He'd failed. It was one thing to die from his own stupidity, but he also got Ariane mixed up in the whole mess. If he wasn't in the library, had turned her away, or simply checked out the book and returned to his room, Ariane would never have stayed there or even visited the library. From all these valid possibilities, he'd somehow fucked up everything perfectly to get both of them ensnared in this deathtrap.
If he had accepted the Enlightenment on time, things could have been very different. Maybe he would have noticed everything before it took place by peeking at the laws and making better decisions. Or even better, it was possible he could outright ignore the deprivation as a subjective observer.
So many things he could have done differently, but he still couldn't find a consistent logic that would have led him to make any of these decisions. Not just in hindsight, but even in the long term, the decisions he'd made were quite rational and grounded in solid reasoning.
If he had to pick something that could have led to a better outcome without violating his fundamental personality, it'd be not to underestimate the message in the note.
The note clearly signified a limited time, but he had attributed that as a personal threat against himself from the stalkers, undermining the circumstantial information at hand.
The primary mistake, therefore, was misjudging the severity and context of the situation. It was actually quite foolish of him. Why would a world-shattering secret like subjectivity be shared with him unless it was deemed necessary? A set of miscalculations I probably can't fix. Ever.
A simple estimation accounting for the locations of the fire's sources and all the dry fuel in the library gave him despairing numbers. Fire would engulf every corner of the library in less than fifteen minutes.
This sensory deprivation had been going on for a few minutes already, so seven or eight minutes at best before it got to both of them closer to the center of the library. It was hopeless.
In the midst of this blackening silence, something changed—there was an unsettling presence. The sensation crept up his mind like a shiver, a chilling inkling that he was no longer alone in his own thoughts. A disturbing dread began to consume him, amplified by the silence and darkness into a cacophony of fear.
It felt as if unknown formless entities were shuffling silently about him. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, yet he was paralyzed, tethered to this petrifying reality by the inexplicable sensory deprivation, not knowing how to move away from this creeping horror.
Then abruptly, it all came rushing in.
An unidentifiable odor, rich and foul, assaulted his nostrils, pungent like rotting vegetation and something far more sinister. The scent was invasive, filling his lungs with each tremulous breath, a stark contrast against the sterile void he'd been trapped in.
The silence that oppressed him not a second ago was shattered by an orchestra of disturbing sounds. A soft skittering noise seemed to echo from all around, a symphony of tiny, unseen feet on a hard surface. Occasionally, the skittering was punctuated by a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate in his very bones, a sound so primal and terrifying it seemed to be dredged from the depths of a nightmare.
His skin, which was barely perceptive not long ago, was now hypersensitive. The air seemed to throb against his skin, vibrating with an energy that felt predatory and hungry. The unseen things brushed against him, their forms vague and inexplicable. Unable to move, these senses only made things worse.
Intermingling with these were the faintest whispers, words indistinguishable and foreign, uttered in a voice that seemed to slither in his ears. The whispers rose and fell in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic, each syllable a chilling touch upon his sanity.
He wasn't one to believe in the supernatural, but this was beyond that.
Something was slowly invading his thoughts, and the slightest movement in the air sent ripples of panic coursing through him. These cacophonous senses, so alien and yet so horrifyingly real, held him hostage. Each eerie noise, amplified by his fear, transformed the world around him into a soundscape of terror.
And in the backdrop of this sensory onslaught, he was acutely aware of the horrifying promise—that opening his eyes would unveil a reality far more terrifying than the one his other senses painted.
Fear rendered him a prisoner in his own body, unable to act, unable to escape, and far too terrified to dare look upon the unseen horror that lurked just beyond his eyelids.
The thought of what would happen if he allowed his sense of sight to join this macabre experience was a terror beyond comprehension.
This can't go on. Forget opening his eyes; just the screeches and whispers were taking a toll on his mind. The moment he tried relaxing, his thoughts slurred, slipping away in an incoherent noise.
There was a maddening compulsion within these foreign thoughts. They instilled notions in his mind that he would generally never even entertain.
In one moment, they fostered in him a need to sway side-to-side. Another wanted him to shriek, while the next ingrained within him a desire to squeeze his hand out through his stomach. But it was all wrong. The impulses these thoughts infused in him were not meant for a human body. He just didn’t have the organs needed to fulfill any of these uncanny notions. Not that he was going to, anyway.
This can't go on! I need to focus. A common denominator among all Savants was their ability to isolate their thoughts.
