The moment should have been that of eruption.
The moment when the Absolute Resonance corrected anomalies.
The moment when the Dream expelled inconsistencies.
The moment when the deep laws of the Metaworld awakened to erase what should not be.
And yet...
Something occurred.
Something that was written in no prophecy.
No legend.
No Harvest.
No memory.
A white presence appeared.
Not a light.
Not a being.
Not a god.
A vibration.
An Exentity.
The White One.
Its eyes were empty.
Without pupils.
Without gaze.
As if the very notion of observing had never existed for it.
Sakolomeh immediately felt that something was different.
The Original Gods possessed a deliberately stabilized presence.
The Exuviates possessed an absence.
But this thing...
Belonged to no category.
It was simply there.
As if it had always preceded the categories themselves.
Then space cracked.
No.
The word space was wrong.
The Dream cracked.
And for the first time in his existence...
Sakolomeh was extracted.
Not transported.
Not teleported.
Not transcended.
Extracted.
Like a concept momentarily removed from its own narrative.
The Dream of the Father God disappeared.
The Zones disappeared.
The Madhurya disappeared.
The Out-of-Zones disappeared.
The Gods disappeared.
Even the notion of disappearance seemed to have been left behind him.
Then he saw.
And what he saw broke something in his understanding.
Towers.
Immense towers.
Some seemed to touch impossible horizons.
Others seemed to pass through themselves.
Some were unique.
Some were innumerable.
Some appeared alone.
Some seemed to contain an infinity of themselves.
Numbers died before this spectacle.
Infinity itself seemed ridiculous.
Like a clumsy attempt by a child trying to count a sea.
The towers were:
finite and infinite,
unique and multiple,
isolated and connected,
present and absent.
Even Sakolomeh's body seemed to fade.
Even that of the White Exentity seemed to be only an approximation.
— What is this...?
he finally asked.
The Exentity replied:
— The Arrows of Aion.
Sakolomeh frowned.
— An... Arrow of what?
The Exentity's empty eyes turned toward the immensity.
— The Arrows of Aion are the first coherences of the Dream.
— The first coherences?
— The Dream of the Father God is not the Dream.
This sentence struck Sakolomeh like a cataclysm.
— What?
— The Dream of the Father God is an Arrow of Aion.
Silence fell.
Then the Exentity continued:
— Each Arrow of Aion is a stabilization of the tellable.
— A particular way in which the Dream chooses to understand itself.
— An architecture of coherence.
— A Harvest that has become cosmology.
Around them, the towers began to vibrate.
Sakolomeh then glimpsed worlds.
Realities.
Gods.
Hells.
Concepts.
Laws.
Entire systems of existence.
Each tower told a different Dream.
In some:
the Madhurya did not exist.
In others:
the Original Gods had never emerged.
In others still:
the Dream of the Father God had been destroyed.
In some:
the Metaworld was a fiction.
In others:
the Empty Possible had never existed.
In some:
no consciousness had ever been born.
In others:
everything was consciousness.
Each Arrow told its own truth.
Its own coherence.
Its own absolute.
Then Sakolomeh understood something.
Something terrifying.
He observed the towers.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then asked:
— Where am I?
No answer.
He searched again.
Then again.
Then again.
And suddenly...
He understood.
His face froze.
— I am not there...
For the first time...
The White Exentity seemed almost to smile.
— Finally.
— You are beginning to see.
Sakolomeh looked at the ocean of Arrows.
His existence was absent.
Completely absent.
In the majority of them.
As if he had never existed.
As if his name had never been spoken.
As if his story had never begun.
— Why?
he asked.
The Exentity replied:
— Because you are a Bug.
The silence grew heavier.
— The Arrows of Aion can contain your memory.
— They can contain your story.
— They can contain Harvests of you.
— They can contain echoes.
— Possibilities.
— Narratives.
— Imitations.
Then it raised a hand.
A multitude of towers lit up.
Inside them appeared versions of Sakolomeh.
Legends.
Memories.
Characters.
Concepts.
Traces.
But none were truly him.
— These are only Harvests.
— Stabilizations.
— Reflections.
— Interpretations.
Then it pointed to a single Arrow.
Only one.
Immense.
Monstrous.
The most familiar.
The Dream of the Father God.
— This one is different.
— Why?
— Because it is the only Arrow where your status as a Fundamental Bug has been fully stabilized.
Sakolomeh remained silent.
The Exentity continued:
— The other Arrows cannot truly contain you.
— They can only contain a harvest of you.
— A version.
— A narrative.
— An echo.
— A possibility.
— Never the original anomaly.
Then it added:
— Your existence is too tied to this particular coherence.
— You belong to this Arrow as an error belongs to its own system.
Sakolomeh then contemplated the tower of the Father God.
For the first time...
It seemed small to him.
Not weak.
But local.
Like one book among others.
Like one truth among others.
