Get Real

Afterwards, there had been a brief silence until at last the woman on the log cocked her head and spoke.

"That is strange. Black dwarf stars are not usually bright enough to be visible to the naked eye." Her voice was extremely soft and feminine but it had a tinge of a strange accent that was making some of the words she spoke sound artificial.

"I suppose anything is possible…" She looked down and stroked her partner's hair. "…in dreams."

After that, there was an even longer silence. The crackling of the fire and the elf's soft breathing were the only sounds to be heard. Continuing to look at the stars, as if she were counting them, Alma finally broke the uncomfortable lull.

"What are you?" A stupid thing to ask, she thought, but it was the question she desperately needed to get out first.

"I am not of this universe," replied the alien monotonously.

Alma's eyes began to cross. She wasn't expecting to be given such a straightforward answer, but it was the only satisfying answer she could think of.

"Are you a god? Do… Do soldiers fight in your name?" She stammered, unsure of why she would continue to indulge in the strange girl’s farce.

"I would err to call myself a deity—far from it," she said, shaking her head before pausing, trying to think of what to say next.

"One cannot foster worshippers when they do not even know you exist." The girl shrugged, seemingly dejected at the prospect. "There is no glory in what I do, I am more of… a celestial custodian, let us say. I simply clean up the bugs that harm the system."

If she was trying to be funny, the humor was lost on Alma.

The woman, who had been speaking incessantly, stopped stroking Hwalín’s hair after the elf began to stir in her sleep. She then continued her speech in a softer voice. It was hard to imagine where she had picked up such motherly inclinations.

"I have been tasked by my kind to watch over this inkling of a universe and resolve any would-be anomalies that may arise due to an impetus of an either external or internal nature. Accordingly, this region of space is chiefly known to be a frequent hotbed of various dimensional disturbances that were hitherto dealt with by my predecessor, who is, unfortunately, now out of commission," she stated matter-of-factly before taking a quick pause to look around the empty forest, as if making sure no one else were listening. "Recently, there has been a very abnormal force emanating from this sector of the universe that has caught my attention. A force powerful enough to pull a neighboring galaxy and set it on a collision trajectory with yours—about one billion years ahead of schedule."

Alma looked at the sky, pondering if she were perhaps still asleep and dreaming. She closed her eyes and squinted hard, but the pain in her body was telling her otherwise.

The woman robotically continued her bizarre speech, "Normally, this phenomenon does not actually pose much danger in and of itself, but in this case… if it is not stopped, one of the consequences sees this planet on a direct course into a nearby Class L stellar remnant, leading to catastrophic ramifications for the occupying inhabitants."

She blinked a few times before turning to Alma, the slight tossing of her hair causing an almost invisible rippling effect through the air.

"That includes you."

Chills ran down Alma's still-shaky spine as she began to process what this weird person was spewing. She tried to shake away the creepiness of the situation but after the monstrous events of that morning, she found little recourse for a more practical rationalization.

"Were those… things a part of these 'dimensional disturbances?'" Alma asked coolly after successfully managing to sit up after the umpteenth time—her muscles crying out in pain. She refused to show weakness to this entity that could kill her utterly with the strange abilities she had displayed earlier.

The woman, who Alma had earlier heard the elf call "Nia", attempted what she thought might be considered a warm smile, proud that the girl was swiftly beginning to put the pieces together.

"Yes," she said. "I would say they were—with a bit of fault on my part."

Her gaze drooped downward to the sleeping girl on her lap; soft breathing passed through Hwalín's ruby lips.

"The results of which proved too much for me to manage and almost cost two dear girls their lives."

Alma detected a reverb in Nia's voice when she spoke those last few words.

The woman looked back up at Alma with a start.

"Oh! Excuse my manners. You are positively brimming with questions, but the most important is perhaps my identity. Permit me to properly introduce myself: I am that whom they call Qu'l-Nia, though most of my kind have taken to calling me by a title that roughly translates to She Who Dances Within the Stellar Syzygy of the Ten-Thousand-Pointed Star and Forebear of the Grand Sacred Senescence.”

