Resistance and Synesthesia

Subject: Terilynn Veranos | Classif.: Barzakh

Lynn sat on her bed, dazed. At the corner of the staff dorm room she claimed for her own was a section of the wall that did not match the rest. Indented slightly with a bizarre protrusion sticking out. She had no clue what it was or how it got there.

A rectangular panel that had no rhyme or reason. Standing vertically on the floor, its presence was odd. Misplaced, even. But that was not the cause of her growing anxiety.

It was the fact that she had no idea how she got in here. Or how she could get out. Trapped between fight or flight, she defaulted to freeze. Like a deer in headlights, she stared at the unknown rectangular object, her mind stuck in the uncanny valley, unable to determine if it was a threat or yet another inexplicable phenomenon better left ignored.

No matter how much she tried to make heads or tails of the anomaly, the neurons in her brain could not come to a consensus. As if something was actively blocking her from putting a name or a purpose to the object. Every inch of her goosebumped skin warned her to stop. To not dig any deeper into the thing between the walls.

But how else would she get out?

Breaking the wall should be easy with her strength, but this “wall” was Pris. Would the almighty Qanthorah let such an act slide? Because she certainly wouldn’t. Besides, the father-daughter pair would definitely make fun of her for taking such a drastic measure, if being trapped in the base wouldn’t already. Calling for help was out of the question.

Taking a deep breath, she activated her Soulsight. Mia was still inside the building. No trace of Mortis, but it was better not to look for him. Outside, the sea of souls moved upstream, as it always had. Looking at that light show, she wondered why her history lessons only mentioned the Holographic Sea, but not the containment facility built right next to it. Another case of Vita erasing everything related to Mortis, perhaps?

That damned Mortis...

She could not deny his usefulness in the investigation. The results from the lab sitting beside her on the bed were proof of it. But what truly creased the lines on her forehead was how she was being taken for a ride. She had no say in where to go or how to best return to The Mids. Granted, this was her first time in The Depths after all, but would it kill him to be a bit more… open to seeking her counsel?

Throughout her time as an Executrix for the Council, never once had she been disrespected by those she worked with in such a manner. Be it respect out of her status as a noble, or out of fear for her strength, even her enemies treated her with due courtesy. All the scum and traitors she hunted down, those the knights dared not touch, dared not look down on her. The youngest graduate of the Royal Academy in the kingdom’s history.

She could not wait for the bloody traitor to kill himself as he so graciously claimed to do.

Opening the demijohn of wine she “requisitioned” after stalking him into the cellar earlier, she took a mouthful of the fruity fluid straight from the bottle.

“Ack—”

Instant regret. It was less fruit, more like a rotten carcass. Her neck cramped up, face looking like her pet cat at home that just took a fart right in the face. The blasphemous taste traveled from her tongue into her nostrils and right into her brain. She could feel the tears being dragged out of her eyes. No salt. Only shame.

Good thing this was a solo mission. If any of her colleagues saw her at that moment, she might actually commit treason.

Worst of all, something gnawing at the back of her mind was telling her to take a second sip.

It was torture for her tongue, but what was training if not essentially torture? She wasn’t drinking just to drown her frustrations. No. This was on-the-job training. She was building resistance to Mortis’s poison. Nothing less, nothing more.

So why did the second sip taste better than the last?

It was still abominable, that can’t be denied, but compared to the sacrilegious sensation washing over her taste buds earlier? A noticeable improvement. Truly suspicious. She would need to investigate this further with a third sip.

Hmm… strange.

This tasted bad, right? It had to be. Alcohol, like every other illegal substance on The Surface was illegal for a reason. Addiction was extremely dangerous for a society of Immortals. This was why she had to approach her training regimen extremely carefully. A balancing act on a thin tightrope between strengthening her liver and weakening her brain. Unlike most of the elders who grew fat and lazy, she was dedicating herself to self-improvement. An honorable endeavor, the furthest thing away from treason.

The only thing remotely close to treason was the absence of a toilet in the room. Other than the bed and some simple furnishings, the room was as barebones as a skeleton. Did the advanced civilizations of prehistory collectively decided minimalism was trendy once more? Why did everything look so empty?

And since when was the door there?

Getting up from the bed, Lynn froze once more. It was as if someone rearranged the thoughts in her mind, rewiring certain connections to fill in a gap that was never there. The door in the corner of the room was perfectly normal. So why did it feel like there was something wrong with it earlier?

Slowly, but slightly wobbly, she stepped towards the innocuous object. As her hand graced the metal handle, a buzzing sound from outside seeped through the hinges. It came from the keycard reader, the way she got access into this room in the first place. By pulling the handle down, the door and her mind were set free.

“Pfft—”

Seriously? A door?

She wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol talking or her, but she found the idea of a threatening door to be absurd. A-door-able, even. What was there to fear about a door in the first place? Unless it was a trap, she found her whole confusion from earlier to be quite silly.

“Warning. Mashar-Class entity approaching the facility.”

Lynn’s hand pulled away from the door as if she had touched a hot iron. What did I do?! What did I do?! Did she trigger the appearance of some reality warper just from opening a random door?

Coughing, she forced the words out of her dry throat. “Pris! What is going on?”

