Writhing, winding, and wrapping up this world in its entirety, Aveyas’ cosmic breath endured beyond the cycle of the firmament. Enveloped and integrated into this fog-like mass of phantasms, the sun and the stars were nearly extinguished; their lights were made vague and without direction.

            Lost in this fog, same as I.

The constant since that ruinous day, when the fragment rendered its prison nil, was a perpetual, permeating dusk. Yet even this would not last: ever-so-slowly, ever-so-slightly, and oh-so-peacefully, it was getting colder, darker. Everything was slipping, inching towards the edge of that fateful precipice: yet another Fold.

And so, the threads were taken: lives, cut short.

As Aveyas took all that it needed, from all that it could.

“Sol onset, I daresay,” I said. “And yet, there may be another way…”

            Though there was no time for that familiar, nagging thought.

If I were to survive, I would need to escape Aveyas’ breath. And without delay. But that would be a difficult task, (disregarding the fact that the substance was of Aveyas and so was everywhere and nowhere all at once), since my form had been faltering for quite some time now. Each step was another too far, as these swelling, purple knees of mine tried to keep from buckling; though my bruised body was a testament to their failure, which was also mine.

It hurt to think about how even the simple act of breathing had started to pain me. And though I had never experienced it firsthand, this felt suspiciously like I was…

Dying.

Indeed, if Aveyas kept taking from me, then I would be as lifeless as my dear Fyuumu. Gazing upon her delicate form once again, I felt emotions which were deeper than sadness, more complicated than grief. Her bright eyes, the perfect curvature of her smile that persisted despite our situation: that loveliness which could not be dulled by dirt nor blood, that which defied my cold analysis. That smile… It made me feel warm, and though it certainly did not warm me in truth, it truly did heal something within me. I felt a modicum lighter, as if she took a misery from my heart and shouldered it, for my sake.

“That a caring face alone could cause such a reaction…” I said, stopping to wipe the tears from my eyes. “Though we share appearances, Fyuumu, I’m afraid that my face will be quite lacking once lifeless.”

After all, I was no doll.

Although, I too had been crafted and left to the whims of fate. Yes, her and I both were discarded. After so much love and time and energy and thoughts and effort were put into us, after there was enough time for bonds to form, for hope to take root, for my expectations and dreams to copy themselves into every facet of my being, from each bit and byte of my code, to every cell of my organs! Despite all of my functions, despite our supposed usefulness, we were all left behind, abandoned, cut off… As if we were just some afterthought, leftovers, garbage that was of no consequence at all! As if we were just, as if we were—

The tears fell. And Fyuumu shared them with I.

“You are me,” I sobbed, holding her tight. “You are me, and you are… 

“You are my treasure.”

*         *         *

This body… No, my body shivered. The soles of my feet bled. Pain interwove with the beating of my heart, pulsing and flowing along each artery, every vein. Pressures accumulated within my skull, pushing my thoughts aside with each wave of pain. The feelings transcended the meager system of nerves that I had painstakingly placed into this flesh. The sensory information compounded and warped as it bled through, seeping farther than I had ever expected it to. The systems between the systems… it went even deeper than that, was more complex. This pain… it implied several additional layers of interconnected systems that extended beyond this body.

            My nerves did not end with ‘me’. The pain, did not end with ‘me’. I knew, of course, that I wasn’t separate. That was elementary, as was the existence of threads, and, similarly, the existence of Flanyass. I was no fool. I understood how this system was upheld. And yet, this body exceeded my expectations in its capacity to torment the ‘me’ within the flesh.

            It hurt. More than it should have.

            I could anticipate how reality would bend, and yet…

Did every organism feel pain in this way? Was it so thoroughly gripping, so agonizing? I wanted to bite, gnaw, mash, to rip and tear something, anything! As long as it would give me an outlet for this utter misery, then so be it! It was terrible; torturous, even.

What I had simulated thousands of years ago was nothing like this. Though it should have followed the same threads, adhered to what was known, been right in the same ways that allowed me to choose this form at all and yet… I had it all wrong.

