The Viluverse - Chapter Six

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Jensen slept quietly that “night,” a term he always thought had little meaning here, but he indulged it anyway. He saw ghosts sometimes, forms bleak in the twilight of another world as rays of light shone from beyond them.

They were unfamiliar - shapeless but bore the form of some familiar place he could not guess, a lingering feeling that crept with him like a hungry animal until he woke up again. No trips to Holos this time, although often he found he had to willingly go there or have experienced some untoward event in his “waking life.”

Melgu seemed the obvious candidate, but no shape or form of him was seen as gloom permeated the figures. They reminded him of distant memories from a faraway place, Earth perhaps, but that was a realm only familiar to him in memories he sometimes gazed at via starlight in his dreaming room onboard his ship.

Here, in the crystal prism encased beneath the cockpit, he allowed memories to transport him back to other times and places. They were accessible only via this method within the Vilu, a check to ensure people did not allow memories of darker years to cloud the present.

He would always keep the past at a distance when journeying there, the prism walls becoming a 3D holodeck of sorts with apparitions and distant memories playing out like movies.

He occasionally saw a thatched house, his own, he presumed, but from a time long ago as it was spelled out to him. Reincarnation? He did not know; that was a concept more reserved for the Viluverse, he felt, but nothing was outside the realm of possibility. He’d seen marching armies, steel-plated bodies, and their bloody conflicts march over beaten Earth and sodden soil; a potent reminder of a violent history humanity was still running from and carried deep within it like shards of trauma working their way out slowly.

He had never yearned to “role play” as was available on some planets but knew the urge all too well. He was playing it right now, essentially, only with upgrades such as laser guns, force fields, and the like. So where did this come from, he wondered? Were humans destined to carry on this dance?

He did not know and preferred not to dwelt on it, instead carrying out his fun as best he could, knowing how precious a resource the Vilu was. An entire universe of unlimited possibility was contained within a vast universe that no one had mapped.

The Vilu offered that possibility, and the gift of creation was something every single soul within it benefited from as they each carved out their kingdoms and mapped out their psyches to the beat of the video gamers of old.

How they would have loved this, Jensen thought, smirking as memories of the dreaming room vanished, waking life now finding him as he gazed around the small bedroom he lay in. It was pleasant and clean, small and compact, with cream walls with a white bed in the center. Nothing too complicated.

He yawned, hearing a knocking on the door, and bade Antonia inside.

“Hello, sleepyhead,” she said, grinning as he grinned back. “Dream well?”

“Oh, I always dream well, you know that.” He smiled as she looked down and then up at him mischievously.

“All too well.” She winked as he grinned, and she gestured. “Care to dance?”

“I’d love to.” He winked back and headed out the door, imagining a cooked breakfast which satiated him as she did the same, the pair now walking further along a corridor identical to the one before, Jensen nodding at her pirates who merely stared vacantly ahead, like guards awaiting a major event.

“Nervous?” She asked as he looked at her with puzzlement before waggling his hand.

“Maybe, gotta remember how good a dancer you are, shape my moves up a bit.”

“Been a while huh?” She asked with confidence as he winked.

“A little, need to get warmed up first but after that….”

He gestured.

“Plain sailing.”

“Quite.” She smiled, exuding quiet confidence as they approached a doorway that suddenly opened in a wall in front of them. It began pulsating at the sides, a yellow light turning to green, red, and blue, as music could be heard from the other side.

“Wanna dance?” She asked, holding out her hand.

“Let’s go.” He winked, and they both walked forward as the doorway opened, and a long, white pathway extended ahead in a giant shaft, lit by stars shining in its grey walls. Far below them, a dark blue void loomed like the deep sea. The Field of Fire.

They both nodded and jumped off the pathway into the void as the tunnel started to expand, and they suddenly found they could walk in the air.

They took positions on either end of the vast space, poised and eager. She bowed; he curtsied as loud music began booming all around. Light started flickering before bathing the tunnel in red light, as thumping bass could be felt in their bones.

She jumped forward, a whirlwind as the bass moved through her, a techno move that he had growing tall like a giant before shrinking again, glowing in many colors as she twirled around him like a whirlwind, multiple versions of her surrounding him as she reclaimed them for her own.

She danced like thunder as dancers from Earth’s past surrounded her like a chorus line, disco moves mixing with soul grooves as she let the rhythm take over.

He nodded, grinning, impressed by this show as he then conjured up his own version; a mixture of classical and heavy rock, as he fought back, two versions of him now playing the electric guitar as stadium crowds roared around him, cheering him on as an electric orchestra played multiple rock band anthems, heavy guitar mixing with thundering bass as two giants thought with baseline thunder.

They danced this way, his crowds forming giant spinning bass formations like gravity wells as her dance troupes formed around her like shoals in the ocean, their music colliding like lightning as the two universes within the shaft vied for supremacy.

His rock anthems met her techno boomers like thunderstorms in the night, reverberations echoing through the chamber as sparks were seen flying, sending crowds hurtling as electricity flew through the air.