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pe4nutastic · 9 months ago

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What was it worth?

[ A kaleidoscope of sickly red lines stretch out across his torso like spiderwork, deliberate and perfectly formed yet undoubtedly denotative that something is horribly wrong if his hunched (and pitiful, pathetic) posture, hand clutching tightly at where a heart would be situated if his physiology permitted it, were any indication. There’s some odd sense of tightness about his current state which keeps him frozen to the spot, mouth opening and closing as if to say something… only to be swallowed up by a strange continuum of sharpness tingling throughout his body like electricity, hot and relentless, unlike anything he had known before. He’s utterly paralyzed by this state and unable to act as a result, much less make much sense of what’s happening as his mind slowly begins to unravel like threads in clothing. And yet something sticks out anyways. The exact trigger behind it. One which, even through his best efforts, invades his mind, permeating through every consecutive crack that has appeared within long before manifesting externally. Something which he had thought to be long since extinguished within his heart.

Despair. Crushing, unsympathetic, and rending despair.

Something which had always tiptoed around the corners of feigned confidence and ironclad will–the very same will which had enabled for him to fulfill his pre-determined role and associated duties to perfection, as if never tainted by humanity to begin with–but never quite managed to break through until glimmers of faded light.. of a warm memory long since past… had managed to peer through the monochromatic and numb emptiness of his mind. And even so, it did not come in a big dramatic burst but rather as a quiet resignation. Of desolation and insatiable emptiness; a hole that could never be filled in his ‘heart’ after her death. One which, upon receiving a rather severe scolding from his superiors, only grew until he could no longer contain it. Until he could no longer tolerate it, bursting at the fragile seams of his imperfect mind. Until he had to do something to rectify his original failure. Anything to make the incomprehensible pain stop. Anything to erase this feeling now that it cannot be suppressed as easily. Anything to be useful again.

Desperation.

And so, he had gone against the orders of his superiors–to return back to the home-planet for reevaluations–and with the future-predicting power of the Apple of Enlightenment, instead constructed a plan to guarantee victory. One which even fate itself would not be able to distort. One where he would create the optimal winning conditions and eradicate the blight of humanity for good. After all, he was just a tool programmed to fulfill military functions until the eternal bend of time itself. He owed it to the ones which had created him to do at least this much. To prove that he was useful –that he still had value. But, it was all for naught. Feverish delusion at best. A deranged fantasy.

This ambition and dedication. Value and purpose. What was it really worth?

More sickly red cracks spread across his exoskeleton, across his neck and through his face to the left ear, lowered in part shame and part agony. The Chosen Ones are inching closer and closer to victory. Advancing in ways he was certain that they could not and closing in fast, just as the Apple of Enlightenment had originally predicted. Even after everything he had done… they were destined for victory. His hands curl in, against the pain of movement, into tight balls while his tail–littered with a patchwork of red cracks on its own–sharply taps against the darkened ground within The Place That Time Forgot. He could not overcome the gears of fate. It’s over.

All the sacrifice. The depths he had sunk to in order to realize his machinations. The price others had paid for his goal. What was it really worth?

He went against the will of his species for nothing, choosing to try again rather than returning back to the home-planet to be scrapped as he should have. Another crack, this one thicker cuts to his right ear. He spent all this time preparing and ‘setting the stage’ for destroying the Chosen Ones for nothing. Yet another crack, stretching harshly down his back. He betrayed his own mother for nothing. And several more cracks, spreading like an infectious disease to his other appendages with a sickening snap, like crushing bones. The Psion species. Maria. No matter what receives his loyalty or efforts, he cannot succeed. He cannot ‘win’. Only fail, with no consolation other than the notion that he cannot possibly be–and in fact, should not–hurt because he is a Psion. An empty shell animated by psionic energies with no will of its own.

All this pain and emptiness. Desolation and despair. What is it really worth? What is It really Worth? WHAT. IS. IT. REALLY. WORTH–

The thought is abruptly cut off and erased in an instant, another crack piercing the hollow shell containing his very essence and power albeit this time, etching out a hole through which tendrils of a seething and brightened red start to ooze out like pus out a badly infected wound, feverishly weaving too and through in the still air of the cave and cutting through the darkness with a disturbing glow as its shell promptly shatters with a resounding splinter, jagged pieces falling to the ground with a hollow clatter. And with that, that overwhelming and suffocating–crushingly so–sense of despair wraps around him like a ghostly hug, one that is tipped with conflicting fragments of a few other emotions. Emotions and the pain felt which grow in strength, feeding on the last vestiges of his disordered and decaying mind with ravenous vigour as its integrity plummets at a sharp drop from before.

–what had he been talking about again? He can’t recall. And as the seconds tick on by, even the inquiry on the matter to himself seems more and more like a distant memory, the corrupted essence gradually gushing out his exoskeleton at an increasingly enthused pace, twisting and churning into contorted impressions of his physical appearance as it does so.

What was it?What was it?What was it?What was it?What was it?What was it?

He can’t remember anything. It hurts. Nothing comes through. It hurts. Everything seems fragmented and murky, the only clarity coming through in haunting glints of the poisonous concoction of emotions which had come rushing through the moment his will had broke. It hurts.

Despair. Hatred. Regret. And… something else. Destroy the pain.

A kind of desolate and chalky dryness. One that is impossible to remedy. Hunger without a biological mechanism for it. Thirst without dehydration.

He’s starving for something. Desperate for something. Plagued with a hole (somehow) that cannot be filled. An empty spot, collapsed in on itself and broken as it may be… stuffed with pain as it may be… remains hollow nonetheless.

It hurts. It burns. Destroy.

His very essence is cloaked in a sensation that is fundamentally unfulfilled. Lynched with a longing for something. It hurts. A deep and passionate desire plucked from the long-since rotten core of his heart. One which needs to be satiated, but will never be, like lines that can never intersect. Destroy.

The line is gone. Parallels do not intersect. It hurts.

