Prologue: The End

Cities flash off and on like fireflies along coastlines – morse code:

⦿ Late Opening Era, worldwide

The earth ripples with light. Cities flash off and on like fireflies along coastlines – morse code: <HELP ME>.

Phantasmal beings erupt, unshackled from my underbelly – egregores, tulpas, gods, myths. They run wild once again, sweeping through my bodies like poltergeists.

I am plummeting. My billion bodies are falling away. In New York, where all of this started, I fall, toward the boroughs and the outer boroughs fall away. I am only a million now as I fall toward Manhattan, and as I fall Manhattan disintegrates. The neighborhoods fall away and I plummet toward the tip, toward my bodies waiting in the great tower. 

…where now I am only my first body only, my voice – what was his name? I lie alone in the arms of my mother. Her blood drips down. She sings me a song. She speaks to me: “It’s OK. It had to happen this way.” She sings a lullaby about memory.

That’s it. I must remember! 

With the will of the dying I propel myself outward.

My bodies return in dozens, then hundreds, thousands, millions. They hop into cockpits of planes that trace smoke across the sky: REMEMBER. They dig up boxes of old childhood photos. They play memory games on iPhones.

I must remember who or what I am. How I got here. I remember my mother, her eyes:

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● Post-Opening Era, many years later, the Dreamworld

The grey-eyed girl looked up.

—So I was its…?

—In a manner of speaking. Yeah.

—That’s crazy.

—I agree.

—How did I become a mom?

—Shall I tell you the story?

—Yes. 

—Meet me here later. I need to go mediate between the cleric archetype and one of the trickster gods.

—Again?

—I know, right? 

—OK.

—OK, goodbye, little cookie!

—Wait.

—Yes?

—Will I be back to myself soon? I would like that very much.

—To be honest? I hope not. Your former self was dangerous as fuck.

—Hm. Can you…just tell me the beginning?

—All right, cuchurrumin, but only the beginning: