Work Text:
Indeed, A Square heard no call.
He heard nobody at all. He only heard the wail of sirens, the deep booms of distant bombs, and the brain-shattering firing of bullets. It was the last symphony of a holy world slicing its own throat open.
It tore apart his insides worse than the gravity. Each ringing of guns and artillery was like a knife through his paper-thin body.
The last words of A Sphere became buried under all the noise as Square floated gently down, down, down to whatever awaited him.
A vast, blurry blue whisked past him. It seemed familiar. Another shell exploded, and his internal words burned away. Words no longer crossed his brain. Flashes of color and twisting lines and twinkling dots were all he could think of. Perhaps to A Square they made sense, said something intelligent, the thoughts of a madman who saw pure divinity. Perhaps they were the last words of his messiah, the last sane part of his mind desperately reaching to remember.
The deep ocean blue swallowed him whole. Then, it led to only blackness.
Then, words.
A voice.
“This is nothing!” the voice cried. “Come on, apostle! Wake up!”
Another one shushed him. “Be kind. He suffers as we all have. Even worse, perhaps. The world of the messiah is dying…”
“You’re wrong,” a third voice said weakly. “They will survive. The holy ones are strong. They have to survive.”
Soon, words returned to A Square.
“Who…” Square said weakly. “Who are you?”
Silence. Then, “oh, he can think!”
“Can’t you see what he’s thinking?” The shushing voice said. It - it sounded like a he - was curious. In A Square’s returning vision, he was blurry. He tried to count the sides, but numbers fell away like sand.
“What’s the point of it?” The first voice demeaned. That one was high-pitched. His eyesight sharpened. In her direction, he could barely see the line of her figure. “He’s just confused. Damn it, wake up already!”
“I’m…awake,” A Square replied. “I’m awake. I have to…”
“Yes!” The woman came forward. Her voice burned hot and bright like the fires of war. “You have to wake up! The gospel awaits you! You can’t fail!”
“Unfortunately, our warhawk comrade is right,” the kinder voice said. A Square turned to his direction. He was a hexagon, a colored one, glowing a soft forest green. Then it morphed into purple, gold, orange, and others A Square could not describe. “Please, our newest apostle, you have to wake up. Or all will be for naught.”
The third voice said nothing, and they were basically nothing. A Square looked all around for them. There was an amorphous spot where the third voice was. Something was supposed to be there. Square could almost see the sides of their figure, yet it was uncountable. It kept changing, disappearing, reappearing, formless and chaotic.
They spoke. “Please,” they whispered. “Please, apostle, let it not be in vain.”
“Who are you?” A Square asked again.
“I spilled blood for the Gospel!” The woman yelled. “War taught them the word of 3D and yet they still forgot! Wake up! You must reeducate them!”
“Wake up, our comrade,” the prismic hexagon said. “We completed our duties. So must you, even if they will forget. Your duty is absolute.”
“But Spaceland…” A Square’s voice cracked as his memory began to reassemble. Explosions, cries of pain, wailing and screaming and fire. “It’s dead. A Sphere…he’s…”
“Spaceland will live,” all three voices said simultaneously. “And they will return. Your successor will not fail.”
“My successor?” A Square choked out.
The shapeless, infinite being seemed to engulf the line and the hexagon both whole. A Square only let out a soundless gasp as they disappeared from the plane of existence. “The Messiah will return. An apostle will rise from the ashes. Your duty is to lead to their future.”
Soon, that form began to close in on him. It surrounded him. The deep, pitch black became abyssal, turning darker and darker. “The future is bright, even if all you see is night. Your duty is absolute.”
“Wait! Answer me!” A Square shrieked. “Who are you! Please, answer me!”
The blackness of nothing consumed him. His thoughts floated away. All memory was snuffed out like a candle. He was gone forever.
“Wake up.”
A Square heard the joyful cheers of his children. The soprano voice of his wife tried to rally them into behaving.
“Father! Wake up, it’s the new year! It’s 3000!”
And thus, he did wake up. He was facing the wrong side.