"So you have returned," the countless voices spoke in different pitches, "welcome back. Ready for the first story?"
August had returned to the conscious realm once more. Upon entering the place, the first one he encountered was no one but the being he had made a deal with. While he had expected to encounter one or more echoes, this peace wasn't bad either.
It had almost been a week since he hadn't encountered an echo, excluding his experience of the conscious realm that is. His life had become painless for the past few days.
Maybe it was the doing of that strange being who had spoken the name of their older brother in front of echoes in order to scare them. Something told August, that's why nowadays echoes were reluctant to approach him.
"What? No" he replied, "Not today, first I want to explore this place a bit more."
The voices stayed silent for some time and then spoke,
"Good call. You want to have a tour? Here's your guide."
August batted an eye wondering why the being was getting out of their way to help him? The gesture although seemed nice but sure was suspicious.
"Don't get me wrong," the voice spoke before he could've, "I am not doing it for your sake, it's only for my own benefit. The faster you have appropriate answers for your doubts, the faster we could move on to my end of the deal."
While somewhat suspicious, their argument was valid enough. He nodded at the direction from which the voices came.
"Let's get onto the most basic question first," August asked, turning his gaze here and there, he turned to the voices with a blank expression, "how am I supposed to see? It's dark here."
"It's dark because you don't have a core element yet," the voices said, "...but don't worry you don't need eyes to see here. You can just use your other senses."
"Other senses?" he asked in confusion, "How am I supposed to do that? I've never done something like that before."
"You have surely," said the voices with confidence, "I mean, not voluntarily but I am pretty sure humans do use their other senses subconsciously more often. Feel with their skin, smell with their noses and taste with their tongues and many more."
August stared at the darkness dumbfounded for a while. When the voices described human senses, the thought which came to his mind was something like a superhuman ability to sense your surroundings with the eyes closed. To think the strange ancient being was referring to the basic senses of a human, to August felt like a major downgrade of a thought.
Not like the voices were wrong though, it was possible to train basic senses of a person to the extent they would be called superhuman senses. He had come to know about that during his sword training. Now that he thought about it, this does make a lot of sense.
Why was he thinking with so much exaggeration before?
The problem however still remained. It would have been easy to sense anything if he was in the physical world but here, he did not feel like a human at all. August was somehow aware that it was his consciousness here, not his whole body.
The voices spoke sensing his confusion,
"The senses reside within your mind or in other words, inside your consciousness. The physical parts of the body like the tongue and nose are just sensors."
The voices spoke after a pause,
"...this is the conscious realm where there is nothing but consciousness. In this place your mind does the work. It covers for your physical body and here it does that much better. You have to remember the details and imagine the physical world and you're good to go. Close your eyes and sense your surroundings with your consciousness"
'Close my eyes again huh? That's a strange thing to do twice'
August did just like the voices instructed him to. He closed his eyes or rather imagined for them to be closed. Then he concentrated, for some reason concentration here felt more easy.
Not too long after he felt his sense washing over the place. He was able to perceive his surroundings better than before. He realized being standing on the ground or rather imagined it. The darkness was still there but now he was able to sense what was around him.
He felt his own presence, a few metres away from him, a large crowd was to be sensed as well. A chill ran through his spine when he recognized the nature of the strange gathering. These were the echoes which seemed agressive enough to attack him at any moment.
He spread his perception more, at a distance lay a giant forest of darkness, the trees stood still. The darkness covered the canopies of the tall trees like a never ending mist.
Inside the giant forest, there wasn't anything to be sensed. To him it seemed like the forest wasn't inhabited by any species.
Apart from the echoes, nothing else conscious was to be sensed around him.
He concentrated more, a vast ocean of still water was to be sensed at a great distance from him. August wasn't moving inside this realm but this experience however felt like sightseeing. It felt like visiting many places without moving a muscle.
He moved closer to the ocean. It was still just like it seemed from afar. Even the waves weren't washing away on the dark shore of the black ocean. The water or whatever it was, lay still without making a sound. Even the winds weren't to be sensed as flowing.
August walked closer to the tranquil surface of the ocean water. He wondered how his mind would have imagined himself to be inside this place.
The water however did not reflect his appearance. It was strange to look into the water and not find himself within the reflection. He smiled wryly, the situation made sense to him.
'Feels like I don't know my own self yet'
However, his perception of the physical world had clouded his judgement that August for some time refused to understand how it could make sense for water to not reflect anything before it. On the other note, he realized being in the other realm.
