Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol) (4 page)

After a while, the light arrives in the middle of the Springtreegrove, hovers above the ground for a moment and then splits into four. The four smaller lights twirl on the spot for a moment and then disappear into the crowd. One of the lights flies past our tree into the second row of trees behind us. I turn my head around and see how it stops in front of a middle-aged man. The people around him start cheering and he happily follows the light back into the center of the Springtreegrove. The other three lights fly back into the center as well, each followed by one person.

“The Spring has made its choice," Cosmo explains. "Here are the four nominees for this cycle: Leila, Vera, Skyler and Maya.”

Maya? It is getting dark now and it’s difficult to see their faces but then I realize that it is my Maya. She and the other nominees look extremely happy and congratulate each other by pressing their foreheads together. Then they walk towards Cosmo and sit down in the grass behind him.

The four lights morph back into one and the four nominees leave the center while four other people behind Cosmo stand up and walk towards the light. They look quite nervous as the light circles around the four. Then it stops next to one of them and the other three leave. Now the selected person, a woman, stands all by herself in the center and gets emotional. She looks around the Springtreegrove and sheds a few tears. The still standing crowd bows to her. So I just do the same. The woman waves and then walks towards a path between Cosmo and us that leads downwards. When she walks past us, I notice how the light of The Spring is flowing in and out of her chest. She is very moved but looks dignified at the same time. The light gives her a certain authority. When she reaches the path, Cosmo follows her along with the new nominees and everyone else. Aziz and I are one of the last to make our way down the path that leads to an overcrowded cove. No one is saying a word. The woman with the light is standing closest to the ocean, looking towards The Spring in the distance. She turns around, smiles and everyone bows again. Then she turns back towards The Spring and walks into the ocean. At least that’s what I assume for a moment. But as she walks further into the ocean, she doesn’t disappear in it. She is literally walking on water.

The crowd stands there for quite some time until her outline disappears in the darkness of the night and only the light inside of her remains visible. As we make our way back up to the Springtreegrove, a few people start talking to each other quietly. I eavesdrop and learn that this is how The Spring summons its Creators and that Cosmo's Islands is only one of many places where people can get nominated. So today, on Springday, The Spring summons new Creators from all over Persadia.

When we arrive at the grove, it has completely changed. There is music playing under the Springtrees and a confusing but mouth-watering blend of smells lingers in the air. I smell fresh bread, cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, tomatoes, olives, oregano, roasted peanuts, strawberries, pineapple, honey and much, much more. It’s almost too much. However, I now realize how hungry I am.

Glowing Stones of all colors illuminate the grove. Most are tiny and rest in midair around the grove, some are hidden in the branches of the trees and there is a big pile in the previously empty center of the grove
, which might be an attempt to replicate the look of The Spring - but that’s up for debate.

The atmosphere has completely changed as well. Gone are the seriousness
and anticipation that accompanied The Vow, the nomination, and the farewell of the newly selected Creator. They are replaced by ease and amusement now. People are happy and energized.

Aziz and I go back to our tree which is illuminated with big red Glowing Stones. The previously mostly empty area under the branches of our tree is overcrowded by now. Even though
it is night by now, it is much hotter under our tree than before. People pick fruits from the branches and barbecue the fruits on the dangerously hot Glowing Stones. We squeeze ourselves through the crowd, looking for Maya and Ravi. At one point, I step on a small plant that grows under the tree and an unbearably high squeal stops all conversation and music under the tree. I look down and take my foot off the plant. The plant straightens itself up and the music continues. The music is actually coming out of the plants on the ground. What? I want to inspect the plant but more and more people are pushing me to move along.

We eventually find Maya and Ravi standing around one of the big, red hot Glowing Stones. But they are not alone. There is another young man standing next to Ravi.

“There you are! We were about to start dinner without you,” the man says.

“No Vijay, you were. Maya and I have manners,” Ravi says seriously.

Vijay isn’t offended by Ravi’s comment and takes a big bite out of one of the fruits. I do the same. The crunchy crust hides a blend of cheese, tomato, pepper, olives, and basil under the fresh bread. It is so hot. And so good.

“So this is a big day for you, Maya. Congratulations!” Aziz says.

“Thank you,” she says and takes a deep breath. “This is going to be an exciting cycle.”

“I am most certain that you will be summoned by The Spring. The other three nominees don’t stand a chance against you,” Ravi says and strokes her back.
Less touching, please.