What was it worth?What was it worth?What was it worth?What was it worth?

Another cut. Another sharp drop in mental integrity and even the remaining vestiges of consciousness, tiny and fragile as they were, are too erased as his corrupted and twisted form fully establishes itself in a nightmarish effigy. Only one thing remains.

Everything hurts. Destroy. Destroy everything. ]

#.giegue (mother series)#.peanutwriting #.mother 1 #.mother 2 #giegue #giygas #earthbound #earthbound beginnings #earthbound zero #mother 1 #mother 2 #blood tw #blood /#I've never put my actual writing in the tags before and I admit I'm a bit rusty #at writing Giegue but EH I enjoy writing a lot so it was a fun little thing to try out anyways #In case it isn't obvious because of the odd/sorta disjointed way this is written #he's losing his shit and his body is getting destroyed to become the eldritch abomination that you see in M2/Earthbound

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pe4nutastic · 8 months ago

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So I made another writing thing, but like WAY longer than I originally thought it'd be. Conventionally, I've never really written things that involves me balancing more than one character lol so I'm not sure how adept I am at the balancing act yet.

All the same, this writing thing takes place in sort of alternate universe where Giegue survives M2 (originating from my old, now defunct, RP blog @anearthstruckalien) and is stuck in a kind of limbo where he needs to put his own destroyed mind back together. This is one of the many fragments he addresses.

Everything is muddled like an unwound thread, always unraveling without apparent end, splayed in all directions like spiderwork and tangled into painful knots where it had been unfortunate enough to cross into its own endless trajectory. Muddled away into agony and nothingness. Drenched in darkness and blood, only punctuated by a distorted painful buzzing of so much something. Hot and cold. Wet and dry. Sparking yet dimmed. Suffocating and all-encompassing, like a tomb. Something short and flitting at some points, rising and lowering like especially mercurial tides, and endless at others unlike anything even the deepest and darkest depths of the oceans have ever seen. Thoughts cannot be formed… whatever that is supposed to be. Identity cannot be found, whatever that is supposed to be. Memories cannot be fit together. Whatever that is supposed to be. He cannot discern how long it has been. He cannot even conceptualize how something like that is measured or what it means, even as it passes through him like wind, there and yet not in an instant.

And then. Abruptly, as if forcibly cutting to the next scene of a film in an especially jarring way with bemoaning screeeeeeeech upon reaching the terminal of some arbitrary counter, a sharp pang brings a few things to focus. And now, he can perceive and process his environment. A shred of clarity. A void-like place, painted in an inky and seemingly never-ending darkness–one tinged in an oddly despairing and desolate hue somehow–and littered with glistening bits of bright shards. Incomprehensibly bright and ever-shifting in colour and form; iridescence incarnate. Glimmers of that which is missing, seemingly unable to fit with each other anymore yet drawn to one another anyways with the sense that with enough effort, somehow it could all fit together and become recognizable anew. And altogether with it all, the first proper thought–as opposed to a mess of disjointed sensations and tortuous pain–springing to mind with a sudden start, something indescribably heavy like a pit coursing through what little remains of his very being intact:

Am… I… dying…? Ceasing to… be…?

He squints or rather… would, if he had any associated visual to him. As it stands now, it would seem that the being known as the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, is little more than a flicker of consciousness. The tiniest and most fragile ember from a flame which had previously been extinguished, now sparking anew against all odds and probability. Against the schematics of fate which had dictated that he die in the battle against the Earth’s latest set of Chosen Ones. Dying. Finality. Somehow that seems daunting–though he can’t recall why–yet he cannot feel alarmed by it at all by his own questions nonetheless. He had just regained (or gained?) the ability to properly process his environment and string together thoughts after all. And either way, somehow he knows that this isn’t the end anyways. Or at least, not yet. All he has is a feeling. One padded out by that which sparked that ember of consciousness, fragile as it is, into being. A sense of resilience and indomitable spirit that refuses to bend or break, no matter how hard it is chipped away at by the harshest of elements: willpower and determination.

The will to not die (but from what?). The determination to endure and survive.

And somehow, without definitive rhyme and reason, part of that lies in the glimmering points of iridescent radiances before him, scattered about like stardust in the void. He shifts his gaze towards the one closest to him, feeling something almost like a magnetic pull towards it, and as though on cue… –the very moment he eyelessly stares at it for more than a few seconds, the scene before him is softly wiped clean like chalk off a blackboard and replaced with far less monotonous and simplistic scenery:

A brightly lit room adorned by ivory wallpaper dotted with artfully-administered strokes of tiny multicoloured carnations, light brown hardwood floors, and containing little more than a small window with nothing to see but golden radiance of some kind shining through and a tiny wooden table full of various desserts and cups of tea; one cup before the entity himself and the other… before a blonde woman in a neatly-pressed pale pink dress ruffled at its ends and hanging just past her knees.

Dark blue eyes squint anew with a shrewd sense of calculation as he assesses the room anew, trying to piece together what had exactly happened to shift the location, but unable to come to an answer. A train of thought that inevitably comes to an abrupt halt anyways when he catches sight of himself in the murky reflection of the tea soothingly settled in the ivory nook provided by its petite cup. Shock jolts through him almost immediately, eyes widening just a smidge, as he almost jumps straight out of his plush seat. Small fingers tap at his face and pull his cheek in an almost clinical way, as though jumpstarting a more thorough tactile examination. He looks quite a bit like the blonde woman. He looks… what was the word for it? Human. A young human boy to be precise. Fluffy blonde hair. A set of blue eyes set in white sclera and black pupils. A nose and mouth set into a relatively flat profile and smooth skin. Real skin tinged with warmth, but with minimal color rising to its surface. Human. Somehow it feels like an illusion and yet he cannot recall every being anything else save for the formlessness he had experienced a moment prior. Has he always been human? It doesn’t feel like it, but…

…–and almost as soon as that particular thought starts, it comes to a grinding halt when, after what feels like an eternity of confusion and strangeness (but in actuality was little more than a few seconds worth of time), the blonde woman speaks up.

“Ah you’ve finally arrived! I’m so happy to see you here! It’s been a long time huh?”

She tucks a few strands of gently curling blonde hair behind an ear and all the while, the now human-boy tilts his head to the side a little at the inquiry. A long time? A long time for what? He taps small stubby fingers against the solid wooden top of the table or rather, the long and lacey pale pink tablecloth daintily hanging over it, dull gaze averting in an oddly concentrated way as though attempting to grasp onto something. Bit-by-bit, it feels like something is trickling in so as to fill an emptiness he had not realized he had, but not up to pace enough to leave him anything but perpetually confused and disoriented nonetheless. There must be a more… a more… –efficient? yes, efficient method to this but it would seem that he has little more than the ability to think and process at the moment, knowledge itself lacking save for what inevitably trickles in.

“Are you comfortable? I’ve prepared your favourite tea and some desserts that you’ve always liked just for this occasion. So feel free to take as much as you want of whatever you want. Nothing ever runs out here --take my word for it!”

She winks, one bright and lively blue eye–practically brimming with a zest for life and unwavering optimism for whatever the future may bring–of two, momentarily being obscured by the attached flap of skin before re-emerging. In return, the human boy stares blankly at her for a few seconds before seemingly relenting his inscrutable gaze–unable to find whatever it is he was looking for–before gingerly plucking a shortbread cookie off its pristine plate, intrigued by both the dessert and by what the blonde woman had said. By the very notion of having information that he lacks. Something about that feels right… familiar… but he can’t quite place why exactly. Lifting the cookie directly before him, rather than immediately consuming it, the human boy examines it with just a glint of intrigue in his comparatively dull pupils.

“My ‘favourites’...? I have a favourite? How would you know?”

A genuine question. The entity rather delicately nibbles on the perfectly-formed edge of the cookie, swirling the tiny bit on the tip of his tongue, before taking a proper bite out of it afterwards. One which he hopes will at the very least serve as a good point of reference or direction towards easing away that thick fog cluttering his mind. The cookie is… hm… ‘good’. It tastes good. Familiar. Safe. Safe…? Safe. Dark blue voids flicker back up to meet the blonde woman’s gaze. She seems to have no immediate response, thick eyebrows knitted in thought albeit without ever breaking her gaze on the entity himself, before settling on something, smile dimming a little to something less exuberant and more gentle and understanding.

“It’s a liiiittle tricky to explain if you even need to ask in the first place… but, I know what I do about you because in a way, I’m a part of you.

The one part that’s never changed… –that never could.

No matter how much everything else got rearranged.

…it’s never changed. You were still you. You still are.”

She taps a finger over where the human heart would be located, over the left side of her chest as she makes a claim of being part of the entity himself. And she does just that, something lights up in softened iridescence over that point, in the shape of a stylized heart, the same occurring immediately to the entity himself in the exact same point and thus emphasizing the verity of her very point, dark blue voids widening just a smidge in surprise before giving way to a small pensive frown. He sharply glances down to his own chest as the light fades away. Part of him…? He taps the same spot a few times. But, he’s right here and yet… even though it seems nonsensical, it somehow seems to make perfect sense anyways. Instinctively so. The answer isn’t as direct as he had been hoping, but maybe it’s meant to be this way. Meant to be? There’s a word for that. Destiny. A bitter taste in his mouth. Fate. A sensation that twists and churns his guts (if he had any to begin with) with intense fervor for reasons he cannot entirely parse out… –doesn’t matter. It doesn’t apply in this situation anyways. Because this is on a significantly smaller scale anyways.

The entity takes a small sip of the hot and soothing tea before him, a cooling sensation immediately hitting afterwards despite its true temperature setting. Peppermint. Much like the shortbread cookies, it indeed seems pleasant to his palate. Between this, what he captured beyond this world in the form of glittery fragments amidst a void, and the growing conglomerate sensation (familiarity, safety, trust) towards the blonde woman… it seems that there’s more merit than ‘meets the eye’ to this interaction. Clarity starts with this. Perhaps that’s why he was the most drawn to this fragment. Another small sip of the peppermint tea. Perhaps that’s why not receiving a direct answer is the most conducive to dispersing that thick fog over his mind. Towards feeling less empty.

“Perhaps. But, if what you are saying is accurate, then I must be incomplete.

In… pieces.

It is what my… ‘gut’ is telling me… though it also ‘feels’... incorrect to rely on such a thing.” He glances back down at the tea, settled shortly after his last sip, and down to his murky reflection in it before shaking his head. “This form feels incorrect. As though I should have a different shape...”

Yet another sip of the peppermint tea, head tilting slightly to the side afterwards as he continues to speak, any uncertainty from before evaporating to be replaced by what seems to be rather characteristic of him; blank neutrality and flatness.

“Being in pieces is not my natural state, is it? Is this interaction a way of pulling everything back together?”

The blonde woman takes a sip of her own tea. Chamomile tea. He can tell what it is somehow, without having tasted it and even before its smell registers with him. It’s her favourite. Just like the carnations dotting the worn wallpaper. She taps her head for a moment as she responds, a hint of playfulness entering her tone as she does so.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t just tell you directly, but I can give that knowledge as an exchange of sorts.”

The entity lifts up his own cup of tea anew, as though planning to drink it, before deigning to just swirl the liquid around a bit as if mulling something over before responding, a twinge of determination entering his tone as he does so. Of course not. He isn’t being fed direct answers, but being directed towards them after all.

“What kind of exchange?”

Her smile widens, matching the playful tone as it continues to seep into her next few words.

“We can play a game and if you win, then I’ll be more direct with you. A game of…”

She pauses, frowning a bit herself in a rather pensive manner as if mulling over a few options herself to determine which one would be best for truly helping the entity, before settling on something and with that, clasping her hands together with renewed enthusiasm.

