I stare at my mutated hand. I feel space buddy squelch with excitement. I have a similar feeling as well. But it has more to do with anticipation, tension and anxiety. Because what happens next may decide if I live, or die.

Handling life and death situations. Never thought I'd have to do something so rough, right after I turned an adult. I know I have responsibilities now, but chill world! Fate have mercy!

Well, the choice is yours.

Yeah, but. I look forward. It's not really a choice at this point, is it?

Well...you do you.

I shrug.

"But, I don't know what I should do now. What's the next step? How do I get past it, now that I've found it's a barrier and probably identified of what kind? I'm still not sure why it absorbs my punch like that, or why it doesn't let any sound escape, for that matter." I grumble to a stop at the last sentence at the peculiarity of the situation.

Before he can reply, I'm struck by another idea. "What if I hurl Mr. Caretaker with full force at the wall? That ought to do something, no?"

A hesitating space buddy responds, Uh, mm yeah, possibly. But I won't recommend it.

The machine squirms under my force as if sensing the immediate danger I was posing to it, throwing it at a metal wall. "Ha, you're not a tin can, are you? Chill!"

But, I need to handle this matter. How do I deal with this problem? I don't have long. I've already been up to no good for quite a while now.

I think of the time of crisis. How the black tunnel saved me from the crashing meteor.

But more importantly, of the answers communicated to me while I had set off beyond the physical realm.

That experience. It's giving me chills all over again.

But, I can't do what I did back there again. Because, everytime I do something like that, we grow weak. And then, we require food. Plus, I don't want the aliens to find a black cylinder sticking out of their secret doorway. I'd be writing my epitaph that way. Plus, there's no telling where I'd end up in if I go through that black anomaly. It's a portal to a different dimension after all (not a wormhole); or something of the like.

Hmmm. I ponder, though briefly. The act didn't give me answers, last time. It saved me. But what did provide me answers, was what happened before that.

Hey, is it possible to seek a counsel? I ask space buddy, a bit hesitantly. I am not exactly comfortable with the whole out of body experience, but, the situation calls for it. I can't deny the immediacy I've been presented with.

Hmm, you see, he begins, his tone surprisingly level, It'd take a bit of energy, but not so much as summoning a black hole, so- we should be fine.

My face brightens up. Alright!

I run my fingers into the cavity of my robot caretaker and put him to a nice deep sleep. His fidgeting stops.

And then, the very next moment-

Connect with me. I feel a tendril of darkness wrap around my psyche. I concentrate, then close my black hand tightly and reach out to him.

Connection complete.

_____________

-!

A jet of colours rushes forth. Black. White. Golden. The Holy Trinity signify their presence.

And soon. I'm hovering. In an all too familiar landscape. I'm inside the eye. The Eye of Eternity. In its everwatching spiral, I'm diving.

Thunder crackles, the cacophony is peacefully enraging in an eternal summer of monsoon and winter, coalescing to form impossibilities unfathomable to human minds. The fractals swirl around me.

Beside my conscience hovers a dark friendly presence. The black mist. The gift of the Gods. The blessing. The vessel of It. The accessory of Yttr.

The very essence of my space buddy.

Here I have no mouth, but my thoughts bleed out. There is no boundary. There are no restrictions. It's fluid. Everything. Me included.

And once they do bleed out, I plead for help. For guidance. If anything at all could save me from this predicament. Anything at all.

The Holy Trinity are there, but they recede in deeper. Behind the swirling winds of the spiral eye, their colours slowly dissipate. Like the temples and bells that are ever changing, they melt into everything and nothing. Their touch is blessing itself, their colours are transcendant. But this act conveys meaning to my soul. This ordeal I have is something that's not for them to solve. It's for someone else.

But it's not me. For me being a mortal, is a task too inappropriate to approach even. That's the thought I receive from beyond.

And thereon, the gravity of the situation hits me. The weight of that sentence.

For only the true observer remains. It is the eye that communicates. And then, it makes me see. Something that the eye of man cannot comprehend. For it is eternity in a glimpse, incarnated to achieve the form most anomalous. Which the universe itself can't sustain, without stepping in.

The fractal is the key.

All around, I've been seeing it. Yet, failing to gauge it's true significance.

But now, I see.

It's ever changing, yet ever static.

Recursion is the common thread holding reality in a pocket of space and time, and the fractals all around me symbolise it. Something one could only create had the eye blessed them with it.

And so, the converse must also come to fruition.

To make it come undone. What does not let the outside world to interact with it, a pocket of the universe detached from the universe itself. Inside, yet outside. The ideal of the eye. And thus, its blessing.

I grasp at the fractal floating before me. And then, the pocket unwinds itself, melting like the eternal dance of swirls in this cosmic whirpool. Till it becomes one.

For Yttr, I'm blessed.

I bow impossibly before the eye. Eternity collapses, and then I am released.

And finally, time starts to flow normally again. In the universe that bore me, I make my return.

____________

The static lines out once I open my eyes. I bring my hands to the surface on the wall.

I feel the cold.

I push it, it opens like a door. No sliding. And I glimpse into uncharted territory.

"I made it." I can hardly speak.

