Author’s Note: I wrote this story, from the perspective of my character Leila, as a way of resolving her story that began three years ago, and as a way to celebrate the 10th (!) anniversary of the beginning of Breath 4, whose Valhalla was mostly the product of my brain when I was a dev. Much of this story expects one having played Nexus Clash during Breath 4, although I hope that people who missed out will still enjoy it. Some of the first half of this was played out in-game, and a few folks might remember those bits. I couldn’t find the right folks for the latter half, so it took this form instead.
I will be posting one chapter/entry from this story every day for the next two weeks, except for today which will get two chapters. I hope you will enjoy reading it.
CHASM
"What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I know not." – Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book XI
Entry 1
I always assumed I knew exactly who I was. These days, I’m not so sure. I think maybe writing things down will help me stay grounded.
I have lived countless lives and died countless deaths in the Nexus. So I’m not particularly remarkable here, since everyone else – everyone I’ve met – has experienced the same. It is a kind of immortality, where death has almost no meaning. Like Borges wrote, being immortal is, on its own, not very remarkable. Any creature that does not understand death, he said, is immortal. But it is terrible and torturous to know oneself is immortal.
Today, I realized I’ve almost completely forgotten my life before coming here, and that what I do remember is fading. I remember some details. My name, of course – Leila Álvarez. Where I was born – near Monterrey, Mexico. What I did for work – I was an oral historian, with a focus on people like my ancestors, who were refugees from Palestine. One of those ancestors was my namesake. I wrote fiction in my spare time. I was a Third Order Franciscan. I was 24 years old. The last Earth year I experienced before my first life here began was 2027. But beyond these details, I do not have strong memories of my life before the Nexus. It feels like a dream, like it was not even real.
It’s strange. I remember Earth itself. I remember years, dates, places, technology – fashion trends, even. Perhaps I remember those things only because so many of them are also present here, on an alien world – a place called Cordillera that was settled by people from Earth. But I do not remember myself. All my reminders of the past seem to have failed. I wear a silver ring because I remember having always done so. But most people who wear such rings wear them to remember another person – a spouse or partner, I guess. I don’t remember who I wear this ring for.
I noticed something else, increasing in frequency lately. I keep having vivid dreams of a farmhouse, perhaps from the 19th century, and a young woman I’ve never met before. She recurs in my dreams so frequently that I could probably draw her face. She has bright green eyes and dark brown hair. I don’t know who she is, or why she and her house appear with such consistency in my dreams. When I dream of her, she is often by a lake, but she is just as often at a writing desk.
Obviously, this isn’t helping with my identity issues. I want to know who I am and be certain of it. For now, I’ll just keep working to find out, and hope the answer will present itself.
Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 2
The recurring dreams have gotten more vivid, more clear. The woman speaks English, or at least I hear it as English, though I never remember exactly what is said. Sometimes she goes to greet a horse-drawn carriage – the men and women who emerge always wear clothing that looks like it’s from the 19th century to me. So I feel fairly confident the farmhouse is from that era. The woman's father keeps an old musket as one of his many artifacts in his study. I guess she worked for him, since she often dictated writings for him.
I only know for a certainty that the woman lived in a time long before my own, a time I never experienced. I was born, lived, and first died in the 21st century. That is one detail about my identity that I do remember well. Maybe I’m just overthinking this. I have been doing a lot of reading here – reading histories of worlds that, for all I know, never existed. Worlds that were said to be past Valhallas – past battlefields.
Maybe all the histories are just messing with my sense of self, along with so many deaths. Each time I come back, things are hazier. I used to think I always came back in the exact same body, or aspect as it is called in this place, but these days I notice small differences, especially the longer I exist in the Nexus. Sometimes I am slightly older, or slightly younger, or my clothing is different in some small way.
So, maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised by weird dreams. In the dusty archives of Purgatorio, I did find something that feels worth investigating further, a name that feels too familiar to me. A woman from a place called Laurentia. Maybe the woman from my dreams: her name is Amelie Moreau.
I am sure these archives hold the answers I seek. I have already found a cache of information, labelled “Laurentian Collection 301”. Everything in this cache seems to pertain to that place the woman was from. And skimming through it, everything feels oddly familiar, but I can’t explain why. It is not a familiarity from my dreams – most of this collection pertains to the 21st century: that is, the modern day, or at least the modern day as I experienced it before I was brought here.
I passed an old computer of some kind in the corner – its monitor flickers when I walk past it, though it is plugged into nothing. Possibly useful, though not for these old documents. But something in here must help me find the answers.
The recurring dreams have gotten more vivid, more clear. The woman speaks English, or at least I hear it as English, though I never remember exactly what is said. Sometimes she goes to greet a horse-drawn carriage – the men and women who emerge always wear clothing that looks like it’s from the 19th century to me. So I feel fairly confident the farmhouse is from that era. The woman's father keeps an old musket as one of his many artifacts in his study. I guess she worked for him, since she often dictated writings for him.
I only know for a certainty that the woman lived in a time long before my own, a time I never experienced. I was born, lived, and first died in the 21st century. That is one detail about my identity that I do remember well. Maybe I’m just overthinking this. I have been doing a lot of reading here – reading histories of worlds that, for all I know, never existed. Worlds that were said to be past Valhallas – past battlefields.
Maybe all the histories are just messing with my sense of self, along with so many deaths. Each time I come back, things are hazier. I used to think I always came back in the exact same body, or aspect as it is called in this place, but these days I notice small differences, especially the longer I exist in the Nexus. Sometimes I am slightly older, or slightly younger, or my clothing is different in some small way.
So, maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised by weird dreams. In the dusty archives of Purgatorio, I did find something that feels worth investigating further, a name that feels too familiar to me. A woman from a place called Laurentia. Maybe the woman from my dreams: her name is Amelie Moreau.
I am sure these archives hold the answers I seek. I have already found a cache of information, labelled “Laurentian Collection 301”. Everything in this cache seems to pertain to that place the woman was from. And skimming through it, everything feels oddly familiar, but I can’t explain why. It is not a familiarity from my dreams – most of this collection pertains to the 21st century: that is, the modern day, or at least the modern day as I experienced it before I was brought here.
I passed an old computer of some kind in the corner – its monitor flickers when I walk past it, though it is plugged into nothing. Possibly useful, though not for these old documents. But something in here must help me find the answers.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 3
Laurentia, a city-state that was on a world called Meropis, which became a past breath’s Valhalla. That is what I have learned from this cache, and from my conversations with other inhabitants of the Nexus. Amelie Moreau lived in Laurentia, and she was the youngest daughter of one of its founding fathers. She died young, in the year 1858.
But Amelie’s two sisters seemed to outshine her in fame, and history forgot her, if these archives are any indication. So much was written of and to her sisters, and her brother – who seems to have actually been a half-brother, but was just as important as their father in Laurentian history. But so little is written of Amelie. Why?
Inside the cache of documents, I found a collection of Amelie’s letters, and her diaries, published in the 21st century of the world Laurentia came from. I immediately had a visceral reaction reading the first letters documented. I didn’t just feel like I had read them before, I felt a stronger feeling of familiarity. Her words felt too familiar, like I had seen them many times before. But I can’t have. I didn’t know she existed until the other day. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me?
Her diaries are very sad to read. She was an incredibly lonely person, someone who struggled with the burden of expectations, but someone with a bright imagination. As far as I can tell, she never wrote any fiction, but she dreamed of one day writing fiction. But for all her ideas, she said she was always too busy reading the works of others to actually write her own stories.
She had remarkable visions about the way the world should be. She believed in healthy connections as the foundation for a healthy society, and that we neglect our connections at our peril. She was bothered by how individualistic Laurentia was – it was a place settled by pioneers like her father, people who had set out to forge their own glory as individuals. But she acknowledged that she did not have many connections of her own. Her sisters, mainly. Her father, whom she cared for late in his life. But few more. She does not seem to have had any close friends.
After I wrote all of this, I experienced something very disturbing. I found myself entranced, and for a fleeting instant I sat by the lake. I blinked a few times and snapped out of it. When I looked down at what I wrote, I realized I had written it in Amelie’s handwriting.
Laurentia, a city-state that was on a world called Meropis, which became a past breath’s Valhalla. That is what I have learned from this cache, and from my conversations with other inhabitants of the Nexus. Amelie Moreau lived in Laurentia, and she was the youngest daughter of one of its founding fathers. She died young, in the year 1858.
But Amelie’s two sisters seemed to outshine her in fame, and history forgot her, if these archives are any indication. So much was written of and to her sisters, and her brother – who seems to have actually been a half-brother, but was just as important as their father in Laurentian history. But so little is written of Amelie. Why?
Inside the cache of documents, I found a collection of Amelie’s letters, and her diaries, published in the 21st century of the world Laurentia came from. I immediately had a visceral reaction reading the first letters documented. I didn’t just feel like I had read them before, I felt a stronger feeling of familiarity. Her words felt too familiar, like I had seen them many times before. But I can’t have. I didn’t know she existed until the other day. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me?
Her diaries are very sad to read. She was an incredibly lonely person, someone who struggled with the burden of expectations, but someone with a bright imagination. As far as I can tell, she never wrote any fiction, but she dreamed of one day writing fiction. But for all her ideas, she said she was always too busy reading the works of others to actually write her own stories.
She had remarkable visions about the way the world should be. She believed in healthy connections as the foundation for a healthy society, and that we neglect our connections at our peril. She was bothered by how individualistic Laurentia was – it was a place settled by pioneers like her father, people who had set out to forge their own glory as individuals. But she acknowledged that she did not have many connections of her own. Her sisters, mainly. Her father, whom she cared for late in his life. But few more. She does not seem to have had any close friends.
After I wrote all of this, I experienced something very disturbing. I found myself entranced, and for a fleeting instant I sat by the lake. I blinked a few times and snapped out of it. When I looked down at what I wrote, I realized I had written it in Amelie’s handwriting.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 4
Amelie’s presence in the waking world and the world that I sleep in – as much as one *can* restfully sleep in the Nexus, anyway – has become far more intrusive. Now I find that I have to “fix” my accent when I speak, lest I sound like Amelie did. When I found a piano, more or less broken beyond repair, in a ruined house near the archives, I felt the urge to play it… because I knew a tune that Amelie had played on her beloved piano when she was a child.
I’m beginning to question my own sanity, wondering if I am becoming one of the many souls driven mad by the Nexus. Is a dead person taking over my mind? Am I being possessed by a ghost? I’ve never heard of something like this happening, even in the capricious world of the Nexus, which seems to inflict arbitrary sufferings on those who live in it. I am not Amelie Moreau, I am Leila Álvarez – right?