“... –of riddles! It’s a pretty simple points-based game with two roles: the one that makes up the riddles, the Riddle Master, and the one that answers them.

The Riddle Master gets points by making up riddles that the other player can’t answer while the player gets points by successfully giving the correct answer to the Riddle Master’s riddles. No one loses points, you either get them or you don’t.

In this game, I’ll be the Riddle Master and you’ll be the one answering. There’ll be a total of 5 riddles. How does that sound for you?”

The entity hesitates very little, taking just a moment to mentally go over the exact parameters of the suggested game, before offering a definitive nod. He’s already determined that judging by every minute improvement in his state here… it’s best to simply ‘play’ along, no matter how counterproductive it may seem. He implicitly trusts her, even if the reason why exactly cannot be parsed out, and so this aspect to him must represent someone that was (and perhaps still is) important to him.

“I accept your arrangement. Proceed with the ‘game’.”

The blonde woman takes another sip of her chamomile tea, gulping the rest of it down in one fell swoop before gently moving aside the empty cup… one which stays empty for only a second or so before the familiar steam of freshly crafted tea wafts through the air anew, as if no progress had been made on it to begin with. ‘As much as you want’ huh? The entity consumes the rest of his shortbread cookie, as if to test the theory for himself, and in line with what he had just seen… the empty spot on the plate from which he had plucked it is immediately filled with a new shortbread cookie as its replacement; a reinforcement that this is a matter of the mind… he thinks. At this juncture, he only has sensations and hunches –not true concrete data to confirm if there is anything more than this. He smoothes out the neck of his grey sweater before folding his own hands together with definitive intent and concentration, dark blue voids narrowing accordingly. All the more reason to ‘play along’ and succeed in this game.

“Alright! Let’s get to it then. I’ll keep the first three riddles simple and easy; a good warm-up before getting to the trickier ones.

What… disappears as soon as you say its name?

That’s it. That’s all you’re getting to work out the answer!”

The entity immediately gets to thinking over the answer. A riddle is an inquiry that appeals to logic, problem-solving, or both. And so, it either has an answer that’s so obvious one wouldn’t even consider it or clues scattered throughout as the characteristics of what the answer is supposed to be. Judging by the minimal nature of this riddle… it must be the former. The answer is obvious. Something in plain sight. An auditory component to it. Speaking aloud the name of the subject will make it disappear and so, it can only exist so long as one doesn’t speak… ah. He almost smiles, satisfied, even by such a trivial accomplishment.

“The answer is ‘silence’. Not making any sound is a condition inherent to maintaining it therefore, it ceases to be once sound is made.”

The blonde woman gives an affirmative nod in agreement, sticking two closed fists with thumbs sticking out as if to reaffirm the point. The entity isn’t entirely certain as to what he should make of the gesture, but based off her body language, he can only deduce that it is a positive gesture. One whose continued enthusiasm is admittedly a little endearingly infectious though he doesn’t quite outwardly show it yet. He doesn’t feel as though he is the sort to ‘warm up’ quickly to others, but something about this comes just as naturally as trust did, tinged with a sense of ‘deja vu’, as though he’s done this many times over before. Something about this contents him, the familiarity and warmth prevalent throughout their entire interaction thus far playing no small role in this, even though the game has just started.

“That’s right aaaand one point for you! You’re a natural at this –I knew you would be! You’ve always been clever. But, can you handle this one too?

What has many keys, but can’t open a single lock?”

Hm. Yet another question with very minimal clues and in lieu of that, an obvious answer to it. Keys and locks. A key? A key is… a key is… hm… oh! something that is used to open places safeguarded by a matching lock! Keys and locks are a pair, one shape fitting the other in order to move the mechanism keeping its interconnected block in place against those without the necessary key. Small fingers pensively tap his chin. But, in this case… the key in question has no matching lock. Several keys without matching locks to be specific. A quality inherent to the object in question and not the result of some defect or damage, if he has analyzed the phrasing correctly.

Admittedly… be it due to his gaps in actual knowledge or not, he cannot imagine anything which would have multiple useless keys attached to it. But then… perhaps the term ‘keys’ does not refer to what his initial instinct falls upon. Maybe he needs to consider alternate contexts of it…–an abrupt pause mid-thought, by the sound of the blonde woman tapping her fingers over top the table’s wooden surface. A rhythmic and intentional motion…

… –as though, she’s creating music. An oddly familiar tune, sweet yet bitter in a way he can almost grasp, like words just at the tip of his tongue. Understanding clicks into place. Playing an instrument. With keys.

“A piano. The answer is a ‘piano’.”

No need to explain this time. The abrupt, almost enthused despite the blandness of his tone, way in which the entity himself answered, cutting straight through the tapping says it all. He’s certain in his conclusion with no need to explain it to the one that created the riddle in the first place. And as such, he receives another set of ‘thumbs up’. Something which sparks a bit of brightness in his heart anew; contentment and satisfaction at succeeding.

“Correct! Two points now!

For someone that doesn’t remember much, you’re pretty good at this game, but remember, this is the last easy question before things get more challenging okay?”

A playful wink on her part while the entity does little more than offer a curt nod, much of his attention glued more to whatever the next question may be. It’s difficult to parse out the exact words for this sensation, but it’s hooked him in rather quickly; a combination of its familiarity and the mental exercise it offers.

“What do you call two birds in love?”

And with that question, the blonde woman uses her respective thumbs and and index fingers to form the shape of a heart as if to emphasize the ‘love’ part. The entity himself stares at the motion, from start to end, with a blank stare despite his enjoyment of the game before focusing in on piecing it out. It doesn’t seem like a true riddle. The question does not seem to have an object inherent to its answer, but a term instead. He rubs his chin. An odd departure or perhaps a format that he cannot recall, due to his fragmented state of being at the moment. He thinks on it for a few seconds more before shaking his head, a touch disappointed in himself, and ultimately relenting.

“Apologies. I do not know. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me on the matter?”

