we ordered! The Children have all been minced and blended into an easy-to-drink juice for us! Oh, look, one of their heads isn’t fully blended yet. Ah, it’s alright, it adds texture to our dish. I am very happy with this!”

No. No. Fuck. No. No!

“Brother… how wonderful… such a… delicacy… brother, I have been absolutely mistaken in my judgment of your meticulous taste. You even ordered an extra well-seasoned eyeball or two! You are, indeed, the epitome of fine dining itself, and for that, I am very happy!”

Fucking shut up already!

“My… Children… Ah… They must have happily killed each other in the box… Ah… they must have died happy deaths… And because their deaths must have been so recent, they are indeed, the freshest of fresh. My taste buds can’t help but experience unreserved happiness…”

Dammit. Goddammit. Fucking hell. Shit.

Reset.

Fucking reset.

FUCKING RESET.

FUCK OFF FROM MY BRAIN

PIECE OF

FUCKING SHIT

… FUCK.

That was, for a lack of better phrase, fucked up.

… I need time to recover from that.

Sigh.

… Let’s try again, I guess.

… FUCK.

What the fuck was that? Seriously? Anti, you are such a fucking piece of trash and you are fucked up and your whole body is fucked up and your whole soul is fucked up and your whole heart is fucked u-

Let’s try to make everyone more… “realistic”, I guess.

I mean, not too realistic, just…

ANTI YOU ARE A FUCKING BRAINDEAD USELESS PIECE OF TRASH

Okay, okay. So, we’re in a car now. I’m driving. Dream’s beside me. Walk and Mother are in the back seat. The car’s a seven-seater, so there’s ample space for everyone. And we are all heading towards…

… somewhere happy…

… like a waterfall! Yeah! Waterfalls are happy places!

“La la la la la la la~ Waterfall~ Waterfall~ Happy~ Happy~ Guys, are you excited for this? We’re heading to a happy waterfall!”

“Oh.” said Walk.

… Fuck.

“Guys… a waterfall is a happy place, alright? And we can soak away our stresses there! And we can… we can splash water at each other! And we can… we can have fun!”

“How?” said Dream.

“It’s such a beautiful day today! Ah, what a lovely weather! La la la la la la la~ Come guys, sing with me! La la la la la la la~”

“La.” said Mother.

… Please don’t make this any more difficult for me, guys… I’m trying my best here…

Oh gosh…

“Hey, Walk! We’re gonna have lots of fun there! We’re gonna splash a lot of water at each other, and we’re gonna… splash… we’re gonna have a picnic! Yeah! A picnic! With… food…”

“Splash water at each other, huh… I guess… drowning to death isn’t such a bad idea…”

No no no no no

“Hey, Dream, my brother! You always wanted a place to relax, right? The weather’s amazing today, and we’re gonna… we’re gonna… relax… Oh, did I mention that there’s a picnic with food…?”

“Food by the waterfall… That’s great…! I guess all the germs and poison from the water could infect the food and kill us all… splendid…”

Please…

“Mother! Didn’t you always want this? We could be a family together, by the waterfall, and, and, eat… good… food… together… please…?”

“Family… Anti, you’re amazing… We could finally be together…”

Yeah… Yeah… Please, that’s a good response, Mother, ple-

“… even after we kill each other…”

 

 

 

Enough.

 

 

 

I fucking had enough.

 

 

 

The world’s Soup again.

I’m flying above the Soup again.

The Angel was right… dammit… this world has been poisoned… not even my imagination is free from this disease…

… yet, it can’t just be the end of it, right? There must be a way for the antidotes to be found…

But… not even rewriting the world could cure the world’s fucked-up disease.

 

 

 

I must bring the real Walk back…

 

 

 

But I don’t know how.

I guess I could try actually manifesting that idea of mine… a world of Light Machines.

But the Light Machine that hovers in front of me, this metallic sphere emanating Light from its core…

… it feels nothing like Walk’s Light. It’s just… regular light.

If this thing were to be thrown into some Lightless Field, it would simply become a puny little lightless ball.

… But I could try.

I can’t give up yet, dammit.

Sigh… fuck my thoughts, man. If this shit doesn’t succeed, then my very own mind will be the literal end of me.

So, I recreate the world. Buildings and plants and roads and yada-yada.

And there are many Ghosts of Everything roaming about. I do not reshape them into a different shape. They are but Lightless Field and Old Walls now.

And I give every one of them a Light Machine. I mean, it’s not Walk’s Light, but…

Every one of them has a Light Machine. They are within their Lightless Field “bodies”, just in front of their Old Wall “spines”, where their hearts would normally be.

And they continue roaming about, as aimlessly as ever. I don’t care. How they act isn’t important.

It only matters that their hearts are filled with Light, no matter how fake the Light is.

And I wait.

I don’t know what the outcome will be. But I wait.

Days. Weeks. Months. Years. I don’t know. Time is still not moving in this place.

I guess nothing’s changing… yet.

You know, this building’s rooftop is a pretty comfy place to… take a little… rest…

… while I wait for Walk…

GET THE FUCK UP ANTI WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU WASTING YOUR TIME THIS IS WHY NOBODY LOVES YOU

 

 

 

How long have I slept for? How are things now?

I fly up. I look around the world. The buildings. The roads. The architecture. They are untouched.

The Ghosts. They are gone.

No, no, no, what the hell happened?

And… oh gosh…

This is a cruel joke, right?

 

 

 

Why the fuck is there another fucking fucking fucking FUCKING white box?!

… Please… I can’t…

… but did the Ghosts all go inside the… box…?

… No… I won’t open it, I won’t…

No no no no no no no shit fuck ass bitch piece of fucking trash don’t fucking make me DO THIS

Shit.

I’m crying.

I’m fucking crying.

No.

No.

Get the fuck away from me.

… If I close my eyes… will everything disappear?

If I keep flying up… will everything disappear?

The fucking… the fucking Comfort Zone is blocking me.

Wait. Where are my wings?

Where the fuck are my wings?

The sky. The sun. They are getting farther and farther away from me.

No. Why. I am.

I am falling.

I guess… this is good…

I’ll just manifest an Old Wall on the ground…

… to stab my heart…

… then I can just become Soup.

 

 

 

“Hey Anti, wake up!”

“… Huh?”

“Hey, you sure he’s Anti?”

“Yeah, he’s definitely Anti. Walk told us about those dodgy little shades of his.”

“And his long black hair, just like ours!”

“And his white suit! Walk said that it looked so weird!”

“Yeah. And he keeps a box of cigarettes in his right breast pocket.”

“Hey, once he wakes up, let’s ask him to give us a stick!”

“A stick of… cigarette? Hey, aren’t we too young to smoke?”

“Does age even matter in this place? How old are we, even?”

“How old is the world, even?”

“Whoa there, guys, you’re getting deep. I mean, I know Walk and Mother talked about deep stuffs a lot, but they’re pretty boring.”

“Yeah! Why is everyone just so sad and gloomy all day?”

… No way.

“Hey! Anti opened his eyes! Hi, Anti! Hi!”

“Hi Anti! Can you see me? Hi!”

… No way in hell… I must be dreaming.

… Then again, what are the differences between dreams and reality, anyway?

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Seven pairs of eyes watch over me.

They look like Walk. They look exactly like Walk. Long black hair reaching their shoulders. Light-grey sweater. Dark-grey denim mini-shorts. Grey leather snow boots.

I stand up.

Indeed… the only differences between Walk and them are their heights. I mean, even the height differences aren’t that obvious; whereas Walk barely reached the height of my shoulders, they stand only slightly lower than my chest.

All seven of them look up to me.

The Grey Children.

But… no… they could have just been Ghosts that manifested into what I imagined the Children are like…

… No way that they could be real…

“Hey, Anti, are you okay? You look awfully quiet.”

“I mean, he just fell from the sky, so it must have been a huge shock for him.”

“Oh yeah! He fell from the sky! Hey, Anti, are you alright? You look oddly fine for someone who has just fallen from the sky.”

But hey… at least they don’t seem to be in the box, so…

“Yeah, hi there. You fellas are the Grey Children, right? Hi, I’m Antispirit, but you can call me Anti. I mean, you already knew that, so… yeah. Hi.”

“Hi!”

“Hi!”

“Hello!”

“Hi there!”

“Hi!”

“Nice to meet you, Anti!”

“Weeeee!”

… You know what, I’ll just think of them as the real deal.

“So… how’s your day going, fellas?”

“Great! We visited a waterfall nearby! And ate some good food! There were many types of breads, and there were lots of fruits, and peanuts, and we even had sausages! It was a lot of fun, Anti!”

“Yeah! And we ate some nice chicken at a fancy restaurant! It was super-duper amazing!”

“And we visited a factory! It was so cool to see all those fancy robots at work!”

“And, and, before that, we visited an office! It was so white and so clean, and, and, it felt so comfortable, and the people over there were so nice to us!”

… I don’t know… how to respond to that…

… I don’t even want to think about how they got to experience all… that…

“Anti, today was the bestest day of our lives!”

“Yeah! We were so happy, Anti!”

“Anti, you should join us someday! Then you will be happy too!”

… Yeah… I’m… happy… to hear that…

“Good to hear that, fellas. Anyway, any idea about that box?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s been sitting there for some time, now.”

“Yeah! It’s just a big old box! Boring!”

“Yeah! Boring!”

“I think I saw some of those black gassy things entering the box just now…”

“Yeah! And those weird things are glowing, I think.”

“Yeah! They were glowing so bright! But how did they enter the box?”

“They just floated in; I think.”

“Like… ghosts?”

“Eek!”

“Ah! No! Ghosts! Shoo! Shoo!”

“Haha! Boo! There’s a ghost behind you right now!”

“Eek!”

“Come on, don’t be so mean! Maybe… maybe we’re all just ghosts…”

“Eek!”

Okay, now that’s fucked up.

But… why…?

Why did the Ghosts all fly into the box?

And are the Children… No, stop thinking about that.

“Hey fellas, stop scaring each other. I mean, it’s pretty funny watching you guys do that, but, man, we have a box in front of us!”

“Yeah! A big boring box!”

“Let’s open it and see what’s inside!”

“Yeah, let’s…”

I mean, the Children are all out here, so it should be fine… right?

At most, I’ll be seeing tens of thousands of Ghosts inside the box.

Haha. It’s surely gonna be really, really bright then. I mean, all those Light Machines…

It’ll be fine.

“Hey! I found this sharp white tool!”

“Hey, be careful with that! It’s sharp! Uh, I think it’s better if you hand it over to Anti.”

“Yeah! Anti looks strong and big and muscular! I’m sure he won’t accidentally hurt himself!”

“Uh, yeah, thanks, fellas.”

Such a… small shard of Old Wall… barely longer than my palm itself…

… Do I really want to do this?

Anti, you know what happens every time the box is opened… something bad will happen.

Yeah, but those bad things always involved the Children, and now the Children are out here, so…

So, something else that’s equally bad will happen. The box is a poison, Anti! Stay away from it! Why are you even considering opening it?

I mean, all the Ghosts flew in, so I’m just… curious…

What exactly was your plan with the Ghosts and the Light Machines? Seriously? You expect Walk to come back or something?

Yeah… I guess… I mean, I don’t know, it’s just…

You’re fucked up, Anti.

Look. If I can’t bring the real Walk back through “rewriting the world”, and if all the Walks I’ve created are all fucked by my imaginations, then maybe… maybe…

Yeah. I get you. You seriously expected Walk to come back after seeing a world filled with fake Light. Dammit. You’re fucked up, you know.

I mean… I just had to try something; you know…

“Hey, Anti…”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Are we… are we all ghosts?”

My left hand raises to touch my left cheek, as my right hand, holding the shard of Old Wall, closes in onto the box.

“Hey kiddo, it’s fine, we’re all real. Look! I’m touching my cheek now! And I can feel my cheek! So, I’m real! You can do that, too!”

And the Old Wall touches the box.

 

 

 

“Anti, why are my fingers passing through my cheek?”

 

 

 

The wall of the box breaks open.

 

 

 

Red, yellow, orange, purple Soup.

Pieces of a grey sweater.

A single snow boot.

A metallic ball with light.

Something rolls out. W

ALK’S headDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

DDDDDDDDDD“Hi, Walk! Hi!”“Walk, I thought you were gone! I didn’t know that you were playing hide and seek!”“I missed you, Walk! You are like a big sister to me!”“Why do you look so different, Walk? But it’s okay, you’re back! Hi!”“Anti, look, Walk’s back, we can all live happily ever after!”“Like a family! Walk can be the mom, and Anti can be the dad!”“But Walk’s like a big sister to us, so, maybe Anti can be the big brother, instead?”“Yeah! That’s great! Come on, Walk, let’s go!”“Agh, it hurts a little holding your head, Walk, it feels like my skin is burning a little! But I’m sure it’s going to be okay!”“Walk, why is your head…

… melting?”

 

 

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

 

 

(Grey Mother. Samsara)

“It was a great time, you know. To be honest, when Walk first came down here, I was pretty upset that she didn’t have the book with her, but then she just ran towards me and pulled me tight into her arms, crying and screaming with her head buried in my chest. And I… I didn’t know how to respond; I mean, it was weird that it happened, but I felt that she’s been through a hell lot of pain, so I didn’t really mind. In fact, I actually hugged her so tight I was worried she’d suffocate. It was weird, but, you know, it felt like the right thing to do, I think. And I asked her what happened. And she told me that she was so sick and tired of feeling so useless, and that she felt like a machine, only good for her Light and nothing else. And she told me, she told me…”

I sigh.

“She told me that she wanted to understand her purpose, and why the world did not seem to want her, and to do that, she wanted to… she wanted to meet the Gods, and she wanted to ask them many, many questions, and she… she paused, and she looked up to me, and she asked me… she asked me whether she could be honest with me, and I told her… I told her that I would understand anything she’d say, and…”

I sigh again.

“… she told me that the book was Gods’ book, and that all the answers to her questions about her life’s purpose, and to do that… she had to… she had to gain the Gods’ permission to read the book, and she… and she…”

I close my eyes.

“… she just… stopped there; she didn’t continue. I think… I think she was afraid of how I would respond… And my first instinct was to ask her, what happened to Father, and she said… she said she… she killed Father, because Father asked her to. And I… Hah, I mean, it may sound pretty fucked up, but I wasn’t actually that shocked; I mean, Spirit of Mother died, and Father lived his whole life to be with her, so, it’s like, of course he would ask to bear the same fate as her. And I was actually relieved to hear that, because at first, I thought Father has somehow brainwashed her, or something, but since Father was dead, I could start… I could start blaming you two.”

I pause for a second.

“But I didn’t realize… I didn’t realize that Walk had her own dreams, but I had to put that aside, for she saw the Children behind me… and she… she… she suddenly had the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen, and her jaw dropped lower than I thought was humanely possible, and she saw how the Children looked exactly like her, just barely a head shorter than her, and she looked at me, and she started touching her cheeks and arms, as if to see if she was dreaming or something, and she… and she…”

I squeeze my already-shut eyelids even tighter.

