Finding Freedom

Pain bloomed throughout my face. I steadily got to my hooves from the floor.

"Did you happen to catch the name of the guy who hit me?"

"Ya I did, I think he said his name was Silver."

"Ha ha, very funny. How long was I out?"

"About 5 days, or was it 5 minutes?"

"Alright I'll take that as not long."

I sat down on the chair. God this hurt. I'm never face-anythinging as long as I live. Morkar was still standing in the middle of the room. His robes moved around him as he laughed at me.

"You took a great time to sleep. Now before you go out and have fun, there are some things I need to tell you."

"I thought you weren't teaching me yet."

"This is different, you would have learned this had you been awakened normally. Even those who achieve an enlightenment normally understand more than you. It's like as soon as you got a taste of enlightenment you took off."

"What do you mean by awaken?"

"All in good time. I don't know how much you understand, so I'll start with the basics."

Morkar began sucking in breathe as if he expected to say it in one go. "Throughout all of existence there are an infinite amount of planets, galaxies, and even universes. To go along with this there are an infinite amount of souls. Now life exists in the form of shells, A.K.A. our bodies. We interact with the world with these bodies. The brain in these bodies usually takes up any memories gained throughout life. The soul is the controller of the body. For example, if I erased all of your memories and gave you all of mine down to the very last detail. You would be an exact copy of me. You would be me, but I wouldn't be you."

Impressive, he had managed to say all that without stopping. I gave him a blank look in response to his last explanation.

He sighed, "Another example is this sentence; I hate badgers. The shell is the hate badgers part. The shell is the experience, action, and idea of hating badgers. The soul is the I part. It's what gives us a perspective. Understand?"

I nodded, "As much as I ever will."

He smiled, "Good it's about to get much more confusing. Now when our shell dies the memories that were in the brain are lost with it. All of our experience and opinions, everything that defined us, gone. The only thing left is the soul, the perspective on things. When your soul enters a new shell it's still your perspective. You might have completely different opinions, memories, and ideals. You could even be the opposite sex. However, it's still you. You're seeing these things, you’re the one with the ideals."

Again his ability to not breathe stunned me.

"Now when one is awakened, or achieves an enlightenment, he or she activated the soul. Before the soul is pretty much acting on instinct. When it's set free, it immediately makes or finds a new shell near where it died. When the soul is activated it begins to absorb any memories the brain has collected so far. When the shell dies the soul becomes conscious. It can now think, and if it so chooses, leave the reincarnation cycle."

I absorbed this information, slowly. "You didn't answer my question. What is an awakening?"

"An awakening is when someone who has achieved an enlightenment share it with a willing soul."

I nodded, "You keep saying an enlightenment. Isn't enlightenment like a state of mind? Like Buddha, when you rise above life's existence."

Morkar shook his head, "Not really. An enlightenment is when someone realizes a great truth. I haven't met this Buddha guy, but I bet he did achieve an enlightenment. You must have realized a great truth, but your shell must have died soon after. Not a lot of people can do that, and it sends out a unique signal. Someone would have come to investigate, and most likely found you."

I tried to speak again, but Morkat held out his hand.

"You're getting me off track. Anyways, an enlightenment doesn't require you to release all of your ties to life, after all life is eternal and goes hand in hand with souls, whether awake or not. Not everyone has the same enlightenment, and some have the same one. The only other option is to find someone who will share theirs with you. There are certain groups who frown upon this act. They claim that everyone awakens their souls when they were meant too, at a predetermined time. They say that awakening souls goes against fate."

I needed another break, this was a lot to handle.

"Now when a soul is released from its shell and doesn't seek another shell it returns to the spirit stream."

I blanked, "The what?"

"You must have gone there. It's a place of nothingness, but everything. It's where spirits originate from, and can retreat when they tire of life. From here anywhere in existence is accessible. You must have seen that to get here."

I nodded, "I was able to cut a hole in the place with my sword, and it would lead to where I wanted to go."

Morkar smiled, "Exactly. That pretty much covers the basics of awakened life. Now as your souls is conscious It can now take in memories directly. Everything you do will stay with you no matter how long you exist. I've been awake for 359,037 years now. I still remember the day I achieved an enlightenment. I was 75 at that time, living on a planet called Acrium. I was a wizard there, and lived in a tower much like this one. Regardless, what I'm saying is that the next time you die you will again return to the spirit stream where you can rest, and if you so choose return to life."

