The Viluverse - Chapter Ten

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Jensen couldn’t move as the figure grew larger before him. His pulse began to rise as blackness swirled around him like a fog. It was childhood innocence calling him like a siren song as the giant loomed over him.

“Time for a lesson, eh Jensen”? Bill wagged his finger at him as projections of his idyllic childhood flashed to his right. His mother played in the courtyard with him, a herb garden nearby, as sunlight shone like rays of gold. He teared up, not sure if any of these memories were real as his time in the Vilu had often, he thought, suppressed memories he had from the past.

Was this some game? He knew Bill was a manipulator, but whether he was now the subject, he did not know. He could be, but nothing was as it seemed here; that was the feeling, and the more he tried to comprehend, the less it made sense.

The image suddenly grew darker, and a comet hurtled through the sky, disintegrating all in the image apart from him, who watched as his mother burned. He shuddered as the giant smiled and flicked his finger.

Another image, this time of armies, hundreds of thousands of men strong who piled across a stone bridge in a vast city shrouded in darkness, the river beneath already engorged with blood as smoke rose over the proceedings like a thick blanket of night.

Jensen could not begin to comprehend the carnage he was now seeing; men torn from their wives, and vice versa; children suffocating under the smoke, which looked like a nerve agent of some kind; unsavory behavior that would put his worst nightmares to shame as he looked on in dismay.

“Please…stop”, he cried, as the giant only grinned. “No, there is more, watch”.

He flicked his finger again, and now Jensen saw himself as an adult, but with an image of his mother superimposed on top - a weird hybrid that grew violent as his mother disappeared, torn to shreds in a violent motion that left him sick with disbelief.

Jensen began weeping, and the figure clicked his fingers as all turned to black, and all that he saw were red eyes glowing where his face was.

“You must learn patience, my young one…one does not face the past without some reckoning, and you have now seen yours, plain to see by my decree.”

Jensen felt nothing but a hollow void as he heard his mother's voice, soft like starlight and caressing his feelings as all felt numb to him. Had there been some atrocity he’d been a part of? Had the comet existed? He felt some vague semblance of recollection, but it died away like a flickering flame, and he began to weep uncontrollably.

The figure began to laugh; softly, like a mocking chime at midnight, and Jensen felt stirrings of hatred within him.

“What do you want"? He asked, now staring at the red eyes which intensified. “Why this…why is this only training?"

The figure loomed forward, only the red eyes floating like red stars in the deep abyss.

“Training is important…any travel through time will bring back memories you do not wish to see, we call it the “continuum” effect; you will feel lashings of memories, feelings you had at each specific point in time in your life, often with a central trauma or traumas forming roots for them as a base point; so, like the marathon runner, you must confront these traumas, or what you think are traumas, in order to successfully steel yourself for the journey ahead.”

Jensen pondered this as the figure's eyes seemed to flicker like fire.

“What I…think is trauma?”

The eyes moved back again.

“Yes…in the Vilu, memories, real memories that is, can become dissociated, distorted by the constant stream of dreaming, therefore, real memories become harder to recognize…and when are, the results can often be catastrophic.”

Jensen pondered this and looked at the floor before staring at the figure.

“How…will I know?”

He thought he could detect a smile coming from Bill, or what was Bill, but he only imagined it.

“That is for you to find; your intuition will be your guide, as will your Vilu dreams…rumour has it, there are special markers for you to detect your real memories, but they will be revealed in time, and when you visit specific places that have their own…quests if you like.”

Jensen stirred the first mention of this, now setting off a chain reaction in his head.

“How have I never heard of this before?”

Bill’s eyes burned more intently.

“That is for you to find out…the Viluverse has many secret pathways, and many roads to knowledge have this own adventures, as you will soon find out…why make it obvious when you can make it fun?”

Fun, Jensen thought, pondering this as the intensity between him and the figure grew even more. He no longer thought of Bill as Bill, merely another test of endurance as emotion surrounded him like a storm. Some virtual, unknown environment, to be navigated like a sailor of old at the edge of the known world. Not wanting to fall off the edge but knowing there was no edge…only his emotional edge, which promised riches beyond his wildest dreams if he was to go there like an adventurer of the golden age made new in the land of possibility that was the Vilu.

“I suppose so…”. Jensen considered this, now feeling a stirring as the figure grew small again and light returned to the room. Bill now looked his usual self again as the two sized each other up, space around them, stars traveling like pinpricks in the dark as Jensen could now feel his old self returning.

“Well…how was that for tasting a bit of trauma?”

Bill asked this like a customer asking for a culinary review, and Jensen smirked.

“Just fine I guess…exposure treatment?”

Bill grinned.

“You could say that…now for the real thing, now you’ve had a taste of the intensity, we’ll move you forward in the process, goodbye Jensen…we will meet again, mark my words, but not for now…I’ve had my fun if you like, now time for you to return to reality, face the task, if you’re up for it, and return richer in the process.”

He nodded to a door with light pouring from behind it and through which opened far off to their right.