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Chapter Text

Am I man?

Or am I God?

Is my will really my own? Or is it simply an extension of a higher power? Are my hands really my own? Or are they guided by a force beyond my comprehension? Is Destiny predetermined? Or is it guided by our every action?

Just months ago, the answer to this question seemed so clear cut; I am a man. I was born in 1929 to a German-American family. My name was John Osterman, my allegiance was with the United States of America, and my expertise was in the field of nuclear physics.

I have read the Bible many times, from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. I used to look towards it for answers. The question of free will never once came up. Free will is granted by God to every man. If he desires to incline towards the good way and be righteous, he has the power to do so; and if he desires to incline towards the unrighteous way and be a wicked man, he also has the power to do so.

Now?

I do not know.

The date and time is December 2nd, 1959, 6:48pm.

A dozen formally-dressed men and women gather before a box containing a mystery, mourning, as it is lowered into the soil. Some were the past friends and family of John Osterman--Mr. And Mrs. Osterman were among them. Of those attending, I am the only one who understands that all boxes are mysteries, containing universes.

I do not interfere with the material world. The light rain phases through my body, as do the wind, sunlight, and dust. I hear a priest gave an eternal rest prayer. “Thou knowest lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayers, but spare us, Lord most Holy, O God most mighty o Holy and merciful savior--thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour--for any pains of death, to fall from thee. Amen.”

The box is covered in soil, its mysteries forever hidden from the world. John Osterman is now dead and buried, not that there was much of him to bury. The weeping continues. They mourn the dead because they fear Death. I find their attitude towards change to be so strange.

It is natural to die as it is to be born. Death creates decay, and decay creates fuel that fuels new life. But they fear it, dread it, feebly they attempt to placate it, to stop the cycle from happening. Quantum physics says that as long as the box is closed, it could contain anything, in any state of existence. The observer affects the observed, at each step creating new universes, new possibilities.

The date and time is December 2nd, 8:03pm.

The funeral goers have dispersed. The rain has stopped, and the wind has slowed. I become the quantum observer to this quantum universe. The possibilities are instantly dispelled when I crack open the box.

This quantum universe contained a three-piece suit, a copy of A Brief History of Time, and a pocket watch. In this quantum universe, John Osterman left no body to bury. Every second can make the difference between life and death, my father used to tell me, make it count! How he feared Death…

I look beyond what is physical, into other quantum probabilities, and I find one where Osterman’s body remained intact, yet lifeless. I count the particles…a live body and a dead body contain the same number. Structurally, there is no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I fear what is not there, and does not exist?

“I don’t exist, huh?” a sweet, feminine voice spoke behind me. Analyzing the vibrations, place of origin, and direction of projection, I determined it was aimed at me. I do not turn to face her yet. Without the presence of a quantum observer, the possibilities remain infinite, like frequencies of electromagnetic waves; in one probability, I turn to see a pale goth girl, in another, an elderly hooded man, and another, a tentacled Lovecraftian beast.

When I turned around, I expected to see a single frequency, not the full spectrum. “You can perceive me?”

“Yes,” she replied, “my brother has told me all about you. You’re John Osterman, right? Or do you prefer your other title?”

“I have no preferences. All titles are the same in my eyes.”

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you know?” she smiled, “you were just thinking about me…and saying that I don’t exist. They may say that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me’ I can tell you, that’s definitely not true. I am Death, in the flesh!”

“Yet you are not truly Death itself.”

“Excuse me?”

“Death is merely an idea, a pattern that exists in the grand order of things. It cannot be seen or felt or touched. Your standing here, before my living self, disproves your being the concept of death. I see the particles that compose your being. Matter cannot compose a concept.”

“You understand reality at a far more intricate level than most beings I’ve met,” said Death, “yet your understanding is basic, surface level. You see the interactions between particles but fail to see beyond the material world. I am Death, John. Your flawed understanding does not change that. I am everywhere. In West Africa a small village is being massacred by mercenaries in pay of their own government. I’m there. In the farthest reaches of a distant galaxy a planet is being ripped apart by internal stresses; it was the home of many crystal intelligences. I am there. You perceive me because I choose to let you see me.”

I examine the world around me. What she speaks of is true; in the grass below my feet, I see the microbes, insects, and plants be born and die as we speak. In the air, I see a bird of prey kill and devour a captured rat. Even in the minds of men, I can feel the births and deaths of ideas…

Even as we speak, I can sense death working. She was not blessed, or merciful. She was what she was. She has a job and does it. She’s there for old and young, innocent and guilty those who die together and those who die alone. She’s in cars and boats and planes in hospitals and forests and abattoirs. For some folks death is a release and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. but in the end, she comes for all of them.

“You have been gifted with a very long life, Jon Osterman,” said Death, “and now that life is yours. To some it may be a blessing, to others, a curse, or both, or neither. Either way, it is what you make it out to be, so choose wisely, and cherish it while it lasts.” Turning on her heels, she skipped away down the field in a carefree, happy-go-lucky way.

“Wait!” I suddenly called after her, “you said you had a brother? Who is he? Do you have any other siblings?”

“The world’s an open book, John!” Death replied lightheartedly, “it’s just a matter of learning to read. I’m sure you’ll find the process of learning much more interesting than the actual answer itself.” And with that, she was gone, vanished without a trace.

She was right. I had long forgotten the excitement of not knowing. In the span of a few minutes, she had turned my whole understanding of the world upside-down…and I am overjoyed! It feels so good to learn again.

The world in my eyes is like a still painting, strikingly beautiful, yet so limited. I have stared at it for an eternity, I have seen every detail there is to see, yet her words reimagines it in a whole new light. I cannot wait to explore this new perspective.

Chapter Text

How I envy John Osterman.

How I envy the man I once was.