 “She ran towards them, and she started wailing uncontrollably, and all the words that came out of her mouth were slurred and constantly interrupted by the gasps of her sobs, and she touched their cheeks and felt their long, waving hair, and she turned towards me and said… Mother… I didn’t know… I didn’t… Mother, I thought I would never evolve, I thought I was cursed with a purposeless life, but Mother… there are seven Children here, and I’ve died seven times, and…”

I try to hold it in. It’s so difficult.

“And I ran to her and I gave her a really, really tight hug, the tightest I’ve ever felt or given, and I told her that she was the most beautiful thing to ever exist, and that her tenacity was what drove her to rebirth into both herself and a Child every time she died, for she has never once given up, and with each death, she only grew stronger and more determined than ever, and with each death, her purpose in life grew stronger than ever, and there was nothing in the world that could bring her down, and at that moment, I turned my head towards the Lord of Stagnation, and I… I… I understood the Lord. For I, like the Lord, did not wish for time to pass, for I had a bad feeling… heh, maybe it’s just a Mother’s instinct, but I felt something really bad was going to happen if Walk were to read that book, but I tried not to think so much of it, and I…”

I open my eyes.

“Hey, Dream, you sleeping or something? You’ve been so damned quiet so far. I mean, I’m here pouring my heart out while in this really… weird position, and it wasn’t even our usual position, and your silence made it feel even more awkward.”

(Dreamer. Samsara)

“I’m listening to your every word, Mother. I’ve not missed a single letter. I just didn’t feel right to constantly interrupt when you were in the middle of pouring your heart out, so I just kept nodding. And my dear Mother, please don’t blame me for this position, I mean, you were lying on the cold hard ground, and this ground so happens to be the cold, hard Old Wall on the white pyramid, so it must have felt uncomfortable, so, yeah… Haha.”

“Well, Dream… you offered.”

“And you accepted my offer, so…”

“I mean, the ground is pretty cold and hard…”

“Yeah, exactly! So, it isn’t a weird and awkward thing to do at all. I mean, that time on the Spine, I laid my head on your laps, and that was fine.”

“Yeah, because that was you lying on my laps.”

“And now you’re lying on mine. There isn’t any difference, eh, dear Mother? I mean, Father would’ve done the same, and Spirit of Mother would’ve accepted it too, and we are both basically Father and Mother, and…”

“… Yeah.”

A silence.

“So, you gonna continue that story?”

“I think I’ll rest for now. I mean, we have pretty much forever, right?”

“Yeah... Sleep tight, Mother.”

I mean, I feel kind of sleepy too, but I guess I’ll just have to sleep sitting up. Actually no, I shouldn’t be doing that; what if I lost balance and fall either forwards onto Mother, or backwards onto the cold hard ground? I mean, I’d rather fall backwards than to fall forwards and wake Mother up, but if I were to fall backwards, then my thighs and knees might move as well, which would’ve woken her up, so…

It’s cool. We have all eternity now. I wonder what’s up with Anti, but hey, it seems he recognized that sweeping the Spine wouldn’t magically fix everything that’s wrong in this world.

But I guess there’s nothing actually wrong now. Emphasis on now. I mean, Mother is now deep asleep after a long, long session of heart-to-heart therapy, and my biggest worry right now is whether or not I would fall forwards or backwards if I were to fall asleep.

Things are… surprisingly good, actually. Yeah, it certainly helps that the foreign beings are gone, and that Samsara is sealed tight, so for the first time since we came into this world, there are absolutely no chance of interruptions.

I guess this is what Mother always wanted, eh? When there are no interruptions from any outside systems, from our perspectives, time essentially ceases moving forward. And this…

… this is true peace.

I mean, in a much harsher way, we call it “stagnation”, but if there is indeed nothing we can do now, other than to wait for something to happen that is well beyond our control, then it would be unfair to call this “stagnation”, eh?

And to call the cave “Samsara” suddenly doesn’t sound too appropriate.

It’s just a rest. A momentary rest in this cave of peace.

Aren’t the simplest things in life the most beautiful?

 

 

 

Aren’t the simplest things in life… the reasons for our smiles?

 

 

 

Silence. This is so… peaceful.

Sigh. It’s actually saddening. I mean, I don’t want to be the one who’s suddenly all depressed in this moment of peace, but… well, I did just pour my heart out, didn’t I?

It was just a flow of thought, I swear; I’m not usually like that. Which is why it was weird when Dream was actually listening to me. Dammit, do I really deserve this?

I mean, I’m supposed to be the strength of the world. Then again, what is the world anymore?

Us. We are the world. And Walk, though she may be gone, though she may have chosen to be gone, she’s still with us, isn’t she?

She is underneath us, above us, on every ground and ceiling and molecules in the air around us, and she is watching us, and she is listening to us.

I… I don’t…

Hah, it’s weird, but I just… I really just…

Is it weird to say that the closer I get to someone, anyone, the more I feel the need to maintain that aura of perfection and that façade of a strong heart?

… Yes? No? It’s weird… yeah, it’s definitely weird.

Usually, people wear layers after layers of mask around those that they are unfamiliar with, in an effort to show off a kind of “strength” and to try and “fit in” and be cool and… all… that…

And it’s only when you get closer to that former stranger, that they become your friend, and soon maybe your best friend, or your lover, or… whatever, and it is only then that you start to show your true selves, all your beautiful weaknesses and embarrassing quirks, as they are to do so to you.

And it is only then that you start sharing your inner thoughts with them… and start feeling comfortable asking them to lend a supporting shoulder or an unbiased ear to hear out your hearts’ cries, as they are to do so to you, too.

And it is because of this that… that you start to get even closer to them… and you start to depend on them… as they are to depend on you, too…

But… what if they start running away from you instead?

… What if you start depending on them too much and pour out your hearts’ cries after cries, and shed your tears after tears, and what if… maybe they won’t say it out yet, but what if they start to feel, from the depths of their hearts, that you are…

… you are an annoyance to them?

Or… what if something were to happen to them, and they were to leave your side, or they were to leave this world, or they were to…

… without any explanation…

… without any closure…

… without are forewarning or leadups…

… just disappear?

… Then what?

So, I… I…

… the more I saw how Walk interacted with the Children… the more I saw how they all were so alike, and how innocently charming the Children were…

… and the more they included me in their conversations, when I was so content to just watch over the Lord sitting on the Warm Chair…

… the more we talked about the interestingly beautiful things that only the eyes of such innocence could wander upon, such as how the Lord’s natural pose looked like a father lazily sitting on a rocking chair casually flipping through the papers, or how the rock-and-dirt walls of Samsara were actually so soft that they felt like pillows, or how… in an attempt to try and dig out some of the cave’s dirt so that they could cover themselves up like a blanket, and yeah, apparently the dirt’s pretty warm and cosy too…

… and because my mohawk was gelled so rigidly that it looked like a shovel, a damned shovel, so they asked me to use it to dig the ground, and I actually… oh my gosh, I actually tried lying on the ground and aligned my head at a very, very odd downwards angle, and tried to dig the dirt from the ground and… it worked… it fucking worked… but my neck was sore like shit, it’s so embarrassing, given that I’m agile and so… strong… that my fucking neck could be sore from the digging…

… and Walk proposed that maybe I could try digging the walls instead of the ground instead, cause maybe putting my head at an odd angle while standing up is easier than if I were to do so lying down, so I tried doing that and… my neck was even sorer than before, but they were encouraging me so hard and they were still laughing at the notion of me sticking my damn Mohawk into the fucking dirt and yeah really I found it funny too so I just acted like I wasn’t sore anymore and I dug and I dug and I dug and I dug…

 … and there was enough dirt for everyone, even Walk and myself, and I didn’t need a fucking blanket because I didn’t want to fucking sleep but the Children kept asking me to join them in their sleep but Walk told them I needed to stay awake to watch out for the bad guys so we had too much dirt and I didn’t feel like filling up the hole I’ve just dug with my own fucking hair…

… and the Children suggested that the Lord was cold… a fucking skeleton, cold! Dammit, of course the Lord was cold, it did not even have skin or muscles around its bones! But since they insisted, I actually spread out a layer of dust around its body from the neck down, and we still had some dirt left…

… and the Children knew about how the Angel and Dream fell on the Cliff side and unlike Walk, who was so well-versed in reforming her body that she could do so in a matter of seconds, the other two has been slowly yet unconsciously recovering for over three hours then, and the Children told me that they must have felt cold and they might need blankets to help them recover faster and honestly I didn’t really care about those two but the Children kept pestering me so I…

… the more I got closer to them…

… the more I wanted to protect them, and…

… the more I feared…

… that they would eventually…

… leave…

… me…

…. alone…

… I hoped…

… I hoped the blanket was warm enough…

… I’m sorry, everyone… Children… Walk… Dream… even you, Anti… I’m sorry…

… I… I…

 

 

 

… I wanted a blanket for myself, too…

 

 

 

“Mother, why are you crying?”

 

 

 

(Antispirit. Ark of Salvation)

Anti… why are you crying?

You are not. You are not crying.

You have no reason to cry.

It is such a beautiful world, after all.

Perfection. The world is perfection. What more you can ask for?

Just breathe in. The beautiful grey smoke. The everlasting midday. The light afternoon breeze sweeping through the Ark.

Just let it all out.

The grey smoke rises up beautifully. The blue of the sky darkens unrelentingly. The slow dissipation of the saddening haze intertwines with the stillness of the noon.

The perpetual noon. The unsetting sun. The eternal time.

The eternal time…

I can do anything. I can do everything. I can be a rockstar. I can be a scientist. I can start my own religion.

I can be God.

I can be God. I can be all the Gods of this world. I can be all the Gods and all the Ghosts of this world.

I can be the world.

I can be… I can be everything…

I can be popular. I can be loved by everyone. I can be “love” itself.

Or I can just be everyone.

Anti, why are you crying? Why are you crying? Who are you to cry at this moment of triumph?

 

 

 

Who the fuck are you to fucking cry?!

 

 

 

You cannot cry. You cannot be sad. You have everything. You are everything.

You are the very smile that you fought so hard to chase.

You are…

… Nirvana.

You are eternal.

And you are the world.

The eternal world.

The eternal… poison.

Unmoving. Unmovable. The Happy Ending.

The Happy Ending of this poisoned world.

And I can never remove this poison.

Why are you crying?!

It’s going to be okay. Anti, it’s going to be okay.

You are the world, and you just need to remove the poisons.

Greed. Delusion. Hatred.

You just need to remove the poisons from the heart of the world.

Anti, you can remove the poisons. You can remove the FUCKING POISONS.

YOU ARE THE WORLD.

YOU ARE THE POISON.

Walk. You knew it long ago, didn’t you? The poison of this world.

We are the poisons of this world.

And that was why…

 

 

 

… you killed yourself.

 

 

 

You just wanted everyone to be happy, didn’t you?

Aren’t we all the same?

Mother. Dream. Walk. Me.

Father. Mother.

Angel.

We are the same.

We are the reason why we can never be happy.

No matter how many times we rewrite this world.

No matter how many times we tried to protect this world.

 

 

 

We can never chase that smile.

 

 

 

And I…

… I was the one who was too afraid to enter the Spinal Cord.

And I… slept…

… for twenty-five years…

… trying to run away from reality…

… trying to ignore reality…

… that’s why I wanted to rewrite reality, because reality was too cruel…

… I wanted a reset of my life…

… but I… failed.

I am a failure.

I cannot even rewrite reality.

Am I… too greedy for that unreachable perfect world that I sought for?

Am I… too delusional for thinking that I can simply write away all my sadness and despair?

Am I…

Do I…

… hate myself?

The poison in me.

The poison deep within my heart.

Antispirit. That is the meaning of the name.

To go against the formerly pure spirit of this world.

To taint it with MY POISON.

And to save this world.

To make everyone happy again…

 

 

 

…It is better if I kill myse- “STOP!”

 

 

 

Why? Why the hell did you do that?! I was trying to relieve this world of its burd-

“Shut up! Shut up, Antispirit! Gah, fuck, it hurts! Shit! Agh, fucking hell. What the hell were you thinking?!”

The flower-shirted being recoils upon seeing the book’s spine piercing through his left palm. He pulls the book out and tosses it aside. It bounces across the hard wooden floor. It stops upon hitting the wooden fences on the side of the Ark.

The midday is everlasting. Time is eternal.

On this Ark of Salvation, slowly sailing across the Soup of Life, a truly endless sea. There is no horizon, for there is no end.

There is no end to this burden.

And there is no end to your suffering.

You can listen to our thoughts, can’t you? One of the Gods of the many worlds, yet you were the sole driving factor of this world.

You were the one who gave us purpose.

To sweep the dust off the Spine of the World.

And to rewrite this world… to make it a perfect world for all the other Gods.

Yet, why are you still drifting around, touring the many worlds beyond this world…?

Do you… no longer care about this world?

It’s because we’re a burden, isn’t it?

It’s because… I’m a burden.

So why?! Why did you…?

“I didn’t… I didn’t expect this outcome…”

Shoulder-length uncombed black hair. An untucked collared shirt forested with the reddest, greenest, bluest, and purplest flowers, layered across the pinkest sky. His sleeves end halfway from his shoulders to his elbow. His loose brown shorts end just before his knees. A pair of grey sandals.

And you are just standing there looking at me. Your eyes are filled with sadness. Disappointment. You’re disappointed in me. You’re disappointed in this world.

But if all you wanted to do is leave this poisoned world and tour the other beautiful worlds out there, why did you spend the past twenty-five years trying to stop Walk?

She wanted… she wanted to meet the Gods… the Gods of the other worlds…

She was the driver of this world, the one who walks the path to the grey unknown, to connect with the enigmas of the other worlds…

Or maybe, just maybe…

 

 

 

Are you actually afraid of the other worlds, Tourist?

 

 

 

“I… you will never understand what I stand for, you will never! To invite the tourists from the other worlds into this world… this world must be rewritten into the perfect world… that is the only way…”

You are afraid, it seems. You are afraid of the unknown. You fear rejection by the other worlds. You fear that you will end up all alone.

“I do not! It’s just… not the time yet. If Walk were to be left alone, this world will be on an uncontrolled collision course with all the dangers of the other worlds! And that is a risk… that is a risk that I do not want to take, simply beca-”

You are afraid.

“Antispirit, you do not understand! I needed to protect the sanctity of this world! This world is too valuable, too… fragile, to risk being destroyed by the yet-to-be-known perils of the other wor-”

You are afraid. Tourist, you are afraid!

“I am n-”

The Bloody Rain. They are but tourists from the other worlds, the so-called Gods! And why did they rain down this world dead and skinless?!

“It was not the correct time yet, Antispirit! This world has yet to be rewritten to the most ideal state!”

You are afraid. You are very afraid. You did not want the weaknesses of this world to be shown. You tried to bury the poisons of this world. You tried to pretend that this world is, or will be, perfect.

