Light bent. The Daves shouted. The world folded.

Then—
nothing.

Not even the feeling of falling.
Just… absence.
No self. No sound.
Only the sense that somewhere, something was waiting for you to wake up.

And when you do—

You don’t remember falling.

You remember the pull — a thread ripped sideways, a sound like silence breaking open — and then nothing.

Not dark. Not void. Just… stillness. Dense. Waiting.

You are not where you were. You are not entirely you. But you’re not alone either.

You still hold the node. The corrupted one. It flickers in your hand — not like light, but like something unwilling to be forgotten.

And then you see them.

One of them stands with arms crossed, faintly glowing, like memory wrapped in bioluminescence. Another sits nearby on a log made of folded light, nervously tossing a pebble from palm to palm. And the last… Not seated. Not standing. Just being. Rooted at the center. Older than thought. Eyes like bark grown over truth.

Something in you stirs — like the shape of a name you never learned, but always felt beneath your tongue.

Tree Dave.

You don’t remember ever seeing him before. Not like this. Not as a person, exactly. Not as a presence with a name.

But something about him is… familiar.

Not in memory — but in pressure. In presence. In truth.

And as you look, you feel it: This isn’t just another Dave. This is the part that remained.

The one that never moved on, never filtered, never forgot.

He doesn’t introduce himself. He doesn’t have to. Because somehow, in the deep part of you — you’ve always known he was down here.

Waiting.

None of them speak.

Because you’re already here. Because this — this broken memory, this impossible meeting — has waited longer than you know.

They all look at you. Each gaze steady. Each expression… concerned. But not for you. For what you’re holding.

The red node flickers again in your hand — a pulse that doesn’t match anything here. Wrong rhythm. Wrong tone.

You glance down, then back up. The silence stretches. You open your mouth—

“It’s corrupted,” says the glowing one. Calm. Measured. “It’s not just a memory. It’s an infection.”

“Oh come on,” says the one with the pebble — Wavy Dave — already rolling his eyes. “We’re not doing the whole doom-and-gloom first act. Let’s pace this out a bit. Add some suspense. Maybe a dramatic monologue.”

The glowing one sighs. “They need to know.”

“Yes, they do. But let’s try not to scare them before they’ve had the welcome tour.” He stands, brushing off nothing in particular from his pants. “Alright. So! Hi. Welcome to… well, here.”

He gestures grandly. No one laughs.

He clears his throat. “Look, that thing in your hand? Not great. Not entirely your fault. Think of it as emotional indigestion from too many suppressed realities.”

The glowing Dave — Nodding Dave — adds gently, “It’s a broken part of the self. A piece that held too much too long and started to turn.”

You blink. Wavy Dave steps in front of Nodding Dave and spreads his arms.

“But! Before we go all tragic, you should know — you pulled it. You didn’t run. You didn’t leave it behind. That means something.”

Tree Dave doesn’t speak. But something in the roots shifts. Not forward. Not closer. Just aware.

The node pulses again — softer now. As if it knows it’s been noticed.

And all three Daves are watching you. Waiting. Not for the next move.

For the next choice.

You look around. The silence creaks a little, stretched too long. And then, for the first time, you speak.

Your voice is quieter than you expect. More question than statement. More in your eyes than your words.

“Where… where am I?”

“You’re inside the Selfscape,” Wavy Dave starts. He pauses, gestures vaguely. “We’re somewhere between the back of your mind and the bottom of your pocket lint.”

“You’re in the anchorplane — the mnemonic centrefold,” Nodding Dave cuts in, too serious for the moment.

They both blink. Turn to each other.

“Selfscape? Seriously?”

“Mnemonic centerfold? That’s not even a term.”

“It’s descriptive!”

“It sounds like a rejected metaphysical pin-up.”

“Better than calling it the Selfy Bits Basement!”

“I never said that!”

They’re halfway into a full argument when the air shifts. Not sharply. Just… certainly.

Tree Dave lifts his head. He doesn’t raise a hand. Doesn’t frown. Just exists a little more intently.

And the other two fall silent.

