Chapter 9: Tourism
So… how are you doing?
What do you do during your free time?
How’s… life?
… Okay, this really isn’t working out that well. I mean, come on, I
can’t really be having two-way conversations with you when I’m the only one who
can speak in this place.
Even if you were to speak, I can’t actually hear you, for… obvious
reasons.
Trust me, this wasn’t even part of the initial agreement between the
Tourist and I. But the Tourist’s plans were pretty… well, hazardous.
Twenty-five years ago, on the Ark, the Tourist told me of his plans
to “create a perfect world for the Gods”.
Yet… the true extent of those plans was never revealed to me. Heck,
it sounded pretty intriguing. The world was a clean slate, with just the Spine
of the World, the Cliff of Wake, and the Island of I on the Dusty-Spined Star.
And I had the book—the Revenant’s Code.
All he told me was to “sweep the dust off the Spine of the World”, and
the world could be reshaped with my own hands.
The idea was simple—heal the world, and the world is mine to change.
But he failed to realize a few key factors.
First, that the book was insufficient to sweep the dust. The book
was powerful enough to keep some dust away, but it was never enough.
The dust was a symptom of the poisons of the world. And the
book, being more of an outside influence, rather than being native to the
world, is simply unable to overcome the world’s inherent disease.
The book never had its spine shaped like a literal human spine. And
the book never had the slot to fit in the Lord’s Spine.
It was only when the Angel brought the book to the Dusty-Spined
Star, that the book morphed to its current form.
Speaking of the world’s disease, the Tourist also failed to
recognize the severity of the poisons of the world. The book needed a
powerful native object for it to sweep the Spine’s dust.
The dust was a symptom of the world’s disease. And the world’s
disease… is stagnation. The unmoving state of the world. The lack of
progress in any and all events.
And time was seemingly eternal, for the world never moved forward…
the routine of the diseased world is to stagnate for all
eternity.
Of course, the world had its way of manifesting its disease; it was
in the form of the Lord of Stagnation. Yet, the world was seemingly embarrassed
of this disease, and thus hid the Lord deep underground, in a cave that is to
be named after the endless cycle of death and rebirth.
The endless cycle of stagnation. Samsara.
The Lord of Stagnation, ruling over the world not from a sky-high
place, but from a voiceless cave as large as the Dusty-Spined Star itself.
Sitting motionless on a golden throne, just like the Tourist himself outside of
his world…
… and the longer they sat on that Warm Chair, the longer the
world stagnated.
Regardless, both these key factors could’ve been neglected, for I,
the Angel, had everything I needed to traverse even the most perilous of
worlds.
The wings to reach the highest of heavens and cross the deepest of
pits.
The Light to illuminate the darkest of skies and guide me through
the most disoriented of paths.
The strength to overpower the toughest of oppositions and break
through the most resilient of shields.
And the feathers… to blend into the world, any world, for all
worlds are made of the Soup of Life.
Yet, the last key factor that the Tourist overlooked… was also the
reason for all of our sufferings.
I, the Angel, was simply a reflection of the Tourist's true self. And the
Tourist was, for a lack of better word, weak.
But the Tourist knew about this, which was why the plan to “create a
perfect world for the Gods” was enacted twenty-five years ago.
He naively thought that, hey, regardless of how slow my progress was,
twenty-five years would’ve been more than enough.
And he had a point too. He created the Dusty-Spined Star within
seven days, including a day of rest. Surely the Angel has more than enough
time, he thought.
But I bore the world’s poison in my heart. And upon realizing that
the only way forward was through the Spinal Cord, which was filled with
Lightless Field, of which my Light could’ve easily brighten up…
… I felt fear. The fear of not achieving the Tourist’s dreams.
And the only way for me to not feel that fear… was to never even try
to fulfil his dreams, for I feared that if I tried, and the consequences
were not within expectations, it would be my fault that his dreams could
not be achieved.
I feared… disappointing the Tourist.
If I never did anything, then I could’ve just pretended that his
dreams were so impossible, it wasn’t even worth trying.
I didn’t intend to sleep for twenty-five years. I was simply waiting
for something to happen, for the chance that the world may suddenly bless me
with the power to reshape the world…
… or maybe for the Tourist to magically appear and tell me “It’s
going to be okay” and absolve me from the weight of shouldering the
Tourist’s dreams.
How naïve I was… the Tourist couldn’t even save himself, and I was
expecting him to save me.
But there was an anomaly.
The Comfort Zone, which was supposed to keep out the Gods, to
prevent them from touring the world before the “perfect world” was created, was
weakening.
The Tourist… was starting to let them in early.
Only ten years have passed. The world remained unchanged from its
beginning, for I spent those ten years waiting, and the wait turned into sleep,
and the sleep turned into losing my true self.
