11-07-2016, 04:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-08-2016, 01:06 AM by Kelly MacAryn.
Edit Reason: sentence de-butchering
)
Kelly MacAryn woke up with a half-formed question on the tip of his tongue, but it died before it got any further, leaving him with a confused and deeply troubled expression on his hawkish features.
He'd come to the abrupt realization that he didn't know who he was, so he stayed like that for a while, staring and thinking.
He was standing in front of a strange fountain. The outer rim was as high as his knees. There was a mop in the middle of it, alabaster white and standing bolt upright, cotton tassles flopping defiantly in a breeze that Kelly couldn't feel. The handle must have been at least six feet long, because the top of the thing was at his eye-level. The basin in which it stood had to be thirty feet across. Instead of water it was filled with a roiling storm of purple-red fluid, slick with a prismatic sheen, slopping over the sides and splattering on the red marble tiles that surrounded the anomaly before quickly evaporating. Kelly almost would have said it was a maelstrom of blood and oil, but that would have had a smell, and the only scent here was that of clean water on stone.
On the other side, past the small patch of tiles, there was nothing but white. The ground - white. The sky - white, and both utterly featureless, like staring into a blizzard, only with less texture. It was practically blinding in its ivory monotony.
Kelly frowned, thick, dark eyebrows coming together. He knew his name, and that he was much older than he looked. A little self-interrogation revealed that he held a number of well thought-out opinions on a wide variety of topic, but some fairly important things were missing. His history, for instance: Where he was born, his family, friends, pets, all those personal details that add up to a life. It was like being mid-sentence and forgetting a word, but remembering the first letter, and the number of syllables, and the meaning, yet still unable to bring it to mind. Centuries - yes, he was certain about that much - centuries of memory were floating just out of reach, out of sequence and out of focus, tantalizingly close but somehow totally beyond retrieval. Wracking his brain yielded general impressions - a rough outline. He'd been a traveler, across realities, continents, worlds and galaxies. He spent a lot of that missing time in search of purpose, and he'd been very, very powerful.
There were a few flashes, split second impressions of violence and passion that were vivid. He could feel steel bending like fresh bread in his hands. He could hear the billion-year radio-song chorus of every star in the milky-way galaxy. He could smell the screaming earth beneath the solar glare of a hydrogen bomb, and taste his lover's sweat. He saw ... penguins wearing little tailored military dress-uniforms?
He hoped those last three weren't from the same memory.
What was vivid, and immediate, was what had happened just before he got here. He could remember it, and everything else since then, in exquisite detail.
Omni, the Omniverse, Omnillium. An absolute being on an ego-trip. 'Suspicious' doesn't even begin to cover it. I need more information. It will have to wait.
Kelly felt like he should be angry, or shocked, or indignant at least, but it wouldn't be productive. The ethics and motives at play in his arrival here were pretty far down on his list of priorities, and sinking lower the more he thought about it. The fact was, he was here, and he had to deal with that. One of the first things he'd discovered about himself today was that he placed a lot of value on being efficient in a crisis.
This can't possibly be all there is... well, it could, but it's unlikely.
The traveler turned his back on the fountain and sat down, running a hand through his thick brown hair, pausing to fix his ponytail. Squinting into the distance, he could see shapes moving on the horizon. It was hard to judge the range with no landmarks, but assuming some of them were people, they had to be miles away.
"Hn," he said, and smiled. He'd have time later to sort out the contents of his brain. Right now old habits, so ingrained that they didn't need context or recollection, were taking over. The traveler had arrived in a new reality, and there were people, which meant there would inevitably be work to do. That meant he had to do a powers-check.
Psychokinesis - nothing, not even feedback. Five human senses. Neural throttle -
The world slowed down. A drop of oily fluid splashed from the fountain and drifted lazily past his nose like a tiny, psychedelic balloon crashing in slow motion. Then, events seemed to realize he was watching and hurried to make up for lost time. The drop splattered on the tile.
-limited response. That's good. I can move fast if I need to, at least in short bursts.
Kelly clapped as hard as he could, then pinched himself on the arm until it drew blood.
Unremarkable strength, unremarkable tissue density. No sign of fast healing.
He stood up and jumped, trying not to be disappointed at the now-expected result. At least his basic co-ordination and muscle-memory seemed to be up to standard, and he still had an athletic physique. It would be enough for getting on with, at least for the time-being.
He sat back down and checked the pockets of his jeans, and the pouches on his belt, and even under the tongue of his boots.
Nothing. He was destitute save for the blue sleeveless tee on his back. Kelly stared at the horizon, watching the dots move. Some of them were getting closer - definitely people. Others, the smallest and furthest away, stayed stationary, obstinately unidentifiable. He chuckled without humor, remembering what the grinning white shape in the void had said to him. It bothered Kelly, knowing he was about to try something the mind behind his presence here, quite possibly the one responsible for the mess in his head, was counting on, but it would be foolish not to explore a potential advantage.
"Anything I desire can be mine? And it'll come naturally. Well, right I now I need a telescope."
He held out his hand, and he concentrated. It did come naturally, and Kelly had to supress a rush of terror as possible explanations and motives for how and why he was given this power, so different from any he'd had before, flickered across his mind.
Think about it later. Deal with this now.
A glowing orb of scintillating rainbow colors, like a prism without the glass, flowed up out of his palm. As the traveler pictured the telescope, its shape and what he wanted it to do, the light flatted out, elongated and changed shape. It took several minutes of focus, far longer than he would have preferred, but he supposed that he wasn't in a position to complain, and in the end he had a simple, functional, black plastic collapsible spyglass.