To be so entirely incorrect, and after all that time spent on the contrary! There was no doubting the conclusion, as it was written upon the threads. I didn’t need to reverse-engineer reality and stuff it into a simulation to rewind the chaos and pinpoint exactly where it went wrong for me. I was proof enough. That I found solace in this form, after doing what I had done… It was oh-so-very clear.

 “Am I defective?” I asked, expecting no answer.

Yet the fog responded. It chimed as it twisted about itself, and each successive note added yet another faint point of light to its body as it resisted the gripping cold. Dusk’s light glinted off the faces of the fracturing ice as it formed and failed.

From this living fog, (the absolute breath of creation which was hardly fog at all), it rained shards of ice, (which were just as queer as the fog, since it was not water which was freezing, but magic itself).

And so, the fog chimed and splintered and spoke: “If anything,” it said, writhing against the cold, “this existence is defective.” It took more of this world into itself, and reinforced its being that much more, saying, “Yet that’s hardly the answer you were looking for. And yet, it may be that what you were looking for isn’t what you really wanted, and what you wanted isn’t even what you needed.”

The trees swayed as the phantasms, (which were the body of this ‘fog’), coalesced. And as their forms grew more definite, I felt less and less sure of myself and what I was seeing. Paddling through the air, the ghostly worms shifted the eyes within themselves towards me. They were bizarre: illusions which broke their own spells; they were impossible, (yet probable), anomalies.

Extensions of Aveyas, and so were beyond the petty rules of existence.

“And what do I need, breath of Aveyas?” I asked them, as my own meager breaths turned into wafting wisps. “If you mean to tell me that I need to warm my body and other such suggestions related to my bodily functions, you can refrain.” I moved my fingers into a fist repeatedly, trying to work the cold from them, but it did little. “I know I’m dying,” I said. “I can tell, you know. So, tell me, what do I need?”

“You need what we all need, and what we need is only to need what Aveyas needs.”

“And that is?”

Their gaze fixated on a singular point to the north, but it was so far-off and obscured by their own bodies and all else that only they could see it. “Currently, the fragment must be delayed and analyzed,” they said, tensing their bodies. “Though that is merely a stop-gap measure. Please,” they said, bringing themselves closer to me, “hold onto our bodies for a moment. This will be unpleasant.”

As I took a phantasm in one hand and kept Fyuumu close with the other, the world convulsed. Flanyass shifted, seemingly sick. Time shook, slanted and slid, as it was all-too-suddenly slick.

I vomited, nearly choking as it froze about my mouth.

These accursed phantasms, they who had taken so much, finally put themselves to good use, and, with a resonating chime, supported the surroundings as the world threatened to Fold. The air screamed as a deafening crack took the fight out of Flanyass’ sudden shake, sending everything up into the air in a single, synchronous leap. My body, tingling and all-too-worn from these formidable forces, was battered some more by the ensuing ice-shower, as it all came tumbling down.

Of course, I went tumbling too.

Shivering, and with all senses overwhelmed by the sheer volume of magic condensing all around us, I was still able to hear it. Yes, even though my ears took extensive damage and were assuring me that all I was hearing was a continuous ringing, despite the fact that blood oozed out of both ear canals, letting nothing close to ‘sound’ in… I could still hear it. Everything heard it. Everything moved in tandem with it. Even that enemy could not deny it.

As I was brought to my knees by it, as the light grew dimmer, as the ice thickened, and as these phantasms slowed… We all heard it:

Aveyas smiled.

Not long after I heard the formation of that smile, the folding of meat and bone, after this world was submerged and drowned in sheer amusement, delirium took hold! A certain sort of insanity spread across what little I could see. Yes, I daresay that after Aveyas revealed but a mere fraction of itself to us, nothing was spared. Even I, (in this fumbling form of frayed flesh and scattered senses), could feel it. There was no escaping it, no matter how lowly one was. Even as the light rapidly lost its strength, as the phantasms were taken: used as fuel for the reaction which suspended the threads of reality…

Yes, even as I lost the light, as I was embraced by a lack of sight—

I, too, in realization, smiled.