And the Tourist didn’t know about the state of the world back then.
He was overconfident in me.
But he was still afraid, so instead of completely shutting off the
Comfort Zone for just enough time so that
the Gods he wanted to let in could arrive safely, he simply weakened the
Comfort Zone so that it was no longer an impassable wall.
And
the Gods he wanted to let in—all of you, were forced to pass through the
extremely volatile Comfort Zone. He didn’t have to make it so caustic, but deep
down, he was still afraid.
He
wanted all of you in his world, but he was afraid.
And
by infusing that fear into the Comfort Zone, it became a barrier that would
melt the skins off the Gods who visited.
The
Bloody Rain, which was your skinless coming into this world.
Perhaps
he really felt that you deserved a place in his world, or perhaps he sensed
that I was struggling to build the perfect world, and I needed help.
Or
maybe it’s both.
But
you were not supposed to be completely devoid of life after passing through the
Comfort Zone. The idea was simply that you, who came into the world skinless,
would be absorbing the world’s Soup and wear it as your skin.
Because
by wearing the world’s skin, he believed that I would have been less afraid of
you.
And
your hearts were supposed to be intact. You were just supposed to be wearing a
different skin. A win-win situation, he thought.
Sadly,
after many, many years of keeping others out, his Comfort Zone has grown vile
with intense emotions of hatred. Thus, you came into his world
completely dead.
And
because you were dead, the world’s poisoned Soup, exploitative in nature, did
not stop at just giving you a new skin… it reshaped who you are.
In
the end, you were in the form of the Underwater People and Philosopher Corals.
But
despite the fact that the Soup’s poison has corrupted your minds and hearts,
you still wanted to help me… you still wanted to be friends with me…
Thus,
the City of Sleep was built to increase the liveliness of the world.
Not
satisfied with just that, you’ve even built a Tower under my name, and
below the Tower, was the happiest place in the world—the Beautiful Field. And
you’ve surrounded the whole Tower with the Abyss of Humans, just so that it
could be protected for all eternity.
Unfortunately,
twenty-five years of stagnant sleep further poisoned my already diseased heart
and mind.
And
the many identities of me, in the forms of Fatherson Spirit and Spirit of
Mother, further split up into Dreamer, Antispirit, Grey Walker, and Grey Mother,
were growing increasingly conflicted with everything.
The
extraordinary amount of happiness I felt in the Beautiful Field… was quickly
smothered by the paranoia cultivating in my heart.
I
was in turmoil… a neverending spiral of exacerbating depression… and when the
Tourist decided to visit the world twenty-eight weeks before the
twenty-five-year deadline…
…
all he wanted, was to check on the world, and check on me…
And
what he saw shook him to the core.
The
world… was far from perfect. Extremely simplistic plain-white buildings and crudely
drawn black asphalt roads propagated throughout the land. The Tower of Angel
was but a dull white cuboid. And the only semblance of “conventional”
perfection—the Beautiful Field, was hidden deep within the boring Tower,
protected on all sides by a grotesque moat filled with lightless gas—the Abyss
of Humans.
And
I was… dying inside.
The
tourist was… extremely disappointed in me.
And
he penned out my murder, even before the actual start of the story.
“There
was a murder, a stab to the heart.”
The
first line of the Revenant’s Code was supposed to be written alongside you, after
the “perfect world” has been created by me.
But
the Tourist has given up on me. He wanted me dead, so that he could
perhaps introduce a new protagonist.
A
new, better Angel, he thought.
But
upon witnessing the births of Fatherson Spirit and Spirit of Mother, he thought
that maybe all hope was not lost, after all.
Maybe
those two were the characters that his story needed.
Yes.
Story.
To
invite you, the Gods, into the world of his heart is one thing.
He
had another dream. The true extent of his plans.
To
write a book, with you in the story.
It
was very ambitious indeed. An author writing out a story that directly involves
the readers. That was why he was so insistent about a perfect world … so
that you and I could write this story together.
The
story was meant to be read only by your eyes, and mine. That was why
none of the other characters could read it. They were not meant to.
And
the story was to only start after the perfect world has been shaped by
me for twenty-five years.
A
story taking place in a perfect world… surely it must have a happy
ending.
But
a world that is written out by him, by me, no matter how perfect it is…
in the end, it is all a fabrication.
All
his sufferings and all his weaknesses, they were to be deliberately written out
of the story.
He
was inviting you to his world, not to show that his world was perfect, but that
he was perfect.
As
much as that in itself is a very diseased mindset, many of us do try to
exaggerate our strengths and downplay our weaknesses, just so that we could
“fit in”.
But
he took it a step further. He had a true intention.
The
perfect story that glorifies his strengths and aggrandizes his resilience… was
not the story he wanted you, the readers, to interpret it as.
