Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 24

Another round of sleep took him. He was still annoyed to wake. He was not able to remain laying. His

body ached. His head ached. Head ache was either due to prolonged sleep on a hard floor, or because

the air was finally thinning. He got up. He touched the wall and from here, he knew his cave and could

navigate it in the dark, even without second sight. A single click brought the room to life, like a camera

flash going off. The ‘after image’ lingered a bit. The ‘lingering’ duration was increasing, as likely his

ability remember was improving with practice. The pile of rocks blocking the egress seemed more Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

substantial than he remembered it being. The jars containing critters were lined up on a shelf he had

cut into the stone. He couldn’t see the critters with sound, just their jars. His mind filled in the ‘blank’

making the contents scarier than they were in real life. Scarier but contained.

Shen rubbed his head and walked. He was hungry. There was dried fish and some nuts but he passed

them up. There was a jar of honey. He knew it was honey because of its location. There was also a jar

of snake venom. He paused, hand coming to this jar. Throw this in the fire pit, ignite it, and his air

supply would be gone in minutes, if that.

“The darkness one sees is never darkness,” a voice said. Shen froze. “We don’t see with the eyes. We

see with the brain. The camera may not be sending signals, but the television is still on. It is not true

black. It is a light, and it is always on.”

Shen was quiet. The voice sounded elderly. Grandfatherly. “Carl?” Shen asked.

“There is no darkness. It’s all light, only light.”

A resounding noise, like thunder drew his attention. A beam of light penetrated his tomb. His hands

shook. The light didn’t make sense. It was there. The whole room was softly illuminated, and there was

this solid, hauntingly sustained, pillar of light. It extended down from the ceiling of the cave to the floor.

Sparkles spun in the light. Some of it was likely dust particles, sparking as if in a sunbeam. Some of it

was just pure energy. Glitter in a glow tube. A being descended from above, coming through the

ceiling, and how ever many of feet of mountain that was above his cave. Her descent stopped on the

cave floor. Two other being walked straight through the wall, so that there were three strangely

illuminated beings inside the cave. The two secondary beings were also accompanied by a light beam

coming at an oblige angle through the cave wall in a direction that suggest source was outside the

cave.

The first, the female was hauntingly familiar, but he was at loss for placing her. Something flashed and

he saw the being in multiple ways, human, not human, and conjoined beings- human not human.

The bodies were human. The heads were octopi. It was as if humans were wearing living octopus

masks. The octopuses’ heads disappeared, taking on the orange swirling pattern of his cave, and so

the people appeared headless. The octopus’ heads returned, mostly gray, but they generated colors,

textures. Again the octopi heads went away and the human heads were there; again Shen had a pang

of a belief that he knew the female. Her name was just on the tip of his tongue and he thought if he

could only stare longer it would come to him. The head went away again. The human bodies became

transparent, so only the octopus remained, floating in air. Interestingly, he could discern the outline of

the humans they hugged. He could see a central branch that went down into the human, into the

stomach, and rooting further all the way into the intestines. He could see a branch into the lungs

defining lungs. Then both human and octopi were invisible, and there was storm of energy- a vision of

the electromagnetic body, the hearts synchronized between host and symbiont- and the brains

communicating through electrical means. It was if this was graphic showing the brain storm, human

brain storm, octopi brain storm, which for the octopi equaled its hole body, as brain matter was

distributed evenly throughout the creature, and then communicating through tissue and bone so the

whole of them was a bigger brain.

Then the vision was gone. There was only human wearing octopi masks. This ‘vision’ happened fast,

as if they were in a club and disco lights had flashed in such a way that one saw ‘normal’ reality, then

saw Day-Glo paints and surreal images of three dimensional tattoos that were brought out by strange

lights and micro gyrations, and then apparitions of something not quite right. He was not sure if this

was for his sake, communication with each other- that made less sense- or attempts to communicate

with him; a part of him suspected they were just showing off. The octopi bodies became transparent

again, revealing human heads underneath, emphasizing it wasn’t as if humans were wearing octopus’

heads, but they were indeed wearing the humans! Octopus was using humans to walk around.

Humans became transparent, and octopi became visible. Eight legs were hugging their host, defining

the human shapes they held. Their arms were free to move, to be used. There was a ninth central

column appendage which entered the human’s mouth and extended down into the lungs and stomach.

