Tick didn’t say anything, but he scrunched up his face in confusion, hoping the entity would change its mind. Whatever this ghostly visage was, why would it have chosen him of all people to appear to? Tick wanted to know the answer to that question very badly, but he forced himself to remain silent and listen intently as the Haunce continued speaking.
“We come to you now because enormous and catastrophic disturbances have shattered the barriers of the Realities. We know this because we are part of the barriers, interwoven into the Chi’karda that has served to bind the Realities together and build the wall to keep them apart. If we had not acted quickly, we might have been destroyed and the memories of billions upon billions of lives would have been obliterated. But we escaped before the worst of it happened.”
The Haunce paused, flashing three different faces before a weary-eyed man with a short-cropped beard appeared and spoke. “We never would have thought it possible that someone could harness, much less control, the dark matter as the woman named Mistress Jane has done. Even we do not understand its properties to the fullest. And yet, she has unleashed it, annihilating the bonds between the Realities and sending them to drift apart from one another. What she does not understand is that soon the fragmenting will begin. In every Reality. A human body cannot survive when separated into pieces; the Realities are no different. What she has done will lead to the end of everything as we know it. The end of existence.”
Tick felt a leprous lump growing in his belly. Although he didn’t understand the nitty-gritty details, not to mention any of the logistics or complex science of what the Haunce was describing, he was smart enough to connect the dots. Mistress Jane had said from the start that she was going to sever the Fifth Reality and destroy it. From what the Haunce had just said, Tick suspected Jane must have accidentally enacted her diabolical plan on every last Reality.
And then Tick had another thought, perhaps the worst thought to ever cross the pathways of his mind. What if he had done this? What if his little exercise in throwing a trickle of Chi’karda into the black tree, into the dark matter that made up the Blade of Shattered Hope, had somehow disrupted Jane’s plan? What if, by trying to help, he’d made it worse—infinitely worse? His more rational side had told him he wasn’t ready to try something so foolish. Why hadn’t he listened?
The lump inside him grew, filling his body with acid. He’d spent the last few months trying to ensure he never repeated anything like what he’d done in Chu’s mountain palace. But if he’d just helped destroy every last Reality, that made the fiasco with Chu’s Dark Infinity and Mistress Jane look like a food fight. Panic and worry consumed him.
“Atticus,” the Haunce said. “We can feel your thoughts. We can feel your mind and see this dark path which you choose to walk. You must stop. Immediately. You do not understand even the slightest parcel of the whole.”
Tick was staring at the floor. He didn’t remember looking away from the Haunce, but he returned his gaze to the glowing entity at its words. He sensed some hope, maybe some redemption, in what it had said.
A young woman stared back at him, her face full of compassion. Tick wished desperately she could stay, that her face not change. But a few seconds later it slipped into an older man, the kind look not as reassuring on him.
“We are soulikens, Atticus,” the Haunce said. “Do you know what that means?”
Tick shook his head.
“We sense in your memories that you have recently come to understand the heart of the human body and how the power of electricity is vital to its life-giving properties. Without electricity, the heart would not pump. If the heart did not pump, blood would not flow. And if the blood did not flow, there would be no life.”
Tick nodded, surprised by this turn in the conversation, but intrigued.
“Most people do not understand that electricity is a natural phenomenon,” the Haunce continued. “Much of its uses are unknown and immeasurable to scientists. Similar to how Chi’karda is not understood by most quantum physicists in the Realities, except for those who have joined ranks with the Realitants. Electricity is the key. Electronic pulses. Electronic imprints. They intertwine with almost every function of your mind and body, creating permanent stamps in the fabric of Reality—of time and space—that represent the person from whence they came.”
The Haunce paused, and Tick realized if he moved one more inch forward, he’d fall out of his chair. After an interminable few seconds, the glowing pool of faces continued.
“That is what soulikens are, Atticus. They are your imprints on the universe, and they can never be erased. They pool together every second of your life, collecting and gathering and forming into something that is undeniably as much you as . . . you. That is what we are. We are the soulikens of billions of people, a bank of memories and thoughts and feelings. We give life to the spaces between the atoms and neutrons and electrons. We give life to the universe of quantum physics. We give life to Chi’karda.”