***
I groggily come to, and for the first time Sophia is missing. There is a little bit of panic in my chest, but I squash it. She's probably gone to get some food or something.
I've barely been awake the last few days, not gonna lie, the mana burn is really fucking me up.
Things have changed since my little adventure. I didn't really notice at first, but I can see those ghost thread things everywhere, they pinch at rifts. There's one in Amber's office in the next room. The rifts all hum, it's actually really annoying, and it's getting worse over time. It makes me feel kinda sick and gives me a headache.
The mana burn is worse, much much worse.
The whispering is back as well, different this time. Instead of knowledge, it promises answers. It wants me to follow.
Compels me.
'Gestalt, do you hear that?'
[Yes, we hear the whispers.]
'I want to follow it.'
[You should. You need to. Please.]
'You're affected too huh?'
[Yes. But it is okay, they will not harm you. Follow.]
So yeah, both of us are getting mind fucked. That's wonderful, especially when that mind-fucking is strong enough to affect Gestalt.
I should tell Maria or Amber or anyone, really. I know that's the right call.
But I'm not going to, because the whispers tell me not to. They tell me everything is going to be okay.
And from the very depths of my mind, I believe them; the whispers feel right. They feel safe.
Also, the last time I listened to the whispers a big fuck off hand saved me from dying.
Or at least dying permanently.
I'm I justifying the whispers to myself? This is fucked.
I drag my ass out of bed. Looking out the window, I would guess it's late afternoon. No sun and a multicoloured sky make it hard to tell.
I walk slowly to the door, following the whispers. I'm holding the wall for support. I am completely healed, nothing wrong with my body at all. But I feel like I have been drained of all energy. My core is Ms. Ouchies.
I walk the corridors of the Academy. It's busy; students and staff are all changing classrooms. Maybe it's coming up to dinner?
I follow the whispers, I can see the rifts in the Academy, even through walls. It's almost like a second vision, a whole other sense.
The Academy is positively riddled with them. Proto rifts as well, ones that look ready to form soon. Like knots in the thread. The active rifts are worse to look at, I can see the threads pass through them and see where they end up, space super imposed over itself. It is honestly overwhelming, my head ache is getting worse.
I pause and brace myself against the wall, I feel like my head might split in two.
The whispers become more urgent, beckoning me.
I stumble forward, the humming of the rifts is becoming unbearable. Buzzing now.
Some students ask if I need any help, or at least I think they do. I can barely hear them. I wave them off with a smile and a "I'm okay, just a headache."
[Tangerine, hurry, we don't think you are okay. Listen to the whispers, they will help, we know it.]
When has my brain slug buddies ever lied to me?
I continue my slow trek to the whispers. They guide me, telling me where to go, which corridors to take, and which ones to avoid.
At one point I vomit, manage to get it in a vase. Looks antique, I'm sorry for whoever finds that.
The whisper takes me to a corridor that has a very knotty rift to it. The threads show me how it works: you have to walk down the left side of the corridor, turn around at a certain point, and walk up the right side in a gentle arc.
I follow the rift, it takes me to a classroom, a very old one, dust and cobwebs everywhere. I guess this rift has been forgotten about for a long time.
The whispers are the loudest here. There is a hole in space, the threads fold towards it and are gone. No superposition, no other side, just nothing.
The whispers are telling me to enter.
[Listen to them. Please! You are about to have an aneurysm, quickly Tangerine! Go!]
That tracks, my head feels like it's going to explode.
I take a shaky step forward.
Into the void.
***
Ahhh, holy shit!
That's so much better.
My headache has completely gone. I'm still exhausted and my mana core wants to eviscerate me, but I will take that over exploding head.
I'm in a wasteland, cracked, dusty ground beneath my feet, the sky a deep red. There's a sun here, a big one, red and swollen, it looks to be at the end of its life.
I can see the threads here; they run in straight, orderly lines. There are no rifts, no hum, even the rift I stepped through is gone.
Elephant in the room.
In front of me, miles away, is a mountain. And on it sits Mr. Big Hand. Mrs. Big Hand? It's kinda got a female-ish looking waist? No tits though.
Its torso is kinda human-looking, if you squint. From each shoulder there are two arms, from each elbow there are two forearms, and from each wrist there are two hands.
