Tales of the Warped: The Silent Void

Have you ever experienced silence, Mr Vanir?

Vanir eyed the thing in front of him warily. It appeared to be a man, smallish and well proportioned. Something was off about him, however. In the past years Vaselli Vanir had seen enough odd occurrences to become jaded and accustomed to things which defied reason. Comfortable with discomfort. This man was different. It was as if he was supposed to make sense, but didn’t quite. Only moments ago Vanir had been in a room full of bored looking scientists working around a large machine with a glowing, fluctuating plasma rippling across an empty metallic circle. Dr. Embry had described such a thing many times before he disappeared. He had spoken of many things which Vanir previously had no way of describing in human language. Against all reason Vanir had sensed a form within this vertically undulating pond of iridescence. It beckoned to him, and he had entered. It was less of a conscious movement and more that he just didn’t stop himself from going. The shouts of surprised protest from the men in white coats were a fading echo from what seemed like miles away. He was now bathed in a rainbow of warm pulsations, a feeling akin to a warm blanket or a mother’s hug. And the smallish not-quite-a-man was asking him again…

Silence, Mr Vanir. Have you ever experienced it? Really?

Vanir thought that this was a weird way to start a conversation, but then again he really had no frame of reference for the expected niceties in such a situation. He thought for a moment.

Yes, actually. I think. On an ice sheet in Antarctica, many years ago. It was striking.

The being gave what Vanir thought was supposed to be a dismissive chuckle.

No. No, Mr Vanir you have not, in fact, experienced complete silence. You have experienced quiet. Still, how did the quiet make you feel?

Vanir felt dissociated, but not at all anxious. Still, he’d be damned if he was going to talk about feelings with this thing.

‘Where am I? And who are you?”’ asked Vanir, trying and failing to muster a commanding tone. He outweighed the man by at least 1/3rd but he had a complete awareness of his place in the interaction.

“You’re nowhere, Mr Vanir. And everywhere. A better question would be ‘what’ are you. But alas, you didn’t know to ask. Who am I? I am but a very good friend yet undiscovered. And I’d wager you’ve felt that already. So. I’ve answered two for you and now you shall respond to my second question before I grant you a third. How did the quiet make you feel?”

He wasn’t wrong. Vanir had an immediate affinity for this creature. He had always had a preternatural ability to judge character, and he felt this being before him had no guile or malicious intent. Not at this moment, anyway. Vanir thought back to his time on the summer ice sheet, a windless, bright day taking readings from satellite relays for $10,000 a week. He remembered being struck by the dazzling white and silence (or quiet, apparently).

“Alone” he replied.

“YES” cried out the man, with the tone of a quiz show host. Vanir felt some satisfaction with his correct answer in spite of the situation.

The man continued.

“On your planet, Mr Vanir, the quietest place in existence is called an ‘anechoic chamber’, designed and used by one of your very large and oh-so-important computer companies. It is said that after a few moments you can hear your heartbeat. In a few more, your joints creaking and the blood rushing in your eardrums. No one has lasted more than an hour in such a place. So I read, anyway, but I do believe it. Even with those slight sounds still audible and all other senses stimulated the sheer lack of sound… meaningful sound… it’s too much for a mind to bear.”

Vanir had a moment to think this must be a pointless dream before the man said:

“This moment is neither pointless nor a dream, Mr Vanir, although I suppose one could make an argument for the latter…” said the man, his face now drawing a pensive frown.

He had Vanir’s full attention now, if he didn’t before.

“…but I digress.” he finished, returning to his cheerful expression.

“The point, Mr Vanir, is that sound doesn’t exist. My throat is creating an intentionally rhythmic vibration which ripples through the air striking your eardrum which vibrates in time to carry pressure transmissions to a nerve in your head which carries that frequency to your brain which then interprets the data that I have transmitted. Your eardrum is calibrated to receive and interpret frequencies in a certain range, and my anatomy was built to effectively produce frequencies in that range and many others. You know this as a voice or sound, but there is an underlying principle and mechanic which goes unnoticed until it is explained or measured. Do you understand?

“Underlying all of existence, all of reality, you can imagine an infinitely complex cacophony of vibrational forces which may either reinforce or cancel each other out. A flaming match may light a scrap of paper, or the paper may smother it before it can ignite, depending on how the two interact. Perhaps the easiest way for you to think of these forces is up and down, left and right, north and south. A more accurate binary system, which your species is many centuries from discovering, is light and gravity. Dark is the absence of light, and cold is the absence of heat, but light and gravity are two active processes which work in a symbiotic opposition. Rival siblings who many times suppose themselves to be enemies, yet one cannot exist without the other. The star and the black hole, photons dragging unseen anchors. These little disagreements are carried out at every scale in varying degrees resulting in a living vibration. And you may think of everything you’ve ever seen as having these same capacities, or energies. A rock may exhibit the same consistent, although waning, frequency for many thousands of years while a living object may run the full gamut of variations or ‘tones’, if you will. Certainly you know that your species insists on assigning things such as metabolism or respiration as indicators of life, but the types and amounts of frequencies produced by any given clump of mass is a much better benchmark. It is these very chaotically ordered rhythms which underpin everything that ever was, is, or may be.

