“Liz...”
Liz turned her head at the call of Emma's voice, her emerald eyes glimmering faintly beneath her red hair bundled neatly into two buns. Her expression was calm, though a slight crease betrayed her suspicion. She had already guessed what Emma might ask.
“Yes?” she answered softly, her breath curling faintly in the cold air.
Emma hesitated for only a moment before speaking, her gaze tilting toward the colossal shape ahead. “Do you know anything about the Hamtile?”
The question lingered for a moment as Liz’s eyes moved toward the pale horizon where the creature loomed.
The Hamtile hovered there, weightless yet immense, as though gravity itself bowed away from it. At any moment, it looked ready to drift upward and vanish into the endless sky.
Liz’s lips parted slowly,
“The Hamtile,” she began, her gaze never leaving its colossal body, “is a groundless entity that exist outside of all possible realities and existence included... That might mean it doesn’t belong to any fruit of narrative at all. Creatures like it reside outside the Tree of Fiction, and they serve as the source of Existence Recycling.”
Her voice lowered, “Each one of the Hamtile contains all unconscious stories, everything worn out, everything dead, every decayed tale long forgotten. Every scrap that has withered away drifts into them.” Liz said, pausing for a moment as she and Emma both noticed that the Hamtile was already hovering higher, as it seems it was already ready to leave.
Liz raised her arm and pointed toward the massive head as a glow began to pulse there, a soft red light, distant but sharp against the dark form.
“Look,” Liz whispered.
Emma’s gaze shifted, her unique white eyes steady as they locked onto the glow.
“It’s already forming a relationship with this fruit,” Liz said, while still pointing.
Emma’s brows drew together, her expression calm but curious. She studied the faint red gleam tracing across the Hamtile’s head, as though something unseen tethered it to this place. The silence between them was a little long, broken only by the faint humming of the great beast.
At last, Emma spoke, her voice soft.
“Does it usually form a relationship with every fruit it passes through?”
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Liz’s eyes flickered, her lips pressing together for a heartbeat before she answered.
“Yes... it does, I think,” she replied, though uncertainty lingered in her tone. “I’ve only seen them a few times... and I don’t know much about Hamtiles at all.”
Emma nodded faintly, understanding what Liz said,
“The way I’m looking at it,” Emma began softly, “it seems to form a relationship in every location it travels through, in the fruits it enters.”
Liz tilted her head slightly, her emerald eyes still fixed upward at the glowing red light above. Her lips parted in a faint smile as she let Emma’s words sink in. “That’s a good way to put it,” she replied gently, her tone thoughtful. A pause lingered as she kept staring at the creature, its body moving further through the pale sky above.
Her breath left her in a soft puff as she continued, her voice lower, almost musing to herself. “Now I’m seeing it again. It really does form a relationship in every location it travels through in any fruit.”
The Hamtile’s head pulsed faintly, as though echoing her words. Liz’s gaze sharpened, thoughts weaving through her mind.. This Hamtile must be an old one, She reflected silently. It must have already traveled to this fruit once or twice before, collecting dead stories… and through that, it has formed a relationship not only with the fruit itself but also with every place within it that it has touched. If so… then perhaps it has done this across every fruit it has ever visited, forming bonds in countless fruits.
Her thought trailed like frost dispersing into air, until Emma’s voice tugged her back.
“Do you know what it comes to do in the fruit?” Emma asked, her head tilting slightly, strands of her pale hair brushing across her coat’s collar.
Liz blinked, then exhaled slowly, a small curve returning to her lips. “Yes,” she said, her voice steady. “It eats dead stories. And in turn, those stories are recycled and added into its collective recycled stories that will be stored within the hierarchies of narrative libraries it carries inside.”
She let the words settle, her hands swaying gently at her sides as her eyes softened.
Emma’s breath caught as her gaze flickered from Liz back to the towering creature above. Her expression brightened with wonder, though her body leaned ever so slightly forward, caught in awe. It recycles dead stories… and those recycled stories are kept in hierarchies of narrative libraries within itself…
The thought circled in her mind as her eyes reflected the faint red light above. She shifted her footing in the deep blue sea, her boots rippling it's surface softly as she tilted her chin upward. The Hamtile’s enormous frame drifted higher, away from the deep blue of the river, reaching into the icy expanse of the gray sky.
“I think the reason it’s this large,” Emma said slowly, voice carrying the weight of thought, “is because it’s been doing this for a very, very long time. It must already carry countless hierarchies of narrative libraries inside of it.”
Liz gave a small nod in reply.
Emma’s gaze lingered, her lips parting slightly as a quiet thought brushed her mind. No wonder it’s this huge… She could almost picture it... the countless stories once forgotten, stacked in countless hierarchies within the creature’s being, like endless shelves stretching beyond comprehension. The idea left a quiet shiver in her chest, not of fear, but of awe.
Above them, the Hamtile shifted again. Its vast body floated far into the icy gray heavens.
“Bohoo… Boohoo!”
“Keeiic… KeKeKe!!!”
The sound tore through the frozen air, echoing with a strange, mournful joy. A farewell call, trembling yet proud, as the ancient being bid its parting from the fruit once more.
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