//------------------------------//
// The calm 
// Story: Theory of nothing 
// by Elidjz 
//------------------------------//

"Read books, they're fun." - Some desperate bookstore owner.





Hot water never felt so good. I was so happy that the shower worked. I could feel the dust, mud and more grimly blood and piss wash off. My bandages were getting wet, but I'll just have to put new ones on. Fortunately the house we had taken shelter in had a very big first aid kit inside. Plenty of bandages to spare.

Actually the house was fully stocked with pretty much everything. Clean clothes, fresh food, intact books, stocked med-kits and plenty of pillows. The house itself was very clean, with there being no dust anywhere.

Another pleasant surprise was the fact that I only had a few shallow cuts and little bruises. Which after fighting creatures with claws the size of my head was hard to believe. Just as surprising as my nose and snout not being broken. But that was pretty much the only good news. 

We, me and Cosmo's, were surrounded as we could hear and see all kinds of creatures skittering around through the walls and windows. Luckily all the other noise, ironically caused by them, hid us very well. Though Cosmo's did not seem bothered at all, I was terrified.

I picked up a bar of soap and started rubbing on a particularly resistant patch of dried blood. Most of it wasn't even mine, which meant splotches of green, red, blue, brown and black blood covered my body. But I had to be careful with any open wounds that we hadn't yet spotted. They may be the tiniest ones but putting soap on them still hurts a lot. 

After having washed all of the filth of my aching body, I stepped out of the shower and took a towel out of the pile laying neatly in the corner. I started drying myself, which did hurt a bit as my body was aching from all the fighting from a few hours ago. I winced as I rubbed one of my wounds a little too hard with the towel.

Once I was fully dry, I took almost an hour to replace all of the wet bandages with new clean ones. After throwing the towel in an empty basket and the bandages in the trash.

I walked through the hallway back towards the living room. It was short but eerie, as the walls were covered with empty picture frames. Those that weren't empty contained pictures of the dark streets or of the sky. Most doors lay open and there were a few empty vases laying around. However it all looked brand new and clean.

I reached the living room. It was... gaunt. It wasn't dark because of the working light, but its dark colored paint and closed curtains gave the packed room a claustrophobic feeling. The room itself had multiple bookshelves and a big oversized table in the center. There was also a couch and multiple chairs which simply lay there haphazardly. It made moving around very hard.

But none of that was really important, as I saw Cosmo's laying on the couch. He was busy nonchalantly reading a book, clearly not bothered by my suffering. 

He noticed me and looked away from his book to give me a glance before shoving his face back into his book. "You forgot a spot." He pointed at my leg. I looked at my leg and saw a reddish spot. I grumbled and gave him a baleful glare. "Trixie found the soap to be of low quality. But that's not important. Trixie just wonders how good that book must be." My words were dripping with sarcasm. But he either didn't notice it or decided to ignore it.

"It's named the book of nothing. If you look around you'll see that that's a recurring theme in all of those book titles. But this one book is quite interesting. listen to this." He then started reading a fragment of the book. "...As it pulls everything it can into its grasp, so that it can become its own entity, with it's own life and it's own future. As everyda..." "Trixie doesn't care about your book. trixie cares only about getting out of here alive." I interrupted him quite rudely, but his behavior was really grinding on my patience.

"Shame, i'm sure you would have liked it. So what do you want us to do." He smirked as he said that. Which made me furious. "Trixie doesn't know, you're the expert. How will Trixie get out of here and back home!?" He stood up and sat on the couch. "You'll have to learn to travel in between worlds." He said that, like it was nothing. Giving a quick wave with his hand and raising his shoulders a bit.

"And HOW does Trixie does that?!" He then snapped his finger, causing a tiny beam of light to appear and float on the table. He then lifted three of his fingers. "There are currently three ways for you to gain that ability. The first one would be for you to learn it. How to find and open rifts and also how to channel specific powers through your body. But for that you need a teacher and time." He put one of his fingers down. "The second would be to find an artifact or object that would allow you to do that. And while there should definitely be one or more in this world, you would need to find it which isn't easy especially when you don't know what to search."

He put another finger down and then pointed his last finger at the light beam on the table. "The third would be to reach the rift and then absorb some of it. This would give you the power to travel with ease. It would also... to put it simply it would open something in your body allowing you to very easily use those powers. You would still need to learn a bit, but that I can teach you."