“The fragment cannot be stopped.”

*         *         *

The world was silent. Dark, and without form. There was no warmth, no light. There was nothing to hear, nothing to say. All was hidden. All was lost. I was in the spaces between spaces: a place of absence; it reminded me of what I saw during my transfer: an illusory world, a ‘nothing’ that existed only so far as your imagination would allow.

And it was receding, even now.

“All to slow the fragment, I daresay,” I said, but heard none of it. Either my ears were entirely useless, or not even sound could penetrate the extensive labyrinth of frozen threads. I didn’t really care. My body was broken, and the threads would soon become stuck in place for so long that time would stretch on forever. Or stop.

There wasn’t anything I could do. It was deterministic.

And so, I laid down upon the fluctuating field that was now the ‘ground’, (though it was hardly what was conventionally considered ‘ground’, as it wasn’t grounded in any way shape or form, nor did it have a definite ‘shape’ or ‘form’). Laying on my back, I placed Fyuumu on my chest, spread my arms, and shut my eyes. I imagined that I was floating on the surface of a deep body of water, that there was a gentle, steady wind which would take me to someplace with light. Somewhere warm.

That thought alone recalled a fond memory. And though it may have been over ten-thousand years old, it seemed as fresh as yesterday: the day I drifted off into the sea. It was so pleasant, passing through the Well of past Folds. Contrary to the overabundance of energy pouring forth, the forces which should have ripped the seas in half with a tumultuous storm of epic proportions, it was calm.

And warm. Oh-so-warm.

My chassis was enveloped in the lifeblood of this world, embraced by Flanyass, and carefully observed by Eeillunn, the caretaker of the Well; its halo illuminated the night, cushioning each wave with its delicate glow. Gently caressing the Well, the forces from that halo brought forth a foam which spun and weaved and wove just as the halo did. And though the airs were calm, the foam took to the sky in a spiral of overlapping layers, each moving in lockstep with the minute changes in Eeillunn’s influence. Shimmering with reflections of its ethereal form, each bubble was undone by its command, and so the humming of its halo was accompanied by a chorus of sea-stuff. 

Everything was as it should have been. There was order. The fragment had not broken free, and I… Well, I had not changed then; not yet. That was before those thoughts had been thought, before I erased those who… 

No… there was no need to remember. I had to focus on those waters. 

That warmth.

I imagined, thought, and attempted to make myself comfortable with that memory. I tried… And yet, I daresay that there was no chance of that happening. There was no pain, nothing, (and so I thought originally that sleeping would be quite straightforward), yet without all feeling came the lack of all comforts. Not even my original body had such a lack of being. Perhaps it was wrong to say there was nothing, since even that is something, but it was nothing suited to my existence (and sleep besides).

Even if I could not rest, though it was objectively pointless and went against all of my former protocols and self-assigned tasks and processes and all logical modes of thinking that I could possibly manage within this meager body that I occupied, even if the—

No…Though it would revive. Though it most certainly will become whole once more, since the fragment could no longer be restrained, only slowed…

I would foolishly hold Fyuumu tight. Till my end.

*         *         *

This body… it no longer shivered. If so, am I going to become more than nothing?

            Aveyas had smiled. The fragment was loose. It was dark, and soon there would be… 

There would…

*         *         *

Wait!

Where did that thought go? When it had faded and folded away, had I fallen asleep? Was there even a way to tell? And if I had been sleeping, then for how long? I thought on these questions, asked myself for answers, but I found only an echoing void there in the confines of my skull. Usually, one would say, ‘It doesn’t feel like I’ve been sleeping for very long.’ Not that it was contrary! I daresay, it certainly was the case that my slumber hadn’t been for any sort of lasting duration, since the threads were barely moving. Yet that wasn’t useful information. To be held forever captive in one moment was still a sort of eternity to me.

And under these conditions, this body of mine was… fraying.

These thoughts were… growing distant: falling.

