the void called || 404 event

Reality is but an illusion… 

What does it mean to exist? What does it mean to be real? What is the self? 

Such were some of the many questions idly swirling in Larimar’s mind as they traveled. The Komakha-Dracus cross often found that their mind wandered as they walked just as much as their claws wandered across the ground. It had been one of their favorite pastimes for a long while. They found comfort in how freeing it was to clear their mind for a few hours, without the worries and dreads of daily life weighing them down. 

Are we our body? Or are we our brain? Or are we our mind… or something even more abstract, like a soul?

Their claws slipped on a mossy boulder. Sharp pain lanced up their leg as their wrist twisted unnaturally. They stumbled a few steps as they regained their balance before lifting their smarting talons gingerly into the air.

The sudden jolt brought Lari momentarily to their senses and reminded them to take stock of their surroundings. A small stream bubbled past peacefully on their left, in no rush to join up with the nearby river. Trees rose up out of the ground around them, their leaves creating a pleasant shelter from the earlier sun. By now, the darkness between the trunks was stronger, as the sun was nearing the horizon. 

Nightfall was no concern to them. They knew the area well enough to not worry. They stood for a moment, breathing in the cool twilight air. They set their talons down again, gently testing the injury. Seeing that the pain had subsided to only a dull ache, they continued on. It soon faded from their mind entirely as Larimar returned to their musings.

If we are simply our mind, then what is the mind? Is the mind a part of the brain, or is it something separate? Does the distinction matter? 

Is the mind even a tangible thing itself, or is awareness and consciousness merely an emergent property of the brain’s construction? If that’s the case, and we are our minds, then what does that mean for us? What would happen if a mind was separated from its brain and set free across the aether? 

Would it still… exist?

We are many.

A sudden strange feeling washed over Larimar. They felt their midsection tense up as a wave of anxiety flooded their system. 

Something was wrong.

We are many.

Their antennae pricked forward as they scanned the forest in front of them. Their silver gray eyes flicked from shadow to shadow, searching for what had alerted them. 

Nothing.

There was… nothing wrong. 

This section of forest looked exactly like the rest they’d passed through. Each tree just like the last. The stream had since split from their path, but they could faintly hear it in the not-too-distant parts of the woods. Blissfully unaware.

Yet the pounding of their heart in their chest disagreed. 

Even if they couldn’t see it, there was something just… off. About what lay before them. What else would make the plates on their back itch and crawl like in the moments before a lightning strike? Almost instinctively, their plates had raised up, as if to enhance their form and ward off whatever entity might be watching them.

We are many.

… It must just be in their head. The woods were perfectly normal. It was perfectly quiet here, silent. There were no unusual sights or smells anywhere. 

But it felt like they were looking at nothing. As if they were not just looking through the trees, but through the trees. 

Listen.

Come.

Larimar thought they saw something shimmering across the trees, like a mirage in the desert heat. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived. No matter how hard they looked, they didn’t see it again. They snorted and shook their head. Far be it from them to be this paranoid. 

“What is going on here…” they muttered, laughing quietly at themself. 

Still, Lari couldn’t help themself from stealing a glance back over their shoulder. Just in case. 

Somewhat reassured, they continued on. It was getting late, and they knew a shortcut not too far from here anyways.

As their claws came down, the ground gave way beneath their feet.

Larimar gasped, eyes squeezed shut as they braced themself for the weight of the dirt to come crashing down on them.

But it didn’t come. 

After a moment, they opened their eyes and looked up.

There was no hole.

They were falling?

There’s something we want to show you.

Reality seemed to fold in on itself.

A fractal of colors they couldn’t describe appeared below them, flickering and shifting and expanding as they fell into it. Jagged and smooth, warm and cool all at once. The edges of the pattern soared past them as it grew. They felt the overwhelming need to avert their gaze from it. It almost hurt to look at it.

It was every color at once, and nothing at all. It was blue and it was green and it was red and gold and violet and it was bright and it was sharp. It was empty and it was everything and it was colors they’d only heard rumored to exist. Every shade of the electromagnetic spectrum and then some new ones for good measure.

It wrapped up around them, engulfing them in shapes they couldn’t understand. Things that could only exist in realities beyond theirs and that couldn’t be perceived by mortal eyes. Ultraviolet colors rose like bubbles and exploded into something spherical - no, cuboid? - before twisting in on itself so violently and brightly Larimar was forced to turn away and shut their eyes from the pain it sent through their head and down their spine. 

The noise the shapes made was horrific. It was a shrill, piercing, pinging sound. Mile thick sheets of ice splintering, lightning strikes, the sharp whine of sonar. All at once and more. 

Larimar tucked their head against their chest, trying desperately to block out the sound with their hands. It felt like it was trying to probe into their skull, tearing at their scales like claws. 

Even with their eyes shut, colors and patterns still swirled across their retinas. Bursts of pink and red and orange and gold folding into ever shifting floral expanses, curling inwards and then radiating out, brighter than before.

The shrieking didn’t stop. They couldn’t block it out, no matter how hard they tried. It was as if the sound transcended even the plane it was on, not bound by the laws of the world. Their antennae trembled in pain from the intensity of the vibrations. Larimar pinned them back, flat against their horns, but it didn’t help. 

The very moment it felt as if they could take no more or they’d die, the din stopped. They stopped too. It felt as if they’d been… shifted? Somehow. 

Warily, Larimar opened their eyes. They raised their head and looked around, antennae perking up. They were laying in what appeared to be a sunlit clearing in a forest, but it was no place they recognized. The colors didn’t seem right. Everything was oddly bright, and had a strange, shimmery property to it. It all felt soft and somehow hazy, but they couldn’t place why. They felt like their head had been suddenly stuffed with cotton. 

