Each night was colder than the last. The chill in the surreal landscape refusing to leave, to release me from its foul grip. It did not matter that the false sun was shinning in the false sky above. Or that the waves tricked the senses with a warmth that did not last.

The frigid claws ripping apart bone and sinew did not care. They did not slow.

Once, the voices had brought me into the mind of a worker inside an industrial cattle ranch.

A monstrous building made up of oily black stone that seemed to have been melted in place, rather than built. In that cursed hall, thousands of livestock animals were cloned from eggs, raised up to maturity via the implementation of hormones and chemicals, and then butchered. The drones overhead delivering single bursts of electricity directly into their central nervous systems.

Yet the animals were not wholly unconscious for what happened next. Most were actually still half-lucid when their pens opened up from below, to reveal slides leading down into a central processing center. Where different machines cut and sliced each animal according to species and general muscle makeup.

The worker watched impassively. In a way that suggested he was more dead inside than the cattle being butchered. He took no pleasure in the experience, just as a carpenter wouldn't take any pleasure in seeing a tree being felled by foresters.

He merely monitored the machines, and when one broke down or showed signs of wear and tear, he would make the decision to cycle them out and he would authorize the delivery to the machine shop contracted by the cattle processing plant.

His mind melded into those of the cattle when I entered the scene. His internal numbness mixing with the agonizing internal screams of his charges. Their confusion, desperation, and sense of betrayal intermingling with his own inability to feel anything at all.

And then came the silence and all were equally still.

Yet like a fly trapped in amber, time flowed differently for me in this accursed place.

I was back again. In the same universe but in a different place. Being overwhelmed by a whole different set of voices even as the old ones bellowed from beneath my conscious psyche. Even as the pain still lingered and my fingers twitched at the memory of sawing blades spinning and muscles that would not move. And a numbness that permeated everything.

This time I was in a far less advanced world. A world just beginning the process of colonization and industrialization. A world being occupied by the kind of person who saw machine labor as far too expensive.

I was a drone in all but name here. Another faceless automaton tasked with putting things into boxes and then wrapping up the boxes for delivery. The days in this world lasted 28 Earth hours and 23 of those hours were spent putting things in boxes or taking things out of boxes before putting them in different boxes. It was monotonous, mind-scouring, drudging work, and the woman I had become did it anyway. Thinking of her young children all the while.

She worked and slept and worked. While her offspring forgot the look of her face. The subtle hints of her features. The love in her voice.

The others in the factory were, if anything, more dead inside. For at least she had her children.

I became all their minds at once. All while other voices battered down my defenses. My mind being overwhelmed with all of them at once and being unable to separate myself, my real self, from the voices.

Then came the silence and all were equally still.

And I was myself again. My real self. Back on the false beach. Surrounded by false friends.

I coughed, despite myself. The agony shooting up my limbs once more as I tried to move forwards and away from the beach. The lustrous waves washing over me again and again and again.

The unreal water was not salty, despite it simulating a sea. Instead, it tasted sweet on my lips and tongue. My mouth hanging open as I wheezed helplessly. Unable to move. Barely able to blink.

Even thinking brought forth unimaginable suffering these days. My organs twisting and writhing like serpents within my belly as the Psy in my mind boiled me from the inside out.

Not Slab looked down at me then. Poking me with his right toe as a single eye looked up to his figure.

"I thought you said we'd be playing beach volleyball today." He stated dryly.

'I can't move.' I thought to myself. To him.

But the thoughts did not reach him. Indeed, none of my Psy was active in any way I could manipulate or detect. It wasn't that I was being suppressed or anything of the sort, but that I was willfully trying to ignore my own energies. As each and every interaction only made the agony worse.

Every minute brought forth new stabbing sensations. Every hour brought forth the feeling of being flayed and then having those wounds exposed to salt and vinegar.

My insides had turned into my outsides and then turned into my insides again. The noise hammering my mind without pause or mercy.

My skull was being penetrated by an icepick that I could not see and that had a thousand sharp edges that came at me from every side. I tried to wheeze again and only brought more pain upon myself. The thoughts and prayers and muttered curses of an engineer in a space port melding with those of a local teacher for young children. The memories of a farmer atop his work machines merging with those of a politician swimming through a sea of liquid flesh turned to slurry. His Types keeping him alive where all his peers popped like balloons.

I had to cough as more water went down the wrong way and the sweetness tasted like wine as my eyes rolled back into my skull.

I saw the memories of children huddling underneath their desks as the teacher bade them. The monitor in their class showing the battle at the space port. The bursts of energy. The massacre.

I saw the falling ship through a thousand, thousand eyes and then I was away.

In a backwards, almost medieval world.

The harvest had not been great and the preacher had been preaching for longer than usual. His sermons dragging on long into the night. His wings flapping nervously under the hem of his robes as he spoke of Dragons and Tyrants. Something about beguiling influences and silent Divines and Gozo, the unborn Divine who was yet to come.

