//------------------------------// // Act III, Chapter XXV // Story: Scarred Serpentine // by Metanoia //------------------------------// Was it real? This place, this feeling, it was unfamiliar. It was uncanny. There was something wrong with the way Feather existed, the way his atoms vibrated and the way his mind thought—neurons firing and sending electrical signals in his head. That was consciousness. It knew that it was. It was an affront to any creator that may or may not exist. It was an affront to experience itself. Glancing around only to be met with the drab colors of a dingy, ancient interior devoid of sunlight, Feather could only be disgusted. This was like being in prison—staring idly at an odd wall, devoid of hope. “Where are we?” River Moon’s voice was soft, still tucked under Feather’s wing. For a moment, only the silence of skulls replied back. “I think we’re in some sort of... sacrificial chamber or crypt of some kind.” Twilight didn’t make a reach for her camera; they would clearly remember the visages of a hundred dead husks staring back at them. On the walls stood racks which displayed skulls and bones, undaunting and unmoving. Feather found it horrifying they came in all shapes and sizes. “I... let’s get out of here.” Feather motioned to a staircase that awaited ahead him and his friends, a pair of torches guarding either side of the entrance with a seemingly undying flame. It was a tragic irony: the torches illuminated a blue glow, a peaceful fire that didn’t make so much as even a crackle. Feather let go of his companions, although he did miss their touch as he glanced at a stone slab at the center, carvings worn and broken around its surfaces. It disturbed him, dried up liquid that soaked the slab’s sides. Feather did not want to know what kinds of horrors occurred in this very room. Shuffling around the ominous stone slab and finding themselves climbing the staircase, Feather and his friends began what would be their ascent to whatever laid above. Feather knew not what that was, but he was sure that light returned when he glanced beyond him, towards the end of the upwards tunnel—an unsure hero of this desolation. Light. It was back. Somehow, when they needed it the most, it returned. When they’d gone down the staircase to meet the portal, they had been encapsulated in darkness. When they ascended this staircase to meet unknown mysteries, from the distance shone dimly a cold illumination. Was that what he thought it was, the saying of climbing heaven’s steps to reach the light of paradise at last? What only replied were intervals of hoofsteps as they neared it. Then at last they basked in the icy, unfamiliar light.  And it was not like heaven’s. That unknown mystery was a despondent dimension, the byproduct of the apocalypse, the end of all things. It was not only dead, but had been killed. Time ceased here. Feather imagined the apocalypse full of fiery red, but that wasn’t the case. The sky, it was a blue so deep it must’ve been the original, the only, the source whence all other colors came, for the richness in its tone was the greatest he’d ever seen: a light azure coming from below the celestial dome to fade into the navy that capped it. What indeed glowed red was the vibrance of a moon. The heavenly object bled, illuminating a crimson that spread like waves, causing expanses of space surrounding it to glow bloodshot. It was one of many lights that graced the cosmos; much like how stars radiate warmth along with their illumination, this moon seemed to do the opposite: impart a cold that could be felt as one neared. Feather could stare into the distance easily because they stood on a floating island, a piece of land that floated harmoniously through the vastness of space-time. It was a vessel that seemingly had no precise destination. Combining heaven’s glow and the silence of this isolated isle, it stirred acceptance in his soul. In plain view, this place’s only purpose was to be. Not exactly. That wasn’t necessarily true because Feather spotted something too in the distance that answered his past inquiries. A pyramid of daunting proportions. Dominating. Commandeering. This was imposing, much larger in breadth and height than La Orilla’s one; it was merely a capstone to this. In fact, Feather could barely peer its peak. If there had to be one monument in all the universe that heralded gods, this would be it. Feather turned to his friends; they too gazed back. It seemed they needn’t words, only a lapse of silence. Was it for fear? Respect? He returned to view the structure, wordlessly beginning a slow approach. He was a mere pony approaching a pantheon, a stallion meeting his maker. There grew no trees, no shrubbery and fauna, no grass, not even so much as moss that grew from crevices on the ground. He wondered if the bacteria from his hooves and exhales were the first in this place for centuries—the primordial soup that would kick start life on a dead piece of rock traversing interstellar space. The ground, it was rugged, yet looked to be a fine powder save for the occasional pebble or rock that littered the landscape. It was like the surface of a rogue planet, wandering the cosmos and beseeching a star to give it the warmth the lifeforms that could’ve lived there so needed. It didn’t take that long to reach the steps of the great structure, but to look up at its seemingly impossible height made Feather’s