A short and sweet–almost as musical as her voice, like gentle wind chimes–burst of laughter bubbles out her mouth at that before its obscured by an arm, bare skin far less effective than actual fabric would have been were the sleeves of her dress not short. Nonetheless, once the blonde woman regains her composure enough, the answer comes out in one similarly short burst as if retelling an especially thrilling punchline to a joke.

“Tweet-hearts! Get it? Because they’re birds and in love –like sweet hearts haha!”

Another short and sweet burst of laughter, her hand gently smacking the table with a soft yet no less resounding thunk, clearly thoroughly enjoying the joke herself. The entity on the other hand… though he understands the concept of it and the wordplay that inspired it, mouth twitching a bit, before he just turns his head to the side. And he does so in a rather petulant and oddly childish way, as if overcome with an emotion from a separate moment in time tipped in deja vu, before huffing through his nose to forcibly dissipate any genuine amusement that may (or may not) have been felt by him.

“That is not a riddle. It is wordplay. You tricked me.”

In response, the blonde woman sticks up a single finger and wags it side-to-side, having long since gotten the last bit of her amusement out of her system, evidently finding great amusement in jokes like this.

“Uh-uh! By definition, a riddle is a question or statement with a clever twist to it. And all clever twists need ingenuity to properly entangle, don’t you think?”

Incapable of actually keeping up the petulant facade–the emotion as insincere as everything else might as well be about him at this juncture–where the human woman herself is concerned, the entity ultimately relents and turns back to her with a nod.

“... I suppose. Does it count against me then?”

She shakes her head, high energy dimmed a little but no less bright and warm in her overall demeanor nonetheless.

“It’s just a joke –a bit of humour! Pretty punny don’t you think? Don’t worry, this one doesn’t count against you. You still have two points. Two for you. Zero for me.

Are you ready to move onto the next riddle? Two more left. And remember, it gets more challenging from here on out.”

The most immediate answer that pops to mind is a resounding ‘yes’. And yet, the entity finds himself halted by a sudden and odd sense of melancholic emptiness, one which almost completely replaces the contentment he had experienced before. He downs the rest of his peppermint tea, somewhat hoping to distract himself from the uncomfortable sensation, but ultimately failing. How familiar. The sense of deja vu is even stronger than before and it’s only really hitting him now. It isn’t just the game itself, but the exact questions and wordplay interjection that’s familiar. Nonsensical as it sounds, this exchange feels as though it’s happened before in every exact step…at least on the blonde woman’s part. The entity himself has changed. Somehow, he’s certain of it… certain that when (if) this actually happened in reality… he more closely mirrored the blonde woman’s demeanor. He glances back down at the now empty cup before it immediately refills itself with the steaming and soothing aroma of the peppermint infused liquid. The entity himself has changed, even before the fragmentation event, and likely for the worst. He takes a renewed cursory glance at his surroundings, one with renewed clarity even through the still ever-present fog in his mind.

The surroundings make a lot less sense now. The odd minimalism and the overly bright hues to everything (now that he really looks at it) as if it all has a subtle glow to it… the lack of anything beyond pure radiance outside the window… it seems less like reality and more like a dream. A thing of the mind after all. Something in his chest tightens. Hesitation encased in dread cutting through what remains of his contentment before he mentally presses on with a determined nod, ready to hear the next riddle.

“A star twinkles in the distance, a wonder of its existence. In exchange for a bird, the silence of a child. A question of the sheep's provisions.

What is it?”

More challenging indeed. The format is far less simple, especially when he’s on the cusp of what feels vaguely like an awakening of sorts. A stab through delusion which, if he is to fully submit to the idea that this isn’t what reality is actually like, he must not have wanted to recover from on some level. Not if it took for him this long to figure it out if he really is as supposedly clever as she claims. And yet, despite the cloudiness introduced to his logical processes, the answer comes much quicker than before with little introspection needed on his part. Like he already knows it… because he almost certainly already does. Quick as it comes however, some of that hesitation from before rushes back with a biting vengeance. It… hurts? Something does. The game is almost over after all and yet, his determination to see it through remains anyways. Feeble as it may be… the entity nonetheless, pushes on anyways like before.

“...a lullaby.”

Almost despondently so, his gaze averting off to the side, but never fully breaking the blank neutrality of his tone. Then silence for a bit. A much needed reprieve and yet, one which even in the absence of the final riddle, only lasts for a short burst of time or so before his mind wanders back to the blonde woman’s tapping from before. With a bit more clarity gained now… he not only realizes that she was giving him a hint as to what the answer to the second riddle was, but that he actually knows the words. Sweet yet painful. More clear images–and with it, the surroundings losing their subtle glow and coming more into focus–starting to filter through like film from an old movie that might have once been in pristine condition, but has now long since degraded, cutting off at certain points while slanting in an unsightly way at others. Another pang of clarity. He almost doesn’t want to play anymore. To stop it at this before things go too far… before he is far too gone to return to being more contented and… and… normal.

N o r m a l. He’s always wanted to be normal, but they would not let him.

A discordant thought. One which he neatly sweeps aside, finding it easier to do so as opposed to letting it run any further, before forcing his attention back on the game. Despite everything… he still, at the end of it all, feels inclined to finish. He has to finish because this is important. More than he had initially surmised in his far less lucid state upon arriving here. At that conclusion, as if on cue, the blonde woman starts on the next riddle with no further lighthearted comments or jabs, her expression going completely inscrutable yet no less determined as if she knows the end is near in more ways than one. An awakening is coming and though it’s a bit hard to pop the entity’s bubble… though it feels cruel… she must press on. It’s better this way.

“Three points. Onto the last riddle

I’m always old yet sometimes new.

Never sad yet sometimes blue.

Never empty but sometimes full.

Never pushy but always pulling.

Always here even when I’m gone.

What am I?”