Way too much information. I felt like my head was going to explode. "So I'm immortal?"

"Well no, you will probably die more times than you would want to, but your spirit will always be awake. You will go through many shells, but now you will remember every single life."

I nodded again, "I think I get it now."

Morkar huffed, "Now that were done with the basics, I can tell you what's really important. A powerful being, who some call a god, others fate happened upon our existence. Fate, as I call it, took over. It stopped souls from traveling to other worlds and trapped them all in their own worlds. However existence was too big for even fate. Fate split itself into countless parts. Each part watches over a section of existence. However, existence is always expanding, and the part they watch over slowly gets bigger."

Sounds like I found the big bad guy.

"These parts of Fate have been termed Regulators. Now as a whole being Fate didn't have a soul, so all the Regulators have no soul. They have learned from us and can imitate it, but In the end it doesn't work. If you kill a Regulator, then its gone for good. Some think that Fate was jealous and that's why it took over. You probably didn't get caught because the regulator watching your section of existence didn't catch your enlightenment signal in time to catch you. However, you won't always be so lucky."

I spoke up, "Actually right before I left that place, the spirit stream, a voice tried to stop me."

Morkar looked up quickly, "What?!"

"Ya it told me to go back to Earth."

"Curious. I had heard that some Regulators could actually get into the spirit stream, but they couldn't interact with it. Even more curious that it spoke to you."

Morkar finally stopped talking to think, but not for long.

"No matter. Now one more thing. Some souls have joined up with the Regulators in the belief that Fate should rule over all. They hunt souls like me and you down and try to capture us. They are dangerous in the fact that they can sense us even after our enlightenment signal dies. There is something different about us then the unawakened ones. They say that there is a certain fire in our eyes."

I laid down on the bed as I tried to understand all of this.

"I think that's everything. Now I'm sorry to inform you that I can't let you leave this planet. You need to learn how to fight in any circumstance and how, but before that you need to learn to adapt. That starts with you learning about your new body. Eventually you will be able to almost instantly adapt to a new body, but for now it might take awhile."

I didn't argue, "Um…wow…"

Morkar smirked, "Yes becoming aware of the entire existence means you have to know a few things."

"A few? I feel like my head is stuffed."

Morkar now let out a loud laugh, "Indeed, now I can't ask you to leave now, it's late and you can go in the morning. Remember to come back when you're used to your new body. Now follow me to where you can sleep."

He lead me out his door, onto the stairs, and suddenly we were at the bottom of the stairs.

"Brilliant isn't it, it works by…."

"Don't tell me."

"Very well, you can sleep here at the bottom. Here is a bed and other things." He snapped his fingers and a bed appeared complete with pillow and blankets.

I gladly lay down. My head was killing me, I really needed to sleep on this stuff. A part of me felt like he was pulling my leg, but then again he had a staircase that could teleport you. I felt like everything had just become a lot bigger. This morning I had just been a guy lucky enough to get into Equestria. Now? Now I'm an 'awakened' soul that has to avoid 'Regulators' and their cannon fodder. I've got a mentor to teach me about all of his, and I have my next step planned out.

I looked down at my necklace. Back on Earth it was so simple. All I had to do was get out, but now I had to figure out how I could stay. I had believed in a reincarnation cycle, but I had never imagined all this. The clanking of my necklace calmed me. I had set out to find freedom from Earth's mundane life. I didn't expect or want it to be easy.

I eventually fell asleep in the dark room, and I slept well.

When I woke up the room was still dark.
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AN: My neck is killing me. This chapter doesn't really contribute to the pony story, but I felt it was necessary. It really expanded on how everything works. I feel like content wise this is the heaviest chapter I've written. You probably could've skipped this entire chapter and been fine. Oh well. Class in 5 hours WOO! I can't sleep though. It's not because I have a liter of Mountain Dew, that's for sure. Next chapter will hopefully see the return of Ponies and stuff. I'm starting to ramble. Like how I used the same cliffy?