Interstellar Digital Space

Emilio, the player looking like himself, was floating alone in the darkness in front of a large portal. The Dot’s surface was covered by flashing images of random worlds and colors. Cables of light, like nerves in a human spine pulsed on each side of the Dot as if it was fueled by power from these dark places. The gate appeared magical in nature. Everyone watching was there, in spirit.

Emilio, the player wearing jeans and a white t-shirt began to move his hands in large gestures. “I am, today, the Attractor!” he yelled out loud hands extended in the vacuum as light traces appeared where his fingers floated. His clothes transformed into a long flowing dress. Gold runes were laced in the tissue, aligned alongside purple gems. Slowly, the President transformed, for all intents and purposes, into his most famous incarnation: Loric the Wizard. His hair grew waist-long until it floated like water in the weightlessness of space. Most of his gut vanished, and he grew nearly a foot in height. Diamond beads laced his hair, crackling with raw power. Loric moved his hands as lines of energy started to form an elaborate door traced in the dark. The sight was beautiful to behold. Emilio was a master of this game, and it showed.

The wizard moved his hands in large spells to capture energy from every viewer back in their homes. “Electro, come to me,” he commended. A vortex of magic swirled and within it, a large glasses-wearing golden retriever appeared. This was Sophie’s favorite.

“Woof!” snapped the jovial sidekick paws kicking in the void.

Staff in hand, the wizard spoke. “Today, you - faithful companion — help me!” A large gem at the top of his staff shone and sent light to the dog. “I need you ready for battle. Today you are Elector!” A pulsing blast of energy from Loric's staff hit the dog, reconstructing it into an immense hybrid between a dog and a golden dragon. The dog/dragon looked at himself; it was covered in armored plates and sharp spikes. He looked like a realistic version of the Pokémon, but an especially ferocious one that was still wearing his nerdy glasses.

“Awesome!” growled the dragon. “Sophie will love this,” he said with his newly deep and growly voice.

“Agreed, she will soon awake, as she does, she must watch this. You must show her the way.”

Mild ambiance music began to play in the background. “No!” snapped the Wizard at the void, waving the staff. “Silence, we must not irritate her.” The music ended. Emilio/Loric was hypnotic on screen. In a matter of a minute, fear linked with the departure of the Attractor had been dispelled. This man knew precisely what he was doing and he was reassuring. Loric the Wizard waved his staff, spoke to the Multiverse, “We soon enter the Sixth Attraction where strong magic will be used. Oh, powerful one, take me where I need to be.”

The mosaic of images on the surface of the Dot continued and did not slow down. An outside power would not tell him where to go.

“So be it! You hide your desires from me. My own power knows only you as master. Take - us - to - the - Green,” he commanded, touching the portal with the tip of his staff. Usually, Electro would have barked. Instead, thanks to Emilio's changes, the young dragon blew fire in the space-like void. Happy with himself, Electro winked at the camera.

The images on the glass settled to what looked like an endless world made of a single forest without any sky. The vegetation here was in every direction; it was slightly different as the foliage had what looked like veins. The pair stepped into the glass of the Dot into the Nexus. They flew to battle. Wings and robes flashed as this scenario's Attractor, Emilio as Loric, made his way to the abstruse green world. At some point, their progression stopped in the gray haze of the Underworlds.

They had stopped halfway. “Connect the Green,” he commanded. Light flashed from his staff into the fogs of the Underworlds. This new world wasn’t one hooked by the Oldest to the Nexus. There was no technology in this strange place and no open pathway. “Connect it now! Open the portal!” he yelled with all the might of the most powerful wizard in the world. Loric was without equal. In the distance, lightning was brewing. Electro the Dog would have been scared but not Elector the Dragon. The sidekick snapped his teeth in the air.

Finally, a singularity opened in the Underworlds to the Green. A path was opening up, but there was pain in the Multiverse, Loric could sense it.

“The Multiverse is hiding this part of herself, protecting it as it is doing to many parts,” narrated the Wizard. Marilyn was watching and actually seemed puzzled by what the President was doing.

At first, the gateway was a simple black point in the fabric of space, then it became a portal. Quickly, the way a nurse hurries to the bedside of a crashing patient, both travelers passed. They landed in the Green, behind them, the door closed as fast as possible. In this place was no gravity. This world looked like a deep tropical forest covering every possible inch by thick foliage over a floating endless sea of giant rocks. The world was like the Lower, the home of the Oldest in that this was unique and precious. The vegetation was obviously alien. This felt like an endless cavern where every inch was covered by green. It was unclear where the light was originating from.

“What is this?” asked Elector.

“Careful.” The eyes of the Wizard were on the lookout for something. He waved his staff as if to protect them from an invisible threat.

On the right was movement in the thick foliage. As focus came into light, a hybrid creature halfway between a giant spider and a bird flew from one branch to the next. It was the color of the forest. It was local life covered by deep camouflage, making it impossible to distinguish from the vegetation.