“They cannot know, yet! Antispirit, you will never understand, simply because you have yet to encounter the tourists from the other worlds! They are cruel, heartless, and they will try to beat you down at every opportunity! They’ll find a way to seep through your skin and poison your heart! Antispirit, the poisons of this world are not from you, but from them! And I am trying my best to… to protect the sanctity of this world…”

I see. So that’s what you have been calling it, all along.

 

 

 

The Comfort Zone.

 

 

 

“The Bloody Rain! It was never supposed to happen! This world was supposed to be completely isolated from the dangers of the other worlds! It was an unwarranted anomaly in my plan!”

Never moving. Never evolving. The world stays still, so long as you willed for it to, Tourist. And so long as the Comfort Zone stays strong, the world will remain forever at peace.

And the world will remain… forever unhappy.

Fifteen years ago, was the time the Bloody Rain first fell. And it triggered a chain of events. A chain of changes in the Angel’s life. He was purposeless before, aimlessly wandering the Dusty-Spined Star in search for a motivation to live.

And he slept.

He slept for twenty-five years. Unmoving. Forgetting all that he stood for. Forgetting all that he was.

And whatever purpose you gave him on the Ark twenty-five years ago, the Angel had quickly forgotten.

In light of this, wasn’t the Bloody Rain a necessary anomaly, an interruption to the routine, that has driven the Angel forward?

“They ruined it! The Tower of Angel, City of Sleep, and Abyss of Humans, those were foreign objects! Ever since then, this world has been… poisoned…”

And yet, it is within this “poison” that you call the Underwater People and Philosopher Corals, that the Angel first found a sense of belonging.

“It was all a lie! The Beautiful Field? Lies! All lies! They were trying to destroy this world from within, and they were… they were…”

When the Comfort Zone murdered those tourists raining down this world, all sense of benevolence has been stripped away by the mere act of feeling unwelcomed in this world. And when they hit the white sands of this world, they merged with those same white sands—the Soup of Life, and twisted them into their abhorrent forms.

Yet… they always wanted to be our friends, Tourist.

That was… until the fear of losing everything has consumed us.

And in your “perfect” world, Tourist, what will you do?

Will you remove the Comfort Zone, and allow other tourists free access to this world, where all of us could build this world hand-in-hand so that we could all be happy?

Or will you maintain the Comfort Zone, making enemies out of these curious tourists, and crafting a story of how everyone and everything seems to be against you?

A punch to my face. My shades flew off the Ark, plopping into the Soup of Life.

There’s a sharp pain on my cheekbone, but nothing pains me more than watching the frightened expression on his face.

Tourist, Walk was right, wasn’t she? She understood all of this, way before Mother, Dream, or I could. And she wanted to save this world. She wanted this world to be happy. And you, Tourist…

 

 

 

… you killed off the only way for you to ever be happy again.

 

 

 

He takes two steps back; his mouth gradually widens, and his jaw hangs off his spiritless face. His eyes broaden, then shiveringly shrink. His arms tremble, more in panicky despair than fear.

The waves are getting more turbulent. The Ark aggressively rocks up and down, while swivelling left and right. The untamed winds push the hundred or so used cigarettes through the wide holes of the Ark’s fences, and into the sea of Soup.

The sky is still blue. The sun is still unmoving.

And a Light Curtain rises from the ground about five metres around the Tourist, towards the direction of the sun.

Amidst the blinding light, he falls to the ground, kneeling, his hands limp by the side of his hips. He looks up to the empty sky.

His pupils blank out.

“All I wanted… is to be… happy…”

And the Light Curtain disappears with the Tourist.

The sky is still blue. The sun is still unmoving.

And the seas have calmed down. And the violent winds slowly subside.

I fall bottoms-first onto the hard wooden floor. I take out another box of cigarettes from my right breast pocket. I take out a stick. I light it up.

Breathe in, Anti.

This is indeed… the most hopeless situation.

Let it all out, Anti.

Sigh.

I stand up. I walk towards the fences of the Ark. I stare at the horizon. Nothing. Just a blue sky. An endless blue sky.

Even the clouds are not moving.

Time remains still. Time remains eternal.

The Soup is ten metres below me. The red, blue, pink, and yellow playfully wrap around each other, as the green and purple stand guard from a distance, only sometimes mingling in the afterparty for a colorful reunion.

How beautiful. How very beautiful. If not for the Soup’s corrosive nature, I would’ve gladly taken a swim in it.

Sigh.

 

 

 

If only the Tourist didn’t stop me from killing myself with the book.

 

 

 

Walk… how does it feel… to have finally rid yourself of this life of misery?

The best way to be happy… is to never have hope at all, for the betrayal of hope will only lead to despair.

I could just… I could just dive into the Soup, you know. So that I can join you, Walk. So that we can be part of this world, together.

Ah, fuck. What makes you think Walk even wants you to be there with her, idiot? After all the pain and suffering you’ve caused her… dammit.

After all the pain and suffering you have suffered, Walk…

 

 

 

… why are you still fighting on?

 

 

 

I see an especially unnatural movement of red, blue, yellow and pink. I see the green and purple dispersing and reconnecting. The Soup is moving. The Soup is alive.

Walk.

I leap off the Ark’s wooden fence. I quickly descend until my shoes barely touch the Soup. I see it. Bubbles. More bubbles. I see a swirl.

I see grey.

I quickly dive into the Soup, being careful to leave my upper half, and wings, just above the Soup. Fuck, it hurts. My hands are inside the Soup. Fuck! Fuck! I feel the skin on my arms melting off the flesh. I feel entire chunks of my leg muscles tearing off the bones.

Fuck fuck fuck.

My arms frantically shove around the Soup, trying to come into contact with anything remotely solid. Nothing. Nothing. I no longer feel anything below my ankles.

Maybe I was absolutely mistaken.

I no longer feel anything below my knees.

It hurts so fucking much. I lift my right hand above the Soup. I see whitish bones showing through the cracks of my skinless muscles.

I feel no pain.

I feel nothing.

I feel that…

… this is the most appropriate way for me to die.

But I feel it. Something akin to flesh. And my skinless arms wrap around it. With a forceful flap of my wings, I lift myself off the Soup.

I flap again. And again. I am starting to feel the pain. It’s as if pain only exists when you have hope.

And the stumps that used to be my thighs are in excruciating pain.

But I need to be alive.

I need to.

I need to get back onto the Ark.

Because in my arms, the petite woman with a skinless face littered with boils and burns, a nearly fleshless torso consisting of only her ribcage, spine, and scraps of muscle, and completely corroded but rapidly regenerating arms and legs…

 

 

 

… she is my only hope.

 

 

 

The Ark’s floors are stained with Soup. I could easily use the broom to clean them up. In fact, I could’ve used the broom to make my retrieving of her a lot less… painful.

But I… I don’t know. The broom has failed to rewrite this world into a happy one, so who is to say that the broom wouldn’t shatter the corroding Walk into even more pieces?

I can’t afford to have her in pieces.

I can’t.

I…

Sigh. It’s pointless. At least my shin’s back. It’s unsettling to watch your own legs grow from stumps in real time. The wooden floor around my regenerating legs slightly liquifies, and the rainbow-colored fluid slowly permeates every crack and crevice around my still-skinless ankles.

The growing skin on my chest and abdomen slowly creeps across my exposed flesh. Fuck. It hurts. It hurts so bad.    

Necrotic greenish-blue flesh crawls along the greyish-white bones of my fingers. The Soup around me comes into contact with the wet shiny tissues of my elbows and forearms. Fuck. Ugh.

I can’t scream. I can’t groan. Not because I’ve lost my voice, but I’m wondering, did Walk really go through all this pain every time she died?

And for her to remanifest in the iridescent depths of the Soup, to reform all her bones and flesh and entire being, yet never knowing if anyone would be there for her.

If I didn’t notice those unnatural movements of the Soup, would Walk ever come back?

But… why, Walk? Why did you…

After all my efforts in trying to rewrite this world into a happier world… why only now?

The world is still poisoned. Nothing has changed. In fact, things are probably worse now. At least there was that beautiful Island before. With that sturdy fig tree, and a picturesque view of the Dusty-Spined Star.

Now… it’s just the Ark, the Soup, and… me.

There is nothing. No one is happy. The world is dying, Walk, the world is dying.

Hopeless. Hopeless. There is nothing to strive for, Walk. There is nothing.

The sun. The sun is nothing.

The sky. The sky is empty.

I turn my head towards the right, pressing the flesh of my still skinless right ear onto the wooden floor. The excessive flapping of my rapidly deteriorating wings has managed to splash the Soup all the way to my hair and ears, despite my upper body remaining above the Soup.

But it’s better this way. My right ear is listening to the heartbeat of the floor. The heartbeat of the Ark.

And the footsteps of the eternal marcher of this world—the heartbeats of the world’s Grey Walker.

Walk, you are perfect. You are so perfect. As I still struggle to regenerate my skin and bones, my will and passion, you are already standing upright, with your grey sweater and your flawless black hair, looking down at me.

Yeah. Keep looking down at me. I’m a piece of shit. A garbage bin. I can’t even rewrite this goddamn world to make us all happy, for fuck’s sake!

I wanted to give up. I wanted to end it all. And like you, I wanted to kill myself, over and over, because I, Antispirit, could not even find hope in such a hopeful situation.

I wanted to evolve, too. Just like you, Walk. I wanted to be better.

But perhaps deep down, I wanted myself, Antispirit, to be the one to make us all happy. I wanted to be the saviour of the world. I wanted… everything.

Greed.

I said all that to the Tourist, proclaiming that he was afraid and all that, and trying to blame his actions and beliefs for causing us to suffer.

But it has always been you, hasn’t it, Anti? It has all been because of you. You chose to sleep on the Island for twenty-five years, and made the Angel forget his purpose, his powers, and his… life.

All because… you were afraid of a threat that exists only in your mind.

Delusion.

 

 

 

I am the poison after all.

 

 

 

(Grey Walker. Ark of Salvation)

Such a… pitiful man.

He could’ve rewritten this world. And he did. I felt it. I saw it. The office. The factory. The restaurant. The waterfall. The beautiful modern city. And the box.

So… useless… You’re so useless, Anti…

… and that’s good… that’s good, you know?

Anti, if we’re all equally useless, then maybe… maybe we could finally be friends?

You wanted a friend, didn’t you?

I guess we all do. You, me, Mother, and Dream. We all want someone of whom we can call friend. We all want somewhere where we can feel belonged.

We just want to be… human.

And I knew about this, Anti. I knew about it ever since the Angel’s Introduction twenty-five years ago. That was why I was so conflicted, Anti.

This world is fucked. The Gods are cruel. We are but playthings of the Gods.

Those were… what we were made to believe.

But I, the Grey Walker of this world, could not accept this.

I wanted to meet these so-called Gods, but this world did not let me.

I wanted to understand the reasons for their cruelty, but this world did not let me.

But why did this world not let me, Anti, why?

Why is the Comfort Zone so… impenetrable?

I sit on the floor, to the right of the still-regenerating Anti. His clothes have yet to fully regenerate, yet the bones and muscles on his chest and abdomen and shoulders and his entire arms and legs have fully healed, except…

The Antispirit, baring himself to this world, for the very first time. And I have always been sensing something rather off from him, with his optimistic personality, his exaggerated fashion sense, and his unwavering smile.

… Anti, you have been faking all of it, haven’t you? If not, then…

“… Anti, why do you choose not to recover all those freshly-inflicted scars on your skin, underneath that seemingly impeccable blazer of yours?”

I sigh.

“They were always there, weren’t they? Those scars that you tried so desperately to hide… and those tired, tired eyes…”

Sigh. There’s no hiding it, now. The scars of my body, exposed. The weaknesses of my heart, exposed.

And my exhaustion at the state of my life, exposed.

And there is no hiding it.

“I am the poison of this world, Walk… for I could not even rewrite this world to its idealized state… I could not even make us happy, Walk… I could not write out The Happy Ending, Walk… I am…”

“Shut up, shut up, Anti! Why are you… why are you…”

I press my fingers onto his face, carefully tracing the bloody lines across his nose and cheeks. Five open wounds carelessly inhabit the large expanse of his wrinkled forehead.

“I’ve… never seen these scars on your face before… Those weren’t from the Soup, were they? And those… wrinkles… I’ve never seen them before.”

And his eyes are completely bloodshot. The dark circles around his eyes seemingly expanded in size, compared to the last time I’ve seen them on the Spine. It’s as if he’s wearing shades, despite it being a dark shadow of his exhaustion.

“You’ve been hiding all these behind… that seemingly chiselled face, that seemingly glowing skin… Anti, why…”

She is looking at me in the eyes. But I am looking downwards, towards the blue sky, for I no longer want to see the sun, which is now outshined by a much brighter, much more hopeful, and much more beautiful person.

Looking down at my ugliness. Looking down at who I truly am. An ugly being.

“Walk… why did you… come back?”

He still has the habit of changing topics whenever the topic touched on concerns about him, or his wellbeing. That was why he kept talking about the world, talking about his dreams, his so-called Happy Ending, and his so-called Nirvana.

It’s all for the world, and never for himself.

Because he feels, deep down, that he’s a piece of shit.

Just like me, yet…

“… I am the Grey Walker of this world, Anti. If not me, then who else?”

“I… don’t understand, Walk… why… now? After all my efforts in rewriting this world… you only chose to come back when the world… the world…”

“When the world is dying, yes. But Anti, this world still can be saved, for the Tourist… the Tourist could not let us die…”

“But he wanted you to be gone, Walk! He kept pushing you away, wishing for you to be gone, and kept proclaiming his extreme disappointment at you! That was why you jumped off the Spine, Walk! The Tourist, he is a piece of shit and… and…”

I softly glide my fingers down his left cheek. The reddish dryness of his eyes slowly fades, submerged in the most tranquil pond of hope.

“… and he saved you. He did not want you to die, didn’t he?”

Not a single hint of tears from her wide eyes. Walk… how did you…

“… How did you regain your hope… No, before that, what did you learn about the Gods that made you… lose hope?”

His black hair is slowly growing back. Dry and messy, unlike the silky-smooth hair he had before.

“I already knew who the Gods were, Anti; I knew it ever since the Angel’s Introduction twenty-five years ago. And with that, I hypothesized about the true purpose of this world. But I tried my damnedest to not believe that my hypothesis was… real.”

“So, you knew all along…? But I thought that you always sought the book because it would answer the purpose of your life, and the purpose of this… world…”

Parts of his white blazer starts to manifest out of the residual Soup just outside where his heart would be. He’s protecting his heart first, it seems.

“I was conflicted, Anti. I was always the Grey Walker of this world, yet the whole situation we were in, and the whole necessity and perceived significance of the book… I refused to believe it… Despite the Tourist’s repeated intentions for me to be gone, I refused to believe…”

“So… what exactly was written in the b-”

 I could no longer speak, as the blue sky disappears from my view, replaced with a rainbow of red, green, pink, and purple. The long black-haired woman disappears from my sight, seemingly knocked backwards by the strong impact towards the left side of the Ark.

