‘So what do we know?’ Simon thought to himself after he had calmed down. The voice had been silent since he had screamed at the heavens.

  This was most likely heaven, or hell… or an afterlife? It definitely wasn’t part of his brain, that was for sure. He knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

  Alien abduction? This voice was something outside of himself.

  It gave him a bit of comfort, knowing that his unknowing end, drooling on the floor of a basement, was likely off the table.

  The silence was a bit unnerving.

  “I can talk more if it would put you more at ease.”

  It also could read his thoughts. That felt gross. You saw these types of abilities in the movies and comics, but Simon had never considered how they would feel to the person being affected by them.

  He hated it.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot stop listening to your thoughts. Sorry”

  He hated it even more.

  Simon now stared angrily at the ceiling. Assuming that was where the voice was coming from, of course. What was it with strange voices making humans stare up towards the sky?

  He bet this guy… girl…? Thing? It was totally the reason that human trait was a thing.

  “I am not,” the voice stated.

  That's totally what someone responsible for such a trait would say.

  Stupid voice in the sky.

  Hate you.

  “You don’t have questions for me?”

  Simon stopped looking at the white void in the sky. He began to practice the meditation techniques he had learned so long ago.

  He must embrace the void. He would empty himself. Nothing would appear in his mind. He was empty, and the world was empty around him.

  He began to smile to himself. There was a zen to forgetting all else. Just don’t think of big pink elephants or some stupid thing, and let it all go.

  Simon stopped smiling.

  There was a big pink elephant in front of him.

  Determined, he shut his eyes. Fuck you voice.

  Now, the big pink elephant was inside his eyelids. This had to be one of the oddest things he had ever experienced. Like he had just done mushrooms, and no matter if he closed his eyes, all he could see were big pink elephants.

  “Does this make you happy?” Simon muttered angrily.

  “It is amusing for sure.”

  “Now I kind of wish I was in a coma. You suck.”

  “But not as much as...”

  “Don’t you dare. Thats my thing, not yours, you can fuck off to where ever you came from.”

  Simon said, snapping his eyes open.

  The big pink elephant was gone.

  Simon was shocked. He knew that the voice had just shrugged. How he knew that was even more infuriating than anything else, but he knew it.

  Resigning himself to his fate, Simon finally asked

  “Alright then. Since I can’t make you leave, and you seem to know what I am thinking and won’t leave me alone. Want to answer my first question?”

  After asking, Simon’s irritation grew as he could tell that the voice “felt” pleased by this. Before it could reply, he stated

  “Also, whatever you are doing with the feeling or crap, knock it off. I can’t tell you how weird it is to know how the voice in the sky is ‘feeling.’ ”

  A moment went by, and there was no emotional feedback in Simon’s head.

  “Better?”

  “Sure.”

  Another pause.

  “Aren’t you like a higher being or something? Why does it take you so long to respond?” Simon muttered.

  He was starting to get annoyed. Again.

  “In my experience, it’s better to wait to let emotions settle before continuing.” The voice stated confidently.

  “Who ever taught you that sucks”

  Silence.

  More anger from Simon.

  Continued silence.

  Extra rage from Simon.

  This went back and forth. Simon was distinctly aware that, whoever this being was, they were capable of hearing his thoughts, emotions, and pretty much everything. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much.

  His best guess was that most of his existence had been without some deity, creature, or thing watching over him. If he had to summarize most of his life in this context, it felt like the opposite was true.

  Shit just happened.

  Simon overcame the situation. More shit happened. Simon continued to overcome it.

  Most, if not everything he had, was from being independent and from his endevaors. This felt like his consideration with the military all over again.

  He hated the idea of having someone or something watching over his shoulder.

  Where were these beings when he was painfully recovering from his injuries?

  When he was struggling to pay rent and find a job that didn’t suck the life out of him?

  Where was the help when… the loneliness came and the world faded to grayscale?

  Damnit. This continued to suck.

  Oh. But hey!

  He could make it suck for the peeping tom… sally… whatever the peeper who was now very intimately aware of everything that made up Simon.

  Or at least his current thoughts.

  Simon grinned and then took up a lotus position. He hadn’t gotten into a lot of the yoga stuff, but it just felt good right now. This being would be aware he didn’t care about this but was doing it out of spite.

