Volume 1, Chapter 2: Personal Space Is Apparently Optional (Patreon)

One moment, I was still standing before my attackers, frozen in time. The next, without the slightest sensation or warning, my body was just as motionless but in a very different position.

I lay on a cold table—steel, I assumed—with lights blazing above me so brightly that I was almost completely blinded. The only thing that made me realize I was not was the enormous head sliding into view, its strange face stopping just inches from my own.

I screamed at the top of my lungs in terror, only to realize that my fear-driven cry had failed to produce even the slightest sound. All the horror it was meant to express raged solely inside my body.

Before me was the face from the nightmares that had tormented me on many nights since childhood. Gray, wrinkled skin. A short, narrow slit in place of a mouth. Two holes serving as a nose. And two enormous, endlessly black, unblinking, almond-shaped eyes.

A Gray alien, as the media called them, stared down at me with what I assumed was a probing gaze. This time, it did not feel like a dream.

I struggled with everything I had to move. Although I was certain my brain and nerves were working properly, sending commands throughout my body, whatever force held me in place was so powerful that all my efforts came to nothing.

“[Curiosity] Why does the Chosen struggle?”

The voice that was not a voice—though my mind interpreted it as one, and as coming from the monster before me—found its way into my head.

You can hear me? I said, even though my lips did not move in the slightest. Then fuck off. Let me move! I screamed through my thoughts.

“[Amusement] All attempts to resist the paralysis are meaningless. [Sense of duty] We must complete the Daimon implantation procedure so that the Chosen may access the Path.”

The Path? A Daimon? What the hell are you talking about?

“[Sense of duty, irritation] Every one of you taken from your Earths must, by law, be granted a Daimon. It will guide your development, focusing your efforts along a previously designed path of progression. This will allow you to face the challenges prepared for you.”

Why do you announce your emotional state before you speak? And what the fuck do you mean by Earths? There is only one Earth, right?

“[Interest, surprise] You can sense my emotional state? That is very interesting. Your sensitivity to Concepts is greater than anticipated. [Sense of duty] There are many Earths, and each differs according to how its development unfolded. For the purposes of the Event, however, it was decided that each planet and its iterations would be represented as a single entity,” he answered, then vanished from my field of vision. A moment later, the machine’s arms descended from the place hidden in the glare of the lights above me, like the lowering legs of some enormous spider. Each one was perfectly seamless, as if it had never been joined together with screws or assembled through any mechanical process, and yet they were unmistakably mechanical. Even so, every movement they made was fluid and elastic, like something that belonged to an octopus.

One of them, the one nearest to me and still moving closer to my face, ended in a cone-shaped crystal within which a strange light danced, as though it were liquid or gas. The other arms lowered around my head and gripped it as well, as if they expected that, despite the magical paralysis, I might still be able to move.

Excuse me, but what the hell is this supposed to be!?

He did not answer, wherever he had gone. Instead, a concentrated beam of heat shot toward my forehead and began cutting through skin, muscle, and bone. The stench of burning flesh—my fucking flesh—filled the air along with a thin trail of smoke. My body was evaporating by the second, but I gritted my teeth, at least in soul, even though my body did not respond, and refused to give him any more satisfaction from my fear or pain.

I decided to fight him in the silence of my own mind.

“[Sense of duty, admiration] The process differs for each race taking part in the Event. In your case, we determined that the optimal place to anchor the Daimon is within the skull that houses the brain. [Empathy] If it is any consolation, I underwent the same procedure. You are also handling it quite well compared with the others taken from your planet whom I have already had the opportunity to work on.”

What? This has happened before?

“[Surprise, understanding, need to explain] No. For you and the others—even the person who was with you at the moment of extraction—this implantation and the choice that follows are occurring at the same time. To facilitate your collection, the Greatest created temporal loops for me and the others responsible for the remaining worlds. As a result, we are working on all of you at the same moment in the Universe.”

I breathed an internal sigh of relief when the machine stopped drilling a hole into my head. The other arms, however, continued holding me rigidly in place, and another mechanical tentacle emerged from above, beyond the glare of the lights. It descended with a small, flat crystal held between its pincers.

I watched as best as I could as it moved toward my forehead, until the paralysis of my facial muscles prevented me from turning my eyes far enough to follow it. I could still feel the crystal being lowered into the opening prepared for it and gently—something for which I silently thanked the nightmares that had captured me—placed against what I guessed was the membrane surrounding my brain.

The exact moment the foreign body touched mine, my mind retreated into a white, empty room. Its walls remained unfinished, crumbling into fine dust that was carried away by a nonexistent wind. Although there was no ceiling, nothing lay above it but an endless gray sky.

A single black line marked the wall no matter which way I turned, but it never remained straight. It shifted like the horizon of something my mind could not fully comprehend.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the strokes of a paintbrush, as though someone were constantly trying and failing to finish this place. The smell of paint hung in the air, accompanied by a rhythmic knocking: a heartbeat tapped against the floor by a clenched fist.

I had been here before, in dreams and nightmares, but each time I forgot about it until my next visit.

Is that the Daimon? I asked, uncertain whether the alien and whatever it was forcing into my skull had brought me here. I wondered whether they had abducted me before, and this was simply how my mind interpreted what was happening to me.

“[Sense of duty, surprise, wonder, fear] Yes. It is an artificially created spirit capable of reading the memory of the universe. It has also been loaded with every Path developed thus far, allowing it to direct its bearer toward a specific form of growth. Not everyone is capable of perceiving, understanding and creating a Path independently, even when their sensitivity to Concepts is high. Implanting a Daimon therefore ensures that every Chosen will be interesting to observe for the Worlds participating in the Event.”

