"...here's our smallest wire brush, you should be able to lift it."
Someone I had only glimpsed before while playing in the rust box, a humongous black-haired being, handed me something the size of one of his fingers.
I grabbed it, and it was as he said.
I was able to lift it, even if it was a bit on the heavier side.
"Perfect. Now, you can just copy your little friends for how to use it. And don't forget to shake it regularly to clean out the rust powder you've already scoured but that got stuck. I advise you to start with small pieces. And don't let others steal your pieces; it's messy business. When I see you're ready, I'll get you to try scouring some pipes. It's more difficult, but you'll help everyone in the refuge if you're good."
Finishing his explanations just like that, he pointed at one of dozens of piles of rusted, weirdly shaped metal pieces surrounded by other kids also wielding wire brushes and left me to myself.
Curious about what this new development could lead to, I approached the emptiest pile and observed what the other kids were doing in detail.
They were, evidently, scouring rust off until only clean metal remained behind.
I sat down and picked up a small piece, like I was advised to start with, and started copying what they were doing.
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"Mmmh." The humongous one scrutinized my scoured pieces, turning them in all directions to make certain I hadn't missed any speck of rust.
I knew before he said it that I had succeeded.
"Good enough. Come with me."
Throwing my pieces in my bin, he stood up and indicated for me to follow, taking large strides, each equal to many of mine, prompting me to half-run to keep up with him as we left the pile hall.
Traversing the maze of corridors that made up the refuge, we arrived at a place I strongly suspected I had never wandered into before, as I did not recognize any rust patterns, and that's when he opened his mouth again.
"Scouring the rust off the inside of pipes is different. Not so much the rust scouring part, but the fact that you don't know what could still be contained within."
Opening with those words, he pushed open the door leading into a small dark hall and indifferently stepped inside, stopping me from following him until he shortly came back with two strange devices, one of which he handed me.
"Those are lights, portable lights. You turn them on by pulling the handle like that, then you can attach them wherever you can pinch something like that."
He showed me how to turn the handle without turning the entire light over, and magically, the device began to emit a dim glow.
I repeated the same thing with the light he handed me, and I made it work on my first try, causing me to flash him a momentary proud smile.
"Good. Now..."
Next, he showed me where to find those same lights, how to recharge them, where to ask for more if they broke, where the wire brushes were, and all the tools I might potentially need to scour the insides of pipes.
Eventually, he pointed toward the pipes themselves.
"Those are the pipes we're talking about, by the way."
He waved his light in one direction, and it was only then that I made out the ominous elongated figures of various long pieces of metal covered in rust at the center of the silent hall.
"Those are standard sizes, easy for you to get started and get your hands dirty with for some time before we introduce you to the heavy hitters. None should have been used to contain anything dangerous, but you never know, that's why you also have some special equipment..."
And the tour resumed.
More rust scouring equipment, special clothes, specific procedures, lots of advice...
I tried to remember everything at once. I knew I had failed, but I didn't dare to question or raise issues with the humongous one.
He was too scary and dangerous.
"That should be everything you need to know. Have at it at your own pace, you're still a bit young after all, and I wouldn't want to lose a perfect future pipe scourer so early. Any questions?"
I caught a slight sense of humor in the way he said that, but didn't look up to ascertain it, [Guided] to act as passive and harmless as I could. "No."
"Good."
And just like that, he left, closing the door behind him and leaving me to my own devices.
A sense of imminent panic instantly surged from somewhere at the realization that I had well and truly been left alone just like that, that if that door never opened again, I would be locked in and forgotten—
But thankfully, [Guided] was still there, not a thought away, the same as ever, directing me to keep my [Cycle] going while simultaneously urging me to get moving, to exert myself, to observe, to learn...
Like so many times before when I didn't know what to do or how to act, I happily surrendered myself to it, only briefly contemplating the horrifying complexity involved in the very act of always remembering to do all those things.
What a strange existence it would be not to have [Guided] always pushing me...
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The fundamental truth of [Exertion] never changed.
Not when I first began scouring the rust off the insides of pipes twice my height.
Not when I had my first bad experience while scouring some rust and released a strange liquid that made me feel weak for many sleeps.
Not when my light broke while I was in the middle of a long pipe and had yet to learn to bring a backup.
Regardless of how seemingly inapplicable it first appeared to be, considering the intricacy of the task and the endless ways it could go wrong, the truth that the longer I dedicated myself to the [Exertion] of a particular task, the better I would get at it...
Was irrefutable.
So much so that in this very instance, even as I was [Guided] to leave my light behind to enter the absolute darkness inside the pipe I was currently cleaning, I chose to believe.
Believe in [Guided].
