#so... maybe the argument is whether the divine (or outside forces) have any influence on our identity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shadyedydoc · 3 years

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OF MAN,SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL : The Reality Wager

'.... A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails

will turn up. What will you wager?...'

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

It's human nature to deny forthright that which we don't fully understand, at least from our basic comprehension. Reality for us is the things we can see, that we can touch and that which can produce cause and effect in our physical world. That world and its reality is governed by laws of mathematics, physics and biology and chemistry.If we fail to understand something, initially we try to find explanations of it in terms of past experience and then attempt to understand how such phenomenon either obeys or disobeys the universal law of our nature and reality .

If we fail to find simple explanation or known mechanism or law that the phenomenon subscribe to,it is our default nature to simply ignore it as being un-real,fake, staged or at least illusory. However, in some instances there are certainly some who may have been convinced, because of their beliefs, to attribute such unexplainable phenomenon to the supernatural, divine or spiritual realms . Since time in memorial, these polar points of views between believers in the supernatural and believers of science have always clashed. Hence there has always been the debate on whether or not there are supernatural beings elsewhere in our universe or here on earth, but in another realm or dimension, and if at all it is possible to prove or disprove their existence using human reasoning.

The greater aspects of our life and existence in this reality has been shaped by the need to explain our very existence and the meaning and purpose, if any, that this life may have . It also is shaped by how we view the end of such a life (death) beyond just its medical or physiological definition, that is what possibly happens after someone dies .And given that death is universal and is an inevitability ,from time to time, every one of us does wonder what lies beyond this physical reality we are in. We were born with this inherent desire to continue living eternally, such that almost every one of us subconsciously, refuse to simply just resign and accept that death is indeed the ultimate end to our existence . That has modelled lives of many. Hence in most cultures world over, no matter how diverse our cultures and beliefs actually are, it is universally agreed that death is a gateway to another life or another realm from which we will continue that existence. Without a common, tangible and reproducible record or objective evidence of contact with any other reality other than ours beyond hearsay, folklore and religious teaching, many have dismissed with impunity any suggestions of some other medium of life existing parallel to our own shared reality. The issue has never been settled fully and convincingly in part due to a perpetual disagreement on, at least the methodology to employ and what actually constitutes acceptible, valid and indisputable evidence. Over centuries that realm of belief has been fertile grounds for all sorts of wild insinuations regarding what different communities suppose is the true nature of the 'afterlife' (should it even exist) and with it the spiritual realm. These have ranged anywhere from the most amazing, superfluous and awe inspiring life of eternal unimaginable comfort and bliss, to some truly horrific and scary depictions whose mere narrations is enough to give the most brave nightmares . And those beliefs and depictions have changed over generations of mankind, being shaped by human experience of happiness, love, pain and tragedy.

Those changing views have confused many to the point that their life in this world is spent in a figurative limbo, wondering what is to become of them, their family and their loved ones. This has led to this intense visceral fear of the unknown that accompany human death and even the mere mention of death and the ability of those in the beyond to influence the lives of the living.

We also have the need to explain why things happen. It's because in our universe, things don't just happen.That notion is supported by the physical laws governing our universe. Newton's second law of motion says, an object at rest or in motion will remain at rest or constant motion unless otherwise compelled to do so by an external force. ( The law of entropy/ thermodynamics would disagree, but that's another argument for another day). Put simply, if i place a cup on a table, and lock it away for a million years, bar any physical degeneration over time, human instinct demands that i find the cup still in its place, if truly nothing has acted on it. Hence everything does happen for a reason.

That summarises our reality, frankly our nature and basic functionality demands absolute respect of the laws of causality and effect. So cause and effect are basically inseparable, and we will not easily comprehend or make sense of any object or phenomenon that does not respect that fundamental fact.

That's why it is necessary even mandated to explain our existence and the existence of everything else. Hence many people attribute the very beginning of the universe to an external force that is certainly not limited by the laws of our reality, in an attempt to explain the causality of the existence of everything. Even if we do not know or have never seen such force /being, we can accept with ease the potential to the existence of something outside our nature (supernatural) and the realm of our own laws of the universe and our reality.

