After all of this yelling Zaros eventually started standing in the corner meditating as he was floating midair probably because of it being the dream universe.
Zaros, while still meditating, teleports next to Xenon and reports “you better come with me Xenon…”, and with no eyes open staring into Xenon’s soul talks through mine, “And Xersa… you do whatever the hell you want.”
I found this profoundly weird for Zaros, but I’ll take what I can get from him. I walked over to fortune and talked with him…
I whispered, “That Zaros guy can be a lot sometimes huh.” Hoping to God he doesn’t hear us…
Fortune talks normally instead of whispering, “yeah he can be, but I guess we need somebody to balance out our personalities… or I mean my personality. to be honest I’m glad that you got that the QLP and Alpha-Matrix key to say the very least, and I wanted to show you something cool. Do you want to go to the beach?”
I thought about this offer, “a dream universe beach?” I thought, “I mean beaches in our reality still are old fashioned as we need some place to be connected to nature, or in this case the ocean and the sand beside it… sometimes simpler is for the better even if not in our homes.”
I say to Fortune, “yes”, and before I can even respond more than that I get teleported to this beach… I use my dream powers to zoom in more and more but there seems to be no end.
I ask Fortune, “When will this beach end and go somewhere else?"
Fortune Responds in a cutesy tone, “Never.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I also asked Fortune then, “doesn’t time move 10 times faster here?”
Fortune responds, “It actually moves 1.25 times slower, although I’d prefer it to be at least 2 times… this is because we agreed to move to the beach and this isn’t the blank space as Gaia calls it.”
I sat down with fortune on the sand all around us… There looks like hotels and such behind us, but nobody else is in the hotels either and if the beach truly stretches forever then I wonder how the hotels go on forever if they all look slightly different… I think “Are the hotels just generated as we walk across the beach?”
I tell Fortune, “Gaia told me that you have 2 brothers, and together they were called the chronostasis shifters… Don't you miss them? I mean, if my brothers turned to stone or something I’d miss them too.”
Fortune unexpectedly tears up, “I do miss them Xersa! I miss them a lot… I-I just w-wish that we could be together again, for all this silliness that I show on the outside. I’m tired of this stupid emotional outlash, and part of me says I wouldn’t c-care if MY–whole universe– was just destroyed because our whole universe is only 3 people now broken, b-but— now you guys have joined and we have to stay alive…”
I was surprised by Fortune’s sadness; I could feel the weight of his emotions like rain suddenly pouring down on a shining bright day, but I didn’t want to comment on the sadness itself and make it worse.
I asked fortune, “What were your 2 brother's appearances like?”
Fortune calmed down, but still had a tear in his eye, and said “Well, are personalities really did basically match each other… Although, Clover had green hair and Charm had bright-golden hair, but rather than that we were exactly the same.”
We played on the beach for hours after that conversation, and it was some of the funnest moments of my life… but Fortune still had that bit of tears in his eyes for a little while until the very end. I think I made him feel better though so I was glad… After walking the endless beach, I returned to Blank Space and found Xenon working intently on a projected console, looking more human than machine.
I sat beside him. "So, what did Zaros demand? More impossible luck?"
Xenon didn't look up immediately. "He demanded precision. He lectured me for an hour on the mathematical improbability of your... fluke." He finally stopped working and his visor dimmed. "I saw the fire, Xersa. In the Dream. I felt the heat. I understand now why he is terrified."
I responded, "He's terrified, and now we're on the run. Our lives are over."
Xenon looked me directly in the eye. "Our lives on Earth 0 are over, yes. But I would trade the safety of a billion circuits for the truth I saw in that flash. We are fugitives, Xersa, but we are also the only ones who know what is real. I'm not leaving that behind."