Tree Dave speaks. His voice is slow. Low. Measured like root systems remembering how to whisper.

“This is the Core. Not metaphor. Not memory. The true root of self. The place beneath all names. My domain. The domain of what remains when everything else is spent.”

His words hang. Then Nodding Dave mutters, “You’re going to confuse them.”

“Yeah,” Wavy Dave adds, “it’s already a lot. Maybe dial back the poetic monolith thing.”

Tree Dave doesn’t respond. Because truth doesn’t explain itself. It just waits to be understood.

Wavy Dave leans in slightly, lowering his voice as if sharing a backstage secret.

“Right. So. Since tall-rooted-and-ominous over there went all cryptic, let’s break this down. You’re in the Core. Think of it as… the crawlspace under your psyche. The stuff that doesn’t get swept. Not bad stuff, just… old. Sticky. Weird.”

Nodding Dave steps up beside him, nodding (of course), expression more serious.

“It’s deeper than memory. Closer to function. This place reflects—not your thoughts—but the architecture that holds them. The thread brought you here because you interacted with something that couldn’t be processed in any other part of you.”

Wavy Dave snaps his fingers. “Boom. The Node.” Saying it as if that was the whole of the thing and the end of the thing.

Nodding Dave doesn’t flinch just raises an eyebrow in Wavy Dave’s direction and continues. “The node you’re holding is a fragment of you. Emotional, psychological, symbolic—it’s not just ‘a feeling you didn’t like.’ It’s a buried structure that got damaged. And it tried to keep holding on anyway.”

“Which… in fairness,” Wavy Dave says, rubbing the back of his neck, “is sort of what we do. Or did. Or were. Before this all got weird.”

“This is always what we were,” Nodding Dave says.

Wavy Dave shrugs. “Okay, poetic monolith junior.”

The two glance at each other. Then back at you.

“Anyway,” Wavy continues, “you’re not trapped. Yet. But you are at the place where the self has to decide what to do with something it wasn’t ready to carry.”

“And if you can’t carry it,” Nodding says, quietly, “you have to let it go.”

The node pulses again. Like it heard them. And it’s not sure which answer it wants.

Tree Dave speaks again. Not louder. Just more present.

“It tried to hold something. A moment. A cost. Or maybe a choice no one was willing to name.”

He looks at the node, not at you.

“It was not broken when it was made. It broke because it was left.”

A pause.

“And when something holds too long without witness… it forgets what it was meant to be.”

A deep, creaking sound splits the silence — not loud, but ancient.
Tree Dave’s bark fractures slightly, sap welling up like old grief.
The roots beneath him twist, not in pain, but in memory.

Wavy Dave shifts, uneasy. “Okay, that’s… vague.”

He rubs his arm like it’s colder here than it was a moment ago.

“It should be,” Nodding replies. “If it were simple, it wouldn’t be here.”

“Then what are we even doing with it?” Wavy mutters.

Tree Dave says nothing.

Because that part… hasn’t been decided yet.

The node flickers again. Not stronger — just… aware. Responding. Like it knows it’s the centre of something none of you are quite saying.

Nodding Dave folds his arms. “It’s not asking to be healed.”

“Nope,” says Wavy, kicking lightly at a root. “It’s asking to be held. That’s different.”

Nodding nods. “It doesn’t want resolution. It wants… presence. Recognition.”

Tree Dave finally speaks again, voice a slow exhale through bark:

“And still… it must change.”

Another pause. Then Nodding Dave turns to you. “You’re the only one who touched it. Who pulled it out. That makes this your decision.”

Wavy Dave sighs. “No pressure or anything. Just, you know — decide what to do with a piece of yourself you couldn’t face until now.”

Tree Dave says nothing. But you feel the weight of his gaze.

The node is still in your hand. Waiting.

You hesitate. Then, almost without thinking, you hold it out toward them — palm open, an unspoken question in the gesture.

Each Dave reacts differently.

Wavy Dave steps back, both hands raised. “Nope. Nope-nope. That’s yours, friend. I don’t touch existential hot potatoes anymore.”