“You’ll be happy to know I’m coming to my point, Mr Vanir. What you are experiencing right now is no accident. There is a reason why you were called here, and why those men and women were working on a machine which they may never truly see function. Perhaps even why you, and some others, were born. I am an ambassador, of a sort. The last emissary for a civilization that used the last of its purposeful effort to ameliorate the consequences of a terrible tragedy, and prevent its recurrence elsewhere. The only tragedy that ever really mattered. My primary directive is to shepherd the very few entities in reality, across multiple universes, which have the necessary stock to do something that only they can do. Mr Vanir, yourself and others like you, which you are sure to meet if you have not already, are uniquely qualified to take on the largest existential threat that reality has ever faced. If you will further entertain my crude analogy, it is best explained like this: you are made of a very special and truly rare matter which not only possesses the correct vibrational frequencies but also has the capacity to interact with others in a way that may either enhance or cancel out those other energies. You may think of it as the specific tone wood in a musical instrument that resonates properly to produce harmonic action, preventing what is essentially silence. The Silence. Yes, that is the best descriptor, although it entails a dissolution that many simply called The Void, as that was its end result. An endless abyss of nonexistence. The Void is eradication of all that is, was, and ever will be. The Void seeks to return to itself. It abhors the glow of light and pull of gravity alike. It wishes to reverse the moment of creation when an ethereal chorus emitted the first vibration which spoke reality into existence.”

The man waved his hand with a flourish and images began to form from the viscous plasma which surrounded them. A bright, blinding light quickly subsided to reveal a three dimensional expanding spherical ripple. It appeared as shockwaves pulsing in irregular patterns. Vanir’s perspective was hurtling backwards just on the outside cusp of a wave. He watched as smoky clouds gathered and thickened, changing shape and growing more dense. Spinning solar systems and galaxies in unnatural, impossible shapes went from faded impressions to sharp relief. Now the pulses reverberated past him. Through him. A moment of fear was soon overridden by overwhelming wonder and peace. Deep in this vast image was an indication of a presence, nearly imperceptible, watching. Two complementary shapes, symmetrical shadows in darkness. Then slowly fading away, the feeling of serenity fading with them. Vanir now found himself on a perfectly smooth surface, white in all directions, with the exception of a small pile of dust that trembled and wavered.

Vanir noticed that the man had also been watching, a bittersweet smile touching his lips.

“My birthday,” said the man. “Or more accurately, the day of my awakening.”

The man waved again and Vanir saw an idyllic scene, pastoral and green. Strange creatures lolled in the bright light, vegetation in colors that Vanir could not describe spread in all directions. At the limits of the horizon he saw another kind of wave now coming. An emptiness. No pulsing, no lively vibration. A fixed wall of absence moving in a much different way than anything he had seen before. It was a falling off, an erasure. Bipedal beings ran from homes for days, months, but the steady trudge of the emptiness, that Vanir now recognized as The Void, was inescapable. The most advanced species left their planets, their galaxies, but always they must stop and rest. The Void has no such burden. Only its cold advance. The images evaporated into nothing.

“Mr Vanir, the place from which I came is no more. That entire plane of existence is, for all intents and purposes, no more. Indeed, even your humble host was no more, or as far as I knew. But my creators had given me a gift. The Void believes itself to be all consuming because it came after the very earliest things ever to exist across any reality. However, there exists an infinitesimal fraction of material to which it is blind, and my designers made me of such stuff. Just enough to allow me to know that I am. I exist. And from that, my friend, anything is possible. In a space with no vibration even the whirl of an electron is enough to start a symphony. Over years uncountable I rebuilt myself, and a small representation of my memories. The echoes of what came before. I would imagine some of your universe even existed by the time I was able to rebuild the beginnings of what I once knew. And not just the pretty bits! Oh no. Good, bad, and ugly. All must be present for the balance to exist, and the balance is what keeps The Void at bay. Do you understand, Mr Vanir?”

Clearly a rhetorical question, as the man continued.

“Balance is a delicate thing. The waves of existence cannot exist without peak and valley, the star and the black hole, ultimate forms of light and gravity, inextricably bonded over the tides of millennia in a wave of their own. Your scientists believe that natural order is a dumb and mindless process. Like a pocket watch that not only built itself but winds itself as well. Preposterous notion. Any sentient being should be able to regard the state of their world and know that a garden without stewards is rife with weeds, eventually overrun and decayed. No, balance must be attended to and objective decisions made. Thus the rhythm of the stars may forever continue.”

Vanir had been weighing the words of this being carefully. A deliberate and calculating man, not prone to impulse or emotion, he was surprised to find himself not only convinced, but supportive. The words of this being were like hearing the distant melody of a lullaby his mother had once sung him, and now a part of him was waking up. Everything was clicking into place for Vanir. It seemed that the sum total of his life experiences had led him to this moment, and in hindsight every disappointment, every pain, every event made sense. He knew it all had to occur so that he could be here, in this moment, in this state of mind, and with this measure of openness.

“The Silent Void will spread again, Mr Vanir, and you are one of the few who can help us stop it. It is, of course, your choice. A choice which your professor acquaintance has already made, and many more will have to make. But if you knew my progenitors and what they could do, your choice would be to join us. And I can promise you that as a dear, dear friend who knows you better than you know yourself.”

A confident smirk touched Vanir’s brightening visage.

“If you knew me that well you’d know my decision was made the moment I stepped into this machine” he said. Once again in his life nothing lay behind him and everything lay before him. As the words left his mouth he felt his body begin to morph and change, his mind expanding, instantly grasping concepts, skills, and abilities he had never known. He had the distinct feeling he was slipping into an old pair of shoes or seeing a face he recognized. His surroundings began to come into focus before his eyes — a purely white, cavernous sanctum with huge rooms supported by a webbed lattice of unusual shapes. Its metallic grandeur was interrupted only by complex functional structures of various hues.

Vaselli Vanir flexed his new form and grinned widely, striding into the future.