//"I'll leave it for now, so you can look at it. It's probably better without me there, hovering over your shoulder.
I wonder what you'll think of it?
Oh. I do ask that question a lot, don't I. I won't ask again, I promise."//
This is a nest of wires, a tangled cradle in a ruin. Within it is something unsettlingly organic and not. Chitinous and warm. A sphere designed to hold data.
[[Accessing it is easy. Its purpose is to be read.->1]]
This is a memory of someone, or perhaps several, mixed into one.
(These are memories of you. Accurate to the way they felt, though perhaps with not much basis in a physical reality.)
//"It was hard to keep my thoughts straight, so I split them off a little. I haven't looked at it yet, so I don't know how well it worked."//
The clutter of images is still a confusing one, a whirl of colour and sound. But it settles, after a little while.
Three symbols, linked to their respective streams of data, come up over and over again.
[[This one is a mask, or perhaps a helmet. It's unclear.->2]]
[[This one is a star. Or maybe it's a sun?->3]]
[[This one...it's hard to tell what it is. It's in fragments. Perhaps it was always that way, though.->4]]
//"I remember." The voice is distant and far away, an echo talking to themselves. A declaration of memory from someone who struggled with it.//
This memory is several different ones, a flickering puzzle of images--
//It may be odd, to see yourself. Looking off into the distance, or inspecting your own reflection in water as if searching for something. Gazing into the sky, shading your eyes from the sun. Surrounded by people, staring away into the distance.
Huddled, looking down, seeing nothing much at all.
Turned away, with a sense that whatever you were seeing then was something known only to you.
But these are not your memories; you cannot see your own thoughts here. These are someone else's memories, patchwork and fuzzy. Put together from being with you.//
--fragmented, silent, lost to time.
//"I was far more nervous then," they say, easily. "But I remember, you were lonely.
I was afraid my voice wouldn't reach you. Words are so difficult to get right. You only get one try, sometimes.
It's easier to express myself like this. But it's faint-hearted of me, I admit, to speak like this to you."
They laugh, a little. "But it's gotten easier to speak at all, since I met you. So in honor of you and how you've changed me, I should put it to use."//
[[You return to the core, once again.->1]]
This memory - this collection of memories - feels warm. Within your view, the interface shines with an unwavering light.
//It might be strange, seeing yourself in a place you've never been. It sparks with life; a tower of mechanical parts and projects, all interconnected, drawing power from you.
Robots and machines, strange technology and portals that lead to other worlds; all of it is yours.
Every part of them exudes that ownership, requiring no maker's mark; something that is unquestionably your own.
Your voice is indistinct. The person who extracted this memory has poor recall of verbal conversations. But you sound excited, in your explanations, and the memory feels content.
"Sometimes I don't -- really understand. The scope and the shape of your ideas is hard for me to grasp. Your dreams are so vast, you know?
But that's not a bad thing, to have dreams so big a universe wouldn't be enough. Chasing the sky. It makes you happy. And I believe in those dreams.
You know this already, but I'll tell you again.
I believe in you." //
[[You surface from that memory filled with light, returning to the core. ->1]]
This memory is different; heavier than the others. Veined through with an emotion that's hard to define; it swirls in the bottom of the heart, a weight without true form.
//These fragments are sharp; even with no way to touch them, no way for them to harm, they feel as if they could bleed you dry.
But they wouldn't touch you, even if you tried. (Your pain is known only to you. This is an echo of that, if anything.)
These memories are dark, and cold. It's hard to see much. You are not present in them much, if at all; the traces of you are present (marking the world with frustrated impacts, torn-away parts; the story of damage that left scars on you, injuries that are still bleeding), but that is all there is.
Sometimes, though, there is a glimpse on the horizon of you; far away, unreachable.
There is a frantic feeling of pushing forward. Running to catch up. The thought that something terrible might happen, at any moment.
"It's impossible to protect you from what's already been done, to heal what's been lost," says that distant echo. "Anything I could give is nothing next to that.
But I wanted to try, regardless. Even if nothing sounds right, even if it all falls away...
I hope you'll forgive me for such a thing. Perhaps one day I'll be strong enough, is what I might say, but it's selfish of me, to think that you //need //my protection."//
[[Rid yourself of that heavy memory, and return. ->1]]