Alma 55 Tree of Life

It was escapism at its finest but could anyone really blame them for it? Lu'um couldn't. The odds were against them. Against everyone. Against everything that once was and could be in the future.

She couldn't blame them for surrendering in the face of the end. They had the right to do so. But she didn't. And neither did he. They'd have to bear their burden once again and this time…

A thin film of sweat covered him as he struggled against himself in his sleep. His eyes tightly shut, as if he wanted to avoid seeing something. The Anima that rolled off of him was chaotic and unpredictable. Sometimes it'd monstrously swell and sometimes it'd recede back to normal.

The instability was something she'd prepared for since it was an expected symptom. Managing it was feasible, but taxing since she never knew how strong of a flare he'd release at any given moment when he was asleep. It could be a murmur — a faint whisper of the past — or a frightening storm that'd threaten even her if she were caught unawares.

It was like shepherding a hurricane away from a coast before it landed and destroyed everything.

But he is recovering… the severity of his outbursts is lessening. The more he recovers, the more we'll be able to restore… in due time, of course.

The flares were no longer as powerful as they were in the beginning when she'd met him. It was a nightmare in the beginning. His flares were so strong he nearly erased the Spire and its surroundings for kilometers once, if not for sacrificing half of her body to block the horrifying outburst of raw energy.

An injury like that should have taken no more than an instant to recover from with her abilities. Instead, it took her two whole days to recover from his outburst in secret. Even in slumber, his Anima still contained the same scorching, all-consuming qualities it had before…

He's even started picking up some of his old, irritating idiosyncrasies too. He's become a lot better at lying, but his classic tells are all still the same.

She was sure that he knew and understood more than he was letting on. That was something she was certain about. The way his eyes gleamed whenever certain topics were brought up made it painfully obvious to her. His uninterested, slightly bored facade was endlessly amusing to watch. It reminded her of better days…

The sun would rise soon enough and she'd finally be able to get some rest. As much as she loved watching his dumb face as he slept, she couldn't do it forever. Thankfully, if push came to shove, that no-good wretch in the cloak could cover for her in an emergency. There was some value in keeping her, after all.

Her strength slowly faded as soon as she saw the sun peaked out of the forest and weakly shone into the room. Before she even realized it, her eyes had closed and everything blurred into darkness.

"..."

Lu'um had entered the world of dreams by the time Reed was woken up by Mira. As far as he was concerned, sleeping beauty lived by her own rules and that included staying in bed past morning. If it meant that she'd stay out his hair for a couple of hours, he was all for it. He was more than fine with her sleeping as long as she wanted.

It'd give him more time to digest what he learned or rather, what had been forced upon him. Memories of a long-forgotten past, feelings that belonged to someone else, and secret, profane words and skills that granted strength to those who spoke them. Things that Lacrima and Lu'um would no doubt interrogate and forbid him from studying on his own.

These memories have been becoming increasingly more detailed and lifelike, as if they were actually real. It feels more like I'm observing a real-life than having a vivid dream.

Over the course months, he'd been forced to train his skills in reality with Lu'um during the day. At night, he'd dream and experience the memories that the hooded man had left him — he ended up becoming his second mentor.

The hooded man had left him detailed memories — intrusive visions — of his knowledge and techniques. In his sleep, he learned how to shape Anima in increasingly complex ways by observing — living through the hooded man's perspective — as his living shadow. Although rare, sometimes he was even barraged with visions during the day too. They came and went on their own and Reed was powerless during the entire process.

The familiar chill on the back of his neck told him that he was about to receive another vision. Whether he liked it or not, he had been pulled into the hooded man's memories once again as an observer of his work.

...

The way he spun Anima was sublime in a way that could not be described. The glimpses he saw of the hooded man's skill were enough for Reed to realize that he was nothing in comparison to the hooded man.

Mas...…eed?

The man was akin to a genuine god that could create and destroy anything with but a gesture. The universe itself seemed to be a product of his own thoughts. The layers that made up reality trembled whenever he brushed his fingers past them. His words were natural law and were the universe's new truth.

He was an artist of the highest possible status, a transcendent figure who had the ability to paint the life and death of stars with his mind alone. His mind — the brush; Anima — his paint; the Universe — his personal canvas.

This was the true essence of Anima. Everything made perfect sense even though Reed could not explain it with words. His intuition screamed at him that this was beyond his pay-grade; it was an unspoken truth that only the wisest, most perceptive beings in creation could ever learn about. And yet, it'd been given to him, of all people…

Lo...eed… Is...someth... Are…yo... Is...the...?

