20th Spring, 507 AV
There's a hole next to the world. It is a very big and very dark hole; vast, depthless, possibly unending. It knows no start and no end and is defined not by what is, but what isn't. We call this hole The Void, and we understand that it is nothing.
Nothing upon nothing of potential death. Nothing upon nothing of shadowed ice and frost. Nothing upon nothing of freefall into the dark.
And within the nothing floats a room. It's wasn't a very nice room. It's small and tight and a little too crowded. But here, suspended in perfect zero, it borrows from the nothing, and the room changes and expands. It is empty. It is bigger. The walls are wider apart. and it is better for it. But the things that make the room the room don't change. The yellow stains on the wall still remain and the furniture, oh, the funirture - the shabby little chair by the wall, the sleeping mats on the floor, the table with it's candlestand - those are the little details, things that should have been little more than tiny little flaws, that resist the nothing.
There's also a boy. He likes to think he's a very handsome, little boy. Smart too. But whatever he thinks means little before the nothing. He stands on the edge that divides the room and everything that wasn't, and stares.
And he's trying so desperately to say something.
But you can't talk in the nothing
...Then again, there's nothing to stop you.
Only you. There's only you.
You are the obstacle.
You are the huddle to strength.
You are the wall that hinders progress.
Overcome yourself.
So you grasp the words. Grasp it to the exclusion of all else, for the nothing lurks beyond the room, but it cannot touch it. It cannot touch it because nothing is, by it's nature, nothing. It can't come to you; you go to it.
You make the portal. You engineer the pull. You reduce boisterous battle, of swords and fire and arrows, to a swift, silent formality. You seize upon something real and possibly alive and then you never, ever see it again. Maybe someday the boy could do all that too. Maybe the man that he would become could even take everything back thrown in back.
So the Void itself was a lesson: There were no second chances.
But power...Power could buy that second chance. An Anchor, he believed it was called.
And you want that. You want that so bad and so hard. You taste hints of that potential everytime you rip apart a portal, and it beckons. It's waiting for you in the dark, waiting for you to reach out into the dark and grasp it.
But you can't even say the words.
What is wrong with you?
Say it.
Say the words. Say them loud or soft or slow or fast. But just say them.
No?
You're hesitant.
You're hesitant because you believe it'll happen. You believe one thing might lead to another, and you believe saying it means doing it. You believe the hunter will become the hunter. You believe any number of things that you want to believe.
Another question then:
Do you care?
Do you?
Do you, wimp?
...
Too much. All too much.
This room is yours, now and forever. It is your truest sanctuary. It is the place where you can laugh without abandon, and the place where you lick wounds that will may never, ever heal. You tear your drawings and send them to the nothing when you're done with them, but the room keeps them for you, even if you don't know it. This place is special, and it is yours, truly.
Truly. Cross my heart and hope to die.
They will never take it from you.
Only you can do that.
Never, then.
Because why would you?
So please.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
Please.
Give up the room but for now. Leave it for a breathe. Discard it.
You can always return later.
Nothing cannot touch you, cannot change you. Not unless you take the great leap.
So go to it.
Please.
And say the words.
...
A Final Fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final Fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final fantasy is only final when it ends.
But the point was to defy finality.
Maybe 13 times over a decade or two.
Maybe more.
...
Thank you.
We can start now.
Better late than never.
In a little room that wasn't hanging in the nothing, a young boy's eyes flashed open, only to immediately narrow in intense concentration. For a moment, nothing happened. For many moments, in fact.
Then...
The nothing wormed it's way through, poking a little circle into reality. The circle grew, feeding upon the djed he offered it, and grew and grew...
And stopped.
Small. Fist-sized. Practically a speck, an insect.
Pathetic.
At least an insect could move. The portal wouldn't budge for anything in the world.
With a sigh, Antonnius Arrius fell back into his meditative reverie, and plunged back into the nothing.
And like every subsequent plunge, the nothing tried to reject him.
Nothing upon nothing of potential death. Nothing upon nothing of shadowed ice and frost. Nothing upon nothing of freefall into the dark.
And within the nothing floats a room. It's wasn't a very nice room. It's small and tight and a little too crowded. But here, suspended in perfect zero, it borrows from the nothing, and the room changes and expands. It is empty. It is bigger. The walls are wider apart. and it is better for it. But the things that make the room the room don't change. The yellow stains on the wall still remain and the furniture, oh, the funirture - the shabby little chair by the wall, the sleeping mats on the floor, the table with it's candlestand - those are the little details, things that should have been little more than tiny little flaws, that resist the nothing.
There's also a boy. He likes to think he's a very handsome, little boy. Smart too. But whatever he thinks means little before the nothing. He stands on the edge that divides the room and everything that wasn't, and stares.
And he's trying so desperately to say something.
But you can't talk in the nothing
...Then again, there's nothing to stop you.
Only you. There's only you.
You are the obstacle.
You are the huddle to strength.
You are the wall that hinders progress.
Overcome yourself.
So you grasp the words. Grasp it to the exclusion of all else, for the nothing lurks beyond the room, but it cannot touch it. It cannot touch it because nothing is, by it's nature, nothing. It can't come to you; you go to it.
You make the portal. You engineer the pull. You reduce boisterous battle, of swords and fire and arrows, to a swift, silent formality. You seize upon something real and possibly alive and then you never, ever see it again. Maybe someday the boy could do all that too. Maybe the man that he would become could even take everything back thrown in back.
So the Void itself was a lesson: There were no second chances.
But power...Power could buy that second chance. An Anchor, he believed it was called.
And you want that. You want that so bad and so hard. You taste hints of that potential everytime you rip apart a portal, and it beckons. It's waiting for you in the dark, waiting for you to reach out into the dark and grasp it.
But you can't even say the words.
What is wrong with you?
Say it.
Say the words. Say them loud or soft or slow or fast. But just say them.
No?
You're hesitant.
You're hesitant because you believe it'll happen. You believe one thing might lead to another, and you believe saying it means doing it. You believe the hunter will become the hunter. You believe any number of things that you want to believe.
Another question then:
Do you care?
Do you?
Do you, wimp?
...
Too much. All too much.
This room is yours, now and forever. It is your truest sanctuary. It is the place where you can laugh without abandon, and the place where you lick wounds that will may never, ever heal. You tear your drawings and send them to the nothing when you're done with them, but the room keeps them for you, even if you don't know it. This place is special, and it is yours, truly.
Truly. Cross my heart and hope to die.
They will never take it from you.
Only you can do that.
Never, then.
Because why would you?
So please.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
Please.
Give up the room but for now. Leave it for a breathe. Discard it.
You can always return later.
Nothing cannot touch you, cannot change you. Not unless you take the great leap.
So go to it.
Please.
And say the words.
...
A Final Fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final Fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final fantasy is only final when it ends.
A Final fantasy is only final when it ends.
But the point was to defy finality.
Maybe 13 times over a decade or two.
Maybe more.
...
Thank you.
We can start now.
Better late than never.
In a little room that wasn't hanging in the nothing, a young boy's eyes flashed open, only to immediately narrow in intense concentration. For a moment, nothing happened. For many moments, in fact.
Then...
The nothing wormed it's way through, poking a little circle into reality. The circle grew, feeding upon the djed he offered it, and grew and grew...
And stopped.
Small. Fist-sized. Practically a speck, an insect.
Pathetic.
At least an insect could move. The portal wouldn't budge for anything in the world.
With a sigh, Antonnius Arrius fell back into his meditative reverie, and plunged back into the nothing.
And like every subsequent plunge, the nothing tried to reject him.