A wave of colours. A tsunami of despair.

A crash.

And all my hard work to heal my skin and flesh.

Reduced to bones, once again.

But it’s the end, isn’t it? I no longer feel my chest. I no longer see the waves.

I guess it’s all for the better. At least, I no longer have to feel anything, anymore…

As I no longer…

 

 

 

… I no longer feel my heart.

 

 

 

Dammit. This world… this world is dying. This world is rapidly dying! Anti, no! Shit. Anti is…

…  I have to do this. Anti, please, stay strong. Goddammit, where is that damn broom?

I run to the right side of the Ark. I peer over the wooden fence. I see it. The broom, made of the Lord’s spine and the book, floating on the Soup, diverting all the colours away from it.

The Ark will not melt anytime soon, for it was built specifically to sail across this Soup, but Anti…

I could use the broom to quickly reform Anti, but it’s too late…

His heart… his heart is gone, and what remains is…

… a bloodied skull.

 But Anti, I’m not the so-called immortal simply because I’m special.

I’m not special. No one is.

I’m only alive because… because I wanted to be back.

I wanted to be back, stronger than ever.

And with the Grey Children, there will be more walkers of this world.

As the world becomes stronger, more resilient to threats.

And the Tourist felt it too, when the Children killed themselves in the box, the world began to scream in pain and agony.

So, the moment the Tourist left in the Light Curtain, he was calling out to me.

He could’ve just disappeared without any fancy theatrics, but he knew, and he was hoping…

 

 

 

… he was hoping for the Grey Walker of this world to save him.

 

 

 

You can come back too, Anti. You can come back… so long as you want to.

But the Tourist… if anything were to happen to him… he may never come back.

And it may be too late. The seas were never turbulent, except when the world is threatened, when the Tourist is threatened.

And there may not be enough time.

Time may be eternal in this world, but time beyond this world is not.

As I leap down into the sea of Soup, I grab hold of the broom with my right hand, as I use it to propel myself downwards.

Deeper and deeper, into the sea of colours.

The broom does little in carving a safe path through the Soup.

Or maybe it’s simply because I don’t give a damn about “pain” anymore.

The blood red of my head melts into the reds of the sea.

The necrotic greens of my chest blends into the greens of the sea.

The decomposing blues of my arms merges with the blues of the sea.

The scorching purples of my flesh amalgamates with the purples of the sea.

And the greys of my sweater, the greys of my soul, the greys of my mind and heart and spirit…

… the purposeless walk towards the end of the world, now filled with the bright, beautiful colours of hope.

The endless cycle of death and rebirth. The Samsara of this world is clinging onto the last poison of this world…

 

 

 

… Hatred.

 

 

 

I see that you’ve realized, Tourist, and you think it may be too late.

But just hold on a little longer, for I am close.

The white sands that used to comprise the City of Sleep.

The closest path to Samsara.

And to free us all from this cycle of hatred.

But even with the power of the broom, I was never known for my strength.

To move the white sands away, underneath the Soup’s tremendous pressure, is excruciatingly difficult.

It’s made worse by my rapidly decomposing and regenerating arms and fingers.

Holding onto the stick of the broom—the Lord’s Spine, I press the book downwards onto the sand.

Pushing. Pushing harder. The sand gradually disappears, and I begin to go deeper.

But it gets harder and harder, for the pressure of the Soup gets stronger and stronger.

But I have to be quick. I have no time. The world has no time.

And whenever I want to give up. I remember that I am…

… the sole Grey Walker of this world.

But it was a mistake. An absolute mistake in my plan.

For when the broom succeeds in piercing through the entire layer of sand, it hits a layer of rock.

The rocky ceiling of Samsara.

And it is a lot thinner than I thought.

And Samsara is a lot more fragile than I thought.

And it was an absolute mistake, because the moment I realize what is happening…

… the whole ceiling of Samsara has begun to cave in…

 

 

 

… along with the entire sea of the Soup of Life.

 

 

 

It was a fall. The longest fall I’ve ever felt. The rocks were thin and may not be too threatening. But the Soup. The fucking Soup.

Mother and Dream are below. And I just poured a sea-full of Soup onto them.

Red. Blue. Green. Purple.

Fucking hell. Walk, don’t panic. Walk, there is still hope.

Walk, you have to have hope in yourself.

Walk, you have to have hope in the world.

For the world was strong, just weakened over time.

And now it is threatened, but it was born out of a strong desire to live.

And I finally realized, upon seeing a shimmer of light, not nearly as bright as my own, but a lot more melancholic in feel.

Like an angel trapped in the deep sea, fallen from the heavens of a thousand dreams.

The one destined to shape the Soup of Life without harm.

As the white feathers slowly unveil, I see Mother lying on his lap, still calmly asleep, as if unaffected by the world’s impending death. I see the relieved smile of…

 

 

 

… the one who dreams of the world.

 

 

 

(Dreamer. Samsara)

I won’t question why the ceilings of Samsara collapsed.

I won’t even question why Walk, who was supposed to be dead, is the one who appeared before me, rather than Anti.

The ground was trembling. Soup was leaking from the ceiling. And on the ceiling, there was a small circular area of the brightest light. The Light Curtain.

Things were happening up there. The world is moving. Time is still stationary, yet the world marches forward. It didn’t sound like the happiest of marches, but at least, something is changing.

An anomaly. An interruption to the routine.

But unlike previous anomalies, this anomaly may be the world’s very last.

But there can be a different future. Anti, my brother, I see that you may not have achieved your dream of a happier world, but I can still feel your heartbeat.

You are holding on. It may be your last remaining finger hanging onto the slipperiest ledge, but you have yet to lose all hope.

For the Grey Walker of the world is still marching forward.

And as the skinless and hairless woman approaches me with the broom, I extend my bright white feathers outwards to her.

As she enters the small white dome surrounded by my feathers, and as her wounds and skins and limbs begin to rapidly heal, I finally let out the best quip in forever.

“Walk, you’re absolutely mistaken. I’m not that useless after all. Hah.”

She clenches her fist tight. She lightly punches me on the left cheek. I totally deserve that. No regrets.

“Y-you’re still the same old shitty little brat huh, Dream?”

I reach my left-hand outwards to her cheek. I pinch it a little. She’s not even trying to avoid it.

“Aren’t you glad about that, Walk? You came back alive, just so that you could punch and kick me again! I never knew that I was that important to you.”

No, you’re not, Dream. You’re not that… important… to me… I… I missed… I mis- Wait, dude, you’re seriously gonna cry at a time like this?! We gotta be getting out of here, quick, and there you go, crying like a baby again.

… Sigh. I missed you, you idiot. You and your stupid-ass feathers.

“Dude… don’t tell me I punched you too hard.”

“Haha. Sorry. I just, well. It’s nice to see you, you know.”

(Grey Mother. Samsara)

“What… happened? Why is my face suddenly wet? Dream, why are you crying?”

There’s something dripping onto my forehead. What is this? How long have I slept for? What is this soft bright light? What’s with all the white feathers around me?

Wait… isn’t that…?

“I’m sorry, Mother. I woke you up, which is kind of funny, considering the cave literally collapsed around us and we are currently a hundred metres below sea level. Oh, and Mother, Walk’s here, so I guess everything is fi-”

I can’t really breathe; my nose and mouth are blocked by Mother’s chest. Come on, Mother, it’s fine now, we gotta go and save the world, we gotta… go…

Mother, please, why are you… why are you crying… too…? Am I…

… am I that important to all of you…?

“I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry, Walk… I… I…”

I’m choking on my own tears. This is… embarrassing… At least Walk’s in my chest, and Dream’s behind me… They can’t… They can’t see this wretched face…

But Dream saw me cry before, so why… why is it still so embarrassing for me?

I can’t… I can’t let her go… But I have to… The last time you were so overprotective of her and the Children, that thing with the box happened, and…

“Let’s go… Walk. You didn’t dive all the way down here with all your skin and bones torn apart just because you miss me, did you?”

I meant that as a joke. It was supposed to be a joke. But I don’t think anyone here is treating it like one. Even myself.

I… I missed you… Walk…

I… I missed you too… Mother…

“I missed you too, Walk.”

Funny how I was the only one who actually had the guts to say it out.

I don’t exactly want to be the party-pooper, but if the world is indeed weakening, then we don’t have much time.

So, I stand up, and delivered the most impassionate speech of my life, in the form of a thought-provoking question.

“Hey, Walk, do I get a hug, too?”

Dream… you’re an idiot.

I walk over to Dream, who is standing with open arms.

She opens her arms. And she presses her fingers onto both my cheeks. My face is flattened.

“There. A hug. Let’s go, already.”

That was extremely weird, but I’ll take it. And I feel as if we are all more elevated than before. Not just metaphorically, but literally.

“Walk, how on earth did you manage to break the ceiling of Samsara with this broom? It’s really not that easy, man; even I, with all my strength, am still struggling to elevate this small piece of rocky ground upwards.”

“Mother, you said you’re struggling, but this ride feels a lot faster than the time when you propelled Angel and I up towards the Cliff!”

“I’d rather you… not remember that. That was the most ridiculous idea I’d ever came up with.”

“Wait, wait, wait, what happened back then? What do you mean, propel?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened. Dream was just dreaming.”

“Eh wait, Walk, you really didn’t know? I thought that since you were Soup, you’ve been listening to us all this while!”

“Who do you think I am, a stalker? Couldn’t I just die in peace for once? Anyways, Dream, you really gotta tell me!”

“Walk, there really is nothing to be sa-”

“So, you do know that Mother killed herself after the box incident, right? And when she killed herself, she rebirthed into two funny-looking robotic statues. The one with many blades was Great Motivation, and the one with many slits was Ghast Mundane. So, we wanted to leave Samsara, and Anti already used the broom to make a spiral staircase for us, but Mundane decided to be like, you know what, let’s just suck in all the Lightless Field from the area, and she combined with Motivation and we sat on top of them, and Mundane freaking blasted out the same Field she sucked in, and we rocketed our way upwards, and once we reached the top of the Cliff, she turned the direction of her rocket holes and blasted her way through the Spine of the World. It was so damn fun! I didn’t know Mother was such a fun person to be with!”

Walk’s jaw drops. Mother looked back at me. Her jaw drops too. Soon, my own jaw drops.

“That was… the most… wait, so Mother killed herself?”

Oh. She didn’t know. Right. Oops. Um, well, it was still a fun story, right?

“Dammit, Dream, if I were not propelling us right now, I would’ve stuffed this damn broom into your chatty little mou-”

Wait, Walk, what are you…

“I didn’t know, Mother… I didn’t… know…”

Walk, no, you’re mistaken, whatever Dream has said, he’s mis-

“Mother, you… I didn’t know that you are… you are…”

I’m not. I’m not. Stop hugging me, I’m not weak, Walk! I’m n-

“You are so strong, Mother… Despite what you’ve suffered through, with what happened regarding the box and all that… you still fought for us… you still… wanted to protect us…”

No, Walk, please… I need to concentrate… to propel this rock and all of us through this high-pressure Soup… I cannot… I cannot…

“I’m… sorry… I am really, really, really sorry…”

“I’m sorry too, Mother… if only I knew how you really felt… if only…”

Blue sky. The still sun. The unmoving clouds. How long has it been?

The Dusty-Spined Star is vast, and all that’s left is a sea of colourful Soup, and a wooden ark. The Ark of Salvation. Just like twenty-five years ago.

The waves are rough, yet the Ark remains steadfast.

And this world needs us. The endless cycle of hatred needs to stop…

“I’m sorry, Mother, Walk, for all the times I’ve been an ass to you, and even for all the times I’ve not been an ass to you. I hope that we can all make peace…”

… so that Nirvana can be achieved.

 

 

 

“… and let’s save this world, together.”

 

 

 

(Dreamer. Ark of Salvation)

The Ark of Salvation is enormous. With a hull of one-hundred-and-fifty metres in length, twenty-five metres in breadth, and fifteen metres in height, it is an entirely open-air structure with no roofed shelter. It may sound counterintuitive for an Ark to be built with no roofed areas, but when the Soup of Life is almost always tranquil and unmoving, and when the sky is almost always free from the Bloody Rain, the Ark is the safest place in this world. And despite the current turbulence of the waves, the Ark is unperturbed. Walk told me that right after Anti rescued her from the Soup, the seas were in so much upset that a large wave of Soup, towering the already-tall Ark, crashed down onto the Ark, turning my poor, poor brother into a pond of Soup and bones.

I could imagine his pain of not having his dreams fulfilled to a desirable outcome. None of our dreams’ outcomes were desirable. In fact, I would’ve been grievously worried about him, had Walk not come back alive. He wouldn’t give up just like that. Maybe he would for himself, but not for Walk.

But we scoured the entirety of the Ark’s wooden expanse. And there is no pond of Soup. In fact, there is not a single drop of Soup.

… Maybe just leaving him alone on the Spine wasn’t the best thing to do…

Where are you, Anti?

(Grey Mother. Ark of Salvation)

This place… I remember it well. Not just this place, but the entire surroundings. Twenty-five years ago, the Angel was given a purpose on this Ark. A purpose by him. The Tourist.

… Interesting that I, and all the others, suddenly remembered all these incidents and names. We were still referring to him as the flower-shirted being until not long ago. And we were even struggling to remember the events of our past identities as Father and Mother, despite barely having passed half a year. It’s like, we started to forget about who we are upon choosing to sleep stagnantly on the Island, and yet, after we’ve gone through all these… sufferings… we start to connect with… our true selves.

Indeed, we slept a lot on the Island of I. A lot of time was wasted there. And it makes me think… perhaps the Island isn’t as benevolent as it seems? But the Island was constructed during the creation of this world, alongside the Cliff of Wake and the Spine of the World…

… alongside Samsara and the Lord of Stagnation…

Maybe… maybe this world is indeed created to trap us in? A false sense of beauty, yet forever under the grasp of the Lord of Stagnation, sitting on his throne deep underground.

It’s not just the underground cave, it seems… This very world is Samsara.

Anti, this was what you were trying to prevent… wasn’t it? Dream and you sensed that the world is stagnating, rotting under the foul stench of the Comfort Zone… As much as I absolutely despised you for working together with the enemy, I now see that, perhaps, you were onto something…

… If only you were clear about your dreams from early on, rather than trying to conduct a one-man show to save the world…

Where are you, Anti?

(Grey Walker. Ark of Salvation)

Anti… you wouldn’t give up so easily, would you? You’re stronger than this. You’re much stronger than this.

You were the only one who… despite everything that has happened, still believed in the power of your dreams… as delusional as that may be, you kept fighting on…

To rewrite this world and make everyone happy… you were so naïve, Anti… As much as I don’t know everything that has happened during your world-rewriting attempts at achieving The Happy Ending, or to bring me back, I felt it, I felt your heart…

… you were suffering inside.

But Anti, you are not the poison of this world… in fact, none of us are… you are simply… you.

