The Warlock ran the edge of the khukuri against the skin of the cactus with capable precision as the protective outer layer peeled off the succulent meat underneath. Once complete, he admired his work for a moment and then stuck his tongue out and touched it to the raw cactus flesh, wincing at the bitterness. He then crammed it down into the meat grinder and turned the crank, grinding it into mushy green noodles that spit out into a glass jar. He screwed on the strainer and pushed down with all of his body weight. The cactus pulp mushed into a disc at the bottom of the jar as the juice filtered through the fine mesh and into the main compartment. Once it was pushed down as tightly as he could manage he brought it up to his nose and took a whiff. Blech.

The Warlock shook the jar, then tilted it sideways to see its viscosity. It was a little thicker and more syrupy than he’d have liked. What can you do?

“Bottoms up” he said to no one in particular. He brought the jar to his lips and sipped the cactus juice as quickly as the thick green mucous could be sipped, interrupted occasionally by gagging as the already swallowed cactus threatened to come up.

Once the jar was mostly emptied, he wiped his mouth and set it down. Scratching his beard, he looked at the remaining cacti growing in small pots lining the wall. His introduction of bees to the greenhouse had been successful and this shelf held ones he grew from seeds. True Egg natives. He was very proud.

Why he decided to eat one can only be answered by his persistent fantasy of the cacti’s roots extending through the shelf and the floor, through impossible gaps in the sealed iron egg and into the endless black where they suckled at the void, smuggling a strange sort of nothingness past the shell and into the heart of what was left of the universe.

Maybe drinking will make him sick to his stomach.

Maybe drinking will induce him into a deep sleep. Maybe the deepest sleep one can have. Unwaking.

Maybe drinking from the void will give him an innate understanding of its nature, an understanding unattainable by any other path.

or maybe nothing will happen.

A waste of time. Cactus juice. Ha.

–

It was a while later, he had given up on the cactus and wandered off to check on his bee hives when he heard an odd sound.

He was suspicious and dismissive at first but then it happened again, clear as day.

knock knock

He followed the sound. It continued, slow and repetitious, leading him until he found where it was coming from.

He had reached the innermost end of the greenhouse. The wall. The eggshell.

It was coming from outside the egg.

“No fucking way.” The Warlock chuckled. This wasn’t exactly his first alien plant induced rodeo. He’s eons old after all, he used to be a God! They all ate mushrooms constantly in the 27th dimension. He put his hand on the true iron shell wall.

Knock Knock

That time he felt it. He felt the vibration. He felt the impact of something from the other side. It was as real as…

What the fuck was that?

A deep and unsettling fear took hold of his heart. What the absolute fuck could be out there? The void had swallowed everything, the Egg was submerged in endless nothingness. When reality collapsed completely, there were no other survivors. How could there be? It had to be something else.

The Warlock’s paranoid and panic stricken mind immediately imagined a creature, a creature emerging from the depths of the void to tap at the egg.

Maybe it was the Cyrocade, ready for its last, final meal. Eating the universe wasn’t enough, he wanted dessert.

But once his composure returned he noticed something different about the sound when he listened, really listened. The knocks did not seem aggressive. They seemed almost… lonely.

It was trying to communicate!

He pulled his head back with surprise and pondered for a moment. Then he knocked back.

A rapport was quickly developed.

Whatever was on the other side was playful. Intelligent. It repeated complex patterns, it understood cadence and pauses, sophisticated mimicry and asymmetrical variations. The Warlock quickly began to develop a sort of language for them to use. Names to name things. It was a quick study and intuitively picked up and was able to riff off his flow.

A conversation began.

Introductions were made.

She did not know what she was. She had been alone in the void for a long time. The cadence of knocks she used in an attempt to communicate the number had to be halted, he got the point. For as long as she could remember she swam through the void searching for something else, anyone else. Anything else. But the void was endless and nothing ever appeared and she lost her mind and gave up and had given up so so long ago and then… there it was.

She could not believe it.

She forgot what perceiving anything out of herself was like, it was such a strange sensation. She had seen many mirages on her journey, her mind would rebel, conjuring mad illusions to break the monotony. But seeing something, for real? It took her a minute.

She reached out and touched the surface. Feeling something against her skin for the first time felt like a miracle, exquisite, unbearable. Real.

She placed her hand against the side and wept. Wept for untold time, with joy, with relief, with confusion and madness. The endless space around her shrunk to that single point of contact.

The story abruptly stopped. The knocks stopped coming through the wall.

“Where did you go?” he knocked.

He waited for a response but none came. He knocked frantically, pounding on the wall. He waited, knocking on the wall every 5 minutes. He waited for what seemed like hours for her to come back. Was she gone? Had she ever been there? Stupid cactus juice.

knock knock

“There you are” he knocked, relieved. “What happened?”

“I took my hand off the egg for a moment and it fell away and sank before I could follow, I swam after it but its inertia had taken it so far so quickly. I thought I had lost it forever.”

“I waited.” he knocked in return.

“I feel like this is a dream.” she knocked back.

“Maybe it is, but who’s? Mine? Yours?” he responded.

“Mine. I will remember this often when I am lost again.”

The knocking stopped again.

He waited.

This time it did not return.

His breath stopped at the thought of this creature alone and lost in the void again. Endlessly yearning. The Warlock stayed listening until he drifted off to sleep leaning against the eggshell.

–

The cold water came in a torrent as one of the Odd Little Men dumped a bucket over the Warlock’s head. In some kind of drunken stupor (the Warlock was prone to these) he had found his way into air recycling ventilation system and fallen asleep against an inconveniently placed valve lever. Complaints on decks 13-17 were coming in fast through pneumatic tubes to the dispatch, the lack of pressure was causing an intermittent knocking sound in the vents. Very annoying, people are trying to sleep!

As the Warlock rubbed his eyes trying to figure out where he was, the Odd Little Man reached down, pulled the valve up, causing the air flow to return. Judging his work complete, The odd little man saluted the Warlock and vanished into a porthole.

The Warlock stared forward in thought. After a moment, he shook his head with a dismissive smirk, knocking his knuckles against the metal panel.

knock knock