Vern did precisely just that and brought up the diagram in an attempt to zone out the surroundings. His usual reflection of fundamentals wouldn’t give him any valuable insight in this situation. The diagram might.
It was usually a simple thing, but his mind kept going back to what brought about this situation. Why was he here? What was this place? His innate curiosity only led to even more questions that he dared not even ask. It went against all his notions of reality. So, he had to focus.
The diagram. The lines. The rotting smell. The curves. The curves. The curves. The words. That thing he should see. The curves. The words. The words.
The diagram was a thing of immense complexity. It was one thing to look at it and comprehend its nuances but another to replicate the changes and further disseminate its intricacies.
The base concept seemed simple to him. Subjective observation allowed one to first recognize the possibilities of reality around them and then scrutinize them in a specific light. Diagram assisted in doing just that.
However, a mental model only gave him further insight into the nature of the diagram itself. He couldn't simulate the feedback that the diagram was generating based on his thoughts. He was missing the crucial aspect of it.
Despite such being the case, he kept reminding himself of all the changes it held. He already knew that the diagram could facilitate enlightenment due to its innate subjective nature. But what did that say about the process of enlightenment itself? Didn’t that just mean that someone who’s used to living in a fake objective reality has to realize the sham?
Then, by the extension of that logic, another method of enlightenment would be to observe something innately objective. But what exactly did objectivity entail when everything was subjective? Did something inherently objective even exist? The being outside—
The idea shattered his focus, and the entity beyond the eyelids occupied his thoughts. The silence he'd cultivated ended up like the world holding its breath before a storm.
Just as his mind started to trick him into a false sense of relief, a chilling high-pitched shriek pierced the silence, bouncing off unseen walls to echo and seep into his consciousness a cruel reminder of his horrifying reality.
His heartbeat stopped in fearful anticipation of comeuppance, and his imagination conjured scenarios that threatened to devour his waning mental defense. Yet nothing happened other than the ever-present parasitic thoughts slurring his cognition further. As seconds ticked by, he slowly calmed down.
This was doable. The entity seemed not to care about him specifically, which actually made sense. He wasn't the target, probably nothing more than some collateral damage in the grand scheme of this entity.
If he could just hold the perennial infiltration of these madness-inducing thoughts at bay. He had a chance.
A chance at enlightenment.
The plan took shape in his head in no time. He was sure that the real danger of the situation came from the infiltration of his psyche. His theory was that everything around him, including all the sounds and senses, was actually conjured by these mind-bending thoughts. If he could only keep them at bay, the process would be simplified.
So, it was back to the diagram. The lines. The curves. The curves. The curves. The words. His thoughts shifted from one to the next in a logically consistent fashion on their own.
His heart started beating in anticipation and fear, yet the model of the diagram didn't waver as his thoughts continued their cascade. When he felt detached enough from everything around him, he was ready.
Was it foolish? He didn't know. Something had to change to survive the fire out there, assuming this horrorscape wasn't the new reality. This was the necessary gamble to induce that deviation. To find objectiveness in this insanity. Summoning a courage borne of desperation, he did it.
He opened his eyes.
For a fraction of a second, his vision flickered to life, and fog covered the terrain. Hundreds of tendrils occupied the sky around him, barely discernable due to red sheen reflecting off their writhing mass and unnatural curves. Patches of darkness lurked in the fog, shaking frantically. Then in this disorienting spectacle, it registered.
Past the chaotic flurries of darkness was a shadow. No, it wasn’t a mere shadow. It was a shape. A shape that towered beyond even the writhing appendages in the sky. No, that wasn’t correct either. Three outlines extending out of the enormous thing actually held these appendages, their gleaming silhouette, a crimson red. There was more. The enormous looming presence had a—
A sudden and searing pain exploded in his eyes. It was as if they had been subjected to unbearable pressure, a force that was too much for them to withstand. His vision, already teetering on the edge of oblivion, shattered into thousand fragments, each with an inkling of the entity beyond, each more horrifying than the last.
There was no way to cope with what he'd seen, but his subconscious had done him good. Killed itself before it could process all that he'd seen. The entity was objective. There indeed couldn't be more than one definition of such a thing.
The formless beings had stopped their shuffling. The sounds and smells disappeared and the sickening pervasive thoughts were no more. Still, something far more bizarre now lingered in his memories and pain overwhelmed him. Becoming more and more prominent as the horrifying scenery faded from all his senses.
