The Grid

 

The thing golden helmet called the mirror lake was a square shaped pool of liquid that was stretched out on the entire roof. Its colours were fluctuating constantly, and went from shades of dark green to silver in strange, bubble-like motions, like oil in water. Still, the surface was perfectly flat. Not a single ripple disturbed the peaceful lake.

Thomas was surprised when golden helmet guy simply stepped on the lake, and didn’t sink in it. He walked towards the middle, slowly and strangely gracefully, like a king in his own castle. The sound of his footsteps echoed. Thomas followed him and found out he had no trouble with walking on liquid. Golden helmet kneeled down and touched the surface at different spots, looking for something.

‘Here it is,’ he said. His voice sounded solemn. ‘Come closer.’

Thomas kneeled down in front of him, but saw nothing different from the rest of the lake.

‘Now we have to lie down, on our backs.’

With his heart beating in his throat, Thomas did as he had said. And then, golden helmet guy took his hand, moving it to the place he had found. And he felt it, he really felt it- there was no lake at that point, no surface, no substance.

‘Close your eyes,’ golden helmet whispered.

They sank, lost gravity, and disappeared into nothing, into empty space. There was no longer a mirror lake to lie on; there was nothing. The only thing Thomas felt was golden helmet’s hand, holding his. He opened his eyes and saw nothing. They were floating in the dark. There was no sound, no smell, no wind. But after a while, his eyes started to adjust to the darkness, and slowly and steadily, billions and billions of stars appeared, surrounding them with their light, some close, some distant. Thomas tried to move, and his body was still functioning. Golden helmet laughed out loud, and pulled him with him so they could make a backflip together. There was no up or down, no left or right. Thomas didn’t even know whether they were moving, or staying in the same spot.

‘Look,’ golden helmet said. ‘The Milky Way.’

It was something no human being could ever set eyes upon, and he saw it. He witnessed it in all its grandeur, and slowly forgot the concept of who he was, of size, of place, of the earth. He had never experienced something so impossible to comprehend.

‘How did you do this?’ he asked again, his voice fading in the black.

The golden helmet just smiled. There was something about that simple expression and the way he was floating in the air, something that put everything in a different mode. Thomas pulled him closer by his hand, and when he was close enough, he wrapped his arms around him tightly. He heard him take a deep breath and as he felt the human warmth coming from his body, he knew this avatar had a real, living form on the surface of the earth. That knowledge made his heart overflow with joy, and he pressed him even closer against him.

Around them, the landscape changed. Colours appeared everywhere, and seemed to leak through the blackness that had been there. Splatters of colour joined together, until everything around them looked like the inside of a rainbow.

‘Are you doing this?’ he asked golden helmet.

‘I’m just making this up as I go,’ he answered. ‘It’s so much better with you.’

‘Don’t leave me,’ Thomas whispered. ‘Never leave me.’

‘I won’t,’ golden helmet said breathlessly.

‘I need to know where you are. I have to find you.’

‘Maybe I can show you,’ the avatar said. ‘I want you to find me. I want to see you.’

Blushing heavily, Thomas felt golden helmet’s arms around him, too. And suddenly, the warm, vibrating colours disappeared and made way for whiteness.

The whiteness faded slowly and revealed their new surroundings. They were at a subway station. There were no people, but there was a train. It looked old. It was gray. The notice above the platform said its departure time was  15.10. The clocks switched to 10 minutes after three, and the train accelerated, eventually disappearing in a tunnel.

Golden helmet didn’t say a word, and laid his head to Thomas’s chest. The station faded. Frantically trying to take in every detail, Thomas looked in every direction, until he realized with terrible shock, that he was sitting in his chair. He was looking at a white screen, filled with snow- Miko’s world- that had a small puppet on it, wearing a golden helmet, consisting of a handful of pixels.