Nigredo

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say,” spoke the man in front of a thick glass window. He spoke calmly into a microphone with his hands behind his back, watching the man inside the tank. “And yet, here you are, screaming as loud as you can as if the frequency of your cries will halt your redemption.”

The man who spoke was tall with long, tidy brown hair that reached past his broad shoulders. His beard was gently peppered with grey hair. He didn’t look old, necessarily, but he looked as though he had seen more than most would in a lifetime. He looked at the screaming man curiously with his bright green eyes, the crow’s feet around them not deep enough to be born of genuine smiles.

On one side of the window was a large room. It was mostly empty except for three desks and a podium with a microphone in front of the window. Behind one desk stood a tall, thin man with rectangular glasses. He sat at his desk, furiously typing away on a computer. Beside him was another desk where a short, petite woman with piercing blue eyes sat. She carefully poured over a report on her desk, eyebrows furrowed while she toyed with her pen. She was less frantic than the tall man, but one could tell just by her fidgeting that she was nervous. In front of them was a third, unoccupied desk with a control panel, which contained a few dozen buttons and one red lever. The room was dimly lit with cold fluorescent white lights. The walls were painted grey, with cool, smooth grey and white marble floors to match. The room felt sterile and bleak, much like the work conducted here. The other side of the window was a small room with a sealed seven-foot-tall glass tank containing a man who was stripped of his clothing, his eyes wide with terror. The glass was so thick it was mostly soundproof, except for the muffled screams of the man inside.

“Why do you resist, my child?” said the man in front of the window, an air of curiosity in his voice. “You cannot avoid your redemption. You know this, right? The time has come for you to make your atonement. I do wish I could let you out, but that would be too easy.” He chuckled. “And very few good things have come from taking the easy way out.” The man in the chamber looked as if he was screaming more intensely, banging his fists against the tank. He must not have realized that his terror was just barely audible. The man in front of the window sighed deeply. “No… if you have any chance of saving yourself, you must take the path of righteousness. I know, I know, it’s a lot harder than just letting you out of there, but if you can atone, you can ascend. And when you ascend, you will finally be free. Freedom! Freedom to be reunited with Everything. Do you understand, my son? No one else can free you. Only you can free yourself.”

The petite woman, still wearing concern on her face, carefully stood up from her desk and made her way over to the man in front of the window. “Mr. Conductor, sir,” began the petite woman in a hushed tone, “are you sure you don’t want to go over the findings first? We haven’t changed any part of the experiment, and our subjects keep—”

“I’m sure,” replied the Conductor, not before muting his microphone.

“But sir, we can’t achieve what we want if our subjects keep dissolving. I’ve been going over the experiment logs and I think I found a way to stop the putrefaction. If we—”

“Dissolution is the first step, Miri. Our Lost Ones cannot rebuild if they have not been torn apart first.”

“But they don’t move past the puddle stage, sir.” The frustration in Miri’s voice was building and tension was building in her body. “The objective at this point is to get our subjects to Phase 2 and we can’t do that if we keep melting our subjects. Please, just look at—”

“Miri,” the Conductor turned around to face her. He looked deep into her eyes with an eerie warmth, cradling her face with one hand. “My angel, you must not question the process. This is not my will. These instructions were passed onto me to help our Lost Ones ascend to where they truly must be. If they remain puddles, that is how they were destined to be.” Miri looked uneasy. “Do you not trust the will of the Divine?” His expression grew cold, as if the warmth that was previously there moved past like a cloud, revealing darkness instead of sunlight. “Do you think I am incapable of carrying out the Will of the Divine?”

“No sir, you are capable, I just think—”

“Good. Then you will do well to keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“Of course, sir,” sighed Miri.

“Wonderful,” said the Conductor, smiling at her. He finally let her go before turning towards the tall man behind the other desk. “How are we looking, Roland?”

“Uh…” The man behind the desk took a few moments to finish typing. “We… are… ready. There we go.” The man looked up. “The systems are ready, sir. Upper and lower Dekeract projections are live and energized.”

“Did you find the location?” asked the Conductor.

Roland looked nervous. “Of the White Hole?”

“Yes.”

“Um… yes, sir. I just…” Roland hesitated. “Don’t you think we should try this on a smaller scale first to see if these calculations are repeatable? The mass of an adult person is not much in the grand scheme, but it’s more than enough to throw off—”

The Conductor’s eyes grew wide. “You too lack faith?” Roland looked back at the conductor, looking as if he was unsure of what to say. “Do. You. Lack. Faith?”

Roland glanced at Miri, who then glanced at her own feet. Roland then turned back towards the Conductor. “No, sir. I do not lack faith.”

The Conductor closed his eyes and took a deep breath in before slowly releasing the air. “Then let us begin.” He turned back towards the window and un-muted his microphone. “My apologies, my child. I did not mean to ignore you or keep you waiting. Redemption is ready for you now.” The man in the tank, who was still banging on the thick glass that encased him, looked as if he was mouthing the word, please. “Do not be afraid. Just imagine how strong and pure your energy will be once you have begun your ascension.”

The Conductor turned away from the window and walked towards the unoccupied desk. “Launch the sequence, Roland.” Roland nodded, and with a few clicks of his keyboard, the whirring sounds of a generator began. The Conductor pressed a series of buttons on the switchboard in a calculated sequence, almost like he was entering a password. “’From earth to heaven he ascends, from heaven to earth he descends, containing the force and power of the superiors and inferiors,’” the Conductor recited as he worked the switchboard. “Whence all darkness is illuminated from the same whose power transcends whatever is subtle and enters into the gross thing, the whole.’” The whirring grew more intense. The room began to vibrate. The lights on both sides of the window began to flicker slightly. “’And this operation has to subsist according to the composition of the greater world.’”

The Conductor pulled the lever on the far side of the switchboard. Then, two strange symbols appeared on the ceiling and floor of the tank, emitting a low glow. These symbols were circular, but they were not circles. It was embedded with edges and corners, like a cube reflecting on itself again and again. The glow also grew with an intensity to match the vibrations around it. The symbols became brighter and brighter, and everyone shielded their eyes with their arms. Suddenly, there was a crash that sounded like lightning hit a tree just metres in front of the Conductor and his associates, and a burst of light.

The whirring began to slow, lowering its pitch as the gears of the generator worked towards a stop.

“Did it work?” asked Miri, uncovering her face.

“I… I don’t know,” replied Roland, doing the same.

The Conductor lowered his arm down from his face. He gasped then stood up sharply, his eyes wide with horror. “Where did he go?!”

The tank, where the screaming man was begging for mercy, was empty.