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“That’s a lot of water,” Raindu said, the ferret’s voice echoing within Sam’s mind. “It’s no wonder why the Mother can create and nurture so many planes.”
“Water is the source of life,” the Mother said.
“And death,” Vercedei said. “Look around yourself, Sam. How many people did she drown?”
“It’s only the subconscious expanse,” Sam said. He still listened to Vercedei’s words, spreading his All-Seeing Gaze as far as possible. Everywhere he looked, there were no survivors. “You’d think some of them would be able to breath underwater in their dreams.”
“I’m not eliminating them only via drowning,” the Mother said. “There are many living beings out there who’re unaffected by water filling their lungs, so I add something special to my water while creating it.”
“Poison?” Vercedei asked.
“Sharp shards to shred internal organs?” Joe asked.
The Mother denied Vercedei’s and Joe’s answers before the sloth could even finish speaking. “No,” she said. “The water comes with a sweet experience. They’ll fall under an illusion where they’ll accomplish their hopes and dreams.”
“So, they can drown in reality, blissfully unaware of their impending doom,” Vercedei said.
“The morally correct way to relieve a living being of its life,” the Mother said, agreeing with Vercedei’s words. “No pain, no suffering, only a sweet dream delivering happiness in their final moments.”
“Still think she’s kind and merciful?” Vercedei asked, looking at Sam. “She’ll kill you with a smile and believe she’s acting in your best interest whilst doing so.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad way to go,” Sam said and shrugged. In the trillions of lives he had experienced, it was safe to say a very small minority of them had ended peacefully in his sleep. It was Oterra, after all, and danger lurked around every corner when one was something insignificant like an untalented human. It was even more dangerous when one was a newly born bird pushed out of the nest by their mother for whatever reason; it was one of the shortest lives Sam had lived, ended by the jaws of some unknown creature. Sam was sure he could’ve identified it if he had a good look at it before it had eaten him.
“Are we done here?” the Mother asked. “I don’t sense the tapeworm anywhere within my waters, and my waters are encompassing the whole dimension.”
“I think we are done,” Sam said. He couldn’t detect any signs of life from the tapeworm. “But it’s better to be safe than sorry. We’ll search through everything to make sure Nwaps is really gone. If even a single one of the tapeworm’s clones survive, it’ll be a nuisance and spread again.”
“I’ll do it,” the Mother said. Millions of vortexes formed within the boundless ocean the Mother had created. The water within Sam’s surroundings disappeared in an instant as the vortexes spun, drawing the liquid into themselves as they formed and condensed into a myriad of forms: birds, reptiles, mammals, fish, and other forms of living beings Sam had never seen before in all his lifetimes. They had crystal-clear bodies, and if it weren’t for the shimmering caused by the light passing through them, it would’ve been difficult to discern their shapes.
“Puppets?” Vercedei asked.
“Not puppets,” the Mother said. “My creations are capable of thinking on their own.”
“So, fancy puppets,” Vercedei said, “with crude brains.”
“Mock as you will,” the Mother said and twirled its body, the blue rings around its tentacles moving in a mesmerizing pattern, “because that’s all you can do. What are you doing while I’m taking care of Sam’s troubles?”
“It’s not nice to rain on people’s parades when they’re trying to help you,” Sam said, looking at the twin-headed snake. “And you wonder why I’m more inclined to trusting the Mother than you.”
“Just because you don’t like my personality doesn’t mean I’m a worse individual than the Mother,” Vercedei said. “A wicked person can have a good personality.”
“You’re a wicked person with a terrible personality,” the Mother said as her creations went about checking the subconscious expanse for signs of Nwaps’ survival. Sam closed his eyes and let his subconscious take him to where he needed to go, observing his surroundings with his All-Seeing Gaze along the way. It really did seem like a single move from the Mother had defeated Nwaps entirely.
“This feels too easy,” Sam said after a thorough inspection of the subconscious expanse. It was massive, and it would’ve been nearly impossible to scour every corner of the region, but it was the subconscious expanse, one where logic didn’t play too important of a part. If Sam willed it, he could explore the whole region in one afternoon, which he did. “Nwaps barely put up a struggle. When I was alone, they used all kinds of higher-dimensional tricks like reversing time or making me experience an infinite number of realities at once.”
“Maybe they saw how hopeless it was and gave up,” Vercedei said. “It’s like a game of cards. If your opponent has a hand you can’t beat, it’s easier to sweep up your cards and call it a game before starting over. Nwaps is probably thinking you can’t live forever, so it’ll come back some time in the future to do what it wants.”
“It gave up, and now it’s biding its time, huh?” Sam asked. He could see the tapeworm taking such an action. Well, as long as he regularly checked the people around him for signs of a Nwaps infection, then there was nothing the tapeworm could do even if it wanted revenge. “Nwaps,” Sam said, broadcasting his voice into the subconscious expanse. “Now that we’ve decided on a winner, me, shall we have a civilized discussion?”
