Page 1827

((Triple Saturday -- Page 1 of 3))
It was all so far beyond him that he didn’t even know how to pursue any of it in greater detail. Everywhere he looked was a thread leading into a never-ending hole. And it was all woven together and clashing in a mad kind of tapestry, destroying itself while simultaneously creating new things.

Infinite infinities. All in conflict.

And he felt as if he were part of it as well--or rather, as if it wanted him to be part of it. As if it were trying to suck him in, to send him on an endless journey through unfiltered mayhem.

But that wasn’t what was happening. He felt safe somehow, even though that seemed irrational to him. There was a feeling of being on the other side of something. An invisible wall, perhaps. It was like he was watching a lion roar inside its cage, only magnified to an ungodly degree. And he was so close to that cage, practically pressing his face up against it. There was little reason to think that any cage could contain all of that insanity.

And yet it did. The cage that was reality. Preventing the impossible from existing.

No. That wasn’t quite right, was it?

Not just the impossible. The possible, as well. That was what it was. Chaos. Both the possible and impossible. He could see it, in places. Things that could exist, hypothetically, but simply didn’t. Like that vile tower. Or that crying child. Or that other version of himself, staring back at him like a distorted reflection, screaming in muted agony.

That was about as much as Parson was able to perceive. Chaos merely excluded what was. All else was fair game, it seemed.

But so what?

What utility was there in any of this?

Overwhelming as it all was, as easy as it would have been to lose himself in it, Parson had virtually no trouble in holding himself back. Perhaps the cage of reality played a role in that. Perhaps his own mind. Perhaps both.

Yes.

Yes, that was more likely. Both.

Oddly enough, he felt as if he understood himself a little better now.

Chaos? Dreams and nightmares? Infinity and darkness and monsters and madness?

He was unimpressed.

Reality was what interested him. Could this Chaos affect reality in some way? Because as he stared at it, stared into it, he was getting the feeling that it couldn’t.

But perhaps that was strange. Ettol had existed in reality, hadn’t he? Perhaps only briefly, but that at least meant that it was possible for Chaos to break through into reality, didn’t it?

Or did it?

Ettol mentioned being trapped. Perhaps Ettol himself was real, then? One real thing lost in a ocean of unreal things.

Hmm.

Parson could see why he wanted to leave. What indescribable misery that would be, Parson felt.

So miserable and so indescribable, perhaps, that it would drive a sentient mind to madness. Just perceiving what little of it that he could right now, that was the impression that Parson got. That if not for the cage of reality, that Chaos would be invading his mind and driving him mad.

Yes.