The entity’s eyes widen as though he’s just been sloshed with a bucket of ice-cold water. Inexplicably so. Nothing about the wording is especially offensive and yet something tightens in his chest anyways. The very feeling which had been building up over the course of this whole interaction peaking and exploding by the very last sentence of the riddle, small hand reaching up to tightly grip just over his chest, where his heart would be were he actually as human as he appears. The moon. Gone. He knows it. Not real. She’s gone. He knows that this is the answer with 100% certainty and yet the answer is caught in his throat anyways, as blocked and paralyzed as he’s abruptly become as something inscrutable splits, fracturing like glass or like one layer of a haze which had hung over him ever since he had gained cognizance anew. She’s gone. The moon in all of its mundane glory. A basic satellite that orbits the earth. Her home. She’s gone. A rock inhospitable to humans and littered with maria, dark flat regions that look like bodies of water from a distance–

…–maria? He shakes his head to himself. No. Not maria, but Maria. Maria.

Maria. She’s gone. Always here. Always gone.

It all cliiiiiiicks into place. Not in full–that much requires a far lengthier and more arduous journey–but enough to properly identify that which pertains to the blonde woman before him. His hands curl into tight fists by his sides, posture going completely rigid as he shakes his head, as though that would somehow magically make this particular ‘awakening’ stop. To Maria. His dearest mother. His only family. The one and only bit of good in his life before everything was irreversibly poisoned.

Poisoned by them.

And as if in direct response to that particular thought, rising up against it amidst everything else, something abruptly breaks on the inside and against all odds, out gushes a sensation even more overwhelming than what’s just hit him. Overwhelming enough to push aside that odd melancholic emptiness, bitterness, and despair which had all too fast begun to fill him. A jumbled patchwork of emotions that shouldn’t fit together yet do all the same nonetheless, tumbling out at various intensities and moments without rhyme or reason. And it is all because of her, with one particular emotion far above the others at the core and helm of it all. The very base origin behind everything felt now. The planet to everything else which revolves around it.

An all-encompassing, rich, and impossibly deep sensation, almost suffocating in its concept, almost too overwhelming to contain within his fragile body yet somehow it manages to be anyways. It permeates every fibre of his being. It exists in every crevice and space where it could fit within the essence which constitutes who he is.

Warmer than the simple, bright, and short sprigs of happiness from before.

More passionate than the most concentrated poisons of hatred.

Beyond all comprehension and in complete violations of all logical conventions; the very pinnacle of irrationality, evolved beyond its initial spark and into its final transcendent format.

Love.

Yes. That’s right. It’s clear to him now. More than anything else, he loves her. He had forgotten that he did, for a bit, but now that he is no longer blinded by… other things… he realizes that there is nothing more important than that.

Nothing more important than her.

That is what has come gushing out with such vigor. The true form of his feelings towards his adoptive human mother. That is the precise name of that sensation. It only hurts because he loves her. It hurts because it mattered.

Because it still does.

Despite everything, it still matters.

She still matters.

“Maria. Mother.”

He hesitates, sadness sharply pinpricking his heart with renewed enthusiasm against the seemingly endless onslaught of love as if attempting to strike a particular emotional balance and with it, a strange and foreign wetness forming at the corners of his eyes. Liquid. Strange, upsetting, and rending liquid. Are his optical receptors broken…somehow, even here in a dream…? He rather tentatively glances down at his refilled cup of peppermint tea to discern the true identity of the mysterious liquid, almost jumping back as he does so, his chair making a muffled skidding sound on the floor as the only indication of his shock. His appearance is no longer human. He appears as he feels he should, but perhaps a bit small? A small clawed digit pokes at an upright and triangular ear, then at his stubby snout, large dark blue voids (the same colour through every part of his eyes, from the sclera to the pupils) narrowing in the welcome distraction that this provides before closing his eyes with a sigh, the clear liquid dripping out and staining the otherwise pristine pink tablecloth before him. Fists somehow becoming even tighter, claws digging into the palms of his hands without drawing blood.

“Are you really here?”

The question comes tumbling out, rigid neutrality finally properly breaking a bit under the enormous weight of what can only be his own grief reborn–having originally never been permitted to properly manifest and instead, kept at bay by things that seem awfully petty and meaningless now–before he can stop himself. He knows. He knows the answer to his own question. The painful, bitter, and ugly truth. He knows and yet he can’t help asking, hoping to be wrong. To receive an answer to halt what he’s reliving; the warmth and intensity of love, outlined by crushing and unrelenting sadness. Maria herself reaches out–the chairs, table and everything on it having mysteriously vanished now seemingly in accordance with this change in the entity himself, as smoothly and seamlessly as if it had been like this all along–and bending down to the entity’s now diminutive height, her expression twisted a little with concern, and gently presses a thumb at the corners of his eyes to wipe a few more budding tears away.

“My dearest Giegue, I’m always with you. And I always will be.”

She pulls him into a hug and overwhelmed by the flurry of emotions as he is, Giegue does not resist. Rather he numbly allows for it to happen, more liquid leaking out his eyes to replace that which Maria had so kindly wiped away, his mouth pressed into a rather tense line that faintly quivers as if holding back so much more. He can’t breathe, physiological impossibility of that aside. He can’t move. He can barely think, what little he can manage utterly dedicated towards “getting it together”, simply-put. His memories are largely incomplete, but this feels awfully pathetic anyways. As though he’s supposed to be better than this. As though he has no right to break and bend at all and rather, has a duty towards remaining completely militant. To otherwise fail to do so, as he is now, admittedly makes him feel hatred not just for them in general but for himself for being unable to do something so basic and so much more.

“You’ll always have a bit of the most important people inside your heart. They’ll always be a part of you, even after they’re long gone.

Memories might hide in different parts of the mind’s maze, but they’re never really gone.

You never really forget the important things. Do you understand?”

