Duality;Solaris Vol. 1

Chapter 3-1: The Fountain of Dreams

    "I miss this. It never lasts long enough. Why do you always have to go away?"

A melody trickles from a sorrowful, feminine voice. A voice of no source, the disembodied thing smoothly reverberates across this black, empty void of a home. Nothing contained within, the location is only comforted by the detached sounds, and the sparse, ethereal lights that rhyme with them. These lights, while aimless in structure, glow with variations of color and intensity— depending on what they are audibly matched along side. Yet, the lonesome space is not completely empty. While it physically lays barren, there floats a mired consciousness at its' core.

     The voice, although having not sung a word, curates it's sentences, it's words, as if her pitch was destined to be harmonious. This vocal stream soothed the mentally-clouded being at the place's core— lacking grasp on what the lone voice speaks. Their meaning pounding against the solidified gates past it's figurative eardrums. Any acknowledgment of her saddened melody fallen upon it's deafened ears, having little more response than faint smiles. Whatever this entity held at the void's core actually is, it's apparent that it presently slumbers. Evident as it is a waste, nevertheless, the disembodied words do not dispel.

    What flows from the harmonic sorrows range in their pitch, yet neither one sentence to the next connect. This incoherence could only confuse one if they were aware enough to comprehend it's verbal bouts. Phrases spewing into the dim void, their tone changing as much as their assumed age. Uncertainty is all but confirmed in these conflicting lines of intent. The sole thing that could be ascertained from any of this is who they are all directed towards.

"What do you mean you can't?!"

"Where have you been?"

"Haha! C'mon! Let's play outside!"

"Who are you?"

A swirling of voices, a contusion of mental strain rupturing from the once limited feminine melody. The reverb conjured from the growing collective of voices begin to quickly crowd the once empty void. An effect takes hold— for the worse. The core begins to toss and turn, it's slumber becoming disturbed. And, with this disturbance, a greater foothold takes effect.

    The once dim ethereal lights brighten with every new range in color explored, every new tone hit, and every new voice portrayed. Were these memories of the poor guy at it's core, or were they something else entirely?

    Eyes, ears, tongue, and lips; a series of disembodied senses conjugate at the core's center. Hampered as they may be in such a location—coaxed in the tar of lethargy—the thing at the center begins to truly awaken from it's slumber. Eyes were without eyelids and lips without a mouth to encompass it's tongue; physical manifestations of one's senses without the extra baggage of skin, muscle, and bone to distract from the collective maelstrom concocted around them. The once pitch black void a nigh-antithesis to it's former self, now basking in the bright colors of variety. The collective of concerns—considerations—grow ever louder, and quieter, towards a more comprehensive recipient: the person at this former void's core.

"It's nice to meet you, sir."

"No more questions. You'll begin tomorrow."

"It's the only thing I could afford for now, but this will play anything you'd ever want. I hope you like it, little guy."

"Hey, bro! Forget your homework again, huh?"

Bombardment of voices—conflicting and complementing—doesn't help in with these newly awoken senses, his drowsy senses. A dreadful sensation begins to bang at the edges of the once-thought endless void. The mixture of overlay, the undermining of any individual meaning, all of these overload the freshly formed senses from any sort of a restful awakening. Wishing for them to end, for a tide of peace and isolation to wash back over him, the calamity of words and voices immediately subside.