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Info
Part I of the ME & HIM series.
A rewrite of The First, Free and Ignorant by
P-H Vixter, one which we have been meaning to do since we first decided to be buddies on the wiki.
The epigraph is by
When I first came to be, I found myself in a vast absence, colored in darkness. I tried to look at myself, my body, but I had no physical form; there was nothing to see. So I tried moving instead of looking, and it felt like swimming through Nothing. I felt the sensation of moving somewhere, but I just couldn't tell. At the very least, I could breathe.
I kept "swimming." I swam and swam, and I swam for what I guess would be eons, stacked on top of other eons, hoping I'd see Something eventually.
But nothing came. Nothing external, at the very least. I say that because I learned emotion. If someone else, I'd say anyone frankly, were in my position, they'd go mad, clawing and writhing in maybe a "year" or an approximate. However, one of those emotions was patience. At least, I think that's one. I'm still trying to understand them wholly.
I wouldn't say I liked most of them. In retrospect, they were terrible feelings cast upon me. Then I saw something—
It was a tiny purple butterfly, which glowed. It also carried some sulfuric, metallic scent. I have come to know it as gunpowder. I didn't know that at the time, I had no words to describe what I could possibly be observing or feeling. But that's what I now know. And as I reached out to this magnificent form, it suddenly expanded, casting beautiful godrays of light through my formless body and the big empty I resided in and suddenly, I was standing, on my own two feet. I opened my eyes and I saw light.
Looking down at myself, I was draped in a long overcoat and a scarf, with gloves, and some other things. Above all else, I had a briefcase, gripped tightly in my left hand, and three pairs of giant wings on my back. Each wing's span was maybe twice my height.
I didn't understand what it was about the briefcase, but having it there with me was comfortable.
I looked back up and was met with Nothing. Despite the butterfly, despite me, despite the briefcase, and despite the sea's defeat, the absence had still won, though it was blindingly bright. It hurt to look at. I loved that. Pain from being able to see meant I could truly see. It was the greatest thing I had ever felt. But I still had to reach Something.
I started to walk, instead of to swim, and it felt good. I think the term is "cardio," but I digress. I walked and walked until it was stale after years and then I jogged and it felt even better. But this was not enough. I was yet to run.
Until I sprinted. I full sprinted for a decade without getting tired and was simultaneously excited and contempt. I still could not find Something, and I was stuck with Nothing.
I looked back down at my hands and saw the briefcase again, still stuck by my side. Suddenly, I had a new idea. I sat, criss-crossed, with my briefcase. It was the first time I had ever sat down, and it was another new experience. That wasn't the idea though. The idea was in my head, not in Nothing.
I looked at the briefcase, holding the handle tight with my two hands, and shut my eyes, my wings closing in on me. I took its sharp corners, all of its weird little warps and angles at a very, very small level. I saw its story, and everything about it. And I warped them, to an innumerable no, an infinite amount of different little objects and shapes and forms, and I stood and raised my red right hand; with an out-facing palm and fingers held tight, I sharply waved and shouted, "Be!" with all the might of my voice, and suddenly, Something! was within Nothing. And I saw that my art was okay.
My voice stunned me. I held my right hand over my mouth and felt it, and it felt… like a mouth. But it was yet another new thing and I loved it. I talked a lot, just to talk. I held conversations with myself every waking moment of my time. It wasn't like there was anyone that would judge me, after all.
Since that moment, I created many things with the wave of my hand, simply from a briefcase. And, after a long, long time — immeasurable — they sorted themselves into "universes." These universes were largely nonsensical and hurtful and weird, but I had an infinite amount of attempts, so I would keep going.
They seemed largely self-sustaining and even "self-manifesting," as they would often appear on their own with decillions of years of story behind them, so I let them grow as they pleased. It was beautiful, the creation of life.
I looked back at my hand, and my briefcase, and they were okay. I understood that my hand was red because it was bleeding. Yet another of something new. It was numb, and tingly, and amazing. Now that I acknowledged it, I felt it, and it was good. The briefcase was unchanged, aside from the handprint vested atop its handle from when I had finally made Something.