Of course he understands, comprehension cutting through the budding self-hatred for a moment. He slowly, almost tentatively moves just a bit to loosely return her hug. But, that’s exactly what makes this so difficult. He knows. He knows that, though the sincerity of her words rings through, this isn’t the real Maria. It’s an aspect of his mind. Love and maybe a bit of hope made manifest in the form that which exclusively inspires such an irrational state of being. He closes his eyes shut rather tightly, pointed teeth grinding harshly from behind the tight line of his mouth. He knows. His fingers claw into the pink fabric of her dress as if he’s been starved of something for a very long time and can no longer continue to push back the desire to be satiated at long last. He knows that he needs to complete this interaction in order to move onto the next fragment of many out there. To become more complete. And yet… his grip on the pink fabric abruptly tightens at the thought of having to move onto something else. How despicable. And yet… he briefly entertains the thought of never properly waking up. Disgusting. Of never becoming complete again. Lowly scum. Of the dream never ending.

Irrationally so.

Irrational. Stupid. And selfish.

Childishly so.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Let go.

But, he can’t.

Move on.

To what…?

Get over it.

How can he? Everything has unraveled too far to neatly tie back up in its box.

Let go.

NO. Never again. That fleeting thought of never repairing himself is promptly crushed underneath his proverbial and unyielding heel. How can he even think like that? Be that pathetic and weak? Somehow. He knows that it isn��t like him. And even if it is, then he knows that he needs to transcend such a basal nonetheless. To be better. Stronger this time around. A slow and disapproving shake of his head to himself before the Psion pulls back from the hug, letting go of her dress and recomposed just a bit albeit still teary, and levitates up enough to meet Maria at eye level. The first display of his psionic power since he regained his ability to think and process things at all, perhaps in response to the latest bit of growth towards becoming complete.

For several moments, he just stares at her. Just stares and stares and stares while she patiently waits, completely nonplussed–a glimmer of understanding no less prominent in her gentle gaze–by this particular development. He can’t find the words. Despite his renewed, albeit still shaky, determination… words fail him anyways. Despite knowing just how much of an illusion this actually is… mountains of mountains of mountains of words pile up all at once, much like the way all these feelings and thoughts of his had come rushing back in a jumbled mess. There’s so many things that he wants to say. Things he’s always wanted to say to her; archived for millenia until the consequent backlog became almost impossible to contain, now bursting out and flooding his mind in violent waves. She’s not really here. She’s gonegonegone.

Destined to never cross paths with him again.

Like lines that can never intersect.

GONE.

There’s NO POINT in saying anything meaningful. And yet…

“I am sorry. I could not be what you wanted me to be. I have failed you.”

He cannot help himself anyways. His head dips down, gaze averted towards the ground while his shoulders hunch ever-so-slightly, thoroughly miserable. Shame. Pure and unadulterated shame. Out of the billions of things that he could say… that he shouldn’t bother with saying on principle… this comes out anyways. A hollow apology tinged with regret. Like that fixes anything, especially when he cannot entirely recall what he’s sorry about in the first place. All he knows is that he’s deeply regretful about everything and that it is because he has in a way that is exceedingly wrong. Utterly unworthy of all that she has invested in him in the short time they had known each other. Is that really all he can say anymore after everything? More liquid leaks out his eyes and falls, guided by the gravity of this dream towards the nonexistent ground now, blanked out by pale yellow hues in place of the wooden floor from earlier. All the while, Maria shakes her head as if in disagreement with the Psion’s outward claims and the thoughts running through his mind earlier on, before gently pressing a hand to his shoulder.

“You haven’t failed me. I think that… sometimes… we lose our way in life. That doesn’t mean that we can’t find our way back. Most people don’t stay lost forever.

The fact that you’re sorry at all is proof that you’re part of that majority.”

She steps forward and takes his small stubby hands into her own, cold contrasting against the very human warmth of her fair skin. A beat. And the Psion himself instinctively returns the grip–even though he shouldn’t–though he still doesn’t shift his gaze off the ground.

“Giegue. You’re capable of more good than you know.

I still believe in you. I always have and always will. Because… just as I’ve said before, despite everything, you’re still you.

And I’ve always believed that you had a good heart. I still do.

It’s never too late to turn away from the path you’ve been on thus far and do what’s right. To be good against all perceived odds. Even your own.”

Giegue wants to irrationally resist. Hands twitching with intent to ball into fists, but only halting that particular action because said appendages in question are intertwined with hers. Resist her words. Resist the sense of ease starting to creep its way through him. He wants to hold onto all that hatred, bitterness, and misery for as long as he can… to press it so close to his very core that he will never forget how rendingly awful it feels. He deserves it. Just as much as he wants to never let go of her, even if she’s just an illusion here. And yet, he finds himself comforted by the words anyways, pain ebbed away by her warmth and kindness. It’s absurd.

Because even if she’s an illusion… an apparition of his mind… he cannot bring himself to sincerely fight her on this. He cannot deny her. Not anymore. So the only option he has is to simply let himself be comforted by it, somehow, and instead focus on seeing this interaction through to its end. The surrounding details fading further away, window and wallpaper disappearing until the background is little more than a pastel rainbow of color splotches twinkling with a mysterious kind of radiance, like the starry night sky.

Good. Being good. Is it really that simple?

It hardly seems like it, especially for a creature such as himself. The sincerity of her words come through as clearly as his rediscovered… love… for her and yet, he cannot help doubting himself anyways. He’s comforted by her words, but doubt creeps in just as swiftly as comfort comes nonetheless. He’s done nothing to warrant such faith in his apparent intrinsic ‘good’. Absolutely nothing. That much, he’s certain of, even in the absence of supporting memories and knowledge to that. Because he was created by them. The Psion species and they are certainly not good. Because Maria is indisputably good and Giegue himself is nothing like her. His shoulders hunch further, twitching but not accompanied by any further tears, his gaze somehow dipping down even further –fixed to the ground with even more intent than before. Then he speaks, expression as blank as the tone of his words despite the uncertainty, misery, and lack of direction behind them.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I nonetheless no longer have a purpose.

What am I supposed to do anymore?

There are many gaps in what I can recall at this juncture, but somehow I simply know that there is nothing meaningful beyond this ‘dream’.”

