The Adventures of Mr. Dirge & Lady Freckles [ Part X ]
Parts: [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX] [X]
With fuzzy sight, a heavy head and a shoulder oozing pain I woke up inside a hut. It was circular and made of wood. The ceiling was made of straws and sticks weaved together. The floor was covered with a rug made from grass, purple grass. I got up from the bed on one side of the hut to see the cloaked man sitting in the middle of the hut on the ground. He had placed two red candles in front of him. He raised his hooded head from his trance, “Come here Dirge, have a seat” he said as he pointed to the space on the ground facing him.
Uncertain and unsure, I got off the bed and walked towards him. “I have healed your shoulder, but it will still hurt for a while. That won’t matter anyway” he spoke. I nodded my head in gratitude, “I’m guessing you’re Zus, the wizard” I said, going straight to the point. Zus shook his head in disappointment, “You lack the patience that Seriph wanted you to have.”
That sentence made no sense to me, at all. How is this about Seriph? Why does everything end up being about Seriph or what he has done or intended to do? Who the fuck is Seriph anyway? Was he responsible for Freckles’ death?
Zus saw that my mind was troubled. “Calm your mind Dirge, you are not alone” Zus said, as he took off his hoodie. My eyes fixated on the face of the wizard before me, for it is my face, mirrored.
“What … what is this? Are you Seriph?”
“No, as I said, and as you know already, I am Zus”
“Calm the fuck down Dirge; tell me, what do you know about Seriph?”
“I know that he exists in another dimension. He created a portal to this one and was able to send people and objects but not himself through that portal.”
“And do you know why that is?”
“NO! I don’t fucking understand why, I don’t understand why anything is happening. What is going on here? Why is nothing making sense”
“Dirge, nothing is making sense because in this reality, nothing is supposed to make sense.”
“Your information regarding Seriph is not entirely correct”
“Seriph did not create a portal to this dimension, Dirge. Seriph created this dimension.”
“Are you telling me that he created this entire reality? Including us, the zombies and the events that transpired? Freckles’ DEATH!?”
“Yes, But he also created you, Dirge, as he created me a long time ago in another dimension that is far more different than this one.”
“It’s not that obvious to us, and it’s not entirely obvious to him either. What did Khalid tell you when you met him?”
“He said that they thought Seriph was writing a story, but it turned out to be a portal”
“Both are true, Seriph was writing a story, and it is a portal; but to his imagination”
“Seriph is bored, in his world. He thinks it’s full of pain and disappointments. So he creates other worlds, to escape.”
“Then where is he? How come he can’t come here?”
“He can come here, he already has; through you Dirge.”
“The reason why most things don’t make sense to you is because most events, people and disasters that have happened here, in this realm, are his way of painting his reality in a more colorful way. You know, because his reality is boring, dull and the people there barely use their imagination.”
“Why do you look like me? If I am who he created to reflect himself in this dimension.”
“It is because I do not belong to this dimension, I belong to another dimension in which I was created to reflect Seriph.”
“Seriph wanted you to understand why you had to go through all that you have. The dragons, the zombies, the shamans and the spiders; they all represent something to Seriph, as you represent something to him too. In his attempt to explain himself he has created this entire clusterfuck of a reality… we live in his imagination, we’ve done so for a long time, he only brought us to life recently.”
“So he sent you to explain all this to me? If I am just a figment of his imagination, why does he care if I understand? I will stop existing once the story ends. This story he is writing, this reflection of his life.”
“You… we, are more than just a figment of his imagination. We are a longing; we are a side of him that he would address through his stories. A side he wished was true. He has been seeing us and thinking about us since he was a young boy. Not just the two of us.”
“I don’t know how many more versions of us exist, or how many realities he has created. Even if we were the only two, which is not to say that he won’t be creating more realities and more versions of us.”
“So the entire events that happened to me, in reality, are nothing but a dream. And when Seriph wakes up… what happens?”
“When he wakes up, you, Seriph and I become one again. We reconnect and the split is no longer there. The seams between our realities start getting thinner and thinner.”
“Which is why I can see you, talk to you now… isn’t it. Seriph is about to wake up.”
Out of the darkness, outside the hut, I heard a voice that spoke firmly “Dirge, Zus, It’s time we went home.”
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