Ultimately, I had a strange feeling about that girl. But I hadn't seen her in a long while.
I'm five now. And whatever this Trial is, I seem hard on my luck. I've studied every discipline contained in the human mind, and yet it still leads me no closer to the answer.
But the unknown is fun.
Sure, you could say knowledge is necessary in a world of more than one. However, foreknowledge is a curse. With foreknowledge, paradise is lost. There are no peak experiences. The world itself becomes boring.
You may think you want a diamond perfect in the Four Cs, but when you're experienced in life, what you want is a diamond in the rough.
Wait… I'm not experienced in life.
Unless five years constitutes fathomless wisdom?
"Hey Edmund… what is chaos magick? Can we do it? I mean—is that what we do?"
"No, Young Thales. It is not what we do. Chaos magick—and magick in general—does not belong to all living things. What we do is a gift all living things eventually reach on the existential ladder."
"Then what exactly is this raw potential we tap into?"
"No—we don't tap into it. We merely observe it. And the Creator, from the Source, observes our wish too. At our core, we create a relation to it—and thus we create chaos. And then we live through that chaos when we collapse the possibilities."
I didn't really get it. Maybe it was something that had to be experienced?
"What is all this for?"
"Well, there are certain circumstances—you shouldn't know until you truly live. The Trial tests your soul. If you're ready, you'll begin to peer into the depths of chaos."
I couldn't understand chaos. What it was. What this Trial was. Anything useful, really. It all felt too useless.
I got up. I needed to stretch my legs. And maybe have some time to think.
And then it caught my eye.
It wasn't even particularly impressive.
A book. Bound in faded black.
But it called to me.
I picked it up.
No proper name. No real authorial identity The title read:
"Cogito, ergo dubito: yet never The Mystery."
My hands tingled.
I opened the book.
And so began my descent.