After careful inspection around them, Emilio began to see other similar creatures all around them. Then he saw the branches of the "trees" were another, more substantial type of bug. This world didn't consist of vegetation: it was animal, insect, or even sentient beings so thickly packed together that they appeared to be one endless forest. Elector blasted a bolt of lightning into the sky. The loud noise from the discharge changed everything as millions of creatures erupted in movement. The beings flew in every direction, careful to avoid the magical Attractor and his sidekick.

“Settle!” ordered the wizard forcefully. In a matter of seconds, the creatures slowly calmed and reformed the appearance of vegetation. Soon after, order had returned. Elector’s face was priceless; he grinned and apologized for his fire. Sophie would watch this.

“Why are we here?” asked the Dragon.

“Be patient. You and Sophie are alike. You listen well but are so impatient. Let the situation speak. I've seen it.” He added again, with emphasis “I have seen it." The wizard was majestic, he pointed to a point and one creature was caught in some force field. It failed to wrestle out as it gently was brought closer for inspection.

Then it happened. To the left, the green creatures flew away from a point in space, creating a large clearing. There was thunder, wind. Something was happening in the fabric of the Multiverse itself. The creatures seemed to know better than to go near it, and formed a large spherical opening around the tortured point in space. “There!” Electro shouted, pointing with his left wing to the wind source.

At the heart of the open space, which was several hundred feet away, there was crackle in space, like something pushing its way into this world. This wasn’t just the forcing of an arrival, it was far worse. Power, using the energy of sound and music. Like wind entering a tunnel, noise roared in. These sounds were not muffled music or words, but rather a cacophonous noise possessed with power.

This was rape; a blatant and vicious violation. The creatures let our screeching noises trying to scare the violation away.

Like a small volcano erupts, a black spot appeared at the center of the clearing. It was unstable and whistled. Part of the energy pouring from it was distinctly digital, the sound of programming, code, and binary. The rest was, for lack of better terms, a shriek compromised of pure evil.

The rift looked like the deadly openings created by the Light Drive between the Cold and the Purple. This was some type of desecration between worlds of the Multiverse. The noise slowly increased, and the opening began to vibrate and make high pitched sounds. The resonances made the creatures in the Green uneasy, and the creature’s false foliage began to flap.

The noise continued its offensive buzzing, distorted, wounded howl.

“What is it?” asked the dragon.

“Patience, observe. We are either in the recent past of this world or its present.” Lyric the Wizard moved his arms casting many more spells. They seemed to have no effect.

After about a minute, Emilio finally saw a little creature from the Green fly out of the edges closer to the rift as a moth drawn to a flame. It hesitated, circled around, and as it did, the noises increased in power, it vibrated. The instant there was contact, the poor creature was immediately attracted to the force. It then touched the edge of the dark rift, instantly the tip of a leaf turned pitch black and a dark infection began to spread as it continued to fly.

Soon, as it flew at the edge of the cancer, it transformed into a darker version of itself. Once it’s head turned black, it calmed as if controlled. It no longer seemed to be acting under its free will. AnImated by a single purpose of infection, it few out in direct line to the edge until it touched another green creature. The second bug, as if infected by a virus, also turned black. Like the God Virus multiplying in a host, the two infected bugs touched two others and started an endless multiplication. The creatures multiplied the same way Emilio’s deadly fish in the Presidential Challenge had been groomed to eat humans and helped him win the Presidential Challenge. Around them, the green sea of creatures darkened, darkness was spreading like cancer in this world. The noise from the center gate changed. There was now a flow of data forcing its way into this non-digital world.

The noice was a new type of instruction. In the center, in those areas where no green remained, the dark creatures like droplets of oil began to change. The molecules were no longer stable, they felt like liquid. Slowly, two creatures began to merge. Slowly, the group began to draw in more and more flies and the thousands of small creatures began to form one larger, joined monster. It was deformed, ugly and barely had a face.

In a matter of minutes, the entire world began to rot and fade to darkness as the biological fuel continued to grow one giant conglomeration.

“This is horrible!” said the dragon.

It was. The enormous creature was immobile, but as expected, the moment every green creature had been turned and the merger was complete, the massive monster came to life. It hissed, enraged. Dramatically, it launched itself in the direction of the two observers, clearly trying to kill them.

“Don’t let it touch you,” ordered the wizard.

Elector’s reaction was immediate: he blew fire its way, burning the tip of its wings and began to fight the same way the large Pokémon had been battled in the last round. The epic battle began. Elector flew around the creature avoiding the touch of darkness. The wizard also used his staff to throw fireballs at the animated creature, which seemed to have a similar physical consistency as paper. It tried to touch the pair, who barely avoided the now-smoking wings. The beast was no match for the fire and quickly burned to ash. In a matter of minutes, Emilio/Loric and Electro/Elector were left alone in the dark desolation.

“How sad,” said Elector, his goofy glasses now askew and darkened with soot.

“Yes.”

Then Loric looked at his sidekick. The tip of his golden wing was turning black. He looked at his own hands, and his fingers were infected.

Then, in a horror highlight, the simulation ended with a darken face of Marilyn. Emilio received only 74 points for the performance. But he knew he had secured the images he needed for Sophie to understand.