If a certain force /being( assuming matter and energy are as interchangeable in the spiritual world, as it does in our own universe) can live outside our own reality, we can extrapolate to the possible existent of other similar or even higher or more complex beings beyond our realm. The diversity of our lives, our past experience, religion, our environment including those who existed before us, has over the years shaped the progression of the idea of higher dimensional beings or forces and how they influence matter, energy and hence events in our reality. In turn that understanding of how much influence the spiritual / supernatural realm wield over our own, has shaped how we relate and possibly revere the supernatural and how even live our own lives. Hence we see the plurality of deities revered by different civilisations transcending generations of human existence. From God's of Egypt, to the Greek gods , to belief in myths, legends, spiritual ancestors, saints, angels and demons. However, not how all of them have a common backbone, the belief that indeed there exists higher dimensions than ours and that the inhabitants of those realms wield real power and influence over our lives to alter at their own will any event in our reality. And generality of human civilisations since time in memorial has almost always believed in a God who is good or other forms of supernatural beings and deities of different capabilities.And also existence of equally but opposite force or being that mediate or influence the bad and the evil. That is the basic definition theism and follower of such a people who ascribe to that belief are called theists.

On the contrary in our current age of information technology and abundance of knowledge and resources, there has arisen a new class of people who have refused to just accept 'supernaturality 'as a plausible, competent explanation that holds water for that which the scientific knowledge at mankind's disposal, has failed to make sense of or even postulate at the very least.

This class totally and unequivocally reject the theistic notion that, in our universe we understand some things, but there is always that which our lowly minds are, unfortunately not privy to, and should be left to the domain of beings of higher dimensions than our reality. That notion has been the basis for religion and culture.

So being against or anti theism this group, still believes in the same laws and science as most theists belive in, but that thought congruence is absolutel only for that in which the laws of nature are obeyed and explained by. From the point where our knowledge of science or our understanding of the physical nature of reality end , theism generally suspends the mandate for strict observance of laws of the universe as we understand them. They subsequently attribute all that which we can't explain to a higher being or beings. Whereas anti theism (or atheism/ atheist in short) still demand the same observance of the mandate to respect some aspect, if not all the laws of nature, even if we don't yet have a nanoscopic clue what that laws are.

So it's that aspect of our reality which science can't explain that is figuratively "free for all, free for thoughts and free from laws' that has literally shaped humanity for centuries. This 'space ' has been like a no man's land where anything maybe acceptable as being plausible , so long you can think of it, even without any evidence from 'multilayered randomised controlled' evidence for it in our shared physical experience. So long as you have invoke the name of God, Angels, demons Magic, the supernatural, ancestors anything indeed goes. Thus more often than not, that part of our lives has been a realm of personal experience and conviction, a realm of fantasy, religion, myths, legends, miracles and magic.Sadly it is also important to realise that most wars and human conflicts past and present have occurred due to perpetual and vehement differences in that realm of non standardised and nonreproducible free willy explanations of Cause and Effect.

Anything that humans could not understand was has been quite reflexively , considered as the works of a higher dimension that we don't know. While on the other hand those who hungered for and demanded explanations, examined and explored for possible reasonable and explainable scientific causality to disprove the theistic view .

That feud has only grown bigger even beyond being humongous, as each of the sides accuse the other of either blasphemy or ignorance. That chasm hasn't been helped by the fact that religion hasn't really changed much over the years in terms of core beliefs and principles .In fact, one can even argue correctly,that maintaining the core principles and beliefs despite a change of the environment over time is a necessity for a true believer who holdfast his convictions in the spiritual .

On the contrary science has seen exponential rise in the depth and breath of practical knowledge and has transformed the world from the Stoneage to the age of space exploration . Science has indeed improved quality of life for billions of people in a tangible, cause and effect compliable way and has improved the life expectancy globally. It has also provided simpler practical solutions to numerous questions and problems that in the days of old, would have been explained by the invoking the supernatural. And thus atheists often simply point towards the seemingly misdirected explanations especially in the past for some phenomenon that past civilisations wrongly attributed to either blessings or curses from the Gods, simply because they lacked the knowledge,the methods and tools to dissect and expagorate the scientific basis of such phenomenon .Those misinformed ideas of the spiritual is what has put off many and caused them to shy away from anyone who even mentions the name God.

However as the culture of exploration , describing everything in our environment and recording that information, data and illustrations and subsequently analysing the data for patterns, in a methodical way, gave birth to a method of analysing reality and phenomena that was reproducible. This meant that anyone who could follow the steps required , could come up with the same results and possibly similar conclusions given the same or similar problem to solve. Coupled with practical usefulness in the real world of such findings, its no wonder many have started distancing themselves from spirituality.