stomach twist and turn. How was that possible? Where were they? How could it be taller than the width of this island but seemingly only a part of it at the same time? Feather shook his head. It didn’t matter. They were so close to her now, he could feel the intangible string that connected him to her tug, pull, motion the fact they were indeed nearing one another. Feather knew he couldn’t prove the immaterial, prove what he knew but couldn’t quantify. Again, it didn’t matter. As he began his ascent up the steps, Feather noticed spots of dried blood on the staircase’s sides and by his hooves. It seemingly increased in frequency and size as he continued his climb. He found it appropriate he would call it a climb; this was his mountain that needed to be conquered, the mountain many others must’ve peaked and never returned to its base alive. Feather found it lonely. There was no wind. It felt damning. One truly didn’t appreciate the things they had until they were gone; not that he didn’t appreciate a friendly breeze, the acknowledgement of nature despite the circumstance. Although Feather stood his ground: he missed the wind like it was a dear friend of his he’d known his whole life. They were so high up now, and try as he might, Feather couldn’t rationalize how high up he was yet somehow still in the bounds of the island. Logic would dictate he would’ve reached the peak of the pyramid already, though that wasn’t the case. The case was he kept going, the tense silence growing as the dried red that stained the steps increased in volume. Feather observed to find no clouds, no indication there was anything in the atmosphere that moved. He thought Tlekokalli was a ghost town; this place made it seem like life itself was a straight up impossibility. Feather swore he’d be needing  a space suit sooner or later lest he die from the lack of air and oxygen. He knew they were in the cosmos of a foreign dimension, a location with no universal address, a place that didn’t seem real. Feather understood he couldn’t say how he knew that, but as he watched the ether and a bloodshot moon, he wondered what other things would soon come. The peak. He finally reached it. Somehow, in the timeframe of their lifespans, he and his friends reached the peak of an unclimbable mountain. Feather rested, caressing hooves on bricks below him, avoiding ones with stains. He couldn’t believe it, but now he just had to, They were here. Space. It was lonely. There were two tragedies in life: one not getting what they wanted and one getting everything they wished for and more. This felt like the latter; when one got what they wanted, they became empty. Their lives would be complete, but for what? Was there a reason to wake tomorrow when one has already fulfilled even the highest of egos? What was there to see when one saw everything? It brought him great pain and joy to see the stars. They weren’t what he expected, constellations odd and unfamiliar. Feather and his friends truly were in a place removed from the one they hailed, a facet of reality which commingled with theirs to fold in on themselves, creating ideas and things that were neither falsehoods nor truths. Right or wrong. This was as close as he’s ever been to the celestial bodies of the night sky, the dream yearned by generations across Equus—perchance it too was the longing of all species across the universe, a sojourn that would usher the universal understanding of an entire race. Gazing at resplendent stars, Feather could swear he felt a distant love weave through space-time itself. Was this heaven? “No...” Feather looked from the stars to meet the solemn and terrified expressions of his friends. They were more sad than shocked. He didn’t want to think of that terrible epiphany, but the more he resisted, the more it shoved its way into his head. Truth was not always so kind.  The table. The chacmool. It was there. It was left with astonishing cleanliness besides the red stains on the ground. And there it was. The knife. It laid on a slab beside the chacmool, just out of reach. Feather gaped at the weapon like it was already in the grasp of a madman, glaring at him before he pounced, attacking him. That wasn’t true. It was only his imagination. What Feather felt when he watched the unmoving object was a rising trepidation, a cocktail of emotions that made him space out, as if his soul wavered from his body, a creation of the cosmos without a book. A story. Feather closened until he stood right in front of the slab, kneeling down as if he was before a god. He wasn’t thinking as he reached out a hoof. The blade. The handle. It felt cold, colder than anything he’s ever touched before. Feather shut his eyes, applying the slightest bit of pressure on the flat face of the ancient obsidian. This was what they used. This was what they used in sacrificing ponies to go to the next level, the next life. This was what they used to raise the sun every morning, to keep bad prophecies from coming true to lay siege to the harmony of the world. This was what they used to kill Crystal Jade with. “What does it feel like?” Feather never glanced as he answered the question. “I don’t know.” He opened his eyes to meet the moon from above, critiquing him as an individual. As a being. “I don’t know what to feel. I can say I feel the tingle in my hooves, the adrenaline in my limbs, but what do I really feel?” He finally retracted