Like one absolute among other absolutes.
Then the White Exentity spoke a final sentence.
A sentence that definitively destroyed Sakolomeh's former vision.
— You believed that the Dream of the Father God contained everything.
— In reality...
Its empty eyes contemplated the impossible ocean of the Arrows of Aion.
— It contains only everything that can be told according to its own coherence.
Then it pointed to the immensity behind the Arrows.
For the first time.
Sakolomeh glimpsed what surrounded them.
Not a world.
Not a void.
Not a realm.
A formless chaos.
An impossible sea.
An ocean of pure narrativity.
Formless.
Without hierarchy.
Without structure.
Without center.
The true Dream.
And suddenly he understood why no destruction of the Dream had ever worked.
Why no transcendence had ever been sufficient.
Why every apocalypse became a Harvest.
Why every exit became a new story.
The Arrows of Aion were born from this sea.
And this sea continued to dream each of them simultaneously.
Eternally.
Sakolomeh slowly brought a hand to his chest.
For the first time in a long while, he seemed truly destabilized.
His gaze shifted between the innumerable Arrows of Aion and the formless immensity surrounding them.
— Then... I am not an inhabitant of the Dream?
The silence stretched for a few moments.
Then the White Exentity answered in its calm voice, devoid of all emotion.
— You are an impossible calculation.
— An irregularity that has fully manifested within a particular coherence.
Its empty eyes turned toward the gigantic Arrow of Aion that contained the Dream of the Father God.
— You were born here, but you do not fully belong to what gave birth to you.
— You are an anomaly made real.
— An error that ceased to be a mere possibility to become a presence.
Sakolomeh remained silent.
The Exentity continued:
— You and I are probably the only visible presences here whose essence could truly pose a problem to the Fundamental Dream.
— Not by power.
— But by nature.
— Yet, that is not enough.
It contemplated the formless ocean surrounding the Arrows.
— As long as we exist under a coherent form, everything we can undertake against the Dream is only an additional Harvest.
— A new story.
— A new interpretation.
— A new stabilization.
— We cannot yet affect what it truly is, because we still function according to the very rules that its existence makes possible.
Sakolomeh slowly lowered his eyes.
Then he looked at the immense chaos stretching beyond the Arrows of Aion.
That formless sea.
Without center.
Without boundary.
Without true direction.
— Then...
His voice seemed weaker.
— I am simply different in essence...
— But my coherence still belongs to the Dream?
The Exentity gently nodded.
— Exactly.
— As long as you retain a stable coherence.
— As long as your raw essence remains contained.
— You function here exactly as I do currently.
It slightly raised a hand.
— I speak.
— I observe.
— I interpret.
— You too.
— And each of these actions feeds the Fundamental Dream.
— For every coherence, even exceptional, remains nourishment for that which contains coherences.
Sakolomeh then looked away.
Something had caught his attention.
In the distance floated an immense mist.
A mass so dense that it seemed to swallow the very limits of perception.
It did not resemble the Arrows of Aion.
It did not resemble the surrounding chaos either.
— Is that...
He narrowed his eyes.
— The Fog?
The White Exentity observed the mist.
Then it answered:
— Yes.
— And no.
Sakolomeh frowned.
— What do you mean?
— What you see is only a local infection.
— An imperfect resonance.
— An imitation.
The Exentity pointed to the innumerable Arrows of Aion.
— In order to allow the circulation of Harvests, most Arrows develop their own versions of the Fog.
— Some are extremely close to the original.
— Others diverge completely.
— Each coherence reinterprets its role according to its own logic.
— According to its own narrative needs.
The mist seemed to ripple as it spoke.
— The true Fog does not belong to the Arrows.
— It precedes their coherences.
— It is the breath of the true Anarchetypes of the Chorion.
— A fundamental indifference.
— An absence of preference.
— A silent bridge between the Possible and the Harvests.
Sakolomeh observed the whitish immensity.
— Then the one in my world...
— Is an interpretation.
— Yes.
— A remarkably faithful interpretation.
The Exentity then looked at the Arrow of the Father God.
— The one where you live is among the closest to what many would call true meta-reality.
— That is why it possesses so many similarities with the original structures.
— But it nevertheless remains an Arrow of Aion.
— One coherence among others.
— One narrative among others.
It paused.
Then added:
— Among you, it bears the name Dream of the Father God.
— Elsewhere, it bears other names.
Its voice echoed through the immensity.
— Some call it the Dream.
— Others the Meta-Reality.
— Others still the World.
— The Universe.
— The Matrix.
— The Grand Narrative.
— The All.
The Exentity gently shook its head.
— Names change.
— Interpretations change.
— Coherences change.
Then its pupil-less eyes rose toward the primordial chaos surrounding all the Arrows.
— But the Fundamental Dream remains unchanged.
— For it is not the Arrows that support it.