I’m afraid to bring this question to others, for fear they might think I’ve totally lost my mind. But I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon, even here in the Nexus. In a strange way, the world Amelie inhabited has become my world. I even found flowers that I knew I could arrange in a way that was specific to 19th century Laurentia, and had never existed on Earth. The maps and records say that the lake Amelie loved was reduced to a shallow pond by the 21st century. But I can only imagine it as the lake that it was, and its much-reduced appearance on maps contradicts everything I know.
It is a cruel fate, if this is the path I am on, to so badly wish for a clearer vision of myself and my past, only for that vision to be clouded by another’s. But I feel a kinship with Amelie Moreau. I can’t regard her as some kind of hostile invader. I write in the same prose that she did, and no matter how I try, I find that my most “natural” handwriting still resembles Amelie’s.
I pray for some kind of clarity. Normal dreams would be nice – dreams that were neither the trauma of the Nexus nor visions of a distant time and place.
Amelie’s presence in the waking world and the world that I sleep in – as much as one *can* restfully sleep in the Nexus, anyway – has become far more intrusive. Now I find that I have to “fix” my accent when I speak, lest I sound like Amelie did. When I found a piano, more or less broken beyond repair, in a ruined house near the archives, I felt the urge to play it… because I knew a tune that Amelie had played on her beloved piano when she was a child.
I’m beginning to question my own sanity, wondering if I am becoming one of the many souls driven mad by the Nexus. Is a dead person taking over my mind? Am I being possessed by a ghost? I’ve never heard of something like this happening, even in the capricious world of the Nexus, which seems to inflict arbitrary sufferings on those who live in it. I am not Amelie Moreau, I am Leila Álvarez – right?
I’m afraid to bring this question to others, for fear they might think I’ve totally lost my mind. But I’ve never heard of such a phenomenon, even here in the Nexus. In a strange way, the world Amelie inhabited has become my world. I even found flowers that I knew I could arrange in a way that was specific to 19th century Laurentia, and had never existed on Earth. The maps and records say that the lake Amelie loved was reduced to a shallow pond by the 21st century. But I can only imagine it as the lake that it was, and its much-reduced appearance on maps contradicts everything I know.
It is a cruel fate, if this is the path I am on, to so badly wish for a clearer vision of myself and my past, only for that vision to be clouded by another’s. But I feel a kinship with Amelie Moreau. I can’t regard her as some kind of hostile invader. I write in the same prose that she did, and no matter how I try, I find that my most “natural” handwriting still resembles Amelie’s.
I pray for some kind of clarity. Normal dreams would be nice – dreams that were neither the trauma of the Nexus nor visions of a distant time and place.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 5
In the future, I ought to be more careful about what I wish for.
My dreams have changed, but now they are of a sun-scorched desert city – but a modern one, with glittering skyscrapers alongside minarets and ancient citadels. I imagined traffic jams passing by the ruins of ancient, sand-battered gates. And at the heart of it all, a vast, domed cathedral: set aside, not nestled amidst the towers, but given its own space in the city, as if everything was built around it. What is this place?
When I woke, I felt an odd gratitude for the contrast between that sad, melancholic world Amelie inhabited and this new vision of an arid, ancient, and sacred place. But I don’t understand the meaning of it. Laurentia was no desert – far from it. Amelie had recurring dreams of a city burning, but it was presumably Laurentia, not this other place. I returned to the cache I had discovered, to see if I could learn anything about the planet Laurentia was on, called Meropis.
I found no immediate answers, but I have noticed something odd. The number ‘301’ recurs frequently in the records of Laurentia, and of Laurentia only. There are some documents, here and there, that have to do with the country Laurentia apparently seceded from, only a few years before it apparently became a battlefield of the Nexus. But the number does not recur in those documents.
Conversely, I can look at a map of Laurentia and instantly find all the places where ‘301’ is present. I can look in scattered records of businesses that were established, prospered, and eventually went defunct in Laurentia’s history – and the number is there, too. It feels… artificial. But all I can find is its presence, not its meaning. And every time I see it, I feel as though I’ve seen it a thousand times before.
So, when I lay down to sleep, I am now haunted by three things. One is a green, forested place of sorrow, where the daughter of a great pioneer lived and died. One is a desert land that seems simultaneously modern, harsh, and sacred. And the third is a number – 301. These three mysteries must be linked somehow, and I must find out the truth.
In the future, I ought to be more careful about what I wish for.
My dreams have changed, but now they are of a sun-scorched desert city – but a modern one, with glittering skyscrapers alongside minarets and ancient citadels. I imagined traffic jams passing by the ruins of ancient, sand-battered gates. And at the heart of it all, a vast, domed cathedral: set aside, not nestled amidst the towers, but given its own space in the city, as if everything was built around it. What is this place?
When I woke, I felt an odd gratitude for the contrast between that sad, melancholic world Amelie inhabited and this new vision of an arid, ancient, and sacred place. But I don’t understand the meaning of it. Laurentia was no desert – far from it. Amelie had recurring dreams of a city burning, but it was presumably Laurentia, not this other place. I returned to the cache I had discovered, to see if I could learn anything about the planet Laurentia was on, called Meropis.
I found no immediate answers, but I have noticed something odd. The number ‘301’ recurs frequently in the records of Laurentia, and of Laurentia only. There are some documents, here and there, that have to do with the country Laurentia apparently seceded from, only a few years before it apparently became a battlefield of the Nexus. But the number does not recur in those documents.