Alma, pretending she didn’t hear that last part, quietly sounded out the strange name, unsure of what to make of it. Kay-ool-nia— She doubted whether introductions were going to lend any further credence to what she had just heard.

"Um, my name is Alma. Alma Mesel."

Qu'l-Nia nodded and smiled at the response, as if this bit of information was apparently already known to her. Alma, who was now even further disturbed by the woman’s mockery of attempted emotion, bit her lip.

"If you and your kind are so omniscient, why not just snap your fingers and solve this problem? Why come here and almost get yourself killed? I mean—can you even die?" The floodgate of questions poured forth from her mouth, skepticism was her only weapon at this point. She figured it wiser not to ask about the song.

"I admit, I am still a bit of a novice to this whole situation and this physical form limits me severely. You see, my kind are not exactly what you would call 'all-powerful.' Much less so once we actually inhabit the universes in our charge.

"And yes, I can die just as easily as you can while I am in this space." Qu'l-Nia worried about divulging that information, but relented in the end, figuring that it would build trust. "In truth, our kind were originally born into a universe very similar to this one, hundreds of vigintillions of years ago and over that span, we eventually evolved beyond our mortal frame and were able to cross the macrocosmic barrier beyond space and time. You may think that we are akin to divinity, but we are not gods, nor do we wish to be treated as such. We simply felt it our job to keep things in order.

"My predecessor was the previous guardian of this universe and a lot more experienced in these matters than I, but he was removed from his post when he broke one of our cardinal rules and exiled to remain inside the universe he was once in charge of." Qu'l-Nia now had a very grave expression on her face. "And so, I have detected him somewhere on this planet, and I now search for him in hopes that he could possibly help me gain some insight into this problem you all now face."

Despite her intentions, the woman's speech greatly annoyed Alma. It made her feel as if her life was growing increasingly insignificant, a feeling that always gnawed at her in the back of her mind. She pushed the thought away and tried distracting herself by replaying the events of the day in her head. She recalled an odd detail that slipped her mind at the time.

"That wasn't the first time I've seen creatures like those," Alma said while crossing her arms, preparing to tell her story once again.

"Oh?" Qu'l-Nia was listening intently now.

"Ever since I was a little girl, I'd see these strange lights out of the corner of my eyes," Alma paused, almost laughing at the prospect of how rehearsed this speech had begun to sound. "As I got older, they began to take on more discernible shapes and I'd begin to see them move around in very unnatural patterns. It used to scare me so bad that I'd stay in bed under the covers with my eyes closed shut and hoping it was all some bad dream."

Alma sighed.

"No one ever believed me except my sister. Everyone else always thought I was weird or cursed and refused to hang out with me. Well, except for one other person…"

"That must have been very awful for you, Alma." There seemed almost what felt like genuine pity in her voice, which only served to make Alma feel worse.

"It's fine. I'm over all that anyway," Alma spat, furrowing her eyebrows. "I learned to live with it and got over my fear as I got older. I even tried interacting with them on occasion but any attempt to communicate always fell on deaf ears—or whatever passes for ears on those things."

Alma took a deep breath, her tone now veering into self-derision.

"So, I just kept on living my life, afraid of the possibility that this was something I was just going to have to live with until I die." She stared into the dazzling flames of the bonfire as she spoke, following with her eyes the individual embers as they sparked out. She couldn't help but wonder why she had begun arbitrarily spilling her guts to an unknown being of cosmic significance, so she simply chalked it up as another one of the woman's crazy world-splitting abilities.

Despite Alma's gripes however, she still felt mildly happy having someone to talk with who might finally understand what she was going through.

"Alma..." Naturally, Qu’l-Nia held no actual sympathy for the perturbed Alma. Emotions were alien to her, but she tried her very best to generate a facsimile of them.

"Even though I say I'm over it," Alma grimaced, "sometimes at night, I pray that Macha will cure me of this misery."

"There is nothing wrong with you, Alma," stated Qu'l-Nia, attempting to ameliorate the situation. "You are simply more attuned to The Real than the rest of your people—as is Hwalín."