I looked at the tiny beam on the table. It wasn't a simple beam, as at the bottom I could see a strange maelstrom whirling around. The beam itself hurt to look at. "Can't you teach Trixie how to travel through worlds?" He shook his head. "I was born with those powers. I can teach you how to use those powers, but I cannot teach you how to unlock them. Also that would take at least a Decade or two."

I sat down on a chair and slumped down into it. Only three options. Only one was actually feasible. "How easy would it be for Trixie to reach the rift?" Cosmo answered instantly without hesitations. "Very hard." I actually doubted that, as I had seen him fight and run away with ease.

"Couldn't you just teleport trixie to the rift? Or run towards it very quickly?" He then laughed. And kept laughing for well over a minute. "Why are you laughing?" I asked this, genuinely confused. He slowly stopped laughing, still chuckling to himself. "It's just, I am talking about such a complicated topic with someone who has no idea or knowledge about said topic. And this has never happened in my life. Never. And I am Ancient. People always and I do mean always had a modicum of knowledge about travelling through worlds even if a bit." 

"So Trixie is stupid?." I acted offended, but in reality I wasn't. No matter how you put it, I was like a fish out of water. He chuckled some more. “Oh no, not at all. I've talked to beings who knew a lot more than you did and that could only be described as moronic. I'll alter the space time continuum, for the imperium, I'll conquer that weak reality, and so forth." He put on a mocking tone while saying that. "That last one was hilarious, seeing wizards and knight in shining armor get defeated by a peasant army with rifle and tanks."

There were some words that didn't make any sense to me in that context. And I had a feeling that that would be a recurring theme when talking about travelling through worlds and realms. But I understood what he said. It reassured me a bit. "It's also hilarious when they implode when they wield power that they don't understand thinking that they'll become gods." He then destroyed any reassurance that I had gained a few seconds ago.

For once he noticed my distress. "You should eat something." He simply said that with a worried look on his face. Now that he mentioned it I was starving. I just nodded in agreement. I then followed him as we headed to the kitchen.





I shoved another cookie into my mouth. I had already eaten through two (tiny I assure you) boxes. Cosmo's meanwhile was busy baking a cake. He looked very chipper, whistling to himself. While he had four arms cooking and baking the cake, a fifth one was holding a book. I couldn't help but think that he would be great at multitasking.

I threw the box of cookies away when I emptied it. I searched through the fresh for something healthier. Because to my knowledge I hadn't eaten In well over 24 hours. I had only now noticed that. Fighting for your life seems to be a good way to distract yourself.

I also thought about something Cosmo had said. He had said that he was ancient and that he was born with the powers to travel through worlds. I had no idea of what kind of being that he was. "cosmo's how old are you and what are you exactly?"
I asked while taking a bit of a tomato. "I'm 4 trillion 545 billion and 899 million years old. Also what I am is hard to explain because of the language barrier."

WHAT?! I spat the piece of tomato out in shock. The number was unimaginable. Unless. "Are you..." he interrupted me. "In Equestrian years. I visited your world and know a lot about it's day, month and year cycles. So yes I am that old." 

You know, I shouldn't be surprised that he was immortal. I mean, equestria was ruled by two immortal alicorns. I just never thought about anyone or anything being that old. "I'm not immortal. we can be killed and I have around one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand years left to live." If I had something in my mouth, then I would have spitted it out.

I needed time to think. I had gone through so much in so little time. And the way he bluntly told me all of that did not help. "How?" He raised an eyebrow but seemed to understand what I meant. "I know this because all those older than me are already dead. Through either being killed or naturally. The latter is quite a beautiful sight." "And you're not worried?!" I shouted this out as he said all of that seemingly unbothered by his own mortality.

"It was a surprise when the first of my kind died. But  meh, None of us expected to live eternally. Also that happened around five hundred thousand years ago, plenty of time to get used to it." I... I actually understood that. I understood that I was talking with what could best be described as a god. He had an unfathomable knowledge and experience that I would never obtain. While I was busy standing there with my mouth open, he went back to waiting for his cake to bake.

I really needed to stop thinking about that. My head was hurting and I would probably end up popping a blood vessel. I might actually have popped one as my nose started bleeding. 

I took a bite out of the tomato that I was still holding in my hoof. First eat, then panic, then I can have an existential crisis. Yeah that's a good plan, I thought as I shewed on my tomato. 



I am so fucking screwed.