Entwined in This Infinity

22. Thrilling - Violet

It’s hardly thrilling.

“State your name,” you drawl to a sprawling cloud of memories and thoughts.

With great difficulty, it gathers itself into a vague human silhouette. Its voice is garbled but recognizable as male. “Yew Rubeck.”

Your nod is a slow up and down motion, half-listening as you delve into his spirit, running through his thoughts, mannerisms, dreams. A golden heart, formal, depressed, nervous. Quite ordinary.

“What fate would you have me give you?” you inquire. It isn’t necessary to ask their opinion, but you do. Once, it had meaning.

The silhouette shivers into clarity, a transparent pseudo-skin stretched over the sum of his being. His soul, if you will. He looks very much like a glass statue in this state, which you suppose is appropriate. While his image is under control, however, his voice continues to be tinny. “My f-fate?”

“Eternal slumber. Resurrection. Eternal awakening spent with those who also chose to be wakeful.” They are the three options that have existed since the beginning of this universe.

“May I have . . . elaboration?” He blinks his glass eyes, so small and scared to question you. He has no good reason to be frightened. You are not the Death that took him.

Patient, you recite, “Slumber for eternity without remembrance or awareness. Resurrect in a new life and a new body. Stay awake and commune with all the others who have chosen the same.”

He shuffles. “May I pose another question?”

You nod.

He repeats the motion, and grasps a glass elbow with glass fingers. He can’t meet your gaze while he asks this. “Have I traveled this plane before, perchance?”

“Three times. On each occasion, you have asked me this.”

“And my compatriots? Am I privy to know what path they took?” With each question, he becomes weaker and less sure. He wilts as a flower does in winter.

“Another repeated inquiry of yours. I will tell you what I always have: one has chosen to rest, and the other has chosen to resurrect. The answer will never be different.” After a moment of consideration, you add, “But I have a feeling that yours might.”

There is a lengthy pause. Yew stares stricken into the middle distance, and you remain stock-still.

The little control on his vocal cords fades to nothing, but the pure emotion he emanates is more than proficient in its stead. If a soul could shed tears, he would be choked with them. He always is. “They left me?”

Your sigh ripples through the air, causing his form to waver. It reminds you how long you have been here, judging and asking and sending off beings. How long it is has been since you remembered before then.

“They left me as well, my friend.”