“Update. Entity is confirmed to be human. Type. Antediluvian Immortal. Would you like to activate anti-human countermeasures?”

A fellow Immortal who could manipulate reality. Only a few of them came to mind. For a Council member to come here… was it friend or foe? Wait. This wasn’t the biggest concern here.

“You’re asking me for permission to activate ‘countermeasures?’ Why aren’t you looking for your master, Mor—I meant, Tim?”

“He is currently unavailable.”

Just what was that traitor up to? Going AWOL at such a crucial moment. She forced her heart to steady itself. Her mind worked through the sluggish connections delayed by her tipsy haze. Actually, this situation might not be as bad as she first thought.

“No need for countermeasures. I will handle it.”

“Acknowledged. Happy dying!”

That line sounded like a broken record in her head by this point. Whether it was sarcasm or genuine, the robotic quality of its voice masked its motives very well. She had no intentions of dying, though. Drunk as she was, her intoxication had not clouded her mind. Yet.

While stomping towards the exit in a hurry, she reached into one of the pouches in her belt, beside the one where she kept the Blackblood syringe. Inside that pouch was a packet of medicine yet to be discovered by modern scientists. “Relieved” from the lab when Tim wasn’t looking, she took as many of these anti-inebriants as she could.

Her throat twisted, her face crumpled as she forced a single pill into her mouth. On her tongue, it was tasteless, but everywhere else in her body burned. Poison was purified from her bloodstream as her liver metabolized the last traces of ethanol. Blocked pathways in her brain reconnected, straightening her heavy, imbalanced steps. With just a single pill, its near-instantaneous effects sent her heart pumping several times faster beyond the maximum human rate.

In less than a minute, she was already 100% sober. The glassiness of her eyes and the stench in her breath were completely gone by the time the bunker doors of the building opened for her. But when she saw the familiar face standing below the ramp, all she felt was regret.

She wished she were hammered and drunk out of her mind. Maybe then, she could forget the loathsome face looking back at her once and for all.

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Subject: Mia | Classif.: Barzakh

Mia’s face scrunched up like a ball. Eyes shut. Magic poured into her eyelids, flooding them with energy, as a sizable amount spilled out into her temples and cheeks. Despite being intangible, the excess energy was like getting soap in her eyes. Invisible bees stinging her eyes and face.

No matter how much she focused, she couldn’t activate Soulsight. In her mind, she pictured the same sensation flowing from Lynn’s palm all the way up to her optic nerves. Firm. Steady. Rock-like, similar to the Immortal who wielded it.

But the energy inside her was different. Formless and shapeless. Every time she channeled magic of her own, it could not retain any consistent structure. If Lynn’s magic was like pouring water into a bowl, hers was like pouring it into a sieve. A pointless endeavor.

As the pain in the front of her skull subsided, her eyes gently opened. Light poured in once more, just not the kind she was hoping for. Beyond the glass panel in front of her were countless shining orbs. The digitalized souls of the Holographic Sea. If only her Soulsight worked, all of those shooting star-like glimmers should still be visible with her eyes closed. If.

Was she tired? Still distracted from the whispers behind the swimming pool door? As she paced around the observatory, she wondered what she still lacked in order to harness magic. From shooting an imaginary fireball out of her palm to slamming the ground to conjure a stone wall, all of her attempts were fruitless.

“I have a question.”

Pris’s voice made her jump. Her face turned red as she realized her antics were being watched all along.

“Your actions are outside my current knowledge base of human behavior. May I know what your actions entail?”

“I’m… trying to use magic.”

“Please define your ‘magic.’”

“Huh?”

“Throughout history, magic has evolved in its interpretation. In the first Age, magic was primarily a performance art such as… sleight of hand or misdirection.”

“That’s not it.”

“Then are you referring to what is now known as ‘Ancient Magic?’ This form of magic originated in the Third Age, the Age of Alchemy, and is known for its use of incantations and rituals.”

“Umm… I’m trying to use Soulsight.”

“Ah. It appears I misunderstood. That is not magic. That is a form of synesthesia.”

The constant usage of big words from the Aberration was making her feel dumb. Sensing the inferior being’s confusion, it decided to explain in a more digestible way:

“Synesthesia. Your brain rerouting sensory information from one ‘sense’ into another. For an Antediluvian human such as yourself, Soulsight is triggered through interoception. By maintaining a certain heart rate and regulating your emotions via your limbic system, you should begin to perceive the souls and monster cores in your surroundings.”

While she found the explanation fascinating, she disagreed.

“But that time, when I closed my eyes, I could see them after Lynn poured magic into my hand…”

“A common misinterpretation. This ‘magic’ you state is known as Acritae, and has already been reclassified. It is a purely physiological process. It is science. Not magic.”

“Okay, fine. Science,” she sighed, waving her hands in defeat. “But what even is a ‘limbic system?’ You mean like my arms and my legs?”

Unfortunately, Pris did not have an answer for her. Only a message.

“Warning. Mashar-Class entity approaching the facility.”

Mia was startled. The hairs on her skin stood up, warning her of the danger. Almost immediately, the inquisitive child in her turned off, replaced by the killer in her soul as she rushed to the exit. She hoped there would be no conflict, but was ready to jump in if necessary.

Her readiness paid off. Because by the time she arrived at the bunker doors, the battle had already ended.