Chapter 4: The Civilization of Eryx
Over the next few days, as Mark settled back into his dorm room, the world outside seemed to move at its usual pace. But for him, everything had changed. The mundane rhythm of college life—classes, coding projects, late-night pizza runs—felt distant.
His mother had pleaded with him to move back home so she could keep a closer eye on him, but he refused.
He needed to be alone to understand it, and come to terms with the strange new reality he now faced.
"I'm fine, Mom," he had told her over the phone, trying to keep his voice calm and reassuring. "I just need some space. I'll call you if anything happens."
She reluctantly agreed, but Mark could hear the worry in her voice. He couldn't blame her—how could he explain that what had happened to him went far beyond a medical issue? He wasn't sick. He was… evolving.
As the days passed, the visions persisted. They grew more vivid, more coherent, as if the fog in his mind was slowly lifting. At first, the images had been fragmented—flashes of strange cities, symbols, and machines that didn't belong to Earth. But now, the visions were taking shape, becoming clear in ways that both fascinated and terrified him.
---
**November 1, 2023**
Mark sat hunched over his desk, his laptop's screen illuminating his face in the dim light of his dorm room. His fingers flew across the keyboard, typing at an inhuman speed. Code streamed across the screen—complex algorithms that should have taken weeks to write, yet Mark was finishing them in mere hours. His eyes were sharp, focused, as if the knowledge of every coding language in existence had been downloaded into his brain.
*This will change everything,* he thought, a grin spreading across his face. The idea he had been working on—a breakthrough in quantum computing that could revolutionize technology—was almost complete. It wasn't just a leap forward; it was a seismic shift in understanding, the kind of breakthrough that could change the course of human history.
Mark paused, stretching his arms above his head. His body felt light, as if the strange energy humming within him was fueling more than just his mind. He felt invincible, like he could keep going for days without rest.
"And with this," he whispered, staring at the final lines of code on his screen, "a new age will begin—starting with me, and then this world."
He pressed the enter key.
Instantly, his laptop—top of the line and customized to handle even the most demanding tasks—began to whirr and groan, the fans kicking into overdrive. The screen flickered, the hardware clearly struggling to keep up with the enormity of what Mark had just unleashed. He watched, amused, as the machine tried to process the code he had fed it, but even the most advanced technology on Earth wasn't equipped to handle something like this.
"Looks like I'll need a new laptop," Mark muttered, his face thoughtful. "And probably a few servers, too."
His mind was already racing ahead to the next step. He had no doubt that the code he had just written would work—he could feel it, a certainty born from the strange new knowledge that now flowed through his brain like a river. But Earth's current technology couldn't support it. He needed something stronger, faster—tools that hadn't yet been invented.
Mark pushed back from his desk and stood up, pacing the room as the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. He had been wrestling with the visions for days, trying to understand where they were coming from, why this knowledge was flooding into him. And now, after countless hours of thought, he was beginning to see the truth.
---
**Flashback to the past week**
In the days following his collapse, Mark hadn't just recovered—he had transformed. As his strength returned, so did his mind's capacity to process the torrent of information that had been thrust upon him. At first, it had been overwhelming. The sheer volume of knowledge—scientific theories, mathematical equations, concepts that transcended human understanding—threatened to crush him under its weight. His mind had reeled, struggling to make sense of it all.
But gradually, as the week wore on, Mark began to piece together the origin of the knowledge. The flashes of strange technology, the advanced cities, the alien symbols—they weren't random. They were memories. Memories of a civilization from another universe.
The civilization was called **Eryx**.
Eryx was a highly advanced society that had once existed in a parallel universe, far beyond Earth's current understanding. They had mastered quantum mechanics, energy manipulation, and even the nature of consciousness itself. Unlike Earth, where technological progress was slow and incremental, the Eryxians had experienced rapid, exponential advancements. They had learned to manipulate the fundamental forces of the universe, bending reality to their will. They could transfer their thoughts, their memories, and even their entire consciousness into other beings across dimensions.
It was technology so advanced that it seemed like magic.
But the Eryxians had faced their own catastrophe—an existential threat that had nearly wiped out their civilization. Mark didn't know exactly what had caused the downfall of Eryx, but the memories that filled his mind painted a grim picture. Some disaster, perhaps a war or a cataclysmic event, had pushed the Eryxians to the brink of extinction. In their desperation, they had devised a plan—a way to preserve their knowledge, their culture, and their very essence.