The eternal second lapses into the next. And once time flows, the veil is lifted. The barrier of time itself is up, which prevented the door from being accessed.

I stare in horror, amazement and awe. And can't help but speak out: "This shit is crazy."

____________

Walking inside now, it all feels so surreal. There was never any screen. It was something beyond anything I could fathom with my human brain.

It kept repeating- the space of this secret doorway. Time repeated, and thus, space. And by virtue of that, it became detached from the world, impossible to be accessed by humans or any other creatures. Hiding in plain sight, an impossibility that never would have crossed our minds.

Such a marvelous barrier. So unique. So ingenious. And, I would have had no way getting past it, had I not had the blessing of Yttr.

You successfully connected and borrowed blessings from the eye. This is monumental, brother!

I can't help but nod. I'm still having a tough time wrapping my head around what just happened.

But more urgently, I can't help but bring my attention to what lays all around me. Even if I have to squint, I can feel the ominous surroundings I have brought myself into.

Having intruded inside a foreign area of the building, hoping to find facilities I've encountered before or perhaps a bit more, my mouth hangs open at the immense scale of the innards of this massive structure. The round passageway was quite wide, but the inside is just bonkers! An entire school can fit here, and still have enough space left. A lot of space. All around, it's dark, cavernous. A dark purple glow enshrouds the whole place with  breaks of emerald green at places. It's eerie. I'm getting goosebumps. Now this is an actual haunted house. There're no cheap tricks. This is the kind of place that gives you nightmares. And I for one, am living one. I had nary an idea, how worse things can get. I pity the past me. If the past Jordan could see the present Jordan of now, this white robe wouldn't remain white for long.

Get your head out of your piss.

I'm just saying.

Well. You know what? Yellow is not a bad colour. It'd have a good contrast with the white upper body.

Are you being serious right now?!

I shake my head at his ridiculous antics, and start picking up my gait as I traverse the area. Now the green lights become clearer. They are containers. The same kind I saw outside the building. The ones there were empty, or rather, were emptied out. But these ones?

I start sweating.

Keep going. Why did you stop?

What if one comes crashing out of the chamber? I don't have Mom here to come beat it down for me!

You frame her as a cynical and barbaric creature.

Hey. You have that on point.

Shut up.

I back down from going any further, because, what I see in front scares the shit out of me. There are creatures floating inside the glass containers. Some humanoid, others totally alien. None human. The green liquid, is it something like the water inside the womb? Are they being made or-

I picture the purple tailed creature that I failed to not let escape. What it did to the others in that facility-

It had killed them. But it didn't eat them. It killed for the sake of killing.

My heartbeats ascend like a horse's hoofs in a horse race.

Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me.

I want company. I can't deal with this alone like this! I need my gang!

"Maybe I shouldn't have come here after all..." I mumble, quivering.

Then a thought crosses my mind. All these apparatus. These facilities. The cans. Are they being modified here? Like-

I touch my implant.

I grumble. This is messed up on so many levels.

Seems like they are experimenting on different races of aliens. Not only humans.

I nod, fearful but resolute. As scared as I am, I tell myself I can't run away. I finally did what no other human can. I got in. I can't back out now. We have to know what they are doing all this for, what's their underlying motive-

"Keeu ha~"

"EEEK!" I jump at the sudden moaning, loose my footing and slam my butt on the hard floor. "Ow... What was that?!" I almost yell, my voice shaking in tandem with my tummy.

I sense space buddy calculating in my mind. It came from there.

The next moment, I'm startled to see space buddy do something he has never done before. He positions my mutated hand in the direction of the call, and points at it.

Almost pissing in my white garment, I quiver and scurry in the direction. It really is dark in here. "Please. Oh dear god. Don't let anything jump at me. I don't wanna scream like a little girl. I sure sound like one when I'm scared."

Oh? Is it like: Waaaaaaa! Mommy save me! Space buddy shrieks in my stead.

Could you please be a bit more supportive here? I'm almost about to leak 'cause of this stress!

Well, I can help you hold it in.

That's not what I am saying!

He grumbles. Okay fine, I'll help you with the fear.

Again, I feel a wave of calmness rush all over me. Relaxed. It relaxes both my body and my mind. I feel rejuvenated.

This is a lifesaver. Thank you, honestly.

Well, mention not. I've taken the responsibility so I might as well play the part.

Walking on ahead, I am prepared for whatever that might come at me. I'm braver than before. I assume a punching pose.

"The Lost Eternal is no scaredy cat! Prepare yourself, you abomination!" I ramble before a dark cell.

The moment I step near the spot, and proclaim loudly, I'm greeted with hissing and hushing.

Then, I hear words. "Kashlem ka men! Ushlio, ka men! Suko."

Fear. It bleeds through. These...are the words of a scared person. We may be worlds apart, but I can feel it through the words. The hardship. The pain. The suffering. It's akin to mine. Maybe more, much much more.

"Hey, space buddy?"

Sup.

Can you see if you could activate the translator for me, I touch my implant, without it messing with my body that is. I want to... understand it. This being is every bit as scared as I am. If not much much more.

Yes. I think I can. Just a moment.

