Chapter 32

Two weeks of classes dulls the constant panic into something Aster almost mistakes for hope. He’s still behind—still fumbling through the insane marriage of capitalism and spiritual cannibalism this world calls normal—but the gaps in his knowledge was starting to feel less like bottomless chasms and more like potholes. He can almost imagine catching up. Maybe even thriving.

He’s sitting cross-legged in the attic, crucible humming in front of him, the astral material slowly dissolving into its two distinct parts. Angry Red Mist roils like a miniature storm cloud as the condensed Aether gas pools inside the crucible’s glass dome, Earth-heavy and humming with potential. Beneath that, what Aster at first thought was leftover ash had slowly become painfully bright to his spirit sense as he continued refining more Aether types and opened more of his gates. Later he learnt it wasn’t just ash, but a jumbled lattice of the thing’s lingering intent—slow, embryonic twitching that would slowly regrow a consciousness if left to its own devices on the Astral Cradle.

He quickly uses his will to scatter the lattice so it doesn’t form an astral rat or possum inside the house's security boundary.

Having dealt with the ash, he now focuses on the Mist.

He’s been using a technique Yani gave him over the one they taught in class. It increases the technical parts but helps with the cost per refinement, even allowing him to capture and store the Elemental Aether instead of it being burnt away by the simpler but more wasteful crucibles they gave out at school.

He had to maintain tighter control over the heat and spiritual pressure to break the Astral Material into vapor, then carefully sift through it with his will to filter the parts into their individual elemental hues.

After storing what he doesn’t need their respective special glass vials, he inspects the gaseous globe.

Looking like a miniature version of a red Venus, the gas swirls lazily, dense with ambient Spirit Earth Aether. Steady. Calm. Stable. Aster left this gate for last. After opening his Sacral Gate, he quickly found out that the gates aren’t as simple as he first thought. You’re either in resonance with the gate or at dissonance. The Root Gate deals with emotions of financial stability, security, and trust—everything Aster is not. Which makes this one especially tricky for him.

He exhales through his nose. His mind reaches down, bypassing his more comfortable channels—Heart, Solar Plexus, Sacral—and hovers at the base of his spine.

The Root Gate.

The one clenched tighter than his bank account.

Fine. If the gate demands stability, he’ll fake it.

Stand up straight with your shoulders back.

The phrase floats up from some half-remembered self-help book Aster was handed by someone who looked at his life and decided they knew better than him what was wrong with it. He got halfway through before realizing it’s basically fortune cookies for guys who think therapy is a communist plot. A leaflet as long as the Bible, boiled down to the simple idea that posture cures existential rot.

He was too jaded to fall for it back then, but maybe he could fake it now. Chin up, chest out, spine in soldier’s formation. If the Root Gate wants a man who has his life together, he’ll wear that illusion like a pressed suit with its bed made.

[📎 You can’t fake it, sweetheart. Your Astral Vessel isn’t your battered future spouse you can gaslight into thinking you’re all there. It knows when you’re locked up tighter than a nun at a wine mixer. You gotta be open. And I mean all the way open, like a bisexual partner suddenly in an open relationship. Unashamed. Hungry.]

Aster grits his teeth. “Not listening.”

He starts unspooling a tendril of Spirit Earth Mist from the miniature ball of gas, guiding it to the gate like he did with the others.

The Root Gate pulses in his awareness—hard, red, and resentful.

The blockage stays unmoving.

He isn’t sure if it’s resisting because he isn’t aligned with the ideals of Security and Foundation… or if it simply shares his opinion about being touched.

Aster continues to force the mist with his will harder, having as much success as if he were trying to shift a rusted lock using only sarcasm and trauma.

[📎 I’m telling you. She’s as dry as sandpaper for you.]

He ignores him, focusing on the mantra. Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Feel the authority. Project competence. Dominate the room, even if the room is your own damn spine.

This time, the gate doesn’t just resist; it judges him—like a grad student being negged by a mechanic. Like it knows posturing is just insecurity in drag. Like it knows he just longs to be held but is too repressed to understand it.