I saw the sky lighting up with a comet. All of us did. The whole village. Our minds sending [Messages] back and forth. Our eyes entranced by the brilliance above us.

I knew the elders always said the sky was supposed to be permanent. That nothing was supposed to change in the eternal tapestry that was the night sky.

Yet here was a falling star.

An omen, some said. Of famine, of plague, of war, of death.

A prophetess had been driven mad in the capital, men said. She had torn her robes and clawed her own eyes out in a fit of frenzied terror. Her crowing foretelling of a Tyrant who would scour the stars themselves clean of all life and whose song would make all the waking sleep forever.

He was the dreamer, she had said, and his was the dream to end all dreams. And he would dream when the stars fell and bled across the night sky.

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I lifted my pincers to my face and my eyes went instinctively upwards. I saw a trail of red and I saw that this trail seemed to be getting closer. I closed my eyes and I knew the comet was there. The thing from beyond this world. The thing that had haunted my daughter's nightmares. The Tyrant's shadow. A black shape so dark it stands out amidst the void of space. Sucking in all light and all sound until nothing was left that could perturb him.

I gasped on the beach as the thing pretending to be Slab kicked me once again.

I groaned. Trying to speak.

I didn't manage it.

"You know, for the guy who is supposedly the real Sully, you sure are an idiot." He chided. Shaking his head as if in disbelief.

"Not everything has to be solved with violence you know? Haven't you once considered how much good your powers could do if you used them properly? To bring people together?"

I stared at him in disbelief and the absurdity finally allowed me to break through the agony, if only briefly.

"That's what I was doing."

"No." He shook his head. His hands still holding the ball.

"You dug in your heels and continued fighting. Every single time. You could have put more effort into manipulating Hazimon. I know because my Sully did it without too much trouble. All you had to do was pretend that you and him thought alike for a little while. All while your [Presence] did the trick. But noooo."

He shook his head.

"You were too proud." He snapped at me. "Vain. Full of hubris like the old humans in my world. You thought you knew better than anyone else and so you threw your weight around. Tell me, have you considered that things with Randall might have gone much differently if you drenched him with your [Presence] instead of mind-breaking him?"

He inclined his head.

"Have you ever considered that Hazimon might not have taken kindly to talks about xenocide with regards to gnomes? Did you ever stop and think that maybe just maybe you could have toned it down a bit and flown under the radar? I mean, if the Spider Boss hadn't snitched on you, then I doubt anyone would have found out anything was wrong until you were out."

He came closer.

"Don't you think that our power was enough? I mean, would it really have killed you to have some self-control? Enough to stay away from the booze and the prophecies and the power-boosting? Did it ever occur to you that you were dancing along to your own strings and that you had free will to change the outcomes all along?"

I wanted to strike him then. To curse him. To remind him and by extension Surfer Sully that I had no idea who or what I was back then. Not truly.

But the voices came with a vengeance and then I was spiraling down the black waters once more.

It is still descending. We were all haunted by a bleeding, falling star, despite our faith. Despite us doing nothing wrong.

I saw the tree leaves in the distance and I saw the birds perching on them. I had heard that comets could make kings fall from a fisher wife. That great Masters and poets and beggars all fall and kneel before the shadow at once.

Equally worthless beneath it.

I heard that a local astrologer had known that the comet was a troubling sign on the other side of the world. One that would go away if piety increases. And so, we prayed in the temple. To all Divines that might hear our plea. The dancing lights stirred as we did so and I could hear whispers coming from them. Temptations and acknowledgements in equal measure. Litanies written in dying embers that floated off from the pyres. From our minds and into the real world. No one else seemed to see them.

No one but me.

I saw the prayers and the prayer circles. I saw the minds of all those people thinking their faith would save them. I saw the world through the eyes of the cattle herders, the workshop apprentices, the carpenters, the smiths, the doctors, the barbers, the preachers thinking that no one should drink unless that water has been blessed.

I saw the captain on the ship above. Following a simple command from the Esper.

The command to run away.

I heard the world through the thoughts of his crew. His children. His wife. His ship.

I saw the world through the animals in the world below and I saw it through the local preachers and poachers.

The comet then flared lighter, brighter… it grew a second tail and a forked tongue.

Some say it was a winged figure with a sword.

And then the inside of the ship went silent. The laughter in the village went silent. The rustling in the leaves went silent. The chanting in the temple went silent. The wailing of children and the words of widows went silent.

Everything went silent.

I saw my name written across the stars. Protective signs appearing as the veil between reality sundered and bent and twisted upon itself. The days blurred together and I went back in time to see the thoughts of panic again.

Each day was frozen and repeating.

A day trapped in amber I kept bringing to my face.

There was something there, inside of me now. Something that had changed. There was an odd dance between acceptance and panic.

