"Very interesting hallucination, I can tell you had quite a vivid experience. I had one too in those trials—and I'm here for you," Thales replied with an innocent smile to the languid expression of Beatrix, who had immediately become fed up with Thales's nonchalance, so...
She slapped him.
He fell on his butt.
"Hey, what was that for? Using violence on your adorable little brother... oh yeah, technically I'm not your brother if your story—with clearly exaggerated details and chronological inconsistencies—is to be believed. Well, you know what they say: even in myth there is truth, symbols that express the wholly unobservable, exaggerated to epic proportions."
She slapped him again.
His nose was bloodied.
"Wow, you're really breaking my body here. How am I supposed to smell properly with such a defective nose—"
Thales's eyes widened.
He was in wonder of something, as if he was being gripped by the love of the universe. And due to his nose being focused on, he had opened up his awareness to such precise sensations. He was no longer deprived.
"Keter..."
"Hegemony..."
He mumbled in a hypnotic state. He smelt the fertile apparition of dying worlds in the blades of grass.
"Beatrix, what was that tree?" he asked, seemingly snapping out of it.
I'm losing myself. It feels like I'm being tugged more and more.
"The Tree, my dear apprentice—why, that was the Tree of Life. It no longer exists here. Does Yggdrasil replace it? No. It is only in the dream. The Tree is above such a bridge."
"What are you yapping about over there?" Thales said in confusion.
It seems his question was spontaneous.
"I'm leaving then..."
"My bad, I was pulling your leg. This tree—is this where they say they get these suspicious fruits from? The ones that unlock your Hegemony Elysium?"
"Of course. Which I recommend you do. I seriously do not understand why you have no issue with your craving."
"Yeah, I barely get this crap myself. But how carefree are you to just eat this fruit with no biochemical origin?"
"I assure you it has been verified. The Verdant Nectare have such rich history."
"Yeah yeah… You told me your story—which I think you're full of crap about, by the way. I'm not one to fight battles I cannot win anymore though..."
"Ok."
He clapped his hands.
"I'll eat this stupid fruit. If I die, I will curse you and then haunt you in death."
"Fine by me."
She smiled wryly, her eyes watching Thales almost like a cat.
He hesitated for a moment, the saliva in his mouth running like the rapids of a fierce river—but not from hunger. It was as if this fruit was a greater infection than any. Utter blackness bubbled from the green "stone." But he shoved it down his throat.
He gulped.
"Fuck, that isn't like downing a drink—not that I have ever had one..."
His nervous system was electrified with the sweetest hedonistic pleasures a man could seek after. His spine felt like it rebated something that should remain assuredly deceased—in a bygone place, in a bygone time.
Emergency sirens blared in his head.
He shattered like fine china—then was put back together.
The extremes of pleasure balanced by the extremes of pain.
It felt like the fruit devoured his insides, gnawing in the darkness of his soul—and then reshaped him. Truly inside, to the indifferent out nature had met him with.
"Let's take you back to the room," Beatrix whispered.
"Your Umwelt will be impressive. You're the virus this world needs, Thales."
She smiled nostalgically—for whatever reason only she knew—
as she gracefully exited, humming Lila's Lullaby to this innocent boy.