Chapter 16: Soul
The next day at the warehouse, Charlotte was sitting where the Core Machine was before. She was looking at her laptop, happily she had saved all the information regarding the theory she had devised and the blueprints of the other machines.
There were 7 blueprints in total, of these she had made the first one, and given a copy of the last one to James.
All her blueprints were based on materials made after using the theory she had developed over the years and had finished two months ago.
At the end she had to implement an unknown force in her scheme as she was not getting results, but it all worked, apparently at least.
The end goal of her theory was simple, it was to create a new force using the existing ones and to make phenomena out of it.
Simply put, she had made a new law with her theory.
Each of her devices, however, worked in a different way.
Ones interacted with an existing force, others created phenomenon anew, and the last ones simply made things she didn't understand.
The most interesting thing, though, was the validation of the fifth force. If what happened yesterday was to be because of her meditation and not because of the time it had been running or the position the Crystal had, then this force was indeed something that existed as a whole!
"Meditation made it all possible, right? The question now, is how and why."
Squinting her eyes at the Crystal Core in her hands, she tried to think how meditation and the fifth force were connected. The only answer she could think of was…
"… The soul, uh…"
It doesn't matter what culture or what time it was. Meditation was always linked to it, it always went hand in hand with the soul!
"If that's the case, then… The fifth force was the soul? And, the soul has direct influence on the world?"
Well, of course it has direct influence with the world! We humans make things and modify the world! And our bodies are supposed to be the vessel of our souls!!
Arriving at this answer, she felt satisfied. Nodding at her own deduction, she never stopped looked at the Crystal.
"I'm going to meditate now… I hope I won't be thrown away like yesterday…"
Closing her eyes while letting her body be in a comfortable position, she started to breath slowly, trying to put her mind in a blank state. She didn't try to follow any rhythm nor to sit in a special way.
All she needed was a clear mind, without any distracting thoughts.
After some time, Charlotte felt that something had changed, she didn't know what, but certainly, something must have changed!
Opening her eyes, she saw nothing in her surroundings, she felt she was looking at the bottomless sky, without any obstruction. Strangely, she couldn't put a color to it. She just saw it and that was it. It was not black. It was not white. It had no color but could be seen anyway.
"T-this is the same as last night's dream…"
Smiling wryly, she thought she was lucky that there wouldn't be more explosions. If there were, then she should have died already yesterday while she slept!
"… What's this place anyway?"
Though she could see everything that was around her, she couldn't see her body.
She could certainly feel it, but it was in the same position she was in before entering this strange place.
Could it be my soul, or could it be the Crystal?
She started to 'walk' around it, hoping to find something, anything that could help identify the lieu.
Sadly, there was nothing. There wasn't even a difference between been here or there.
It all remained the same.
"… Uh? How do I get out?"
As she was wondering how to get out, she was suddenly seeing in front of her, she was looking at the wall of the warehouse. She didn't even notice when she was back.
"… Really, if this is not real, then I'm crazy already."
It was almost as if she never was there, but she surely was in that strange place.
Right, right?!
Looking all around, she saw the hour on her laptop, 5 minutes had passed since she last saw it.
It's not a long trance, but a weird one indeed.
Looking at the crystal, she thought of doing a small experiment.
She put the Crystal Core in one corner of the warehouse and sat in the opposite corner, taking a distance of around 12 meters.
She started to meditate… After meditating for around twenty minutes, she gave up. She was not going in to that strange place.
"There're two, no, three possibilities. One, I'm far from the source, two, I can no longer get in, like, never, three, it has a limited number of tries per day? Or per an amount of time…"
Touching her chin, she thought while approaching the Crystal again.
Maybe this wasn't even the reason I was in that place.
Touching the crystal, she felt nothing again, she just felt the coldness of it.
"Let's try again."
Sitting while holding the crystal, she meditated. Unsurprisingly, before she knew it, she was again in that strange place.
"Or I've already gone past the waiting time limit or I'm in a distance close enough."
Discarding the two other options, she waited for around the same time as before and exited the place.
Once outside, she meditated again and went in without problem.
"It is a proximity thingy."
Nodding to herself, she started to see what the range of it was. After some more tries, she found it had a radius of around 1 meter.
"It's roughly the same amount of the light I saw yesterday, no?"
That bright glow of yesterday's was big enough that if it was a fire, she would be burned on the spot she was standing on.
Being inside the strange place, she started trying to do things, anything at all.
She tried for things to appear, tried to change colors, tried to shout and see if something happened. It was all for nothing, she couldn't see any change.
"Hmm, maybe you need a name?"
After saying it, she felt some kind of resonance, the space somehow vibrated.
"Heh, you little bastard, I already gave you a name, no?"
She felt nothing this time, as if being ignored or maybe a response was no possible without a name.
"But yes, you indeed need a name, I'm planning on doing the other six machines… And each one requires a Crystal Core, no? Maybe that's the reason… The Crystal Core is simply a general name, and this needs a particular name!"
