The Day My Dream Died

60 - Domebound Dimmy

— 60 —

Domebound Dimmy

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Lise sits on the cart, willing a sphere in the air, she turns it cube, and a second cube phases out from it, spinning within as the first remains fixed. She makes the first transparent and divides the second by two—splitting it into many which bounce around inside the first. Splitting and splitting until it is as a pool of liquid coloring half the limpid cube black. She releases the first and catches the obsidian prism it contained in her hands. She takes a bite and purses her lips at the distasteful tastelessness.

Bente's tarnish undulates, creeping over his candescence.

She deliberates a pattern nonexistent. A motion she might repeat. Can she expect similar results this circumstance? What she will not do for a moment's prescience. She'll settle for a semblance; so she deliberates a pattern nonexistent. A singular motion she might repeat. Will she deem the outcome better this circumstance? What she will make of a moment: prescience. This semblance of a semblance; she deliberates a near pattern. A similar circumstance in which she might repeat. Might similar circumstances create similar results? She makes of a moment a semblance of prescience—similar circumstance, same input. She deliberately manifests the semblance of pattern—and in doing, ends another.

Taking Bente in both hands, she draws forth a memory.

—83#5••Wea•ego••—

Bente stands before The Kelle, head bent, begging begging begging mercy me mercy please. "Harmony, I say! Harmony!" He dissonates. "It was her, I say!"

Terrible—terrible tearing—tearing terror—terror terrible—terrible. I feel my flesh folding and folding and tearing and folding. Sensing skin on skin which skin should never skin I feel my skin on my skin and feel my flesh folding and folding and tearing and folding. Fibers snapping filament splitting folding and folding. Hands on me tearing and folding.

"By Harmony! Harmony me, mercy me! I am folding and folding!" He atonates. "Take her! Me? I'm innocent, me! Take of me this tearing and folding, I beg! Take her for me!"

The Kelle ripples, veil shimmering. Lise under her (its) gaze. The Kelle ripples, veil shimmering, undoing as she moves. A gray slate chiseled labyrinthine faces her. On sight she finds her eyes lost in its lines. It spans perception's breadth. What...? Slow to realize, Lise knows present in a memory. How am I–

Immersion breaks.

\\//

Lise gasps, falling back from Bente. Fuck! Oh fuck! What was that? She staggers, hand to her head.

The cart rolls along.

Bente's tarnish undulates, encroaching on his gentle remnant. Lise watches him dim and despairs. I can't... I can't save him from that. What even is that? She knows fiends, but this is a different creature.

'No!' She bursts, 'No! Damn despair!'

Damn despair to NON. She trembles. Think you fucking fool!

Her mind races round and round, staring at his dimmed glow. There seems nothing to grasp, nothing to explain, solve, resolve. She sits on the cart and stares down her impotence—frustration's acid-burn stinging her tongue. She knows nothing of this creature which has folded and folded Bente, tearing and folding until he has...

She knows fiends, but this is a different creature. She knows nothing of this creature. She knows it is not a fiend. She knew a moment of its undoing, head submerged in gray and feeling its manipulation. It works strangely—different from fiends, which consume of its victim and make of them a multiplication—it seems not to feed and has yet to beget as fiends do. Folding and folding... there's something about that folding.

She's not felt such lucidity in... she isn't sure how long, and she is loathe to leave it. Her mind is sharp, this frustration a grindstone. I CAN resolve this. I feel it, I know it. Climbing...

Folding... Why folding? Why not merely tearing? Why folding and tearing? She realizes this thought threads fine, flimsy, but comes to resolution the same second. It's all still there.

It's all still there. His mind. When fiends consume, memories are often diminished if not near vanished from the mind. A fiend tears away... this creature folds, and the tearing is a byproduct of the folding. One eats, the other kneads.

Lise blinks and sees Bente anew. He isn't dying, but coming undone. She's known this but understands it now. Understand it better, anyway... Well, probably understand it better, she allows. Then comes the cruel—she understands but can do naught with her understanding. As impotence precedes frustration, from frustration she produces motivation; from motivation, understanding. Come, action. From understanding comes action. No, and she laments the impotent end of impotence, my understanding is limited—and so my action follows.

Faced again with impotence, she can take up despair or frustration. She casts aside both as illusions. Impotent illusion, illusory impotence. This new understanding, from which she can extrapolate no action, may yet expand to actionable. And as they come upon The Dwelling, she resolves, Understanding this much is enough... for now.