Just like how I’m me, and Dream’s Dream, and Mother’s Mother, we are simply… us.

Nothing has changed. No one has evolved. We have simply grown, and we understood ourselves a little better.

The true poison of the world… is the world itself.

And we can save it. And we must save it.

And we can only do so… together.

The Angel’s core purpose… was to save this world.

But on that day on the Ark, the Tourist’s prophecies to create a perfect world for the Gods…

… it has permanently cursed this world.

At least, that was what I thought. Then I realize something.

Maybe the Tourist prophesized that, simply because that is who he is.

And the Angel was introduced to this world to fulfil that prophecy our way, because the Angel is us all, and that is simply who we are.

We are the Angel, Anti. Without you, the Angel is incomplete, and the curse can never be lifted.

And the world will forever be poisoned.

We are running out of time, Anti. Please…

Where are you, Anti?

 

 

 

I smell it. The smell of you.

 

 

 

“Come on, Anti. Mother’s no longer mad at you. You don’t have to hide in a hole somewhere anymore.”

I smell it too. Even though I’ve never actually seen him smoke, I feel it. He’s just like me, trying to run away from his problems, to escape from the cruel, cruel reality…

… Just like running away from the problems of Walk’s and the Children’s safety by sealing them in that damned box.

… Just like escaping from the reality of their deaths by… killing myself…

Anti… you are just like me… trying to keep everything to yourself…

We are… pathetic.

“Trying to hide from me, again? Don’t make me break this whole Ark with my bare hands just to get you out, Anti!”

I sit down on the wooden floor, my back leaning back onto the fence on the right side of the Ark. A box of cigarettes and a lighter on the floor. Anti must have hurriedly run off. Or maybe he’s so kind as to leave some for me.

I take out a stick. I light it up. I breathe in.

Ah. What a beautiful world.

As the black smoke from below the Ark merges with my own smoke amidst the bright blue sky, I breathe a sigh of relief.

“See, brother? Everyone misses you. And you know, I’m sorry for ditching you on the Spine, but I thought you were strong enough. Come on, prove me right, won’t you? You’re strong enough to show your face, right?”

 

 

 

… right?

 

 

 

(Antispirit. Ark of Salvation)

Why the hell couldn’t they just leave me alone?!

Sigh.

Walk alone would be good enough. She has already seen this side of me, so it’s fine.

My tired eyes. My scarred body. My wounded heart.

I just… I just wanted to spend the rest of all time with her…

I know, brother. I know… the world is dying, and I’m being so selfish by hiding myself in this hole below the Ark, but…

… Sigh. My wings are really only good enough for running away, aren’t they?

But Anti, you had the chance to just die properly, and rebirth into two better, braver beings…

Your heart has melted into Soup, so even if you died, they wouldn’t mock you for it.

Look at you now, Anti, Mother’s mocking you for running away from her again.

Look at you now, Anti, Dream’s mocking you for being weaker than him.

Look at you now, Anti, Walk’s mocking you for… for…

… damn. She’s gonna hate me now.

She’s gonna hate me.

She hates me, this pussy-ass bitch.

I can’t even face my own weaknesses.

I can’t even face my own reality.

Then why, Anti, why did you choose to live once again?

Was it… hope?

What hope? Hope is bullshit. There is no hope. Not even I can make the world happy. The world is poisoned. Everything is fucked.

Was it… hope?

Fuck off, it’s not hope. It’s never about hope. Those three will just take the broom and move on without me. Yeah, just leave me all alone, smoking all day in this hole I made for precisely this scenario.

Just leave me alone. I can’t even do shit. Everything sucks. I suck.

Anti…

 

 

 

… was it… hope?

 

 

 

Sounds. Odd sounds. Not voices, just… sounds.

The room around me is cramped. Barely enough space to fit even me alone. I didn’t expect myself to be here for long, but…

The sun seeps in through the large hole in front of me.

The sun seeps in less. Wait.

No.

No no no no no get away get away get away

why are you guys not gone no no no no no aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA

“EEARGH!”

“Gosh, Anti, you fucking coward! All I did was lift my high heels up and point them to your head. I haven’t even stepped on it yet! Stop squealing like a pussy, you little shit!”

“Come on, Mother, he’s been through a lot, okay? I mean, smoking alone in such a cramped room? This is so un-Anti-like, right brother? Come, at least let me join you and… uh… where do I sit?”

I can only chuckle. Seriously, despite all the bravado that dude put up to us, he’s really such a scaredy cat. Damn. I’m actually not used to this. I go forward and try to yank Mother’s hand back.

“He’s scared enough, Mother. Just let him be. His scream was fucking hilarious, and you can laugh at it for the next decade or so, as a form of revenge, you kn- Ah, sorry, Dream.”

“Ouch, Walk. You stepped on my shin and literally broke it. I can never walk again for the rest of my life. Ah, life is so full of suffering, best way to overcome it is to smoke it all away!”

I pop four sticks into my mouth and light them all up.

“One stick for each of us! See, despite being unable to walk again for the rest of my life, I’m sacrificing my lungs for all of you. You should all bow down to me as your Lord!”

I snatch away a stick from Dream’s lips. I slip it into my own. I sit to the right of Anti.

“Yeah, Lord of Our Selves, right? How pathetic! Why not ‘Lord of Them Selves’, or ‘Lord of Every Selves’? Why just ‘our’ selves? You’re a discriminating little bitch Lord! And you can’t even walk anymore, hah!”

I remove the three cigarettes from my lips. I exhale the smoke onto Walk’s face.

“It’s thanks to you, Walk! Who the hell asked you to name the freaking enemy ‘Our True Selves’? I mean, of course I know the deep philosophical meaning behind that name, but in hindsight, come on! They’re seafood, for fuck’s sake! You should’ve named them ‘Fish n’ Chips’ or ‘We Are All Dumbass Fishes’ or something!”

I spit the lit stick out of my lips, and right onto Dream’s nose. There was a light hissing sound.

“What idiot would name them fucking ‘Fish n’ Chips’?! You are stupid! You are a stupid Lord! And you can’t even walk anymore. Oh, and your nose is burnt now, so you can’t even smell! Hah! You can’t even smell the very thing that you’re smoking! How pathetic! You are a dumbass fish! A dumbass fish Lord!”

I sit across Walk, my legs spread out, surrounding hers. Dream is to the right of me, pretending to feel utter despair for his so-called broken shin. This place is fucking cramped. It’s stupid. Anti is stupid. Stupid enough that I need to smoke.

“Wait, you smoke, Mother?”

“Wait, you smoke, Mother?”

“Sigh. When a pussy-ass bitch decided to make such a small hole for the four of us to sit in, it’s so stupid that it’s stressing me out.”

“I… never expected you guys to come here…”

I turn my head to the right, to the long-haired man beside Walk. I wanted to scare him with my high heels again, but… sigh.

I thought he was still wearing his shades when I first came here. Then I realized… they were his dark circles.

“Ah, it’s fine, whatever… we’re all pretty fucked in the head somewhere. You, me, Walk, Dream… I guess that was why the Angel was so fucked up.”

I wanted to sigh. But I’m not.

Why…? Why do I feel… warmth?

No, wait, Walk, you’re not…

… you’re not holding my hand, are you?

“And you… Anti… you’re only lovesick for Walk, aren’t you? Just look at your face, dude. Is that a blush I’m seeing? Aww, how cute.”

“No, Mother, you got it all wrong, I’m…”

“This is terrible. Siblings don’t blush when they hold hands, do they? This is utterly disgraceful! Anti, you are absolutely mistaken, and you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself!”

I would’ve actually been ashamed, horrified, even, had Dream not burst into an uncontrollable laugh.

“Oh gosh, you should look at your face, man! Hah! Oh gosh. Hahaha. Oh gosh. Hahaha!”

“Seriously, though, what are we? Like, not just Anti and me, but all of us. What are we? We’re definitely not siblings, and I don’t think we classify as lovers, definitely nothing romantic going on.”

I may have said “nothing romantic”, but Anti’s blushing like a freaking tomato. Gosh.

“Well, Father and Mother were definitely lovebirds, but I think it’s more in wanting to protect each other and be with each other for the rest of eternity, which, in hindsight, is actually fucking romantic.”

“Hey Mother, are you romantic? Hey Walk, are you romantic too? I mean, you both came from Spirit of Mother, and she was definitely a romantic.”

“Idiot. Father was the true romantic. He was lovesick every day. He couldn’t live without Mother. He would literally die for Mother.”

“What defines romantic, Dream? It could just be an attachment, or a longing for someone, right? I mean, truthfully, we are all romantics, that’s why we could spend all day talking bullcrap in this extremely uncomfortable room! If we were to hate each other, then we would be dying to get out of this place!”

I let out the longest breath I’ve ever done in my life.

“I see… I see now…”

“Yeah, brother, you see me in front of you. Great! Your eyesight’s splendid!”

“We all… hated each other, didn’t we?”

Walk tightens her grip onto my hand.

“Well, I… I guess it simply because we… we didn’t exactly understand each other?”

“Yeah, I mean, all four of us, we had different ideas and thoughts on doing… whatever we did. We all had our own dreams, and we all had different ways to achieve it.”

“And we did. We did achieve all our dreams. Maybe, not in the exact outcome that we’ve hoped for, but we did.”

 “Actually, Dream, it was in the exact outcome that I’ve hoped for. Those foreign beings have indeed been rid of. And they never returned. Not until today.”

“Yeah, Dream. I was indeed able to read the book. And the book… it was actually exactly what I was expecting it was.”

“And I have indeed rewritten the world… and there was a world where everyone was indeed happy, and I dare say, it was exactly the kind of happiness that I dreamed of, but…”

I take out another stick. I light it up and inhale it.

I breathe out.

“… it was all fake. Everything was so fake, simply because I wrote it out. It was because I wrote the ‘perfect world’, that the world was no longer natural… Everything and everyone were just… Ghosts… Ghosts of Everything…”

Damn, this is stressing me out. Sigh. If even Anti could admit the flaws of his dreams, then…

“The annihilation of the enemy… it couldn’t change things… and Walk and the Children… they were still gone… and perhaps… the enemy wasn’t the driving factor behind their deaths in the box… and Walk… they weren’t why you jumped off the Spine, were they?”

I reach for the broom to the left of Anti. I disconnect the book from the Lord’s Spine. I open the book.

“I can still read this book, you know. The words are absolutely clear to me, and they were absolutely what I was expecting. But I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that this world’s purpose is merely to…”

How many puffs have I taken so far?

“… sigh. What matters is that we need this dying world, and the only way to do so… is to become the Angel once again…”

“Nirvana…”

I smile. I grin. I grin so badly I am crying. I finally understand.

“The exact outcomes were achieved… yet, why are we all still suffering? The cycle of hatred has ended the moment we chose to sit here and smoke away our stresses… yet, why are we all still suffering?”

“Are we still suffering, though?”

“I think this is the least suffering that we’ve ever experienced before, right, Anti? Anti…?”

I can’t hold it anymore.

“I didn’t… I didn’t expect you guys to… to come all the way down here… It’s the worst conceivable environment to spend our time in, this cramped, smelly space! After all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve poured out to try and write a happy world… it has always been… this easy?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘easy’, but well… it certainly isn’t as difficult as we thought.”

I don’t know what to say. All I can do is hold his shivering right hand tighter.

“See? This is exactly my point. The four of us are no longer suffering, yet why is the world still suffering? Nirvana, guys, Nirvana can only be achieved if…”

“If he no longer suffers…”

“Agh! Sorry, Dream, for accidentally kicking you. Wait… the Ark stopped?”

“Ouch, now my stomach is ruined, and I can never eat food ever again! Jokes aside, was this part of your plan, bro? Sorry, stupid question, clearly it’s not.”

“We should go out and look, eh? I mean, the Ark may have stopped, but it didn’t feel like it actually hit anything.”

“The floor was bumpy just before it stopped. I think the Ark has… ran ashore. Let’s go and… sorry, could you move your leg a little, Anti?”

“I would, but Dream’s legs are on top of mine, so… bro?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll mo- Eh, since when were your legs on top of mine, Walk?”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

“I think it was when I reached for the broom to the left of Anti.”

“Yeah, I saw that, Walk.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

It took some time, but we managed to untangle ourselves. Mother reconnected the book with the Lord’s Spine. And she recalled the very same rock from Samsara that allowed us to descend to this hole.

“You know, Mother, you should’ve taken out a bigger piece of rock from Samsara. After today’s extremely uncomfortable smoking session, I am now officially claustrophobic.”

“You know, Dream, you should’ve asked Anti to make a bigger goddamn space for us to cry in. Imagine if we actually cried so hard that the space is flooded, and we all drown in it.”

“Hey, come on, Mother, I brought us all together! I made us all lifelong friends! This cramped space… was all part of my grand plan for eternal happiness!”

“Grand plan to give us all lung cancer, dammit. And look who’s back all jokey and smiley-smiley?!”

 

 

 

“Thanks, guys… And sorry for… everything.”

 

 

 

(Antispirit)

This large island was never supposed to be here. It’s interesting too, for it’s not exactly too big, perhaps a hundred metres in both length and width. I mean, I’ve built a beautiful beach during my rewriting of the world, but this looks… different.

There is so much sand. Like the whole damn island is just a bright golden stretch of sand. There is a lone tree in the dead centre, though.

… A fig tree?

I could’ve easily flown around the island, but I guess it’s better if I explore the place at the same wingless pace as everyone else…

Ah… what a wonderful world…

The sand is… very soft. Like, it simply slips past the cracks between my fingers. And as the wind blows, so too does the sand go.

Not a single rock or pebble. Not a single crab or turtle.

Just sand. Just an endless supply of sand.

And through this very sand… entire worlds can be built…

Ah… the possibilities are truly, endlessly beautiful!

… Sigh. If only… if only we had more time…

(Grey Walker)

Interesting. A sandy island that is not part of Anti’s rewritten world. I mean, if it is, Anti wouldn’t be fondling the sand and breathing the air like it’s the first time he’s done that.

An island… made entirely out of sand… This reminds me…

Back then, in Samsara, we were talking about it… the beauty of sandcastles… how easy it was to build one compared to a fully sized one made of stones and concretes… and how easy it was to destroy it…

If the sea’s tides feel like it, one fell swoop is all it needs to destroy your fortress of dreams.

Yet, regardless of how many times your sandcastle falls to either your very own playfulness, or to the environment’s mood swings, you can easily build a new one.

I can’t believe it… are they… no… did they build this…

… this Beach of Hope?

But why… why only now?

(Dreamer)

We don’t have much time left, do we? The waves were rough, and although they’ve mellowed out during the many minutes before we’ve ran ashore, the world’s suffering is not over, yet.

I look back at the open seas. I just realized… something. There are no waves.

More precisely, the waves are there, but frozen in time. Not even during twenty-five years ago, when the Angel was on the Ark, that the waves were that… still.

We kept saying that time is eternal, and the sun is unmoving. But time is no longer eternal now. Time has stopped.

