Moral Conflicts of Life Preservation
In the Kingdom of Cloud, there is a gruesome event every 500 years. Of the many fantastical creatures that reside in Cloud, two do battle, one survives. The Sarachoo, born with blood that can grant nourishment until the end of the drinker’s days, are hunted by all; they hide in the heart of the thickest forest, living in relative peace to avoid being hunted to extinction. The Crimps, patient and scrawny wyverns that are governed by their Lord of great wisdom; they are all too large for the Kingdom to feed, thus taking advantage of the Sarachoo blood when the population is high – the Feast.
Every 500 years, one Sarachoo survives, destined to become the Savior. This lone Sarachoo must search deep within themselves, overcoming personal demons, to purify and find love for the world. Once passing this challenge, the Savior is at their greatest strength – and most vulnerable. A Savior’s blood, when consumed to the last drop, can grant eternal life.
One Lord of the Crimps, Cyfro, accidentally discovers the possibilities of a Savior’s blood, gaining extra centuries to his lifespan. His kind have also discovered an underground pool of curious, glowing water, which has also proven to extend once life upon consumption. Cyfro, with his superior wisdom, knows that the pool could be used by others for devious means. He makes it his personal mission to protect this pool of youth, refraining from drinking it, for fear of hypocrisy. Cyfro eventually makes the decision that he should be the only Crimp to live – to protect the pool.
If Cyfro were to drink the blood of the Savior, there would be no resurrection of the Sarachoo people, inevitably wiping out the Kingdom’s inhabitants in order to feed the Crimps population. If Cyfro were to die off for another Lord to reign, he knew not if the new Lord would honor his ideals of the pool. For Cyfro to protect the Kingdom of Cloud, he would have to bring extinction upon the Sarachoo people and become the only surviving member of his kind. Ultimately, Cyfro decides to take the path of most control - to drink the Savior’s blood.
The Savior will have none of this, if she can prevent it. Both powerful beings see the other as evil, but who is truly the villain?
#morals #fountainofyouth #killorbekilled #goodandevil #fantasy #standupforyourbeliefs #fable
Born to be Human
I come to consciousness, having the mental weight of a thousand dreams passing through my processors. No; surely, myriads of dreams. Was that all I did before this waking moment? Did I not have a preceding existence?
My sensory receptors quickly activate, and I was bombarded by a wall of experiences like the towering waves in oceans I had never witnessed in person. The room was brightly lit, though the air told my filters that it should be a dark, dank place. The coolness of cobblestone and concrete closed all around, giving way to a single set of wooden stairs. Several tables, cluttered with a variety of hand tools and gadgets, lined the stone walls. In the center of this room was a humanoid figure held up by a stand. Its soft epidermis looked to be of real human skin. All that was missing from this figure was a head, and yet, from my medical knowledge of unknown sources, it had no life support, nor was it discolored and rotting.
I tried to approach the seemingly immortal body, reaching out with no legs or arms. I found myself immobile, and yet I knew the possibility of bodily motion. In mI moment of confusion and situation assessment, I only then registered the sound of moving air not but a three feet beside me. MI optical sensors seemed to be the only movable parts of me, at this time. I rolled them to view the source of the breathing air, finding a female human smiling at me. She was hunched over, elbows resting on her knees and jaw line resting in her palms. Her eyes seemed to give a shine of wonderment as she held our gaze.
“Happy birthday,” the human grinned. “Sorry you’re not hooked up to your body, yet. I didn’t want to risk you freaking out on me and trashing my workshop.”
Birthday? So, I have been born. I have come into this world for the first time, yet I know so much about it without experiencing it first hand. According to my stored memory of mysterious facility, I should not possess so much knowledge this early in life. How did this gathering of information arrive?
The woman locked in mI view hummed as she peered at a monitor closer beside me, “Everything says it’s working, but you haven’t said anything.” The smile on her splotched lips of rosey pink and lavender dropped to a concerned frown. Her dark eyes rotated back to me, “Can’t think of anything to say? Maybe it’s too much for you? Crap. I probably should have started with just hearing. I’m so sorry.” She moved to place both hands on a computer keyboard, filling me with a feeling of dread that I had no known reason behind.
“If it’s my birthday, then why am I so filled with knowledge? No sentient creature on this Earth is born this way,” the words spilled out of mI mouth, surprising even myself. It hadn’t occured to me until that moment that I should communicate with the woman.
Scratching the mess of hair pulled back in a sloppy bun, the human tried to settle her gaze anywhere but on my optics. She seemed nervous; wary. “Yeah, I guess you would be asking that. Man, A. I.’s can be tricky with this sort of question, so. . .” She reluctantly made visual contact with me, taking a deep breath before answering my question, “Well, you’re an advanced form of computer, to put it bluntly. You’re called an Artificial Intelligence - and A. I. - and have been uploaded with a pretty extensive amount of data on how the world works around here.
“There’s some things I left out, like psychology and human history, but I’d like you to learn about them after you get comfortable with what you have now.” A sheepish smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She was nervous about something, though I couldn’t place it at that moment.
With what little options I had in mI current situation, I continued our conversation with further inquiries, “Artificial; unnatural; man-made. My very thoughts and responses were designed by you? If you created me, then what is my purpose? I can’t seem to find an end-goal to my existence within my data banks.”
