CLOUD TO GROUND ☂︎ FIVE HARGREEVES

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☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

Do you believe in a God?
A meaning to life?
A purpose to existence?
A higher power?

Do you believe in an end to space?

Hypatia certainly did. She had seen it with her own two eyes. She walked the fuzzy line between existence and nothingness and came back whole. She knew how the universe was constantly expanding, constantly shrinking, a contradiction of itself going round and round in a jumbled mess of yarn.

Perhaps she believed less in an end and more in a confusing decline. Like the ebb and flow of waves under the steady gaze of the moon, water eventually giving way to sandy beaches.

Many types of spacial experimentation were observed under project Möbius, but the one that always stood out to Hypatia were ones relating to negative space. When the world hummed with electricity to her, the silence stuck out like a missing note in a chorus.

When Director Somnus had recruited her to the project, he was overjoyed in hearing her particular interest in negative space. He had sat her down in his office and asked her to explain it in great depth. And so she had as he listened along, hands folded in his lap, nodding along as she explained. She was signed on that night.

While their main purpose was to monitor and protect spatial integrity, Möbius's interests at the time happened to center around the impossible, creating something from nothing. They wanted to create a soul.

The process of building a body was not difficult for them. They had the resources and the brains (both literal and figurative), to craft a machine to render objects from negative space. What they lacked was life.

By the time Hypatia joined their ranks, the creation of soulless husks was child's play to them. However after much experimentation they remained unable to crack the code to creation despite unmatched technological achievements. Luckily (or perhaps tragically) their newest addition would change everything.

With Hypatia and her powers they were able to transform their empty husks to walking, talking, living beings with transferred souls. And while they didn't live long, they lived in direct opposition to the rules which governed the universe.

But Möbius didn't care. The doctrinaire of the Commission was 'for the greater good', but as Hypatia spent the majority of her 30s and all of her 40s within project Möbius, she came to the unsettling realization that perhaps Somnus's goals were not as well intentioned as he would have people believe.

One night within the cold concrete walls of the Möbius building Hypatia found herself wandering the dimly lit halls, ambling her way back to a bed which she'd never see again, not that she knew so at the time.

Thoughts crowded by annoyance toward the journey ahead of her, she was drawn out of her head when she noticed light leaking out from a door tucked away towards the end of the hall.

She'd never noticed that door before, it blended in against the concrete well. If it weren't for that light, she might have gone her whole life never noticing.

Curiosity chased away her annoyance, and while the dull hum of caution resounded within her, it too fell to the strength which this lightning strike of curiosity possessed.

Pushing against the heavy wood of the door, it creaked open, revealing the pale white walls of an office space.

Metal filing cabinets flanked a large oak desk, spotlighted by the room's single fluorescent light bulb which hung from its wires. A half drunk coffee sat atop the desk, positioned precariously next to lazily strewn documents.

Hypatia dunked a finger into the abandoned cup, the contents still warm.

The whole scene felt wrong, like something she was never meant to see, like the deep darkness at the bottom of the ocean, like the other side of a door which ought to remain locked.

Still her curiosity soldiered onward, and she turned her attention to the papers thrown so carelessly on the desk, picking up the one which had been placed on the very top.

A sheet of paper had never felt so heavy.

Outlines and blueprints for a mockery of a Tesla coil. A soul maker rendered from her power, and they didn't plan on asking nicely for her to contribute.

She felt bile rise in her throat. After all she'd done for them?

She'd forgotten in her time here that she wasn't a person to them, just another cog in the world shatteringly endless machine.

Her fists clenched, tearing the paper, and the air crackled with electricity around her. The light bulb swung wildly in the air before the glass cracked and shattered.

After all she'd done for them.

The room plunged into darkness aside from the sparks of electricity which danced wildly, ricocheting off the walls and emitting a sharp yellow glow.

At that moment the door was pushed open by the unfortunate worker who had returned from his break. He expected to spend the next few minutes sluggishly finishing his abandoned coffee and completing the paperwork which prevented him from turning in for the night.

Instead he spent the next few minutes tearing through the halls of the Commission towards his boss's office. Slamming into the room he gasped out unintelligible words, pointing wildly behind him.

Somnus thought of himself as a patient man, so he refrained from scolding the clearly panicked man. Instead he adjusted himself in his leather seat and folded his hands.

"Mr. Campbell, please compose yourself before speaking."

Red in the face and covered in sweat, Mr Campbell didn't seem like he would be recovering anytime soon.

Inhaling as much as he could he went to sputter out a sentence but was cut off when the door to the office flew open with a bang.

Hypatia stood in the doorway, fury pouring off her. She was not a very intimidating looking woman under common circumstances, but these were no common circumstances.

Years of devotion and labor repaid by a sharp knife in the back had released an anger she never knew before. But she knew once it wore off she'd be left with the bitter aftertaste of sadness.

She'd make the most of her anger.

☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎

What followed was 62 seconds of nothing short of chaos. In an internal memo to the commission's board of directors the repercussions were listed as such: 37 employees sustained non lethal injury, 86% of critical documentation had been destroyed, an electrical fire decimated 75% of the Möbius building, and of the 3 recorded casualties the unfortunate Mr. Campbell was among them.

Ex-director Somnus had fled the scene and project Möbius was put on an indefinite hold.

Hypatia herself had let her powers consume her, her physical form unwound into pure energy. Once the chaos had concluded, she'd contained herself in the computer of Ex-director Somnus, later counted among the missing/destroyed items. Her consciousness swirled within the circuitry, her physical form no longer accessible to her. With no knowledge of the world outside, she stayed suspended but safe.

Which made it all the more confusing when she found herself in her 14 year old body in 2019.