"Excellent" as the voices spoke, August's senses were immediately overwhelmed by the strange but dominant presence. To him it felt like vibrations or disturbances that made him suddenly lose the perception of this realm. Suddenly he wasn't standing on the ground anymore.
He felt like being an incorporeal form or was he? The state was hard to understand even for himself. Like in that moment his right of being a human were stripped off from him and here he was left with nothing, just a consciousness.
A thought.
"What was that?" he exclaimed, "why did you decide to show up unannounced? You startled me."
"Did I?" the voices replied, "Sorry for that. But that wasn't my fault. I didn't show up unannounced anywhere. I have been here this whole time. With you, remember?"
Now that he thought about it. It was true. Somehow August was so immersed into exploring this realm he almost forgot there was someone with him. Why didn't he sense the presence of the voices until they spoke themselves though? He wondered.
"Then, have you looked around enough?" the voices spoke, "...shall we begin the first story then?"
"Not now," August waved his hand, then he looked at the direction of the voices, "I don't know what kind of strange being you are but know that we humans can't be satisfied until we have the enough information to satiate our curiosities. I am speaking about the place obviously, I need more time to look around this realm and explore it for myself."
"But we had a deal" the being said in an offended tone.
"I know," he replied in a convincing manner, "...and it is still on. I just need some time to prepare myself for your stories that as you said are a mess of emotions. You want to study human emotions in their right mind don't you?"
The being spoke after some moments of silence, "alright. That makes sense. I think I've chosen an excellent human for the task."
That was exactly the way August wanted them to think. In reality he was stalling for time so that he could come up with more efficient questions since he got to ask only two of them. And no one knew how much longer the stories were gonna last.
"I am impressed" the voices spoke with genuine expression, "not gonna lie, at first I had my doubts about your mental capabilities but now I can surely say that you're as clever as a beaver."
'Beaver? What's that?'
August wanted to ask this but he had more important questions than to meddle himself into some jokes.
However, being a curious child, he still asked, "what is a beaver?"
"What? You don't know?" the voices said, making the next words sound interesting, "ah.. You don't have one of those around here. It's a small animal like a rat that does construction mainly. I mean they only make dams but hey, that's not a small achievement."
August did not understand a word aside from dams. He knew what a dam was and what purpose it served. Dams were large reservoirs of water which helped in water supplies. From the pictures he had seen in books, dams seem like huge structures. He couldn't imagine a small animal making it though.
The voices said he was smart as a beaver.
Maybe that was a compliment? Who knows.
"Beavers do their work despite the water pressure" the voices sounded serious, "can you go through my stories and come out unscathed? Be fairly warned if you want to continue with this deal." The voices began to whisper, "they contain various emotions in depth. Are you sure you have the mental defenses strong enough to survive that?"
August wasn't concerned. He was more confident in his mental endurance than he was in his sword skills. Not to mention he was pretty skilled with swords. August had suffered years of pain and endured it just so it could never make his parents worry. He had endured and endured, mental more than physical pain. It wasn't easy to fight with echoes for his sanity but life did not give him any option. It wasn't a matter of what he could and couldn't do. It was something that had to be done at all costs.
When the strange being warned him about their stories, August never questioned himself even once. He was confident and that was all that mattered.
"Are you kidding?" he spoke with mocking indignance, "have you forgotten how much effort it took for you to just speak to me?" he waved a hand with arrogance, "I would never let go of this deal as long as you fulfill your end of it."
As the strange beings had told August themselves, they had to flood his sleep with dreams to make him lower his mental defences. Even then it took them years to speak with him in the physical world.
Not to mention the echoes may have been troubling him but even they weren't enough to break his will.
Thanks to that, August had sharpened his mind to an extent which easily surpassed the human limits. He was sure of it.
The voices laughed in amusement,
"As I said, you are the excellent choice"
August was about to bid farewell for today when he was suddenly reminded of an important matter.
"Hey!" he said, "I forgot to ask, how may I address you? I mean, you can't tell me your name and I have never seen with my own eyes. Calling you a strange being just feels weird."
"You call me a strange being?" The voices didn't seem very pleased with that.
"Uh.. I mean" he spoke with dramatic hesitation, "no offence but while talking to you all I do is stare into the darkness and hear some strange voices that surprisingly speak every word together at the same time."
"I get what you are saying," the voices seem convinced, "a way to address me? I know, what do you call someone who tells you a story?"
"Mom?" August replied almost immediately, "are you my mom though?" There was a dramatic silence which told August that this might not be the right time to be joking around which doesn't seem fair to him honestly.
"Alright alright. I get what you want me to call you."
He let out a sigh,
"Storyteller"
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