His light broke apart and dissipated, Jason looked left to right frantically trying to find the voice.
"I'm not near you, I'm rather far away from you technically stop shaking your head like its loose." The voice spoke more calmly this time and didn't echo around unpleasantly but rather sounded both amused and exhausted.
Jason fell back and sat down, he was panting from the rebound effect of losing control of over three quarters of his light reserves in an instant. Even if he wanted to now he couldn't continue as he was.
"I know you can see their hearts beating in flickers, though Ill remind you to look elsewhere in your assessments, their minds are gone. If you try to 'bring them back' effectively like that they'll just be another you in proxy, much like what happened when you took your body. I'm sorry Youngin, your parents have passed on."
Jason didn't reply, the last part of his will clinging on by a thread of hope vanished, he laid there still as tears filled his eyes and blurred his vision of the morning sun taking the sky. The light distorted through his tears and the morning colours blurred together yet it still appeared so gray to him.
He remained their alone in the singed grass and snowed ash of his home, frustrated, grieving when it was almost noon, sun high in the sky on this late summer day, he finally spoke aloud.
"How, have you seen me both back then, and now? Also, I suppose thank you, I wouldn't have wanted something like that to happen."
He waited hoping the voice would speak again. He looked around again as he did, as if to really make sure the voice came from inside and not out.
"Well, er.. ugh... yes. I've seen you this entire time."
The voice was quiet this time. It trailed off to a brief pause to which it continued after in a more solid tone.
"I've seen you since your light first touched those stars, wandered and brushed past galaxy's, slowly starting as a mere wisp of light amongst the stars, soon you draped them in your own. You found Earth, before life had, and as life was slowly born, you stayed and watched as human's would-be ancestors rose from the oceans and claimed the land. You later tried to mimic them as they learned, and found time and time again you could only but watch. Once you found that unborn boy, I never expected you to live the life he could not."
Jason perked up upon hearing that, 'No one has ever been able to see my light before, no one could ever live that long either, unless they're like me I guess right?'
"Ha, no not quite, sorry for the lack of privacy but when we speak like this you don't need to speak aloud either. I'm not like you, I'm more like everyone else you've met around you, only too another level per say, I'm actually the one whos created everything around you, time and time again too..."
"Speaking plainly to you which I'll explain in time, I've made this universe, this world around you, time and time again slightly differently over a number of years you can't yet fathom, on just a chance I may one day live to see your birth. Let me add that you have done nothing but wonder me since you were! Defying my expectations for each and every single little damn step of the way as you've grown."
The voice seemed quite happy and proud as it continued to rattle on in Jason's skull, who was still vastly disoriented by the experience and information let alone believing he was talking to someone in his head.
"I'm sorry I waited this long to speak to you, I would have waited longer too if not to prevent you from a self inflicted horror that I would not want to see you overcome. I would like to take you away from there right now as long as you're fine with that?"
The voice turned it back to him after dropping bombshell after bombshell on him, 'I don't know, I feel like I don't know anything right now. My parents were so prepared for this even, and I never saw this coming at all. If I go to Erog the same thing might be instore for him, they're looking for me, should I even be here? I have no idea what's the wrong, right, logical, step here. So sure, mysterious voice in my head that's watched me all my life and hears my thoughts! Nothing worse could honestly happen to me today, I almost want to just die right next to them here; find out if I'll pop out or join them in eternity."
'If I don't have anywhere to go but I need to go somewhere why not, take me away from here.'
"As you wish, apologies, there's no way to explain what you're about to experience."
Suddenly it felt as if under his skin was being washed with ice water, then his vision grew distorted and everything went black. As it did the surface of his skin felt the opposite, it felt like boiling water was washing over in the opposite direction as the cold underneath. He felt his world turn inside him and back out again, as the urge to puke swelled but he was incapable of reliving it let alone moving at all.
"AGHHH, what the....." suddenly he was able to scream again, and as he did it was followed by the little content in his stomach soaking his boots world spinning on every sense.
When he opened his eyes he was wonderstruck, in front of him was nothing but a giant tower. It pierced so high he couldn't see its tip no matter how far he cranked his head back, yet he could see a grand entrance was probably about ten minutes in front of him if he walked straight.
Jason turned his attention to everything around the tower, 'We're not on Earth anymore, we're floating amongst no stars I recognize either?' He thought as he looked around at nothing but empty space all around the tower in front of him, distant stars dotted the 'sky' around him every way he looked around.
'The doors are opening I guess that's my signal to go in? This tower's huge, I can't see the top past the giant ring up there. The base looks like a compass too, those two pathways on the right must be doorways just like this and same on the opposite side.' Looking back at the tower as the grand two doors in front opened up.
'If I use my light I wonder if that voice will be unhappy?'
He started channeling his light letting it flow out along all the surfaces around him every way to try and grasp the shape of the tower he found himself standing on the base of.
As his light painted a picture in his mind for him to understand the shape he could see the base of the tower came to eight points like a compass, two sets of four points with a middle point 45 degrees from each other strode out.