It doesn't have legs, just an impossibly endless amount of tentacle-like limbs that grip the mountain it sits on.
Its head is featureless or contains an infinite amount of detail, depending on how you look at it. Honestly, I'm trying not to. It has a fucked up halo of geometric shapes that slide in and out of existence.
The last standout feature is its size. It's big. Like fuck off big. Like it could reach out and pluck the moon from the sky, big.
This is easily the biggest mountain I have ever seen and the thing is having to squat to sit on it.
I feel like my comprehension is breaking because of its scale.
It turns its head towards me and says, at a perfectly normal speaking volume: "I'm so happy to finally meet you, my daughter."
Yeah… honestly, that tracks.
"Hi dad?"
"Hmmm, no. That doesn't fit. I would prefer to be your other mum."
"Hah, holy shit, my mum… my human mum isn't gonna like that. She's not gay at all, looooves men."
"Oh, I know, your mum's a freak."
"Ewww no! I did not need to know that! No thank you! Wait, I'm pretty sure my mum conceived me at some bitching festival orgy she went to, how do you know I'm yours?"
"Other than the fact you clearly have Eldritch powers? That was me. I was the whole orgy."
"I… that's kinda fucked up."
"I was literally fulfilling your mum's dream, making her so happy that she would choose to keep you."
"Yeah, my mum would dream of an orgy of men. I wonder if that's why I'm so judgemental with Lillian and Daisy."
"Probably, our parents all fuck us up in some way."
"You have parents."
"Very, very complicated, I'm afraid you don't really have the brain to understand that mess, yet."
"... So where you been? Deadbeat." I ask.
"I've been here, there, and everywhere, all at the same time. Although I have been keeping an eye on you, I am very heavy…"
"Please don't say that, or I'm gonna get an endless amount of 'your mom's so fat' jokes from Shiv and Lillian."
"...Good point. Let's just say I can't really be inside a realm for very long without breaking everything. Bull in the china shop, when the bull is the size of china. It's that kind of situation."
One of my other mum's many hands moves tens of thousands of miles to adjust their halo slightly. "You aren't fully cooked yet. I'm still waiting for you to hatch. I'm very excited for the day you do. I've been talking to all my friends with kids about it, I have created a baby realm for you. You are going to love it!"
"I'm not a baby!"
"It's got dragons and shit."
"Sold!"
I shuffle my feet around in the wasteland dust. "Guess I know who I got the swearing from, my Mum, human Mum, always gave me so much shit for it. This is confusing, can I call you Mother?"
"Feels kinda stuffy, Mummy?"
"Fuck no. Mom?"
"Yeah, I like Mom. Thank you, •••••••••," she says my name, it's still Tangerine but in her true language, it is wrapped up in so much meaning, concepts and love. So much love. I think my body might unravel at the atomic level.
"I love you too, Mom," and I kinda do, in the same way a baby does, instinctively. "So, like, am I hatching or whatever? Is that why I'm here? Not to be spoiled or anything, but I just got this girlfriend, and it would really suck if I couldn't see her again."
"Sophia, yes, she is a special girl. You lucked out with her, reminds me a lot of your Mum."
"Fuck off! She's nothing like my Mum!"
"She really is, sorry. You get your taste in women from me."
I rack my brains remembering how my Mum used to talk and act, and holy shit. Moms right.
Fuck me.
Wait… why hasn't Gestalt made a joke about that?
'Buddies?'
Silence. "Hey Mom, what happened to Gestalt?"
"Gestalt's can't reach out this far. Don't worry, I saved their slug when I brought you here, I'll put it back when you return."
"So I'm going back?" I am relieved.
"Yes, you are not ready to hatch yet. Not for a long time. You will live a full human life, as a human. Your 'shell' got broken early, when you were taken from Earth. I am going to fix it; this might take some time, so please be patient."
A fraction of a second later it was done; the threads faded away. Mostly, I could still just about sense the one that was very close to me, for a few feet maybe.
"I'm sorry that it took so long. Should be all better now. I fixed up your mana burn while I was at it. That looked quite painful."
"Thanks Mom. Although I think our concepts and or perception of time might be different." I guess.
"Was that not very long for you?"
"Very, very short."
"Interesting, it's been a while since I've been human, you kinda forget, you know."
"I can still kinda sense the rift thread things. Is that meant to be like that?"