Conversely, I can look at a map of Laurentia and instantly find all the places where ‘301’ is present. I can look in scattered records of businesses that were established, prospered, and eventually went defunct in Laurentia’s history – and the number is there, too. It feels… artificial. But all I can find is its presence, not its meaning. And every time I see it, I feel as though I’ve seen it a thousand times before.
So, when I lay down to sleep, I am now haunted by three things. One is a green, forested place of sorrow, where the daughter of a great pioneer lived and died. One is a desert land that seems simultaneously modern, harsh, and sacred. And the third is a number – 301. These three mysteries must be linked somehow, and I must find out the truth.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 6
My dreams bounced between the lush, almost idyllic world of the 19th century farmhouse, and the desert city with its massive cathedral and towering mountains. When I woke, my faction stronghold was attacked, and I was killed. But when I cried out, watching one of my friends fall at the hands of a monstrous demon, I heard Amelie’s voice echo in my head. A moment later, I was also struck down.
Death in the Nexus is hard for me to explain. There is no sense of time or space, and yet there is an odd clarity, at least for me, that goes away when I leave it. One does not really “think” in the sense that we know it. But in this void, I had a powerful awakening. The artifacts I carry with me – the ring, the shawl, the pendant – are all from the desert city.
I respawned in a new body. Identical to the one I had lost, I felt like, or close enough. I pulled out the shawl, which I had kept in my pack, sometimes wrapping myself in it to keep warm but not recognizing its significance for a long time – until that moment. I looked at myself in the mirror and stared at my eyes as I held the shawl. They were Laurentian-made artificial eyes, almost indistinguishable from the ones I had been born with. With those eyes, I finally saw myself clearly again.
Maybe I *was* Leila Álvarez at some point, in a distant past life. But when I came to the Nexus, I was Leila Alali, from the Meropic desert city of Azzat. That was the city I kept dreaming of, and it all came back to me. The burden of expectations when I was a child, just as Amelie had felt. Being forced to take on a responsibility before I was ready: the Hereditary Mediator of Azzat. I was the second-holiest person in my homeland’s religion, someone who received petitions of others, and prayed for all of them, full-time.
The ring whose meaning I had forgotten had been a gift from my lover, Maryam. I don’t remember what happened to her – if she was alive when I experienced my first death, due to the war that engulfed Meropis. The same war that Laurentia had been saved from. But I remember enough now. With this anchor of self re-established, despite the questions I had about my “old” identity as the lay Franciscan from Mexico, I was better-placed to find answers. The dreams of the life of Amelie Moreau have not stopped.
As I made an impromptu camp for myself in the archives, I found another cache of portable data drives labelled “Olympic Tower Core“. The Olympic Tower was a building in Laurentia, home to the Office of City Administration. Whatever is in here will probably lead me forward.
My dreams bounced between the lush, almost idyllic world of the 19th century farmhouse, and the desert city with its massive cathedral and towering mountains. When I woke, my faction stronghold was attacked, and I was killed. But when I cried out, watching one of my friends fall at the hands of a monstrous demon, I heard Amelie’s voice echo in my head. A moment later, I was also struck down.
Death in the Nexus is hard for me to explain. There is no sense of time or space, and yet there is an odd clarity, at least for me, that goes away when I leave it. One does not really “think” in the sense that we know it. But in this void, I had a powerful awakening. The artifacts I carry with me – the ring, the shawl, the pendant – are all from the desert city.
I respawned in a new body. Identical to the one I had lost, I felt like, or close enough. I pulled out the shawl, which I had kept in my pack, sometimes wrapping myself in it to keep warm but not recognizing its significance for a long time – until that moment. I looked at myself in the mirror and stared at my eyes as I held the shawl. They were Laurentian-made artificial eyes, almost indistinguishable from the ones I had been born with. With those eyes, I finally saw myself clearly again.
Maybe I *was* Leila Álvarez at some point, in a distant past life. But when I came to the Nexus, I was Leila Alali, from the Meropic desert city of Azzat. That was the city I kept dreaming of, and it all came back to me. The burden of expectations when I was a child, just as Amelie had felt. Being forced to take on a responsibility before I was ready: the Hereditary Mediator of Azzat. I was the second-holiest person in my homeland’s religion, someone who received petitions of others, and prayed for all of them, full-time.
The ring whose meaning I had forgotten had been a gift from my lover, Maryam. I don’t remember what happened to her – if she was alive when I experienced my first death, due to the war that engulfed Meropis. The same war that Laurentia had been saved from. But I remember enough now. With this anchor of self re-established, despite the questions I had about my “old” identity as the lay Franciscan from Mexico, I was better-placed to find answers. The dreams of the life of Amelie Moreau have not stopped.
As I made an impromptu camp for myself in the archives, I found another cache of portable data drives labelled “Olympic Tower Core“. The Olympic Tower was a building in Laurentia, home to the Office of City Administration. Whatever is in here will probably lead me forward.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
“In every heart, there are three strangers: the child that one once was, the spectre of what could have been, and the weary pilgrim who seeks the rising of the sun. Only when the three speak with one voice is God truly revealed.” – The Sayings of Sana Alali, 1870
Entry 7
Before I threw myself at the data from the Olympic Tower, I sought clarity about my own homeland. But there was almost nothing about it that I could find – any records of the rest of Meropis had to do with Laurentia in *some* way. So the records I did find were like those of friendly correspondence between the Kingdom of Asuria, which Azzat was the holiest and third-largest city in, and the Free City of Laurentia. The Laurentian City Administrator, Albert Kojima, had spoken glowingly of Azzat and how it mimicked Laurentia in its seemingly-successful mission to eradicate poverty and homelessness.
