⚠️ Reader Advisory: This chapter contains dense philosophical themes, surreal metaphysical imagery, and a nonlinear narrative structure, along with a tint of cosmic horror. It is intentionally disorienting, symbolic, and abstract. If you are looking for a fast OP MC, then I will have to disappoint you. If you would like, feel free to skip the chapter.
There will be no more psychological and philosophical diving for a while until Part 1 of Arc One is over.
Enjoy!!!
What is "insanity" but an ontological rupture, a profound divergence from the teleological expectations of the ratio, that very cognitive apparatus constitutive of the logos of rational beings?
To fully understand the epistemological origins of this divergence is to tread the liminal space between the self and the external world, where subjectivity fractures and subsists in a state of continuous, vertiginous flux.
Is it not then the case that insanity emerges as a perverse substance, an irreducible form of disorder that distorts the very axis upon which the "real" is apprehended?
How then can the mind, when severed from its proper cognitive moorings, be said to process stimuli—cognitive, sensory, and emotional—in a way that conforms to the very a priori categories of intelligibility that Kant's Critique of Pure Reason presupposes as the conditions for possible knowledge?
Let us refer later to Carl Jung's theory of collective consciousness.
The historical and philosophical underpinnings of the term "insanity" reach back to the pre-Socratic period, where an early understanding of nous (mind) and psyche (soul) hinted at a primordial tension between the rational and the irrational.
Is it not the pathos of the mind itself that compels a re-examination of the Aristotelian syllogistic order, given the undeniable presence of cognitive aberrations within this framework?
What can it mean for a mind to transcend through pathology, which is the very organon by which it is to process experience?
Imagine it! Magnificent, truly, truly magnificent!
Does the nous, contorted by madness, still recognize the physis of the world, or does it instead fabricate an altogether different cosmology, perhaps one that only a semblance of "normality" can adjudicate as irrational?
For what is the true meaning of insanity?
The doors opened.
A silence so absolute swallowed the air that sound itself seemed an absurdity. Nay, it did not seem—it truly was.
Beyond the threshold lay a vast, endless library—a realm not meant for mortal minds, nor immortal ones, nor any form of mind, be it god or cosmic entity or something beyond. A space that defied sense—or sense defied it. A holy void steeped in eerie reverence. The word "void" was not enough. Words of reality are not enough to describe such magnificence.
The floor stretched infinitely in black and white checkerboard tiles, polished to a mirror sheen—yet their reflections showed something just slightly... off.
Above, the ceiling loomed impossibly high, also of black and white tiles, adorned with spiraling crystal-clear chandeliers that bathed the endless halls in a white glow, their soft hum gnawing at the edges of sanity.
The farthest reaches of the library faded into darkness. Light simply failed to touch those ends, as if space had been wounded—as if existence itself curled inward to avoid them.
Towering shelves lined the labyrinthine halls, their heights unreachable, with occasional brown ladders resting against them, stretching up into an unseen beyond. Each shelf bore books beyond count—black and white, orderly and pristine. All were made of the same smooth material despite their different colors.
The black books, when touched, sent a deep feeling of emptiness and numbness that defied description—forgetting what you are.
No, forgetting what a self is. Or perhaps forgetting what forgetting is? Or perhaps forgetting what the concept of "forget" is? It matters not.
The white books, though visually identical save for their color, gave off a feeling of immense happiness. Yet it was not mere happiness—it was euphoric delirium, perhaps something much, much more serious. The happiness was enough for a man to torture himself to death with the brightest of smiles, enough to make the brightest of stars look away in shame.
Creepiest of all was the lack of words inside. Estimated at 700 pages each—black pages for white books and white pages for black books—yet not a single word resided on any page. No authors. No beginnings. No endings. Only emptiness. One page alone was enough to rival the concept of existence.
Beyond the uncountable books—beyond infinity itself—was the anomaly: a fragile, trembling yellow tome. Its cover pulsed like a dying star, like a dying leaf in the climax of autumn. The mere thought of opening it was a burden too heavy to bear.
