It stinks. It stinks of blood, and I hurt. Poisoned blades had found their mark again and again. The knife-wounds would heal with minimal scarring. Probably wouldn't even be able to see them. That's one of the perks of having your body's natural healing processes designed in a laboratory: you can hardly see the scars at all.
They're still there.
Scars aren't what worries me. What worries me is the poison. If I let myself relax, I can almost feel it crawling around in my veins. Hello poison. Do you like crawling in Rei-veins?
That's the blood loss talking. It's harder to keep control of myself when I feel light-headed. The battle-high doesn't help, either.
A gogajin child sleeps not two meters away. She got away from the fight unscathed. She's probably got life-energy to spare. I don't know why it's such a struggle. It's tactically smart. She can't use all that energy. I can. I clench my fist, and my blade flickers to life for a moment.
Moses's face flashes before my eyes. Horrified.
Una's face flashes before my eyes. Horrified.
My blade flickers out.
I hate this feeling. This feeling of helplessness. This knowledge that I have no choice but to simply wait for my body to heal.
Who are you? What do you want?
The questions come almost unbidden, echoing in the innermost chambers of my mind. I still don't have an answer to either of them. Even losing myself in battle did not provide answers. It only dulled the awareness of the Questions.
I put my feet up on the bedroll, try not to jostle my bandages too much, and produce my mini-computer. It glows faintly with pink light as it boots up.
I plug the journal of Inase Spark into the data port.
Fractal images fill the screen, and I stare at them, utterly at a loss. What does it mean? What does it mean? What am I for? Why did you make me, Father?
Outside, the moon rises over the valley, bathing the ruined Gogajin village in ghostly light, casting strange shadows over the bodies of the fallen. Strange, shifting shadows that move when you're not looking.
In the cave, surrounded by wounded Gogajin, I resign myself to study the journal until sleep takes me.
My dreams are full of fractal patterns.
Ruins
Cities
2 comments:
As we know, of course, it's what is outside the cave that is real - the stuff that is casting the shadows. But it takes a philosopher to break the chains and get out into the light.
That's the idea, yes.
But the real question is, what are the shadows? Are they the fractal patterns, or are they Rei's Questions?
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