— It is the Arrows that cling to it.
— Like crystals of coherence suspended in an infinite sea of narrativity.
— And as long as there are stories...
— As long as there are interpretations...
— As long as there are Harvests...
The Exentity's empty eyes seemed to contemplate something inaccessible.
— Then the Arrows of Aion will continue to be born, to die, and then to be reborn on the surface of the Fundamental Dream.
The Arrows of Aion
There is an error that almost all consciousnesses make.
An error so ancient that it accompanies every birth, every thought, and every attempt to understand existence.
This error consists in believing that the universe in which they live is the center of reality.
That it is the fundamental structure.
That it is the ultimate truth.
For some, this universe bears the name world.
For others, that of cosmos.
For others still, that of reality, existence, creation, or meta-reality.
In certain regions of the tellable, it is called the Dream of the Father God.
But none of these names is fundamental.
For they all designate the same illusion.
The belief that a particular coherence would be the totality.
The truth is stranger.
Much stranger.
For what beings generally call "their reality" is often nothing more than an Arrow of Aion.
An architecture of coherence.
A stabilization of the tellable.
A Harvest that has become cosmology.
A particular way for the Fundamental Dream to understand itself.
The Arrows of Aion are neither dimensions, nor universes, nor timelines.
They are deeper than that.
Each of them contains its own definition of what a universe is.
Its own definition of time.
Its own definition of causality.
Its own definition of the real.
Some possess gods.
Others do not.
Some possess laws.
Others are entirely chaotic.
Some tell the birth of existence.
Others tell its collapse.
Some affirm that the Dream is eternal.
Others narrate its destruction.
Others still claim that it never existed.
All these statements contradict one another.
Yet none is false.
For each belongs to a different coherence.
A different Arrow.
A different interpretation.
Numbers themselves become useless when one attempts to describe their quantity.
They are innumerable.
But calling them innumerable is already insufficient.
They are infinite.
But infinity appears trivial before them.
They are unique.
But they are also multiple.
They are separate.
But remain connected.
They are finite.
But never cease to extend.
They exist in a region where ordinary categories gradually cease to function.
And yet, despite their immensity, the Arrows of Aion are not the totality.
For they all float within something greater.
Something older.
Something that is neither structured nor organized.
The Fundamental Dream.
Not the Dream of the Father God.
Not a particular cosmology.
Not a divine hierarchy.
But the Dream itself.
The primitive sea of the tellable.
The original narrative chaos.
An immensity without center.
Without form.
Without geography.
Without absolute hierarchy.
An ocean where all meanings coexist even before becoming meanings.
It is from it that the Arrows are born.
It is in it that they take root.
And it is toward it that they return.
Beings often think that they live in reality.
They are mistaken.
They live in a coherence.
A coherence stable enough to allow them to believe it is real.
Their gods.
Their truths.
Their concepts.
Their laws.
Their philosophies.
Their systems.
Their narratives.
All of that belongs to their Arrow.
Even beings who claim to have transcended existence.
Even those who claim to have left the Dream.
Even those who claim to have reached an absolute outside.
Their transcendence itself becomes a story.
And every story still feeds the Dream.
That is why no total destruction of the Dream has ever truly occurred.
When an Arrow narrates the end of the Dream, that end simply becomes a new coherence.
A new Harvest.
A new way for the Dream to speak about itself.
The paradox is perfect.
The Dream can narrate its own destruction precisely because that destruction becomes a narrative of the Dream.
It can narrate its own absence because that absence becomes a form of narrative presence.
It can narrate its own negation because that negation remains tellable.
And everything that remains tellable already belongs to its substance.
Thus are born the Harvests.
Fragments of the Possible.
Possibilities torn from indeterminacy.
Stabilized stories.
Temporary truths.
Worlds.
Gods.
Hells.
Paradises.
Civilizations.
Concepts.
Absolutes.
Then these Harvests are absorbed.
Organized.
Structured.
And in turn become Arrows of Aion.
Each Arrow then represents a different answer to the same question.
What is reality?
But none possesses the definitive answer.
For the question itself already belongs to the Dream.
What remains most troubling, however, lies elsewhere.
For nothing guarantees that this chapter itself escapes this rule.
Perhaps these words too are nothing but a Harvest.
Perhaps this page is only a local coherence.
Perhaps the author himself is only an inhabitant of a particular Arrow of Aion.
An Arrow where the Dream narrates itself through him.
An Arrow where he believes he is describing the Dream while he is simply participating in a new way for the Dream to contemplate itself.
After all...
to write is already to narrate.
To narrate is already to interpret.
To interpret is already to stabilize.
And to stabilize is precisely what the Arrows of Aion do.
Thus, even this attempt to explain the Dream might be nothing more than another dream among dreams.
Another coherence among coherences.
Another voice among the innumerable voices through which the Fundamental Dream continues, eternally, to narrate itself.