Chapter 5 & 6: Earth to Constance (Patreon)

‘Hmm? Where… Am I in my cottage...? I cannot seem to recall. Why do I feel as if I have been in a circumstance similar to this recently…? Some ale might stimulate my mind.’

A somehow familiar ethereal and feminine voice echoes from every direction.

Beta Entity 1-3-2-3 seal loosening. Fully integrating into the Cosmic System now.

‘Who is speaking? Oh, aye... I remember now. Earl? Is that thou? Wait, Earl has never spoken before.’ I attempt to open my eyes. ‘Why… Why can I not open my eyes! Nay, I cannot be in darkness once again! Pray thee; I cannot be back he—’

ERROR.

Analyzing Error… Cause Determined: Kiln Soul Interface is already operating within the Entity.

Searching for a Solution… Solution Found: Blend the system with the interface.

Beginning process...

The voice vanishes, replaced by the white words of a wall that intrudes upon the darkness that surrounds me. ‘Aye, I… I do not appear to be in the Tenebrous Place. Oh, Earl, how I love thee.’ I place my hand on my chest, finding it oddly heated. My blurry vision clears. ‘Wait, this is not the purple wall; it is blue. Is this the wall of that voice that was speaking?’

‘‘The what?’

The blue wall fades, and in the distance, a white light glistens before bursting, illuminating everything around me. I swing my head from right to left when I find myself standing in a peaceful, barrel-shaped room constructed entirely of stained glass. Hundreds, perhaps, thousands of different shades of color surround me as I gaze at the gorgeous chamber in awe. Finding myself near a section of clear glass, I stare outside, discovering the world is shrouded in a familiar heavy black haze.

‘The haze surrounds this place… but what about me?’ Lifting my arms, I see they are still blue, warm, and smooth. ‘I am still the girl of glass.’

I tap against the glass wall with my blue fingers, creating a sound reminiscent of two mugs bumping against one another.

‘It would seem I am.’ Turning, I gaze upward, where an intricate display of glowing glass floats. ‘Yet, should I not be the haze girl by now? More importantly, where am I?’

My hand finds its way to my forehead as I attempt to gather my thoughts, that is until a blue wall appears.

‘I… I do not understand; so much is occurring at once. If it was not for Earl nearly causing my head to burst with the “forced knowledge,” I am afraid I would be totally incapable of comprehending anything.’

The blue wall fades, replaced by another.

Moving my eyes across the message, I move close to the wall, stunned by my ability to understand what this ‘Cosmic System’ is saying. ‘I suppose this is what was meant by “improving language comprehension.” Did the Cosmic System understand I was having difficulties?’

I return my attention to the wall and give a small nod. ‘Aye, I shall remember that… not that thee had to warn me.’ I recall the information Earl forced upon me and discover some inconsistencies. ‘Art thee not the Cosmic Mana Stream?’

 Studying the message, I roam the room while my feet of glass clink against the floor.  ‘I am grateful… I think.’ My attention turns toward the kiln in my abdomen. ‘But what is meant by my ki—’

I am interrupted when a new wall appears.

‘Individual questions are not permitted.’ I stop and stare at the beautiful glass floor, finding myself gazing at my reflection. Wringing my hands together, my expectations for this conversation begin to sink. I take a moment to count to ten and hope that they can be revived. ‘What is meant by my kind? And battle portion? My combat skills are not particularly great. I was always more of the crafty type. Could thee please explain further?’

A new wall appears.

‘These questions were posed by others in this ‘Beta’ thing?’ I pause, but I do not receive an answer as expected. ‘Art thee related to Earl? He is not one for questions either. Although these five answers are already much better than him... Even if they are not particularly helpful, and seemed to be from scared and panicked people.’

Shaking my head, I give up asking any more questions, but it’s only a moment later, an even greater blue wall appears.

‘This is the wall called Status? This was in Earl’s forced knowledge. If I recollect correctly, this represents me in a sense. This is a lot of information, though, if I recall, this is only part of it.’

As I study the thing called ‘Status,’ committing what I can to memory, it vanishes before I am able to read the lower portion of the wall.

‘Wait! I… I am a bit slow of reading! Please, bring the “Status” wall back! That bottom portion seemed rather important! I would very much like to finish reading it!’

Alas, my pleas go unheeded as yet another wall appears.

 This time, wishing to avoid the wall disappearing, I read through the information several times over before allowing my thoughts to wander.

‘Aye, I believe I understand, at least fundamentally. But...’

As I am about to again attempt to pelt the ‘Cosmic System’ with questions, the wall changes.

I wave my arms as the black that surrounds this room starts to push against the walls. ‘What!? But wait! Wait! I have dozens, nay, hundreds of questions! For instance, what do the numbers mean?! I did not even get to study the “Status” thing adequately! Moreover, how do I check the other thing thee spoke of!? Just tell me more about anything! I am a rather excellent listener!’ The glass room starts to crumble around me as I run to the center of the room. ‘Prithee! I require more knowledge! Anything! Anything thee can make me privy to!’

