Somewhere at the edge of the Abyss, where time had not yet been created, but the Idea of Existence had.
There stood EddVlass, a man left behind… trapped in thought, a man who longed to be more: a man, a beast, a god, or simply… to be.
"I've finally arrived…!" he exclaimed, smiling with violet-black eyes full of sorrow, standing before a monastery, walking up a staircase spiraling into the abyss of the universe.
"I've reached the first Eden, the philosophy of Man, the perfection of life, untouched by sin or evil."
It was a place adrift in the desert of stars, a monastery so vast that even a human felt like a mere ant; no creature could fathom its scale. The monastery floated atop a colossal black hole, its fluid activity visibly swirling beneath.
Upon arriving, he stepped onto its soil for the first time. He noticed no trace of man or beast. Opening the grand doors, he found etched, root-like symbols spelling "Atman." Inside, everything around him could be seen as though the walls and ceiling were made of glass.
Wandering through the monastery, he found a single altar, and upon it, a simple book bearing the same name from the entrance: Atman.
"I've come so far… I can finally connect my life to the beyond." Inspired by poetry, stories, and the ideas of the world, he opened the door, and the very walls rippled like water, shaking as if they were made of fluid.
He opened the book. Rustles echoed around him. Meteor dust filled the air. Stars replaced candles, and from the book emerged a mask marked with the symbol of a Question. The voice came from within the book's words.
"Wear the mask, EddVlass, and be prepared to become the vessel of the Arcanas and the ideologue of the Zodiac, the man who discovers the madness of being human."
Thought halted. Doubt vanished. He no longer resisted. Placing the mask upon his face, existence became liquid. His thoughts, now fluid knowledge not his own, had to be carried for no one else should bear this nightmare.
"Exactly what I thought… this is reality," he laughed sarcastically. "There is no death or rather, no end to existence. It's only an echo… of something new beginning."
As he stepped outside, he saw the monastery's enormous clocks the most unorthodox he had ever seen.
The starlight soothed the ticking hands, and with a sigh, he whispered, "Time is Man's hourglass… we're chained by it from thinking beyond."
He had remained in that place for over nine years. Nearing the end of his Arcana, filled with so much knowledge, he could no longer be human only the fear of the unknown remained.
Coughing, swallowing his own saliva, he murmured, "Ha… Eternity again, is that what it means? Or is it just lucidity instead of life…"
And in that fragile moment, he collapsed, rolling down a hill.
Standing again, brushing dust off his black cloak, he muttered, "I have no race… and perhaps never did. To be human means to perish. I am merely a resolution of consciousness."
Tired of explaining himself, he sighed, "Let me tell you… my allegory!"
As he walked across the white sand hill, rasping and coughing, he spoke:
"Just like time had no beginning and didn't exist back then… there was only pure awareness that something was there."
"Where size means nothing, a simple apple might be minuscule before a consciousness that being the universe itself…? Molecules moving freely, atoms beyond sight, and endless galactic paths?"
He circled the monastery, finding a marble path, the color of lapis lazuli.
"Death is not just a concept. It's the point of STOP, where the blackness settles, and you might witness your entire past…!? It's our connection to those beyond, who were stripped of years and of that light…"
Following the path, he arrived at a graveyard, devoid of joy.
He stopped before a tombstone. Looking closely, he saw no name, no phrase, only one idea:
"Return to the first… (a pause)… pure awareness."
Emotions spilled from him. He removed his mask, marked with the Question. Looking at his violet-black eyes in the reflection, he wore a smile that didn't smile, it wept. His wrinkled shirt, still, as if oxygen were gone from the void's nothingness.
Laughter. Weeping. Louder. Louder…
And behind him, from beyond the graves, appeared a shadow, goat-horned.
It was him: Capricorn, the 12th Zodiac, the first and last line of the year.
"You've died many times, it seems… but at least you understood Death. But what about humanity?"
He answered without fear, unsurprised. "I understood the idea of dying… and the idea of being human."
Approaching his body, the Zodiac asked,
"And do you wish to go further, even if it means losing yourself along the way?"
"Of course… I want more. I cannot accept nonexistence when all beings exist and feel, whether child, animal, or monster."
Looking to the stars, the Zodiac asked,
"So you choose madness and entrapment over staying where you are?"
Turning to face the Zodiac a vast, dark entity with glowing blue eyes, he replied,
"I choose to walk until all that remains… are bones."
"And how free is your soul then?"
With no emotion in his heart, he answered,
"I don't even know…!"
Then Capricorn struck down the graves, shattering them, and said:
"Then give me your knowledge… and let's see where that leads you."
— A pause —
He looked at the Zodiac.
He blinked.
The Zodiac rammed him with its horns, stealing all that he knew, but not all that remained.
"You created something… Let's see how long it survives. Fill in the gaps with ideas, as penance…"
And it vanished.
He was left with nothing, only himself, and the sensation of knowing.
Too weary to go on, he chose to descend from those frames, into another reality, another fiction? Another phenomenon?
A place full of crosses: some fallen, some inverted, some chasing each other… or were they merely metaphors?
"You buried your ideas. You chose the masses. You chose lies. I could've been both but I chose to be silent."
Speaking to those crosses or was it creation itself speaking to him, or to us?
"Should I tell a motherly lie…? That the stork brings us when years later, we find the truth…"
Walking further, past those crosses under the light of ten Suns,
Where the ground is Einstein's equation,
He whispered,
"What would happen if we discovered what the first atom could've been… when I myself have touched it a thousand times…"
Nonchalantly, he spoke as if he were the greatest, the highest.
"Not even a god, huh?! I'm just angry…"
"You know there's no thing you can touch, smell, or feel. Only the idea of being… only the information that something was…!!"
Once more, he stumbled upon pages drawn, written frames of animation, fragments of reality,
Whether in my world or yours…
They amounted to just five minutes of our lives…
Leading into Chapter 2.
Echoes. Screams. Howls.
Blood flying. Forms transforming.
Starlight. Planetlight.
Light from newborn universes.
"Stop… These are just pure waves of imagination…!!??"