Located in the primordial gray, a glowing green boy with red and green eyes floated along in a gray stream.
Taking Manduka's advice, Ged moved even closer to the center of everything to observe the chaotic mass being created.
As he approached the center, the volume of gray smoke increased several-fold. The increasingly abrasive flow began to pick apart at Ged's mental state, prompting him to use the Tree of Mysteries at frequent intervals.
Newborn pieces of matter formed in large quantities, zipping around Ged and combining together. Ged observed the strange happenings around him.
He saw various forms of failed matter, different from a bench press motion, created and destroyed in an instant.
Contemplating how to build his newfound chest muscles, Ged thought the simplest option was to brute force it.
Surveying his surroundings, Ged focused on some newly born matter popping into existence. Utilizing Manduka's pulling method, Ged drew in the matter, threading it into his being much like the absolute objects.
Initially, it seemed to be a success; the mass attached itself to him like a bead on a necklace. However, as the turbulent flow entered the piece of matter, it caused some residual flow to cycle inside of Ged's being.
Ged howled in pain. In a flash, he expelled the mass back into the primordial gray, where it sped off into the current.
Desperately, Ged took out the Tree of Mysteries, shrinking the tree another few meters. Putting away the tree, he gazed at the chaotic gray with solemn eyes.
"How am I supposed to create muscles if I can't even attach matter to my being?" Ged pondered despondently.
Looking for answers, Ged ventured deeper to examine the more chaotic created mass.
He attempted to thread all sorts of unstable matter into his being, but all it did was quicken his assimilation into the unknown and shrink the Tree of Mysteries.
"Perhaps Manduka was right." Ged hung his head further in defeat.
"Is the road back to reality impossible?"
"Was all this a waste? Have I spent all this time pursuing something that I cannot even obtain?"
"Surely I am not the only wanderer out there who wanted to return to reality. If even they cannot succeed, then what am I?"
Ged stared blankly at the raging gray vortex as it flowed past where he stood.
Ged shook his head. He had already died once, and the thought of wasting another life in pursuit of an unreachable future weighed heavily on him. What was eternity compared to his ambition?
He looked off into the thick clouds of gray dust, nodding in satisfaction, and moved deeper into the violent gray.
After covering some distance, something strange came into view—an isolated log cabin amidst the chaotic flux.
It had a small green lawn, and the gray flux seemed to funnel into the doorway, causing it to open and close violently.
Ged cautiously observed the home from a distance.
After a few hours of nothing out of the ordinary, he approached the lawn of the house. He stopped in place, observing the grassy expanse.
The grass remained unmoving, even when trampled by Ged's feet.
Pulling out his scimitar, he slashed at the stem of a blade of grass, cutting it in two. However, the blade of grass seemed unharmed; now, two identical blades of grass were growing out of the ground.
"An absolute object!" Ged exclaimed.
"But why would someone leave something like this out here?"
Putting away the scimitar, Ged approached the flapping door of the cabin.
Placing his hand on the door, he brought the swaying to a halt. Attempting to push the door open, he suddenly felt a typhoon of sensations in his mind.
He keeled over, quickly removing his hand from the door and cradling his head in pain.
Images of the swaying door played nonstop in Ged's mind.
Years seemed to pass as Ged processed the mental barrage, until finally, he stirred from his daze. Opening his eyes, Ged gazed upon the cabin door with understanding.
"What just happened to me?"
Ged looked into his subconscious towards the Tree of Mysteries, and it once again shrunk. A solemn expression appeared on his face.
Ged cursed his impulsiveness.
"What is with this door?"
Ged calmed himself down, attempting to approach the situation more empirically.
Sitting on the floor in contemplation, Ged stared at the swaying door, trying to unravel its mysteries.
He saw the grey mist pushing against the door with mighty force, escaping into the home.
He observed the total flow within the house rising to a high level, and as the pressure reached a certain point, it attempted to escape from the building. However, with no open windows, the only exit for the flow was the same place where it entered—the doorway.
With numerous different flows entering and leaving the cabin, the door seemed to be in a chaotic state, fluctuating rapidly between various degrees of openness and closure.
Ged stood up, gazing deeply at the swaying door.
"I see."
"While most forms of matter swirl from one end to the other, this door swirls flux from one end to the other in conflicting directions and rotations."
"Unlike a rock that displaces and diverts a stream, this door is like a river diverting another river flowing in opposite directions."
Ged scratched his chin in thought.
"To disrupt the flow of the door is like trying to swallow a river."
Ged shook his head.
"To enter this cabin, I need to go inside without disrupting the flow of the door." Ged looked deeply at the opening door.
"I need to time my entry when the flux pushing the door open is much larger than the returning flux shutting it."
Ged examined the door, watching closely as it fluctuated rapidly. After a month and many cycles, the pressure within the house was low, and a large wave of gray mist had slammed against the door.
Ged observed keenly.
The door swung wide open to a manageable degree.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ged made his way through the opening.
He walked through the turbulent flow, moving to the side of the stream to look at the cabin interior.
Inside the cabin, the walls and floor were painted bright orange, with no sharp corners anywhere throughout its walls.
Finally stopping in place, he observed the gray expand throughout the house, taking over the corners of the room. But suddenly, like someone sucking in a deep breath, all the gray traveled to a room located in the back of the cabin.
Concurrently with a deep exhale, the flow was sent out through the doorway back into the torrential currents that surrounded the home.
Ged observed the strange phenomenon, realizing that there must be something extraordinary for such a thing to occur.
Ged pondered the phenomenon.
The breath-like motions seemed to hint at something alive.
A chill seeped into his soul, and for the first time since his separation from reality he felt genuine fear.
Ged realized something was wrong.
He tried to move his feet and turn around and walk back towards the cabin doorway but found himself unable to.
In fact he couldn't move at all. As soon as he stopped moving he was picked up by the strange current originating from the back room.
Ged struggled mightily to free himself from this helplessness.
But it became increasingly apparent to him that he was at the mercy of the current, being pushed and pulled between the door and whatever was lurking in the backroom.
A hopeless, creeping dread washed over him as he tried to calmly judge the situation.
"Unless I can find my footing, I am at the whim of this current. If at any point whatever is in the back room exhales more than it inhales and pushes me towards the door, if it is not opened far enough then it is my death. This leads my survival completely up to chance."
Ged frantically looked around at the house. There were no windows in the cabin and the ground lacked foot holds, the back room concealed by the violent smoky current.
pushing out the scimitar from within himself he slashed at the closest walls and floor in a desperation. New tiles were created from each slash, but in the strange turbulence they vanished as quickly as they appeared.
A startled facial expression appeared on Ged. He tried to pull his scimitar back inside himself, but it was too late.
The scimitar vanished into the gray.
Ged frowned.
With only one scimitar left, and absolute objects being completely useless at stabilizing himself, there was only one object with any possible hope of saving himself.
The door.
"This door has to be at least in part regulating the flux entering and exiting from this place. So I wonder what would happen if two were regulating it instead?"
After a bit of time, Ged moved to just half a meter away from the door.
Using his final scimitar, he slashed the door in twain.