The Cosmic System ignores me, and as the darkness squeezes my glass body, it begins to snuff out the light of its glow. I sink to the floor and pull my legs in close to feel their warmth for one last brief moment.

‘This is the final time. I will not allow myself to be swallowed by the murk again… One. Two. Three…’

Soon, yet again, the darkness reclaims my sight and then my awareness.

…
…
...

My vision recovers after what feels like… quite some time. For some reason, my body is curled in the fetal position, so I unwrap myself and stretch my arms, anticipating the sound of every joint in my body popping. Yet it never comes; instead, I bump in something.

A familiar purple wall appears before me.

‘Earl, is that thou? I suppose so since it seems to say so in the corner of the wall. Not to mention, it is once again purple in color... I like the purple wall better.’

Checking to see what I bumped into, I realize I am in a box made of six mirrors. The walls, floor, and ceiling all simply reflect the image of a girl made of a twisting haze.

The girl’s hair is straight and black as coal. It flows down the small of her back, where the haze eventually floats outwards. The clothes seem to be an extension of the haze with the same black color as the skin. The dress resembles a simple gown that runs to her ankles and covers her arms. Her face contains the outline of ears and a nose, but nary a trace of a mouth. Swinging the head to the side, I observe that both her ears and nose seem to be merely extensions of the haze, lacking actual orifices.

From here, there are three significant variances between the girl that troubled me all those years and the one that sits here now. The first is that she has discernible eyes and not merely discernible, but they shine with powerful violet light. The next would be the glass kiln embedded where once her navel existed. Even now, the flame inside sways peacefully, but occasionally it increases in size before shrinking to its original size. Finally, around this girl’s neck is the noose that ended my life.

I attempt to sniff the air deeply and endeavor to speak only to find I am still missing both my sense of smell and ability to speak.

‘It seems, as I was told, I am the girl of haze now. It is difficult to accept that this is me now. How exactly do the glass girl and the one I am presently fit together? Is the haze and the glass one and the same? Or are they utterly different?’

As I muse this, a cracking sound rings out. Freezing, I very slowly turn my head downward and stare at the floor. From where I sit, a web of cracks emanates outwards through the various mirrors.

Due to the sheer number of inexplicable happenings, instead of fear, I feel strangely melancholic. ‘Will the day ever come that I can simply open my eyes and gaze out over the world without some sort of horrifying or life-threatening occurrence? This is all too much to understand, but I refuse to be brought low by this.’

The cracks grow increasingly more abundant, spreading toward the edge of this place. I stare at the ever-worsening situation and watch as two cracks cross one another. A small piece of the glass slips from the floor at the point of crossing, producing a tiny window to the outside.

Gliding forward, I gaze through the newly formed opening. My melancholy is swept away when I discover an immense, stunning blue orb dangling peacefully in a vast darkness.

‘It is… incredible. Such a bea—’ All six mirrors burst, and my hazy body is exposed to the vast darkness.

I reach out for something, anything, I can grab onto, but only find complete and utter nothingness. Now tumbling toward the blue orb, I flip myself to face the direction I am falling. What I see is an azure ring with complex letters and designs, drifting just out of my reach. My head swings in all directions where I notice an object to my right, and in the far off distance. It is an object I am quite familiar with, a thing simply known as the moon. Which means that the blue orb must be…

‘The orb cannot be what I believe it to be!’

The azure ring expands outwards and then bends back, encasing me until I am entirely within it, making it resemble a ball rather than a ring. The blue orb grows in size, and in absolute perfect silence, vast amounts of red flames spew from all around the azure ball that is now encasing me. I flip and turn within the ball, striving to correct myself only to make it worse. Eventually, it stops on its own, and I am greeted by the sights of clouds from a direction I have never witnessed before.

‘Beautiful,’ I cannot help but finish my thought from earlier.

A moment later, I am through the clouds and am greeted by an alien world. A vast land seemingly devoid of green and almost entirely made up of towering gray box-like objects shrouded in fog.

‘Where am I!?’

A massive winged creature appears below me. The ball jerks and slows down drastically as I take in the thing before me.

It’s horrifyingly large, but despite that, it somehow manages to linger in the sky. Its body is a white cylinder with wings that seem hundreds of feet long, and like a shark, it has a large fin at its back. Realizing the ball and monstrous creature will collide, I raise my hands to cover my eyes, but the ball veers to the left, avoiding the creature—once removed from the path, the ball instantly regains its original improbable speed.

The pillars grow larger and larger until colliding seems inevitable.

‘It evaded the monster just to crash into these pillars!?’

