FINAL CORE - Chapter 140 (Patreon)

What even is the world as a whole?

Is it just a giant collection of chaotic lifeforms, running around at random intervals of time, each doing their best as individual beings to survive and thrive, sometimes banding together as groups and societies, and sometimes not doing so? Is it just a mindless race to burn time until the candlelight dies out and there is nothing left? If the gods had made the world, then for what reason would they have done so if they were to leave it? What is the purpose of every single individual on the planet?

How could there ever be one?

There are so many individuals — not just people, but also birds and critters, beasts and animals; there are monsters and wretched, twisted, gnarled things that creep and crawl, just the same as there are proud, divine beings that march under the banner of spiritual glory.

There are billions and billions and billions of souls in movement at any time, between the ages and the eras, between the phases of terrible darkness and those of prosperous light.

It’s all too much.

So, of course, the only thing left to think is that there is no real system in place. It’s just too wild, too chaotic to ever be able to be governed by any entity, no matter how mighty or benevolent — be it Isaiah or otherwise.

Worse still, this chaos is an illusion of sorts, in that it creates the image that the world is so robust, violent, and precarious that it will survive anything, given that it is busy destroying itself day in and day out.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

This anarchy that is visible from the ground is not so illusionary from the heavens above, from which the world can be seen for what it is — fragile. It is a precious, glimmering whole gem that must be nursed and held with soft, loving grace, lest any movements disturb its peace.

And these violent conflicts? These great desecrations of soil and soul, the horrendous deaths of millions through violent, gruesome means, be they of the brood of man or beast, are nothing.

They are, in the scheme of all life, the glimmers on the stone that fade away after moments.

They are proof and a reminder of its precious fragility.

Isaiah sees as much in one instant as it floats in a curious way, suspended and free. It hovers without wings or body, floating in quiet grace to stare down at… everything.

Even the tower, the witch, the black ocean — from here, it’s just… all of that, everything that happened, from up here, all that it can see on the world below is… a speck.

The world is so massive, so large, that everything that happened in this year just happened in a tiny, teensy little pinprick that it could cover with a single talon, if it still had any.

“It’s here,” says a voice from the back.

Isaiah’s eyes open wide.

Malfi.

It turns its… ‘head’, staring at the distance behind itself, which is… distant. There is nothing, but there is also something. In what can only be described as a canopy of full blackness, hang suspended thousands of lights of all kinds that are indifferentiable from the stars that are all around them.

It found her.

It finally reached… heaven…

Isaiah tries to find form, its body having gone and leaving only this odd ethereal soul of its that takes shape as best as it can, legs and limbs winding out of itself and reaching the ground below, which is hard and metallic. The entity looks down at itself, at this shape of its, which is that of a soul without a body.

It looks… stringy.

It looks like a child’s doll, strands of a glowing, soft fabric run in all directions, tying themselves together here and there to make knots and joints and whole pieces of a body that is not man, nor bird, nor Isaiah as the third — it is… some culmination of things, man and woman, beast and person.

It is a soul. This is what a soul looks like in its purest, untouched sense.

It… he… or even she — Isaiah itself doesn’t even know at this point, as it has no physical constraints — walks forward toward a desk, behind which sits a woman, and behind her is a gate as massive as the world itself.

It’s here.

It’s finally here.

After everything. After everyone…

Isaiah walks to the desk, lumbering and then striding as it comes to understand its new body. It approaches, first with anger as it looks at the woman it immediately recognizes from that day so long ago, from up in the tree.

She’s the one who started this.

She’s the one who caused this.

She’s the one it wanted to find, so it could find the gods and now -

Isaiah stops at the desk.

And now.

Its hands rest on the edge as it lifts its head and looks at her, sitting there on a chair and staring its way.

And now.

And now, Isaiah droops its head, a shudder moving through its body as it comes to understand the true price of this entire endeavor. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” says the soul.

“It never is,” replies Malfi, not getting up.

This is the woman who stole its family, its life, its clarity of mind, and its simplicity of existence. Because of her, it lost its family as a blackbird. It lost everything it loved.

Isaiah clenches its fists, the fabric tightening all around itself as if it were the sinew of muscles.

— And because of that, it gained everything else.

Isaiah exhales, its shoulders drooping, its posture loosening, its body falling slack, and the glow of soft energy from around itself shifting to a pastel tone. “Thank you, Malfi,” says Isaiah, looking at her and then back toward the world behind. “I am sorry that I got mad at you,” says the entity, shaking its head.

“Huh?” she asks, confused. “Mad? What did I do?”

And then it can’t help but laugh.

Isaiah isn’t sure if it has ever laughed in this life or if this new existence still counts as ‘this life’.

It laughs and falls down and laughs, hitting a fist against the desk and the floor as it rolls, causing the woman to get up and complain, telling it to get up and act like an adult, which causes Isaiah to laugh more.

And then, by the time it is done and empty, Isaiah just lays there on its back, staring up toward eternity.

“What happens now?” it asks, laying next to the desk that the woman sits behind.

“What happens now,” says a new voice from the side, a man’s. Isaiah’s eyes go wide as it turns its head, sitting upright and looking. “Is that we have a chat,” says the man sitting there with crossed legs, having waited for it to finish feeling what it was feeling.

A god.

The god.

Not so much ‘the God’, but rather ‘the god’, lowercase, as there are dozens, if not hundreds, of gods.

But this one, this man, this entity, he is the one that Isaiah followed in its life as a man and the one it had followed in hunt in its life as Isaiah.

“I tried to reach you,” says Isaiah.

“I know,” he replies.

Isaiah crawls forward. “I died for you.”

“I know,” says the god.

“I prayed and I screamed, and you never answered!” yells Isaiah, grabbing the hem of his robes and pulling him toward itself. “THE WORLD PRAYED!”

A hand lifts itself, pressing past Isaiah’s arms and resting its palm against its chest as the god looks at it from up close. “And I sent you,” he replies, rising up and pulling Isaiah with him.

He turns to look at the world, with Isaiah letting go. “And they’re praying right now too,” he replies. “You did well,” says the god. “Isaiah. Let’s talk.”