A Hand-Woven Universe 71 71. Not Alone

During the night he worked tirelessly and meticulously. Every skeleton was placed gently into a grave and properly buried. The stone was placed back within the grave gently and with the utmost solemnity.

As he worked, Noone's mind was slowly recovering but it was tenuous at best. He would quickly become overwhelmed at the death surrounding him and retreat back into his work.

Noone's knees were scuffed and began to bleed as he repeatedly knelt down next to hundreds and then thousands of graves, but he did not slow down or falter.

Every time he felt like he was losing energy, more power would flow into his limbs from somewhere unknown and he would work longer without stop.

Quietly bones were placed in graves.

Behind the scenes - with every body buried, a small amount of energy would worm its way out of each grave and into Noone's breath. He was too unaware to realize what was going on.

Another day pa.s.sed and Noone had worked through almost every grave. At some point tears began to stream down his face again. His mind slowly recovered as he worked, and the horrors he was seeing were deeply implanted into his heart. He thought about how excited he had been to return home, and how nothing could have prepared him for this.

There was something else stirring within him too, a feeling he was unfamiliar with despite living for so many years.

Anger. Undirected and unbridled hate at whatever caused this. His whole world was ripped from him and he couldn't help but regret the unfairness of it. Furious emotions washed through him like an unstoppable tide causing many more hot tears.

Tapestry was supposed to be safe. A safe haven built by the ancestor herself. So how could this happen!?

He hated all of it. And his heart broke under the weight. His confusion mounted as he blamed himself. He knew it was unfair, but what if he had come back earlier? How much earlier would he have needed to return? A year? Two? No… how long was he gone? For Tapestry to fall, and for any trace of the struggle to disappear leaving nothing but bones… how long would that take!?

It was a surreal experience. He felt a disconnect from it all, yet he couldn't stop from crying.

Noone placed the body of one of the elders into its grave, covering it gently as he had all the rest.

This time though, he felt a minor disturbance within himself, he felt some kind of ringing within his core. What he couldn't see was the bones of the elder he had buried quietly lost their crystal hue and strands of energy moved from those bones into Noone.

He put the thought aside and continued on. He only had a few hundred bodies left… soon he would be done. And then…? He wasn't sure.

Every time he buried the bodies of one of the elders, he felt something inside of himself s.h.i.+ft.

Unlike the miniscule amount of energy which came from the other bones, the elder's bones were suffused with centuries worth of attuned energy. Although much of it had dissolved through the years, contact with Noone unchained the energy from the bones. Like a vacuum, Noone's body acted as a void which drew the energy to himself.

His soul gradually filled like a cup with refined universe energy. His new meridians quietly suffused the energy under the surface of his flesh, creating a st.u.r.dy self-contained loop to control it.

Noone of course did not know the specifics of what was happening within his reformed body, and honestly he didn't stop to consider it either. Noone continued to waste no time to properly bury the elders, and with them, everything he knew about Tapestry.

Eventually, he came to the last set of bones. After burying thousands of his family with harsh efficiency, he finally wavered. His eyes reddened at the sight of the blue-hued crystalized bones in front of him.

"Elder…" His strained voice cracked and echoed within the ma.s.sive graveyard. He thought he would be more numb to it, but memories broke through the cracks in the mind, flooding to the surface.

"I'm so sorry elder… I wish I could do something, anything! I would do it if I could… I'm sorry."

Between sobs he began to lay the bones into the grave. Memories rose in his mind, all the way from his earliest childhood.

He remembered how the elder cared for him when his mother pa.s.sed away. He remembered when the elder would calmly explain to him the subtle s.h.i.+fts in the universe that only he could sense. The calm serenity the elder always had to him.

Then he remembered the vision he saw in the elders' hall. The exhaustion. The pain. The fear. The anger. The complex expression the elder had in his eyes was gradually made clear to Noone as his own heart began to emanate those same feelings.

"Do I go on…?" A quiet whisper of a thought surfaced in his mind. What should he do? Should he go above like Adria, or wait here? The answer was clear. His heart was torn to shreds by the pain, and his mind was only just beginning to settle, although the cracks were still evident.

Noone's hands gripped onto the elder's skull, and his tears dripped down off his face to the stone below.

Gently he placed the skull within the grave and with a finality he knew would end it all, he covered the grave.