They pulled themself to their feet, soft rings of light emanating from where their talons touched the grass. Before they had the chance to get their bearings and head off, they saw movement out of the corner of their eye. 

A strange being appeared at the edge of the clearing, and seemed to be staring at them. They recognized it as vaguely Kainu shaped, but something seemed wrong with it. It moved into the clearing towards them.

 It was speaking to them, they could hear that, but they couldn’t make sense of the sounds coming from its mouth. It was nonsense sounds, not even something that could be called a language in some other tongue. 

Something was wrong with it. Something was wrong with its face. Where was its face. They couldn't remember its face.

They were walking down a corridor. The moonlight shone off the stone brick walls and reflected onto the floor. The walls were wood. The light from the torches mounted in the sconces illuminated the ceiling above them. They looked up at the moons and stars shining down on them from above. The moons watched them back. The walls were swirling. The floor was gone. 

They were standing on a mountaintop. The snow was soft beneath their talons, but they felt no cold. The wind howled around them, tugging at their mane and their tail, but they stayed still. The mountain range cascaded into infinity above them. As Larimar looked down, they saw an endless plane of stars stretching out to the edge of the horizon below them. A dark shadow was forming. 

They were in the forest. Everything was gray. The wind had been caught mid-gust, and the trees frozen in place, branches curled at odd angles. The grass felt stiff below Larimar’s talons. Flowers had been drained of their color. Gently, they cupped their talons underneath the petals of one. It still felt soft to the touch, but was otherwise motionless. They released it again and looked up. 

Larimar moved forward silently through the still woods. The only color was their gleaming blue fur. The only sound was their own breath as they exhaled. Their only companionship was the waves of energy from their claws as they walked, gentle ripples like on the surface of a tranquil pond. Wherever they stepped, the energy seemed to revitalize the flora some amount. The grass would flutter and the flowers seemed ever so slightly livelier, a tinge of color returning to their petals. 

The tree line opened up ahead of them, peeling away from the trail and giving way to the rolling plains. Mountains loomed ominous in the distance, and the dark gray sky presided above the proceedings with a heavyhearted presence. The only motion was the wind through the tall grasses of the plains. Even the birds had been frozen in flight, black flecks scattered across the sky. Some even caught in the midst of taking off. 

There, in the middle of the field, was a shadow. It was Drakiri shaped, but it was hard for Larimar to get a read on how large it was. It seemed both incredibly close but endlessly out of reach at the same time, as if space itself was bending around it. Its mane billowed in the wind, a dark mass obscuring its true shape. Its pelt was so dark that no light reflected off of it. It felt as if they were staring into the Abyss itself.

Larimar’s heart dropped into their stomach. They were overwhelmed with the same inexplicably anxious and paranoid sensation looking at this thing that they had felt when they had been stopped on that forest path. It oozed the exact same feeling of Wrongness. That feeling of looking at a thing but not truly seeing it, as if it wasn’t there. The Wrongness emanated from the being like a horrible aura, clinging to it like a shroud. 

They weren’t supposed to see this. They weren’t supposed to be here. 

They wanted to move, to step back, to get away from the awful feeling this thing carried with it, but they found they couldn’t move. Their body had become as still and frozen as the birds. As stiff as the flowers and grass. 

The figure moved. Its head raised from where it had been standing, and the Wrongness grew stronger. Its powerful neck curved, swinging its head around to fix them in its gaze over its shoulder. Its eye was a horrible shade of red. As it bored into them, the feeling of Wrongness increased in intensity so much that Larimar knew that if they had been in control of their body, they would’ve crumpled into the ground and sunk through the earth and stone under its weight. It felt as if it could see through to their very soul. As if in an instant, it knew all of them, inside and out.

Welcome. 

Larimar gasped - or, would have at least. 

The sky… 

We’ve seen you.

It was full of eyes.

We’ve seen everything. 

Larimar jolted. They were suddenly floating a few feet off the ground. Their heart was pounding. They looked back over their shoulder in confusion and scanned their surroundings for any sign of what had startled them.

There was nothing.

The forest was at peace. The stream flowed nearby, hidden by the underbrush. Birds called, filling the trees with song. Creatures scurried off in the distance. The river could be heard faintly in the background. A gentle breeze wafted through, bringing with it the chill of twilight and the promise of rainfall in the future. 

“Huh…”

Larimar shook themself out. Nothing was wrong. They must have zoned out as usual, distracted by their own mind. They’d likely just misstepped and their brain had thought they were falling, so had caused them to instinctively start to fly as a reflex. 

Sheepishly, Larimar uncurled their legs and set down again, ripples of energy lighting up the ground as they landed. Their tail swished, dissipating their excess anxious energy. 

How silly, they thought. Startled by something that doesn't even exist. 

It wouldn’t surprise them. After all, they had already tripped up once on this walk. Their wrist was still sore enough to prove it. It’d make sense they were just a bit on edge after that incident.

They lifted their head to look up at the sky. The sun had fully dipped below the horizon. The soft indigo of nightfall had moved even further across the sky, signaling the loss of light soon to come. The rings shone brilliantly in the dusky sky, and the first hints of stars were beginning to appear. It was definitely time to be getting home. This late afternoon adventure had run its course. 

Larimar turned back to face the path, uneasiness already fading as they plotted out their route home. It was getting late, and they knew a shortcut not too far from here anyways. They’d be back in no time.

We are Witness.

… and we are but simple magicians.