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Fiction Horror

Boundary

I watch. And wait. And get excited.

Few folks imagine I am here. Fewer know that I am here. None know me and what I really do.

Your old folklore describes me as evil, a darkness that invades your world. An unsettled soul damned and bent on destruction of all that is good and light. Such a negative image….

I came to be at time naught. I remember that first blink, instant consciousness. There were an infinite number of us at that first blink. There was light and us; that was it. Immobile, conscious for eons.

At a much later time, instantly a new element, dark, came into being. A fluid boundary appeared between the light and the dark. We began to stir. Barely perceptible, then more noticeable, the stirring. A vibration hummed among us.

As we rustled in ourselves, a mingling began. The darkness I was in shifted. A bubble, formed out of the darkness, encapsulated me; a bubble that lived and shifted and moved itself into the light. Still separate but within the light.

As I perceived others, the shifting continued. Some enveloped in a bubble of the light. Some, like me, bubbled in dark. Interesting.

No discernible purpose. No discernable reason. It just was and is.

We began to communicate with each other. We took on names. We assumed names; they were not assigned. I am known as Zeke. No reason for it; I assumed it.

“Zeke, Zeke, speak with me.” That sense of speaking came to me unbidden and unthought-of.

“I am Zeke. You, Eko, wish to communicate. Why?”

Infinitely spaced throughout all that is, we do not see as you do. Nor are we hampered by what you know as distance. When we speak, it is a sensing across infinity.

As we stirred, the vibration increased. Of course, we all felt it. It was not to be comprehended; it merely was part of what the universe became.

“I want to understand,” Eko stated. “What are we?”

“I am a darkness, sentient unto myself and of the whole. That I know. More, I will learn, Eko. What of you?”

A silence followed for millennia. Driven by the vibration, we all shifted within the universes.

“I am a lightness,” Eko replied. “I am of a whole and unto myself. Why is that?”

“I don’t know, Eko.”

Then, a different thing happened.

Within the light and the dark, with their infinite number of us within each one, something stirred.

Worlds formed within our universes. The vibration began to narrow down, down into life. Life formed within the dark and the light.

“Zeke, within your dark universe, do you sense the newness? In our light, there is a quickening, life. It is interesting. It does not feel like sustenance here.

“Do you feel sustenance within your dark?”

Eons passed as I felt this newness expand within my dark universe.

“Eko, I feel no sustenance within my darkness. There are worlds in my darkness. Creatures inhabit many of them. These creatures communicate among themselves with scents or movements or coloration or speech.  They do not use thought as we do. Each type of creature on each of the worlds communicates with others of its kind. I do not perceive communication between types.”

“As it is in my universe,” Eko responded. “Countless worlds with unimaginable numbers of creatures. In my universe there is one type of creature on each of the worlds with expanded life that dominates the others. That type seems to have captured more of the vibration. We call them lightlings.”

“Eko, in my universe, the darklings evolved differently and at different paces on each world. As in your universe, one type has more vibration than the other types. It dominates all the others. It is not the largest type nor the smallest. It developed ways to protect itself from most other types. It fears nothing larger that itself. It defends itself well against the largest types. Only the smallest types seem capable of defeating it with impunity. Is this so in your light?”

“Zeke, that is the way in my light. But there is no sustenance for our kind here. I am beginning to feel a need for sustenance. Perhaps the lightlings absorption of the vibration is affecting me.”

More eons passed. I found my bubble could move throughout the light universe. With a thought, I found myself on one of the worlds within the light.

“Eko, I am on a world in the light. My bubble’s boundary is intact shielding me from the light. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Zeke. I am in the dark on one of the planets in the dark. How can this be?”

I communicated, “It is as it should be. After the beginning, we stirred in our light and in our dark. We did not know we would cross that boundary between the two. The boundary seemed immutable. Our bubbles carry that boundary, and it protects us from other conditions.

Here on this light planet, the types of slower vibration notice me. I can tell by their quickening energy, but they calm quickly remaining wary. I don’t notice any change in most of the type with the highest vibration.

“A few seem to notice me and appear agitated. Do you see this same phenomenon in the dark?”

Eko responded, “So it seems here. Light entering the dark perturbs the higher-vibration type. Do you sense sustenance there in the light?”

“I do. I never felt the need for sustenance until now. Curious.”

I reached through my bubble’s boundary and touched a plant there on the light world. Its weak vibration stopped. I did not understand, but my vibration quickened ever so slightly.

“Eko, know this. I reached through my bubble boundary, touched a plant and its vibration stopped. Its vibration seems to have quickened me. No harm came to me as I reached through the bubble boundary.”

“Zeke, I did as you described and experienced the same phenomenon you describe. Is this what sustenance is?”

“I believe it is so. I’ll touch one of the higher-vibration type.”

I reached through the boundary of my bubble and touched one of them.

“Eko, I did it. Spectacular! The creature screamed and begged others of its type to ‘save’ it. They watched their other slow and die. Their vibrations became chaotic, and they ran away from their own that I touched. I became more energetic, sustained.

“Eko, you try.”

“Zeke, I also touched one of the darklings that was surrounded by others of its type. As you describe, the same thing occurred. The others of its type fled; I became more energetic.

“We have found our need for and source of sustenance.”

That veil some of you perceive is our protection. It is not ordained us or you to pass through, merely for us to reach through to your kind.

You see, I am not evil. I merely need sustenance. I come out of dark, but I am not dark. Your superstitions are wrong.  

October 29, 2021 20:43

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1 comment

Todd Crickmer
15:10 Nov 04, 2021

Okay. I read it twice and listened to it aloud once. This is so far outside my normal genre, I'm not sure what to make of it. I guess I need to reach outside my bubble more. I will say, I'm not a fan of the short choppy sentences. But other than that, very interesting.

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