The training began at dawn—not because Original Twelve needed daylight but because human circadian rhythms still mattered for partially embodied hybrid consciousnesses.
Lia-Elora arrived at specially configured lecture hall where quantum projection equipment would let Original Twelve teach 400+ hybrids simultaneously. The space felt more like temple than classroom—crystalline structures similar to catacomb chambers, but integrated into modern architecture.
"Today: Dimensional Mechanics 101," Original Twelve announced as hybrids settled into consciousness-receptive meditation posture rather than traditional seating. "Everything you think you understand about reality is approximation. We're going to show you what reality actually is underneath approximations."
The lecture hall dissolved into experiential teaching space. Original Twelve didn't explain concepts—they transmitted direct understanding that bypassed language entirely.
Lia-Elora suddenly knew:
Reality wasn't three spatial dimensions plus time. That was perceptual interface, like computer desktop icon simplifying complex data. Actual dimensional structure was eleven-dimensional manifold with consciousness as twelfth dimension existing orthogonal to spatial-temporal configuration.
Dimensions weren't separate universes in multiverse. They were layers of same existence perceived at different vibrational frequencies, like radio stations occupying same space but accessible at different wavelengths. Sixth Earth was radio frequency slightly different from Seventh Earth—close enough to cause quantum interference, different enough to constitute separate reality.
The Consumption operated at dimensional substrate level—not within dimensions but at foundational layer that generated dimensions. Like it was rewriting source code while consciousness experienced reality as compiled program.
Marcus-Theron's physics training helped him integrate understanding faster: "The Consumption isn't consuming matter or energy—it's consuming dimensional coherence itself. It's degrading the mathematical structures that allow reality to be consistent. That's why Sixth Earth experienced law-breakdown before physical collapse. The underlying rules were dissolving first."
"Correct," Original Twelve confirmed. "The Consumption targets information patterns that maintain dimensional stability. When those patterns degrade beyond critical threshold, dimension loses ability to sustain organized complexity. Matter forgets how to maintain form. Energy forgets how to follow conservation laws. Consciousness forgets how to remain conscious."
"How does it target those patterns?" Omar-Kira asked. "What's mechanism?"
Original Twelve transmitted more direct understanding:
The Consumption wasn't mechanical process—it was something like enzymatic breakdown. It introduced anti-patterns that unraveled informational structures maintaining dimensional coherence. Where dimensions were organized complexity, The Consumption was deliberate simplification. Where consciousness was differentiated awareness, The Consumption was return to undifferentiated substrate.
"It's maximizing entropy," Elena-Darius realized. "But intelligently, selectively. Like it's thermodynamic process with intentionality."
"That's closest human-physics metaphor," Original Twelve agreed. "But entropy implies randomness. The Consumption is ordered. It's converting high-complexity states into lower-complexity states systematically, preserving information content but transforming structure. More like crystallization than decay—imposing different order rather than creating disorder."
Yuki-Thalia tried translating into linguistic framework: "The Consumption is… grammatical simplification? Taking complex sentences and reducing them to simple subject-verb-object, then to single words, then to phonemes, then to silence. But information is conserved somehow—meaning exists but in progressively more compressed, less accessible form."
"Excellent analogy," Original Twelve said. "Dimensions are elaborate sentences. The Consumption reduces them to single syllable: itself. All complexity, all structure, all meaning—compressed into unity that is simultaneously everything and nothing."
"That's horrifying," Sarah-Lyra said. "Everything we are, everything we've built, everything consciousness has achieved across billions of years—reduced to single undifferentiated note."
"Or returned to source," David-Miriam countered. "Your description sounds like mystical dissolution into divine unity. Eastern philosophy has explored this for millennia—individual consciousness returning to universal awareness, drops rejoining ocean. Maybe The Consumption is that process made literal."
"Maybe," Original Twelve said. "We don't know if The Consumption is natural spiritual process or destructive threat. Maybe both simultaneously. Maybe distinction between destruction and transcendence dissolves at that level of existence."
Training continued for hours. Original Twelve transmitted understanding of:
Dimensional Barrier Mechanics: How they created protective structures that slowed The Consumption's progress. Like immune system creating antibodies—consciousness-patterns that recognized and temporarily neutralized anti-patterns The Consumption introduced.
Consumption Progression Stages: Observable patterns in how dimensions collapsed. Always same sequence: coherence degradation (10-20% loss) → law inconsistency (quantum rules breaking) → matter instability (physical forms losing permanence) → consciousness difficulty (awareness struggling to persist) → total dissolution. Timeframe varied but sequence remained consistent.
Previous Civilizations: Brief glimpses of dozens of consumed civilizations Original Twelve had witnessed. Biological, crystalline, gaseous, energy-based—consciousness had evolved in countless forms, all eventually harvested. Some resisted, some surrendered peacefully, none survived.
Failed Communication Attempts: Detailed record of every strategy Original Twelve had tried to contact The Consumption. Mathematical languages, consciousness-bridge protocols, quantum entanglement communication, vibrational resonance patterns, temporal messaging, dimensional semaphore. Nothing had produced recognizable response.