As a result the Scientific method emerged gloriously . And great visionaries of that emerging way of life such likes Isaac Newton and many more were able to broaden their horizons from the atomic and microscopic levels upto cosmic scale. People could look down under the microscope and easily conclude with some measure of certainty that microscopic living organisms can cause diseases in humans.

Thus pathogens that would have been easily missed by even most diligent observer lacking the necessary and appropriate tool at his disposal, were now clearly visible to an augmented human eye using a series of lenses that enlarged objects to a size our brain can appreciate and make sense of to draw conclusions from . Diseases were no longer afflictions from angry Gods or curses from bitter and avenging fores. They simply could be explained by the scientific method. For example Leprosy, once thought of as a punishment from the God's was simply and infection caused a bacteria, Mycobacterium Leprae and instead of offering sacrifices to appease the Gods, simple antibiotics would do the trick.

Around the same time, the idea that the earth was the centre of the universe(that comprised only the visible stars) with all other planets orbiting this seat of highest favour, created specifically for man who was made in the image of the almighty God was deeply engraved in people's beliefs .(Geocentricism)

But looking up through a telescope , suddenly true reality was unravelled . Consequently some of the bright stars in the night sky that were thought to be suns like our own, turned out to be just planets orbiting the sun not the earth. In fact the earth was also just a planet revolving round the sun as well ( heliocentricism) . To the other extreme the other 'stars' which wee thought to be like our sun, turned out to be hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars like our own sun, each with plurality of planets of different sizes and make up revolving in their orbits . Suddenly praying to the sun God Ra, the God Janus ( Jupiter), or the Greek God of love Venus didn't make sense at all.

The perspective had been shifted drastically to a more optimal vantage point. The magestic Sun God ended up being just a very hot pile of elements with energy emitting nuclear reactions at the core. Comparing it with other suns, indeed there wasn't anything uniquely peculiar or special about it. It was just an average sized and middle aged star occupying, not even the center of its own Milky-way galaxy . It certainly no longer made sense to pray to a planets or the suns or continue reading the stars because understanding their true reality tore down the veil of mystery that had concealed the truth for generations. Science demystified the greater chunk of what was considered Holy myths . In the end instead of celebrating those revelations, science became an obvious threat to religion . If science could explain everything it would

certainly narrow down the size of that 'no man's land' where religion and fantasy thrives in. To that end scientific propositions were met with anything from initial skepticism to frankly violent rejection of what the church leaders thought was a direct threat to the essence of their beliefs and their worship. Sadly some were indeed killed for defending the scientific basis for previously held beliefs that had been viewed as sacred and supernatural and only to be understood through the direction of the Holy church . Fortunately for us, some brave individuals persisted along that treacherous path of scientific enlightenment

Despite the very real threat of capital punishment hovering around them they soldiered on in strict solitude or sometimes in self or state imposed exile or in the favourable environment that some other kingdoms offered . Slowly science emerged from the shadows of secrecy and became mainstream. The hatred however did not simply vanish. The atmosphere of deeply entrenched perpetual enmity has been the basis for the tug of war between religion and science, as to which between them best explains the reality of our universe.

The exponential rise of science and technological advances has tilted the scales in favour of the Scientific method. As a result anything explained in respect to ' spiritual, supernatural or divine' has become harder and harder to speak of publicly without risking being dismissed as another religious fanatic who is ignorant of real knowledge.That has been so , especially in the last 1 or 2 centuries of scientific boom that culminated with men setting foot on the moon. To some staunch disciples of the scientific method, that proved beyond any reasonable doubt the only language capable of explaining the universe and of our reality is science through mathematics, physics and biochemistry , and any phenomenon beyond scientifically compatible explanations is either yet to be discovered/deduced or fallacious, but never due to a divine being or supernatural events . After all they reasoned that, by sending men to the moon, science had indeed conquered the heavens. That is to some extent understandable given our already alluded to, instinctive nature to first hear, touch see,smell and taste for our mind to be satisfied that the need to understand cause and effect has been fulfilled within the laws of our universe .

