What is one’s goal? What happens to a machine which had lost its purpose?
As I ventured into the outside world, a new realization struck me. The freedom I had craved for so long made my life become something….
It was something empty…..
With survival no longer a constant struggle, I found myself asking the question that had never bothered me before – what was the meaning of life?
The skills I had honed for survival in the harsh streets and the facility seemed pointless in a world where basic survival was no longer a concern.
Why had I done all of those things before? To step on others? To control? To be the one that always stood above?
All of them seemed pointless. Surely, at the start, I tried to live freely. Entering a normal high school after a bunch of fake identities and stories and then looking at the normal humans and how they lived.
But then again, at this point, I had already become far more different. The emptiness I felt wasn’t satisfied by just blending in the crowd.
No, I had never been able to blend in in the first place. I was always an outsider. Even if I had perfectly acted as one and controlled everything inwardly, I always knew that I was in a different frame than others.
It was just how it was.
I became a wanderer, grappling with the void that replaced the constant threat of death. The very essence of my existence seemed uncertain, and I grappled with the question of what I truly desired.
I looked for different types of excitement.
I created a company and took many risks to taste the same feelings when I was a child on the streets. But, operating a company was a lot different from operating in those cold streets where your life was dependent on it.
I tried martial arts and fought to death in countless different types of underground positions.
But it wasn’t pleasurable either. This emptiness inside me was killing me, and I knew that. Then, at that point of time, I had entered the college.
It was just to ‘experience’ how it would feel, nothing more, nothing less. Then, I was introduced to the gaming industry.
For starters, playing games wasn’t that different from anything, either. They also felt empty as well, as if something inside me was never satisfied.
I played online games….but it was too easy…once my superior motor reflexes adapted, it became a monotone routine as well.
It was pretty close to fighting.
After that, I started playing story games. Not because I thought it would be different but because I started doing drugs. Even though it was pretty irrational, it was the only way to shut this mind so that I could no longer feel empty.
There, I came across that game.
During the game, I felt something for the first time long in a while.
Whether it was excitement or completeness….I didn’t know. Was the game perfect?
It was not. What made it special? I didn’t know. Was it something that could be explained by a rational mind?
It wasn’t.
And that was what I was looking for. Something I couldn’t understand, I couldn’t grasp. Then I played the game again and again.
Continuously, at different times.
And that feeling of slight completeness that I could never get from anything else continued to fill me.
But at some point, it started becoming not enough. Just at that exact moment, something happened.
Something that one could never believe. As I lost consciousness and appeared inside a space filled with nothingness, I knew what I was experiencing was something that could never be understood.
Therefore, I was able to keep my sanity in that necklace for three years. Even if this mind of mine never stopped, I knew I was close to filling that emptiness.
And just exactly the moment the opportunity presented itself, I took it.
I made my other self take it, too. After all, he was in a position where he could never refuse. It was interesting how his life had unfolded, but I lacked that feeling of empathy to understand his feelings.
But, I inwardly knew that he would fill this void.
At that point, we became complete, but not entirely, it seemed.
Watching him live his life like how it was supposed to be was certainly a surreal feeling, yet maybe because it was his past, I was buried under his consciousness and was suppressed.
However, the trigger for him to see came not long after. Awakening me and letting me enter his consciousness once again.
*******
Suddenly, as the clock’s frozen hands and forgotten memories overwhelmed my senses, the world around me blurred into darkness.
❰ Took you long enough. ❱
It felt as if an invisible force gently pulled me inward, drawing me into the depths of a new space.
The transition was both surreal and disorienting. Colors melted into shadows, and the familiar surroundings of my room faded away.
It was as if I traversed a nebulous boundary between the tangible reality and an ethereal realm different from anything else.
“Where is this place?”
I asked myself, and following that, another voice came.
“This is your consciousness.”
In this realm, I discovered another person sitting on a small rock. It was highly likely the person whose voice I had heard in my head.
“Who are you?” I asked, only to receive the cryptic response, “Don’t you know?”
As I gazed upon the figure, a profound sense of familiarity struck me. The features were indistinct, shrouded in a mysterious aura, yet there was an undeniable connection.
“It is you….”
This person…As the memories of everything that had transpired before coming here flooded into my head once again, I realized who this person was.