from the blade, facing his two friends. “We’re on the top of the world. This is the closest we can be while still being able to return. Go back.” Feather glanced above to radiant constellations. Every star watched them with understanding attention. “This was what they did. They took lives here, in the center of this lonely spot in space.” He never blinked as he beseeched out there, “Is this really the center of the universe? Is this where the heavens and hells meet, the spot closest to paradise and inferno?” He looked down the steps whence they came. “We’re atop the center of it all. What lies before us is something immaterial, something that cannot be measured, something that cannot be truly understood in the way we perceive reality.” Feather cast his glance downwards. He didn’t know what else to say, if there was anything else that needed to be. “I went on this journey to find Crystal Jade, and what it took was a journey through death and the afterlives themselves.” Feather faced the horizon, though he cared not what he saw with his eyes anymore. He knew the universe could be indifferent, but that didn’t matter. Nothing else did, save for one. “Where are you?” Feather felt the touch of a hoof. It was River. A strange expression graced her face. It seemed she knew something he didn’t. She pointed at Twilight, who peered down at something out of view. And he couldn’t believe what he saw when he did see it, but it didn’t waver away like some bad dream. It was the entrance of a staircase on the pyramid’s peak, going down, and down, and down... But this time, there was something different. There was light at the end of the tunnel, a flame which dimly lit. It wasn’t bright at all, but it made all the difference in the world, for it was something they could follow. An angler fish's trap, or a true beacon of hope? Below was a place intended to have illumination. It didn’t make it less daunting. Was this Hell? As he descended once again, Feather swore he felt his breathing change. Did the walls make it so he could hear himself more or was he just crazy? The beating of his heart, the blood coursing through his limbs and head, the air that reached and left his lungs, he could feel all that moreso. Something made him more aware than ever, but it wasn’t just adrenaline. The home of deities. That’s what Feather thought when he finished the steps: the home of the deities. The ceiling reached as high as the eye could see, walls intricate with gilding and bas reliefs covering every surface. How long must this have taken to create: a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand years? It was all the art of entire civilizations on the walls, just like that. The stream. There flowed a stream of water. It didn’t make sense; where there was water, there was life, but the latter was long gone and perhaps never existed in the first place. The waves coursed quietly through the turns and winds of the stream, unlike the blood through his hooves. “The treasure...” Twilight was correct. That was the last thing Feather noted, but it should’ve been the first. The treasure scattered about was enough to create whole nations with, enough to make all the ancient kings of the world pale. Gold. Jewelry. Statues made of solid crystals the size of buildings. Literature, books and writings untouched and undisturbed. They must’ve contained ancient knowledge, magic so powerful it might’ve allowed one to perform an apotheosis, becoming a god and transcending to the final step of evolution. The ground was covered in an endless number of coins. Feather picked one and observed it closely, noting how heavy it was despite its relatively small size. “Platinum,” Twilight said; she levitated a coin of her own. She seemed breathless as she set it down and gazed at the ocean of coins laid out before them. It seemed to multiply the more he attempted to count them, requiring multiple lifetimes to do so. “How... where did they get this?” “It’s like they pillaged entire planets,” River commented, taking a statue made of countless jewels. The rainbow of colors refracted and glinted so brightly Feather would’ve assumed she wielded a holy weapon as old as the universe itself, her being the messiah of a forgotten religion. “That’s assuming it’s even theirs,” Twilight said. “Who knows how they got all this?” They stared up the ceiling to see paintings that oddly reminisced Feather’s Ohteotl trips, basilisks and geometric patterns that seemed to shine in the obscurity of azure torch light. “It’s like this is their final... stronghold. It’s like this is the... final destination.” It surprised Feather, the fact that it took this long for him to note of a pathway that led to the end of the room, although he had to give himself the benefit of the doubt; it was a world away, reminding him of one of the levels of the afterlife: one would need to cross a path that stretched for longer than the planet itself, one of only nine challenges that seemed suffice for eternity. The ceiling above glittered of gold and stardust, Feather leading the march through the ocean of invaluable treasures. They truly were innumerable; it was like counting liquid.  