“It will be a competitive campaign
, and I already know who will be one of next cycle’s nominees,” she says and winks at Ravi.

“Oh, Maya, you are too generous but I’m not getting my hopes up. There really is no one as skilled as you. You really are a class of your own,” Ravi responds.

I may vomit.

“Getting summoned by The Spring and becoming a Creator is why we are all here. So we might as well admit it,” I say with completely unjustified confidence. A moment of silence follows in which I can’t believe that those words came out of my mouth. I
didn’t even know what they really meant but I couldn't stop myself from getting back at Ravi.

“Not everyone,” a girl close-by disagrees. She isn’t part of our group and so her remark seems rude to me. But she goes on.

“Some realize that the effort is too great and the sacrifices are too many,” she says, turns towards Ravi, and adds, “a bore like you, of course, wouldn’t understand."

Strike! Oh, I like her. She gets me. I have to laugh a little and then Ravi’s eyes and mine cross.
The girl is enjoying herself.

“Ugh. Pax, all one needs is perseverance. If one has the stamina of a human, one ought to be darkened like a human,” Ravi lectures her.

“No one should get punished for being true to themselves,” Pax argues. Ravi opens his mouth but when he notices Maya’s suddenly hardened face, he decides to not comment on Pax’s statement. So Pax continues.

“A
human’s essence and a navee’s essence are entirely different. Humans and navees have entirely different needs,” she explains.

“Unnecessary to state the obvious,” Ravi snaps.

“Well, then no one can blame them for satisfying their needs. Just like no one blames navees for satisfying theirs,” Pax argues. "It's best to simply be who one is, regardless of how that is perceived by others."

"One is on Persadia to evolve one's essence and become something else entirely," Ravi says.

"And how can one change?" Pax asks.

"One's essence can be changed by having the 'right' experiences," he states. "Besides, as one would expect, you are missing the point. Humans simply do not belong here. Persadia is for navees only.” Ravi claims.

“Then maybe it would be best to let Chasteners invade every single mind on Persadia and let them search for all the secret Bellybutton Erasure memories that humans hide from the public. Maybe one big, final cleanse is needed,” Pax suggests.

“One needs to start at the root of the problem, the Springworkers. They are the ones who don’t report human invaders to the Chasteners and instead help them erase their bellybuttons,” Ravi counters. My heart rate shoots up immediately and I start sweating. What Ravi described is basically what Victor
had done to me. So I’m one of the invaders. Who else knows about my secret? Does Xerxes know?

“What do you think?” Pax asks me.

I don’t want to answer that. But the longer I wait, the more suspicious I seem.

“I don’t know,” I answer with as much confidence as I can muster
, but I’m not very convincing.

“You must have an opinion after Xerxes welcomed you with a punch into your guts,” Pax says.

“Xerxes is our highly esteemed chief Chastener. You are fantasizing, again,” Ravi says.

“Am I?” Pax asks me. For an instant I want to signal her that this did happen, but then I remember The Vow and decide to ignore the question. She stares at me for a long moment, like I've disappointed her deeply. Then she leaves. 

We stay up very late that night. The mood in the group improves significantly once Pax is gone and I really start to like the people.

Aziz is the most genuine of the four. He doesn’t talk much but when he does his comments are balanced and considerate.

Vijay is by far the most likable of the group. He is a bit of a goofball but he lets you see straight into his heart. I want us to become friends. When Vijay first tells me that Ravi and he are twins, I laugh it off as one of his more bizarre remarks. But he persists until I see it. Their faces are almost identical. And yet Ravi’s attitude is so remarkably different
, worse, to be precise, and Vijay is much more built than his brother that I didn’t notice what should have been obvious.

Ravi and I, on the other hand, will not become friends. He is frighteningly intelligent. And while he regularly constructs sentences that demand repeated hearing, he can use words to inflict more pain than any punch in the stomach ever could. He makes no effort to ease the pain with a smile or hints of insincere irony
. He is very true to himself in that way. But he can also be pleasant if he chooses to. Unfortunately, he rarely does. If he chooses to, though, he is usually talking to Maya. He likes her. A lot. And while her nomination seems to have boosted her apparently already huge reputation in a big way, there is so much hesitation in her infrequent interaction with our group that it makes her appear insecure.

