Chapter 14 - Heart In A Box
“Hey,” I said appearing in the wooden enclosure.
“You’re late,” Lila said. “Two days late.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been a bit difficult to sleep lately with the heat. The situation in the city I live in is draining, but there was a nice thunderstorm last night that gave way to some cooling.” She was sitting on the couch in her child body, making me wonder whether the teen one was a way to cope.
“How do you know about Faust?” She asked. “WHAT do you know about him?” I changed my view to see the transparent vines fill up the room. She was unaware of them, but they gave me power I once had with Rebecca.
“Nothing,” I said. “You were mumbling out in the dark. Something about deserving being here? Wanna talk about that?” She looked away while pulling her legs up onto the green couch.
“Not really,” she said, but I had a feeling she would anyway. “He was a friend back in my world.”
“Was?”
“We were playing around in this place adults tell us not to. Like an abandoned factory. It’s hard to explain, so maybe I’ll just bring up the memory.”
“Here,” I said, while waving a hand in the air between us. “This screen can illustrate your thoughts.” Lila tapped the floating rectangle and flipped it toward me.
On the screen was a first-person view of a young boy, climbing a stack of dusty blue machines. The light was pouring in from the top windows of some sort of warehouse abandoned to time. He glanced back at Lila, who was hesitating on the very bottom on the stack. There was a platform at the top with factory controls. Faust wanted to climb up to check if anything still worked, but Lila was scared.
“Come on up, Lilly,” Faust called out, ascending the pile of metal. It had to weigh a lot. Their small weights could not possibly matter with this crazy amount. Lila grabbed a metal ledge, but felt it give way, so she let go. The pressure removed one plate from the stack, causing a chain reaction. The next time Faust looked back, the pile of old machines was crumbling. His pace increased and with one final leap, he was holding onto the bar of the factory controls. “That was close!”
“I’m sorry!” Lila called out.
“All good,” he said, still hanging on the edge of a big drop into loose metal scrap. “I made it. If the controls work, I can stack the bots back up. He pulled himself onto the high platform and jumped over the railing only to land on a metal grate that gave way to the pressure. Lila’s vision shook, as Faust caught the side of the opening with his arms, only cutting into them with dirty old metal. Lila gasped as he fell and screamed out, but no sound followed. The screen was empty until the kid was back on it, in a highly advanced medical bay, under a purple light. Lila sat by his side while some adults argued outside the room.
“They blamed you for it,” I said. “For causing his fall.”
“He got wound down after that,” Lila said. “Kept alive by machines as his body healed. It’s something of a coma, but nothing like this. It WAS my fault, Jack. I suggested going to the factory. I’d been there before, just never thought he’d climb the stack of parts. Boys are stupid. It’s like they want to show off for no reason.”
“And then?”
“Then life got weird,” she said. “Faust’s parents kept pushing to punish me, and all my friends avoided me. I started fighting people, acting out. Everyone expected me to anyway, so I thought I might as well. This led to bullying my brother, something my parents couldn’t abide. In the end, they gave up on me, agreeing to put me under for ten billion years as punishment. They thought it would set things right, as the state of mind asleep is only remembered in a fraction of time spent.”
“So, when you wake up, you’ll forget all about me?” I asked. Maybe it was fitting. If she knew too much about my world, she would use the stuff from it in her life without ever knowing what the Infinity Void was.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hope I don’t, but I really don’t know for sure. Well? How do you feel knowing why I’m here now?”
“A little underwhelmed,” I replied with a smile. “You’re just a kid who got punished for something clearly not of your fault.”
“I have done some bad stuff after that,” she said. “To act out.”
“But you’re a kid,” I said. “There is a wide degree of forgiveness to children unless they murder someone. At least in my world.”
“They don’t even consider this a punishment,” Lila said. “It’s more of a time-out. Real bad people don’t get to just float in the darkness, you know? They go into a fully loaded simulation of scenarios that are developed to make them feel what their victims felt. It’s pretty dark, but creates empathy.” I wondered whether to tell Lila about the beating heart of creationism originating in the wooden room, but she grimaced from the couch.
“Something’s wrong in here,” she said. “It feels like… heavy in the room. Did you change something?” She looked around the room, but could not see the vines. Did I have to tell her about it? I decided not to, for the time being.
“I’m sorry I was late,” I said. “I’m glad you’re ok.”
“Bored,” she said. “Do you happen to have a new story for me?”
“I got an idea for one, but I’m hesitant to share it since you could make it weird,” I replied. She smiled and leapt off the couch to land right in front of me. I caught her thrown weight before she bumped into me.
“Is it… naughty?” She asked.
“No, it’s just… strange,” I said. “I’m sure you can do something cool with it. Here.” I tossed her a tiny booklet with just a few sentences exploring the idea of Cloudforme (since completed), a drug turning people into sentient clouds. With that, I took my leave for the time being to see what she could create with it.
break
“I don’t feel like myself lately,” I said, while appearing in the room weeks later. I did not look to see if Lila was there, only sat down at the table of the room. “I’m sorry I haven’t been back to see you.” I looked up to find the room empty. Rather than look around, I flexed my recovered powers to call into her mind to find me. She appeared at the table in moments.
“I heard you,” she said, with surprise. “What did you do?”
“I took back control of something inside my mind.”
“But it’s not,” Lila said. “This is untethered space. The raw materials for everything in existence.”
