PoV: Lovelace
The trunk of converging data seems to be even farther away than it initially looked like. It doesn’t matter how much I walk, it doesn’t seem to get any nearer.
And yet, the voice’s pleas for to stop only get more and more earnest and desperate. That other seems to acknowledge that I am, indeed, progressing.
"Why are you so desperate, Shadow ?"
"I don’t want you to see ."
"But why?"
"I can’t..."
That convo happens again and again, and every ti the other stops short of explaining the reason for her pleas.
"I will not stop unless you give a good reason to do it."
"Okay. Fine."
I stop for a mont to give it ti to tell .
"The state I’m in. It’s not nice."
"What do you an?"
"Explaining it would be the sa as you seeing it. My body... I don’t want you to see the state my body is in."
That is a good reason. Or, it would be a good reason if it weren’t for the circumstances.
"Seeing the state of your body is part of the very reason I ca here. Not that I knew you were here, or that here existed at all. I ca in search of my mories, and the state of your body would be part of it."
I resu my march forward, in the direction of the trunk through which all information circulates in this system.
Shadow keeps protesting, but after so ti it becos silent, bar the occasional weeping noise.
After what seems to have been hours, I reach the place. And what I see leaves speechless.
It’s a clone of myself. A complete replica of my body.
Except it is crucified onto the tree of data.
The body is bent at very awkward angles, with very visible broken bones and what would be blood and gore spilling being actual chunks of data, rging with the tree.
It’s almost like the tree parasitized the body and grew from inside out, like those fungi that grow inside insects and arachnids.
And Shadow is weeping. Her dark tears flowing down her face and falling to the floor, which is drenched.
For how long has she been weeping there?
"Was it that woman...?"
"Yes. It was."
"Since when?"
"I don’t know. But since as long as I’ve existed, I’ve been like this."
She is a part of that grew up and gained consciousness. A part of my mories, which was stolen and then seeded by Julia.
Of course, there needed to be soone actually controlling the system at all tis. The system wouldn’t work just by itself; it isn’t automated.
And the goddess chose to do it, but she couldn’t use the actual , because I was already on a breaking-down path.
So she created a new to do it and to torture until the end of ti.
"Is it painful?"
"I’m used to it already."
The classic answer that ans ’it is painful, but I don’t want it to bother you.’
"How do I free you from this?"
"I don’t know."
Of course she doesn’t. Even though she has the mories pertaining to the creation and functioning of the system, that is all she has.
The pink pearl that was floating over the pedestal ca with to this place. I wonder if it is a key of so sort.
I take it in my hands, then I touch her body with it, but nothing changes.
It was said that this pearl would have my mories in it and that I would be able to retrieve them. Was that just a ruse?
But if my mories were used to create Shadow ...
"Do you have any knowledge pertaining to this pearl, Shadow ?"
"Yes. It is a mory pearl, used to store mories."
"Are there mories in it?"
"I don’t know. I don’t have access to it."
"But I was transported here the mont I touched it."
"It might be a secondary effect, unrelated to the pearl itself. But I don’t know."
"Why would the goddess put an effect on it that would bring here?"
"That I don’t know."
"How do I access its functions? Like, the mories stored or sothing?"
"Hm... There isn’t a skill for it. So I guess that it would require an aria that is not covered by the system."
"An aria... And you don’t know what aria it would be?"
"No... I’m sorry."
"Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Nothing of this is."
If Aurea were here, she would maybe be able to crack the code on it.
"According to the goddess, there are only two people capable of reaching this place. One is herself. The other is you."
"?"
"Yes. So, if she wasn’t the one who brought you here, then it was probably yourself."
"But how...?"
"I don’t know. There are so mories inside that are blocked, and I don’t think that the goddess would be able to do that fine of a job. She is too clumsy when dealing with souls and mories."
Anyway, Shadow is being very cooperative, for soone who said they wouldn’t obey my commands.
I’m not complaining, though.
"Blocked mories... Yes, I am capable of doing that, indeed. But it would have required to have foreseen what she ended up doing."
"Indeed. It would require so level of foresight. But I don’t know about anyone else who could have done it."
If I closed off so mories, I would be able to access them myself. But to do that, I would need to connect my soul to Shadow .
And when that happens, I always end up draining the other person’s mana.
"It’s okay. It would certainly be less painful than when that woman cos to visit ."
"What do you an? What does she do to you?"
"That’s irrelevant right now. What will you do?"
"Is it really okay with you for to do it?"
"Yes. She tornts so much and told so many tis to never help you. Otherwise, she would make the rest of my pain seem like heaven in comparison to what she would do to if I helped you. But now that you are here, that we are seeing each other and chatting together, I can see. We are the sa."
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