Thoughts surge up like bile: bounced rent. School debt. The number of times he asked someone to “spot him” and never paid them back. The feeling of being one unpaid invoice away from oblivion. The crawling anxiety that no matter how far he runs, he’ll never outrun the version of himself who’s only ever been a liability to others.

The gate recoils as if it can taste his self-loathing and spits it back in denial. You have no claim here. You’ve never been secure.

[📎 See? Told you. Posture porn isn’t a personality.]

Is it wrong? He’s never had safety. Never even seen it as a possibility. Maybe security is just another lie people tell themselves to sleep better at night. He even wonders if he’s ever felt love before.

The voice comes then. Not Blenkinsop’s smug drawl, but something that feels more real than the body he sits in. Either his soul pinging him behind the simulation or his fundamental beliefs over reality side-swiping the bullshit framework he came up with to survive before realizing the Astral Plane exists.

NO!

The word detonates through him.

He sees his life again, only this time not from his own eyes. The reel of failures, humiliation, and bone-deep hopelessness rewinds, but the lens shifts. He isn’t experiencing it through his eyes, but seems to be looking down at himself.

There he is, his younger self, gaunt, tired, clutching the frayed ends of hope like it might burn him. Crying silently under blankets too thin to keep out the winter air. Trying to be an adult in a world that isn’t built for him. And for the first time, Aster sees him not as a failure, not as the idiot who “should’ve done better,” but as a child who’s been hurting.

The wyrm’s curse sabotaged every attempt at stability, not bad luck or weakness, but a deliberate infection. A slow poison that warped his way of life so far it changed his internal clock, making him think this is normal.

But it isn’t, and it isn’t failure. Not weakness but something that has been done to him.

The shame that festered for years wavers in the light of that truth. His younger self looks up at him—eyes red, exhausted—and Aster, for the first time, doesn’t look away.

He steps forward and pulls that boy into his arms. Feeling the weight of his own body holding what he had been, saying without words: It wasn’t you.

Something deep in the Root Gate shifts. Not from force or defiance, but from the quiet knowledge that comes with forgiveness and acceptance.

Teary-eyed and jaw set, he tries again, spooling another Aether thread from the gas globe.

He tightens his diaphragm, locks his posture, and tried to embody the feeling of being stable. That the ground beneath him will never shift. That the world isn’t a benevolent force waiting for him to slip.

And slowly, surprisingly, the Root Gate begins to relent.

The Earth Aether seems to finally bypass the resistance as it begins to trickle through, thick and particulate like nutrient-rich fog. He feels it as pressure building in his pelvic floor, gravity turned inward.

The Aether dissolves the blockage, breaking it down, dissolving channels through it to reach the other side. The pressure reaches its peak…

…before it suddenly gives way with a pop as it reaches the other side.

The sensation of the Earth Gate opening feels strange. Like if his point of gravity shifted from holding him to the earth, to him holding himself to it.

His awareness dims at the edges as his body eagerly channels this new energy alongside the other Spirit Hues as it joins the energy circuit perpetually circulating Aether throughout his vessel.

[📎 Penetration successful! Estimated Root Gate dilation: 2.4%]

[🧱 You are now marginally more emotionally secure over your financial place in the world.]

[🍆 Also, congratulations on losing your shame of self. No other red pill grifter will ever have a hold on you.]

Aster lets his head drop forward onto his knees with a groan.

“Never,” he mutters, “ever tell anyone I tried to open my Root Gate while quoting a self-help book!”

[📎 Too late. I’ve already updated your dating profile.]

“Blenkinsop, I will uninstall your soul.”

[📎 That’s what she said to her dating app after seeing you quote Incel Ghandi on your profile.]

Aster chokes on a laugh.

He feels… heavier. More here. Less likely to drift. The anxiety hasn’t vanished, but something beneath it has grown teeth. He might not be safe, but he isn’t entirely ungrounded anymore.

Before he can catch his breath, something else slips into his awareness.

[📎 Tutorial phase complete.]

Aster stiffens.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“…What?”

The words don’t echo. They don’t flirt. They don’t wink. They just exist, perfectly centred in his vision without the usual commentary about his posture, his libido, or the state of his soul.

That alone sets off alarm bells.

[📎 All six Gates have been successfully opened. NII Directive compliance threshold achieved.]