At the same time, the irate feeling of standing on a precipice was gone, melted down into a sense of pure bliss, filling his mind with thousands of ideas. In this intermix of contradictory senses, the ideas came together, and their mental image sought each other.
The thoughts merged, growing larger and larger into a single compound, a compound that compressed into a dot.
A dot that floated in the sea of darkness, emitting a blue hue that fluctuated like a dying ember. Tiny scant cinders whirled around it. Its subtle glow, calming aura, and very existence pulled him in.
Vern stared at the glowing beacon with an empty gaze for a few moments before his eyes regained focus. And when they did, the twinkling particles around the dot faded, and a quartz-like sphere revealed itself. Tendrils of light manifested out of thin air and began etching themselves onto the orb.
The shiny threads weaved and sewed the globe with their ethereal light, and a radiant pattern emerged on its surface. It had some order to it, yet just as much was chaos.
When another one of these strings of light got into its place for the umpteenth time, the pattern shook and disintegrated into thin streams of light that spread within the bounds of the glassy construct. Light swam through the glass like some viscous liquid, this time settling down in no apparent pattern.
Before he could inspect the object any further, the threads of light dematerialized with rippling waves of cyan. The scattered darkness gushed to claim back its estate. Visible in the ebbing luster of ripples, a crack ran down from the very center of the sphere as it split into two even pieces. Their gleams shone dimly…and they disappeared.
AGHHHHH!!
Vern's mind shuddered as a searing sensation crept through his very being. He felt like a hole burned through his eyes, the pain reaching him past the barrier of his divested senses. With no energy to conjure stray thoughts to occlude his mind, he felt every bit of what was happening within his eyes. So much so he knew when his sclera evaporated or when his corneas were blazed, and something was plastered on top of the singed irises.
Lacking any practical method to vent his agony, he barely hung on to lucidity. Every second, it felt like a hot sigil branded his eyes and his very being, changing something within him.
The torment slowly eased out as a profound sense of exhaustion hit him in waves. In a sluggish tussle between delusional fatigue and survival, Vern forced his eyes open bit by bit, going against his primal instincts.
There was a peculiar transition, and it wasn't dark anymore. Flames purple and vermillion blazed all around him.
He'd failed. It was one thing to die from his own stupidity, but he also got Ariane mixed up in the whole mess. If he wasn't in the library, had turned her away, or simply checked out the book and returned to his room, Ariane would never have stayed there or even visited the library. From all these valid possibilities, he'd somehow fucked up everything perfectly to get both of them ensnared in this deathtrap.
If he had accepted the Enlightenment on time, things could have been very different. Maybe he would have noticed everything before it took place by peeking at the laws and making better decisions. Or even better, it was possible he could outright ignore the deprivation as a subjective observer.
So many things he could have done differently, but he still couldn't find a consistent logic that would have led him to make any of these decisions. Not just in hindsight, but even in the long term, the decisions he'd made were quite rational and grounded in solid reasoning.
If he had to pick something that could have led to a better outcome without violating his fundamental personality, it'd be not to underestimate the message in the note.
The note clearly signified a limited time, but he had attributed that as a personal threat against himself from the stalkers, undermining the circumstantial information at hand.
The primary mistake, therefore, was misjudging the severity and context of the situation. It was actually quite foolish of him. Why would a world-shattering secret like subjectivity be shared with him unless it was deemed necessary? A set of miscalculations I probably can't fix. Ever.
A simple estimation accounting for the locations of the fire's sources and all the dry fuel in the library gave him despairing numbers. Fire would engulf every corner of the library in less than fifteen minutes.
This sensory deprivation had been going on for a few minutes already, so seven or eight minutes at best before it got to both of them closer to the center of the library. It was hopeless.
In the midst of this blackening silence, something changed—there was an unsettling presence. The sensation crept up his mind like a shiver, a chilling inkling that he was no longer alone in his own thoughts. A disturbing dread began to consume him, amplified by the silence and darkness into a cacophony of fear.
It felt as if unknown formless entities were shuffling silently about him. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, yet he was paralyzed, tethered to this petrifying reality by the inexplicable sensory deprivation, not knowing how to move away from this creeping horror.
Then abruptly, it all came rushing in.
An unidentifiable odor, rich and foul, assaulted his nostrils, pungent like rotting vegetation and something far more sinister. The scent was invasive, filling his lungs with each tremulous breath, a stark contrast against the sterile void he'd been trapped in.