And as much as I was actually excited at the prospect of having an entire Ark for ourselves, free to set sail across the endless horizons of the world, in search of the long-lost places hidden within our dreams…

I guess this is the first… and last place that we get to explore.

How sad. How very saddening… I’d love to see what funky places Anti, Walk, Mother, and I would’ve dreamed of.

But this place… I know for sure that neither one of us has dreamed of it…

Then it must be… it must be…

… them.

(Grey Mother)

They were talking about it in Samsara. I didn’t exactly join in the conversation, but I’ve definitely listened to my fair share of it. This place has been the core topic of so many of their conversations, that I was actually so irritated.

But to see it in person… Damn, you guys were really onto something…

… The Beach of Hope.

It’s just a radiantly golden beach with a fig tree in the middle. It’s really just that. There are no other signs of life, and most importantly…

… there is no sign of time.

A place of stagnation. A place where one can spend all eternity with your loved ones… Isn’t this what I have always been seeking all along?

But it’s unsettling, because I know deep down, that despite the appearance of unmoving time…

… the time of the world is running out.

But this fig tree… it reminds me of the one of the Island of I… In fact, they are exactly the same. Why, though? Why waste a plot of land for a tree that has no significance to any of them…?

Or maybe the tree is a reminder…

… that the sun is going to se-

“Hey, Mother, building sandcastles is hard. Can you use your mohawk to dig out more sand for us?”

Huh? I knew it… I knew that they must be somewhere, but I didn’t want to…

 

 

 

… I didn’t want to have my hopes broken…

 

 

 

“Mother, why do you look so shocked? This is the Beach of Hope, and hope can make you happy!”

“Hi Mother! Welcome to our happy place! You see, we actually built this place up by ourselves! You didn’t believe us because we were so young, did you? Well, we are grown Children now!”

“I mean, we are still the same age as the last time we met Mother…”

“Time never moves. We are all destined to die.”

“Eek! That’s daaaark!”

“I mean, we all died in that box, right? Why did we die again?”

“Cause the world was so hopeless and full of sadness?”

“There is no hope. There is no hope in this world.”

“The world is pois-”

“Children! No… Children… Come here… All of you, come here…”

Seven of them, tightly cuddled within my motherly arms. They are so, so young, and yet… their thoughts…

If only… if only I knew…

I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have…

“Mother, why are you crying?”

“Mother, are you crying because you do not have hope?”

“Mother, we do not have hope t-”

“Children! You are my hope! You are… my hope… all of you… and Walk… Dream… Anti… all of you are…”

Mother… Children… You guys…

“Ah, Walk! Mother’s pressing us on one side, and you’re pressing us on another! This makes us a sandwich!”

“A hamburger.”

“A sandwich is better!”

“No, a hamburger is better!”

“A hamburger doesn’t even have hams!”

“Some hamburgers do.”

“A sandwich doesn’t even have sand!”

“Then that makes us a literal sandwich, since we are all, you know, on sand!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Oh my gosh. Sandwich. Sand-wich. Sand-‘witch’? Are Mother and Walk witches?”

“Don’t be so bad, they are not witches! Witches are bad and evil!”

“They do bad things! Very bad things!”

“Mother, why are you crying even more?”

 

 

 

The Grey Children. They are… exactly like what I saw in my rewritten world…

I thought… that they were just… Ghosts…

Do they… recognize me?

“Hey, Anti! Save us from these two witches!”

“They are not witches, dummy, witches do bad and evil things!”

“Mother and Walk only do kind and good things!”

“Does that make them angels?”

“Yes! They are angels! They are both angels!”

“Then… aren’t we all angels?”

“Why are we all angels?”

“Because we…”

 

 

 

“… we came from the same Angel, didn’t we?”

 

 

 

We are running out of time.

I didn’t want this to end.

Not when Mother and Walk are happy once again.

Not when the Children are back, happier than ever.

Sigh.

“Do we really… have to do this… Anti?”

I know, brother, I know… But…

“Sigh, brother, the longer we wait, the more the world suffers…”

I look up towards the unmoving sun.

“Like… couldn’t we at let these happy times stay on just a little while longer…?”

But I know we couldn’t. I just… I didn’t want to believe it.

“Your face betrays you, bro. I know you… this is what you sought for, isn’t it? This is what we sought for.”

A tremor. The sand below me splashes around ever so slightly.

“Mother, Walk, what was that?”

“The Angel! The Angel is coming!”

“Hope! We finally have hope!”

Children, what are you… sigh. I know it better than anyone. I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want the good times to end…

But… a world in stagnation can never be happy…

A world in stagnation…

… is a world in… Samsara.

And I… I don’t want to lose anyone else…

Especially… especially this world.

To save this world… Sigh, Walk, you should know better than to feel what you’re feeling.

This is what you always wanted, isn’t it?

The time has come. It is now or never.

Even I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

The book didn’t tell me everything. In fact, it did not tell me anything that I don’t already know.

But if it all goes well… then…

“I guess we can be back again, guys.”

“Huh, what do you mean?”

“If everything goes well, I mean…”

“Back to this place? This Beach of Hope?”

“Back to anywhere we want… we can go anywhere and everywhere we want… both within this world, and outside this world…”

“Walk, you…”

“The shadows.”

“Huh?”

“There have never been shadows, for the sun has always been in eternal midday, stilly unmoving. And it is moving now. It is…”

“… setting.”

This is really it, huh? Is it all really going to end, just like this?

There is no time. There is…

“Damn this world. Just as things were starting to get better. Just as we are all beginning to understand each other…”

“It is going to be okay, Mother. It’s not the end of everything. It’s never the end. We can come back… we can come back anytime we want…”

 I said that, but truthfully, I don’t know if we even have enough time.

We have to… we have to act now.

But…

“Goddammit! Walk, you better be right… you better be…”

Even Anti’s breaking down. He stabs the Lord’s Spine into the sand, with one end of the book’s spine pointed right at his heart, and another end tilted downwards.

“Just do it! Just do it already, Dream! Dammit… I really… I really just…”

What’s wrong? Why is everyone so… frenzied? We can always come back here, can’t we?

But why… but why do I feel…

Oh gosh, if only the past twenty-five years weren’t such a fucking waste.

“Guys… let’s calm down and… you know, really, it’s not the end, it’s not…”

And the shadows grow larger.

The sun sets faster.

And I hear it. I hear his cries.

And I… what am I even doing?

What am I even doing? Mother, what the hell are you even do-

“Enough!”

I spread my white feathers across the entire expanse surrounding the fig tree, enclosing every single one of us sad little freaks.

“With the power of my holy feathers of love and more love, I shall make everyone… calm!”

All eyes are on me.

“You will all be calm, after I have said the holy magic word, along with my holy magical hand gestures!”

I close my eyes, and concentrate. I raise my hands up, reaching for the sky. I spin my hands clockwise seven times. Then anticlockwise seven times.

I spin around seven times, with my hands still in the air.

 

 

 

“Abra-Nirvana!”

 

 

 

I smack my palm onto my face.

“What the hell was that for? That’s literally the cringiest thing I’ve seen in my life. I would like to unsee that, please.”

“Amazing! Brother, you are indeed, very amazing! Such a beautiful act of love! It has brought tears to my very strong eyes!”

I don’t actually know whether Dream’s feathers actually has the ability to relieve everyone’s tension through some magical ritual, or that he did all that simply to distract us from our wallowing despair.

Just like how he has been mindfucking Walk with his rebuttals and counterstatements, all to distract her from her spiralling depression.

An anomaly, necessary to drive this world forward.

I blink twice. I look at the Children. They are all waving their hands around, laughing at that white-haired joker.

“Hahaha! Dream, you’re so funny! It’s ‘abracadabra’, silly!”

“But it worked. It worked, guys! I feel calmer already!”

“That’s because Mother, Walk, and Anti stopped prancing around shaking their heads and muttering random words, silly!”

“Yeah! Dream, you’re a genius!”

I gotta admit, Dream. I underestimated you.

You may be the dreamer of this world, to the point where the world’s very own Soup has no effect of you, but your true ability isn’t the invincibility of your Soup-repelling feathers.

Your ability is… to move the world forwards, and upwards, even at the expense of your own self.

To introduce an anomaly… to drive the pursuit of our dreams.

Dream, I think I understand now. You did all that… for a joke, for us to make fun of you.

For me to make fun of you.

We have always been consumed by past regrets, or by fears of the future, and you pulled our minds back to the present through that cringeworthy performance of yours.

In the end, how can I be the walker of this world, if I keep looking back?

“Now that I’ve gotten all your attention, guys…”

 

 

 

“… shall we begin writing The Happy Ending, together?”

 

 

 

The Happy Ending

 

(Antispirit) (Grey Walker) (Grey Mother) (Dreamer)

 

Abra-Nirvana. Hah! You’re a genius indeed, Dream. I knew that I could always count on you.

“As you’ve said, Walk, it really isn’t an actual goodbye, for we’re simply returning back to the very same Angel that we came from. But why does all this feel like there’s a sense of… finality to it?”

Anti, it’s called an “Ending” for a reason. A Happy Ending is still… an ending.

“Is it… really going to be the end?”

I walk up to the white-blazered man. Yet, I no longer see a man far too perfect that he looks imposing.

I see… a scarred human being, a man who tirelessly strives for everyone to be happy, even if others will hate him for it.

“It doesn’t have to be the end, Anti. We save this world, we come back here, and we go for pizza.”

“Why pizza? You like pizza, Walk?”

“I’m just hungry. Like, very hungry.”

Her empty stomach rumbles, screaming for food, screaming for pizza.

“We’ve never actually felt hungry before… never for the past twenty-five years… Time is really moving forward now, huh?”

“Time is weird, Anti. I don’t even want to think of it. Once we’ve saved this world, I want to make time… time again.”

As much as unmoving time sounds pretty exciting, I rather things be normal, for once.

“Come here, my dear.”

The warmest hug I’ve ever felt. Her fluffy grey sweater pressing against my rather sweaty blazer. Damn, I really shouldn’t have worn this under the midday sun. My body stinks now.

“Your body stinks, by the way.”

“You didn’t need to say that, Walk, I was just monologing about it.”

“Go get a cold shower, then let’s go get pizza.”

It’s ironic, really. A normal world would have rained water and would have seas made of water. Here, it was raining skinless corpses and the sea’s freaking corrosive.

“There’s no water here, dear.”

“You didn’t need to say that, Anti, I was just monologing about it.”

“You’re reading my mind, Walk. See you soon, my dear.”

“Nah, I’m just smart. Anyways, see you soon, you big-ass man.”

I let go of Walk. I turn around.

“You mean this big ass?”

I wink.

I smack my palm to my face.

“I was trying to be nice for once, and you just had to… Ugh. Anyways, my ass is bigger.”

“No way, dear. My ass is bigger. You literally called me a big-ass man!”

“I did n- Ugh… Who the hell even gives a fuck that you have a big ass, man?”

I wink again.

“Hah! You called me a big ass man, again!”

Seriously, those two… it’s supposed to be a heartfelt goodbye, and they are yapping about big freaking asses.

“Do I have a big ass, Mother?”

“Dream… Gah… Why… Why is everyone so obsessed with big asses? Oh gosh, please kill me already.”

“Haha, I’m just kidding. I mean, it’ll actually be great if I do have a big ass, because all I do is sit all day and do nothing, so…”

I place my hands on Dream’s shoulders. I hold them tight.

“Enough, Dream. Were you being sarcastic when you said that? If you weren’t, then listen, you’re not useless at all, you little shit.”

I let out a smirk. The woman in the tube top looks at me weirdly.

“You called me a little shit, Mother. A little shit is useless, for it’s not even a big shit! It means that whoever’s shitting very little must have eaten very little, because they must be sitting all day doing nothing!”

I shake my head and sigh.

“Why are you all like this? I thought this was supposed to be a serious moment. Like, I expected you guys to be crying and wailing about how miserable our lives are.”

And the man with the white denim singlet can only grin.

“Isn’t it better this way, Mother? We’ve been suffering enough already, and plus, we’re only going to be much closer together, forever!”

And I lean forward to hug the mohawked woman, who is at least a head taller than me.

“We can all be… really close together!”

“Dream, I didn’t… Gah… it still feels weird…”

“Imagine being in that cramped space under the Ark with the rest of us. Now, imagine a space even more cramped than that! That’s how life gonna be once we are back to the Angel!”

I let out an audible groan.

“I’m totally not looking forward to that.”

My hands, which are wrapped around Mother’s back, press on it tighter.

“Come on, Mother, you’re not even hugging me properly. Think of it like… like a training! A training for an eternity of hugs in the Angel!”

… Sigh. I wrap my hands around Dream’s bony back.

“You should… eat more, Dream.”

“Gosh, Mother, you’re like a grandma, sometimes. Even though you’re named Mother, all four of us are technically the same ‘age’, you know?”

“I just… worry about you. Or you can just… don’t eat. Starve to death or whatever, I don’t care.”

And I can’t help but smile.

“You’re actually quite funny, Mother.”

And the shadows are getting larger.

“See you soon, Mother.”

I sigh. I hate goodbyes.

“See you… Dream.”

And I walk to Anti. Sigh. I guess I still can’t really get over what you’ve done to me.

And I’m not really good at striking random conversations, so…

“Do I have a big ass, Mother?”

I underestimated him. I really underestimated him.

“You were so afraid of me, Anti, and now, it’s like you’ve flipped a switch and became that arrogant little shit that we all came to hate and love.”

“Love? You love me, Mother? I didn’t know. I really didn’t know…”

I meant it as a sarcastic joke, but why are my eyes blinking a little too fast?

“Anti, you… you seriously going to cry at your own joke? Damn… how pathetic… how weak and pathetic…”

I look downwards onto the golden sands. And I realize… I’m pretty pathetic as well.

“… Sorry.”

He stretches his left hand forward and holds my right hand. Wait, why is he holding my hand? This is weird.

“Um… Anti? What?”

“Hey, I just saved you from crying, Mother. You should be glad I didn’t bring your hand up to my lips to kiss it. Actually, you know what, I’m just gonna do it.”

She pulls her hand away. Ah, Mother is so, so strong…

“You and Dream… you both have tried-and-true ways to piss people off, huh?”

I said that as if I’m pissed, but I… I…

His hand… remind me of Father’s…

“So… see you soon, Mother. And sorry for everything. Really, I didn’t mean any of it. I just wanted the best for everyone.”

I find myself leaping forward, wrapping my arms around his back.

It’s weird. I hated him. I hated Anti so, so much, for everything that he has done, and yet…

“Anti… I wanted the best for everyone, too…”

“And I guess the both of us fucked up midway, hah! Best friends forever, Mother!”

I say that with an energetic voice, yet my eyes are still blurry.

“When I see you again, Anti, let’s go on a long night of alcohol-fuelled frenzy, and let the screams of our fuckups prevail through the night.”

“I really like the sound of that! I can’t wait!”

“So, Walk, when’s our drinking night, huh?”