“The one I had accepted at that time,” I mumbled. The voice that had reached me when I was at my lowest.
“Indeed.”
He replied, his silhouette still shrouded in mystery. I had never been able to see him before, after all.
“But….” ᴛʜs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛʀ s ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛ ʙʏ ovl_Fir.et
However, it was surreal and not understandable. Inwardly, I was feeling worried. Worried, fearful, curious…Countless different emotions resided within me.
“You are wondering about my identity, aren’t you?”
His voice echoed into my head as if he had read my thoughts.
“You should be able to reach this conclusion on your own.”
Just as I thought about it, I turned to look at the events that happened after I had accepted him. How my fate had changed….how everything had differed.
If I was pathetic and weak-willed, he was my complete opposite.
The person who calmly watched other people die just in the first week of his taking control.
The person who calmly dealt with monsters and life and death situations as if he was experienced.
The person who constantly observed everything noticed even the smallest details. The person who led others in a way that was hard to understand.
“You…..you are the one.”
While I was a child, I had always felt that sense of freedom in my heart. I always sought and yearned for the world around me. I hated being confined in the spaces like this.
“You are me.”
As I mumbled in realization, his shadowy figure slowly revealed itself as I faced the person.
The same body that I had always seen before the mirror, the same eyes and the same face, everything.
“Indeed, I am you.”
He replied, his face devoid of any expression. It was scary as if I was looking at a hollow void.
Overwhelmed by a barrage of emotions, I couldn’t help but ask, “How? How is this possible?” The echoes of my confusion reverberated through the enigmatic space.
The figure, my other self, responded cryptically, “Haven’t you ever wondered why you were powerless all this time?” His words hung in the air, weaving through the darkness like threads of revelation.
The question lingered, a seed of doubt planted in the soil of my thoughts. “Powerless?” I muttered, grappling with the implications. “What do you mean?”
He continued with a question that cut through the fog of uncertainty, “Did it never occur to you that your soul was incomplete?” The words struck me with an unsettling force, unraveling the fabric of my understanding.
“Incomplete?” I repeated, the revelation settling in like a stormy sea. Each word echoed with a weight that I had never considered.
The figure on the rock observed my turmoil, his features an enigma in the shifting shadows. “You were always meant to find me, to complete yourself. To become whole,” he explained, the words resonating with an inexplicable truth.
“And I was always meant to find you, to complete myself.”
As I heard his words, I couldn’t understand. The figure before me looked more composed, and from how he did, it felt like he was perfect.
“What are you missing? What was incomplete in you?” The figure, perched on the rock, turned his gaze towards my eyes, studying them intently.
“I lack one profound thing,” he responded his words echoing in the enigmatic space. “Emotions, vengeful feelings, hatred, strong attachments, worries – everything that makes us inherently human. That’s what I am devoid of.”
“And you, the one who holds all those emotions to the extreme, are the one that could fill this void.”
As his words settled, I realized what it was. From time to time, how sometimes my past actions were randomly fueled by my feelings and how he randomly took control of them.
“You can see it, can’t you? Those times when we acted non-linearly. We had yet to completely fuse; it was never complete.”
“So…”
“Yes. Now, in this place, when we can see each other one last time, it is about time I say my farewells,” he declared, his face devoid of any emotion.
I watched, a mix of anticipation and trepidation, as he merged into me. The fusion was slow as if time itself bent around us. As our forms began to intertwine, I felt a surge of emotions, memories, and experiences flooding my senses.
“Now, we are complete,” his voice echoed in my consciousness. “I had finally filled this void.”
Suddenly, as if expelled from that mysterious realm, my consciousness was thrust back into reality.
“Haaaaaah……Haaaaaaaah…”
“Astron!”
———–A/N———–
This arc should make you understand why Astron was able to change this much and how easily he was able to adapt at the start. He was never meant to be normal, to begin with.
How his coldness and that grey barrier that Sylvie saw don’t actually stem from the original Astron but himself from Earth.
I hope I did a good job with unreliable narratives sometimes, but I am still experimenting with it, so please give me your feedback.
Anyway, we are approaching the end of the volume now, with a lot of foreshadowing and explorations, stay intact.