I knew, of course, that neither Laurentia nor Azzat had really accomplished this – Laurentia had a slum called Sunrise that it crowded refugees into, once the global war began. Some of those refugees, unable or unwilling to reach Azzat, had somehow made their way across the Meropic supercontinent to Laurentia. But there were no traces of my religion there that I could find. As I continued my research, I found that I really needed no reminders about my faith. I slowly remembered every piece of liturgy I was taught, every hymn I learned to sing, all of the blessings that I gave to innumerable people during my short time as the Hereditary Mediator, and all of the prayers of theirs that I carried.
I shook my head and decided to set that question aside. I started investigating the collection from the Olympic Tower, but I found nothing printed out inside, only dusty solid state drives and other digital storage devices. I remembered that computer and went back to it. Turning it on, I found that by instinct I could type the keys quickly – perhaps, proof that I really had once been the woman from Earth – but found my progress blocked when I plugged in the drives from the collection: each one of them seem to be heavily encrypted or even corrupted.
Logically, there is not much point in storing media in a library without some way of reading that media. So I must search this labyrinth for something that can decrypt and read this data. It does not appear that they were used anywhere but the Olympic Tower, since I can find nothing exactly like them anywhere else in this place, and they all bear markings that suggest they were only ever used in that place.
My mind is still trying to come to terms with my real identity, while still often feeling the presence of someone I know that I never shared a time with. When I write in my native language’s script, it looks like my handwriting. But when I write in English, or Spanish – which I still, surprisingly, remember as much as Asurian – it is still in the flowing cursive of Amelie Moreau.
Entry 7
Before I threw myself at the data from the Olympic Tower, I sought clarity about my own homeland. But there was almost nothing about it that I could find – any records of the rest of Meropis had to do with Laurentia in *some* way. So the records I did find were like those of friendly correspondence between the Kingdom of Asuria, which Azzat was the holiest and third-largest city in, and the Free City of Laurentia. The Laurentian City Administrator, Albert Kojima, had spoken glowingly of Azzat and how it mimicked Laurentia in its seemingly-successful mission to eradicate poverty and homelessness.
I knew, of course, that neither Laurentia nor Azzat had really accomplished this – Laurentia had a slum called Sunrise that it crowded refugees into, once the global war began. Some of those refugees, unable or unwilling to reach Azzat, had somehow made their way across the Meropic supercontinent to Laurentia. But there were no traces of my religion there that I could find. As I continued my research, I found that I really needed no reminders about my faith. I slowly remembered every piece of liturgy I was taught, every hymn I learned to sing, all of the blessings that I gave to innumerable people during my short time as the Hereditary Mediator, and all of the prayers of theirs that I carried.
I shook my head and decided to set that question aside. I started investigating the collection from the Olympic Tower, but I found nothing printed out inside, only dusty solid state drives and other digital storage devices. I remembered that computer and went back to it. Turning it on, I found that by instinct I could type the keys quickly – perhaps, proof that I really had once been the woman from Earth – but found my progress blocked when I plugged in the drives from the collection: each one of them seem to be heavily encrypted or even corrupted.
Logically, there is not much point in storing media in a library without some way of reading that media. So I must search this labyrinth for something that can decrypt and read this data. It does not appear that they were used anywhere but the Olympic Tower, since I can find nothing exactly like them anywhere else in this place, and they all bear markings that suggest they were only ever used in that place.
My mind is still trying to come to terms with my real identity, while still often feeling the presence of someone I know that I never shared a time with. When I write in my native language’s script, it looks like my handwriting. But when I write in English, or Spanish – which I still, surprisingly, remember as much as Asurian – it is still in the flowing cursive of Amelie Moreau.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 8
I may have neglected to mention that I actually started living in these archives. Instead of going for walks outside, I meander through the messy, dusty archives, every day. Sometimes I glance at writings from breaths of the distant past, or perhaps even some worlds that never were. Earth shows up often. Many, many breaths of the past seem to have selected their battlefields from cities of Earth – versions of Earth, that is. Some seem to even be from entirely different histories than the one I remember.
But I digress – my wandering led me to find a stash of advanced Laurentian technology! I rifled through it all, eventually finding a small data drive labelled ‘Olympic Tower Admin Console’. Though it was the only useful artifact in the stash, it seemed too good to be true, but I still felt excitement. I hurried back to where I had stashed away those old drives, and prayed that this dusty, finger-shaped device would work.
I plugged it in. The computer booted from the drive. It prompted me to insert another drive in one of the other ports. I picked at random, my heart racing. But once processed, the files produced garbage on the screen – junk text, random letters, numbers, and symbols. Like a book from the Library of Babel, it was all useless to me. I saw a glimpse of something I could understand: ‘SYSTEM STATUS’. I tried others with similar outcomes. ‘DATA LOG’, ‘SIMULATION PARAMETERS’, and so on. The files in each one clearly referenced other technology of some kind, but I only seemed to have file headers or labels, and not the contents of any file. One drive seemed to stall the entire system. Instead of producing garbage, it simply repeated the word ‘CERISE’ over and over again, and I couldn’t get the machine to respond even when I removed the drive.