One set stuck out further, but instead of coming to a point against the floor like smaller four points, these cut half way on their slope to the floor yet still many kilometers farther than the other four which only came up to about half their distance.
The four massive points ended at a grand two-door gateway exponentially bigger than the size of him or his once home. Beyond each of these grand doors extended a long widening pathway, each ended at in the center of a giant hollow floating ring, all coated in the same strange light gray metal his light couldn't pierce if he wanted to.
Eight points came together in the middle to form the almost skinny-looking center pillar in comparison to the grand size of its base. However, he knew it would take him at least a couple hours to run around the outside thanks to his light even at its skinniest point.
The floating tower continued to soar up to what looked like a point when it abruptly connected to four horizontal cylindrical pillars parallel to the bottom longer four points, these seemed to hold a ring much wider than the base floating in the air, it had long sharp but wide based points extending out on each end where a crossway connected to the ring giving the appearance of odd four pointed symmetrical shuriken. 'That whole tower might be as tall and wide as the Earth alone!'
"You would be correct about that, it's actually closer to the size of the Sun that Earth orbits. Welcome to the Citadel Tower Youngin, that sphere below the tower your light can't see but you can if you look around the edge is a collapsed dimensional sphere I've used to create and recreate your universe an unthinkable number of times inside to possibly cause your birth."
The voice finally spoke up now that the giant doors in front of him had fully opened.
"That's probably all too much for you right now, do come inside. Apologies that I'm in no state to greet you myself."
As the man spoke a couple sections of the floor below him began to move it raised up to form a floating platform below him, it lifted him up above the walkway he was on, bringing him along inside through those grand doors.
Looking closely at the etchings along the walls as he passed trying to find anything out about this place for himself, he saw some appearing to move, "Those aren't etchings, the walls are shifting, and changing?!"
"HA, yes, yes it is. The Citadel isn't just a tower its technically alive, technically it is the mother to your world so to speak. Designed to carry the weight of the greatest 'egg' ever refined and controlled."
As he approached the center, inside the walls started to glow as if it were day, the light at the end he couldn't make out before started to come to view.
Behind a glass-like material, a giant pillar of white translucent crystal stretched from floor to ceiling, inside lines of light like his own rapidly flowed, sometimes streaming along and above its surface. The lines moved at moments in a straight geometrical pattern, other times they moved sporadically with no reason or path seeming to be in sight.
The sight was truly beautiful, all-together the lines caused an almost water-like ripple rhythm of light to flow up, down, along, and inside the crystal, it reminded him of all the time he spent watching the waves ebb, flow, and crash about the earth.
"That before you is the heart of the Citadel, what you see is essentially each breath it takes from that 'egg' I mentioned below to function itself, though its functionality is falling with less and less help of my own being available to it."
The platform stopped when he was meters away from the glass chamber that shielded the crystal, Jason reached out placing his hands on it as the platform he was floating on assimilated into the floor.
He looked down noticing a ring similar to those at the end of each walkway embedded in the floor, the ring started to flash as he felt that horrible feeling that brought him here take him again for a brief moment as the scene around him had rapidly changed after he blinked his eyes.
He was now in a room with grand windows on all sides, fully displaying the massive glory of the inside face of the floating ring, he realized he was now up much, much higher than he was before.
In the perfect center of the room, a massive sword-resting tip sheathed in a perfectly made holder on the floor. The sword held a broad width from the hilt, about half a meter in width, one and a half meters in the air as the edge between the hilt and the blade was exactly at his head.
The hilt was straight except for a large 'V'-like shape that sat embedded in the blade with a blue glow along its inside edge. The blade and hilt were a dark black smooth metal with bright white glowing etchings all along its surface, the blades inner edge shone white, but shifted to a blue along its edge's peak same as the V. Glowing blue lines connected on either side closer to the hilt on connecting to the upper ends of the V then directed to the hidden tip of the blade from the peak of V.
Behind the sword was an old man, he sat on a grand throne, he had long both black and white streaked beard down to his upper chest, and hair down to his lower back. In a dark grayish black robe with the same glowing white etchings, the man sat proud, but his eyes and face showed much fatigue beyond that of the stresses of time normally shows in the elderly.
Above the sword and the man a glowing white orb much like what he himself felt he looked like before shone moving around freely in the space above seeming to be what from his experience looked like excitement, its light aura around the center node expanded and contracted rapidly.
"Welcome again, and it's a pleasure to meet you face to face. My name is Oberin Obeartis, I built the Citadel before us as a last bastion of hope for my people, but as you can see I'm the only one who's ever gotten to roam its halls until you've come along now."
"Do forgive me, as while I've been watching you for all this time your time was moving much faster than mine, for me hundreds of your years were a second so in those brief twelve years I never got your name as processing everything that's been spoken that fast is tiresome even for me. So what might your name be youngin?"
"My names Jason... Tesla. Why do you keep saying you've waited for me specifically for such a long time?"
After saying his first name, he paused, making sure to then add his family's name. It felt comforting for some reason, that he didn't know why entirely.
He looked expectantly for an answer from Oberin.