The creature keeps on repeating those same words. With variations thrown in here and there. Space buddy works on the implant, it beeps, the red light stutters, until finally, I hear a crackle in my head and then the clean words reach in:

Words, I am not ready for. Maybe never will be.

"Give me my planet back. Please, give it back!" It croaks.

Planet? "What?" a raspy whisper comes out of my mouth.

Hearing my voice, the being stops. Then, I feel it's attention on me. It knows I understand what it's saying.

"You. You escaped! Take me with you! We can't stay here!"

I take a step back. I stammer, but fail to put out any words in response. The voice is not like a human. It's airy, clicky and something like that of a voice from a radio. It's not male nor female, not by human standards that is. No human could own that voice.

"They took my planet! They took us! They use us!"

I feel a thump in my chest.

I stammer, "This planet is-"

"Not this. It's one of countless many. I want mine back, as much as every other being wants theirs. They have usurped our homes!"

I take a moment, to let that sink in. D-did you hear that, space buddy?

He is silent. And so am I. I can say no more. My hands have grown cold. Only one word remains on my frozen lips. That of my home. Earth...

They are colonisers. Space buddy vocalises my thoughts.

I nod, silently. I pinch my eyes to the bridge of my nose, draw in alien air through the gap of my mouth. I refuse to believe it. But...it won't change the fact.

Earth...might as well be as good as another one of their bases now.

Then what happened to humanity?

I look down. I grit my teeth, clench my fists. We no longer have one home. We have many. But we aren't the owners anymore. We are slaves.

"Please let me out!" the alien in the cell continues to plead.

But I can't heed it's plea.

Despite the hopelessness, I smile. Even I am surprised. It's my own. But it feels foreign. Why am I smiling?

I laugh. I laugh out loud. It's involuntary, as if madness taking hold, I can't stop. The possibilities. Purpose. This is it. I realise.

And then, I proclaim to the alien in front of me, in a bold voice that chills me to the core. "We inhabit the sky! We are no longer separate races. Now, we have one cause! We serve one ideal!"

The tower shivers. The ground quakes.

They are here.

"No. NOOO!" I run. I have to hide. There's a hole in the floor in front. I run as fast as I can.

"You can't accept what they are doing! We'll have no freedom. No rights!"

I approach the hole. It leads to another one beneath it. But-

I skid to a stop, almost toppling over, then take a step back, lest I fall to an early grave. There are holes down. They continue. Cut through all the floors, down to the last one.

It's the best way for them to navigate. They have wings. But me?

Light floods in.

I scream.

The demonic insect aliens walk in, through the secret doorway I accessed. I hear laughter. Demonic laughter in childrens' voices.

They let all my nightmares out. I clutch my head with my arms. Slam my ears shut. Go away.

"You didn't let us down after all. Keeping you alive was worth it."

Curled in a ball on the floor, the words perplex me. These are not words I thought I'd hear. I unwrap my arms from around me. What are they talking about?! What do they mean! "LEAVE ME ALONE!" I scream.

"You passed the test. Congratulations."

One comes close to me.

I crawl backwards. "Don't come near me. Don't!" I scream but the wasphead doesn't fidget.

"You," it's a little girl's voice, "will finally get your job now. You've dealt us quite a lot of trouble. It's a relief now, that you'd find your rightful place. You are finally worthy."

I am not ready for the next words at all.

"You are going to join the front lines. You'd fight, for our cause. For all of us." There is such delight in her voice, as if she is smiling ear to ear, it pierces me like needles.

I actually piss my pants.

"You should be proud. You are the first of the humans to be awarded such a position. You must feel honoured."

I continue till there's a pool underneath me.

"Don't be too scared though," the alien takes note of my piss. "You won't be alone. There will be one other human there with you. Commanding you. Your unit."

My heart pumps in dizzying rates. I can hardly process what's happening.

"It's someone called Sally. Look forward to a good time, Jordan."

I hiccup.

"And someone give him fresh clothing." The others obey, and hurry out. With that, the pests leave.

But they keep the door open.

...

Wow. That was eventful.

When I can finally think straight and the aliens are out of sight, the light still pouring in, I can only say but a few words. Words that perfectly describe what's going to happen next. But words, that clearly encapsulate how NOT ready I am, for that.

"We really are on the next level now, huh?"

Space buddy erupts in laughter. You got that right!

I twitch my nose, groan and grunt. This is disgusting.

I am impressed you actually pissed yourself. You are a man of your word, Jordan.

I sigh. Then get up. What do I know? Things CAN get a lot worse.

This has been only the beginning.

Yeah. I can only imagine what's in store for us in level two.

Mission completed. The alien hive has been successfully accessed. Laboratory specimen located. Pending missions: Protect Bethany from Billy. Ensure if the aliens are manipulating the human minds for maximum efficiency.

Lost Eternal here, Roger that.

...

...

"Where did they go? I can't stand here all drenched like this! Give me some clothes!"

A shadow comes through the doorway and something is thrown-

"Mph!" It lands on my face. I catch it in my arms before it can fall on the floor and get wet as well.

Well, there you have it.

[Part 1 end]