I decided to go to sleep.
When I awoke, the realm was full of these little bubble universes. No matter where I went, they were endlessly there. Thousands of these little narratives that had taken over. Sweet, but overwhelming. I needed a new sorting system.
So, I raised my stained right hand, and with a loose gesture, I said, "Be." and there was a whole new realm, in front of me. All of the universes that were made from my briefcase went in to be fruitful and multiply, like a lovely little garden, and I stayed here, for a long, long time…
I named myself Apsel, as a nickname. First thing that came to mind, maybe? It stuck out, for whatever reason. I disregarded that and droned around, looking for something. I wasn't sure what for, or maybe I was?
I think I wanted anything that could help me find myself again. So I roamed this vast realm, searching for something and eventually, by intuition, I singled out one universe. I stuck my hand in and it returned coated in sand. But I knew this was where my calling was. I went into the place.
It was much more deserted than I had expected. Literally. It was an endless, relentless dune which extended all night forever. There was no life in sight. Nobody but me.
There was one sign of life though. A mirror was buried, caked into the sand beneath me; discovered like a fossil after walking for a few hours. Something told me it would be there, maybe. I don't know why I wouldn't be able to just summon it, but I don't care.
I picked it up and blew it off with the force of a thousand typhoons, and held it up at arm's length.
I dropped the mirror; I saw my hat, my "face," but none of it was truly there. It was just blurry. I pulled my sleeves up, trying to see a part of me, not having once before thought about me and it remained the same way. I was hurt. The wind was picking up, the clouds overhead growling. And then, with time, it began to rain. It sprinkled down onto me, and my hat, dripping off the brim or running down my overcoat. I sat down again, for the very second time. My wings were outstretched to the dirty ground.
I came to the realization that, in my love for newfound Something, I had forgotten to make myself into Something, too. In that sorrow, I stayed in the storm for many years. And I stopped talking. I couldn't say if I was crying, because if I were, the tears were obfuscated by the rain.
But alas, after much, much time, it was time to go.
Returning from the very first time I had ever been "disappointed," everything looked as I had expected it to, but bigger. The realm in which I had sorted Something into had grown exponentially to match the amount of universes that had been created. Though they seemed to have been slowed, they never truly stopped.
I just wish I could make sense out of them.
Just then, some amount of time after stepping back into my creation — maybe a few seconds, maybe a few years, I've forgotten — I saw that butterfly again. It was so beautiful in all of its glory, shining through each universe and casting light unto all. It nearly blinded me, piercing right through my hand.
And when I could see again, it was gone. Nothing had happened. That's what I had thought, anyways. But I knew, by intuition, that it had to mean something. I searched again, using my mind, until I found something I didn't recognize; the Infosphere. I felt confused, excited, frightened, sick and, above all else, I felt happy. Did I finally have a chance to conquer my mind's limits? Explore the other side of imagination? I asked myself many questions at the time. I was too excited for my own good. I loved that feeling, more than my patience, more than my migraine-hurt eyes, more than my blood-stained hand, more than anything. I spoke again.
I walked to the Infosphere at a slow pace as to not rush potential greatness, and when I got there, I saw something I can still hardly describe; bluntly, it looked like an infinite skyscraper. Well, the tower was far off. The indescribable part was a cosmic, technicolor bridge, extending far, far away. I took a step, right foot forward, and walked. It was stable, so I just went, on and on forever. To either side of me were beautiful celestial bodies and structures that were majestic to behold.
I turned around for a moment, and I couldn't even see where I had started anymore. Only my destination. Just seeing it, microscopically grow closer each day, filled me with excitement. My mind begged me to run, screamed to just go, but I held my patience; it was the very first thing I had learned.
I tightened my grip on the briefcase and kept going and, in what felt like a blink, I was there. Inside the Infosphere. And it was huge. Infinitely so; overwhelmingly so.
I looked around and it was a beautiful, never-ending realm of information. I guess it had a fitting name for its purpose. It stored many different "realities" not unlike mine. I descended, curious about its nature.