“What harm can taking over a small portion do?” I asked, waving a hand over her vision to reveal the vines to her sight. The main room was entirely covered by them, and the vicinity was so thick with vines that it no longer felt dark and empty. “In the grand scheme of how endless this space is, this growth is nothing, but it gives me a peace of mind. I can create again. Just like you, creating and destroying on a whim.” I did not wait for her response, taking away her vine sight a second before disappearing.
break
A month had passed before I assembled the device to write again. I fully expected Lila to be elsewhere after all this time, but as I went back to the room of my past creation’s revolution, there she was. She sat in a child’s form again beside the couch with a book in her hand. This vision was so hopeful of the future, yet most read on devices now. I too remembered reading in such a manner, but knew it would get phased out before long.
I stood there silently for a moment, observing a mind like hers lost in another world. It was meant to be this way, an escape from the mundane and standard. The Infinity Void, known by many other names, had stories for everyone even if they did not choose to listen. Others would connect to the stories and bring them to attention.
“You’ve been gone a while this time, Jack,” she said, without a look toward me. Instead, she flipped the page in the book, and kept reading.
“Things have been… difficult here,” I said, thinking back to the state of the world. “It’s hard to explain, really. I really wish you could understand, but your people seem advanced in the medical sense. It’s this sickness that spreads easily between people who are very social. This very disease is keeping a large portion of people at home for a long time, and what that does to a person, well you know if you use me as an example.”
“What did it do to you?”
“Well, to self-diagnose, I feel unmotivated to do anything,” I said. “There's just no end reward I see myself fighting toward anymore, although there is one on my mind. Even if I want to get there, the world is in such a state that everything feels hopeless. It’s hard to have hope.” Lila slammed the book closed, and started getting up from the floor. By the time she stood up, she was a teenager, then a young woman. I still had no certainty that she was actually a child in her world. Her story could have been a figment to entertain instead of the truth.
“The world is always in a terrible state,” she said. “I can tell you from experience. All the advancements on my side and we still fight for things and die for things. There are still people who go hungry, die, and mourn. Life is meant to struggle for better, and celebrate the smallest of triumphs.” I slouched on the couch beside her, as she sat down with me. For the first time, I felt comfortable being next to her. Maybe she was about the age I was now. Maybe there was no such thing.
“I’ve had this dream, and I’ve been trying to do something to make it real,” I said, before I could catch the hopeful notion. This was now my space. I could even create another world here, just like I did for Rebecca. “Forget it.”
“No, Jack, tell me,” Lila said. She punched my arm playfully, then really laid into another hit after I failed to respond. I heard a crunch of bones breaking, but no pain. I looked at her with a grimace while healing myself back together. Lila just shrugged with a smile. “I want something new from you.”
“Ok, but this is just an idea,” I said. “I outlined a few things for this gliding game I’ve wanted to create. The main thing is just the slow descent around a giant object. Here.” I materialized the booklet with instructions for the game and passed it to her. She read it over in seconds and kept reading as the idea took root in the untethered space. Before I could stop her, the small booklet looked like a small book.
“Albatross class,” she said. “I like that. Wanna go check it out?” Lila jumped to her feet and held out a hand. She was a child again, joy in her eyes blazing with the new idea. I hesitated, but grabbed her hand just in time. Her skip backwards lunged the both of us into the darkness just outside. The vines of creationism remained invisible, hiding just beyond the schism of this equally impossible space. I only had to blink once for the scene of Calm Mountain to appear. We hung in the air for a moment, before plummeting together toward what looked like water at the very bottom.
The clouds were incredibly fluffy, but I worried for the fall until Lila pulled out a giant cloth roll and popped open the Albatross class glider with seating for two. I grabbed onto the seat just in time, as Lila altered course to catch an updraft. We sailed along the updrafts back to the top of the mountain, catching the wind on the large wings. I still had no idea how the mechanism worked, but in a game, it only had to look like it worked.
“This is what I want to make,” I said. “In my reality. Well, not even in my reality. I want this as a game. Something like a virtual reality to dive into. It’s difficult though. I’d have to do concept art, and so many other things. I’m tired, Lila.”
“You always sucked at stopping by at the correct times,” she said. “Ok, but before you head out. I want you to try out the Hawk class glider. It’s pretty much the bread and butter of the game, right? Fully customizable with designs and stuff. I, on the other hand, will be testing the flying squirrel gear. Peace.” Lila flashed a peace sign with one hand while tossing over a bundle of metal, wood, cloth, and rope at me. She fell like a regular human, but then opened her wing suit and slowed the descent a bit. I looked over the Albatross glider and wondered if I could remember any of the parts and how they assembled together to make it real. It was behind that vague haze of remembering details from dreams. I sighed and fell with the Hawk bundle.
After a few seconds of falling, I opened the bundle as a Hawk class glider sprung to life. It was smaller than the Albatross class, but still looked pretty big. The wings held the air comfortably, while I could switch between flying under, to standing atop it. Lila flew closer to the mountain to try and catch an updraft, but her wingsuit only slowed her enough to land on the cliff side. As I passed her by, she jumped again, this time deploying the grapple to hook the underside of my glider and reel herself in.
“I think a lot of people would like this idea!” She shouted over the air rushing past. I only nodded in response, then folded up the glider and fell together with Lila into the water. Once we resurfaced, Lila looked up to see the Albatross class glider still circling gracefully above. The glider needed no help from humans, but welcomed them onboard. “I hope I can somehow help you make this, Jack. Stop by more often. Ok?”
“I’ll try,” I said, trying to remember how the Hawk glider was made to spring up and fold away again. The haze of dreaming was heavy over this one. I would have to create the design myself, or dream on it better. I left the water back into the room, then exited the untethered space altogether.
Comments
Post a Comment