He pulls his hands away from Maria, so as to wipe away the last few pinpricks of liquid off the corners of dark blue voids, shaking his head as he does so despite the resignation from before, emotional vulnerability of a new sort cracking through his renewed neutrality as he continues on, volume gradually quieting as he reaches the end of his message.

“I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’m… I am…. afraid that I am not strong enough to do anything else.

That I am only good for causing destruction and harm.

I am… afraid that… that I am not strong enough to be more than what they wanted.”

For a moment, there’s a brief flicker of sadness in her ever patient, gentle, and understanding gaze–a breakage in kindness and optimism paralleling the breakage in the Psion’s neutrality–before it snaps back to normal. Then a pause as Maria carefully thinks over how to answer. How to even begin addressing his feelings. Complex things entangled in such a way, hatred completely and utterly integrated throughout, that it could not possibly be resolved in one fell swoop. Nonetheless, the apparition has hope and unwavering belief in her son’s strength. The memory of her would not exist at all if he really were as hate-worthy and weak as he believes. And deep down he knows it. She places her hands, one atop the other, over her heart while a small, hopeful, and knowing smile makes its way back onto her face anew.

“I only want for you to be happy with yourself and your life again. It might seem impossible to you now, but I know that it will come to pass.

Giegue.

You are so much stronger than you know.

The answer might not be immediately clear to you on what you’re meant to do now, but that’s okay. You’ll figure it out and make it through. You always do.”

Much like before, the Psion is hit with that impulsive and irrational desire to rebel against her words, but this time he quashes that impulse much more quickly. Even if he cannot quite believe in himself the way she’d like for him to… he has to somehow try anyways. If not for his sake, then certainly for hers. He straightens his posture out and finally returns Maria’s gaze more properly, a fragile yet no less determined glint reflecting off dull pupils. His doubts and fears cannot be mitigated so easily, but that does not matter because if he allows for himself to be completely consumed by such lowly sensations then he will only end up wasting the time, effort, and love–unworthy as he is of it at all–the real Maria had put into him long ago. Apparition or not, the feelings of his which manifested it to begin with are real. And in his… ‘heart’... he knows that this is how the real Maria would feel.

“Do you really believe that…?”

One last slippage, one last glint of vulnerability, and he’s done. It’s a question he cannot help asking. Especially now that the apparition before him has abruptly lost her details in line with the renewal of his resolve, demoted to little more than a vague pink outline while the multicolored splotches of their collective backdrop fragments to reveal the void from earlier on, sans a glimmering fragment. The very development he had been dreading, but he holds strong against it with rigid neutrality. He has to. For her sake.

“Do you even need to ask? Of course I do.”

She then looks down at herself, starting to fade now with the rest of the scattered backdrop pieces, and sighs a touch disappointed. As if she had been hoping for a little more time despite knowing that this final outcome was near.

“Our time here is almost done. You’ve achieved what you needed to. Before I go… can I make one last request of you…?

I know that it might be a bit much with everything that you’ll have to face moving forward–”

The apparition is abruptly cut off before she can finish her sentence when the Psion sticks out a stubby arm, palm facing outward and towards her as a silent indication to cease speaking immediately. No explanation is needed. He will always help her without question. She needn’t even ask. Such is the ‘power of love’ in all those… stories of heroes and monsters that his adoptive human mother used to tell him, is it not? In the end, love always prevails and though mere fiction, it certainly applies here.

“Yes. Anything. You can have no request that is too unreasonable for me to fulfill.

Though I may be uncertain on where I… ‘fit’... now… there is something that I can nonetheless say with certainty on how I will exist from now on.

And it is that… no matter what happens, has happened, or will happen… I will always stand by your figurative side through it all.

No matter what, I will never abandon your memory.”

The Psion receives no immediate response, the apparition taken aback for a moment, as if she hadn’t been expecting this particular response. Or at least, not so quickly. Strange for a mere apparition born of his mind. As an aspect of him, she should have anticipated this particular result anyways, but then… he was rather heavily damaged. His entire mind had fractured and so, certain… incongruencies can be expected. Nonetheless, the apparition quickly recovers, a bit of pride making its way into her fading features as she smiles for the last time, embracing the Psion as she does so which he more immediately returns this time around. A tentative and awkward, as if completely unused to contact like this, but not less sincere in its gentle nature.

“I should have known. I won’t hesitate then.

Protect the Earth and all life on it, won’t you?”

Gone. Gone. Gone. Her voice fades away as she speaks along with the rest of her form, little more than a ghostly whisper lost to the void. She’s gone. One hand curls into a small and tense fist, both dropping by their respective sides, while his eyes screw shut.

Some part of him admittedly felt compelled to reach out, as if that would somehow stop what had happened. Another part felt inclined to call out to not leave, even though he already knew such an inevitability was near. The visuals made that much abundantly clear. He should have done this. He should have done that and yet, it happened too fast for him to do anything but reel in the cold and isolated aftermath of it all. An aftermath from which he cannot falter; he had already done far enough of that and at this juncture, he must remain strong even as renewed bits of wetness threaten to deftly slide out the corners of his eyes.

The real Maria is long gone. She has been for a very long time. That was just an apparition. Nothing more and nothing less.

Gone, but certainly not forgotten.

The pale alien takes a moment to just… accept what’s happened… the part he supposed would be hardest, even though he had braced for it. One. Two. Three. An inhalation of air. Four. Five. Six. An exhalation of air. Then he opens his eyes anew and glances out at the remaining fragments in the darkness as the remaining bits of the previous fragment’s backdrop morph into pure glittering golden light–the very same which had once shone through the window in the dream–before concentrating into a beam that fades into his body, right where a heart would be if he physiologically had one.

“I will. I promise.”

The semantics of that do not matter. Whether it's more complicated or simpler than he can currently envision, limited as his current database is, he will certainly see her request through to the very end.

It's the least he can do. The only thing he can do for her anymore as her son.

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