This is the last letter they’ll find. It explains everything.
- Sibsil Creed, Stories from Shurwinn, (2860)
PEYDRAN
“Open.”
Ryst’s book started with one word on the first page: “Open.”
The book did have a title page: Within and Without: A Tindin Journey With Erotica. And when I'd turned that page, and read the first word, my world had tilted.
“Open.”
It should have been four letters on a page. It was not.
It was rain falling in a desert. It was the ocean depths calm and unraging.
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It was things that could not be, but were.
It wasn’t a word. It was something more.
It was a word. It was all things.
It was a word. And I was undone.
One word. Four letters.
I saw all of my life. A little boy. Just a child—with two hands.
I felt all I was, from toddlerhood to old man.
I knew all I was in a single word.
I felt the full vastness of an entire lifetime.
I saw metal on bare skin. A hand in mine.
Sweetness filled me.
A song so beautiful I wept.
Love. Love. Love. Love.
Four letters.
One word.
I finished the book.
It should have been horrifying; seeing my best friend's most intimate moments that only a lover should know. The whispered sighs. The ecstasy.
It should have been horror.
The way I saw metal on skin. Metal on parts of my body where I had not wanted metal.
It was the crack that needed to happen.
I wanted to find someone to love me. Could I be with a boyfriend if I didn’t trust myself with metal against skin?
It should have been horror. It was not.
Could I love myself?
I did.
And I broke.
And I mended.
If I hadn’t read Within and Without would I ever have been able to trust myself with a lover?
To put my metal hand on his skin? To touch him with love; with all of me?
And I knew, just like that: Produced by Pedran had a new job.
The Known Cosmos needed this book. Any name would work—it didn’t have to be Ryst’s. I had work to do.
Sibsil Creed was born.