However having set the stage for the times that we find ourselves in today science hasn't been enough to explain every part of our reality. And as long as there is an unknown, people will always speculate, and from speculation comes belief and belief births spirituality and spirituality will demand divinity. It from this point that reality diverge distinctly into a scientific path and a separate spiritual path.

I intend to propose a third path or middle ground that encompasses both points of views by introducing an even stranger concept unifying science and the supernatural. In short I'm attempting to perform a' miracle' of sorts' to move and superimpose two towering rival hills into one Ginormous mountain of perspective that traverses both worlds and goes higher than each separately would reach . But well, here goes....

In our universe, a shared perception of the world is what we call reality, and that reality is strictly confined within certain dimensions of reality , 3 of space(length , width , height ) and one of time. An entity in such a dimension has the capability only to move in those directions that is, up and down, sideways, right and left, and forwards and backwards.

But that reality is fixed in a singular direction of time meaning time moves predictably and invariably from the past to the future. And no other way. This means the past ' was' and is already set and remains unchangeable, while we experience life in the present, the 'now', moving to an unknown/open future of 'tomorrow' that has infinite paths or possibilities. Its that's combination in movement of the arrow of time and our movement in space and our interactions with other beings objects or forces in that shared Spatiotemporal reality, that we call life. Two important points arise,

Firstly, it is thus unimaginably paramount that we understand and remember, as i shall refer back in later parts of this discussion, this basic but yet fundamentally eye opening fact of our universe, that the past and the present can shape the future but n the past cannot be altered .

Secondly , what we call reality is absolute and fixed in our minds . Meaning our brain can only comprehend sensibly objects, motion or phenomenon in that reality of the 4 dimensions(3 of space and one of time) we have or those lower. Hence it is possible for us view a TV screen in (2D) and perfectly comprehend it with respect to our perfect perception of reality in the 3 dimensions of space .

Anything beyond that ie. Occurring in higher dimensions 5D, 6D or maybe up 10D, we unfortunately do not have access to, and reality in those higher dimensions of space and maybe time as well, will certainly appear strange to us or unexplainable. So unless an existing higher dimensional Being manifests itself in our reality, in a way we can comprehend fully or may decide to elevate us by some transformation, to the higher dimension, we have to accept that probably WE CAN NEVER BE ABLE to see and understand those beings and those alternate realities even if they do exist.

So should they present to our reality, we will likely see objects exhibiting unusual phenomenon in respect to all our senses such that our brains won't even begin to grasp any of it. Partly because reality higher up may not be limited to the confines of our reality's fundamental laws meaning and those dimensions may well observe other laws that foreign and far superior than our own.They may well be able to manipulate time matter and space in ways that may perfectly be ordinary in their own higher dimension , but absolutely impossible and forbidden in ours. Subsequently we may easily think of such objects or phenomenon as being supernatural, miracles or divine . Hence falling right into that ' no man' s zone' that for most people has supernatural explanations and that our science simply can't explain as yet.

So it is very much possible that two individuals from our dimension but from two pollar beliefs, a devout staunch religious person and a strict atheist, may explain the exact same thing differently quoting differing beliefs to explain their shared reality. They would be both correct.

How so? And how would we know what happens in higher dimensions or even their existence?

Sciences comes to our aid by means of good old extrapolation. It has been proven that laws of nature that govern behaviour of 1d (point in space) ' 2d (line) and 3 d are universal and equally applicable. Hence by juxtaposing that behaviour and with the aid of universal mathematical laws and equations and sophisticated computer programmes we can formulate and possibly construct a 3D hologram of how objects in at least the 4th dimension would look like. Just like how we can project a 3D hologram on a 2D space. Hence we have been able to come up with some complex 4D shapes, popular amongst which is the tesseract, a 4 Dimensionsal cube whose sides are cubes themselves. You may remember the tesseract has been recently popularised by The MCU Comics ( Marvel Cinematic Universe) as a housing for containing a 'powerful infinity stone ' fittingly named the space stone.

It is quite simple for a reasonably performing computer to generate objects in more than our usual 3 dimensions of space , but for our mind, it is utterly unfathomable to comprehend what structure it could be and how a cube can possibly have 3D -cube sides. It makes no sense. Rightfully so because our brain will totally refuse to construct such a figure because it is strictly limited to objects in the lower dimensions that it has been conditioned to function in.

That is how strange higher dimensions objects or beings may appear to us should they visit us in our lower dimension. It would be something that our mind had never seen. Likewise imagine a reality where there are more than one dimension of time just like space.