Believe in myself.
Believe in my eyes.
Believe that a lightless world could be lit up through sheer [Exertion].
An [Exertion] I initiated the moment I was born in the omnipresent gloom of this world.
And so I slowly stepped into the darkness, gradually prodding my way forward, relying on my sense of touch to find the place where I had last stopped my rust scouring.
Then it was only a matter of relying on my experience to perceive the world and carry out what needed to be done.
One trip, two trips, three trips...
No result.
I expected none.
Exhausted and seeing fleeting shadows where there were none, I happily welcomed the call of peaceful slumber.
Then, when I next woke feeling rejuvenated, I went at it again, never turning on a light.
Over and over again.
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Never succumbing to the captivating notion of turning a light on for a mere breath to discern the results of my efforts.
Never accepting the reality that darkness could not be fought off.
Aspect Formed: [Perception] (Tier 0)
Until the truth demonstrated itself in one ethereal pulse of awareness that felt oddly similar to that singular sensation of touching upon my very existence that resided somewhere deep within myself.
In such a way, I witnessed the immaculate darkness enveloping me retreat ever so slightly.
It wasn't much, hardly enough to even glimpse the form of my own arms, much less that of my hands and fingers...
But it was a start.
All so that in the future, darkness would never be capable of taking my sight from me.
And to confirm something, I paused and delved into my deepest part.
[Guided] (Origin)
[Exertion] (Tier 0)
[Cycle] (Tier 0)
[Insight] (Tier 0)
[Perception] (Tier 0)
Those were my Aspects, weren't they?
If I understood the knowledge I had passively gathered...
Then [Guided] was my Origin Aspect, something a fairy had, something some had, something some others didn't have, and something which was perceived as a bad thing due to how bad and evil it could be.
As for the rest of my Aspects, they were called Path Aspects, and they had to be formed.
Formed in the way I just did, I guessed.
Meditating longer and further on this profound sense of existence did nothing but inform me of what I had already subconsciously been aware of.
My [Exertion]s.
My [Cycle].
My [Insight]s.
And now my [Perception].
Those were all very real parts of my being now, intrinsically bound, just like I couldn't imagine living without [Guided].
Nevertheless, there were still some differences from [Guided]...
I couldn't understand them yet, though.
[Guided] wasn't very keen on uncovering them anyway, spurring me to go back to scouring rust, again, without any mention of turning a light on.
As expected.
Thus [Guided], I got back to the [Exertion]s of scouring rust using a heavy wire brush, leveraging my entire body to share the load, holding my [Cycle] steadier and steadier, never missing an opportunity to sense anything happening and deduce its origin...
The only thing that changed, really, was that I could now barely make out the shape of my arms.
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My back itched.
It seriously itched.
It itched more than when I was covered in itchy liquid and had to wipe myself many, many, many times to remove all of it, and even then remained itchy for many sleeps.
I was also evidently hungrier than usual, but couldn't bring myself to ask for more paste when I overheard from the passing giants that the refuge's supplies were getting lower and lower.
All I could do, truly, was intensify my [Cycle] efforts.
Which wasn't possible, as I always gave it my best.
And my best fell short of my unfolding reality.
Before I realized it, I reacquainted myself with hunger, a dreadful sensation that not even [Guided] telling me to concentrate on other things could erase.
I felt weaker every time I went to sleep and woke up, my hunger only growing and growing to the point that I actually began to consider whether it was possible to steal some paste, only to then hear about another kid who tried just that and was summarily expelled.
Expelled.
Out of the refuge.
I wondered what it looked like outside.
I vaguely remembered it to be cold, but what I heard about it from both the other kids and the giants depicted it as a dark, gloomy, still, and dry world where children like us—children without the protection of guardians—had no chance of growing up and would instead be devoured by rusted abominations, never to be heard from again.
Between that and the refuge I now knew like the back of my hand, I knew where I wanted to be.
Hence, hungry or not, I did what I needed to do.
I scoured the rust from the inside of smaller and smaller pipes made out of stronger and stronger metal, growing more and more cautious and meticulous as I did so.
For soon enough, mere drops of strange liquids proved sufficient to melt through my protective clothes, and merely breathing incorrectly caused my throat to burn uncontrollably.
Prudent as I was, however, accidents still occurred, causing things like large patches of my skin to fall off or bouts of wild vomiting, resulting in me being forbidden from eating any paste and potentially wasting it until I felt better.
Then the situation suddenly got better in the worst way.
Some kids had starved to death.
I hadn't known them, and was generally mostly apathetic to the fates of everyone but a select few giants, but this reminder of my mortality nearly caused me to get into an accident when I next entered a pipe barely small enough to accommodate half my body height.