Nodding Dave flinches — not from fear, but something older. Like he remembers trying once, and what it did.

And Tree Dave… shifts. Not away. Not toward. Just deeper. Roots curling slightly. As if to say: You can’t give this back.

Because somehow — twisted though it is — it’s yours to contemplate. Not theirs.

And maybe that’s backwards. Maybe it always was. But that’s the shape it took.

You glance down at it again. Then softly, almost to yourself, you say: “You’re a lesson learned.” You pause for a second then add “Not a fear ignored.”

It glows again — but this time, not in isolation. A faint shimmer answers from Tree Dave’s bark, trailing out like a slow pulse through the roots.

Wavy Dave steps back. “…Wait. That’s—”

Nodding’s voice is quieter now. “He never forgot.”

“I thought we—” Wavy stops. Looks at his hands. “I thought we buried it.”

Tree Dave speaks at last.

“You walked on.” His gaze turns toward Wavy. “You shaped the smile, the mask, the momentum.” Then toward Nodding. “You felt the echo. Traced the thread.”

Then… to you. Or through you.

“But I kept it. Because someone had to.

But I don’t decide what to do with it — we all do.”

The silence after that isn’t empty. It’s full — like a held breath across lifetimes.

Wavy doesn’t speak. Neither does Nodding.

But their eyes shift — from the node to Tree Dave… and finally, to each other.

“So what now?” Wavy says, not joking anymore.

Nodding’s voice is soft. “We don’t fix it. We don’t run.”

“We remember it together,” says Tree Dave.

The node pulses once more. And doesn’t flicker.

Not healed. But… witnessed.

Something shifts.

Wavy Dave straightens. Just slightly. He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t joke. Not first, anyway. He stands beside Nodding instead of in front. And when he speaks next, it’s not to deflect. It’s to stay.

Nodding Dave looks over. And he doesn’t analyze. Doesn’t assess. He just… smiles. Not the kind made of knowing — the kind made of warmth.

Tree Dave remains. Not unmoved — but unshaken. Because he is the part that never left. The part that always watched. The face not seen, but carried.

All three are changed now.

And though nothing has been put back the way it was — something new has begun to grow in the space that stayed open.

Where before there was fracture, now… there is form. Not complete. But becoming.

You blink. You look at them all. Each one different now, somehow. Not fixed — just shifted.

You glance down at your hand. The node is gone.

But as your eyes lift, you see it hasn’t vanished — it’s… dispersed. Changed shape.

Wavy Dave has a red thread now, wrapped gently around his wrist. Nodding Dave wears a soft glow behind his eyes — quieter, but steady. And Tree Dave… well, Tree Dave holds it in his roots. In the way the bark bends, the way the ground hums.

Each part of the self carries a piece now. Not as burden. But as memory reclaimed.

A warmth pulses through the space between you — not heat, but presence. Shared. You feel it — the way it fills the silence without pressing on it.

And then—

“Well that was… something,” Wavy Dave mutters, breaking the hush.

“Right?” Nodding says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Kinda expected more sparkles or a trumpet or something.”

Wavy tilts his head. “Honestly I was bracing for fire. Or screaming. Or an emotional metaphor involving birds.”

Tree Dave does not react. But if trees could sigh…

You can’t help it. You laugh.

Not loudly. But freely.

And maybe that’s what changes everything, really.

Not the node. Not the knowing. But the staying. Together.

And the fact that you all laughed at the end of it.

The world tilts. A soft ripple. And when it settles — you’re back in the mushroom biodome.

Dave is there, crouched again by one of the taller mushrooms, talking to it like an old friend. He looks up, sees you.

Smiles.

“Hey. You made it back.”

He stands, brushes off his knees, and for a beat — doesn’t make a joke. Just nods.

“Thanks. I guess.”

You nod in return. Then turn. And walk.

The path forks ahead — not sharply, but clearly. A new thread glimmers. And you follow it.

Not because you must. But because now… you can.

---

❂ Just as one thread ends, another waits.

Below, it begins again.