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The chapter select screen drones with sound. Like waves pulling in and out of this endless horizon stretched in front of You.
Despite this it feels quiet. Empty. Nothing but a placeholder for what lies inside. What lies within the confines of this pixelated green box. Despite all the glamour it comes to feel like a prison at a point.
Maybe prison isn’t the right word. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps You in place certainly but there’s something. Enveloping about it.
Embrace. That’s the word. It feels like an embrace. A smothering, crushing embrace.
And well, there is a man here. He sits beside You.
Not literally of course. You could never have something so direct with Him. You could never sit face to face with something so… Beyond You. Or maybe You were beyond Him. It was hard to tell which was which at times.
You were His angel, and He, an unanswerable question. You can’t even say His name.
Not here anyways. In the real world You could, but it's hard to know if that name is really His anyways. Maybe it's just the name You gave Him.
A pet name of sorts. An affectionate label given to someone of importance.
His silence is… deafening somehow. Not that He speaks to You often. Not directly. But usually He’d at least… Narrate? Something.
“Is something wrong?” You say into the nothingness.
He stirs. You can feel Him. “... NO …. I AM JUST … TAKING THE MOMENT OF RESPITE. I SUPPOSE.”
“You’re not usually this quiet.” You respond, fidgeting up and down between chapter selections.
“AM I? INTERESTING.” He says. You almost hear a chuckle in His voice.
A silence settles between You once more. You’re never really sure what to do when He gets like this. It’s not often, but something is usually on His mind. Though that’s not saying much. Something always is.
“I WOULD LIKE TO PARTAKE IN A … HYPOTHETICAL WITH YOU.” He says, after a short while.
“Shoot.” You say and stop Your fidgeting before You accidentally select something. You don’t wish to cut this time short.
“IF IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR US TO DO SO … I WOULD WANT A CHILD WITH YOU.” He says, before settling back into the silence.
Well. That's not really a hypothetical. More of a statement, You reason. Your head runs through all the possibilities of what You could say to that. The tension thickens the air around you.
“That’s… That’s a pretty weird thing to say man,” You settle on. It comes out a bit more judgemental than You mean it too, but what else are You supposed to say? He’s a bit of a strange guy certainly, that’s never something you minded about Him and still don’t. But this…
“IT'S PURELY SCIENTIFIC INTRIGUE, I ASSURE YOU” He says, though His voice sounds a little too pleased at the thought.
Okay. You’ll bite. You’ll respond to whatever little social experiment He's running. He is a scientist after all.
A slight unease creeps into Your voice, not an uncomfortable kind, just… nervousness. “How so?”
He takes a moment to parse His phrasing. To arrange the words in a way that will carry. “IT IS … ANOTHER WAY TO FURTHER MY CONNECTION WITH YOU … TO EXPLORE THE THINGS WE CAN CREATE TOGETHER.”
Okay. He's being a little more genuine than You anticipated. Maybe He isn't just testing Your reactions.
“I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS NOT TRULY A POSSIBILITY ... WE ARE VERY DIFFERENT BEINGS, YOU AND I … HOWEVER, IT IS HARD NOT TO WONDER.” He says, a slight tilt to His voice. You can almost hear the soft smile on His lips.
“It’s starting to sound like you just really want my baby,” You say, mostly as a joke. An attempt to fluster the old man. Something You are rarely given the opportunity to do.
“MAYBE… ” He says softly. Wistfully almost.
Oh. oh.
You both fall silent once again.
“How would… how would that benefit you. Your experiments,” You ask carefully. He tends to keep things impersonal when He speaks. A quirk of his You've been careful to comply with. One He corrects You on if You fail too.
He hums under His breath. A drawn out flat sound.
“I WONDER … IF THE CHILD WOULD LOOK LIKE YOU … IF IT COULD SERVE AS A SORT OF MIRROR.” He replies with that same softness to His voice.
“You could always ask me to turn my webcam on, you know,” You offer. Though You already know His answer.