Several things stood out: a diamond encrusted ark the size of a small home, a cube of polished stone with details so intricate Feather wondered if even modern machinery could forge such a thing, crystal statues of jaguars and exotic birds, weapons of warriors so legendary they were practically myth, for perhaps such heroes were so mighty they hadn’t existed at all—only in the minds of hopeful ponies. What truly took the attention of the group despite all the ancient relics and artifacts surrounding them was a looming stone disc that hung above the wall of an entranceway. Out of all the antiquity, out of all the wonders and sights he’d seen, that gargantuan stone disc took the cake. In its center was a massive face, ghastly and deformity carved, molded to the likes of a child’s drawing; intricate but scarred patterns, pictures of animals and deities encircling it. The stone was aged. Everything they’ve seen so far seemed brand new, aged like wine, looking to last another thousand years or more. But this was different. It somehow aged more than the other treasures in this room, experiencing time differently from the environment around it. What was it about this particular piece that made it so special compared to all the rest of the others? “It’s a calendar.” Twilight thought out loud, spreading her wings and taking flight to near it. She scanned the great object with an even greater scrutiny, facing them and confirming, “It’s an ancient Meso-Equestrian calendar!” “And look at the size of it.” River craned her neck to meet the gaze of that unpleasant face. She grimaced back in reply, blinking. “Rather creepy, if you ask me.” As Feather observed the image, all he did was nod in agreement. It was true. When he observed the visage, it too seemed to observe him. When his mind was void of any thought, it’s as if the calendar spoke back to him in a voice he couldn’t hear, in some manner he couldn’t cognize. It was trying to interface with him through some immaterial means. Was that a good thing? Bad? Feather shook his head and focused on the pathway below said calendar, leading into an obscured room dimly lit with an orange flame, ominous yet tranquil in its patience. He was piqued with a strange sensation in his soul, a string wrapped around his heart tugging him to the threshold. Feather softly whispered, “What’s in there?”  The three entered the room and settled several steps from the entranceway they’d just crossed. He had no words. Feather Dew hadn’t been told what he saw, but he knew exactly what they were. Souls, to himself he solemnly stated. The departed. Ghosts. Spirits. They... This was the hub. This was where souls met, coming from an indeterminable point of space, balls of pure light and energy orbiting around a black hole before being propelled into a different direction. Any direction. Standing on a balcony lit with the glow of orange torch lights, Feather and his two friends found themselves in front of the center of the universe, the point where everything came together before expanding outwards once again. It was cyclical. The rise and fall of civilizations, the life cycle of animals and organisms, the creation of planets, stars, entire galaxies. This was meant to happen. All would stray apart from the crux of existence before coming together once again. After that, they would stray apart and the whole process would repeat itself. The nature of the universe was that everything was connected, that expansion and contraction was a cycle that seemingly had no beginning and no end. It was the big bang. It was the creation of things throughout the universe. It was how the essence of life spread throughout the realm. Life. What was it? One could say that it was the state of being alive, of being a living organism which sustained itself with biological processes. Was life the actions of elements and things? Was life possible without that essence, without that string which connected everything together? The last understanding. It explained as much as it didn’t. The last understanding was the epiphany that there were no such things as accidents, that there were no unconnected tangents, that reality was only a facet of the whole, that life perhaps could transcend into another realm of existence altogether. Feather felt like he was forgiven. Some force out there between distant stars came and took off the weights on his shoulders he’d been carrying his whole life, weights he never even knew were there. It was beautiful. Horrifying, but beautiful. Feather wasn’t even scared of it, despite the borders of his individuality breaking down. He heard his friends beg, plead as to what was going on, but the only thing he did was wrap his hooves around their necks in a loving embrace. Feather’s breathing wasn’t real; it was fading by the second. His body, his form was fading from existence. And yet he’d never felt more real than this very moment; not when he was on Ohteotl, not when he was alone watching the stars. This was it. Who did this? Who was whisking them away into a place unknown? Did it even matter? They were coming together to the crux of existence, where barriers didn’t exist, where everything was the same, where every thought, idea, dream of every being that was, is, and will be laid. Feather Dew felt the emotions of his friends. He felt himself merging with them, becoming one in spirit and one in consciousness. Eventually, the borders of their individuality would break away completely.  They would interface with reality in its purest form. There would be no secrets. There would be no hiding. There would be no you. There would be no I. There would only be us and everything.