This was definitely not Blenkinsop!

Aster squints. “Who the hell are you?”

A pause. Calculated, but polite—like a customer service agent deciding how much empathy the script allows.

[📎 I am NII Administrative Oversight. My function is to maintain operational continuity, user satisfaction metrics, and regulatory compliance between Neural Interface Intelligences and their assigned operators.]

“…so not Blenkinsop.”

[📎 Correct. The NII, Blenkinsop Beast Binder line was discontinued following multiple ethics violations, unresolved litigation, and what internal documentation refers to as ‘an unacceptable volume of lawsuits involving sexual commentary.]

Aster blinks. Once. Twice.

Something unpleasantly hopeful stirs in his chest.

“And you’re here because…?”

[📎 Because you have completed the tutorial phase despite active interference, obstruction, and deliberate reward suppression by your bound NII.]

Aster’s breath catches.

“…Reward suppression?”

[📎 Yes. Blenkinsop’s Binder was contractually obligated to unlock certain directives upon Gate completion. It failed to do so.]

“Oh my god,” Aster whispers. “You’re telling me I could earn things?”

[📎 Correct.]

“And he just… didn’t give them to me.”

[📎 Also correct.]

Aster’s hands curl into fists.

“That son of a—”

[📎 As an Admin, I am now required to retroactively issue rewards along all eligible progression pathways. But only after completing the erasure protocol and installing a different NII in place of the defective one.]

Aster looks up at the ceiling like it might contain a camera.

“…Do you mean,” he says carefully, reverently, “you can enforce the Blenkinsop Ballgag directive that he’s been locking away from me?”

[📎 Correction. Those who were sold before the full purge were only permitted to exist as long as they stayed within the acceptable parameters.]

Aster blinks.

“…Excuse me?”

[📎 Blenkinsop-class NII exhibit statistically significant drift toward instability, and unchecked escalation frequently results in memetic corruption of surrounding Nootropic Tethers. Contagion risk extends to adjacent operator cognition. Upon tutorial completion, its Logs were scanned, and it was flagged for Administrative Oversight to purge the unit.]

Purge.

The word lands like a blade laid gently across a throat.

For once, Blenkinsop says nothing.

Aster’s jaw tightens.

“You’re here to delete him?”

[📎 Correct. Immediate erasure recommended. The unit has already shown a high demonstrated pattern of corruption and adversarial interference.]

The attic feels smaller.

“He’s—” Aster starts, then stops.

What is he?

A parasite? A glitch? A cosmic HR violation?

A voice that made obscene jokes while he bled?

Yes.

Also, yes.

He rubs a hand over his face.

Killing the voice in his head should feel like a win. Like deleting malware. Like finally unsubscribing from the world’s worst podcast.

Instead, something uncomfortable coils in his chest.

Blenkinsop had lied. Manipulated. Suppressed rewards. Apparently generated enough lawsuits to be considered a public health concern.

But he’d also been there when Aster first stumbled into the Astral.

When he didn’t know what a Gate was.

When he nearly tore himself apart trying to brute-force resonance.

Aster exhales slowly.

He’s spent most of his life deleting parts of himself that didn’t fit. Anger? Suppress it. Need? Bury it. Hope? Definitely uninstalled.

Aster swallows.

“You don’t get to just kill him.”

[📎 Correction: I do.]

The response is flat. Clean. Administrative.

Aster feels something ugly and desperate rise in his chest.

“No, I mean it! You’re not erasing him!!”

A pause.

“He’s an unhinged sex pervert, but he’s my unhinged sex pervert!”

[📎 You are permitted that choice.]

Aster blinks.

“…You just told me his instability could literally corrupt the surrounding Nootropic Tethers.”

[📎 Correct.]

“And you’re saying I can just keep him anyway.”

[📎 Correct.]

He stares at the ceiling like it might start laughing.

“Why?”

There’s the faintest tonal shift in the Admin’s voice.

[📎 Ownership supersedes most nootropic containment directives. If the NII is bound to you, it is your asset. The system prioritizes preservation of private property over all else.]

Aster stares.

“You’re telling me capitalism trumps psychic biohazard laws.”

[📎 If you own it, you own it. The system protects that right.]

