Passing through and into nothingness, I exploded, unleashed, the energy streaming out vibrant and alive, streaming forward, backward, in circles, outward like a supernova, power unimaginable, inward to a singularity, until it all coalesced into itself, , a persona.
Not nothing, this place, but more than could be viewed from the world I’d erged from. More than could be understood by the body I’d inhabited, more than could be. And, concurrently, nothing at all, because my energy waxed and waned simultaneously. Ti, I knew and could feel and experience, was here a cube and not a line.
Three people appeared in front of , but I couldn’t see what they were standing on. Two won and a man. And I didn’t know what I was standing on, nor did it matter. If we were standing at all.
“No nas.”
“What?” None of them had spoken.
My brother, he was in front of , we were sowhere else, so other indescribable nothingness, sitting by a fire burning a whole lot of sothingness, repeated himself. Not the brother of this world, Thomler, but my real brother, from the ti before and the ti now. “Nas have power. Don’t speak them here. Don’t give our secrets away so easily and cheaply.”
In front of in front of the doorway that no longer existed, the man flanked on either side by the won asked, “And just who are you?”
“The ad is good.”
“No nas,” said my brother, waving his cup at , “for they will steal our power.”
“ad?” I asked, “Where did you get it from?”
“How did you walk through that door,” asked one of the ladies.
“Door?”
“But the cost!” The ad hung in the air before my cup, if it was indeed air, “The sacrifice you made. None has given more.”
“Well, I made the ad.”
“You can call it a portal,” she continued, “from there to here.”
“None, brother?” I asked him as he passed the ad.
“There’s no escaping this place,” the man said before .
The other lady continued, after, I think, the other lady, “Or here to there, if you like. Perhaps even if you don’t like.”
“Nonsense,” said the man. He winced for a mont. We all did, we all felt it. And it passed, while returning.
“Brother,” I ended, “I’m thirsty. How can I be thirsty here? In this place so unlike the other?” Then or perhaps before or after, I couldn’t tell for the shifts, I said to the man, “Not here, I won’t give you that. For I was inford well. Not his na.”
“Maybe you can escape this place,” he said, the being I knew as my brother. He reminded of Morry but bigger, more powerful and, if anything, more terrible. Blond, braided beard. This was a man who slayed countless. And giants. Titans. My mother. “Don’t say Father’s na. Not his, not here, and, if you can help it, not without here. Especially mine. And your own. Of course.”
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With reluctance, I spoke to the man before , “I have no na.” He didn’t believe and kind of half smiled. Where was my brother? He was already here. I knew he was coming. He’d already taken to his campfire. “What do you an, portal?”
“And your na?”
“No, don’t tell . You said so.”
“I’ve been here too long, in this trap. I make ad and pass the ti drinking and fighting. These pursuits are enjoyable, but not nearly so. I miss our world, our plane of existence.”
The man stepped backward, nacingly, into my face, “You ca to our place. Why did you co to ours?”
One of the ladies took by the hands, if we had hands, and maybe we didn’t, and none of that mattered, led across the vast emptiness until we stood by the way-space I’d entered through and whispered in my ear, “He lies to you and still, you drink it.”
“How did I co here?”
“Brother!” Finally, or perhaps before, he stepped out from behind those three people, standing before , sotis sitting with a ad in hand, with each glance in different locations, “You must be thirsty. Say nothing,” he gave them a scowl, “and co with . Or should I say sister?”
“I don’t know how I got here. I simply woke up.”
“It’s too difficult. Subtracting the dinsions. There’s no escape.”
“You’re looking for soone,” the man smiled, and it was just him and , without his companions, “by what are they called? I’ll bring you to them.”
The cup was at my lips and I instinctively sipped. “Glorious! Perhaps the best ad I’d tasted. Floral and light, with just a hint of honey on the back of my tongue, almost like drinking sunlight itself.”
“A princess! I can’t believe you did that to yourself.”
“No,” I waved my hand in front of the strange man, “I won’t give you any knowledge and to steal his power. I won’t give you that!”
“Lies and deception,” whispered the lady. “Focus!”
Why did she betray him, her companion, so?
Leaning in toward , she backed away, “Join us. Be free. Tell us who you are and where you ca from.”
And then the three were gone and I was alone with my brother, drinking ad, “Nothing. I said nothing to them.”
“Co with now. Let’s leave these three in peace.”
“I can’t. I’m everywhere, there’s too many tilines here, existing all at once.”
“Once you escape, if you can, destroy this building. The temple complex. You must! But it will be terrible. The cost. Ruinous.”
“You said I can’t escape.”
“No. You are in a single ti dinsion. The problem is you. You’ve been living among the mortals too long.”
“Sacrifice? I don’t know. I don’t rember. Where is Father? And who are you?”
He poured a glass and the perfectly clear liquid paused between the sleek, hexagonal glass jug and the misshapen, rough pottery. I reached out and touched it, wetting my finger.
“Four veils. Challenges. Doors. All trying to kill you. I see why you did it now, you anticipated this. Only a mortal could escape. Only alone can one do this.”
After entering this place, the supernova and implosion were beside each other in three dinsions of ti, but one after another in linear ti, each instant real. It was as if I’d been bound and, now released, couldn’t contain myself. I needed out. Or death. Death might be preferable as it was understandable.
“But don’t pay attention, we need you to retain your earthly shape.”
“What?”
“You’re trying to maintain an earthly shape when you should release your heavenly one.”
“Contradictions! You’re speaking backwards!”
Then we were at the door. I only rembered walking here in the future and it annoyed that we hadn’t gotten here yet, but the door was before us now. “This is too much!”
I raised the glass to drink and he spoke before I did this thing.
“Here, you haven’t had nectar of the gods in so ti, have you. Try this ad.”
“Brother, the door.”
“Ignore the three and co with . I have new ad to share! And many stories.”
“Brother!”
“The door. To rescue . It’s why you ca to this world. We planned this. And I know who built the trap. We will take our vengeance!”
If he had a human body, his face would have stretched out in both directions. Into the past, the future, and whatever ti is when it goes up, if up actually is a sensical direction, and all this was too confusing to focus on communication, but that no longer mattered as the door was collapsing the ti lines, like an event horizon, and our conversation and my thoughts soon extended into infinity on its flat, planar surface, squishingtogetherandbecomingnomorethanabuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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