"I left a little bit of •••• sense for you, just enough that your human brain can handle it." Ugh, that language is a lot. That was rift/spatial/thread/grid/firmament and a whole other bunch of shit I can't comprehend. "Everything else I have put back behind your shell, you should feel a little more human again."
I think my life post-hatching is gonna be pretty wild.
"Does that include all the crazy possessiveness?"
"Slightly, that is part of who you are. When you hatch you will be a •••••••••." Ugh! That was a rough word to hear, kinda like Keeper/holder/taker/guardian/herder/controller/transference/plus a lot more shit that there are no human concepts for. "But with your shell back in one piece the human part of you will be more prominent. Which should hopefully make it a little easier to handle. Slightly. Maybe. Look, being a crazy bitch kinda runs in my side of the family. Sorry."
I just smile, "I wish I could give you a hug." I say, because who doesn't want to hug their Mom?
"We can do that." She smiled at me, like not actually because she doesn't have any facial features, but I can definitely tell.
The concept of scale changes, neither of us change size, but Mom ceases to be bigger than me, and I stop being smaller. Total head fuck, but now she's right there in front of me.
Let me tell you. You have never had a hug like a hug from someone with sixteen hands and tentacles for legs. Premium hug experience. Would recommend.
I cry, of course, because it's me, and Mom cries too. So that's where I get it from. I'm not entirely sure how she's crying, what with the no face and all. But she is.
It takes a while, but we eventually separate. "I'm sorry, baby. I have to get you back soon; this realm is starting to crack under my presence."
"Will I see you again? Before I hatch, I mean?"
"Yes, a few times throughout your life, you'll hear me more often than you see me. I don't need to save you again; you're just fine from here. A few close calls because you seem to love getting into trouble, but you'll survive to a ripe old age."
"Wait, do you see the future?"
"I see all the futures."
"Will I see all the futures, when I hatch?"
"Kind of, it's like •••• ••• •••• •••••••…"
"WAIT! No, Aghh, please stop!" I feel like my eyes are going to burst.
Sorry, human brain. I'm just very excited to be talking to you, you know, you're just such a cute little egg.
Scale snaps back to normal, and Mom is back to being an atmosphere-piercing colossus, squatting on a mountain.
"Before I go, can you see Mum? How is she doing?"
"Not great. Do you want to talk to her?"
"Yes! Wait, you can do that?"
"It's gonna be a little tricky, but I think I can get a signal through without breaking anything. Hold out your hand."
I hold out my hand, and my phone drops into it, all back in one piece and fully charged. "Did you just steal this from Cid's classroom?"
"It's not really stealing if it's yours, and no, my friend •••••• did."
I hold my pounding head, "Mom, please, stop with the language."
"Sorry, sorry."
"Did you say you had to send me back just now so I could ask this question, and then there would still be enough time for this phone call?"
"Yeah, course."
"Based Mom."
"I am rather based, aren't I?"
"You ruined it."
"I will have you know when the universe was young I was very cool!"
"Yeah when dinosaurs roamed the Earth."
"No, I was pretty old by the time dinosaurs came around, I wasn't cool anymore. Call your Mum. She is sad and misses you."
I turn my phone on, wait five minutes for the piece of shit to actually boot up, and scroll to my mum's number. "Is this actually going to work?"
"Yes, but it won't last long. The situation around Earth is… tricky."
I call my Mum. It rings three times before she picks up. "IF THIS IS SOMEONE'S IDEA OF A SICK JOKE…"
"...Mum?"
"Tans? Tans, baby is that you?"
I am immediately crying. "Yes, Mum it's me, I miss you Mum, I miss you so much."
"TANS! TANS! WHERE ARE YOU?! COME HOME RIGHT NOW!"
"MUM! Mum, listen please, I don't have long."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE LONG? IS SOMEONE HURTING YOU?!"
"MUM, mum, please, listen, okay."
"Oh god, Tans. You're alive. Oh god. Sorry, yes I'm listening."
"First off, I'm safe okay, I'm safe. There's this family, Maria, Derek and their six year old Emily. They are looking after me, and they are really good people, okay. You would love them."
"You're safe! Oh god, you're safe. Thank you, oh god."
"Mum, listen okay, I'm stuck, we all are. I can't get back to you alright, I'm stuck here."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE STUCK THERE?! COME HOME NOW!"
