Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
The Hanging Tree' James Newton Howard ft. Jennifer Lawrence (Official Audio)
https://youtu.be/F3hTW9e20d8
Chapter 19: Flowers
Early Afternoon - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 0 : Sector J14
World: Leviathan | Rank: ERROR | Population: 22
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"You're.. lonely... Aren't you..."
She spoke it softly.. like merely echoing a thought that had only just taken shape—the idle murmur of a creature that didn't even know what she was asking.
Yet somehow, those gentle words rang my skull like a sledgehammer. "Tch..." Bitter air filled my mouth in an instant, my nerves flaring and hand twitching before I pulled myself away to take a breath. "Haah... If that were the case, I'd have died a long time ago."
*Rattle* Jolting as though my flinch caught her, she winced before my words could finish, twisting and pressing her head into my thigh before seemingly forcing words out. "Why.. is that..?"
Taken aback, I paused for a moment—my eyes caught on the daze in her stare before entertaining her with an honest answer. "It's a disease that eats will. If it isn't dealt with, when the time comes, you'll accept death instead of finding the strength to struggle."
It was an answer I was certain she wouldn't understand... Something of a depth only one who had experienced it could.
And yet... "Finding the strength.. to struggle..." Curling around my leg, she walked off until just her tail was still touching my leg before her eyes, shimmering blue like the dead bison around us, fell with a shadow. "I.. see..."
As if flickering with static, her gaze wavered more drastically the farther away she pulled—her expression growing conflicted and troubled before eventually turning around.
*pat* Pressing her head back into me, the daze in her eyes returned, and her expression morphed with something.. unfamiliar... "I'm.. sorry..."
It was guilt... Coming from a being that shouldn't have known what it was. -How.. odd...-
Gently resting my hand on her head again, her gaze emptied.. like my touch draped her mind in fog.. and her expression relaxed.
Then, after pulling it away, her eyes would sharpen, but her expression would warp as though by pain.
It was puzzling, yes.. but the longer I watched her.. the more curious I became...
Every time our touch broke, she'd wince, close her eyes as if to focus, and curl back to rub against me...
And each time, she would ask a different question—something simple yet unanswerable by anything other than whim or experience...
'Is this feeling.. fear..?'
'How do I.. remember..?'
And 'What.. is my purpose..?'
I had.. never seen anything quite like it... It was almost as if she was trying to define her own existence.
Unlike the living robotics I had observed in the past, she wasnt just manipulating her programming, she was thinking for herself as if she had somehow grown a brain...
...And as though using my touch to silence the circuitry.. she was beginning to define things herself.
Growing curious, I squatted beside her, giving her silence while watching and observing as she circled, trying to make sense to herself before forming another question she wished to ask.
At times, I couldn't tell whether I was talking to a scholar, a monarch, or a child.
But regardless of the question, I responded truthfully, whether the answer was one I believed she could understand or not...
And without fail, she gleaned something from every word I spoke.
Until eventually, after countless questions, she sat before me, rested her paw on my foot, and matched my gaze for the first time since she awoke. "What.. am I..?"
It was a question I should have expected—one with many answers, none of which were incorrect...
...A robot, a monster, a maid, an animal...
Yet when the time came to answer it, I didn't consider any of them.
She wanted me to define her... To define her purpose and role.
But I didn't want to.. and so, the words left my mouth as if it were any other answer. "You are you."
Her eyes widened instantly—the daze behind them sharpening just a hair before falling once more. "You are.. you..."
Lingering just a moment longer, she stood up and drifted, circling me with and without my touch as if wanting to form thoughts from the sharpness, only to lay at my feet a moment later.. and fall asleep.
It was.. curious... -What a fascinating little thing you are...-
Looking over her body for another moment, I ran my fingers through her metal fur, feeling the beginnings of bone and skin beneath it before picking her up and draping her over my shoulder with neither the stiffness of steel or the limpness of flesh...
While she rested, I needed to get moving to find a way back to Earth again, but even as I began the journey back across the plains—headed for the mountains to the west—I struggled to pull my mind from her questions, not worried I answered anything incorrectly, but more-so wondering how she interpreted my answers.. and comparing to how I wished her to.
..As if perhaps.. maybe I didn't want her to become the servant everything had...
But, over the course of a few days, with Bella staying asleep, such questions faded.
Unable to run at full speed—or even near it—it took about a week to reach the mountains before turning south, hoping to find some sort of marsh that could be home to the foreign ivy I found in the plains.
My thought was, if I could find where the ivy originated, I could also find another hint.