It lay untouched upon a small, circular white table with a single leg, beside a white teacup and napkin, and a single white chair. The chair, though simple in design, radiated authority—the kind that demanded obedience without voice, without will, without life, without death, without "nothing."
Scattered throughout the first floor, incredibly tall arched windows stood like sentinels. Their glass reflected not the library's interior but the void outside—an abyss pierced with unmoving white dots and other colors, flickering in impossible rhythms, as if in a symphony.
Suddenly, a window shattered. As if by invisible force, the abyss vanished. In its place: infinite rolling green hills, peppered with small yellow, red, and blue houses, stretching to the horizon in suffocating symmetry, a grey road cutting through to a distant beach and radiating blue ocean.
Shatter another—another reality. Another world. But never escape.
In the distance, visible from entry, an impossible second floor loomed, accessible only by an ornate spiral staircase that ascended far beyond logic, yet not forever, as the ceiling remained.
The second floor was the same—yet different.
More shelves. But the floor now held white square tiles separated by thin black lines. Gaping white squares revealed a void—no bottom, no depth, no understanding.
From one especially large square, a deciduous tree with bone-white bark had torn through. Its branches and leaves stretched toward the ceiling, only to stop just before touching it, frozen in eternal near-contact. Dark, growing blue sand and soil circled its base.
The ceiling had no lights. It was white. Square holes poured white light, resembling a false heaven.
At the heart of the second floor was a symbol: a triangle with a harmless, little dot in the center, carved into the floor by hands unseen. The mere sight burned into the mind—a symbol too pure to comprehend.
It waited.
It waited for the yellow book.
The silence broke—the yellow book turned its own pages, slowly, eroding, as if each sound spoke volumes. Then it stopped. One page was half white, half black, horizontally.
At that moment, the book sank through the table, dissolving into the black and white floor.
From the ceiling—a bright red spiral slide appeared. A rumble followed.
RUMBLE RUMBLE!
A current of water gushed from the slide, mopping the floor, washing away table, chair, books, shelves. The books floated, dry. A small yellow rubber ducky fell from the slide.
The water rose—quickly, steadily. Yet none escaped the doors. An invisible barrier held it in.
The yellow book resurfaced at the center of the triangle, rising as if from liquid floor.
TINK! CRACK!
Reality fractured. Cracks spiderwebbed in midair. The duck floated innocently.
Quack!
SHATTER!
There was no understanding.
Beyond the broken glass spun a colossal gear—a relic of creation. Once radiant with celestial light, now rusted red, fading into gold and worn yellow. Within it, hundreds of small gears spun impossibly fast.
Though midair, there were other gears—vast, untold, thousands, millions of times larger. Yet this gear was different. It was their godfather.
The weight of untold ages pressed upon it. Each turn groaned under the burden, as if existence itself strained.
This was no mere mechanism. It was a divine construct.
A machinery so vast it governed not just the stars but reality itself. Its turning ensured the dance of existence and oblivion.
___ had shaped it—older than time. A blueprint beyond multiverse and omniverse. Yet now it lay broken.
Eight mechanisms—once integral—had disappeared.
Their absence left a wound at the core of existence. Even the stars faltered.
These were not mere cogs. They were the breath of the universe.
Re_l_t_, ala_c+, Vo_d, R_ve-a_i+n, Ouro;*+uros, +—ut_, L0e, M{}m[]ry, and O+)d(er.
Originally nine—but one was cut off by opposing powers.
Without them, the gear faltered. A hollow, broken machine.
It slowed. And existence crumbled.
The golden gear groaned.
__ knew: something had been lost. But fixable.
For "it" had decided upon eight.
And eight they became:
Pandora
Empty
Idea
End
Lie
Truth
Remember
Crown
For they were recorded in the yellow book. For they would become who they would.
For—
It was decided.
--------------------------------------------
RE_L_T_ → Reality
ALA_C+ → Balance
VO_D → Void
R_VE-A_I+N → Revelation
OURO;*+UROS→ Ouroboros
+—UT_ → Truth
L0E → Lie
M{}M[]RY → Memory
O+)D(ER → Order