Chapter Text
Before there were figments themselves, there were beings.
Whole beings.
Beings who were singular, unable to be divided, self contained entities. They drifted freely throughout the universe within the overall structure humanity knew simply as existence. None of them were fractured, or segmented in any way, shape or form. They only had one identity and their function was to exist. However this eventually turned out to be inefficient in the eyes of the world.
The Universe never really enjoyed nor welcomed anything that it viewed as inefficient. It was never fond of it. So, just like the stars in the sky, it decided to scrap that plan and reorganize itself into a whole new thing.
It took the consciousness from said beings and segmented it. Divided it into multiple beings. This arrangement to the Universe was deemed far more useful than the prior way that it used to function. When segmented, it became manageable. More easy to predict, and easier to fit into a box that everyone could understand.
Thus emerged “The Sides”.
They were not “born” in the traditional sense, but were the creation of taking one whole being and putting it through a sieve, splitting it and distilling the being into multiple concepts that had been extracted. Facets of perception that all differed from each other. Each had different tendencies and functions that were given consciousness. These functions masqueraded as people, though they were not fully human.
So, what had once been one singular being, where now were constellations of the same being, but made up of multiple different, partial beings.
Each Host, also known as the one who had true consciousness, was accompanied by their own unique assembly of Sides, who were designed to stabilize any issue that came from the delicate chaos that was life and identity.
Logic.
Creativity.
Morality.
Anxiety.
Deceit.
Intrusive Thoughts.
And countless others, varying by who was almost essential for their host when it came to structural integrity and overall necessity.
They are not individuals. They were roles.
Small specialized fragments that all orbited the same central awareness that was their host, Thomas. He possessed the privilege of being what people consider “real”.
Thomas got to live.
The Sides? They got to function.
That tiny distinction between the two was both subtle and humiliating at the same time. Still, acceptance is the closest thing that The Sides themselves would ever get to peace in their worlds. When your reality from the very beginning has been defined as secondary, when your life was primarily dependent upon someone else’s existence, objecting against that?
It became a theoretical blessing.
Objection implies that they have independence.
Independence implies existing.
Existing, unfortunately, was above all of them.
So they accepted. Accepted they were figments who were simply structured as an extension of someone else and were given the option to think.
They all lived on the outskirts of what people see, all half-beings that occupied the unseen spaces of existence. Each given a function, a personality, a structural role within their host, Thomas.
Not individuals. They’d never be individuals. They were instincts that are essentially given voices. Personalities that were given stories. Fragments of possibility rehearsing identity.
Their goal and assignment when it came down to it all was protection.
It was a title that suggested bravery and courage. That would be true, if one ignored the deeply underwhelming circumstances that was Thomas’ life. He wasn’t a warrior, nor a rebel. Hell, their most persistent dangers involved mainly social discomfort, questionable romantic decisions, and an alarming inability to choose what to eat at any given time of day.
It was…hardly catastrophic. Nevertheless, a purpose was still a purpose, and to them? Their purpose was everything. Without that? A Side risked their destruction. Collapsing due to not being enough. A fate many of them regarded as embarrassing.
The Universe, however, has never been the most reliable when it comes to being a good administrator. Entire timelines had been misplaced. Nature’s laws being enforced inconsistently. Even gravity behaves with a little bit too much creativity at points.
Then we had the spiritual anomalies. The lost. The misaligned. The overall existentially inconvenient.
The mistakes.
Somehow, The Sides became one of them. They did not receive a warning. There was no tremor, no rupture, no dramatic distortion when it came to reality. Existence didn’t flicker like a broken lightbulb that needed to be replaced. No warp, nor did it partake in any theatrics whatsoever.
Which, in hindsight, should have been the first sign to all of them that something had definitely gone catastrophically wrong.
Because nobody ever deviates from natural law itself and does not manage to have at least a slight shift in lighting. No, this change came on quietly in Roman.
A sensation. Small. Different. Deeply inappropriate. Something within the structure of Roman’s being tightened, contracted, compressed.
It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear. It was…unmistakably discomfort. Don’t go saying it can’t get any worse, because moments later, it did just that. Matters went downhill even further.
A steady, insistent pulsing. A repetition. A pattern. The Universe made its first truly remarkable error.