1 Water, Sand, Flowers, and the Inescapable Illusion of Free Will

The ocean of eternity awaited.

Out of the dark, they rose, occupying every hue from azure to turquoise to indigo, occupying the horizontal plane of the universe and holding power over everything within it. They rose silently yet surely, crashing back down with little to no sound. There were occasional loud surges, these were few but could never be known when they were to approach. The waves forming and collapsing, incessant in their maledictions and endless in every dimension. The crests foamed and frothed, peaking at around 5 metres and dropping back down by the same amplitude. Every direction had these swells, uneven and irregular in their patterns but certain in their constancy and continuity.

It was an ocean, a sea, constructed by water droplets and creatures hiding within its depths, but who's to say it wasn't a desert, fabricated by the sand grains and the theoretical spare oases, a desert stretching across the void, encapsulating the feelings and emotions of everyone and everything living within the universe it called itself home within.

The desert was desolate, barren, lonely and perhaps obsolete.

Out of the dark, they rose, consisting of warm colours – beige, ruby, and golden grains of sand creating hills that expanded across the infinity of life.

Could they be stars also?

Patterns of glowing lights in helix patterns, up and down they frolicked, to the edges of the universe, these waves of stars underlining the final limits of what everything and everyone in existence could be.

The sands of time awaited a miracle. They saw magic within mundane regularity, they observed the supernatural in bland interactions and uncoloured scenery.

The ocean faded from view, the sand and the stars dissolved and time resumed its normal order.

After all, knowing the future is impossible.

Leonel Smith's perception of the world materialised again. Where was he? What was he doing? He looked around anxiously around the room, at some of the highest technology in the country, operated by some of the best scientists in the world. He scanned feverishly before resetting his eyes to his empty wooden desk. Leonel had just before cleaned out his workplace at the New York Space Agency. Now it remained, barren and lonely, the desk that had served Leonel for the entirety of his time working in NYSA. That time was only the better half of a year, as Leonel Smith began not too long after he graduated high school at the top of his class – at the age of 16. His workspace was no longer needed, for in his hand he held a letter of his acceptance into the forming secret program of the NYSA, comprising the most capable people in the Eastern States. A forming program that consisted of 25 people would begin very soon, giving Leonel a new lifestyle of living and working in the NYSA building.

It was half past 4.

Time to leave this lab forever.

Leonel glanced at the room one last time. Whilst he had many friends in NYSA with him due to them graduating in the same accelerated high school system as he did and being accepted here, they already had their last day the day before. Phoebe was still on a prolonged break. He wouldn't miss anyone, because Juno, Kate, Phoebe and her sister Purity were all also accepted into the new top-secret program, which was the NYSA Science Protection Units, and held a great air of mystery for the group and largely unknown to the general public. As Leonel lazily walked out of the laboratory, he wondered if there would be a better name for the SP units, he wondered what the future would hold, and he wondered about the dark and sinister truth behind the tension within the world and time as a whole.

*

The books were stacked exactly the same as Leonel had left them. As was the solitary single bed in the corner, the small convenient mini fridge, the elegantly crafted bedside table, and the window that looked out into the world, its glass having watched over the modern city unendingly. The shadows were the only thing that changed, their angles distorted and malicious in the afternoon sunlight.

The books.

The bed.

The fridge.

The shadows.

Leonel stepped past his telescope and condemned the curtains to their closed state, almost ripping their fragile fabric. A spell of dizziness collapsed Leonel onto his bed, his mind going haywire, and his thoughts transitioned from miscellaneous randomness to focused pain. He wanted to look at this ceiling forever. Sure, he would live with his friends, but he would have no place to fall back on. His work and his life and his friends would all be interweaved so strongly.

This was his last night in this apartment.

Leonel stared into the door, its polished wood safe and its metallic hinges comforting. So many things had happened in this small apartment. The chess games he would play with Juno, the sleepovers with everyone squeezed in the small floor space, talking for several hours past midnight. Somehow, they all made it work. They always did. It was in this very room, on a warm summer's day, Leonel reminisced, that Phoebe introduced Purity to him. She was smaller than Phoebe and had longer blonde hair decorated with purple flowers. The memory of the first time he saw her smile induced happiness in Leonel, putting his restless mind at ease.

Maybe a change wouldn't be so bad.

Leonel was drifting, alone at sea.

Bobbing up and down in the endless sea, the infinite plane of time.

In the darkness, he drifted away. Or was it towards something?

The void was above and below him. It controlled his thoughts, his mind, his heart, and everything he did. Maybe Leonel didn't exist in some sort of void, rather, the void existed in him. The void, the waves, the sand, the stars. They were all a part of Leonel. A part of time, time that he couldn't control or see ahead.

Time was in his heart. And the future in the unknown.

And magic was right around the corner.