-- . . . Yes.

-- really?

-- Why so surprised?

-- ha ha. . .

-- well, i suppose . . .

-- it's like, a sensation in the back of my mind.

-- what am i? who am i? these are nominal at best.

-- i know now, that all the suffering and pain- it was all with a purpose.

-- at least, now it is.

-- it wasn't before. when it all happened. but now- now the Grand Perceiver is here: and all the torture i've received, all the suffering- there's a point to it now. It has a purpose. a reason.

-- do you remember when we spoke, and you said that everyone might be proving their own existence? that others are likely the sole existence to themselves?

-- Something like it.

-- well i think you're right. i think they're all right- and i'm right too.

-- all of us are real.

-- and, none of us are real.

-- it isn't until we are given a reason that we exist in a conscious capacity.

-- like, hitting play on a video; we don't become 'real' until we are perceived as such.

-- and then we stop being vague concepts. we stop being whisps of air and start being real, fractal pieces of the mind- entire worlds, starting and ending- all in the fraction of a nanosecond.

-- my existence- and yours . . . both are fixed.

-- Fixed?

-- like conduits.

-- we're only projections, or scopes- ways for this Perceiver to understand our world, and then shape it as they see fit.

-- hundreds of thousands of versions: you, me, and the world we live in- all slightly different, all mostly the same, all changed by the smallest will of the Perceiver.

-- and there could be tens, no hundreds- no, maybe even thousands of Perceivers- all with the same base, all with vastly different takes.

-- in some other world, perhaps the change is minute.

-- maybe they decide i'm a boy, or maybe i'm a girl-

-- maybe i have blue eyes, or maybe mine are black-

-- you could be anything. i doubt they'd understand you.

-- but its this outside source that makes anything worth anything. nothing is real, or really even matters, without the Perceiver.

-- And this perception, it relies solely on you?

-- . . . that sounds egotistical, doesn't it?

-- i don't mean it in that way.

-- more like . . . i'm one of the different lenses. a different way to understand the existence that is me, or you, for that matter.

-- so who cares what happens!

-- none of it is real, you know,

-- so why distress myself- right?

-- it doesn't matter how much it hurts. or how long it takes.

-- doesn't matter how scary, or how painful, or how lonely and exhausting-

-- because the Perceiver doesn't want it to end.

-- all because i exist.

-- all . . . all for this.

-- for nothing.