However, things weren't so simple. After another couple days of searching I did eventually find the ivy's home, but rather than a more isolated biome like a swamp or even forest, it was sparsely spread across the ridge of the mountains, without pattern or reason seemingly other that happenstance.
"Haah..." It was the worst place I could've found it...
Being right on the windiest part of the ridge, it was entirely possible for its seeds or spores to get caught in the wind, and cross the several thousand kilometers to where the monument stood. -And being a plant that only seems to grow in the windier places...- My odds the monument in the plains meant much of anything.. dwindled rapidly...
-What a pain...-
It seemed like time started slipping by after that, flowing like it hadn't since I was still a subject of the system, watching the sun rise and set from the mountaintop while digging through my system and wracking my brain to muster another idea.
But it never came...
Until eventually, the furry feline I had laid beside me, started moving.
"Mmmhhh..." She woke up with a groan—a gentle purr that came from habit rather than purpose—before lifting her head to look over the vast forest at the base of the mountain beneath us, and the beginnings of the plains at the horizon.
It was dark, so dark I wasn't sure she could see any of it, but as she looked out, her eyes almost seemed to glow.
"You must have slept well."
Turning to me, her eyes drifted with confusion before eventually settling with a mumble. "I.. suppose so..."
Turning back toward the horizon, she fell silent again—her brain churning as if to sort itself while her eyes drifted beneath the sea of stars.
But with every ripple of breeze that slipped through the thick layer of ivy behind us, her daze slowly lifted.
Until finally.. she spoke again. "Why are we here..?" Turning back to me, she matched my gaze without a waver. "You.. wouldn't have come here for the view..."
I was quick to nod. "I came here to think."
She immediately responded with a head tilt. "You're.. troubled..?" She didn't seem to understand.
And I knew she wouldn't.. but I didn't need her to. "Im trying to find one of the administrators of this world."
"An administrator as in.. a god..?" Seeing me nod, her head tilted again. "Why..?"
"To find a way home." Turning back to the horizon, I spoke with a heavy breath. "If I can't get back to Earth quickly, it might just collapse."
Following my gaze, she spoke barely above a whisper. "Are you.. a god of Earth?"
"Hah, no. I'm just.. an old resident..." Pausing, my gaze fell to my feet. "I lived there before The System came—hundreds of years ago by Earth's time—and after clawing my way through the deepest reaches of hell, I finally had the chance to go back... Just.. only long enough for me to get a taste of freedom before it was snatched from me again..."
Turning back to me, Bella's daze seemed to lift for a moment. "Why do you sound.. defeated..?"
Leaning back, I let the mountain wind ruffle my hair, and let my eyes drift over the stars like they hadn't in years. "I'm not defeated. Just.. at a loss... The only lead I had was an old stone column buried in the plains. I thought the ivy there was foreign, maybe planted by a god to guard something. But the ivy grows naturally here, in the high winds." Motioning over my shoulder, Bella's gaze quickly followed. "It was likely nothing more than a seed carried by chance, but the chance is big enough to make me reconsider where I'm looking."
Tilting her head, her look grew puzzled. "How.. can you be so sure it wasn't the god's doing?"
"The column wasn't special, nor was anything around it.. just a sea of rubble and a bed of flowers..."
Her gaze immediately returned to me, unblinking. "What if it was placed by this world's god though? What if.. the god wished to protect the flowers?"
A dry chuckle escaped me. "Hah… And why would a god bother with flowers?"
"Well.. because they're pretty..."
I wanted to scoff once more, but in that moment, it caught in my throat—my expression falling dark as her stare dug into me.
It was a naive answer.. one that could only result from someone who had never experienced the kind of beings the gods of these worlds were...
But the longer the silence dragged, and the more the winds rippled over us.. the more something in me hesitated.
'Because they're pretty...'
...
The thought lingered long into the night. Leaving me to recount all my memories of travels in this world to see if I had found any such flowers anywhere else while Bella nestled against my side in silence.
By dawn, the thought still hadn't left me. Perhaps I was looking for the wrong thing.. not fortresses or monuments, not shrines dripping with historic authority.
...But, smaller.. more fragile things.
"Flowers…" I muttered under my breath as I watched the sky turn from violet to gold. "Where did I see them..."
Beside me, Bella stirred, ears flicking as a misty breeze curled her fur. "Hmm..?"
"There was one place I saw them, but I didn't think anything of it..." Looking down the ridgeline as morning dew curled off it, my troubled mind calmed. -Maybe I.. really was looking for the wrong thing this whole time...-
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