"'The Real'?" Alma snorted.

"Yes," Qu'l-Nia answered. "That is the name my kind gave to the energy beyond the ether, the space between worlds. It is where my kind resides. Every universe is steeped in its essence and it is what powers their flow. Higher beings are able to harness or attune to that energy and use it to affect reality around them. But anyone, really, has the potential to draw from it."

"Sounds like a god to me," Alma muttered under her breath.

The woman pointed to Alma and continued. "You, for example, have been unknowingly using it to peer beyond the veil."

"I—what?" stuttered Alma. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. She had completely forgotten about the pain in her torso and face. "I don't understand. Are you implying this shit is a gift?"

Alma was once again growing agitated. She swallowed the saliva in her mouth.

"That I'm somehow special?"

Deep down Alma already knew the answer. After everything she'd seen, it would be hard not to believe this alien woman's story. She seemed like the type who expects you to believe her no matter what, Alma thought.

"That is one way you could interpret it. For one reason or another, you are able to tap into this cosmic energy to augment your vision. It is no wonder you wield a weapon that requires such exact precision."

"My Esme?" Alma panicked as she began to look around, making sure her weapon hadn't gotten lost somewhere in the forest. Qu'l-Nia informed her that the rifle was safely stashed back in its case nearby, thanks to Hwalín. Alma grabbed her bag and fervently inspected its contents multiple times. After feeling satisfied, Alma sat back down with bent knees and buried her face in her arms before letting slip a big sigh.

"My damned pistol is missing. That was a gift from— Damn it. Damn it! This is just great!" she uttered sarcastically.

Qu'l-Nia was quiet, figuring it better for Alma to vent out her frustration.

Alma peeked up from her arms and sighed again.

"I'm sorry, I—" she stuttered, her voice cracking. "This is just not how I envisioned today going. It was supposed to be—"

Her eyes widened as she clasped her hand over her mouth.

"Oh shit! My mission! They're going to mark me AWOL. I have to head back!"

"Please, Alma," pleaded Qu'l-Nia. "You cannot leave in your current state. Go out into a dark, snow-entrenched forest with those injuries and it will not be long before we find your frozen corpse."

Alma hung her head for a while and remained silent except for a single muttered remark regarding her commander skinning her hide. Finally, she lifted her head, looked at Qu'l-Nia and asked the other question that had been haunting her.

"What... exactly were those creatures we fought?"

Qu'l-Nia stiffened up, causing Alma to get nervous. The expression on her face made it seem as if she were contemplating whether or not to answer her question.

"That one is a bit trickier to answer, but I will try my best to give you an acceptable response.” The alien woman looked to the sky as she spoke. “From a time long before humanity began, there have been forces that come and go through the void between universes that defy natural logic. Formless things that exist beyond mortal ken and creatures that skirt along the edge of madness. Beings even much older than I, that have made the other realms of the Real their domain, millennia upon millennia before our arrival."

A look of disgust came over Alma's face.

"Exactly how much of this tripe do you expect me to swallow?" She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead before lying back against the ground.

"Forget I asked. This is already starting to fly way over my head and the only thing I should really be worrying about is getting back home and explaining my absence today—as much as is believable anyway." She rolled her eyes, the last straw for her finally having been broken. "Listen, thanks for almost killing me today. Oh, and be sure to thank the elf for losing my gun."

Alma closed her eyes tightly, wishing that everything she had heard was simply the delirium kicking in the moment before she froze to death on the way to her mission. She could hear Qu'l-Nia sympathetically calling her name but Alma refused to acknowledge her any longer. Fondling the charm in the pocket of her dark cargo pants, Alma's thoughts drifted to her sister. After several minutes, her mind and body relaxed and fell into a deep slumber.

Every passing night for the next couple of years, beginning after the day she had first met Qu'l-Nia, bleeding to death on the forest floor, whenever Alma would fall into slumber, she would always awaken the next morning with the haziest recollection of a horrible nightmare she had just escaped from.