Nodding her inexistent head, she started to think about names. She was never good with them, and her knowledge of them was as lacking as her body height.
"Hmm it has all the colors of the spectrum… So maybe Rainbow? No, but if the other crystals are the same, then this won't be a proper name… Then… But…"
Debating with herself, she spent the morning there, finally deciding on a name for it.
"I know nothing of you, but the next one I make I'll surely be able to name it based on what I learn about you and its properties. Now, you're the first one so I'll do with what I have! From now you'll be called White Prism!"
Once she named it, she felt as if all the space has compressed. She wasn't sure but she felt it was constrained, like there was something limiting it.
Being curious about this new development, she started to 'walk'. After 'walking' for a while, she realized that where she was allowed to be had not changed at all.
"Strange, what changed?"
After whispering it, she felt tremors around her. Suddenly in front of her was a space, a well defined silhouette.
For what she could see, it appeared to be a floating stone. She didn't know how big or how far it was from her so she started to approach it.
From what she could gather, she was pretty far. As she continued to get closer, the rock kept getting bigger and bigger.
"Uh-uh, how far is it? And how big…?"
At this moment she couldn't see either end of the stone like she could before. Deciding that she wanted to see the top first, she started to ascend. As she was only 'walking' with her mind and not her body, she could simply fly upwards.
Going up, it wasn't that long until she could see what was on top of it. It was a tremendously big plain
On the middle of it all, she saw a gigantic statue.
"Woa… Impressive, is that you? Prism?"
Feeling impressed by the size of the statue that could possibly be more than 100 times her height, she started to contemplate it. As it was too big for her to encompass in her sight, she decided to take some distance.
'Turning' around, she started to get away from it.
After going away by what she felt were 5 minutes, she turned around and saw the statue again.
It was holding its legs with its hands, and there was nothing remarkable about it, it was wearing some shoes. Looking at its face, she saw it had its eyes closed while making a solemn expression, its hair was kind of long for a man, but short for a woman…
"U-uh? I-isn't, that… Me?"
Before entering this place while meditating, she had assumed that same position!
"It can't be…"
Deciding to try something different, she started to 'get away' again. This time though, she wasn't moving, but imagining the 'statue' to become small.
"Tee-hee… I'm such a fool…"
Once she had gotten away enough, she realized it was indeed her!
What she thought she was doing before was getting closer, but what she really was doing was amplifying her vision, like using a microscope!
She took a moment to reduce the shame she was feeling. She was not alone anymore! White Prism was there too!
… Charlotte at least considered it as a living being.
*Ahem!
Looking at her statue, she saw that there was a slight movement. It was breathing!
"This, is this me right now?"
She previously thought it was how she had looked before entering this strange place. Now it looked like it was a live review of everything that was happening around her!
"… No, it's not around me but around Prism."
Charlotte had the Crystal Core in one of her hands. And though it was not obvious, her statue was not the center of the 'picture'.
As she inspected herself and her surroundings, she realized there was no difference between colors. Normally, one would expect there to be different shades, but here everything was white.
"Can't you put some color?"
Asking Prism, she waited for a while but there was no change.
She then approached 'her' self and tried to modify it. To her surprise, she could touch it, and when she did, she could feel on herself being touched!
What strange feeling.
It felt the same as when one touched oneself with their own fingers, on one part was the feeling of being touched in the skin, on the other was the feeling of touching something with your finger.
The strange part here was that there was no finger. She felt she was touching with something, but she couldn't grasp what the something that was touching was.
After getting used to the feeling, she started to mess with herself.
She made herself frown, put a smile in her face and tried to lift her arm. To her surprise she wasn't able to, she had no enough strength to do it, she was getting more and more tired as she continued to mess with herself.
Tired of what, she didn't know, she didn't feel her body being heavy nor was she out of breath. Deciding that it was best to stop lest it be dangerous, she ended the meditation.
Once she was back on herself, she started to heave heavily.
"Haa, haaa, w-why… Haa, I, was… Not tired… Before…"
Her head was turning and she couldn't control her breath correctly. It wasn't until 5 minutes later of laying down on the floor, she could somehow compose herself.
"… Not even yesterday did I feel this bad…"
She was thinking about the running she did going to the 9th floor, coming down and then going up again.
Yes, she felt like she was too tired to continue, but at least she wasn't on the verge of passing out.
I need to be careful with what I do on there…
She thought as she moved her hand in front of her.
"Right? Little Prism?"
In her hand was the little diamond shaped crystal she just named White Prism. Though it was just a crystal, she couldn't help but think it was alive. She just thought it was normal for it to be alive.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Vespertian
Vespertian Hello guys! Vesper here! First of all I want to thank you for reading this story!
I hope you're liking where this is going!
Secondly, I'd like for you to write your opinions of the story so far and how you think it's going to develop! I don't know, maybe it's better than my idea and I'd implement it instead of what I had thought!
Finally, don't be shy, write a review! It helps us authors a lot… See ya!
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