The silence that oppressed him not a second ago was shattered by an orchestra of disturbing sounds. A soft skittering noise seemed to echo from all around, a symphony of tiny, unseen feet on a hard surface. Occasionally, the skittering was punctuated by a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate in his very bones, a sound so primal and terrifying it seemed to be dredged from the depths of a nightmare.
His skin, which was barely perceptive not long ago, was now hypersensitive. The air seemed to throb against his skin, vibrating with an energy that felt predatory and hungry. The unseen things brushed against him, their forms vague and inexplicable. Unable to move, these senses only made things worse.
Intermingling with these were the faintest whispers, words indistinguishable and foreign, uttered in a voice that seemed to slither in his ears. The whispers rose and fell in a rhythm that was almost hypnotic, each syllable a chilling touch upon his sanity.
He wasn't one to believe in the supernatural, but this was beyond that.
Something was slowly invading his thoughts, and the slightest movement in the air sent ripples of panic coursing through him. These cacophonous senses, so alien and yet so horrifyingly real, held him hostage. Each eerie noise, amplified by his fear, transformed the world around him into a soundscape of terror.
And in the backdrop of this sensory onslaught, he was acutely aware of the horrifying promise—that opening his eyes would unveil a reality far more terrifying than the one his other senses painted.
Fear rendered him a prisoner in his own body, unable to act, unable to escape, and far too terrified to dare look upon the unseen horror that lurked just beyond his eyelids.
The thought of what would happen if he allowed his sense of sight to join this macabre experience was a terror beyond comprehension.
This can't go on. Forget opening his eyes; just the screeches and whispers were taking a toll on his mind. The moment he tried relaxing, his thoughts slurred, slipping away in an incoherent noise.
There was a maddening compulsion within these foreign thoughts. They instilled notions in his mind that he would generally never even entertain.
In one moment, they fostered in him a need to sway side-to-side. Another wanted him to shriek, while the next ingrained within him a desire to squeeze his hand out through his stomach. But it was all wrong. The impulses these thoughts infused in him were not meant for a human body. He just didn’t have the organs needed to fulfill any of these uncanny notions. Not that he was going to, anyway.
This can't go on! I need to focus. A common denominator among all Savants was their ability to isolate their thoughts.
Vern did precisely just that and brought up the diagram in an attempt to zone out the surroundings. His usual reflection of fundamentals wouldn’t give him any valuable insight in this situation. The diagram might.
It was usually a simple thing, but his mind kept going back to what brought about this situation. Why was he here? What was this place? His innate curiosity only led to even more questions that he dared not even ask. It went against all his notions of reality. So, he had to focus.
The diagram. The lines. The rotting smell. The curves. The curves. The curves. The words. That thing he should see. The curves. The words. The words.
The diagram was a thing of immense complexity. It was one thing to look at it and comprehend its nuances but another to replicate the changes and further disseminate its intricacies.
The base concept seemed simple to him. Subjective observation allowed one to first recognize the possibilities of reality around them and then scrutinize them in a specific light. Diagram assisted in doing just that.
However, a mental model only gave him further insight into the nature of the diagram itself. He couldn't simulate the feedback that the diagram was generating based on his thoughts. He was missing the crucial aspect of it.
Despite such being the case, he kept reminding himself of all the changes it held. He already knew that the diagram could facilitate enlightenment due to its innate subjective nature. But what did that say about the process of enlightenment itself? Didn’t that just mean that someone who’s used to living in a fake objective reality has to realize the sham?
Then, by the extension of that logic, another method of enlightenment would be to observe something innately objective. But what exactly did objectivity entail when everything was subjective? Did something inherently objective even exist? The being outside—
The idea shattered his focus, and the entity beyond the eyelids occupied his thoughts. The silence he'd cultivated ended up like the world holding its breath before a storm.
Just as his mind started to trick him into a false sense of relief, a chilling high-pitched shriek pierced the silence, bouncing off unseen walls to echo and seep into his consciousness a cruel reminder of his horrifying reality.
His heartbeat stopped in fearful anticipation of comeuppance, and his imagination conjured scenarios that threatened to devour his waning mental defense. Yet nothing happened other than the ever-present parasitic thoughts slurring his cognition further. As seconds ticked by, he slowly calmed down.
This was doable. The entity seemed not to care about him specifically, which actually made sense. He wasn't the target, probably nothing more than some collateral damage in the grand scheme of this entity.