I passed a place called the "Oneirosphere," a place of dreams. It was rather weird for someone accustomed to their own reality, I'd assumed. They had nightmares, too. Sometimes even bad enough to kill the dreamer. I took good note of this place and then left just as swift as I came.
And then I reached their "baseline reality," where I saw people, and the fruits they had planted. Animals, art, clouds, the sun, construction, life and death and all of it.
Mankind was a lot of information to absorb, but I loved it. Although, when I entered and tried to talk to people, it was like I was just simply… invisible. I tried to do anything for anyone to notice me, directly or indirectly, but nobody would.
But I would not give up, even if my love would go unnoticed. I would wake up with humans, watch movies with them, go to tournaments, fight in wars, fine dine, and be with them through their highest and lowest in life. Even if I were not the one living that life, I felt as if I were. The emotions I experienced were true and that made it real enough to me.
Nobody was there for me in that void, but why should they experience the same damnation?
And then, just as thinking that, I felt this sharp piercing sensation in my back, as if someone had ran through me with a dagger and sliced down my spine. I dropped to my knees and bled, metaphorically, coming to the realization that someone, or something had just attacked what I had built.
Before the tiniest, most minute amount of time could pass, my wings flapped and I instantly brought myself back to my realm and saw that many of the bubbles were destroyed, or missing, or anything else unfair and bad. The remnants of the missing universes were sprawled across the place, and the rest I assume were assimilated.
Assimilated by a violet star, resting at the center. It was unendingly bright and I wouldn't stand for it. My wings began to flap instinctively, beating against each other in an imperfect rhythm as if they had a mind of their own.
I had felt another new emotion; a boiling sensation inside of me. I dropped my briefcase into the eternity beneath me and raised my red right hand once more, unleashing all of my fury onto the putrid star.
It was not easy. I felt it trying to retaliate, as I became even less than I was. But perseverance leads to success. After struggle, it stopped shining. Then I raised my left hand, uninjured and abyssal, to enact and enforce the new supreme law of the land; my creation shall not be harmed. And just as suddenly as he came, he left, dead.
The boiling cooled down as I lowered my hand and breathed, letting myself drop to the "floor." I could not cope with almost half of my creation being destroyed in such a way it might never populate again — especially because I had concluded going into the Infosphere is what caused it. Even if it weren't special to anyone else, it was to me. I felt immense sadness and, this time, I knew that I had been crying.
I decided I would stay here to mend my realm, tending to those universes which had returned from the dead star, and cleaning the pieces of others. I saw flashes of humanity and myself each time I blinked and longed to experience life again, but what would be the point?
I was ignored by the world, unable to grab anyone's attention. I was nobody. I remembered that, in my quest to smite that wretched star and heal the world, I lost the briefcase. I had lost one of the few things that defined what little of me there is. And I was still more focused on Something than myself.
It was a despondent sensation, one which would burn in me, but alas it is true that this is more important for now.
Then I had an idea. The Infosphere was still open, so I transported back at the same point in space and time as before the wretched star had attacked me, and sent forth choirs of my undefined angels into the worlds to emanate; Nobody. Many figures who would exist within these Earths as blank people to find their own identity. In a way, it helped me feel like at least some part of me found their true self.
Then, I projected a piece of myself into the aforementioned Oneirosphere as the "Hat Man," to plague them when they were to be bridging the gap between sleep and wake. It was the only way they could notice me, and though it frightened them, it took the place of the more lethal variety of nightmare, so it was truly a gift.
Thanks to the connection that had grown between my realm and the Infosphere as I was healing it, I could watch the fruits of my labor without leaving, and I promised myself that I would stay with the realm, my wings hugging it tightly, so as to never let it be hurt again.
I granted it a real name; the Master Emulator, and I named the place it was within the anti-Infosphere. I deemed myself the Humanoid Inaccessible Mascot.
I am Humanoid.
I am Inaccessible within my Emulator.
I am the Mascot of Nobody.
I am not God, I am something far greater.
And until the day the light erases everything, I will continue to stay here to enact My law and guard what has helped me to determine My identity.