So much for believing I was completely indifferent and unaffected...
Ultimately, contrary to the hopeful reasoning I had initially established, the hunger reprieve due to the starvation of some didn't last.
Because with those gone, there were fewer to scour rust, and with less rust scouring, there were fewer clean metal pieces for the giants to use in exchange for paste, and with less paste...
As the situation only worsened, I was [Guided] to dedicate more and more of my attention to elevating my [Cycle], to the detriment of everything else.
Whenever I had the time and energy to contemplate the past and present, I could only be astounded at the truth of how quickly reality could veer from relative stability to erratic precariousness.
All those kids who starved, some older than me, some younger...
I could have been them.
And as of this instant, I could still become them...
Hunger could win.
That was unacceptable.
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The answer could plainly be to pull from further and further away.
It could also be to hold whatever elements I successfully pulled for much, much longer.
Mayhaps I had to accomplish all that while perfecting the way I pushed those elements to keep them contained while I recovered, taking finicky care to expel only what I had already extracted all I could from.
Or, possibly, I needed to supplement my [Cycle] with something more.
Like a miracle liquid potentially contained within the rust of one of those pipes.
[Guided] didn't hold such delusions of easy ways out.
Only pushing myself to my limits, forcefully expanding my pulling of strange elements, extracting any sort of energy I could from them, then expelling the hazardous remnants afterwards, was sufficient to prove I was even trying to win against hunger.
Not that I was winning.
Not yet.
At the worsening rate it was growing, maybe not ever...
Weirding me out further was that, for some unexplainable reason, this entire situation felt like one I had already experienced before but had absolutely no recollection of.
It was both riveting and infuriating.
Also, not anything I could actually be bothered to ponder, given how absolutely dedicated I needed to be to my [Cycle] to ward off my ever-growing hunger.
Even sleep had to go at some points, prompting me to discover firsthand why [Guided] had never let me get away with not sleeping, regardless of whether I was too driven by curiosity about something or excited at understanding new sounds, words, and concepts.
It was coming very close to surpassing hunger and had already surpassed cold when it came to how horrendous it felt.
Everything felt too complicated.
I felt weak.
I didn't want to do anything, to the extent that I sometimes came to consider even breathing too bothersome.
My only reminder of what I needed to do and not do was [Guided], my only permanent companion as I suffered what was truly the worst I had ever had to endure.
Then the door swung open, and the wrinkled one walked in.
"Please gather in the pile hall," she stated, then turned around, leaving all of us starving children behind without so much as a glance of pity.
Despondently, or maybe hopefully, some stood up to follow, prompting others, in turn, to stand and exit the room with heavy, tired steps.
What else could I do but follow along?
I escaped the edges of my crib, noticing as I did so that they were getting smaller and smaller.
Were they also being starved?
Or was I... growing bigger?
I couldn't help a faint grin from tugging at my lips.
So ridiculous.
By the time I walked to the pile hall, so many had gathered that I could barely make out all the giants standing on an elevated platform at the center.
I purposefully didn't get too close to the growing mass around this platform, preferring to keep some distance from the other kids.
It looked very uncomfortable.
"Silence," the humongous one spoke up, his voice booming through the whole hall, leaving only quiet in its wake.
The wrinkled one then stepped forward.
"Children of the refuge." Her tone instantly transmitted the gravity with which she was addressing us. "Harsh times are upon us, independent of our will, and to our knowledge, nothing we can do will lead to a betterment of our circumstances."
She paused.
"As such, we have unanimously decided to preemptively shut down this refuge by emptying our supplies, giving you all one last chance to make it in the outside world with the last spurt of energy we can provide you."
"I will not mince my words, and if you want one last piece of advice, it is to not hope for salvation to come to you. Seek it for yourself. The outside world is dangerous, but compared to starving to death here, it's much better to try your fate there."
Ending her speech like that, she withdrew and then indicated to the other giants to open various relatively clean metal boxes, the insides of which turned out to be flush with precious paste.
Paste, which was soon freely distributed so long as it was drunk on the spot.
That last fact engendered no small amount of incidents, but the giants appeared wholly indifferent to it all.
Well, they were giants after all, they probably had a way out... right?
I forgot about this line of thought the very instant it manifested.
Regardless of my will, I was thoroughly unable to do anything to them, as proven by the many times even the smallest giant easily picked me up without displaying a single sign of [Exertion].
I may have grown stronger and bigger, but I was still powerless in the grand scheme of things.
Contemplating that facet of reality, I gorged myself with paste, employing my [Cycle] to extract as much as I could from it while this feast lasted.
Because at the rate the paste vanished, it wouldn't last long...
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