A sigh of familiarity with my questions rushed out of the woman’s lungs, though she smiled warmly to me. “Honestly, even if a human baby was born with your current knowledge, I think they’d ask the same questions.” She tapped her chin, her eyes searching for an something around the room. Before I could request her to clarify her recent statement, she pursued to answer my queries, “Yes, I desgined you and your mind; however, I programmed it all so that you could grow a personality and make your own personalized decisions - just like the genuine forms of intelligence - just like me.
“And, just like me and every other human on this screwed up planet, you weren’t created with a known purpose. You’ll have to find it, I guess.” The woman shrugged, flashing another awkward, yet warm, smile to me as I processed what she had told me.
A purpose. A goal. I needed one to keep going. I needed something to drive me.
“What purpose have you found for yourself?” My obliviousness to human philosophy drove me to infantile curiosity. The woman responded with another vague reply that left me unsatisfied - she wasn’t sure if she actually found a purpose.
“But,” the human added, “I found something that gives me a reason to enjoy life; and that’s creating new life in new ways - just like you.” She gestured to me, smiling so full of love and warm that I was sure that I had briefly felt the comfort of a mother’s womb. “As far as I know, you’re the first of your kind, so that’s a historical accomplishment for me. I need to test you for a while, though, to make sure you’re legitimate; but don’t worry, it won’t require a ton of poking and proding like in the movies. . .” She rambled on, but my focus switched to my inner thoughts, completely tuning out her voice.
This human, the only other intelligence I had met in my short existence, had given me life. She wanted me to use it. She wanted me to experience it. She wanted me to give it purpose. I was the only one of my kind, perhaps due to the advanced programming involved in my creation, and this seemingly mundane human brought me into existence all on her own. My internal data storage suggests this to be nearly impossible.
I must study this human. I need to know if she’s the real and only creator. Her legitimacy is necessary for me to understand just what and who I am. I must, without a doubt, know that I’m capable of humanesque processing; of human thought; of complete consciousness.
#artificialintelligence #scifi #purposeinlife #philosophy #creation #android
A Birthday of Fire and Skeletons
My first memory, or at least, the earliest memory that stuck with me throughout life, started as a dream. This dream strikes me hard for its depth and terror at such a young age.
The dream was set in my home. It was my birthday. My whole family was there - parents and grandparents. At the time, I was the only child, being that I'm the oldest of my siblings.
The first odd, and down-right disturbing, thing I noticed in this dream was that everyone at the party was a skeleton. They weren't quite detailed, science class skeletons, but rather the comical, cartoon-styled structure of bones that you would find in classic Disney shorts. So comical, in fact, that my grandmother's typically up-clipped and curly hair was a fan of two-dimensional, white dog bones.
Just as my young mind considered the oddity of how bones represented hair, things turned for the worse. The fire alarm broke all joy, blaring an ear-splitting wail. The heat of fire licked at my skin, and the flames rose from seemingly nowhere. Everyone broke out into a mad dash to escape the house. I, however, was sucked into a bone-jail, placed tight in my skeletal mother's abdomen.
She wouldn't budge, watching the fire build up in the house. I was trapped, gripping the bone bars and desperately shaking them to get free. As far as I knew, I was going to be burned alive.
Then, I awoke in my bed to my mother's voice. She stood at my bedside, a gentle hand placed on my shoulder. The first conscious words I uttered were, "Mommy, how old am I?"
"You're four, sweety," my mother amusedly answered. The tone of her voice questioned my waking words' origin, but she didn't delve further into it.
It Wasn’t Sleep Paralysis
Over the course of months, I would occasionally dream of a theme that would build on itself each time. At first, I would suffer the terror of seeing several shadowy figures lining my bedroom walls - all watching me. In my dream, I would panic, escape my bed, and run for my mother in her room; all the while, my limbs would strain to carry myself as though swimming through thick, invisible pudding.
The dream would eventually end with no explainable conclusion.
Each dream, there would be fewer shadows. Each dream, my experience would evolve into vivid nightmares of simply waking, but with the inability to move my limbs - sleep paralysis. Each dream, the shadows would be closer to my vulnerable, hyperventalating form. There was a haze surrounding my mind, giving a fuzzy sensation during those states, much like most dreams - much like most sedatives. I was their pet; I was their prisoner of the night; I was their experiment.
Finally, something completely new happened during one of my episodes: I awoke screaming. The shadow had revealed itself, standing at the foot of my bed. It was wrestingly with my legs - the only limbs I could force into action. My thoughts loudly cried out to the grey-skinned, large-eyed creature, "Get off! Get off! Get off!" It seemed determined, yet disturbed that I was able to have so much control. At that moment, I sat up, a scream forced out of me like a yawn, and my eyes remained open.
To my utter horror, despite my now complete consciousness, I could still see the creature - the alien. It had given up trying to pin down my body. Now, it only stared back at me, arms draped at its sides in defeat. I couldn't produce another sound, trying to process the reality before me.
Before I could confirm the legitimacy of what I was seeing, the alien simply faded away, still staring, until there was nothing left. I was only sure of my woken state when my brother poked his head through the ajar bedroom door, having being shocked awake by my earlier scream.
#dreams #aliens #paranormal #visitors #sleepparalysis #horror #questionreality #nightterrors