Paths, the Event… can you explain what any of this is actually about? Were you the ones who sent those mirrored spheres to our planet? What is all this for?

“[Sense of duty, irritation] Yes. My task is to introduce you and the others to the Event, Alexander May. I am a guardian assigned to oversee a portion of the beings taken from Earths. The Event is held cyclically throughout the universe by the Greatest—beings whose Authority surpasses all others—to grant other races access to the language of the universe and, through it, to what humans once called magic in their legends.

“Some of you understand it in a basic, ritualistic form, but what we offer lies much closer to its true source. The spheres suspended above your planet were not placed there to spread magic. [Confiding a secret, surprise at oneself] That message was, as Earthlings call it, nothing more than marketing. That explanation was given to you so that the discovery of people naturally predisposed to perceiving Concepts would not cause unrest among your population.

“You and the others have been observed since childhood by me and my brothers, as we were assigned to your planet. You were chosen because you are what we call Sparkborn. Your souls contain a spark that allows you to control the Universe through your personal Authority. More about that later.” His words sounded within my mind as his horrible face reappeared above mine. He reached toward my forehead with one delicate, slender hand and gently tapped the crystal embedded in my skull with one of his three fingers. He also possessed two opposable thumbs, one on either side of his palm.

“[Sense of duty] The implantation was successful. In a few moments, you will begin to feel the Daimon’s effects once it has attuned itself to your soul. [Need to explain] During the Event, the Chosen represent their planets in a succession of gauntlets of steadily increasing difficulty. Each one is designed to be as entertaining as possible for the other, nonmagical representatives who remain on their planets and observe the competition.”

People will be watching this?

“[Continuing sense of duty, growing boredom] Yes, humans will be watching too. That is precisely why we placed the spheres. They directly affect dreams on your planets. Once the Event begins, instead of their own dreams, observers will see the struggles of those taking part in the competition.”

Will they see all of us at once?

“[Sense of duty] That is possible, but your minds are weak enough that their attention will quickly narrow to only a few participants, or most likely one or two. If what you do continues to hold the observers’ interest, they will remain with you. If not, they will be able to watch someone else.”

Fuck. I hope no one watches me.

“[Amusement] That remains to be seen.”

What exactly will these tasks involve, and what is their purpose?

“[Sense of duty] Their purpose is to ensure the survival of your planets. As long as even one representative of the Earths remains in the Event, the Earths will survive.”

What the bloody, fucking fuck!? You’re going to base the survival of an entire planet on the decisions of a handful of people?

“[Irritation] Far more than a handful. And we are not going to do anything. The Greatest have already done it. We are merely completing the preparations. [Sense of duty] The first challenge has been designed to feel familiar to the representatives of every race. Consequently, each race will face it separately, on a world created specifically for that purpose.”

The first challenge? How many will there be? And a created world? Is all of this virtual? Is it all just a lie?

“[Need to explain] There will be as many challenges as the Greatest determine, which will depend on the level of interest in the Event. Each world will be created for its challenge through their Authority. [Further need to explain] No, it will not be virtual, at least not in the sense understood by your race. [Introspection, inclination toward poetry] A lie believed by enough souls will, sooner or later, become the truth.” As soon as he finished speaking, two more flexible arms descended from above—one ending in pincers, the other tipped with a crystal similar to the one that had cut into me earlier.

Wait, wait, Gray. I thought at him, surprising myself with how quickly I had overcome my fear of his appearance after it had held me in its grip for so many years. You mentioned that someone else was with me when you abducted me. Who was it? The man with the dog?

“[Amusement, secrecy] You will receive the answer to your question soon. Since the two of you left the planet from the same location, we determined that you would be allies in your task, and therefore assigned the same objective to both of you.”

But I don’t even know that person! More importantly, they’ll probably be more interested in working against me than cooperating! I shouted through my thoughts as the arms reached my skin and a strange chill spread through me. It felt as though my tissues—bone, muscle, and skin alike—were weaving themselves together and growing at an impossible speed, while one of the arms oversaw the process, moving with even greater speed and astonishing precision as it joined everything back together in the proper way.

“[Sense of duty] We are reconstructing the tissue damaged during implantation. Please remain calm.”

As though that made any difference. I can’t even blink. I sighed inwardly, hoping I might at least manage a little but telling push of air through my nose, but nothing happened.

Okay, old man. From now on, I’m calling you old man. Are we going to meet again, or is this a one-time encounter, you wrinkled bastard?

“[Amusement] If you succeed, we will meet many times.”

Fine. Explain these tasks, old-timer.

“[Sense of duty] Each of you Chosen will receive an objective. Some will be assigned the same one as others. In other cases, the tasks will differ radically, and some may even require opposing outcomes. Only the first person to complete an objective advances to the next round—unless they knowingly cooperate with another person as part of an alliance. In that case, their combined efforts are judged in favor of every participant involved.

“In your case, you must identify the person committing a series of murders in the city near where you will arrive.”

But I’m not a policeman or a guard. In fact… you could say I’m quite the opposite, although pretty good at it.

“[Amusement] Welcome to the Event. The judgments of the Oracle that assigns the objectives are unknowable, though experience suggests that it often chooses tasks that will be as difficult as possible for the recipient to complete.

“[Need to explain] The world you will travel through was created using one of the Earths as its foundation, along with your legends, myths, and stories of magic, other races, great challenges and hero journeys. Despite the cultural differences, you should adapt to it quickly.”

[Implantation complete. Daimon anchoring initiated. Connection to soul established.] The Concepts behind the words and meanings appeared within my mind once again—or rather, within something I now realized was my soul. I could feel and understand them, while my inner-self translated them into a form my mind could process: words and images existing somewhere within the luminal space between subconscious instinct and conscious thought.

[Path compatibility test started…]