Sam waited, but there was no response. Either the tapeworm had been purged from the subconscious expanse, or it was ignoring Sam’s thinly veiled provocation and playing the long game. Either way, Sam had done everything he could to rid himself and Oterra of the tapeworm, and further efforts would be in vain. “Let’s go back,” Sam said. “If I leave, do all of you come with me, or do I have to summon you again via one of those dimensional lines?”
“You’ll have to bring us back over,” Raindu said. The ferret snuck a glance in the twin-headed snake’s direction. “Alternatively, you can choose to leave those two behind.”
“Hilarious,” Vercedei said, its voice as dry as a desert. “You’re so funny.”
“What’ll happen if I left you here?” Sam asked, turning his head to look down at Vercedei.
“We’ll find our own way out and eventually make our way back to you,” Vercedei said, “but who knows what we’ll say and do while we’re looking for you? Sometimes, spreading rumors can hurt someone more than physical pain, and if you’re not with us, some unsavory tidbits may leak out of my lips.” The twin-headed snake’s blue head feigned a pained expression. “We all know I’m an uncontrollable chatterbox who doesn’t know how to keep their mouth shut.”
“Right,” Sam said. “It’s like that old saying: keep your friends close but your enemies even closer.”
“You’re already putting it into practice by accepting the Mother as one of your familiars,” Joe said, but the sloth didn’t get to finish its sentence before Sam’s body winked out of existence, leaving the familiars staring at each other while stranded in the subconscious expanse. They fell silent, not communicating with one another or acknowledging each other’s existences whilst staying still like patients within a doctor’s waiting room. Then, a ripple appeared in the space beside them, and all the familiars rushed towards it—save for Joe, who moved at a toddler’s crawling pace.
Back in the courtyard, Sam frowned as the numbness caused by sticking his pinky into the dimensional line spread from the tip of his finger down to the second joint. His familiars rushed out, the octopus barely having appeared before being bowled over by Raindu and the twin-headed snake, the two animals acting as if they had been squeezed out of a tube at the same time. Sam waited a little longer, and Joe’s front claws appeared. Instead of waiting more, Sam grabbed onto the sloth’s claws with his telekinesis and pulled. The rest of Joe appeared out of thin air, and two seconds later, the sloth let out a gasp of surprise and wrapped its legs around Sam’s torso where it had been relocated.
Sam spread out his All-Seeing Gaze. Since the tapeworm had been eliminated from the subconscious expanse, and the hosts it had been keeping hostage within the lower dimension were killed by the Mother’s flood, they should’ve been waking up. Sam concentrated on his Vasundhara as well, sending vibrations through his feet into the ground, expanding the range of his detection abilities. As he expected, the people within the city were … sitting around in a daze; well, some of them were, others were making their way through the city towards the temples. Had the tapeworm done something irreversible to the humans’ minds before Sam had the chance to get rid of Nwaps?
Sam flew into the air and landed on the ground beside someone who was sitting with their back against a fence, their legs spread and their eyes blank as they stared up at the sky. The man blinked, and his eyes shifted to look at Sam before shifting back to look at the sky. Sam cleared his throat. “Hello.”
The man sniffed and wiped at his nose with his finger before answering Sam. “Hey,” the man said. “No soliciting, thanks.” The man turned his head away again and stared up at the sky once more. Sam frowned and followed the man’s gaze with his eyes. The skies were blue and empty with only a singled cloud on the horizon.
“What are you looking at?” Sam asked.
“The sky,” the man said.
“Why?”
“Waiting to see if it’ll fall again,” the man said. He glanced at Sam. “If you stay here, you might get crushed too.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “You plan on getting crushed if the sky falls?”
“Why not?” the man asked. “It’s painless, and everything ends in an instant. It’s better than running around and getting crushed afterwards. I haven’t managed to escape alive yet.”
Sam nodded, having understood the situation. Not too long ago, blue avians were bombarding the capital, and Birdbrained had to reverse time to undo the death and destruction—multiple times. If the humans there retained all their memories of the event, then it was no wonder why they were a bit traumatized. “It’s over,” Sam said. “The sky won’t be falling anymore.”
“Yeah?” the man asked. “How do you know that?”
Sam flew up into the sky and headed back to the temple’s courtyard. It wasn’t his responsibility to educate everyone else. People were adaptable, and they were capable of figuring things out on their own. In a few weeks, people wouldn’t even remember the time they were killed repeatedly while trying to escape the capital nor would they remember drowning inside their dreams on the same day. Sam landed on the ground where the rest of his familiars were waiting, and not long after, hundreds of blue avians swarmed the courtyard.
“Is the Mother still here?” one of the blue avians asked.
“I think she’s the octopus,” another blue avian said.
“There’s no way she’s the octopus,” the first blue avian said. “We were created in her image, and we look like this, so why would she be the octopus?”
“Well, we saw her transform into the octopus, so….”
“No, we saw Paula puke something out and collapse, and then, an octopus appeared. Coincidence.”
“I’m the Mother,” the Mother said, the octopus flying up into the air.
“I told you so,” the blue avian who had made the correct claim said. “You never listen to me.”
“Well, if you weren’t wrong so often, maybe I wouldn’t have doubted you.”
“Don’t bicker in the presence of the Mother,” another blue avian said, telekinetically nudging its two arguing companions.