If he could just hold the perennial infiltration of these madness-inducing thoughts at bay. He had a chance.
A chance at enlightenment.
The plan took shape in his head in no time. He was sure that the real danger of the situation came from the infiltration of his psyche. His theory was that everything around him, including all the sounds and senses, was actually conjured by these mind-bending thoughts. If he could only keep them at bay, the process would be simplified.
So, it was back to the diagram. The lines. The curves. The curves. The curves. The words. His thoughts shifted from one to the next in a logically consistent fashion on their own.
His heart started beating in anticipation and fear, yet the model of the diagram didn't waver as his thoughts continued their cascade. When he felt detached enough from everything around him, he was ready.
Was it foolish? He didn't know. Something had to change to survive the fire out there, assuming this horrorscape wasn't the new reality. This was the necessary gamble to induce that deviation. To find objectiveness in this insanity. Summoning a courage borne of desperation, he did it.
He opened his eyes.
For a fraction of a second, his vision flickered to life, and fog covered the terrain. Hundreds of tendrils occupied the sky around him, barely discernable due to red sheen reflecting off their writhing mass and unnatural curves. Patches of darkness lurked in the fog, shaking frantically. Then in this disorienting spectacle, it registered.
Past the chaotic flurries of darkness was a shadow. No, it wasn’t a mere shadow. It was a shape. A shape that towered beyond even the writhing appendages in the sky. No, that wasn’t correct either. Three outlines extending out of the enormous thing actually held these appendages, their gleaming silhouette, a crimson red. There was more. The enormous looming presence had a—
A sudden and searing pain exploded in his eyes. It was as if they had been subjected to unbearable pressure, a force that was too much for them to withstand. His vision, already teetering on the edge of oblivion, shattered into thousand fragments, each with an inkling of the entity beyond, each more horrifying than the last.
There was no way to cope with what he'd seen, but his subconscious had done him good. Killed itself before it could process all that he'd seen. The entity was objective. There indeed couldn't be more than one definition of such a thing.
The formless beings had stopped their shuffling. The sounds and smells disappeared and the sickening pervasive thoughts were no more. Still, something far more bizarre now lingered in his memories and pain overwhelmed him. Becoming more and more prominent as the horrifying scenery faded from all his senses.
At the same time, the irate feeling of standing on a precipice was gone, melted down into a sense of pure bliss, filling his mind with thousands of ideas. In this intermix of contradictory senses, the ideas came together, and their mental image sought each other.
The thoughts merged, growing larger and larger into a single compound, a compound that compressed into a dot.
A dot that floated in the sea of darkness, emitting a blue hue that fluctuated like a dying ember. Tiny scant cinders whirled around it. Its subtle glow, calming aura, and very existence pulled him in.
Vern stared at the glowing beacon with an empty gaze for a few moments before his eyes regained focus. And when they did, the twinkling particles around the dot faded, and a quartz-like sphere revealed itself. Tendrils of light manifested out of thin air and began etching themselves onto the orb.
The shiny threads weaved and sewed the globe with their ethereal light, and a radiant pattern emerged on its surface. It had some order to it, yet just as much was chaos.
When another one of these strings of light got into its place for the umpteenth time, the pattern shook and disintegrated into thin streams of light that spread within the bounds of the glassy construct. Light swam through the glass like some viscous liquid, this time settling down in no apparent pattern.
Before he could inspect the object any further, the threads of light dematerialized with rippling waves of cyan. The scattered darkness gushed to claim back its estate. Visible in the ebbing luster of ripples, a crack ran down from the very center of the sphere as it split into two even pieces. Their gleams shone dimly…and they disappeared.
AGHHHHH!!
Vern's mind shuddered as a searing sensation crept through his very being. He felt like a hole burned through his eyes, the pain reaching him past the barrier of his divested senses. With no energy to conjure stray thoughts to occlude his mind, he felt every bit of what was happening within his eyes. So much so he knew when his sclera evaporated or when his corneas were blazed, and something was plastered on top of the singed irises.
Lacking any practical method to vent his agony, he barely hung on to lucidity. Every second, it felt like a hot sigil branded his eyes and his very being, changing something within him.
The torment slowly eased out as a profound sense of exhaustion hit him in waves. In a sluggish tussle between delusional fatigue and survival, Vern forced his eyes open bit by bit, going against his primal instincts.
There was a peculiar transition, and it wasn't dark anymore. Flames purple and vermillion blazed all around him.
