The Desolate Guardians by Matt Dymerski Read Free Book Online Page B

realities survive as long
as the walls stand." She took a moment to think. "I've been outside
the walls. It's not pretty out there. The multiverse is not a kind
place."
    "You've been beyond the map?" I asked,
hopeful that she had some sort of method to rescue me. "How?"
    "Just like you keep your identity to yourself
for your own reasons, I'll have to keep that one secret," she
replied. "I've been able to reach realities fantastic and horrible,
unlike any of our Earths, and far beyond these walls… but, judging
by this map and the locations I've been to in the past few weeks,
the shell seems to be preventing me from getting out now.
Something's changed."
    "Something seems to have happened to whoever
was in charge a little over a year ago," I suggested.
    "No, it's not that. I was going places as
recently as Thanksgiving. Whatever it was, it happened very
recently."
    I thought about the sudden changes in my
office building and my inability to escape. "And I just got trapped
here in the last two days. What if it's not something that did happen, but something that is happening?"
    "Interesting point. I do have one more move
to make here. I've got a dead sentient flame in a metal box, and a
device that can talk to souls. If living flames have souls, it
might know something. I know for certain that the flame world is
outside our shell…"
    "And you're trying to find somebody that went
through there."
    "Yes. So you were listening that whole
time?"
    "Watching, really. But I wasn't just being
weird. I've been following your trail on the system for a while
now. I want to help - and, maybe, now, I'm hoping you'll help me get out of here."
    "I can try," she said calmly. "I would like
to save you, but I can't guarantee anything. Do you know where you
are in the structure?"
    "Not yet," I sighed. "I'll keep working on
it. Any information you give me will help, though."
    "Then maybe I'll type up what I read in the
device and send it to you."
    I sat and waited, suddenly confused. A device
that talks to souls? What? Did that mean that souls were
real? Did that mean I had a soul? Wasn't that some kind of
religious revelation people should know about?
    The file came shortly, and I forgot all about
those unknowable concerns.
     
    ---
     
    What are you doing? Don't you think I see
what you're doing? Get that thing away from me!
    I can't move… I can't get away…
    Why would you ally yourself with such a
monstrous creation?
    Don't you know what it does? Do you
relish in sadism and evil?
    Stop, I don't want to -
    We are not driven by hunger like our pathetic
neighbors. They consume and burn, moving from plane to plane in
search of unlockable energy. We are an enlightened species of
flame, and are more interested in learning the complexities of
existence than eating matter. We draw energy from the vacuum, in
any case, and have left consumption behind. It was a necessary
development once no energy beyond ourselves was left in our home
plane. That's the price of growth.
    Stop hurting me, I -
    We became aware of the existence of the
bubble only recently as we traveled from plane to plane. It's a
very interesting phenomenon, and so we spent some time near it.
Eventually, part of it cracked - exploded from within - and we
found ourselves able to get in and look around.
    Weird fleshy organisms were all about,
however, a purely physical kind of life we'd never seen before, and
they did not like us at all. Worse, that crack was just one of
many, and investigating became dangerous. Many places we'd deemed
inhospitable began to seep together… and when we became aware of
the greater danger, the Crushing Fist, many of us started
dissenting from the flamespirit for the first time in generations.
I myself -
    ...died.
    I died.
    I'm dead… oh, that explains quite a bit. Will
you revive me?
    I hear your desires through the device. The
beings you seek… I did see them, and we conflicted with them for a
time, but held back when we realized they were like us, but