Kelly held it to his eye and peered at the horizon, focusing on one of the immobile dots far in the distance.
He smiled. It was a door.
He'd come to the abrupt realization that he didn't know who he was, so he stayed like that for a while, staring and thinking.
He was standing in front of a strange fountain. The outer rim was as high as his knees. There was a mop in the middle of it, alabaster white and standing bolt upright, cotton tassles flopping defiantly in a breeze that Kelly couldn't feel. The handle must have been at least six feet long, because the top of the thing was at his eye-level. The basin in which it stood had to be thirty feet across. Instead of water it was filled with a roiling storm of purple-red fluid, slick with a prismatic sheen, slopping over the sides and splattering on the red marble tiles that surrounded the anomaly before quickly evaporating. Kelly almost would have said it was a maelstrom of blood and oil, but that would have had a smell, and the only scent here was that of clean water on stone.
On the other side, past the small patch of tiles, there was nothing but white. The ground - white. The sky - white, and both utterly featureless, like staring into a blizzard, only with less texture. It was practically blinding in its ivory monotony.
Kelly frowned, thick, dark eyebrows coming together. He knew his name, and that he was much older than he looked. A little self-interrogation revealed that he held a number of well thought-out opinions on a wide variety of topic, but some fairly important things were missing. His history, for instance: Where he was born, his family, friends, pets, all those personal details that add up to a life. It was like being mid-sentence and forgetting a word, but remembering the first letter, and the number of syllables, and the meaning, yet still unable to bring it to mind. Centuries - yes, he was certain about that much - centuries of memory were floating just out of reach, out of sequence and out of focus, tantalizingly close but somehow totally beyond retrieval. Wracking his brain yielded general impressions - a rough outline. He'd been a traveler, across realities, continents, worlds and galaxies. He spent a lot of that missing time in search of purpose, and he'd been very, very powerful.
There were a few flashes, split second impressions of violence and passion that were vivid. He could feel steel bending like fresh bread in his hands. He could hear the billion-year radio-song chorus of every star in the milky-way galaxy. He could smell the screaming earth beneath the solar glare of a hydrogen bomb, and taste his lover's sweat. He saw ... penguins wearing little tailored military dress-uniforms?
He hoped those last three weren't from the same memory.
What was vivid, and immediate, was what had happened just before he got here. He could remember it, and everything else since then, in exquisite detail.
Omni, the Omniverse, Omnillium. An absolute being on an ego-trip. 'Suspicious' doesn't even begin to cover it. I need more information. It will have to wait.
Kelly felt like he should be angry, or shocked, or indignant at least, but it wouldn't be productive. The ethics and motives at play in his arrival here were pretty far down on his list of priorities, and sinking lower the more he thought about it. The fact was, he was here, and he had to deal with that. One of the first things he'd discovered about himself today was that he placed a lot of value on being efficient in a crisis.
This can't possibly be all there is... well, it could, but it's unlikely.
The traveler turned his back on the fountain and sat down, running a hand through his thick brown hair, pausing to fix his ponytail. Squinting into the distance, he could see shapes moving on the horizon. It was hard to judge the range with no landmarks, but assuming some of them were people, they had to be miles away.
"Hn," he said, and smiled. He'd have time later to sort out the contents of his brain. Right now old habits, so ingrained that they didn't need context or recollection, were taking over. The traveler had arrived in a new reality, and there were people, which meant there would inevitably be work to do. That meant he had to do a powers-check.
Psychokinesis - nothing, not even feedback. Five human senses. Neural throttle -
The world slowed down. A drop of oily fluid splashed from the fountain and drifted lazily past his nose like a tiny, psychedelic balloon crashing in slow motion. Then, events seemed to realize he was watching and hurried to make up for lost time. The drop splattered on the tile.
-limited response. That's good. I can move fast if I need to, at least in short bursts.
Kelly clapped as hard as he could, then pinched himself on the arm until it drew blood.
Unremarkable strength, unremarkable tissue density. No sign of fast healing.
He stood up and jumped, trying not to be disappointed at the now-expected result. At least his basic co-ordination and muscle-memory seemed to be up to standard, and he still had an athletic physique. It would be enough for getting on with, at least for the time-being.
He sat back down and checked the pockets of his jeans, and the pouches on his belt, and even under the tongue of his boots.
Nothing. He was destitute save for the blue sleeveless tee on his back. Kelly stared at the horizon, watching the dots move. Some of them were getting closer - definitely people. Others, the smallest and furthest away, stayed stationary, obstinately unidentifiable. He chuckled without humor, remembering what the grinning white shape in the void had said to him. It bothered Kelly, knowing he was about to try something the mind behind his presence here, quite possibly the one responsible for the mess in his head, was counting on, but it would be foolish not to explore a potential advantage.
"Anything I desire can be mine? And it'll come naturally. Well, right I now I need a telescope."
He held out his hand, and he concentrated. It did come naturally, and Kelly had to supress a rush of terror as possible explanations and motives for how and why he was given this power, so different from any he'd had before, flickered across his mind.
Think about it later. Deal with this now.
A glowing orb of scintillating rainbow colors, like a prism without the glass, flowed up out of his palm. As the traveler pictured the telescope, its shape and what he wanted it to do, the light flatted out, elongated and changed shape. It took several minutes of focus, far longer than he would have preferred, but he supposed that he wasn't in a position to complain, and in the end he had a simple, functional, black plastic collapsible spyglass.
Kelly held it to his eye and peered at the horizon, focusing on one of the immobile dots far in the distance.
He smiled. It was a door.