"Fuck how am I even going to explain this? Hey Mom, can I do video?"
"Yeah, should be able to." Mom said.
"MOM? Are you calling this Maria lady Mom? Are you in a cult? Have you been kidnapped?"
"No, wait, shit. That's not Maria, that's… fuck it will be better if I show you."
I switch the call to video. "Hi Mum."
"Oh god, Tans you're alive! Are you wearing makeup? Is your hair down? OH GOD WHAT FUCK IS THAT BEHIND YOU!"
Mom waves at Mum, "Hi we've actually met before, sorry for pretending to be twenty dudes at an orgy. There were a lot of very good and complicated reasons for it, and you really did have a very good time."
"....Tans,"
"Yes Mum?"
"What the actual fuck, Tans?" Yikes, Mum is really mad, she never swears.
"Okay, I don't have long, but the long and short is, I did get kidnapped by some bad dudes, but I managed to escape, due to some shit I inherited from Eldritch Mom here. But that was also going to go bad, but then a very nice lady called Maria rescued me, and I lived in her house for a bit. She turns out to be a Dean of an Academy which teaches magic, which I can do, technically. So she enrolled me into the Academy, and it's been pretty great. I'm doing well there, I've made a lot of friends and I even got a girlfriend called Sophia. You are really going to love her, and yeah that's it really…. How have you been doing?"
Nailed it.
"I spent the last two months thinking you were dead… No. Sorry. That's not your fault, wait, you are doing well in school?"
That's the Mum I know and love. "Yeah, I am, surprisingly. Not all of it, but there's this class called runes and artifacts. I'm doing really well in that, I think I want to be an artificer, maybe. It's early days, my friend Shiv, she's a goblin…"
"A Goblin?"
"Yeah, six teats and everything, we have been making all sorts of crazy things. Sophia, my girlfriend by the way, has been helping us too, with her barrier magic, she's really good at it."
My mum rubs her face with her hand. "You're okay?"
"Yes."
"You're at school."
"Yes."
"You are being looked after by a nice family?"
"Yes."
"You have a girlfriend?"
"Oh, yes."
"Apparently I had sex with that monster behind you?"
"Apparently."
"You can't come home?"
"I don't know?" I turn to Mom. "Mom, can you send me back to Earth?"
"No, you are too heavy now. You would rip a hole in that realm and fall right through. But, I might be able to bring your Mum to you. It would require some setup though, that realm is delicate and requires some time to recover. Some Rift Walkers made a bit of a mess there."
"Infinite Archives?"
"Yes."
I turn back to the phone, "I can't come to you, but do you want to come here?"
"It will be a one way trip, and it won't be right away." Mom pipes in.
"Is this the only way I can see my baby again?" Mum asks Mom.
"Yes, it is likely."
"Then yes. Do it. I want to see my baby again!"
"Okay, I will make arrangements. I will be in touch. Tangerine, I am afraid we are out of time."
"Okay, I love you, Mum. I will see you soonish!"
"I love you too, baby. Be good for this Maria lady. Study hard at school, okay!"
Classic mum. There are a lot more tears before I eventually hang up.
"Holy shit, you lied so much to your Mum!" Said Mom.
"No I didn't!"
"Uh huh, what about all the gun shit, and the assassin's, and Vampires, and you actually dying and needing me to come save your ass."
"Number one you're my parent, deadbeat. It's actually your job to come save my ass. And for the rest, well I didn't want to worry her."
"Uh huh, you know, if I couldn't see the future and didn't already know that you are going to be fine, you would scare the shit out of me. Also just a bit of a prophecy for you, if you aren't actually studying hard by the time your Mum gets to the city, she is gonna legit destroy your ass."
"Aww fuck, your right! Even lore nerd class?"
"Especially lore nerd class."
"Aww come on, that class is so boring."
"I know, baby. But it's time for you to go okay. I love you, I will try and talk soon."
"Love you too Mom."
"Oh before you go, this is for Gestalt, you look after them, okay. They are a good brain slug."
"Thanks Mom, will do!"
The threads around me move and tighten into a knot, a hole is made and I step through, back into the Academy.
Looking out the window, it's super dark now. Must be late.
I go to find Sophia, she's probably worried about me.
***
***