As the five of us start to mingle with the crowd, I notice how everyone knows and likes Vijay. His brother, however, does not
seem interested in socializing. He mostly observes how countless people come up to Maya and congratulate her. She thanks the people, says how happy she is, points out the extraordinary skills of her fellow nominees, claims that her summoning  is not a given yet — although most people do — and that she looks forward to working with them on 'Element Islands'. She gives a version of the same statement about a hundred times during the night. This whole nomination thing seems a bit ridiculous to me especially because no one can really explain to me what a Creator is or what they do since no one who has been summoned by The Spring has ever returned. But to Maya, this is a big, big accomplishment. I’m happy for her but considering the consequences her summoning would have, I’m not happy for us.

Cosmo, however, is nowhere to be found. On the one hand, I feel like I deserve an explanation for his seemingly random decision to select me. On the other hand I almost don’t want give him an opportunity to realize what a big mistake he has made.

At one point in the night, I bump into Aleeya and I share my thoughts with her. She assures me that from time to time Cosmo makes those kinds of decisions and I should not expect him to explain himself to me. I ask her why she thinks he was so mad all of the sudden when she introduced me to him. She smiles and says, “No one understands his eccentric behavior.” I like that she isn’t as taken with him as everyone else seems to be.

I don’t know anyone at first but Vijay introduces me to dozens of people and most of them are up for a little chat. Vijay is really into eating and so he makes me tour most of the Springtrees
to try their fruits. As it turns out, one new Springtree is planted each cycle for that cycle’s selectees and they don’t just look unique, their fruits also taste unique. During the course of the night I have quite a few dinners - salty, spicy, sweet, hot and cold. All the food will definitely help me to 'maintain the happiness of my essence', but it will definitely not help me to maintain my shape.

The next morning signals the beginning of my normal life. Persadia-normal is probably more accurate. It starts very early with an overexcited Maya standing next to my bed and friendly but very persistently asking me to get up. I look around and have to realize that most learners on my level of the dorm are still asleep. Aziz is one of them. Lucky duck. I wish Ravi was my tutor. No, of course I don’t. And the mere thought of this gets me out of bed immediately.

We walk past dozens of large, wobbly Glowing Stones with sleeping learners on them. The term 'stone' is a bit misleading but like other hard Glowing Stones, they are translucent and emit light. So I can see why they use that term. And they are wildly comfortable due to the warmth they radiate.

When we reach the ramp that spirals from the ground past the five floors all the way up to the top of the rock that accommodates the dorm for the learners, I realize that the sun has barely begun its ascent. The sky is orange-blue and the stars and moons are still visible. Maya, was that really necessary? But she is so excited about our plans for today that I decide not to complain.

We walk down the ramp and leave the dorm. It’s a warm morning with a light breeze coming from the ocean. Cosmo’s statue dominates the scene since it's the only source of light around. The dorm is on Central Island which also includes the dunes and the beach to our left. The Springtreegrove is on the opposite site of the dorm and Cosmo Hill and a temple are to our right. The space inbetween is empty and according to Maya, it is only used for special occasions.

We pass the temple and turn
right behind Cosmo Hill. A narrow land bridge connects Central Island with the smaller, rocky Maze Island. It's home to the Department of Essence-Body Connectivity which is where Maya and I need to go.

Several tall sandstones form Maze Island which is devoid of vegetation. We enter the island through a crack between two huge sandstones and find ourselves in a narrow but very deep and high tunnel. The large sandstones almost form some sort of cave system but once in a while I can see the sky above us that dimly lights up the spaces. The walls are very uneven and the different thin layers of the sandstones are clearly visible. I let my hand slide along the rough walls and feel how sand trickles to the ground wherever my fingers touch the stones. The ground is covered in warm, cozy sand and swallows every step of our feet. It's very quiet. The only sound I can hear is our breathing.

Maya leads me through the maze of narrow tunnels past several bigger caves into a large, circular space. It's empty and I wonder why our little trip was necessary, but then I see the young woman from last night.

“I was waiting for you,” Pax says to me.

“We are looking for the head of the department,” Maya tells her.

“Sookee asked me to fill in for her today,” Pax explains.

“We will need someone with a lot of experience. Moho needs an introduction to CEBOS.”

“I think I’m more than qualified. Plus, we have a nominee among us. What could go wrong?” Pax asks and smiles confidently. She knows how to flatter Maya who eventually agrees.

