> A scene overlooking a foggy valley of pointless buildings, all connected to the sky by lengthy beads. A towering creature of diistriimmma class levitates beside a colossal wall. It is curled up, anatomy like that of a goat, a slug, a human, & a work of metal. Wisps of cloud swirl around it. Looking over the scene with you is a short cat-like lady, smiling but neutral. On the side of the image is a few notes on the colors used.

***

It has been suggested that this place was the culmination of that old myth. Heat & cold, the violence of the land. How the struggling could reach for a more static, “colder” world. How the bored could merely adjust themselves to a “hotter”, more dire world. To be sure, there is adversaries in the world of towers & cities.

Dark places to end, those which engrave their menace onto one’s very Character. Tortures not yet dispelled, as none have heard about it yet in our sprawling lands. A familiar terror, wonder, & adventure. A betraying one. But largely, most people live well, in most ways. Whatever they please, with no true obligation. It is difficult to quantify the percentage of this living. But I’ve heard of those trying to pin it down. They were able to, but it would not be a number reasonable to story in my memory. They were not able to pin the percentage down with calculators made before the post-mortem age. Anything before then, it would merely come out as 100% of people living a pleasant life.

I was so lucky to be of that 100%. And truly, it was a pleasant time. Tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds of years passed me by; bodies I would keep for five minutes & bodies I would keep for lifetimes. I cannot see how people can stand living the same subset of lives, though. Surely, I haven’t exhausted every life I could live. Every skill I could master. Perhaps I am impatient, but upon understanding this myth, & the theories around it, I became giddy. I recognized my life was becoming colder. I needed heat, warmth. Motion. And I saw it, in those “forbidden” lands, the lands of the third-life.

This, this was heat. I felt consequence, & for nothing! No evils committed, no atrocities. A mere misstep, an imprecise calculation… & I faced burning humiliation. Something more than the banality of my old home. More than writing something wrong, or breaking something, or ruining a craft of hours time. It was perversions of will & life I witnessed & faced, and all in solitude. The further down I went, the more genuine peril I faced.

Every misshapen brick I stepped upon, every pointless filigree I admired, I began to process how these ruins felt. They sought to provide something that our world couldn’t. They sought to bring us a joy in scarring ourselves, over & over & over again. They, with twisting, reaching fingers, offered us a way to slay our lenses, & either choose to come back to “our world” or remain here.

I am not presumptuous of mine future. I know not how long I might remain here. How many years, how many lifetimes, how many minutes. But I know that I love these useless halls, as they love my useless life. For nothing else provides true dire.