By David C. Daoust
Clover was sprawled out over a long table. His face pressed against the solid surface as an endless array of data-tablets spread from one end to the other. Mismatched and unordered, many threatened to spill off onto the floor… to join those that already had.
The young Ward was out, he’d dozed off after learning of the ‘General of Mars’. It was, to Clover, the boring bit. ‘The calm before the storm’ was his hope as he struggled with consciousness… Unfortunately for his research, and the coming storm, he’d fallen to sleep before the first flash of lightening could split the sky.
Clover’s mind, however, had a storm brewing of its own. He found himself hovering above the darkened towers of the city. The stark white skies in the distance. The small, ever present, spheres of his nannies circled him slowly. They pulsed with light as they twirled. Fear, Will, Faith. Which was which, didn’t matter. It helped the Ark understand the complex wishes of the Wards, without trapping it within the paradox that had cost Clover’s ancestors so much.
These ideas were more than just a crutch for the program, it was a basis for the descendants own school of thought. The core of their belief system. Followers of Ergos dissected their own thoughts based on which of these three aspects were behind the idea; which changed the narrative, the vision.
Lost in a dream, it was like a conversation with his own mind, as the world shifted to a realty not so far from the current.
In this reality, however, the giants had conquered the entirety of the City-station. The Wards had lost their way of life, the giants came, took control, and forced the Wards to stand aside. Clover found himself trapped under it all, a great weight on his chest. Some had fled, others died, no one was there to help the young. Their old lives lost, all that the future showed was completely dark to Clover. A void that stretched on and on.
It was here, in the void, that he denied it. He invoked his will. He changed the world, the vision, to suit his own want. He’d summoned a will for a different outcome. The void became a canvas, and he painted the giants out. The Wards rallied and marched, conquering the conquerors. The invaders were banished, and the Wards had won out in the end.
It was clear crisp image.
This image, however, crumbled with the inevitable questions. Burned holes from the lack of explanation of how this end came to be. The fear spread anew, like acid crumbling the image. Warping it, and melting it, until the void returned.
The two spheres twirled before him. Why did the image of fear stand so strong? Why was it so vibrant and real? Yet that image born of will, would crumble.
Fear did not ask for details; it did not ask for how this would come to be. No explanation. It just was. So solid, unbreakable, rigid. It didn’t require knowledge, or logic, or reason. It was a thing that corrupted thoughts, dropped them into a darker and darker reality. Until it was pitch black and Clover found an image of all the Wards, of all the city-stations, lay dead throughout Hearth… empty beds, empty cribs, not a being flew through the city, just a steady march of giant invaders. The horror wracked through his core as he tried to make sense of it.
From here, Clover could not even recognize another option. Hope was banished… it was all so dark. The last sphere gone, it showed no image, posed no possibilities. His mind could not conjure anything else, anything else seemed so fanciful, fantastic… he grew weary in his own dream.
He was no longer within the city. He found himself crammed under the darkened dome of his powerless Scion, controls gripped by his hands and feet. The stark white skies of his home, were replaced by the star filled black of the Beyond. His mind drew a parallel, he’d brought himself here with all his dread, all his fear. To a place he had been before, lost and powerless in the dark, where he found himself at the whim of the giants. A world where they’re not so big, he was just really small.
It had not played out in a darker and darker version of reality. Not in the end.
The dome came away and he was greeted not by an angry hate filled giant, but a kind compassionate being. One that tried to sooth his worries… how had he lost that? How had he ignored it for so long? She had lifted him in her arms, cradled him. Just like he had himself, with so many of the young over his life. Just like he had witnessed those closest to him do, so many times. Strange blue eyes, completely different from the black eyes he was familiar with. They were different, but the same.
It was here that the darkness receded and the fear finally stopped choking him. What he felt, now, was so much simpler than the false façade of Will; the one that begged questions and answers, demanded explanation.
What he felt, now, did not create an all engulfing image like Fear.
What he felt was just a simple truth. It awakened his Faith, and he felt a trust well within himself. The light banished the dark, and the thoughts… the image of Fear, seemed ridiculous. The darker, the funnier.
Clover’s eyes fluttered open as he regained consciousness, he rolled over on his back and heard as all those tablets, that threatened to fall, scattered to the floor. He lay staring at the high arched ceiling above. Something was different. He was relieved and relaxed, he felt as though he had just come out of a long tunnel, and only just realized how dark it was in there. But most importantly, everything didn’t seem so impossible anymore.
He grabbed up the closest data-tablet, and flipped to where he left off…
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