“Sorry, but what is CEBOS?” I ask since no one feels the need to explain it to me.

“Cosmos Essence Body Operating System. The department developed it as a way to visualize the place where your essence and body connect
— your mind,” Pax explains.

Most questions I ask don’t get the explaining answer they deserve.

“It’s quite an accomplishment of mental engineering,” Maya assures me. She is very excited. “Let’s gets started.”

My eyes close instantly. The black fades to white and I feel my body
slowly being pushed into a spongy surface. When I open my eyes, I look into a beige, heavily pored mesh. I turn my head away from the thick, uneven mesh and realize that I’m lying on the floor. I stand up and notice how the mesh gives in a little wherever my hands push against it.

The space I find myself in is enormous
. It is easily fifteen or twenty times my height, twice as wide, and so long that I cannot see the end of it. The mesh on the floor runs all the way to the sides of the space, up the walls and ends in the brightly glowing ceiling. Despite the vastness of the space, it looks comfy and very inviting.

I stand in the corner at one end of the space and there are two holes in the wall on my end where two streams of viscous liquid burst out of. I walk up to the stream closest to me and stick my hand in it. The liquid feels cold on my skin but when I pull out my hand, it's completely dry. At the point where the two streams unite, they form big bubbles which then move further into the space to make room for new bubbles. I stop in front of the bubble that is forming right now and observe how it spins around itself. It quickly grows larger and larger as more and more liquid of the two streams flows into it. The bubble is now about twice my height.

Suddenly Pax’s huge face appears in the bubble. She looks right at me and starts talking to me. Then Maya appears and starts talking to Pax. The two go back and forth until they both look straight at me without saying anything. Then Pax talks to me, then to Maya. In the end the bubble turns black and the scene restarts. I didn’t hear a word they were saying but it did look oddly familiar. The bubble detaches itself from the two streams and moves further into the space. It depicts the short conversation we had with Pax a moment ago. So it shows what I have already seen… like a memory… it’s a Memorybubble! What? Wow… I can witness how my mind forms memories. Is this really happening? As I'm trying to process what I'm seeing, I notice a prickling feeling in one half of my body. That’s it, I think. This here, the Islands, the whole world of Persadia here is too much for me. I’m having a stroke.

Then someone bumps into me and continues walking straight towards the Memorybubble.

“Hey!” I yell, but the figure doesn’t notice me. When it reaches the Memorybubble showing Pax and Maya, it walks right into it and disappears.

“Don’t be so harsh on yourself,” the amused voice of Pax says - but the Pax in the Memorybubble isn’t talking. Now I’m hearing voices…

“Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?” Another female voice says. More voices. I’m losing my mind. And I’m in my mind. Maybe I have lost it a while ago.

As I’m contemplating my mental and physical health, Pax and Maya show up next to me. That explains the voices. But then the prickling feeling emerges again. Another figure bumps into me, ignores me
, and continues walking towards the Memorybubble. This time I don’t let it slip and I go after the figure to confront it. When I look into the face, an ice-cold tingle runs down my spine. It’s me. I’m looking at myself. Or some monochrome version of myself. Its facial muscles are tense, its mouth and eyes wide open. I wave in the face of my double but it doesn’t notice me, walks through my waving arm, which sends another shiver down my spine, before it disappears into the Memorybubble. When it walks through my waving arm, I feel the prickling I felt earlier. Good. So I’m not having a stroke.

“That is an Emotionclone. It’s your emotion, basically. Emotionclones influence the memories you make, depending on how you feel in that moment,” Pax explains.

"It feels very odd when it touches my skin," I tell her.

"I know. Emotionclones are mostly electricity," Pax says.

"But it doesn't feel like electricity," I argue. "You should touch one. It feels quite extraordinary."

"That would be a very foolish thing to do. We are in your mind and those are your Emotionclones. Therefore, when Maya or I run into one of your Emotionclones, our own mind will suffer serious mental damages."

When she says that, the Memorystreams that are bursting out of the wall grow even bigger and form a new, larger bubble, about five times my height. I turn around to Pax and Maya who are amused by my amazement.

“From the constantly growing size of your Memorystream I take you consider this experience here very significant?” Pax chuckles.

“You bet…” I respond while an ever increasing number of awe-inspired Emotionclones appear out of the wall behind us and walk into the newly forming Memorybubble. When the Emotionclones reach the Memorybubble that depicts the moment that has just passed, the one where I understand how the forming of my memories works, the Memorybubble lightens up for a moment and the Emotionclones melt into the Memorybubble.