  That would work for him.

  The silence continued, and Simon focused. He knew one feeling or one thing that he could focus on that this being probably hadn’t experienced. The gray, that feeling of loneliness and emptiness.

  Let’s see who would talk first.

  What felt like hours drifted by.

  Turns out that voices in the sky could become impatient.

  “Simon, aren’t you the least bit curious as to where you are and what is going on?”

  Now it was Simon’s turn to be silent. He continued to focus on the gray void from his memories.

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  “While your defiance is cute, you can’t just withdraw permanently from reality. Things will continue to progress even if you choose to spurn my help.”

  Silence.

  “Reckless mortal,” The voice scoffed.

  Now, this was the moment Simon had been waiting for.

  “In my experience, it’s better to wait to let emotions settle before continuing,” He stated dryly.

  Simon could feel the emotional annoyance coming from the voice.

  Score one for the reckless mortal!

  Although this had gone on for long enough, Simon reasoned. No need to completely piss off the being that was currently the only thing Simon could talk to. Simon sighed and broke the next long silence.

  “Alright, maybe we got off on the wrong foot here. Wait. Do you have feet? I should probably be more generic when talking to you. But let’s do this right. My name is Simon. Simon Galfen.”

  After a brief pause, the voice replied.

  “Perhaps.”

  Pause.

  “I do and do not have feet. It’s a bit more complicated when it comes to beings such as me.”

  “Do and don’t? Now that’s just confusing. Do you have a name? What do you mean, a being such as you? What in the world are you?” Simon asked, now generally being curious.

  “My name is also complicated. But some call me The Lamp, The god of guidance, Glint, and dozens of other variations of that nature. Although I am more of a shadow of that god.” The voice replied.

  Simon thought for a moment. “Glint sounds the easiest to say. Hello Glint”

  The voice seemed to smile at his response.

  “Oh man. Glint, you have got to stop doing that. God thing, or whatever. It's really strange to have a feeling that just overwhelms your senses.” Simon said, frowning.

  Glint seemed to think about this for a moment before a glowing flame appeared in front of Simon, causing him to take a step back.

  It was a pale blue teardrop shape and let out a comforting, warm feeling. At the bottom of the teardrops, two large magical eyes appeared and stared at Simon.

  “How about this?” The apparent Glint spoke towards Simon.

  The voice of glint had ceased coming from every direction and now seemed to come from the floating flickering teardrop fire in front of him. Simon took a step to the right and then the left and then circled the flame. It rotated, watching Simon the entire time.

  “Well, it’s nice to see you, I guess. Now, can you do the same feeling you just bombarded me with?”

  Glints eyes raised and eyebrows seemed to come out of the flame. It looked… cute.

  “Better?” Glint’s voice flickered out.

  “Much better. Why didn’t you just show up like this to begin with?” Simon asked.

  “From my memories, some individuals have tried to, let's say.. Turn me off? The shock of being integrated into the system can cause some violent tendencies.”

  This made Simon pause and think. What was it that this little thing had said earlier?

  “Okay, so you said earlier that you were a shadow. Care to explain that? And integrating?”

  Glint's eyes seemed to ponder for a couple of moments, thinking about its response. This was so much better than a random voice in the sky.

  “A shadow of a god would be the right term. Some would call it an avatar or a subversion. Clone works as well, although that term implies I'm a copy of Glint. I am Glint, but I am also not. This is how most gods tend to deal with splitting their focus across multiple dimensions or tasks. This leads to your next question and the reason I am a piece. The integration. There is an entity that most call the System. It just reached into your universe and pulled it into the lattice. You may remember the moment this occurred before you ended up here.” Glint explained, pausing to look at Simon.

  He thought back to the beginning of this strange day.

  The ride to work, the pointless meeting where everyone explained how they were doing nothing but also so busy.

  The walk across the hospital to the depths, where he sat in the dimly lit room with the computer.

  Then the strange dinging sounds and the screen that had appeared.

  “Yes, that right there. That would be your first notification from the system.” Glint smiled as he invaded Simon’s thoughts.

  “Glint. Stop that. I know you said you can’t stop reading my thoughts, but maybe don’t respond to my internal dialogue, alright?” Simon chastised the strange flame.

  The sad puppy dog eyes Glint made were unfairly cute.

