Work Text:
I see the player you mean.
Ghostbur looked up from his position on the edge of the platform, from were his legs dangled down to the tracks below. It didn’t matter if a train came, really, not when he was already dead. The LED display had started rolling text.
It hadn’t done that in years. So many years that Ghostbur lost all track of time. Well, he lost it at one point. All that he knew now was that the screen was displaying words again. It seemed like a private conversation; he wasn’t quite able to understand why he could read it.
Ghostbur?
That was his name- did they remember him? Were they thinking about him, even now? Gods, it had been such a long time since he heard anyone else.
He turned around, looking up at the display, his legs were crossed- if he had one, he would’ve curled up with a blanket. It was a shame, he thought, that his limbo was so devoid of comfort. The train station was still loud, despite him being the only person there.
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
They acknowledged him! Were they coming to find him? To take him back? Every day he thought about what it was like outside of limbo, and every day he wished to return. It was only fitting, though, for him to be stuck in this train station for eternity. He failed Tommy, he was within arm’s reach of Dream, and he still couldn’t kill him.
That doesn't matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
What was a game, when you were trapped, when you were alone?
What is loneliness if it is all you have known for centuries?
Ghostbur did not know. But- the lights on the screen were the closest thing to interacting with others he had had in a very long time, so he kept watching, kept reading.
I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.
His chest swelled with a mix of pride and desolation. Ghostbur didn’t know if he was the player, or if he was another piece in the game of chess someone else played. Wilbur was a player. But- what was Ghostbur, other than a shell of what his living self was?
Revival was a terrible process, but worst of all was the train ride, how he begged to stay, how he wanted nothing more than to stay with his friends, to help Tommy, but Ghostbur had no choice, he was going to be trapped in the train station, forever.
It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.
Why did they know their words were being shown to him on a screen? Did they want to see him? Who were they? The last time Ghostbur checked, nobody knew that he could see messages on the display.
That is how it chooses to imagine many things when it is deep in the dream of a game.
The only dream deeper than a game was the one he was in. Or at least, the one he wished this was. A dream he would wake up from at any moment, smothered in Friend’s soft wool, laughing with him as he stayed inside, protected from the storm that raged just beyond the glass.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
He nodded, agreeing with the person beyond his limbo. Text had always comforted him; they were nothing if not easier to understand than voices. They didn’t disappear when people completed their sentence. Voices were like the edges of reality, when written word was the one thing that would always remain.
They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on sticks powered by demons.
When Ghostbur closed his eyes, he could almost see what they were talking about, it reminded him of Philza, as he imagined people flying through the air, he could only see his father. He hoped Alivebur wasn’t giving Philza too much grief, Philza would be happy to have his son alive again.
What did this player dream?
Ghostbur already knew what he dreamed of. He dreamed of peace, of being able to sit in the sun with his family, feeling the sun warm what was left of him as not being alone warmed his soul.
This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.
He smiled. It had been so long since he had the dreams of the mortals in the Overworld. The Overworld was cruel, but the threat of death was something so human, it was beautiful. The fear was what kept humans alive, their lives were brief, but that was what made them beautiful, unlike the limbo Ghostbur had been stuck in, the never ending train station.
Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. But what true structure did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?
It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the ⎍⋏⟟⎐⟒⍀⌇⟒, and created a ⌿⌰⏃ ☊ ⟒ for ⌿⟒⍜⌿⌰⟒ ⏁⍜ ⏚ ⟒ ⏁⊑⟒⋔⌇⟒⌰⎐⟒⌇, in the ⊑⏃⍀⌇⊑ ⏃⋏⎅ ⎍⋏⎎⍜⍀ ☌ ⟟⎐⟟⋏ ☌ ⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅.
Ghostbur couldn’t understand what the text was- what they were trying to say. He could tell it was kind, but that was it. Gods, it had been so long since someone had said something nice to him.
It cannot read that thought.
They knew he couldn’t understand. Why? Were they telling him this just to torture him? To make him long for the life he once had, the friends he used to know?
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
What was the dream of life? What did he have left to learn? What did he miss?
He was dead. Or- at least- that’s what he thought he was. What is life if you cannot die, what is death if you never lived? Perhaps that was what the words meant, when they said he hadn’t achieved success in the long dream of life. He would never find out.
Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
Ghostbur whispered to the universe itself his refute, “why am I here, then?”
The universe didn’t answer him.
Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
Why didn’t the universe answer him?
But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.
Was that what limbo was? A creation, designed to encompass his sadness?
To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
It would be better for them to interfere, Ghostbur thought. If they interfered, he would be able to return to the Overworld, to return to the people he felt safe around.
Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.
The word was help. He wanted help. Gods, it was harder to ask for help than he wanted it to be. He almost missed Dream and the train. Dream could break him out of limbo, even if he was responsible for the years and years Ghostbur had spent in the gods-forsaken hell hole nicknamed a limbo.
It reads our thoughts.
Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely ⌇⟒⋏⌇⏃⏁⟟⍜⋏ and ⌿⟒⍀ ☊ ⟒⌿⏁⟟⍜⋏, I wish to tell them that they are ⌰⍜⎐⟒⎅ by the ⟒⏃⍀⏁⊑ ⟟⏁⌇⟒⌰⎎. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.
He still didn’t understand the corrupted words, hoping that it was something as kind and gentle as the rest of the text. The questions about who was speaking, and why they were talking to him, were pushed to the back of his mind as he watched on.
And yet they play the game.
What was the game?