It interlocked at the mouth, covering the hose. Not an arm, but a tongue. A tongue that branched out

and became more

Shen had a greater understanding delivered to him than what he was gleaning from insight. This was a

new species. They were compatible with humans in a very unique way. It reminded him of alien face

huggers and his first impulse was to run. There was nowhere to run to, but he wanted to run, and yet,

he found himself frozen in place. Standing still was a compelling. This was the ‘freeze’ of fight or flight.

He heard a voice tell his heart to resume- Loxy?. He considered the jar of flame venom as a potential

weapon; his hand came away on its own accord, and he placed them in the small of his back.

The human octopi shared air, nutrients, and blood. Both species were stronger and healthier together

than apart. They were connected physically, mentally, and emotionally. A telepathic bond linked their

minds and the two individual minds became one. A new personality emerged that was neither human

no octopus. This was normal. Removing the corpus collasum of the human brain to alleviate epilepsy

had resulted in the discovery that the right hemisphere had a distinct and separate personality to the

left hemisphere. Any joining of minds resulted in a gestalt, and the emergence of new personalities-

without the loss of any personalities.

A feature that they shared in common- their hair was shellacked. It wasn’t just as if were painted on,

because it had texture and depth, even color, but it didn’t look free to blow in the wind or have

individual strands. It was a plastic shell helmet. It was get out of the shower wet, clinging to body

appearance. It was shiny, or darker because of the assumed wetness- which had a sexual appeal of its

own.

They wore modern clothing. Shiny clothing, metallic. It was tech, as techy as his own uniform! Shen

was excited to see tech! The first one that had entered wore a uniform of golden tint. The one behind

and to the right had a greenish, metallic tint. The third one a silver blended grey tint. The first one was

female- and she was in a skirt, sparkly hose, and boots that appeared to be the same material as her

dress. The other two were male. Precisely, the human bodies were male. He didn’t know how he knew-

the octopi also had gender- perhaps they were transmitting telepathically. Telepathy might explain the

compelling, the impulse to stay put, the impulse to put his hands in the small of his back. His

unconscious mind might have also compelled him to chill out- his inner Loxy might have been

compelling him. Or his right brain over rode his left brain. The human female had a female octopus

attached to her head, or laying over her head. One of the males also had a female octopus. The other

male had a male octopus.

“Holograms?” Shen asked.

“No,” the first said.

“There’s no way…”

“Touch me,” the first said, extending a hand. “Know for yourself.” He had a flashback to his ideas of

Christ, ‘come, feel my hand and the hole made by the nail.’

His mind rebelled, you can raise from the dead but not fix a two inch hole in your hand? He thought it

bizarre he was even having the debate. He was wanting to argue. ‘A contradiction is not an argument.’

“Directed light and sound can result in a tactile experience,” Shen said. “So can imagination. Touching

you wouldn’t necessarily result in confirmation of reality.”

“You’re speaking to me,” she said. “As opposed to telepathic transmission.”

“But you are telepathic,” Shen said.

“All beings are telepathic,” she said. “You primary personality interface precludes telepathy, with some

caveats. I can speak to you, like this. I can also speak to the real you, and am doing so even as we

communicate. We are not binding you, or compelling you. You are agreeing to this encounter. You

agree to our suggestions to see and to understand and be calm.”

“But I don’t understand,” Shen said.

“You don’t need to, Jon,” she said. “You only need to know, this path is not the one we agreed to. You

have a mission objective. You have an obligation. This present situation is not acceptable.”

“I don’t remember having a mission objective,” Shen said.

“It isn’t necessary for you to know the mission objective. Your inner you knows,” she said.

“It would help if I know,” Shen said.

“That’s something you should discuss with your inner you, not me,” she said. “This is an intervention.

Do not expect another one. Sleep.”

Shen collapsed to the floor. He awoke to find the egress to the cave open to air, and daylight was

streaming through. The rocks blocking the egress weren’t just moved. They were gone. He walked out

into the light of a new day, looking up for evidence of visitors. The patch of sky he could see seemed

bluer than he ever remembered, as if seeing a real blue for the first time. There was no evidence of

aliens. He went looking for his gift orb and couldn’t find it. He became perturbed, fearful, agitated.

Finally he sat down and began to cry. He leaned back against the tree, looking up through the leaves to

try and see the sun directly.

“Come back! I want to talk!” Shen said.

He wiped his face on his sleeve, sneezed. His hands went into the pocket he had made. His hand

touched the orb. Joy took him up and suddenly he was on Virtual Deck.