Unnamed Memory - Volume 6 - Chapter 8

8. The Gray Room

“I wish I could have watched you all a little longer,” someone said, and Oscar came to.

Evidently, he’d lost consciousness for a moment. It felt like he’d been sitting in this little gray room talking to an unfamiliar young man forever.

He didn’t recognize the other occupant, who was sitting at the empty table with him. Oscar sank back into a soft chair. His wife’s head lay in his lap; she was asleep and breathing peacefully, legs curled under her on the ground. Locks of her long hair swept gracefully across the floor of the chamber.

Calmly, though with obvious regret, the man admitted, “I wanted to save you humans. Isn’t it sad when a mother loses her child? I wanted to let her do things over. That’s all. I hoped to give all of you a chance to overwrite whatever mournful or cruel thing occurred, if that was what you wished to do.”

“Even if it drove our world to the brink of destruction? Sometimes you save one thing only to give rise to another tragedy entirely.”

“I thought that you humans would do something about it, should that come to pass. I only meant to expand your options and permit you to make repeated attempts, however many times you needed.”

“We didn’t need that. We’ll handle things on our own.”

Their back-and-forth had gone on for ages now. It felt like the same conversation had repeated for a very long time, but also like it had only just begun. All in the small windowless room was gray, like an endlessly rainy day.

Tinasha’s rhythmic breathing was the only sound.

The man cracked a sliver of a pained smile. “You don’t need it? I thought you might say that. But our power already permeates the two of you. Now you can remember all of the lifetimes you’ve lived before, too, can’t you? There’s the proof. You’re just like the humans linked to that tool, but much more powerful. When you die, your souls will not dissolve back into the world as other humans’ souls do. You will keep drifting as foreign objects, divorced from your humanity.”

“Foreign objects?”

When he destroyed Eleterria, two forces—the artifact’s power and Akashia’s—poured into Oscar and Tinasha. A transformation capable of changing the world had filled the pair.

No ordinary ending was possible for them. It was Oscar’s responsibility that such an unprecedented end had come and that Tinasha had gotten wrapped up in this.

However, he knew that Tinasha would smile and say, “I’m glad we’re in it together.” That brought him both comfort and pain.

“If it all gets too unbearable, we’ll figure something out. I know she will, at the very least,” Oscar replied. As long as he had Akashia, he could at least free her.

But the man tilted his head at Oscar quizzically. “Are you truly all right with that? You might wind up alone for eternity.”

“I’m fine. I’ve already received so much.”

Tinasha had showered him with love over the course of many, many lifetimes. It was plenty.

“Why have you interfered in our world?” Oscar questioned.

“Because it’s our role to make contact with you and accumulate knowledge. Although, all of us have different reasons. I do it because I’m interested in you. I would have liked to watch you for as long as possible… But the woman who made your sword told me I was being arrogant.”

“Rightly so.”

“Meddling in others’ affairs is an arrogant act, no matter how you go about it,” the man stated, his voice dripping with undisguised self-loathing.

He was one of the observers from outside the world, the creator of Eleterria. The man in the room was a fragment of consciousness contained within the artifact. No—left here, purposely. It appeared he’d been awaiting a visit.

“Don’t you care that your tool’s been destroyed?” Oscar asked.

“It’s merely the result of you humans trying things out. And besides, nothing’s settled yet.”

“Because there are still other artifacts?” Oscar sighed, getting to his feet. He picked up Tinasha, still asleep, cradling her to his chest.

A little door appeared on a gray wall. As Oscar headed for it, the man’s voice stopped him. “Going back already? The world is waiting for you two. You’ve finally appeared—beings who can battle against our devices. It won’t let you go until all of them are gone.”

“I don’t care.”

Had he feared that, Oscar wouldn’t have destroyed Eleterria. If he’d desired to spend eternity dozing in a little room, he would have picked a peaceful life with her from the start.

So even if this was only the beginning, he had to accept it. This place was the waypoint that allowed them to reunite, after all.

Oscar heard the man offer, “Then go on and give it a try. Keep trying.”

He opened the door and stepped out into nothing.

“The world and I will give you the transformation you need to keep fighting.”

The original world would rise anew from a blank space where nothing had even begun.

And then…?