4th of Ash, Year 4621
It was that dream again. The desert, out in the distance, being overlooked by him and another man as they stared out over the balcony of a great, onyx-colored tower. Given the events of the night before, he almost would have assumed that the man beside him was Carlos... but no, as always, his face was indistinguishable. He rarely ever spoke, but when he did... it was always some sort of question. Like he was Jack's better voice; that of reason, of sense, of truth.
"So this is my mindscape, huh...?" he pondered to himself. He had Voyaged into it not long ago. Most of his experience with Remnant had been diving through his own mind, or Dreamdiving as it was called. This place... it was deeply familiar to him now, and recently, it had stopped changing as much as it did before. There used to be all of these strange valleys out in the distance, places filled with revelry, doubt or fear; now, it was just these dunes, these towers, and a great spire out in the distance.
It looked like the Free Access Tower... but it wasn't that. It was taller, more imposing. Utterly black, like this one, and forged out of these almost organic-looking cords. Cords that careened out into everything; they threaded through the sands, burrowing deep beneath them, sometimes revealed as the dunes shifted via the wind. He imagined himself, sometimes, staring down below from atop that spire's great height. Looking out into everything, ready to fall. Held back by nothing but the fear of expectation, of what uncertain, painful fate awaited him below.
"I'm goin' to die in this place," he whispered. "This mind... it's goin' to be my tomb. How long'll it be until I'm jerkin' around, not breathin'? Seasons... months? Gonna go faster than my old man."
"There's another option," whispered that man, shadowy and uncertain in color. He noticed some time ago that he couldn't even look up at him -- every time he tried to view his face, his vision would snap over to some other thing. Never the place he wanted to look. "You can fix your mind, Jacques. You even know how."
"How?" he frowned.
"Move beyond it all. Look to the path in the distance."
Jack's eyes cast down, out towards the foot of the tower... the sands at its base, the people on their knees, begging at the gate to be allowed inside. What was this place; what were these places? Pylons, stretching out towards the sky? How did he know that? What even was a 'Pylon', after all?
"I...I'm..."
He began to cry. Shameful. Biting his lower lip, he covered his eyes with his palm, keeping his head lowered as his nostrils flared, sniveled and sniffled, the lower lids of his eyes wet with tears. He wiped any off before it could stream down his cheeks.
"I'm my own person. I don' wanna give that up and become somethin' else."
"You wouldn't," the man said quietly, approaching him and placing a hand against his shoulder. It felt... intense. Not cold or warm, or even physical. The touch itself was psychological. It stimulated his mind. "You would become something more, Jack. A man powerful enough to lead your own future. A mind great enough to cull those impurities, to live in a state of total awareness and control."
