Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Duality of the Soul

You don't understand, they inhabit the flesh, they draw their power from the unknown, they hail from the ether. You have to listen to me."

Around the room the assembled gathering of humans and other intergalactic species stared on in consternation, confusion and some measure of unease as the Gib scientist babbled on in manic desperation.

Krill sat to the side of Captain Vir staring down at the maddened intellectual in confused consternation. Captain Vir looked on in bemused silence prosthetic foot tapping silently against the ground below.

Just below them, splayed out behind a semicircular table, the galactic assembly sat in impatient silence. No two faces, or forms were alike representative of each species protected under the name of the galactic assembly. No human representative had yet to be called, so they had brought in a stand in.

Captain Vir, while nowhere near politically minded, had agreed to sit in on the meeting on behalf of earth, seeing as he was the closest, and most highly ranked human on that side of the galaxy.

Out on the floor contained as he was within an energy web, the scientist rambled on.

His five glowing orbs scanned the crowd before him glittering with the intensity of his insanity.

"They are here! Just look in their eyes, and you shall see. The worlds beyond worlds the bisection of soul and body."

At the head of the table, the spokesman raised a digit silencing the madness, "Cease your ramblings and speak sense to us, truth seeker, or you will find yourself imprisoned until you can find your coherence."

In front of them the small figure grew silent, wide glittering orbs falling unsettlingly still.

"Now, start from the beginning, tell us of your research. Tell us why we found HUMAN BODIES dissected in your laboratory."

Around the room, muffled hisses of fear and alarm followed. Krill glanced at Captain VIr aware that humans were known to be aggressive towards the criminally minded, but the human remained impassive even unconcerned though his brows were furrowed in confusion.

The small scientist quivered, "It was bound to happen, everyone has thought of it. The humans are to interesting NOT to study, not to pull apart and decode. So fragile they survive, so intelligent, they remain animals. So, I did it, I gave in to the wonder. I knew the galactic council would never agree to my methods, so I did it in secret. I stole the human from the far reaches of space, where no one would notice their absence. I drugged them, and I bound them with their very own methods. I caged them with their own technology, and I studied them. I tested them. And I pulled them apart."

Off to his side, the human shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Go on."

The creature remained silent for some moments before, "The humans.... They talk about themselves as if they are two separate beings..... Have you noticed that? Ever seen a human talk to its body, address its feet or its internal organs like they aren't one in the same. They personify themselves like they themselves are not people."

Krill shook his head in mild confusion. In fact, he had noticed that little oddity, but he had never thought about it.

"Well, I thought it was odd, and I looked into it. Those humans that spoke with me could not give me a direct answer, but they demonstrated a profound ignorance about their own internal workings, their own feelings, like a separate being living inside the body of another." Around the room, the crowd jolted uncomfortably, "I looked into the evidence further, I found mentions of something the humans refer to as a soul. It is the very essence of their personality, what makes them different from the animals, but when asked what it was made of or where it was located, the humans could not tell me. Some thought maybe it resided in the brain, others thought maybe the entire body, some others disputed its existence at all, so I dug further."