In that reality an object can move in all the usual directions of space, but in addition time, there is added freedom of movement with respect to the direction of flow of time. Imagine the possibility, for example , of time pointing in both directions.

Meaning it would be possible to move back and forth in time, just as we can move back and forth on space, that is from the past and present to the infinite future and backwards from the future and the present to the past. Such a an ability to manipulate time can explain an object that has no beginning nor end and whose past may not be as fixed as ours. In our reality though we can only comprehend the present as an ongoing phenomenon and our brain keeps records of every as memories, and those memories are like snap shots or time frames on a long reel of an lengthy film(life) that are set in the immediate and to the distant past that we can go back to, only to think about but not alter .Each frame is taken as a certain point in spacetime continuum and progression of those frames sequentially with less that a plank length of time between each frame just as In playing a movie reel, is what gives reality its seemlessnes and time it's forward and sensible unidirectional laminar flow. However a being in such a reality with bidirectional flow of time can possibly comprehend time not as a series of single snaps shots at a time as we do. But It maybe possible to view the entire time line of a film from start to finish in one frame.

That means reality to such a being is that the past, the present and the future can exist superimposed on each other almost the in the same way we experience our present and our immediate past as a seemless flow if reality. That may afford those beings the unique and added ability to move back and forth time.

Strange as it may seem such realities and strange phenomenon can be a real possibility that is sensibly and entirely explained by theoretical physics.

But looking at it closely from the other hill of perception, spirituality, I'm reminded of a biblical deity who is said to have no beginning nor end, who has been and will always be.A being like that can possibly be explained and understood in the concept and setting of a dimension with bidirectional or even higher degrees of freedom with respect flow of time. Where one can can go back to the past and go forward to the future infinitely .

A being who has the whole reality of our past, present and future at his immediate glance as a single film reel of our entire time line, can simply be able to see in the future and 'prophecy' by simply relating what is apparent from his perspective of our reality but viewed from a higher dimension. So a supernatural God like being who is all knowing, able tell our past and our future, who is not limited by unidirectional flow of time and who apparently has no beginning nor end can for purposes of debate , possibly exist in such a dimension where time is not as 'fixed' as in ours . You may argue how time can be altered that way, when time is fixed, uniform and standardised in our reality.?

Actually the experience of the flow of time is not uniform in every point in space. There are some points where time moves quicker and some where time moves slower, the concept of Time dilation. Remember for us in our reality, we share the same bubble of space and experience almost the same gravity such that minute differences in flow of time are negligible at the functional day to day scales. But in truth time is not perfectly uniform and can be warped by gravity, meaning the flow of time is not as fixed as our brain would have us think. The insignificant 0.000000001s (not actual figure) difference in how we experience the certainly illusory universal flow of time has no net effect how we interact with earth other in real world terms for ordinary people . But for satellites in orbit that difference in strength of gravity ie warping of space by presence of the earth, is significant such that those small differences need to be factored in to have a accurate and synchronous time and universal global positioning system (GPS) to standardise our interactions on a global scale.

This all underscores the vast possibilities of realities that can still be perfectly explained within the domain of theoretical physics. As much as we have that inner drive and desire to consume knowledge and imbibe understanding of every tiny winy itysy bitsy facet of our universe, sadly we have to appreciate the limitations of the confines of our dimension. No matter how desperately and genuinely we may want or how much we think we actually deserve to know, there will always be aspects of our realm that is beyond our privy.

Let me illustrate:

Edwin A. Abbott wrote quite an interesting fictional story is his book called Flatland. And i find it to be a perfect analogy to relate how we experience this reality vs reality in other dimensions. As a simplified working overview, the book talks about a 2 dimensional town inhabited by 2D / flat shapes like the circle, triangle, square and so forth. Because of the fixed dimensions in Flatland, movement is limited to forward backwards, right or left sideways or a combination of these .

All was well in 2D Town , till a visitor from another dimension came by . The visitor was the sphere from 3 Dimensional reality .

For the circle living in 2D Town, it is difficult to comprehend what this visitor is. He has never seen or even heard d of the sphere just the usual triangles, squares and occasional fancy polgons. From the perspective of the circle's reality, there is no way to be able to describe a 3d object in a 2d space.Only if the sphere would somehow uplift the circle into its own third dimension, would it fully appreciate the strange manifestation.But through just description, one be able to glean some ideas concerning this strange shape.