To be able to experience the excitement of not knowing around every corner, upon entering every room, with each eye-blink. I envy him.

The date and time is September 4th, 1947, 8:03am.

John Osterman attends his first day of class at Princeton University where he will go on to earn his Ph.D. in nuclear physics. In that moment, he has dedicated his entire life to learning all there is to know about space and matter. Soon, he will learn that not knowing is a gift.

The date and time is May 12th, 1959, 1:23pm.

Professor Glass shows John Osterman around Gila Flats. Their tour leads them to the bunker where the Intrinsic Field Generator was being designed and tested. “This is where they are doing intrinsic field experiments. It's like, what if there's some field holding stuff together apart from gravity. This is our time-lock test vault so that when they're trying to separate objects from their intrinsic fields no radiation gets out.”

I have not changed into what I am not, but I could still sense myself in the future. John was still me, still my consciousness, sliding down the timestream.

The date and time is August 20th, 1959, 1:15pm.

John Osterman enters the Intrinsic Field Vault. He had forgotten his coat and watch in there. I thought I had all the time in the world. The Intrinsic Field test was scheduled for the day after, but due to a mix up of the dates, the operators carried the test out today.

It was the accident that remade me. Only it was no accident. There were no accidents. There is only what happens, and what does not happen. I cross the room to the Intrinsic Field Center. I find my watch. The door slammed shut behind me, and the test began. They tried to stop it but the program was locked in, and the time lock could not be overridden. I am terrified.

I can hear the shields sliding back from the particle cannons. The air grows too warm too quickly. All the atoms in the test chamber are screaming at once. The light is tearing me to pieces. For a fraction of a second, I feel a blinding pain engulf my entire body.

Then, John Osterman was no more.

I was torn apart at the subatomic level. Now it's just a question of reassembling the components in the correct sequence.

The date and time is August 22nd, 1959, 6:25pm.

A fully circulatory system is seen, walking by the perimeter fence.

A few days later…August 25nd, 1959, 8:47am. A partially muscled skeleton stands in a hallway…and screams for a moment before vanishing.

It was March 1st, 1960, at 10:32am, when I fully reformed in the cafeteria of Gila Flats, shocking the world.

I did not die. I was not destroyed. I was unmade, the bonds that hold my being--my atoms--together erased. I was wiped from the face of existence. There's nothing to bury, no shadow, no smoldering pile of ashes remained.

Death spoke truth when she told me Creation was a book, and for the briefest of moments, I was outside it. This Book of Souls contained all that is, was, and will ever be. The only eyes that see its contents are blind, and the only hands that touch it are bound to it by a heavy chain. In that moment, I glimpsed the Book and its guardian, Destiny of The Endless.

Like any book, some words simply stand out from the page…I recall them slowly…Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and of course, Destiny--the names of Death and her siblings--the Endless.

The date now is April 21st, 2010. I still stand in the Cemetery where I first met Death. There is a newspaper stall across the street. In 5 seconds, a man will walk by, pick up a paper, and leave 50 cents. He reads it on the bus, on his way to work at the Daily Planet news company before leaving it in the trash can at its door.

I do not follow him. I have no need to. I warp the fabrics of space-time around me. I arrive there the moment the paper enters the can. I grab it before it touches the bottom. Around me, I hear the voices of curious and frightened people discuss what they had just seen.

“Did you see that?”

“Who is that?”

“He appeared out of nowhere!”

“His skin glows blue!”

I do not care for their comments, nor for their reactions to my presence. The body I have constructed for myself was completely blue with differing shade and luminosity depending on circumstance, and has no hair. Their limited comprehension of reality makes their judgements flawed. Why should I give attention to flawed judgment?

SLEEP SICKNESS: OVER 1 MILLION AFFECTED

Dream. Something was going on in the realm of dreams. At purely the material level, I deduce its cause is a new virus that attacks the nervous system. But I have seen everything there is to see in the material world. I wish to see past it all, into the immaterial.

ALEX BURGESS DEMON IN THE BASEMENT

The humans believe it to be a demon. I know it is not. Sleep sickness, no dreams, sad sullen faces. This was not Dream's doing. It was his summoner's doing. I plan to pay the Dream Lord a visit. It is the only way I will get to know him.

I hear police sirens in the distance. One of the many onlookers must have summoned them out of fear. “Freeze!” I heard their tires screech, the doors open, and the guns cock. “Get down on your knees!”

I ignore them. I bend space-time around me again, creating a fold in reality that allows me to open an interstellar gateway from one point to another. I was now standing outside a rainy Manor. I felt Dream's presence and I felt it shift. Perhaps he felt mine too. The door was held in place by a lock--a device whose opening mechanism can only be triggered by a specific shift in its intrinsic internal components.

I mimic this shift, moving these components with my mind. The door pops open and I walk right in, right through the basement door and down the staircase. Entrapped in a glass sphere, enclosed with a rune circle was the physical form of Morpheus, the embodiment of dreams. He sat naked, his skin dead pale, and his eyes filled with hatred.

We locked eyes.

“You are Dream of the Endless.”

He did not move or speak. He only continued to stare at me. Beneath his hate-filled eyes, I sense a tinge of curiosity rising. I don’t need confirmation from him either. I knew what he was. I was merely stating what I knew.

Finally, after a long pause, he speaks to me. “What do you want from me? I have no gifts that I will give you.”

“I have no need for your gifts.” I replied, “I only wish to understand your kind and what you are.” I close my eyes. The world around me is now a closed box, a quantum possibility. When I open them again, I see a new quantum possibility, I see Dream in a different light. The Dream Lord has as many forms as he does, names…Morpheus, Oneiros, the Sandman, Kai'ckul, Lord L'Zoril…every pair of eyes perceive him differently.