Chapter 298 - Whispers in the Dark (1/2)

There was no sense of nausea this time. Li knew where to go. How it felt to commune with an other that was still him. Seemed like a contradiction, that, and if he had to try and explain it out, he knew he could not.

All he could say was that it felt natural.

Darkness clouded his vision, and that darkness began to flicker and start warping, like space twisting and turning and tearing.

Then the darkness faded away, revealing water tinted in various shades of gray, the dull light of a grayscale sun shining neutral rays through the depths of shimmering, color muted water.

And spending an instant here, he knew he now had the power to close the rift. He did not have to go through the hoops of talking with his embodied other this time, though he doubted it would be the last he would see of it. Perhaps it was because closing the rift was a relatively trivial matter

He knew that in the world above, outside of the space that housed this side of him, he was already moving to close the space.

And yet, his consciousness still stayed here.

This time, he was in the water. Sinking.

Soon enough, the gray rays of dull light disappeared. The water became darker and darker until finally, the grey became black, the waters so devoid of any semblance of light that there was nothing but the void.

Or, as one could put it otherwise, the abyss.

A voice echoed to him through the water. It was muffled, garbled, barely audible as it traveled through the waters from seemingly all directions. A voice quiet and tired, the intonations lingering at the end of each sentence like talk from a man barely woken.

”Why?” said the voice. ”Why do you do this? Why do you side with them?”

”It is my decision. And I do not have to explain it to you.”

”You are so far beyond them. They are specks of dust compared to you. Infinitely insignificant motes drifting on a single rock surrounded by an infinitely vast, infinitely colder universe.”

”I know.”

”No, you do not. Why else would you protect them? Uphold Order? What is it you truly believe will come from this? For every speck of Order. For every little particle of warmth. There is a far wider, broader, vaster expanse of cold.

Chaos is the natural state of all. You will come to know it, I promise you, and then, you will understand. You will agree with me. You value Order. When my call is sent, Chaos will come. Chaos will become uniform. Chaos will become the new state of Order, as it has been in the beginning and always shall be in the end.

An Order more stable, more constant than the fluctuations of life and free will.”

Li did not respond, and the voice continued.

”There is no point to this. Guarding over one rock. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, it matters not. Keep me aslumber. Destroy me. But for what? Chaos is eternal. Ever encroaching. Ever present. You cannot spend an eternity fighting against the natural state of existence.”

”I will be the judge of what I can or cannot do.”

”You are misguided. But you will come to know. Tell me, Gatekeeper, what is it that you believe you will protect? All the life you know now will wilt in time. In a century, no, a millennium, beyond that, then what?

Who will you know? What will you care about?

Who will care about you? Who will know you as you are now?

What will you have?”