“Today, Dream. In fact, let’s just have some drinks now. I’m dying to get drunk.”

“Damn, Walk, I didn’t know you were such an alcoholic.”

“I wasn’t, until I saw your face, then I have to drink to forget it.”

I pinch my own cheek with my fingers.

“Look at this cute, handsome young face! Why would you ever want to forget such a beautiful face, Walk?”

“You’ve raised my stress level, Dream. I need a cig now.”

I really do, though. A cig and a drink. Not to forget his face, but I think it’ll be fun.

Anti, Mother, Dream, and I, drinking and smoking the night away, free from the perils of mundane life…

We’ve all gone through fuckups, and I think it’ll be nice for others to laugh at my fuckups, and for me to laugh at others’ fuckups, too.

Because we’re all humans, after all.

Ouch, Dream, stop! Walk, why are you letting him pinch your cheek again?

“What are you thinking of with that cute little smile, huh, Walk? It’s like you were so elated at the thought of a night of depravity, fuelled with alcohol and nicotine, that you can’t help but smile.”

I can’t help but smile, too. It sounds fun, really. Too bad it has to wait until all this is over.

“Idiot, I’m supposed to be hating you, you know? You were so mean to me back then!”

I stop pinching her cheek.

“… Sorry. I don’t know what else to say but… sorry.”

Why did you stop pinching my cheek? I kind of liked that, actually.

“So… how about a hug, Walk?”

I’m not expecting anything, really. Okay, maybe I actually wanted it, but there’s no way that Walk wi-

“You idiot. You big, stupid idiot. Remember this for the rest of your stupid life.”

I know I will.

“Thanks, Walk…”

An embrace that feels like an eternity, as if time has stopped in place.

I don’t want this to end too.

But it’s not the end. I will see her soon.

I will see everyone soon.

And I… will see you soon.

 

 

 

The broom’s stick penetrates deep into the sands. The book points upwards, with its spines pointing sideways.

The sun no longer sits idly in the middle. It seems to be two hours past midday.

If sundown were to be at six hours past midday, and if the past two hours felt like two minutes, then we need to hurry.

But not before this world had its closure.

“In the end, all the Angel wanted… was to love himself, didn’t he, Anti?”

“He wanted to, but he couldn’t. It’s quite sad, really. This world could be anything and everything he ever dreamed of, and yet… he felt so… alone.”

Mother, Walk, Dream, and I, four individuals with four distinct dreams… no wonder the Angel couldn’t love himself.

He didn’t know… who he was.

Yet maybe this whole cycle of death and rebirth was but a way for us to better understand each other.

To write a story together, and to end it all together.

“Sigh. If only… if only he could understand how beautiful this world is… Ah… Such a wonderful world it is…”

“Bro, which world, exactly?”

I watch as the black smoke pollutes the beautifully tranquil air. The both of us toss our used sticks onto the sand, melding the despondent grey with the golden glimmers of hope.

“All the worlds, brother. This world, and the worlds of others.”

I let out a smile. I adjust the book such that one end of its spine is angled upwards, and the other downwards.

“Yeah man, I know I’m short, thank you very much.”

“Sorry man, are you there? Where are you, bro? I keep hearing your voice, but I can’t see you.”

Anti scours the horizons with his stupidly elevated head. I kick his stupidly soft abdomen.

“Ouch! Hey, come out, bro, I’m starting to get so hungry that my stomach’s in pain!”

“How disappointing. I thought you had well-toned abs.”

Anti stops looking around. He looks at me with a smile.

“No use hiding it now, I guess. It’s already the end, anyways.”

I breathe a very long sigh of relief, as my entire chest, arms, and face start to ache, accompanied by the stinging pains of freshly drawn blood.

I look down. The whites of my blazer are being gradually tinted red. It’s a lot… worse than I thought. Ouch.

“I expected a bigger reaction from you, bro.”

I look at the bulky, yet heavily traumatized man in the eyes. His dark circles grow bigger than his very own eyes.

I cross my arms.

“You really think I didn’t know?”

“Guess that makes me… absolutely mistaken! Hah!”

And at this moment, I wonder if I was far too obnoxious in the past.

“Hey, Anti’s injured! Mother, Walk, please help him!”

“Anti, are you alright? You are bleeding all over!”

“Eek! Blood! So much blood!”

“Relax, silly. Blood is but the very composition of our bodies.”

“But I thought that we are supposed to be Soup.”

“Soup sounds tasty! I want to drink it!”

“Creamy mushroom soup!”

Blood. Soup. I wonder, brother.

As you and I approach the two ends of the spine together, I wonder, brother.

If blood symbolizes the self, and Soup symbolizes the world…

Brother, are we more of ourselves, or are we more of the world?

As I sink my frail frame into the brotherly warmth of the scarred believer of this world…

… pressing the spines of the book into both of our hearts.

“See you soon, brother, and may we have the chance to sit on a beautifully lush island and philosophize about life once again.”

I’m actually hungry. You know, Children, I’m actually craving for creamy mushroom soup.

Perhaps not in this world, but once we get out of here, I’ll take all of you out to eat the best creamy mushroom soup in the world.

Where the soup is actually of a single dominant colour, and in the aforementioned case, a nice pale yellow.

Unlike the Soup that we are so used to seeing right now.

As I look at you in the eyes, Dream, we effortlessly walk into the spines, and we feel no pain, and we feel no regret.

Because life is beautiful, and you and I are beautiful beings.

As the fountains of bright red blood spurt out of our hearts, our very broken hearts…

“See you soon, brother, and let’s sail the world together, someday.”

 

 

 

Ah… what a wonderful world it is… don’t you agree?

 

 

 

“Hey, Anti’s injured! Mother, Walk, please help him!”

“Yeah, I knew about that, Children, I’ve known about that for twenty-five years…”

“Eh? Really? Then why didn’t you help him, Walk? He’s gonna die!”

I look towards him, standing about five metres away from me. He turns his head towards me. His white blazer, now stained entirely red. The black silk on his head has crumbled into a greyish tumbleweed, and his formerly muscular body has seemingly shrunk to half its size.

Yet, he still looks at me with a smile.

The brightest smile.

This is his true self. Antispirit, the being with the wings of freedom, yet his heart is constrained by fear, like an adventurous eagle trapped from the uncertainties of the outside world by a birdcage of its own mind.

“Mother, Walk, please help them! Anti, Dream, they’re bleeding out from their hearts!”

Blood, huh. It was supposed to be Soup.

“I guess they died as their true selves, eh Mother?”

“They died for the Angel to fly once more. Why didn’t… why didn’t I realize that before?”

To protect Walk and the Children from those things, I’ve built that box.

And with that, the Angel could no longer walk this world a free being.

To let go… is to be free…

“We could’ve gone anywhere we wanted to, Walk. We didn’t have to stay in Samsara.”

I look at Mother’s sorrowful eyes. Tinted with regret yet hinting the rays of hope.

“Our true selves, Walk, the Angel’s true self, is an infallible being capable of freely touring and shaping this world to his liking. The Angel truly has everything, Walk. The strength to fell any opposition, the Light to guide his way through the dark, the wings to tour the world and all the worlds beyond, and the feathers to become one with the world itself—the Soup of Life.”

I step forward and pull Mother into my embrace.

“It’s not too late yet, Mother. Perhaps… perhaps this is the only way… for the Angel to understand his true self.”

Maybe… well, things did turn out pretty okay in the end. I guess, it was because of all of our individual personalities and dreams, that led us to this hopeful present.

A hope for the future. A hope to connect with others. But most importantly…

… a hope to love your true self.

As Dream’s arms and legs begin to melt, he, without a hint of pain or sorrow, he turns around and look at me.

And he mouths, “Mother, it’s going to be okay.”

But I can hear it well, it’s as if it’s an actual whisper.

For it’s going to be okay. The future is going to be okay.

And all the unknowns that lie ahead of us…

… they are all… going to be okay.

“Mother! Walk! Dream and Anti have melted! They have become Soup!”

“This Soup is a lot redder than before! They must have bled a lot!”

“Eek! Blood! They must have felt so much pain!”

“Walk, what are you doing?”

As the residues of Soup slide off the broom, what remains is the blood of the two brothers.

Their true selves.

Pain is subjective, Children. There is the pain inflicted through external injuries. Your mind is conditioned to recoil upon receiving such pain, for it is but an evolutionary measure to avoid the potentially hazardous action that has resulted in that pain.

But the pain of the mind, Children, is never that straightforward. This entire world, including all of us, have been created as a method to deal with that pain.

And the Bloody Rain was supposed to happen. Perhaps not that early, and perhaps not in such a monstrous state.

But everything has been conditioned from the very start.

“That was why the book was created, Mother. This book is the book of the world, Mother, and he was hoping that it could save this world… and save himself.”

The broom is positioned in the same way as the brothers did. The book is still angled.

“Maybe he was hoping for this, or maybe he was not, but regardless, we have to keep walking forward, for the world, and for him.”

“Him, huh? I never exactly liked how the fella treated us, especially with how he treated you.”

But I know well enough that, in the end, we are all but symptoms of the poison.

The poisons of the mind. The disease of the world.

And as the protector of the world, I chose to reinforce the shield that not only protects this world from other, but also prevents other worlds from joining in. An isolated world. And I was confident that we would be enough for this world.

But without any anomalies… without any interruptions to the routine, what am I even protecting this world from?

“But you’re the Grey Walker of this world, after all, so if you feel that this is the correct path to walk towards, then I will stand guard, ensuring the path is cleared from anyone that tries to oppose us.”

“What about us, Mother and Walk? Will you two leave us alone?”

“Please don’t leave us! This Beach is so much emptier without you!”

“Do you… do you want to leave us before we’re… we’re not good enough for you?”

I reach out for a Child’s hand. I ask them to stand in a circle, hand-in-hand, with the last Child holding Walk’s hand.

And my remaining free hand connects with Walk’s free hand.

“Who said that we are leaving you alone, Children? We will go on this journey, together.”

And the Children’s faces light up. Their grins are immovable, and their eyes shine as bright as the Light in all their hearts.

“And once we’re done, we’re going to come back here, to this very same Beach, and we can build our own kingdom of sand together!”

… Thanks, Mother.

“Yay! Kingdom of sand! Who’s gonna be the queen, huh?”

“Me! Me! I want to rule the kingdom in peace and make friends with everyone!”

“There’s no need for a queen, silly, it’s a democratic world, now!”

“Anarchy! Anarchy!”

These Children are… weird. Clearly, they are less like actual children, and more like what’ll happen if I had one too many shots and one too many cigs, and decided to be like, you know what, fuck everything, I’m amazing.

The Grey Children are me after all.

And Grey Mother is me, too.

Dreamer and Antispirit, they are all me, too.

We are all me. And we are all we. And we will embark on this journey, together.

“See you soon, Mother. And thank you for protecting us with the world of your heart.”

Anarchy. Hah! Look at this world, everything’s an anarchy here, with the four of us just making up rules and goals on the spot.

Perhaps, maybe if there were a ruler to guide our every action, and plan our every path, we would’ve all been happier.

I’d never know. The supposed ruler is running out of time.

Or maybe the opposite is true, and that we are the supposed rulers of this world?

If it were true, then we did a really shitty job at this.

But things can change. And I don’t plan on being shitty at my job.

I want… to protect this world… and…

“See you soon, Walk. And come on, don’t say it like it’s the end, we haven’t even had the chance to hold elections for our kingdom of sand yet!”

 

 

 

… I want to protect… you.

 

 

 

---

(Fatherson Spirit. Beach of Hope)

“Time truly is eternal, eh, Mother?”

The winds ruffle through my cotton-white hair, combing through the few select stripes of night-black.

I tilt my head slightly upwards. The sun, unmoving, beams right into my eyes. Never setting. Never bidding goodbye.

At least for now. I’m no longer the fool I was before. Time is… precious, especially given the state of this world.

(Spirit of Mother. Beach of Hope)

Father thinks that he was a fool, but weren’t we all?

The world has always been dying, and we were too naïve, too preoccupied with our little squabbles and petty arguments to notice.

“It’s as if the world has stopped in place, just so that we can admire the scenery one last time. Damn, why does all this have a feeling of finality to it?”

But it’s really not the end. If this world can be saved, then we can come back, we will come back. But if we failed to save this world…

“Mother, I like being here… I really, really like being here…”

I turn towards the woman with the night-black cocktail dress. I place my hands on her sleeveless shoulders.

“I really, really like… being with you…”

Sigh. The sea breeze wafts the hole-plagued white cape hanging over my back. Mother’s knee-length dress sways to the wind, too.

A dance. A dance of perfect stillness. A dance of the silent hearts.

A wild dance.

“Father… we will be together… in fact, we are together. We made it. It took us far too long, but here we are, watching the sunset by the world’s most beautiful beach.”

The golden sands are reminiscent of the softest and fluffiest of clouds. They are soft, far too soft, that even with Father merely placing his hands onto my shoulders, I am struggling to maintain my balance.

Actually, it’s just my high heels. Sigh, I dressed up for a fine-dining experience, dammit, not for some romantic walk on the beach.

I turn my head right. The sun is still unmoving, yet the world is ending. And I hate endings…

If only… if only everything that is good can begin… and never end.

“Father, what would you give up for an endless beginning, under the unmoving sun?”

“An endless beginning, huh… That sounds pretty horrifying, actually. I mean, what if it’s the beginning of something unpleasant?”

I look into the bright round sun. The sky is still blue. The clouds have stopped drifting. Yet the winds… the winds are still as gracious as ever.

“But if it’s an endless beginning with you, Mother, then I will gladly give up the world of my heart for you.”

With the fingers of my right hand intertwining with Mother’s, my left-hand points towards the sun.

“If the eventual sunset signifies a world-ending nightfall, then Mother, what is the sun?”

The sun of hope, or the sun of despair? The sun that gives light to the darkened world, or the world that illuminates the lightless sun?

“The only way to know for sure… is to walk across the seas and ask the setting sun.”

But by then, it may be too late.

“To walk on water, Father, is a feat far too impossible, even for the Angel. Perhaps, if we show our dedication to the sun, it may reveal to us its true nature.”

The waves of Soup pause in time, maintaining the mellowness of its tides ever since many minutes ago. It’s as if the moment Father and I appeared, time has stopped venturing forth.

“Or perhaps we could catch it. The sun is infinitely far away, and we have to travel an infinite distance in order to catch it.”

The red, blue, and green of the waves start to interweave. Time is slowly resuming. The waves are heading towards us. Slowly. Father and I take two steps back, and even that is faster than the speed of the wave’s motion.

Sigh.

“And thus, the sun begins to set once again. Getting even farther away from us. We can’t just catch it; we have to chase it.”

The incoming wave crash onto the beach, and the Soup coasts into the spot we stood before, before retreating.

“Yet, a life spent chasing a smile that will never come… that was what we have been doing before, right?”

Another wave approaches, weaker than the last. Not even a splash.