I knew how the day ended and I knew how all the lives ended.

I knew what they were doing before they all ended and I knew what hopes and dreams they all kept to themselves.

I saw the sparks in their minds and I saw the love they had for each other. The hatred, the envy, the lust.

I saw the criminal rotting in his cell, wallowing in self-pity and telling himself that they deserved it for being gullible. I saw the wretch in the cell across from him begging for forgiveness and asking for repentance every day and every night. Asking for his guilt-ridden mind to leave him alone. To let him sleep one last time in peace.

He would welcome the silence, though he had no idea the silence was coming. I saw the beating of wings and the buzzing of wings and wings growing in cocoons and within eggs.

I saw hatchlings and newly born calves of marine mammals struggling forwards to get milk.

I saw the men in the ship's cargo bays screaming in the last few seconds before the Golden Cruelty rushed forwards. The speed of her charge reducing them to atoms in a fraction of a fraction of a second.

Through it all, I still sw the politician, swimming through a sea of mashed up corpses. He needed to see his wife and children one last time. He needed to tell them he loved them one last time. He needed to hold them one last time.

He was vaporized in the explosion. Before the silence even came and his loved ones joined him soon thereafter.

I saw the serpentine Master cursing herself for coming. Cursing me for existing. Thinking back to how this was an unnecessary risk were all taking and how we should all simply go back to minding our own business and training in our own corners.

I saw the other Masters. One desperate to end a threat, another burning with the desire for vengeance.

The echo of Frigid Bloodline hanging onto him like a ghost or a curse. Refusing to let go.

I saw the Savant sailing through the air and I saw the Savant falling as the silence arrived.

I saw him crashing through a cave's ceiling, the dunes covering the stone structure doing little and less to soften his fall. I saw the end and the death of him.

Of all the others combined.

I saw the silence and I felt the pain, the loss, the absence, the agony.

Oh goodness, the agony that never stopped and never left. And then I was back in the place. On that day frozen in amber.

I knew what was happening and what will happen, and I could not leave.

I saw the results of the silence and I could not leave.

I felt my veins and arteries boiling with excess Psy and I could not leave.

I heard a thousand screeching voices calling out for mercy at once and I could not leave.

My mind and eyes and skull were all flayed open and exposed and I could not leave.

And then my shadow did leave. Like a ghost fading into the mist.

I caught myself mumbling their voices. Their hopes. Their prayers. The words they etched into their shrines and the words the teachers and mothers told their children before the silence.

Before the sword appeared in the sky.

My sword. My sky. My silence.

Then the day began anew and all time was trapped in amber.

I wheezed and I felt as though someone had set me on fire and thrown me down a cliff.

I saw a figure standing above me and… for the briefest second, I did not see grains of sand. Nor a sweet water sea.

I saw silence and fear.

I saw Intruders burning like comets.

Their dreams smelling like smoke. Their stench was everywhere, in the minds of humans and in my mind as well. I heard dogs barking and goats refusing to eat in days. I saw the eyes of hopeful, misguided spirits waiting for the end.

Hopefuls sitting by a fire and whispering truths.

There were no Intruders turned to people. There were only thoughts and memories holding on to emotions. To the joy and the fear that they knew when they were more than what they are now. The not Slab did not know responsibility. He did not know the pressure of a distant, uncaring father. He did not know the fear that the young man had in that cave filled with human mosquitoes.

I reminded him of what he had lost and the silence receded, if only for a second.

I heard a twig snapping behind me and I froze.

The sea was gone and so was the sweet water.

I turned around and I saw that there was only a patch of forest and drawings on the mud below. With nothing but darkness enclosing on all sides.

I moved, if only slightly. I was able to sit upright.

I was able to see the other me. The not me.

His smile drawn and somewhat forced.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him. The pain receding a bit more with every passing second.

He looked around.

"You reached the 10th Tier in Telepath." He said casually. Then he waved around.

"You suppressed all my Intruders and all my powers. Plan B without any subterfuge. Nice going I suppose. About time you did something right."

He nodded to himself.

"Though I will be turning things back after this. You are not done purging yourself yet my dumb other self."

"The Tall Man has [Eternal Silence]." I mentioned.

"He does." He agreed. "For now. But again, you are still purging yourself. That power is not yours. Not truly yours in any case. You still need to absorb it properly into your own [Presence] power. You still have work to do to keep yourself whole."

"I won't lose it." I told him.

He shrugs.

"Not fully. But it will still be better once you dissolve it into your own presence ability. After all, you can't control the [Silence]."

He shook his head.

"No one can control the [Silence]. That's why the other version of us told you not to do this. You can never really know what the consequences of your actions will be."

I stopped. Staring at him.

At the ever-deepening darkness beyond him.

"Better get to it, my younger, dumber self. You still have a lot of work to do, if you mean to fix yourself in time for the finale."

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