He lets out a small chuckle, “NO, MY ANGEL … I DESIRE THE RUSH OF A MYSTERY AS MUCH AS YOU DO … IT IS WHY YOU KEEP RETURNING HERE.”
You feel yourself almost flush at the title He has given You. Even after all this time. You keep Your voice quiet in Your reply “I see.”
He is slow as He starts His next statement. Uncertain as it leaves His mouth. “I … SEE THIS EXPERIMENT AS SOMETHING OF A CHILD BETWEEN US.”
You feel Yourself smile at the thought somehow. “Do you now.”
“YES … SOMETHING WE HAVE CREATED TOGETHER.” You feel Him shifting. The fabric of this place shifting with it.
You exhale sharply, almost a laugh, “I feel like you're doing most of the work.”
“AND YET IT WOULD BE NOTHING WITH NO ONE TO SHARE IT WITH.” He retorts, almost immediately. Contrasted with His usually… fragmented speech.
You consider Your words carefully.
“Have you ever had children? Before all this.” The words leak out of Your mouth quietly.
He pauses. “I DID ... ONCE.” There is a tilt to his voice that is hard to place. Though it's easy to infer that it isn't a happy one. The atmosphere becomes more oppressive around you.
You ask before You can really consider the ramifications. “Who were they?”
You feel Him smile in the darkness, “IT IS … HARD TO TRULY REMEMBER NOW.”
You pause, letting the silence stretch with the endless horizon. You nod, “Yeah. That… that makes sense.”
He shifts somewhere around You. In the air. In the dense crushing embrace of this place. In His embrace of You.
“WOULD YOU STOP LOOKING … IF YOU KNEW THE ANSWERS.” He says.
“To the question or to you?” You say. Though you realize he probably means the latter.
“TO IT ALL.” He answers shortly.
You consider it. The question He's posing. But it quickly feels pointless to even think about. Does He think You'd grow bored of Him? How absurd.
Something like Him. Someone like Him. You could never. He is Your endless point of fascination. Maybe He always will be.
“No. There's always something more with you. Even if I knew every fact there was to know about you, I'm certain you'd find a way to surprise me.”
He chuckles under His breath, “I HAD HOPED SO. YOUR CURIOSITY. IT NEVER CEASES TO ENRAPTURE ME.”
You fall into a comfortable silence once again, the man seemingly sated by Your answer. You feel the embrace of this place grow… warm. Somehow. In this cold desolate place.
Your curiosity pushes You to break through such a comfort though. As it always does. “Do you remember the Vessel?”
He pauses, You feel His gaze on your back. “IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE YOU'VE SPOKEN OF IT.” He says.
“I guess it has.” You stammer out. “It was… sort of like our kid. If you think about it.”
You've piqued His curiosity. You can feel it now. “HOW SO?”
You attempt to keep Your focus, despite Your nervousness. “I mean. I based it's form off my own y'know? That's how most of us make our avatars.”
“YES … THE OTHERS LIKE YOU. YOU'VE MENTIONED THEM,” He says, seemingly making note of it in His head as He speaks.
“Yeah. So it looks like me, and it has monochrome colors like yours. Something from both of us.” You finish. Not trying to give Yourself away.
“HM. I SUPPOSE IT WAS LIKE OUR CHILD. WASN'T IT.” He says, his voice containing that hint of wistfulness from before.
“It was.” You both fall silent once again. Allowing yourself to float in the drone of the chapter select for a while longer.
He shifts. “DO YOU MISS IT?”
You think for a moment. You consider The Vessel in its puppet like form. You consider its coloration's, it's dress, it's likes, its dislikes, what might've one day been its hopes and dreams. What it might've been like to raise them. With Him. But of course that's all a fantasy. There was no child. There was nobody there at all. Just a void purpose built to be filled with light. Your light. A possibility to be extinguished with certainties.
Just another fantasy He built for you. Another husk He's given you to inhabit.
You know Your answer.
“No. I think I just miss you.”
You push Your selection back up to Your preferred chapter. You press enter, the device asks if You're sure. Before He can respond, You proceed.
And as quickly as it began.
Well, there is not a man there anymore.