His arms fell to his side and he stared ahead in exhaustion and confusion, his eyes s.h.i.+fted between awareness and death.

Within the grave, the bones of Elder Hollice Azelle began to s.h.i.+ne with an intensity unmatched by any of the bones before. Blue light illuminated through the stone, barely catching Noone's attention. He looked down at the freshly covered grave and his heart beat wildly as the familiar light shone through. Innumerable strands of blue energy floated from the top of the grave with such an intensity that Noone could see it with his naked eyes.

As the energy floated towards Noone, he didn't flinch away when the strands began to surround and fill his body.

Noone felt himself fill up with endless strength and power. He felt the waves of energy wash into him, cleansing his body and soul and expanding his meridians. Despite how relieving the energy felt, Noone couldn't help but think of Elder Azelle in sadness as the familiar feeling of the elder's aura surrounded him.

After a few minutes the density of the energy began to become painful. Like a bottle filled to the brim, the power in Noone's body grew to a point where even his reinforced meridians and core could not maintain themselves, and soon the power began to seep out of Noone through his pores.

The energy coated his spirit, his life force, his mind. Everything began to bleed into each other and Noone felt his awareness waver and melt.

Noone was overwhelmed with strength and energy. The power that seeped into him was pure and seemed even more otherworldly, as though attached to something ancient. Noone could vaguely sense it, surrounding him.

He reached out with his mind, attempting to make contact with the force he was feeling. With an abrupt s.h.i.+ft - for just a moment - the energy flowing through him allowed him to make contact with the forces at play.

Like an endless void, the power he touched violently pulled at his consciousness - absorbing his consciousness and his awareness before condensing down into Noone's body.

Like a vacuum, Noone's body forced the energy inside of his br.i.m.m.i.n.g core. The flame of life within attempted to burn and suffuse the force through his body.

Like some law of the universe, something unknown inside of Noone began to resonate, ringing out like a church bell. A loud rumble began to form within Noone's core shaking and resonating into his meridians. It continued to expand without stop, breaking through his meridians and into his veins. From his veins into his flesh - then extending out from him.

Once the resonation reached the outside of his body it increased speed, becoming a shocking wave of energy shooting out in all directions. Noone's consciousness which was absorbed by this force began to ride the wave extending out from his own body.

Within his ever-expanding sight, everything that came into contact with the resonating wave began to dismantle itself. Extending at the speed of lightning Noone watched in shock as his awareness stretched out of him. He saw everything within a few feet of his body. He saw himself, sitting in silence with his arms hung limply by his side.

He saw the graves, both new and old stretched out from him and the bones inside them. Rumbling filled the cave, stone began to shake and vibrate under the pressure extending from the forces exploding from his body. Every loose stone shook, every speck of dust was lifted into the air, the very nature of the cave walls themselves seemed to vibrate violently under the strange energy.

Noone's awareness continued to ride this wave of energy as it expanded further, dismantling the very s.p.a.ce it contacted into strange cosmic blueprints that caused Noone's mind to tremble. Everything was being revealed to him.

Iron rich blood flowed from his eyes and ears.
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At the edge of his expanding consciousness, Noone could feel some kind of wall very far away, of which he was at the center. No… not a wall, but a barrier. It was the barrier put in place by The Ancestor to protect Tapestry.

Soon, everything that existed within the barrier was injected into his awareness. He saw everything.

He saw the ruined city of Tapestry. He saw the forge in its dismantled state. He saw into every crevice of every corner of the mines. He saw stores and stores of food and element stone and building materials in the warehouses. He saw the library in an impossibly dusty state.

He saw into the elder's hall, and the cavern behind it that Adria had used to ascend to the surface.

The barrier even stretched up to the surface, spanning a huge diameter in a spherical plane.

Noone was preparing his mind for his first ever view of the desolate world above. He wanted to know what was up there. He wanted to see if maybe there was some kind of hope above.

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine. Despite feeling omniscient and invincible in this moment, every iota of his being was screaming in fear. It penetrated through the strange euphoria that had overcome him.

Worse than anything he felt before. Worse than the fear of death from the galaxy tree, worse than the silent attacks of the bird within the cloud. Worse than the moments he would come close to falling while climbing the cliff.

It felt like death.

Immediately he viewed his own body in shock, wondering what could cause him to feel so threatened.

Noone's entire being tensed and his mind shook at what he saw.

He was not alone.