Monolith Visions (Autophage)

The monolith resonated as the Atlantideum seeped within its core.

A voice, impossibly old, impossibly low, was magnified as the stone vibrated. The feeling was overwhelming. My eyes began to swim.

"Alien Text"

I blinked to clear my vision. As my eyes re-opened, I found myself afloat in a waveless purple sea. The sky glowed.

The voice had become a chant, its words filling the water around me.

In the distance, walls of crystal erupted from the depths. Fountains of lilac-tinted water sparkled in the light, crystal foam arcing through the air as the sea was displaced.

One by one, mile-high spires were thrown from the core. It was beautiful.

One by one, these cliffs began to close in on me. And then I realised. I turned and began to swim, but they were coming for me.

I felt the bubbles surround me. The water beneath me vibrated, and I felt myself start to sink. I heard the roar as the crystal raced though the sea. I -

At the moment the crystal wall overtook my body, I was released. It was done.

I found myself floating across the surface of the world. I saw it all - every rock, every tree, every creature. They were safe. I was safe.

"Alien Text"

Then I felt it. A pain, sharp, deep, piercing. My vision flashed red. I was hurled around, and saw my tormentor.

A vandal, thoughtlessly vaporising the minerals that surrounded them. Each atom they claimed ripped at the fibre of my being.

I did what I could to stop them.

As the Atlantideum resonated within the monolith, words written in my own language glowed faintly on its surface. I reached out to touch the runes...

"Alien Text"

I felt a deep itching in my arms. I looked down at my hands. A red-brown patina spread across my skin, slowly at first, then accelerating.

I tried to clutch my fingers but they would not move. I strained, and they snapped. Great flakes of rust fell from my hands. My fingers disintegrated.

Where the rust hit the ground, it began to spread, red and dark, stale metallic blood. It consumed my legs. I could not move. I felt my heart clog. I tried to scream.

I could not prevent it. I crumbled into a cloud of fine red dust.

The monolith, alive with Atlantideum, showed me a galaxy of stars, glittering points of light in all directions. I heard a voice that hummed with the words of millions.

"Alien Text"

As the voice faded, I felt a pinprick. One of the stars flared briefly, then flickered to nothing. A temporary sensation, insignificant to the tapestry before me.

The flare was forgotten. My mind would not hold on to it. It was as one atom in my lungs, both vital and insignificant all at once. The galaxy is a multitude, and no lone star can be perceived when your sight extends so, so far.

My perception warped as the vision washed away, and life returned to scale.

I heard the voice of the Korvax Echoes, and I closed my eyes...

"Alien Text"

The voice was clear now. They demanded my judgement. The mind of a divergent Entity was placed before me, and their place in the Convergence was in question...

I made the most ethical choice I could.

I heard the distant voices of the Korvax entities who once worshipped here. And yet, there were other voices - discordant, unmistakeable, growing ever louder. I closed my eyes, and listened.

"Alien Text"

I opened my eyes, but all I saw was darkness.

There was a click. With a rush, I heard their screams all around me, their electronic howls.

Another click. The stench of burning flooded my skull, a sickening blend of sweetness and smoke.

A click, and I could see. The earth was riven. Everything burned.

Another click. It was all gone - the screams, the smell, the fire and chaos. It was a comfort, at first.

But this was not the oblivion of sleep. I was still there, present and aware as I drifted in the endless nothing. All I had to remember was that final image of destruction.

Seconds, hours, days, passed. Panic grew. I felt every tick. And it was still just nothing.

And then - another click. The vision ended. I was returned. I had never felt such relief.

The light of the Atlantideum flowing through the monolith was strangely comforting. I heard a deep and steady drone, reassuring and familiar. The sounds - these words - lulled me, and my vision swam as I fell into their embrace...

"Alien Text"

Though I could not see them, I felt them. Countless entities crawled across me. The children swarmed in my every fold.

This should repulse me, but instead I felt an indescribable joy. I knew these tiny beings were safe, and this brought me the deepest happiness.

I let the emotion flow through me. These tiny lifeforms were mine to protect, and I knew each of their lives intimately. The feeling was indescribable.

And then, I felt myself start to crumble. I was being pulled apart - from within? From without? I could not tell. My children screamed as their world began to collapse.

As I was carved into a thousand pieces, there was pain, but more than that, there was anger. Anger for each of my children. I was their home, and I had failed them.

As my final piece was destroyed, the vision ended. I was whole once more, but my children...

I placed my hands upon the relic, and I felt the power of this ancient site pulse through my veins. Words began to take shape in my mind...

"Alien Text"

I blinked, and when my eyes opened I had exchanged places with the monolith. I towered over what was once myself.

I - they - performed a ritual upon the stone. I felt every glyph they carved into my skin.

Against my will, I was torn asunder. A portal opened within me, and the being below crossed its threshold.

My hand rested upon the cool stone of the monolith. A voice, piercing, cried out in response to my touch.

"Alien Text"

I tried to move my hand away, and realised I could not. My fingers were webbed with living fragments of purple, a crystalline infection that began to spread along my arm.

Soon, I was enveloped. My eyes, my lungs, my blood, all frozen in amethyst. To my surprise, I did not die.

I saw a robotic lifeform approach. Where this entity should have an arm, there was only a shattered metallic stump.

"Alien Text"

They knelt before the stone and made their offering.

At my feet lay the shattered components of a broken robot, arranged by an unknown hand in a position of supplication. Its broken body calls out to me to complete it.

"Alien Text"

I assembled a head for the shattered robot.

I drifted through an endless sea of stars, the world a distant memory. I was nothing, but I was aware.

"Alien Text"

The stars began to slip as my mind focused on a single point. With a rush, I was returned to life in a brand new body.