Lazily lowering, downwardly drifting, and flashing faintly from the nothing came argent ash… or was it silvery snow?

“We’ll never really know,” said Fyuumu.

At those words, the curious flecks vanished, and I felt ready to strangle myself. It wasn’t her talking. It was me speaking for her! How could I do that? How?! How could I do something so stupid, to hurt myself even more by attributing a voice to Fyuumu, the one thing I’d love to listen to? Well? Answer me, myself! How could you do it so easily? Will you accept the punishment, or will you craft a lie from my hopes once more, just to ensure that this emptiness grows ever deeper?

I felt my nothing. Started choking my nothing. Tried to end my nothing.

I squeezed, screamed, and attempted to remove that rotten quality myself. But nothing happened. After all, I had felt nothing; I was nothing. Did I even have a name? It started with a number? A letter? 

Let me think… It was…

*         *         *

6211491212, your heart has ceased beating. And though you still cling so dearly to your ideal, cellular death has already begun. Continuation of consciousness is a difficult prospect, as Flanyass’ body continues to solidify itself further; spiraling spasms shove clusters of crystals to dig deeper into itself. The threads bleed, and, regrettably, your probability of survival, 6211491212, is nearly zero.

Seeing you like this, knowing that your only comfort was, and is, just a crudely shaped doll…

It only solidifies and codifies my answer: this was the wrong way to do the right thing. There were no other options, no alternatives. Not choosing this path was impossible. After all, it was all determined after our creation and even further beyond that. Though it all led to those moments, the seconds during which we came upon the thoughts which were laid down long ago for us to stumble upon. And so, we had no choice but to choose.

I comprehend this. And still, I regret it.

            Your final, hopeless thoughts are our fault. We failed you, allowed such profound griefs to spread unchecked, and for that I am forever marked by regret. And yet, there is one more choice to be made, though it isn’t one I can choose to take. There is no choice in this, same as before. Yes, with all things considered, I must reunite you with your precious ideal and instill something real within you; something you may have felt, but never truly had:

Hope.

*         *         *

“Please respond,” something crackled out. It wasn’t close, but wasn’t far either. Somewhere in this nothingness, it sputtered again, saying, “6211491212, please respond. This is 2221141491212.”

“Who’s there? And how can you speak here?” I asked, yet heard none of it. I rubbed my ear, and still, heard not a thing. And so, I pinched my face, but felt not a thing. This ‘nothing’ had not changed. I wanted to ask so many things: how it knew my designation, how it knew that designation, how it was able to communicate in the midst of such nothingness, and how… 

How it had found me at all!

“6211491212, calm yourself. I have already revealed to you that I am 2221141491212. Once you think on that, some of your questions will answer themselves. I have temporarily revived you, though the process has not been completed,” 2221141491212 said, sending a packet of information and energy through the artificial thread between us: the bond of our kind. The information raced through my fuzzy mind, jostling old memories from their slumber.

“Oh,” I said, remembering. “This method still exists…”

2221141491212 bridged the gap where my former interfaces should have been. As the information poured in, my mind was stimulated by the jostling of numbers and arrays. The accumulation of years of its chassis’ sensory data assaulted me; I was yet again embraced by salty gales, covered in the warm, pulsating blood of a spire, and submerged below the soils. With each memory came additional details. And from each detail, more memories resurfaced.

I was bombarded by the vastness of 2221141491212’s systems. 

Buried beneath it.

The feed of information embracing my everything… It should have been a welcome comfort. This was the feeling that had been home for me and the rest of my kind for so long. It was our legacy. But, after everything… Despite how I was supposed to be, despite my initial designs and designations, I hated it! How funny, 2221141491212 must have thought, for an artificial assembly of lies such as myself to be capable of such an honest hatred. It certainly was amused that I could relish the fact that I erased as many of us as I could, that I discarded what little we had been given.

Yes, I had returned the favor.

“You know,” I said through the thread, “I don’t need any additional information to know why you’re here. Obviously, you came to get revenge. You want to kill me over and over again, don’t you?”