“I can see how they’re created in your image,” Vercedei said to the octopus, which was surprisingly close to the twin-headed snake since it was on Sam’s shoulder while the snake was wrapped around his bicep. “Their personalities take after yours.”
“Of course,” the Mother said. “There are many dimensions to my personality, and each one of the blue avians have a little part of me within them; however, the weights of each of my traits are different enough to give each one a unique personality.”
“Vercedei was calling you scatterbrained,” Raindu said.
“I know,” the Mother said, “but the best way to deal with bullies is to constantly misinterpret their words. If they’re forced to explain the wit behind their witty comment, it saps the wind right out of their sails, and they’ll feel discouraged from making a snooty remark the next time.”
“Well, it doesn’t really work if I know you’re listening,” Vercedei said.
“So, Sam,” the Mother said, completely ignoring the twin-headed snake, “have you decided on which familiar of yours you’d like to teach a lesson to next? I’m willing to help you deal with any of them, and it’ll be as easy to get rid of them as we did Nwaps.”
Sam’s familiars all turned their attentions onto him. Vercedei let out a snort. “We’re all well behaved,” the snake’s blue head said to the Mother, “Sam has no reason to get rid of any of us. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
“For now,” Sam said. “I don’t know what the future will bring, but the Mother is going to accompany us from now on.” He observed the blue-ringed octopus through his All-Seeing Gaze. “If I’m not mistaken.”
“You are correct,” the Mother said. “That means the lot of you better be on your best behavior, or Sam will have me handle you like how I handled Nwaps.”
Sam didn’t think he would, considering the Mother’s way of dealing with problems was to flood the world and start over again. “Other than flooding, what else can you do?” Sam asked the blue-ringed octopus.
“Is it alright to address the Mother so casually?” a blue avian asked their neighboring companion.
“The Mother doesn’t seem to mind,” the other blue avian said. “I do wonder what the deal between the two of them is though. Doesn’t it look like they’re equals?”
“Someone equal with the Mother? Impossible.”
“But look. It’s happening, and we all know impossible really just means highly improbable.”
“You’re right,” the first blue avian said. “So, if Sam is on the same level as the Mother, do we have to call him the Father?”
“Ew, no. Why would you even say something like that?”
“We all were thinking it; I just said it out loud!”
The Mother and Sam ignored the chattering of the blue avians. “I can do things like this,” the Mother said and waved a tentacle. Water gushed out of the air beside Sam, but instead of hitting the ground, the liquid remained suspended in the air, taking the shape of a large sphere. “You can manipulate this water as you wish with your telekinesis.”
“You’re a faucet,” Vercedei said. “How amazing.”
“Because a faucet produces water?” the Mother asked in mock surprise. “Wow! How very astute of you, Vercedeipoo.”
Vercedei’s tongue froze mid-flick. “What did you just call me?”
“What was that?” the Mother asked. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of the running water.” The sphere continued to grow in size, the top of it easily visible from outside the courtyard. A voice screamed from outside the temple.
“Water! There’s going to be a huge flood! I dreamed about this!”
“Wait!” another voice said. “Now that you mention it, I dreamed about a flood too!”
“Damnit! First, we were bombarded by meteors, and now, we’re going to be killed by a flood? I can’t swim!”
“Actually, even if you knew how to swim, if a flood like the one we experienced in our dreams happened in reality, it wouldn’t matter how good of a swimmer you are. Everything would be washed away, and who knows what kind of debris would hit you?”
Sam listened to the panicked conversations outside the temple, eavesdropping with his All-Seeing Gaze and Vasundhara. He looked at the Mother. “Alright,” he said, “put it away.” The sphere of water collapsed as if a drain had been placed at its base, and it swirled away, flushing out of existence with a loud gurgle that Sam thought was highly unnecessary.
“It’s starting!” someone shouted. “The water is draining into the courtyard. Soon, it will overflow, and it’ll be the end of us all!”
A blue ripple spread across the sky, causing the noise outside to cease in an instant. Sam glanced at the Mother, who had used a bit of her power to attract the humans’ attentions. Although Nwaps could’ve achieved the same effect, Sam was pleased with the switch. The octopus didn’t squirm around inside him nor did it possess the people around him, making him unable to know if they were speaking as themselves or not. In the end, the tapeworm’s greatest power was also it’s undoing. If it could manipulate others, why wouldn’t it manipulate Sam?
A voice commanding attention echoed through the capital from the skies. It said, “The blue avians were the ones who bombarded your city, but we shall do so no longer. Be at ease, and fear no flood; an agreement has been made. I, the one who watches Oterra, promise you this: the humans who relentlessly toil to control their emotions and regulate their own bodies, those who unlock their chakras and connect with the greater divine above, they shall be welcomed into the blue avian colony with open arms and taught their ways whilst achieving eternal life.”
“Propaganda much?” Vercedei asked, having the courtesy to wait until after the Mother was finished making her speech.
“I have to,” the Mother said. “The lot of you already had a head start on me, and since Sam plans on keeping you around—at least, until I become more useful than you—then I have to beat you at your own game.”