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Chapter 12 - A Strange New World

In a strange world, nothing and everything existed at the same time. There was not a single thing that had a form yet it wasn't formless. To paint a picture for it wouldn't be possible. The colour of this strange world was the same one everyone sees when they close their eyes, Eigengrau. Yet, it was not just it, there were many more colours that were indescribable in human words. The strange thing was that these colours were neither static nor moving, it was as if you were part of it and yet not. You could touch it but it would feel nothing different than touching yourself. 

There was no voice and no atmosphere, like a totally sealed world, yet it was more open than the entire universe. If sorken had to say what he felt at this moment, being so naked that his being has been stripped out bare would be quite fitting, not in a metaphor but in reality. 

In the past, Sorken was very interested in the rising fields of study, study of the subconscious world or qualia was one of those fields. The field that dealt with experience. What is experience in its essence? What is consciousness? Was it collective? Was it individual or something entirely different? A lot of questions but no answers. He remembered reading how people met the gods they believed when they entered medically induced qualia. 

This world…. In hindsight it was quite similar to what he had heard. He couldn't tell if it was the exact thing because he never experienced it himself but it was very very close to every single description he had ever heard. 

He looked around himself more, his thoughts finally coming back to him in bits and pieces. 'So, we were sent to this place…. Tamara and the others, what are they going to do with them? Doesn't seem like something bad will happen to them.' he recalled the transformation Tamara and other three went through and could slightly tell that they were part of this world more than he was now. 'She won't change, I can just hope' Sorken silently prayed in his heart.

As he kept thinking and looking around, he finally decided to try something different. Every single sense here was different. He couldn't tell if he had any senses at all. So he did what he had heard hundreds of others had tried when they had visited their subconscious. Slowly letting go of himself and letting his thoughts control him. If it worked, he at least would have an idea of how to proceed. 'Being chronically online finally helped, hah' 

As he let his thoughts free, he failed. He was no monk, he had no idea what this sentence even meant. Why do we say he failed? He couldn't stop himself from focusing on a thought however hard he tried. Think of something sticky in a room with no gravity. However hard he Tried to throw it, it would come back and find a new place to stick. He could just try again and again. 

Finally, after some time, he decided to calm down. Suppose everything here was about the subconscious in any way. He needed to take it slowly and somehow use his thoughts as a navigation. He felt like a human who suddenly had been deprived of their limbs and asked to fly. 

'I should slowly let go of my control over my thoughts, maybe I should just try to sleep but not completely' he had an idea and he followed through with it. 

As he finally reached the stage where he felt extremely light, he had no thoughts but he could feel his surroundings. The colour of the surroundings underwent a complete shift as in that half-conscious state he vaguely proved his surroundings. 

'So, this is how it's done' Although he believed the reason he could do it was that he was in this world with his physical body if it was just his mind, things would have been effing complicated. Even now, remaining in the state was not easy. If he fell asleep, he had no idea what would happen and if he didn't, he would again be unable to understand his surroundings. 

'This is hell' he could just lament, but not too hard… 

The world around was completely different now, it was made of different patterns moving in itself, constantly changing forms and yet not changing. It was so enchanting that he could have seen it forever and yet not feel tired at all. Such was this world and everything around him.

There were small bubbles around him that kept floating up until they would suddenly burst, with a sound he couldn't understand. The colour of this world, he didn't know. He could understand them, but what to call them, he didn't know. There was no form to understand the size of things around him. Some things would seem like a pea a moment ago but then turn into giant blobs bigger than anything he had ever seen. He still had no senses or to put it in a better manner, he had no idea why he would know why it was a sound or why it was a colour. 

His half-conscious state prevented him from thinking too much. He suddenly saw another bubble rising up, curiosity gripped him as he tried to catch it. 'I have no hands' but something changed as he found himself in front of that bubble. He looked at it closely. It had the same properties as this world… constantly changing and yet formless. What appeared to be a bubble now seemed like an entire world in itself. Then the bubble burst.