But it would be so easy to tell them...
Tell him what? There was nothing left to say, no words that could convey anything but his guilt for dying, for being the failure that ended with his own revival. Or was it his death? It didn’t matter, he was never alive anyway.
Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them from living.
He might not have been alive, but by god, he lived.
I will not tell the player how to live.
He experienced so much, from meeting Friend to helping Tommy. What was life, if not the experiences that shape someone? He lived, the same as everyone else.
It was a shame, he thought, that his friends were living on a tightrope between life and death when only in death one could understand what life truly was.
The player is growing restless.
He didn’t even notice his body tensing up and his attention span getting shorter until the text pointed it out, he relaxed again, loosening his jaw, and taking what would have passed as a deep breath, had he been alive.
I will tell the player a story.
He closed his eyes and smiled, opening his eyes again to see the text scroll further, the start of the story, he hoped it had a happy ending.
But not the truth.
He was optimistic, that the truth would remain concealed. The truth would hurt more than the slow constriction of the web of half-truths and foggy memories he had cocooned himself in.
No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.
He relaxed; he didn’t mind truth when cloaked in lies. His entire life was spent in that way, what was one more half-truth, in a life filled with nothing else?
Give it a body, again.
The machine hummed as the words continued to scroll, it felt like the air of the train station shifted as well, it was slightly more comfortable as trains hummed past, too loud for Ghostbur to ignore, he snapped his head back to watch it roll past before returning his gaze to the display.
Yes. Player...
Use its name.
Ghostbur. Player of games.
It was him. It was comforting, to see his name on the screen again. It gave him hope, that he wasn’t abandoned and forgotten while trapped in limbo.
Good.
Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.
He couldn’t do most of that, but the descriptions were nice anyway. His body felt a little more solid now, a little closer to life than he had ever been before. The pavement under him was cold, it felt real. For the first time in a very long time, he felt the vibrations of the trains passing by in the station.
Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
Gods didn’t exist, Ghostbur knew that better than most. And yet, he was reading the words of two deities like words on a screen.
We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.
He waited patiently, the universe was talking- to him. It would take a fool to not listen. The secrets of the universe were known to a select few, despite surrounding everything.
Only the people who spent their time waiting, watching, listening to the world, experiencing the natural order, were trusted with the secrets he was receiving for free. It made him wonder, what did he do to deserve them?
Once upon a time, there was a player.
The player was you, Ghostbur.
Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.
The story was familiar, it felt like something he had lived before, just beyond the scope of his memory, as if it was tucked away on a high shelf the way parents hid the cookie jar from their children. If he was taller, he would be able to look within. Instead, he was stuck looking at the container- knowing only the vague concept of what was inside.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.
This story was easier- he’d lived it. It was close to the reality he came from. He wasn’t sure if he missed the world the story spoke of- but he was sure it felt empty when he was alone.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
Lost.
Was he lost?
He didn’t know for sure. To be lost implies that he would be found soon.
Ghostbur hoped he was lost. If he was lost, he would be able to go home, to apologize for his failure, to make amends with the people he hurt by leaving.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third.
Was this just a dream?
It felt real.
Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.
What separated reality and a dream? If it feels real, does that make it real? Were the friendships he made, the people he met, were they all fake? Or- were they real because of the impact they had on him- regardless of if it was a dream or not?
Let's go back.
The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body.
And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother's body, into the long dream.
This story was him.
All the stories were him. The world was made with the same things he was made of.
Why did the world hate him if they were one and the same?
And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love.
You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.
Ghostbur watched. Waiting, hoping the universe would explain itself.
Let's go further back.
The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player's body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by...
He didn’t understand exactly what the universe meant- hoping that it would be explained further until it was cut off by the battery of the display running out.
Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks "electrons" and "protons".
Sometimes it called them "planets" and "stars".
He didn’t know much about the makeup of the universe- but he did know that this one wasn’t as soft and warm as it used to be. Ghostbur wondered, if, more than anything, the world in his head was the one in his friends’ heads. He wondered if they knew he loved them, the way he hoped they loved him.
Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen.
You are the player, reading words...
Ghostbur was the universe, and the universe was a part of him.
Shush... Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breathe faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive
He could feel the universe hovering over his shoulder, providing him comfort like a blanket. Death herself at his right, resting her hand on his shoulder. Ghostbur didn’t look up- if he did, he wouldn’t find anything.
Her presence was enough, he didn’t need to confirm it for himself.
You. You. You are alive.
She left his side, the warmth surrounding him did not. He felt real, comforted, living. If his heart started beating at that moment- he would not have questioned it.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees
He’d heard the universe before.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player's eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again
He’d heard the song the universe sung before.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream
The universe wanted to tell him again, anyway.
He appreciated the comfort from the world itself, preparing himself for what it would say, mouthing the words along with the screen. It continued scrolling.
and the universe said I love you
and the universe said you have played the game well
and the universe said everything you need is within you
and the universe said you are stronger than you know
and the universe said you are the daylight
and the universe said you are the night
and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
and the universe said the light you seek is within you
and the universe said you are not alone
and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code
and the universe said I love you because you are love.
And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
His tears had long since started steaming off his face as he sat on the floor of the train station. He missed hearing the universe speak through the sound of a shell held to his ear, through the rolling waves at the beach, through the leaves of the trees. But, he supposed, this was a worthy replacement.
The universe still cared for him, after all this time.
You are the player.
Wake up.
The train he had been waiting for pulled into the station.
This time, it stopped.