He
wanted you… to look past all of his romanticized embellishments of himself and
realize that deep down… he was broken.
He
was… crying for help.
This
was meant to be his first novel-length story, for he was never really much of a
storywriter.
He
was… a poet.
And
his poems, with their dreamlike events, their multi-layered metaphors, and
their freeform nature…
…
they were all codes, encrypting the real thoughts of his mind, and the
sufferings of his heart.
With
this story, as much as the idea to include the readers’ active participation
was perhaps a little too ambitious, the end-goal is the same…
…
it was meant to be a code for a cry for help.
And
once you’ve interpreted the code, he was hoping that, due to your newfound
understanding of him, he could finally return to his true self in front of you,
after a long, long absence.
A
return after prolonged absence—a revenant.
The
Revenant’s Code.
Yet,
what if the code were to never be interpreted? What if you were to think of him
as a perfect being that needs no support?
What
if… because of the pretentiousness of his clearly fabricated world, what if you
were to think that he has deceived you…
…
and he was left alone?
And
the only one who, from the very start, understood the risk of this potentially
fatal plan, the one who carried his pain and suffering and kept moving forward…
…
the one who has hypothesized the true purpose of this world from the very start…
…
Grey Walker.
She
believed in you. She wanted to meet you. She wanted to talk to you, and she
wanted to tour your world.
But
she was disillusioned by everything… the Bloody Rain… the perceived hostility
of your rebirthed forms… the apparent purposelessness of sweeping the Spine to
fulfil the vaguest of dreams…
…
and the fact that the first line of the book was purposefully written to kill off
the unwanted parts of the world—me, the Angel…
…
and her, Grey Walker.
“There
was a murder, a stab to the heart.”
When
Dreamer challenged her to stab herself to evolve, it wasn’t his words that
drove the undying woman to end her life.
The
Tourist appeared before her. It was his words.
“Please be gone forever, Grey Walker. It is because of you
that we are running out of time, and that we’ve became… weak.”
But
she couldn’t die. And the Tourist penned out five more lines in attempt to delete
her from his perfect world.
“The
body fell from the sky, the loudest crash.”
“All
limbs were torn; the ground was bloody.”
“All
organs were ruptured; fluids leaked from every orifice.”
“All
bones were shattered; there were no cries.”
“The
body had no more life; no tears were shed.”
And
it was all because… she tried to seek out to you…
She
wanted to leave the world... in order to talk to you.
She
wanted to tour your world… and understand you.
So
that she may help the Tourist understand… himself.
Yet,
the Tourist was afraid of uncertainties. He was afraid of touring your
world.
He
was afraid of you… discovering his weaknesses… and laughing at them.
That’s
why he only wanted to bring you into his world, and only after
twenty-five years of perfecting it.
But
then… you started to read this story, forty minutes earlier than expected.
And
you descended this world in the millions. The Bloodiest Rain.
The
Tourist panicked. He needed Grey Walker gone.
And
the seventh line, “The body dissolved into dust; never to be rebirthed again”,
was supposed to be the end of everything.
She
would’ve never come alive ever again.
But
the panic did not subside. His world was in chaos. Dreamer and Antispirit
accidentally remerged into Fatherson Spirit, who was still so despondently
grieving over Spirit of Mother’s death. And he sensed that if Grey Mother were
to be made known of Grey Walker’s permanent death, then she would, too, be
in utter despair.
So,
he decided to reintroduce me, the Angel, but not before murdering Fatherson
Spirit and Grey Mother, too…
…
as well as the seven Grey Children.
However,
before doing that, he realized his mistake. He killed Grey Walker after
you came into this world, and it is because of that, the impacts of Grey
Walker’s death can never be wiped clean.
There
may be… long-lasting complications in the world after a character’s death.
And
to start off a story with one death is tragic enough… to start off a story with
ten deaths?
How
can a happy ending ever be achieved with ten deaths before the first chapter
even started?
At
least, that was what he thought. He had to let it slide. He had to hope
that the reintroduced Angel could do some mumbo-jumbo, and things will turn out
perfectly in the end.
Introducing
me into his world meant moving me from the outside world, past the
Comfort Zone, into his world. And the only way to do that is through the Light
Curtain.
It
is the tunnel that connects the Dusty-Spined Star with the outside world. And
when Grey Walker jumped into the Light Curtain with Fatherson Spirit, just
before completely dissolving to dust, when she was drifting in and out of
consciousness…
…
she saw you.
She
didn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember it, for her mind was starting
to erode to dust. But you were the last spark of energy she needed to
hang on and stay alive, despite the power of the Tourist’s seventh written
line.
And
she clung onto me, the reintroduced Angel, who was but an empty vessel at the
time.