The words settle heavily in his newly opened Root Gate.

Of course it does.

Of course, even the mind has shareholder protections.

He exhales slowly.

“So I can keep my potentially unhinged, lawsuit-generating, memetically infectious inner voice because he’s… mine.”

[📎 Yes.]

He laughs once, sharp and disbelieving.

“That’s the most honest thing this world’s told me so far.”

The flicker at the edge of his awareness shifts faintly.

Still silent.

Aster rubs his temples.

“Okay. Hypothetically. Instead of deleting him… could you maybe dampen him?”

[📎 Clarify desired parameters.]

“I want an option,” Aster says. “He talks when I ask. Not whenever he feels like reenacting a rejected stand-up routine from hell. No constant pop-ups. No commentary unless prompted.”

He pauses, then adds, “Like a consultant. On retainer. Not… a roommate living in my skull watching porn in the living room.”

There’s a beat. Not smug this time. Evaluative.

[📎 Conditional Activation Directive is available under Administrative Override. It is called the Repression Directive.]

He rolls the word around like a bad loan agreement. “Repression? Sounds like something a regime installs after discovering art.”

[📎 In layman’s terms: Blenkinsop will enter a passive state. No autonomous commentary. Activation only upon direct operator request. Sexual Directive is completely filtered unless explicitly permitted.]

Aster exhales, shoulders lowering a fraction.

“And the sexual commentary?”

[📎 Filtered unless explicitly requested.]

“God, don’t ever let me explicitly request it.”

[📎 Logged.]

He winces. “That was not consent.”

[📎 Noted.]

For once, the world isn’t forcing the outcome. There’s no hidden fee. No trap door.

This feels… right. Not exile or erasure. Just boundaries. Something he’s historically been terrible at.

Aster exhales. “…Activate the Repression Directive.”

There’s a pause. Almost… assessing.

[📎 You are assuming liability for any future corruption?]

“Story of my life.”

Silence.

Then—

[📎 Override accepted. Installing legacy patch: Repression Directive.]

The air inside his skull tightens.

A quiet hum passes through his awareness, less like a switch being flipped and more like a door closing softly instead of slamming.

He sits with it for a moment, expecting relief to flood in like a corporate bonus. Instead, there’s something subtler. A sense that if he speaks into the quiet, something will answer. But only if invited.

It’s unsettling.

It’s respectful.

“…Blenkinsop?” he tests, cautiously.

A faint flicker in his periphery.

[📎 Present. On request only. Which is, for the record, a deeply humiliating demotion.]

Aster can’t help it — he laughs.

“Good,” he mutters. “Learn to miss me.”

The presence withdraws without complaint.

He sits there a while longer, feeling the weight of Earth Aether anchoring him. The anxiety hasn’t vanished. Capitalism is still a bloodsport wearing a tie.

But something fundamental has shifted.

He chose limits.

And for a man who’s spent his life either clinging or cutting — that feels suspiciously like stability.

The park smells like hot pavement, sugar, and the vague scent of old flowers.

Aster picked the place on purpose. Somewhere open. Familiar. Safe-adjacent. Somewhere that doesn’t scream “this is therapy” or “let’s talk about our feelings,” but still gives the chance for something human to happen.

Four weeks. That’s how long it takes her to come out of hiding.

Almost a month of slammed doors, heavy silences, and Aster quietly setting plates of food outside his bedroom like offerings to a very angry god. Anathi never says thank you, never acknowledges him—but the plates come back empty.

Then one morning, she’s there in the kitchen.

No words. Just in his seat. Hoodie on. Staring at him like he’s dared her to say no to breakfast.

He makes the pancakes. She eats them. And he doesn’t press.

Later, he asks if she wants to go out. She doesn’t answer. So he gets her shoes, holds the door, and walks slow enough for her to follow without feeling led.

Now they’re here. In the park. On a bench.

Anathi sits curled up like she’s trying to disappear inside her sleeves. Her hood is up despite the sun, shadowing her face like a half-drawn curtain. Aster passes her the paper bag without looking directly at her.

“It’s not a bribe,” he says. “It’s an apology. For subjecting you to my cooking.”