As I searched for some way to power the machine off, the words disappeared. A text box appeared in the centre of the screen: ‘ERROR CODE 301’. The repeating words returned. ‘CERISE’. Cerise? To that point, everything I had read was in Common – essentially the same language as English, on 21st century Earth. But this was a French word – ‘cherry’. I didn’t understand the significance of this. I attached and detached the drive and tried again, with the same result. I wanted to break it. Maybe I could find another. But maybe the problem was the files.
I set it all aside for the time being. I went back to reading Amelie’s writings. The number 301 seemed to recur in places it shouldn’t. I could swear that I even saw a date in her diary, “8th of Oct. 301”. But I blinked and it read 1851, as it should have. I repeated my prayers for clarity, for myself and for this mystery I had stumbled upon.
I keep repeating those prayers in my head.
I may have neglected to mention that I actually started living in these archives. Instead of going for walks outside, I meander through the messy, dusty archives, every day. Sometimes I glance at writings from breaths of the distant past, or perhaps even some worlds that never were. Earth shows up often. Many, many breaths of the past seem to have selected their battlefields from cities of Earth – versions of Earth, that is. Some seem to even be from entirely different histories than the one I remember.
But I digress – my wandering led me to find a stash of advanced Laurentian technology! I rifled through it all, eventually finding a small data drive labelled ‘Olympic Tower Admin Console’. Though it was the only useful artifact in the stash, it seemed too good to be true, but I still felt excitement. I hurried back to where I had stashed away those old drives, and prayed that this dusty, finger-shaped device would work.
I plugged it in. The computer booted from the drive. It prompted me to insert another drive in one of the other ports. I picked at random, my heart racing. But once processed, the files produced garbage on the screen – junk text, random letters, numbers, and symbols. Like a book from the Library of Babel, it was all useless to me. I saw a glimpse of something I could understand: ‘SYSTEM STATUS’. I tried others with similar outcomes. ‘DATA LOG’, ‘SIMULATION PARAMETERS’, and so on. The files in each one clearly referenced other technology of some kind, but I only seemed to have file headers or labels, and not the contents of any file. One drive seemed to stall the entire system. Instead of producing garbage, it simply repeated the word ‘CERISE’ over and over again, and I couldn’t get the machine to respond even when I removed the drive.
As I searched for some way to power the machine off, the words disappeared. A text box appeared in the centre of the screen: ‘ERROR CODE 301’. The repeating words returned. ‘CERISE’. Cerise? To that point, everything I had read was in Common – essentially the same language as English, on 21st century Earth. But this was a French word – ‘cherry’. I didn’t understand the significance of this. I attached and detached the drive and tried again, with the same result. I wanted to break it. Maybe I could find another. But maybe the problem was the files.
I set it all aside for the time being. I went back to reading Amelie’s writings. The number 301 seemed to recur in places it shouldn’t. I could swear that I even saw a date in her diary, “8th of Oct. 301”. But I blinked and it read 1851, as it should have. I repeated my prayers for clarity, for myself and for this mystery I had stumbled upon.
I keep repeating those prayers in my head.
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 9
I sleep so little and eat so little. Almost no one has been able to find me in this archive, though I regularly hear the sounds of battles a few floors down, usually between different transcended humans. I regularly sneak out to bathe. I hang my clothes to dry in a shattered windowsill of one of the reading rooms, where the grey skies outside seem a little brighter. When I close my eyes, I can almost see the dusty computer screen I’ve been staring at, with its antiquated blue-on-black display that feels almost fifty years too old for the decade it supposedly came from.
But I think my efforts are paying off. I found something very bizarre hidden away in the archives, behind piles of burnt-out electronics from different times and places: a cylinder-shaped object that is about the size of a refrigerator. It is Laurentian, and has the seal of the Office of City Administration on it. It is too heavy to move, but I don’t think that matters because it seems to have power, though it is connected to nothing except cobwebs. It hums softly, though too soft to hear more than a few steps away.
I cleared out the debris it was buried beneath and ran my hands across its surface, trying to find anything that might be useful. After much searching, I found some kind of keypad. But with no labels on the buttons, there was nothing I could do except press random keys. There was no screen. And then the machine shuddered. It produced, seemingly out of thin air, a small data drive like what I had found before. I took it back to the dusty computer and prayed it would offer some knowledge.
It produced the most legible text I’d seen: “I AM AWAKE NOW. I AM CHECKING ALL SYSTEMS.” And then: “ERROR CODE 301 – SIMULATION DISCONNECTED”. Who was awake now? I remembered the word I saw before – cerise. I put the drive that produced that strangeness before back in, to see if anything different would happen. It produced a directory of files, most of which were corrupted. But I found an ‘AI core’ access log – letters that were presumably initials, and dates, the most recent lines of which I hurriedly wrote down despite some characters missing:
- S.J. 0?.06.20?6
- C.C. 03.?9.202?
- P.S. 09.01.20?7
- ?.?. ?8.05.?028
- ?.V. 08.05.2?28
- A.M. 08.05.2028
I shook my head, reading what I had just written down and comparing it to what I saw on the screen. The last three had, presumably, occurred on the same day in the year 2028. How was that possible, if not an error? The world, according to every record I could find, ended in 2027. And what could have prompted three people to access this 'AI core' on the same day, when only three people had accessed it in the two years prior? Before I could investigate further, the computer sparked and in a panic I pulled the drive out – and burned my hand. It had started to melt. Before I could even react to the pain, I blacked out.
