Marion stood up groggily, the sun up high above, head throbbing, he looked around trying to assess where he was or what had happened.
The sphere still laid in front of him, as unperturbed as before,
Yet this time Marion felt he could look at it, if anything his headache went away while looking at it,
'Weird, it feels familiar, something about this sphere, these symbols, they seem so familiar almost like i can understand what they mean, what they're trying to say'
Marion got closer to the sphere, and with bated breath, touched it,
In the middle of the rundown street, in complete silence, Marion touched a white sphere that was as tall as he was, engraved with symbols which felt oddly familiar to him,
Running his fingers along the sphere, tracing the symbols, he felt that feeling of familiarity more and more, it was a strange feeling, why was he feeling closeness to an alien object,
Circling the sphere and tracing the symbols, Marion felt he was infinitely close to figuring something out yet he didn't know what exactly.
At some point Marion started muttering noises unknowingly,
''fu....''
''xe...''
Marion blurted out sounds, while continuing to circle the sphere, like he was reading the symbols even though he didn't know what they meant, he felt he understood what this sphere was meant to say,
circling on and on for what felt like a long while, as if following a trail, his finger started heading to the top of the sphere,
Marion tried to follow but couldn't see what was at the top as the sphere was the same height as he was, trying to climb on top of it, he failed, falling on his back in the process,
Determined to make it up, Marion tried climbing up again and again, only to fall back down, it wasn't easy scaling a huge sphere, especially one that was so perfectly smooth that you couldn't quite grip it at all, even though there were symbols engraved into the sphere, the indentations were so thin and narrow they might as well not have been there,
After a long while of falling, Marion seemed to have exhausted himself,
''AH! i wanna get up there!'' Marion squealed exasperated ''wait, since when am i so dumb? why didn't i get something to climb onto? i've just been climbing for hours for no good reason, why can't i seem to think straight, strange...''
Standing up and shaking his head ''doesn't matter, i should go find a chair or something to climb on''
After a while, Marion came back with a chair and a stool, putting them on top of each other he somehow managed to get on top of the sphere without falling,
Now on top, he laid on the sphere and raised his hands in victory,
'done!'
'why did i want to climb up the sphere in the first place? what was i doing?'
Marion cocked his head to the side, he felt worried by how irrational his thinking was becoming,
sitting up and looking down at the sphere he remembered his immediate purpose, figuring out what the sphere was telling him, because it was telling him something, and he wanted to listen and understand.
When it talked, he should listen.
Marion traced his fingers along the top of the sphere, tracing where he had left off and continuing until he reached the highest point of the sphere, where the symbols ended and merged.
It was like a map, but it wasn't, it was...
''a name''
'it's name,
Marion opened his mouth, and a series of sounds he didn't even know he could make flowed out,
one after another a series of sounds flowed out, as if possessed by some entity that could speak these words fluently.
''...Tyruj'' Marion took a deep breath, it seemed he had forgotten to breath,
While Marion was recuperating he noticed something weird, the top of the sphere where he was sat on was glowing,
And the glow was intensifying by the second,
Marion stood up quickly and looked around trying to find the stool he climbed up on, but it had fallen to the ground,
Just as he was getting ready to jump down, the top of the sphere dissapeared leaving a hole just big enough for Marion to slip through comfortably, and that he did,
Suddenly Marion fell into the sphere, closing his eyes out of fear, he landed comfortably even though he felt he fell for quite a while,
Marion opened his eyes slowly,
He laid in a huge room of white, much bigger than the sphere had been from the outside, either he had gotten smaller, or the sphere had a way to make more use of the space it had, was that even possible?
Marion looked around, nothing but white, as per usual with everything pertaining to those creatures, yet he saw that he was seated on a cushion, why was that?
'did it sense i was going to get hurt and make me a cushion?'
Marion couldn't quite believe what was happening but at this point he just had to deal with things as they came, he was now seated in an alien spaceship, that was the reality of things.
A voice spoke out
''Welcome vessel, you are the 1947583958th owner of the %$^£*tyruj, we recommend immediate deactivation of the self destruction protocol for the preservation of the vessel''
The voice was all encompassing, coming from all directions, speaking as if to Marion only, as if these were his thoughts and not some outside noise being heard,
Marion relished in the sensation for a moment, the voice was pleasant, far too pleasant, almost too pleasant, Marion was almost lulled to sleep, the last sentence being the only thing that kept him awake,
''self destruction?'' Marion wondered furrowing his brows
''yes vessel, this shard has been selected for self destruction with the goal of annihilating this planet'' The voice replied as a matter of fact,
''what? HOW? WHY?!'' Marion yelled standing up,
''This shard along with many others will self destruct in approximately 594 seconds in your planet's unit of time in order to anihilate the planet, with the goal to accumulate all the residual karma that has yet to be gathered, this has been deemed the most efficient way to gather Karma for the 'ONE' '' The voice replied with all the smoothness of a seductress,
''what are you even talking about, 594 seconds, shit, that's less than 10 minutes''
''i am talking about the self destruction of the shard of which yo-''
''YES I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! HOW DO I TURN OFF THE SELF DESTRUCTION PROTOCOL'' Marion yelled fervently
A panel appeared out of thin air in front of Marion with a big red button in the middle with an imprint of a hand
''the vessel need only place his hand on the panel and recite the following 'i the vessel owner of the %$^£*tyruj am authorising the stoppage of the self-destruction protocol and am willing to assume all consequences that will come of this decision' ''
'consequences, what consequences, damn it all i can't afford to think about this now'
''i the vessel owner of the %$^£*tyruj am authorising the stoppage of the self-destruction protocol and am willing to assume all consequences that will come of this decision''
Marion was half worried he wouldn't be able to say the name of the vessel but it came out as naturally as it did the first time
''understood''