Just as I believe my brief life as a Kiln is about to cease, the ball halts all movement. The haze that is now my body crashes against the ball before reassembling itself.

Before I may comprehend what has happened, the ball plummets. As it sinks, I notice some of these towers have people within them. Many simply gawk at me with wide eyes while a few scream shrilly, drawing others’ attention.

With a thud, the ball knocks the earth and vanishes as if it never existed. At the same time, with the ball gone, copious amounts of noises assault my hearing.

‘So loud! But I… I lived! I somehow lived! Was that the sort of thing Mana is capable of, and…’ I stare at the tall gray boxes. ‘Verily, are these buildings!?’

While I judge what to do now, I hear the shouts of two distinct masculine voices.

“W-what the hell!” one stutters.

“Alien!” the other cries.

I spin around, discovering two men wearing bright orange vests along with strange hats that look as if they are smooth white bowls. The two gawk at me wide-eyed while I stare at their odd attire. Although the bowl and vests are arguably their strangest garments, the rest of their clothes are also peculiar.

They wear oversized white jackets that extend down their arms and into a pair of trousers. The trousers start at the area just above their stomachs and run into a high pair of boots of the same color. A strap runs from the trousers and around the shoulders of the two, and both the trousers and the shoes seem to be made of some type of oddly smooth black material. On each hand, they wear long red gloves that also seem to be made of smooth fabric, possibly the same as the shoes and trousers.

Placing my arms behind my back, I try to smile only to remember I do not have a mouth.

With a half-opened mouth, the man’s head rocks back and forth. “That ain’t an alien; that’s a ghost! I don’t mess with ghosts, Frankie, not since that one time!” He dashes away.

“W-wait for me!” the other man shouts, clasping the back of his trousers tightly. “I didn’t know there was an Indian burial ground around here.”

‘Indian burial ground. So they have natives here?’

My gaze remains facing the direction the two fled until I simply shake my head and shrug. Having regained my wits, I glance around to find myself in a dim space between the buildings.

‘I suppose this is an alley if those are truly buildings. Why have buildings so large? How many people would have to live here to make use of such buildings? Where have I found myself...? Or should I ask what age?’ I glance at the sky and then the buildings. ‘I suppose it does not matter. I cannot tarry here, and I cannot afford to panic. Not if I wish to survive, not if I wish to never return to the Tenebrous Place.’

I spot a round metal plate lying next to a deep, round hole in the ground. Next to it sits many items of various sizes and make-ups. I am unfamiliar with most of the objects scattered about, but I do recognize a few of them.

‘A hammer, I believe, some sort of odd shiny bucket, and is th—’

From outside of the alley, I hear people arguing and yelling. I contemplate my next action for a moment before eyeing the swirling haze that makes up my body and then turning back toward the hole in the ground.

‘I cannot be around too many people as I am now. Not to mention, the dangers my presence would cause, the people would certainly attack, or at best fear me.’

I turn, pulling my gown in close to fit in the hole. It refuses to do so, and my hand just slips through as if neither it nor the dress exists at all. Shaking my head, I place my feet on the first rung and lower myself. The haze follows me, keeping its shape for the most part, though some of it is lost to the wind.

Once down, I find myself standing on a stone platform surrounded by a stream of muddy water. Hearing a noise, I look toward the platform’s edge to see a heavyset man with short gray hair, a bushy beard, and the same attire as the two above.

‘Is this sort of dress common here? Is everyone here clothed in such silly attire?’

The gentleman seems to be fiddling with a bag full of metal objects similar to the ones above. If I were capable, I would hold my breath to evade detection, but instead, I judge that I should simply flee as swiftly as possible in order not to terrify the man.

Turning away, to avoid my bright violet eyes alerting him to my presence, I carefully extend my hazy foot to check the murky water’s depth. What I discover causes me to tilt my head—my body appears capable of floating just above the water. In fact, it seems almost to refuse to sink into the water in this form. I get the feeling that I could force it to submerge itself if I commanded, but some sort of instinct at the back of my mind is telling me it would not be the best of ideas.

Therefore, I resolve to simply do what my new body wishes and walk just above the water. Rushing onward as swiftly as the haze allows, I glance back to see the man standing and waving around some sort of object that has begun beeping loudly and repeatedly. With wide eyes, he picks up his bag as if he intends to leave. Just as his head is about to turn in my direction, I race around a corner. I make note that I am slower than I expected; a max speed less than most people's walking speed.

Despite knowing it should be entirely dark, my vision is excellent, containing only a slight purple hue.

‘It appears I can see very well in the dark.’ I attempt to place my hand on my chest only for it to sink into the haze as it did with the dress. ‘That is a relief. I cannot suffer the darkness any longer. Aye, a relief.’

Like this, I resume walking through a labyrinth of gray tunnels.

‘Let’s see: One step. Two. Three. Four. Five….’