As the sphere descends into the Flatland, the circle first notices a dot, that appears from nowhere as if magically.

That dot changes into a circle as the sphere lowers himself into flatland , which is unusual for towns inhabitants especially the circle.

The circle slowly grows bigger and bigger reaching maximum circumference at the equator. All very unusual and puzzling behaviour.

Then the circle begins to get smaller and smaller until a dot and a point appears which then vanishes as mysteriously just as it appeared.

For the circle all these phenomena of a shape that is changing in size and configuration from a point to circles of different sizes, are not naturally explainable by the laws that govern flatland. It could be said that it was a supernatural phenomenon or a miracle or magical, and that could certainly be an acceptable description of phenomena that do not obey the physical laws of reality in Flatland. Without having at the back of your mind the understanding of the possibilities of existence of other higher dimensions, such phenomenon would remain just a strange occurrence or we will simply refuse to believe and distrust our senses .

Yet in 3D world, the sphere has only moved down or up the axis perpendicular to flatland, a movement that is quite ordinary in 3D, but completely forbidden in 2D.It's only in 3 D or higher where the seemingly bizarre actions exhibited the sphere make sense So if you think of possible higher dimensions, you an easily work out and solve seemingly bizarre behaviour .

That underscores the importance of how much we realy know and understand about our very universe and its workings. What we may think is supernatural just like in the early days of scientific breakthroughs, may yet turn out to be another concept that we are yet to understand or maybe be normal behaviour in but manifest in higher dimensions.

The fact that we know very little about our reality explains why the universe is still such a multi layered mystery.

In fact, even though science has transformed our life's to levels only once depicted in futuristic Sci-fi thrillers, it is sobering to realise that we have barely began scratching the surface of understanding the fabric of this universe. Imagine All technological marvels in all aspects of this human existence, . Compared to what we don't yet know, it's a tiny winy, itsy bitsy-est of what may be there. Imagine what we know but don't fully understand, the' known unknowns'.

Then further imagine that which we don't even know exist, 'unknown unknowns. That should be humbling enough to at a the least accept the possibilities of higher, spiritual or cosmic dimensions and beings that have access to our lower one. And demanding to see the evidence of

dimensions are higher than ours, may not be physically possible just as it is impossible for those in 2D Town to see a 3D sphere.

We have to accept the reality of such as physical handicap rather than as a ' Mystery' requiring spiritual revelation. On the other hand what theism describe as spiritual revelation may actual be the simple explanation of a higher dimension Being( God or Deity) enabling( revealing) a lower dimension(Earth ) Being to appreciate reality from the perspective of his higher dimension( spiritual / heavenly supernatural realm) . So it is perfectly reasonable and conceivable to under scientifically, A God, who resides in a spiritual or heavenly realm higher than ours, whom we can't see ourselves in our dimension unless he chooses to elevate us or to reveal himself to our realm, who also have access to our reality and can manipulate reality and matter in ways that can be considered strange / unknown / magical / supernatural while not being confined to the definitions of time from our perspective and who can appear to have no beginning and no end and has instant access to the whole reality of the entire history of human time line from infinite past to the infinite future.

So from the miniscule window of both perspective and human lifespan , through which the human race attempts to comprehend the whole workings of a vast universe, it is not surprising that we may not fully satisfy our desire to marry cause and effect in a way that is universally sensible to everyone in our reality of shared / common perception.

It may take hundreds if not thousands of years for the human race to may be understand just a plank length of it all. Maybe much much longer. Sadly the flicker of our presence in this reality is maybe meagre 60 years, or 80 years for the fortunate ones. And on the backdrop of the ' age' of the cosmos ( if ever there is a beginning and an end to it)

Currently we estimate that the observable (emphasis on observable) part of the universe, is around 13-14 billions of years. In general science has only around 200 or years since it officially became a standard model of unravelling the mystery of the cosmos. 80 years, an uppermost estimate in comparison to just the extent of what t we can see and what we may understand partly, means our very existence will definitely not afford us enough time to have all our questions answered.

Besides constraints of time, size is another huge factor limiting our perspective.