They had created a way to transfer their collective memory into individuals across parallel dimensions. In doing so, they hoped to seed their knowledge throughout the multiverse, ensuring that their legacy would survive even if their world did not.
Mark, by sheer accident, had become one of these vessels.
It wasn't random. The energy surge he had experienced during the storm had fractured the barriers between dimensions, creating a rift that allowed the Eryxian consciousness to flood into his mind. At first, it had been a curse—the weight of the knowledge, the disorienting flashes of memory, the sensation of losing himself to another world's history. But as the days passed, Mark's brilliant mind adapted. He began to comprehend what had happened.
The Eryxians had chosen him.
But why?
Mark wasn't sure. He had been an ordinary college student, obsessed with neural networks and AI, but nothing about him had seemed extraordinary. Yet, the Eryxians had chosen him—out of the billions of people on Earth, it was Mark who had become the vessel for their knowledge.
The answer came to him in fragments, pieced together from the memories of Eryx that now flooded his mind. The Eryxians hadn't just chosen him randomly. There was something about Mark, something unique in his mind, his intellect, his potential. They had sensed it, even across the vast chasm between dimensions. His work in neural networks—his passion for understanding how machines could learn, evolve, and become something more—had resonated with the Eryxians' own quest for knowledge.
They had seen in him the spark of something they had once possessed—the drive to push beyond the limits of human understanding, to transcend the boundaries of science and technology. And when the rift had opened, they had transferred their knowledge into him, hoping that he could carry their legacy forward.
Mark had been chosen to complete their work.
The realization was both exhilarating and terrifying. The knowledge that now flowed through his mind was unlike anything Earth had ever seen. The Eryxians had solved problems that humanity was still grappling with—quantum entanglement, artificial intelligence, the very nature of consciousness. And now, all of that knowledge was Mark's to wield.
But it wasn't just knowledge. The Eryxians had also passed on their abilities—skills that went far beyond Earth's understanding of science. Mark had felt it the moment the energy surged through him during the storm. He could control energy, manipulate it in ways that defied the laws of physics. He had already seen flashes of this power in his room, when the lamp had levitated off his nightstand. He hadn't meant to do it, but the energy inside him had responded to his emotions, bending reality to his will.
The power was still new, still raw, but Mark knew it was only the beginning. He had only scratched the surface of what the Eryxians had given him.
---
**Present Day**
Mark snapped out of his thoughts, the realization of what he had just accomplished hitting him like a tidal wave. The code he had written was a direct result of the knowledge he had gained from Eryx. It wasn't just an advancement in technology—it was a leap forward that could change the entire course of human history.
But the code was just the first step. Mark knew that if he wanted to fully harness the power of Eryxian technology, he would need more than just his laptop. He needed infrastructure, resources—tools that didn't yet exist on Earth. But with the knowledge he now possessed, he was confident he could build them.
As his laptop continued to whirr and struggle under the weight of the task he had given it, Mark's mind was already racing ahead, formulating plans, schematics, and ideas that would take years—perhaps decades—of human ingenuity to realize. But for him, it would only take weeks, maybe months.
He had the knowledge. Now he just needed the means to use it.
Mark stood up from his desk, his body thrumming with energy. He glanced out the window at the city below, the streets bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. The world continued to turn, oblivious to the monumental shift that had just occurred in a small dorm room at the University of California.
"A new age," Mark whispered to himself, his eyes gleaming with a strange mixture of excitement and determination. "It begins with me."
But even as the possibilities swirled in his mind, a nagging thought tugged at the edges of his consciousness.
Why had the Eryxians chosen him? And more importantly, what had become of them?
Mark didn't have the answers yet. But he knew one thing for certain.
The Eryxians had passed on their knowledge for a reason. And whatever that reason was, it was only a matter of time before Mark discovered the truth.
The world was changing.
And so was he.
---
With this new chapter of his life unfolding, Mark couldn't shake the feeling that the knowledge of Eryx was not just a gift—it was a responsibility, perhaps even a burden. He was no longer just Mark, the college student. He was a bridge between worlds, a vessel for a civilization that had once been far greater than Earth could even imagine.
But with that power came questions—and with those questions, a mission.
Mark knew that the next steps he took would define not just his future, but perhaps the future of humanity itself.
The Eryxians had chosen him for a reason.
Now, it was time to find out why.