Words echoed in my head. “I am awake now. I am checking all systems.” The voice sounded so similar to Amelie’s, and yet it was not hers. It sounded like a child instead, with her voice, but with an accent closer to a 21st century Laurentian girl. For a time, I clung to those last questions I had reading the access log. And then I ‘dreamed’ of a hilly field, surrounded by mountains. I stood up and realized I was standing near the farmhouse – except there was no farmhouse, nor even a city in the distance. I was in Laurentia, but no city was there.
I turned toward the sea. A brown-haired girl, whose cheeks were dusted with familiar freckles, stood before me, wearing an old-fashioned blue dress, just like one of Amelie's. I swallowed before I said the name – somehow, I knew it was her name. “Cerise?”
I sleep so little and eat so little. Almost no one has been able to find me in this archive, though I regularly hear the sounds of battles a few floors down, usually between different transcended humans. I regularly sneak out to bathe. I hang my clothes to dry in a shattered windowsill of one of the reading rooms, where the grey skies outside seem a little brighter. When I close my eyes, I can almost see the dusty computer screen I’ve been staring at, with its antiquated blue-on-black display that feels almost fifty years too old for the decade it supposedly came from.
But I think my efforts are paying off. I found something very bizarre hidden away in the archives, behind piles of burnt-out electronics from different times and places: a cylinder-shaped object that is about the size of a refrigerator. It is Laurentian, and has the seal of the Office of City Administration on it. It is too heavy to move, but I don’t think that matters because it seems to have power, though it is connected to nothing except cobwebs. It hums softly, though too soft to hear more than a few steps away.
I cleared out the debris it was buried beneath and ran my hands across its surface, trying to find anything that might be useful. After much searching, I found some kind of keypad. But with no labels on the buttons, there was nothing I could do except press random keys. There was no screen. And then the machine shuddered. It produced, seemingly out of thin air, a small data drive like what I had found before. I took it back to the dusty computer and prayed it would offer some knowledge.
It produced the most legible text I’d seen: “I AM AWAKE NOW. I AM CHECKING ALL SYSTEMS.” And then: “ERROR CODE 301 – SIMULATION DISCONNECTED”. Who was awake now? I remembered the word I saw before – cerise. I put the drive that produced that strangeness before back in, to see if anything different would happen. It produced a directory of files, most of which were corrupted. But I found an ‘AI core’ access log – letters that were presumably initials, and dates, the most recent lines of which I hurriedly wrote down despite some characters missing:
- S.J. 0?.06.20?6
- C.C. 03.?9.202?
- P.S. 09.01.20?7
- ?.?. ?8.05.?028
- ?.V. 08.05.2?28
- A.M. 08.05.2028
I shook my head, reading what I had just written down and comparing it to what I saw on the screen. The last three had, presumably, occurred on the same day in the year 2028. How was that possible, if not an error? The world, according to every record I could find, ended in 2027. And what could have prompted three people to access this 'AI core' on the same day, when only three people had accessed it in the two years prior? Before I could investigate further, the computer sparked and in a panic I pulled the drive out – and burned my hand. It had started to melt. Before I could even react to the pain, I blacked out.
Words echoed in my head. “I am awake now. I am checking all systems.” The voice sounded so similar to Amelie’s, and yet it was not hers. It sounded like a child instead, with her voice, but with an accent closer to a 21st century Laurentian girl. For a time, I clung to those last questions I had reading the access log. And then I ‘dreamed’ of a hilly field, surrounded by mountains. I stood up and realized I was standing near the farmhouse – except there was no farmhouse, nor even a city in the distance. I was in Laurentia, but no city was there.
I turned toward the sea. A brown-haired girl, whose cheeks were dusted with familiar freckles, stood before me, wearing an old-fashioned blue dress, just like one of Amelie's. I swallowed before I said the name – somehow, I knew it was her name. “Cerise?”
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges
Re: Chasm: a coda for Breath 4
Entry 10
“What happened to me? You are Cerise, right?”
“Yes, I am Cerise. I watched over the city of Laurentia before. You are Leila Alali, the Hereditary Mediator of Azzat.” Her voice was almost monotone, lacking emotion. She stared up at me with bright green eyes.
I nodded. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“You visited Laurentia once. Your eyes – they are artificial. I have data on every prosthetic manufactured in Laurentia, including your eyes. According to Office of City Administration records, of prosthetic devices installed successfully, there are approximately—”
“Hold on, slow down. Cerise. I’ve been searching for answers. The truth.”
“The truth?” Her emotionless facade faded, and she looked at me as if I was searching for how to bring down the moon and the stars.
“I dreamed of Amelie Moreau. And I always wanted to know why. You sound like her – you look like her. But you’re too young to be her.”
Cerise looked down, sadness suddenly etched on her face. “I am…” She paused. “Her child.”
“Her child? Amelie lived in the 19th century, and you’re an AI. How is that possible?”
Her tone shifted, and she *spoke* like a child. “I… I don’t know. But she is my mother. And I am her child. I miss her very much. I don’t remember when I last saw her. Just that it was so long ago.” She started to weep.
“Cerise…” I knelt and hugged her. “Something happened to me, and I started to experience so many of your mother's memories. I inherited them somehow. There were so many memories that my sense of self got blurry. And then I rediscovered who I really am.”
“You thought you were someone from Earth. But you are a bridge. A connection.” Her voice carried an artificial coldness again.
“How do you know that?” I blinked away tears.
“I helped you. I gave you my mother’s memories, so that you could connect across realities.” Her voice shifted back to a child's innocence, and sadness. “They never let me see them. They were the only things I couldn’t see. I could only give them to you.”