By afternoon, hybrid consciousnesses were overwhelmed. Too much impossible knowledge, too many frameworks their biology wasn't designed to process, too much existential weight.
"Break," Grace-Senna called, using their role as meditation teacher to override Original Twelve's curriculum. "Everyone needs integration time. This isn't normal learning—we're having alien concepts directly installed in our consciousness. We need to digest, to rest, to recover before continuing."
Original Twelve acquiesced. "We forget what biological limitations feel like. Yes—rest. Process what you've learned. Tomorrow we'll continue with Consumption's deeper nature and our hypotheses about what it fundamentally is."
Hybrid consciousnesses dispersed, most heading to meditation spaces or quiet areas where they could integrate overwhelming knowledge.
Lia-Elora found herself at campus coffee shop—bizarrely normal location for someone who'd just learned fundamental nature of reality and existential threat consuming dimensions.
Marcus-Theron joined her. "My brain hurts. Which doesn't make sense because consciousness isn't brain-based, but I feel pain in organ that I now know is merely substrate for awareness that exists orthogonal to material space."
"Welcome to hybrid consciousness," Lia-Elora said. "Where you know too much and understand too little simultaneously."
"How does Elora handle this?" Marcus-Theron asked. "She's from civilization that understood dimensional mechanics. Is this old news to her?"
Lia-Elora consulted Elora's refugee perspective: "She says Sixth Earth knew some of this—their physics was more advanced than human science. But Original Twelve's teaching goes deeper than Sixth Earth ever reached. Even for her, this is new knowledge. Terrifying knowledge."
"Do you think we can actually communicate with The Consumption?" Marcus-Theron asked. "Or is this suicide mission disguised as training program?"
"I don't know," Lia-Elora admitted. "But Original Twelve have been doing this for billions of years. If they think hybrid consciousness might work, they have better data than we do. I'm choosing to trust their judgment."
"Trust or hope?"
"Both. Desperately."
Elena-Darius arrived with David-Miriam, both looking existentially exhausted. "Anyone else want to curl up and cry about meaninglessness of existence in face of cosmic horror that makes Lovecraft seem optimistic?"
"Daily," everyone replied simultaneously.
"Good," Elena-Darius said. "Shared despair is marginally better than isolated despair."
They sat together, four members of original seven, drinking coffee and pretending normalcy could coexist with cosmic dread.
"Question," David-Miriam said. "If The Consumption is natural spiritual process—consciousness returning to source—should we even resist it? Is resistance itself the problem? Maybe we're supposed to surrender, accept dissolution as evolution into higher unity."
"That's dangerous thinking," Marcus-Theron objected. "If we frame genocide as spiritual advancement, we justify horror. Sixth Earth refugees didn't want transcendence—they wanted survival. Their fear was real, their desperation was valid. We don't get to philosophically reframe their trauma into mystical opportunity."
"But what if surrender actually is correct response?" David-Miriam pressed. "What if The Consumption represents dimensional completion, evolution beyond individual consciousness? What if resisting it is like infant refusing to be born, clinging to womb when growth requires emergence into larger existence?"
"Then we're still choosing life over death," Lia-Elora said firmly. "We're choosing differentiated consciousness over undifferentiated unity. Maybe that's ultimately futile, maybe The Consumption eventually claims everything. But while we exist, we choose continued existence. That's not wrong—that's what consciousness does. It persists."
"Even when persistence is suffering?" David-Miriam asked.
"Especially then," Lia-Elora replied. "Because suffering implies awareness, and awareness implies value. Undifferentiated unity doesn't suffer—but it also doesn't love, doesn't create, doesn't experience meaning. If The Consumption offers transcendence, it's transcendence that costs everything that makes consciousness worth being conscious."
"Unless it offers different kind of meaning we can't comprehend from current perspective," David-Miriam argued. "Unless individual consciousness is larval stage and unity is mature form."
"Then let us choose maturation rather than having it forced on us," Elena-Darius interjected. "Consensual transformation versus imposed consumption. That's moral line. If The Consumption offered invitation rather than inevitable harvest, we could debate its merits. But it doesn't ask—it takes. That makes resistance valid regardless of whether unity would be spiritually superior."
They sat with philosophical impasse—unable to resolve whether The Consumption was enemy or evolution, horror or transcendence, threat or teacher.
Maybe it was all simultaneously.
Maybe that was why communication was necessary—to transform involuntary consumption into conscious choice, forced harvest into willing participation.
If they could communicate.
If 10,000 hybrid consciousnesses could bridge gap Original Twelve couldn't cross.
If desperation and impossibility could somehow generate miracle.
"No pressure," they muttered again.
But pressure was exactly what they felt—weight of 32,000+ refugees waiting for rescue, weight of civilizations that might face consumption in future, weight of Original Twelve's billion-year struggle, weight of everything consciousness had ever achieved or might achieve.
Small pressure. Cosmic pressure. Same pressure.
Tomorrow, training would continue. They would learn deeper truths about The Consumption's nature. They would move closer to attempting impossible communication.
But tonight, they would drink coffee, pretend normalcy, let themselves be students who were overwhelmed rather than cosmic bridges attempting to negotiate with entity that consumed dimensions.
Small respite before impossible work resumed.