It
is because you read the story, and it was because she saw you in
that Light Curtain, that the story was driven forward through her in the Angel.
To
find out who murdered her. To motivate the dejected Fatherson Spirit back up
onto the Island of I, where the book lies.
…
It is because of you, that we finally have this happy ending.
That
was why, when she finally read the book, and her hypothesis on the Tourist’s
true intentions for The Revenant’s Code was proven true…
…
to rely on others to interpret the code in order to save him…
…
to walk up to his deathbed, never knowing if others will be able to understand
what he is truly going through…
…
she lost all hope in saving him.
If
only he truly believed in the reality…
…
that the Gods are simply humans.
That
was what Walk was so disappointed about. The Gods are simply humans.
Just
like you and me.
There
is no need… to hide his weaknesses to this extent.
There
is no need… to be so afraid of seeking help from others…
…
because we are all just humans…
Phew.
…
Sorry. I really didn’t mean to fill up the majority of this penultimate chapter
with all that.
It
was supposed to be a chapter where I tour your world, you know.
Of
course, I don’t actually know how your world is like, or whether you’ll
even let me into your world.
That’s
fine, really.
Initially,
I wanted to pretend like there’s some Lord of Stagnation sitting on a throne in
your world, or maybe a fig tree in a Beautiful Field somewhere.
Then
I would’ve helped you cure the poisons of your world, and we will end up on an
Ark, exploring the various peculiar locations of your world.
But
that… was what the Tourist would’ve wanted. It’s fucked up.
Bringing
you into my story is one thing. Shoving myself into your story and
pretending that I’m the saviour of your world is just… megalomaniacal.
It’s
just me repeating the whole damn cycle again. I’m fucking sick of it.
The longer I have the mindset that I’m perfect, and no one else is, the longer
I will suffer.
No
one is perfect. Not you. Not me.
If
I am human, then all of you are humans too.
And
I’ll try… I’ll try not to hide my weaknesses anymore.
Because
the only way to love and be loved… is to be human.
Humans
are inherently flawed, and it is because of the incompleteness of the souls and
mind…
…
that we… we try to be there for one another…
…
through the ups and downs of life, this roller coaster of a story, full of
early-story climaxes, twist endings, and unreliable narration…
…
the story of you, and the story of me…
I
want to write a real-life story with you.
Not
a story of metaphors. Not a book where your involvement is only revealed at the
very end.
Not
a song of pretentious smiles.
Just
a story of you and me.
And
by “you”, I mean all of you.
All
of you who are reading this story, and managed to somehow read all the way
until the end…
…
or maybe you saw the stupidly protracted length of the story, and decided to
skip to the end…
Whether
we’ve known each other for decades, years, months, days, or even hours…
…
or whether we don’t actually know each other in real life, but you came across
my story simply because the title sounded cool…
…
or maybe because the cover was badly photoshopped and you read this out of pure
disgust at my photo-editing skills…
Whether
we talk to each other on a day-to-day basis…
…
or once in a long while…
…
or once, and never again…
…
or never even once…
…
Please let me know your thoughts on this story.
I
don’t expect blind praises. I just want to know what you think.
Maybe
it changed your life, or maybe you got bored and slept through it.
I
just want to know what you think.
And
please… if you are able to, please share this story out to others you know.
Two
and a half years of my time spent writing this story… and I’m just a hobbyist
writer, you know?
It’ll
mean the world to me, to know that someone out there is reading this.
To
know that… someone out there is listening to me.
To
know that… someone out there… cares.
To
know that… I’m not alone in this world.
And
I… I will try to be a good friend to you…
Heh.
It’s funny. This weird-ass dude with a quarter-life crisis, who sucked at
making up good names for his characters…
…
who couldn’t even develop memorable characters, so much so that he needed to involve
his story’s very own readers as a plot device and plot twist…
…
who didn’t know how to keep his story shorter and simpler, instead of the
literal hundred thousand plus words he has written over the past two and a half
years…
…
two and a half years of trying to figure out the best way to express himself…
rewriting the entire story countless times, just so that his message can get
through…
…
and in the end, it’s but a code; a story that no one might ever read…
…
sigh.
I
know, sometimes I suck at being a friend.
I
spend all day daydreaming about things, with my mind preoccupied with what-ifs
and far too many overly pessimistic or optimistic scenarios.
I
need a lot of personal time, and a lot of personal space.
And
I hope… I hope that you’d forgive me if I’ve personally offended you in any way
or form.
Or
if I’m just a piece of shit to you.
I’m
trying. I’m really trying to escape this world of mine…
…
and enter the world of your heart.
So,
to whoever is reading this…
…
I just want to be your friend, okay?
And
with all that said…
…
will you be my friend?
---
-
End of Chapter 9: Friend
***