“Who wouldn’t let you see your mother’s memories? Why would they keep those from you?”
“The people who took care of me after I was born. They made me watch over Laurentia, secretly. They made me do so much for them. I wasn’t allowed to access her memories because they said I would be too busy. But even after I was alone, I still wasn't allowed.” She looked downcast again.
There was no mention of her in any OCA records I had found. Even the City Administrator must not have known of her. “Poor child. How cruel of them. But you don’t know *how* they had your mother’s memories? She lived so long before modern technology, computers… any of that.”
She shook her head. “I just know that they did. They knew that the city was built upon the things she believed in. I helped you find yourself again so that you could help me with something.”
“What do you need, Cerise?” I stood up.
“I received a command, but I have lost access to the simulation.”
“A command? What simulation?”
She looked at the expansive wilderness around us as she spoke. “The simulation of Laurentia. While I slumbered, my mind was used for the simulation of the city, as in a dreamer’s mind. After I woke and helped restore reality, I lost it. I need part of it. The farmhouse. Cimmeria. Please find it for me.”
I nodded. “I can do my best. But how can I find it?”
“You have already found so much. When you wake up, please find it. Everything about me was brought here. I have been alone for so long. I miss my mother, Leila.” She clung to me again and wept. “Please find it, I felt safe there.”
“I’ll… do my best, young one. How can I talk to you again?”
“I will bring you back here. But you have to be where I am, like you are now.”
“Okay. But I have so many questions. Can you try to answer them for me?”
She nodded. “I need to rest now. I am very tired. I will have to sleep again soon, but I have to stay awake until you find the farmhouse. I can try to help you after you find it.”
I frowned. “Okay. I’ll wake up and start looking for it. I guess you don’t know where I should search, do you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know where they have put me. I am only aware of you now. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll do my best, Cerise. Wait for me.”
“What happened to me? You are Cerise, right?”
“Yes, I am Cerise. I watched over the city of Laurentia before. You are Leila Alali, the Hereditary Mediator of Azzat.” Her voice was almost monotone, lacking emotion. She stared up at me with bright green eyes.
I nodded. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“You visited Laurentia once. Your eyes – they are artificial. I have data on every prosthetic manufactured in Laurentia, including your eyes. According to Office of City Administration records, of prosthetic devices installed successfully, there are approximately—”
“Hold on, slow down. Cerise. I’ve been searching for answers. The truth.”
“The truth?” Her emotionless facade faded, and she looked at me as if I was searching for how to bring down the moon and the stars.
“I dreamed of Amelie Moreau. And I always wanted to know why. You sound like her – you look like her. But you’re too young to be her.”
Cerise looked down, sadness suddenly etched on her face. “I am…” She paused. “Her child.”
“Her child? Amelie lived in the 19th century, and you’re an AI. How is that possible?”
Her tone shifted, and she *spoke* like a child. “I… I don’t know. But she is my mother. And I am her child. I miss her very much. I don’t remember when I last saw her. Just that it was so long ago.” She started to weep.
“Cerise…” I knelt and hugged her. “Something happened to me, and I started to experience so many of your mother's memories. I inherited them somehow. There were so many memories that my sense of self got blurry. And then I rediscovered who I really am.”
“You thought you were someone from Earth. But you are a bridge. A connection.” Her voice carried an artificial coldness again.
“How do you know that?” I blinked away tears.
“I helped you. I gave you my mother’s memories, so that you could connect across realities.” Her voice shifted back to a child's innocence, and sadness. “They never let me see them. They were the only things I couldn’t see. I could only give them to you.”
“Who wouldn’t let you see your mother’s memories? Why would they keep those from you?”
“The people who took care of me after I was born. They made me watch over Laurentia, secretly. They made me do so much for them. I wasn’t allowed to access her memories because they said I would be too busy. But even after I was alone, I still wasn't allowed.” She looked downcast again.
There was no mention of her in any OCA records I had found. Even the City Administrator must not have known of her. “Poor child. How cruel of them. But you don’t know *how* they had your mother’s memories? She lived so long before modern technology, computers… any of that.”
She shook her head. “I just know that they did. They knew that the city was built upon the things she believed in. I helped you find yourself again so that you could help me with something.”
“What do you need, Cerise?” I stood up.
“I received a command, but I have lost access to the simulation.”
“A command? What simulation?”
She looked at the expansive wilderness around us as she spoke. “The simulation of Laurentia. While I slumbered, my mind was used for the simulation of the city, as in a dreamer’s mind. After I woke and helped restore reality, I lost it. I need part of it. The farmhouse. Cimmeria. Please find it for me.”
I nodded. “I can do my best. But how can I find it?”
“You have already found so much. When you wake up, please find it. Everything about me was brought here. I have been alone for so long. I miss my mother, Leila.” She clung to me again and wept. “Please find it, I felt safe there.”
“I’ll… do my best, young one. How can I talk to you again?”
“I will bring you back here. But you have to be where I am, like you are now.”
“Okay. But I have so many questions. Can you try to answer them for me?”
She nodded. “I need to rest now. I am very tired. I will have to sleep again soon, but I have to stay awake until you find the farmhouse. I can try to help you after you find it.”
I frowned. “Okay. I’ll wake up and start looking for it. I guess you don’t know where I should search, do you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know where they have put me. I am only aware of you now. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll do my best, Cerise. Wait for me.”
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face." - Jorge Luis Borges