  “So that was the… System?” Simon asked

  “Yes.”

  “What was with the strange freeze that occurred? I couldn’t move, and the whole world seemed to stop,” Simon asked

  Glint’s eyes got a bit shifty as it slowly responded.

  “That… is a safety feature the system has adopted. I want to preface that anything regarding the system is mostly outside of my knowledge. I’m new to working with it in this aspect. The System itself is constantly evolving and growing even to this day. Some stories say that it used to just take a new realm into its lattice and just adapt everything within to its rules in a brief moment. This could have some… disastrous side effects. Your planet, Earth, for instance. It has propulsion vehicles, correct?”

  “You mean cars and planes?”

  “Right those! From the stories that have been told, early integrations had similar vehicles. When the system integrates a realm, some rules become… fuzzy. Additionally, people who are in charge of those vehicles tend to have difficulty steering when a system prompt appears”

  “Makes sense. So what is it then? The system.” Simon asked seriously.

  Glint stared for several moments, seeming to be lost in thought.

  “To be honest? No one fully knows. Maybe there are some beings that do. But I haven’t heard much. The System just is.”

  Simon let what Glint had just said sink in. It just is. There had to be much more there that Glint was glossing over, but as he looked at the large eyes of this strange god avatar, he felt like it was being honest with him.

  At least he had no way of proving it one way or the other.

  “So what is this area that we are in?” Simon said, changing the subject while gesturing to the white void around them.

  “This is an integration room. You were moved here while the System works on completing the integration of your realm.”

  This caused Simon to raise an eyebrow at the glowing teardrop.

  “You keep calling it my realm. You mean Earth?”

  “Yes, Earth is part of the realm. But no, the realm is the universe that your planet resides in. It's a bit of a simplification, but that is the best way I have found to explain it.”

  “So… the system teleported me here. That prompt made it sound like it was more than just me.”

  “Of course. Everything thinking being was moved into this holding realm until it finishes”

  “Finishes with…”

  “Integrating”

  Simon sighed, beginning to see a pattern. So far, Glint had been devoluging information freely. But he was starting to see a pattern that the little flame was doing.

  It was answering but also not answering.

  “I know you said not to respond to thoughts, but you are correct. I do have guidelines with what I can and cannot tell you. So far, we haven’t touched too much information I would not be able to share.”

  Simon nodded, appreciating the answer. But still annoyed.

  “Leads me to a follow-up question to that. Why can’t you tell me? Or can you tell me roughly what I shouldn’t ask?” Simon asked, looking deeply at the flame.

  “This is one of the peculiar things with the System. Most integrations are unique, but since it changes and evolves, it tends to try new things as it pulls in new realms. That is about the extent of what I can say.” Glint responded.

  “Alright, fine. Let's change topics. You said everyone is being held here; from what I see it’s just you and me.”

  “Correct”

  “So where is everyone else?”

  “Here.”

  Simon stared at the flame, scrunching up his eyes. The stupid fireball’s cute eyes looked like it was smiling back at him.

  Sighing, he continued.

  “Alright, so everyone is here but not here with me. I’m assuming you can’t tell me about anyone in particular.”

  “They are all safe.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, you can’t actually.”

  Simon rolled his eyes.

  “You seem to be in a better mood,” Simon said as he began to sit down, determined to get comfortable for a long string of questions. He was pleasantly surprised to see a chair of the white void that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  “Thanks”

  “You are welcome. and, of course, I’m doing my job now, and you seem to be adjusting,” Glint replied excitedly as it lowered itself and also pulled up a chair. Well, calling it a chair wouldn’t be correct. It could better be described as half of a lantern that the flame was now residing in.

  “Do we have long to talk? How long will we be waiting here?” Simon asked, leaning back in the extremely comfortable white chair. “Also, can I have this chair? Ten out of ten for comfort.”

  Glint smiled and said, “ Well, how much time we have is relative. Time during integration is best described as strange. No, you can’t have anything from here, sadly. I do agree, The integration rooms are made up of some of the most fascinating things in all of the realms.”

  That caught Simon’s interest. All of the realms plural?

  “How many realms are there?”

  “Many”

  “Care to elaborate? Simon asked.

  Glint smiled.

  Simon sighed. Once again, Glint was and wasn’t going to answer.

  This was going to be a long day.