He'd left the acting stage and had become an observer of everything. It was the first time he saw the sum of all creation as it was, through his eyes. A large trunk of space and time made up Reed's universe itself. Alongside the trunk were branches and leaves that formed the adjacent parallel realities and minor universes of everything that could be.

A seemingly infinite amount of worlds, lives, and dreams were contained within the care of this Tree of Life. It was self-contained multiverse of limitless possibilities. Home.

Mindbogglingly large roots converged around the beating heart of the multiverse. The source of all Anima that has ever existed and the reason why everything came to be. It thrummed with powerful vitality and sent Anima up the tree, but a vast majority of it never made it past the trunk of the Tree of Life.

Mas...ed? Is t...e some...…that wro...with…?

The hooded man eventually turned his away from home and looked elsewhere. His attention was focused on what laid around the Tree of Life. For good reason. It was then and there that Reed came to terms with what lay outside of the boundary. Outside of the safety of the Tree of Life.

The horror. The truth of the situation. The inevitable confrontation with the end.

Boy! If...hea...voic...res…! You...vita...sign...ar...fad…!

An entire forest of rotting trees. Fallen branches and leaves covered in dark, viscous sludge that writhed as if it were alive. If you paid enough attention, you could hear innumerable screams of torment and misery like whispers on the wind. Cries for help, for salvation that would not be answered.

Eventually, the whispers were snuffed out as they drowned in the overflowing sludge.

A few trees continued to struggle against the sludge's poison. Some were lucky enough to have avoided it entirely, but the reality was that most had succumbed to it already.

The sludge crept past the hooded man's feet. The filth that had violated the forest had made it home. Scourge of all Life — The Infestation had already begun its terrible work. There was no escape from it. Reed felt his heart wildly beating like a drum. Raw, uncontrollable dread filled his soul and despair took hold… until he spoke.

"Do not fear it, Reed. We knew that it'd come, prepared for it, and have created a solution for it. A way to protect our tree. You must…"

"Master Reed, are you alright?! Can you hear me?! Get the doctor in here now!!"

A burst of pain traveled across Reed's body, shocking him out his reverie back into reality with force. He screamed in pain and said, "Ahhh!! Fucking stop, you crazy bastards!"

Reed roughly brushed away Arcano's hands and said, "What the hell did you fucking do?! Feels like I've been struck by a goddamned lightning bolt!" He put one of hands on his chest in pain as he laboriously fought to regulate his breathing.

"My apologies, Master Reed, but time was of the essence. Had I not acted, I do not know what would have happened to you given the state you were in," said Arcano. He and Mira looked spooked out of their minds as they cautiously inspected Reed.

"Boy, what the hell did you do!! I detected abnormal brain-waves in you about half a minute ago and then your blood pressure dropped off a damn cliff! Your heart-rate was dangerously low — at one point I couldn't even detect your heartbeat at all! You went dead-eyed like a corpse until that whelp resuscitated you with a mild shock!"

My heart stopped beating?!! I was dead for several seconds?! To think that even his memories are capable of something like this…! Was it a punishment for digging too far, too soon…? Was I not supposed to have seen all of that yet? But then…

He looked at the concerned faces of his servants and cursed himself for his stupidity. Shit. Now I've riled them up with this…

Reed wheezed out, "W-What the hell?! Guess I really messed up this time, huh…" He slowly laid back on his chair and said, "Sorry, guys. I was experimenting with a new technique of mine and things went south in the worst way possible."

"Boy, you are beyond salvation. What in the hell were you trying to do…"

"Create a new technique? M-Milord, may I ask what you were trying to accomplish?" said Arcano. "If you require assistance in creating a technique, I would be more than delighted to help you. Mira and I should be more than enough to help you with any questions you might have."

Reed weakly laughed and said, "I was trying to sever my soul from my body. I had the idea that if I did that I'd be able to roam around undetected as a spirit. The technique was working fine until, well, you know… I messed up."

"...…"

"...…"

"...…"

"W-What? I thought it was a pretty smart idea, at least in theory. Shame it didn't work out, but failure's the mother of success, right? I'm sure it'll work out if I tweak the technique a bit here and there."

It was on that day that Arcano, Mira, and Lacrima came to the same conclusion about Reed.

He was loony. Truly insane. Mad enough to graze death's embrace in order to create such a morbid technique. They were all doomed.

Chapter end