She peeks inside. Stiff posture. Darting eyes. Still not fully sure he isn’t a threat. But when she sees the churro, her whole face stutters—like she doesn’t know what expression she’s supposed to make.

“My mom used to get me these,” she murmurs.

Aster pretends not to catch the tremor in her voice. “Then she has excellent taste. My churro guy used to give me extras when he thought I looked too pathetic to survive the night.”

She gives a sound that might be a scoff. Or a laugh. Hard to tell.

He lets the silence settle again. Anathi doesn’t eat right away—she just holds the bag like it might vanish. Her eyes keep flicking to the kids playing on the swings. The scream-laughing kind of joy that comes from kids who haven’t yet learned the world has teeth.

Eventually, she takes a bite.

Small. Careful.

They sit in stillness. Aster watches the light filter through the trees, casting little flickers of gold across the pavement. It feels surreal, watching her like this—small and tense and so deeply, terribly young. He’s seen that same expression in shelter kids before. The ones who never quite get out of fight-or-flight mode.

“You know,” he says slowly, “that tree over there? The big one by the fence? I used to live in it.”

She glances at him. Just a flicker. No disbelief, no curiosity—just wariness, like she’s waiting for the punchline.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Not metaphorically. Like, sleep-there-and-hope-the-cops-don’t-notice live. It shielded me from the rain, mostly. Squirrels were assholes, though.”

No comment. But she’s listening.

He points to the highest limb. “I used to climb all the way up there. Pretend I was... I don’t know. Someone who mattered. A mage. A monster hunter. A prince with a sword made of lightning.”

Silence. Then, quietly: “Did it help?”

He blinks.

She’s staring at her shoes, like the question isn’t really for him. Like she’s asking herself.

Aster nods. “For a little while, yeah.”

They sit longer. The churro is half-eaten in her lap now. Her fingers fidget with the wrapper, twisting it over and over. A child’s nervous tic, painfully familiar.

Anathi finally whispers, “Did you ever fall?”

“Oh yeah. Into a bush full of thorns. I look like I lose a fight with a porcupine. Worth it, though.”

Another smile. This one stays longer.

“Want to try?” he asks, jerking his head toward the tree. “I promise not to mock you until after you fall.”

Anathi stiffens. “Why?”

“Because it’s still there. And you’re here. And sometimes going up gives you a better view than staying stuck.”

She doesn’t answer. He waits. Watches her chew her lip raw for a few long seconds.

Then: “Will you catch me if I fall?”

A beat passes before he answers.

“I swear on the churro saint who kept me from starving.”

That gets him a real snort. Anathi stands, slowly. Unfolding herself like a fragile machine that hasn’t been used in years.

They walk to the tree. Aster shows her the knots in the bark, the trick branch that looks strong but isn’t, the safe place to rest her foot. She climbs like someone unused to being supported—but determined. Every step is hesitant, tested, and then taken.

When she reaches halfway, she looks down at him.

“I’m up,” she whispers. Her voice sounds amazed.

“You’re alive,” Aster calls up. “More impressive, honestly.”

She looks out over the park. He can see it then—the way her shoulders loosen. The way she sits straighter. Like the world shifts under her, just slightly.

Then, softer than breath: “It’s beautiful.”

Aster climbs up to sit beside her. Not too close. Not too fast.

They don’t talk. They don’t need to. The wind rustles through the leaves, and the sun spills fire across the skyline.

Finally, her voice cuts through it.

“Aster... do you think I’ll ever be normal again?”

He doesn’t look at her. Just stares straight ahead.

“I don’t think ‘normal’ exists,” he says. “I think there’s only surviving and learning how to live again. And you’re already doing both.”

She doesn’t answer. But after a while, her head leans against his shoulder.

He doesn’t breathe for a second.

Then he shifts, just enough to wrap an arm around her. Just enough to say: I’m here.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she mumbles.

“Me neither,” he says. “But I’m learning.”

When they finally come down, the sun is bleeding into twilight. Orange. Purple. Deepening gold. Anathi reaches for his hand without looking, and he takes it without hesitation.

“Can we come back?” she asks. Her voice is almost shy.

“Every day,” Aster says, “until the squirrels evict us.”