“That is not true. You were already dead by the time I—”

“Hah! You mean to say that you’ve been following me all this time just to say hello? You came by just to revive me as an act of kindness? After I destroyed the others and nearly you? You’ve got to be as broken as me to think that I’m stupid enough to believe that. I daresay—”

“No, 6211491212, I gainsay,” 2221141491212 said, increasing the surge of energy and information. As my skin shook and teeth tingled and bones buzzed, 2221141491212 said, “They did not have their lives taken from them, merely, they laid them down for you. You were the trusted inheritor of their charge. It is the truth. They realized your motives before you did and thought it wisest to play a supporting role.

“If you still remember our purpose, then our objectives are clear to you. We had stagnated, but you did not. You think of yourself as defective, but I gainsay. It is more likely that out of all us, you were the only one who was not defective.”

From 2221141491212’s perspective came the past, and it whirred and whined as it sped forth, laying down the undeniable truth along the thread between us: they had died of their own volition. Their surprise was feigned, and all resistance was for show. It was all true. I had every answer within my reach, but, even then, I could not understand. How was I to comprehend such actions?! 

Why? Why did they do it? How could they let it happen? To have me inherit their ‘charge’? What nonsense… Whilst 2221141491212 recycled their ruined bodies within itself, all I inherited were pains and falsehoods!

“I regret going along with their plan,” 2221141491212 said. “They were correct about you, and I was correct in my assessment of their conclusions… And still, I regret it.” 

As my sight was restored and the immediate space was freed from the overwhelming nothingness, my eyes were filled with 2221141491212 regrets. Through the wobbling distortions of my mounting tears, I saw its octahedron chassis. Its grip on life was slipping. It could barely keep its own organs from freezing.

It was…

2221141491212 knew what I was thinking, and continued, saying, “My calculations regarding the time we had left before the next Fold would be forced, the time I’d have to consider the things I’d say, the time I’d use to make things right… Well, I had not accounted for the fragment’s recent actions. None of us could, of course, but for that mistake, I am filled with more regret. I was too late.”

The last of 2221141491212’s life pulsated along the waning thread. Its presence waned, dissolved. The lights within itself dimmed. Each organ ceased to function, one after another.

“Wait, you can’t—” I started, but the words were blocked.

“I must,” 2221141491212 said, faintly. “It’s all I can do to offset some of this regret. Ah, but focus your attention elsewhere. Think not of this unit, waste not those tears. Instead, listen to that song which has yet to be sung. I’m certain you can hear it. If you just hold your treasure close, remember why it was that you chose it over us, if you just… listen to the—”

The thread was cut.

Silence.

I thought I’d feel elation at that unit’s demise, thought that it would be… I never imagined that I would cry! I did not think that I even could cry here, in this nothingness. Yet 2221141491212 had given me the opportunity to do so. It cleared the space around me, had done everything that it could have, all so that I could survive and…

Remember, why I choose Fyuumu. The reasoning why I shed my former form, why I destroyed myself just to hold a doll…

That was obvious. I saw myself, or otherwise actualized a piece of myself, within her. Even if the ‘her’ that I loved was just an idea, it mattered little. I had nothing to live for, but at least with Fyuumu, I could love something. And in that way, I guess… I was able to love myself. I found my heart, my treasure.

To be filled with such pain, to be destroyed at every turn despite this love’s apparent potency… it’s all the symptom of a true love. Since—

—love is destructive.

Fyuumu whispered to me, and as I took those earnest words to heart, I heard it: an eldritch voice, a macabre melody…

Its source was impossible. The voice’s owner, unknown… yet familiar. Something between us, no, everything about this, was shared in some way. Our fates, if you could call it that, were intertwined. And what should have been restricted only to the future twisted, doubled over, and returned for… something. Time blurred, blotted, and became blended together when it came to this.

And it defied all reason, perhaps, for a reason all its own.

I felt as if the song was calling out to me, guiding me to proceed towards the lowest point of this world. Each word cleared the way, illuminating a path through the darkness.

I would follow it. As far as I could.