The Melted World - Worlds of Creators: Book One

10 - Some company to pass the time

A light like none other he had ever seen. Its emitted rays reached Colin's retina and gave him the impression of looking at pure energy. A small point kept small no matter how close he got to it, changing its rays' geometry and nothing else. They danced around its emitter, bending in waves and ripples, the surface of a gas giant replicated in a tiny scale.

The light shone in a flat plateau by the side of half melted park benches and an acoustic theater. It diminished as Colin approached it, keeping the same absolute size constantly. Larger shapes grew behind it, the first clues of his increasing proximity to its source.

"Your search is over now, isn't it?" OOOO said.

"Did you see Lara in there?" Colin said, touching the creature's tissues around the neck as if patting on a friend's shoulder.

"Not Lara, but something equally interesting!"

Dark silhouettes made a circle in the light emitter's company. Three different figures of a nature Colin couldn't identify stood together, all fixed in place, moving their upper parts. The shining light adopted the size of a human head, and then of an eye, the closer Colin got from it.

"It's finally here, my dears! OOOO, hello there!" a new voice said.

"We had to start without you, and of course you don't mind it," another one said.

"I don't mind at all, do I? I had interesting times so far!" OOOO said.

"Do you want to play now or later? And who's this one with you? I don't remember meeting him before."

"This is our newest Creator! He is the offspring of Terra!"

"My name is Colin..."

"Oh, I don't like names, and none of us here have them. But I like you! Welcome to life, and come play with us" one of the others said.

Colin began to identify them by their immediate characteristics, a group with such clear distinctions among themselves that having names wouldn't in fact matter much. The light he had seen from far away represented a small shining point in the body of a slender creature which had four thin tubes falling from its round and soft bulk. It hovered above the ground, using the tubes to drive it in all directions.

"Actually, I do have a charming name," the light Creator said. "You can call me --J--"

"J?" Colin asked.

"Not quite. It's --J--. You need to wait sweetly before and after saying it. Nothingness is part of everything to me."

Only one of them didn't talk to the newcomers, a bulky, cubic Creator, whose only details looked like bass-relief on a big marble block. It had a voice and manipulated objects, though, as Colin soon found out:

"You'd better not talk to --J-- at all then, human, don't you agree? Give it some nothingness," it said.

"No, I'm grateful to it. If it weren't for its light, I wouldn't have found you guys," he said.

"You're a Creator with eyes, as I understand. Do you know what --J-- used that light for, back in its world?"

"To see better in dark places?"

"Interesting, isn't it?" OOOO said.

"Not at all. Tell him, --J--, amaze him!" the blocky Creator said.

"I came from a world that had lovely, savory humans. I used to breathe their bodies and marry them."

Colin stepped closer to OOOO. A puddle of melted matter rested in the middle of their circle. One other Creator watched the conversation, waiting for a chance to participate in it. Its body comprised a dense cloud of dust, shaped in the form of a snake with five holes in its belly. Those holes spun fluidly, making Colin look at them, feeling observed.