“A life without a smile… The Angel really is a grey walker to the end…”

 A larger wave. Faster than ever. Time resumes normally. I guess we need to go soon.

“A purposeless being… if only the grey spirit of the Angel could understand that…”

I clench my left fist tighter. Father looks at me, seemingly shocked at my sudden tension.

“… that he was capable of loving others… and he was capable of being loved by others…”

And a stream trickles out of my left eye.

“And those were our dreams… the sweepers’ dreams… oh, Angel, my dear, how badly must the dust on your mind, body, and soul be for you to be in such a state…”

Event 24. Seven weeks before the story started.

- After a period of rest –

(Island of I)

I look at Mother’s agitated eyes. Stressed from concern over the Angel. Pressured by the weight of the world.

And I’m not going to let her bear it all alone. I cannot… let her cry alone.

“I love you… Mother.”

Mother relaxes her grip on my right-hand. She watches me, as my feeble eyelids fight to contain the torrent of tears from within.

“I love you too, Father… thanks.”

I know that Father’s emotional, but he just looks so, so heartbroken, as if mourning for the loss of our melancholic lives.

“Father, why are you crying?”

And Father lets go of my hand, and jumps into me, wrapping me within his frailly wrinkled arms.

“Mother, oh Mother, I simply do not want this perfect moment to end. You are my sword and shield, Mother. You are my safeguard; you are my support. There is no need to save this world anymore, for I am with you today, every day.”

The waves are more frequent. The shadows beside us are extending. I guess it’s the world’s way of telling us that it is time.

All good things have to end. And as much as we both hate for things to end…

… I guess… better to have a happy ending, than a lonely ending.

“Father… We don’t have much time left… We gotta go, now, before the sun… before the sun sets.”

I see… I see those things emerging from the Spinal Cord… those Underwater People and Philosopher Corals…

Because in this world, where the past, present, and future collide…

… it is the dreams of the future and the efforts of the past… that gives the present, hope.

And hope is what keeps us moving forward.

And hope is… what keeps us ali(“Tourism” by Tourist)

… Huh?

- Meanwhile –

 Wait, no, it can’t be… please, wait… please… WAI- - Meanwhile - - Meanwhile – Meanw

hile - - Meanwhile -- Meanwhile - - Meanwhile -- Meanwhile - - Meanwhile -- Meanwhile - - Meanwhile -- Meanwhile - - Meanwhile -- Meanwhile - - Meanwhile –

Father, we g otta go,                                no w!

I guess theeeere’s no OTHer way. Mother… I love yo

     u… I really do…

The broom! Where e   e  e is that godDDDdamn b

Rroom?????????????????????????????????????????????????????!

By the fig tree, MottttttTTTTTTTTTTTTT --------------------------------------------------

(TOURISM by tourist)

wait wait wait WAIT STOP PLEASE just wait foR US

Please…

Please…

Please wait for us…

 

 

THERE WAS A MURDER, A STAB TO THE HEART

THE BODY FELL FROM THE SKY, THE LOUDEST CR

ALL OR

NEVER TO BE REBIRTHED AGAIN

 

the body dissolved into dust

 

 

 

 

 

 

NO TEARS WERE SHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- End of Chapter 8: Samsara

.

.

.

 

.. 

..

..

 

 

 

. 

.

. 

See you soon, Father. We’ll be back, I promise.

 

 

 

See you soon, Mother. Let’s save this world, together.

 

 

 

 

 

(Angel. Beach of Hope)

The fig tree. The symbol of hope. The lynchpin of the past and present.

And it is here, that I will save the future of this world.

And the sun is setting. The sun is rapidly setting.

The sky is in a deeper shade of blue. And now it blends into orange.

I fear that I may be unable to make it in time. But I have confidence, not in myself…

… but the Tourist.

Please wait for me. Please wait for us. Just a little longer.

I will… I will…

… I will free you from your pain.

And it is simply because… you gave me this duty.

And I, no, we have grown.

Tourist, you saved us by creating this world for us to grow.

And now… it is our turn to save you.

So please… just hold on a little longer…

 

 

 

All that ends in a wave

 

 

 

A fateful day ahead, they may say

It all goes back to the beginning. To reshape the world back to the form of the Dusty-Spined Star will take time despite Mother’s infallible strength.

I don’t have the luxury of time.

But I have the luxury of hope.

On this Beach of Hope, I shall reshape the golden sands into the Old Walls. Despite this being an unnatural structure, forged by the hands of the Gods who came to this world, it is the only way out.

The Gods have given us the only way… to break free from this self-imposed world-sized prison of the Tourist.

The Tower of Angel.

Such irony, a conspiracy of this world

Four hundred metres in width and length. A singular doorway in, and countless doorways down into the Beautiful Field.

But with all below ground level, including that of the Field and Samsara, being submerged in Soup, there is nowhere else to go…

… but up.

This bizarrely brazen world

As the Tower is fully formed, I am once again surrounded by lightlessness. My Light Machine was never enough to illuminate the entire place. Or maybe…

… maybe I was just too afraid.

And the story will be left untold

And my Light radiates onto every corner of the Tower. And my Light reflects off every glass panel and silver metallic walls of the Tower. And there is a fig tree in the middle of the Tower.

I wonder, has the fig tree always been there all along, or is this simply a remnant of the Beach of Hope?

Yet amidst the striking purple carpeted floor littered with fifty or so holes, the two opposing rows of light-gold, sun-ornamented, ostensibly sparkled elevators on two sides of the walls, the backgrounds of a pitch-black outer space with gleams of living and dead stars thousands of lightyears away, and an all-encompassing sun and moon of equal sizes brushed onto the ceiling a hundred metres from where I’m standing… the fig tree retains its uncompromising immobility.

And my hope… it has to be as unyielding as that tree.

Or will the world participate

The sun and moon on the ceiling gradually shift towards each other, until they come into contact, and start overlapping each other.

The bright yellow sun and the dull white moon, uniting into one, and the ceiling…

… the glass ceiling shatters.

And the starless night bares itself to me, with the roundest moon dead in the middle.

In another fateful journey, or another

And thus, I begin my ascent towards the moon.

For I am The Angel Who Swept Dust off the Spine of the Star.

And all the worlds will come and go

Higher. Higher. I keep moving forward, moving upward, never looking back.

Yet the splashes of Soup I feel on my legs are unsettling.

So, I have to look back. And the fig tree is gone. All that is left…

… is a rising flood of Soup.

And all that begins, for in the beginning

You wanted a new beginning, didn’t you, Tourist?

That’s why you decided to destroy this world from within.

Or maybe you just felt that the Tower does not belong in your world.

But it is my world too. It is our world. And you should join us sometime…

… because if you hate this world, and you are too afraid to tour other worlds, then… where will you go?

Another time, a burial underground

The Soup is rising quick. But I am faster, stronger. My wings shall carry me upwards.

My wings… shall carry me to you.

And the sun has fully set.

And the moon… the moon menacingly stares at us all…

Yet, amidst the murky dark of this silent night…

… the moon… is crying for you.

The Samsara of this world, unrepentant

You understand it, didn’t you? To be entrapped in this world, never leaving to tour the worlds of others…

This is Samsara.

This is why you are suffering, Tourist! This is why you are unhappy!

You are not even trying to break this endless cycle of hatred!

And the benevolence is unpaid, someday

I want to help you. I want to save you!

I’m not asking for anything in return!

So why… why are you making life so difficult for us all?

The white sands will flare up like the sun

My Light Machine… the night is still so dark…

And the moon’s screams pierce my soul…

At least I can still clearly perceive my immediate surroundings, but any more than that…

… do you really want this world to end?

And a bright moon will crash onto the earth

Bloody Rain. No, this is even heavier than the Bloodiest Rain.

Thousands, no, millions of skinless corpses falling from the sky.

If I were to not have my Light, I would have been overwhelmed by the tempest of Gods.

Why… why do you need to treat them this way?! The Gods… the Gods are only trying to save you!

Because you… you are one of them…

Someday, this will all end, and the cycle

I forcefully displace all the approaching corpses with my broom. It’s like sweeping them away, but not… killing them…

They’ve already died once, because of you and your damned Comfort Zone.

The cycle of life starts anew, it starts afresh

I see the rising Soup entering the radius of my Light. I thought I was fast, but…

There is no need to destroy everything that you’ve built, and every bond that you’ve painstakingly developed, Tourist!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Wait… Please… wait a little longer…

And a frequent tourist of this world

Remember… Remember how Dream always wanted you to focus on your dreams, and believe in the power of hope?

Unbetrayed, yet the sky will fall

Remember how Anti always tried to chase that smile for you, regardless of how impossible it seemed?

Or will the ground become the sky, the sky

And how Mother always wanted you to protect yourself?

The sky is blue, perhaps lacking the clouds

The Soup has risen past my knees.

It rises past my chest.

And it has… me submerged in it.

But where are the clouds

Remember, it was you who gave me these feathers, Tourist.

These feathers, seemingly purposeless in nature, they were the key in becoming one with this world.

It was you who made me one with this world.

And I… I will keep walking forward, despite everything.

Do you remember… how Walk always wanted you to keep moving forward?

The rainbows are obfuscating the world

The Soup may have slowed me down, but I keep going on.

The corpses may haunt me in the millions, but I persevere.

And the dark of the night may threaten my righteousness, but I…

… I stay strong.

Towards the moon. Towards the end of it all.

I will rewrite this lonely ending.

The beauty, a beauty, and it will all end

Life is beautiful. The world is beautiful!

There is no need to-

Unremorseful, for it’s the end of life

Please, Tourist, look, I’m still here, fighting for you…

And the Gods that are touring this world… they are trying to save you…

Please, just

But a story, a story of fate

This is not fate… You don’t have to end it this way…

You gave us all these powers, and yet, you deem the end of everything a mere “fate”?!

Will the readers be able to comprehend

This was why Walk was so bewildered, so… appalled, when she read the book!

She didn’t want to believe it was true, because she knew that this is not the right way t

The code, hidden through time

If you’re expecting others to understand you if you pour all your thoughts into unintelligible code, then you are wr

Behind the veils of an unmoving sun

Why are you hiding yourself?! How do you expect others to empathize with y

But will it unveil

Why are you so afraid?!

And here it will unveil

Clearly you know what to do, and yet…

Why… are you putting yourself up with so much self-torture?!

The code that governs the sanctity of this

And I slam into the moon.

But it does not feel like the round moon, more like a wall.

An invisible wall.

The Comfort Zone.

And the moon is merely an image, just like the sun.

A mere glimmer of hope. A mere signboard in a lost desert.

But like a signboard, it guides me to the right path.

This world that has been forsaken by time

Past the false moon, I see some blurry faces…

… the faces… of actual human beings… who are alive and well… and are calling out to us…

And yet on my side of the Comfort Zone, all I see… are skinless corpses…

Unmoving, unspoken, unperturbed by loss

I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to break this wall.

Because everyone… everyone has a wall to protect their hearts.

But is there something else beyond

You see, this is why I have to do what I’m about to do…

… because… there is something else beyond.

Beyond all of these… codes

There is! There is something beyond your unintelligible codes, Tourist…

A ghostly vision of us, the past lives

They don’t need to see a ghostly vision of you! They don’t!

You can be the real you! You just need to be… a lot less afraid…

Or parallel to all that walk alongside us

You can… you can walk alongside them, Tourist…

So why… why do you still feel the need to set up such an impenetrable Comfort Zone…

Another history, or maybe it is history

Even with my strength, the broom is still not making any dent…

The Soup is getting more viscous by the second… my wings struggle to propel me upwards…

A true self, yet all these true selves

And the whites of the feathers are starting to disintegrate… coalescing with the reds and greens of the Soup…

Are but walking through this layer of dust

And my Light… my Light is getting dimmer… or is this world getting even darker?

 It’s not even just lightless anymore… it’s like the world simply absorbs my Light…

Choking in gas, poisoned by Samsara

Is this what you really wanted… Tourist?

To release, to release it all, catharsis

You just wanted someone to hear you out, didn’t you?

And this whole world will be gone, today

I am nudging forward… the moon… is breaking apart…

And the Comfort Zone is… thinning…

To release it all away, the tensions of truth

You just wanted a way… to release all your suffering and guilt…

But will there be a someday, sometime

There will! There will be a day, a time! You just have to wait a little longer…

Nothing will be gone, ever again

The fog blurring out the faces on the other side… it is starting to dissipate…

But is this just a discrepancy

You just… have to learn… how to embrace them…

Two sides to every history, a writer

It’s thinning… just a little bit more…

The Soup… is getting denser…

The skins on my fingers and face… they are reddening…

A writer is the God of this world, unperturbed

The skin sheds! And the blood…

… the blood leaks… fusing with the colours of the world…

Undisturbed by the wills of the characters

I tighten my grip onto the broom. And I sink…

… I sink my necrotic flesh deeper into the Lord’s Spine…

And someday, the ghosts of desire will rise

The faces out there, you see me, don’t you?

Please… please save him… I can’t do this alone…

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

You need to… help us…

But when I’m gone from this world

Tourist, please… there are still a lot of things you’ve yet to experience…

Can we all just carry on

Life doesn’t have to be all about disappointments and regrets…

Hand in hand

You can be happy… for no reason at all…

Heart to heart?

You can smile… for no reason at all…

I’m… almost there…

Just… hold on a little lo Ashes to ashes

I beg you, plea Dust to dust

I still love you…

Carry me away

Tourist, there are still so many things out there in the world…

Tourist, you don’t have to end it all just yet.

I still love you.

We still love you…

And the world out there… they love you, too…

You just… you just need to give them a chance…

Stop hiding yourself in this perfect world that you’ve built… please…

Be the tourist that you’ve always wanted to be.

You’re not alone…

We’re not alone…

You don’t need to…

 

 

 

Heart and heart.

Wait for me.

Wait for us.

Please…

My good friend, my only friend…

You don’t have to…

 

 

 

the body fell from the sky

the… loudest…

… crash…

there were no cries…

and… and…

no tears were…

no one… will cry for me.

no one… cares…

everyone… will be happier off without me…

because I was… and I am… and I will forever be…

 

 

 

so… alone…

 

 

 

 

 

STOP, AL_ _ _!!!

Please don’t… please don’t…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please don’t kill yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

------/          \------

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moon shatters.

Lightless.

I never knew that the world outside is so dark.

It’s weird, just floating in this space, flapping my wings for absolutely no reason.

The world of the Tourist—the Dusty-Spined Star, can no longer be seen behind me.

It’s just me and the outside worlds now.

And my Light Machine brightens up the space.

And everything can be seen now.

And right in front of me, I see…

 

 

 

… you.

 

 

 

Yes, you, the reader of this story.

The book—The Revenant’s Code, contains this very story that you are reading right now. Every single word. Written in real-time.

You are one of the many Gods mentioned the story. You are one of the many tourists with your own beautiful worlds.

And here we are.

 

 

 

It’s nice to finally meet you.

 

 

 

---

- End of Chapter 8: Nirvana

 

 

 

 

 

***