I follow the line of new Memorybubbles further into the space. There are small Memorybubbles between the bigger ones that contain short and insignificant moments like Maya and I walking through the dorm this morning or the two of us crossing the land bridge between Central Island and Maze Island. Those small Memorybubbles don’t just move further into the space, they also move downward through the mesh. Some of them have almost entirely vanished. I wonder where exactly the Memorybubbles are disappearing
to and get on my knees to inspect the floor.

“Where are those Memorybubbles falling into?” I ask the two.

“The dark area of your mind: your subconscious. Well, actually most people don’t even consider it part of the mind but rather a part of the brain,” Maya explains.

I press one half of my face against the mesh and peak through one of the bigger openings in the floor. Pax goes down on her knees as well and presses her head against the mesh.

“You won’t see anything down there. Your life has barely begun,” Maya says. She isn’t joining us. And she is almost right. It is mostly dark but the longer I stare into the darkness, the more convinced I become that there are little, shiny pieces glimmering in my subconscious. I look at Pax who is still inspecting the darkness. When she has seen enough, she gets up slowly and smiles to herself. I don’t like that. She looks at me and gives me this eery grin - she has seen it as well.

I stand up quickly and we walk further into the space. The Memorybubbles are arranged in one giant spiral that makes its way from the floor, to the walls, across the ceiling and back down the other wall to the floor. They are organized chronologically, so the further we walk into the space the, the further we walk into my past.

We pass Memorybubbles of different sizes, most of them larger than me. They show moments from the celebration last night, the summoning, and Maya’s nomination.

The closer we get to the wall, the harder it becomes to distinguish the wall from the floor. The transition is so smooth that Maya and Pax fail to realize that they are about to walk up the wall.

“Watch out!” I warn them and stop before I fall myself.

“Don’t worry. We can walk on the walls and the ceiling,” Maya says and literally starts walking up the wall. Pax follows her. The two are now almost walking vertically. I don't feel comfortable but I set one foot on the wall and it feels like the wall is the floor. There is absolutely no difference. It’s an amazing feeling. So we walk up the wall along the spiral of Memorybubbles. They show The Vow and Cosmo’s speech. And then we walk past a bubble that is significantly different from the other ones. It's the only red bubble, it's much larger and it's pulsating a little - it shows Xerxes and Aziz. Pax immediately stops when she sees the bubble. It’s not clear if Maya didn’t notice it but she simply walks past it.

“Come on, let’s check out this big memory,” Pax says to me and points towards the big bubble.

That is a terrible idea and I want to prevent it since I’m fully aware of what is going to happen at the end of that memory. But before I can stop her, she walks straight into the bubble and disappears. Maya, on the other hand, is wandering around the bubbles ahead of us. She probably isn't aware of what is happening. So I follow Pax into the huge bubble.

It’s possible to see most of the memory from outside of the bubble but the images are much clearer inside the Memorybubble. The memory plays almost in real time on something like a giant wall in the middle of the bubble. I look over to Pax and realize that we are much smaller compared to the Memorybubble than we are outside of it. Or the bubble is much bigger inside than it is on the outside and our size didn’t change. Either way, something is off. We are tiny compared to the huge images we are looking at. Pax is standing closer to the images while I'm observing her reaction from the back of the bubble.

We see how Xerxes squeezes himself between Aziz and us. I hear myself moaning in the memory and refeel the pain of his fist in my stomach. We now see a series of quick moments of black, then grass, black again, the sky and it ends with Aziz' feet. I hear myself gasping for air. My vision was still blurred at that time and so is my memory. When we look up, we see Xerxes standing next to Aziz. Both of them look at us with deep concern. Xerxes is still wearing his ridiculous bodysuit but this time I understand why not only his face is cut out but also the area where a bellybutton
would be — he wants everyone to know that he is not human. This reminds me that I wanted to check something since last night but I didn't have the opportunity yet. I make sure that Pax is still glued to my memory and Maya isn't looking at me. Then I pull up my shirt and look at my belly. No bellybutton! Victor must have erased it.

The image we are looking at starts vibrating now. Then it turns black several times. I remember how angry I became at this point. We hear heavy breathing while other sounds around us fade away.

“Are you okay, my friend?” Aziz asks us.