Unfortunately it has been quite a toll task to fully explain even our very existence in a way that is universally agreeable and reproducible. The mere complexity of even what we can see may even require a million or even a billion human lifetimes to someone grasp just a fraction of it all . If we can't agree on what we can actually see today , what of that which we can't see. What lies beyond the horizon of the 13 billion horizon? What other dimensions, or the possibly extra universes may be lurking around us.

Consider the famous picture, The pale blue dot. It's story will inculcate the perfect appreciation of how ignorant of the true extent of our reality and possibly the vastness of the cosmos( as Far we can see with current technologies ) .In 1977,NASA launched the robotic spacecraft Voyager 1, whose main mission what to explore the Jovial and Saturnarian systems and did it successfully encounter both in the years 1979 and 1980 respectively. Having completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, it was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around, back towards earth and the centre of our solar system and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space.

This was at the request of one of the most celebrated astronomers, author and educator Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996). A truly remarkable individual, he was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, poet.He is credited as the pioneer of science education and he took into the mainstream, the idea it is possible to teach the ordinary lay person 'rocket science'. The idea took root because of his genuine love for science and the burning desire to afford even the lay, a glimpse into the cosmological marvel is the Universe. Fittingly he wanted to be referred and remembered, not as great scientist, but as a Science Educator.

The popularity of his TV shows rode on the backbone of the prior numerous successful space missions both manned and manned that saw mankind extend his sights during the race and wars for space dominance.

The phrase "Pale Blue Dot" was coined by Sagan himself in his reflections on the photograph's significance and he subsequently documented it in his 1994 book of the same name. His popularity skyrocketed by the success of his award winning 1981 PBS show, The Cosmos. That feat thrust him into science stardom and celebrity status and he would influence emergence of a newer crop of science educators.

From March and May 1990, Voyager 1 returned 60 frames back to Earth, with the radio signal travelling at the speed of light for nearly five and a half hours to cover that distance.

Three of the frames received showed the Earth as a tiny point of light in empty space. Of the 640,000 individual pixels that compose each single frame, Earth takes up less than one pixel (0.12 of a pixel, according to NASA). After immense pondering and deep contemplation, the poet in him, in appreciation of what that picture struck at very the core of his being, famously remarked

'Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

— Carl Sagan

That deep poetic enunciation in essence, brought to light the 'after it is all said said and done' and perfectly depicted, not his knowledge in mathematics, biology, physics or astronomy, all which as a matter of fact he could indeed competently hold his own in, but his appreciation and genuine marvel at the universe. Above all with those thought provoking words, he engraved and cemented his name and his place in the annals of human history as a ' Science educator par excellent '.

It should dawn on everyone that in our insignificant little corner in the vast cosmos, it is nearly impossible to completely elucidate reality in its entirety.

Our situation can be portrait by the relationship of a mother and her unborn child. Suppose that unborn child had complete consciousness and mental capacity as with an average adult person. How much information about the true nature of its own reality would the baby be capable of comprehending? Would it be possible to truly identify itself as a distinct entity separate from its mother? Would it understand where it is, what the medium of the amniotic fluid that surrounds, it truly is? Or why it is in there in the first place , how it ended up in there . Would that child be able deduce it's anatomy, physiology and that of the uterus in which it lives ? What of the anatomy of its mother's body? How would the baby picture what a human being actually looks like? What of its relationship or dependency on the mother. Would the baby be able to comprehend every sound and the movement emanating from the mother's day to day routines?

Similarly we are born of this universe. In as much as both mountains of understanding disagree on the origin, mechanism and purpose of the universe and mankind in it, at least both agree that we came from the matter that constitutes our environment and beyond. We are made from stars that exploded aeons ago, whose dust coalesced and settled as planets and stars paving way for life to take root. The Bible says the first human pair was created from the very earth that we walk on.

That basically means we are products of this universe. And in as much as we can demand to know and understand everything around and within us, it may require an action or event that pulls us out of the confines of limited dimension and be figuratively ' delivered' into another realm or

reality that offers a far bigger perspective or vantage point to be able to comprehend it all.

At best, as it is, we can speculate or offer theoretical explanations that await scrutiny. Of which with some proposed theories , we don't even know where to begin or how to prove or disprove them. So long as the supporting math agrees.

Consider the following theory. The vibrating strings theory put forward as the Grand unified theory of everything even requires(not suggests) , the existence of upto 10 dimensions of space for the mathematics to make sense. But our brain we can't possibly begin to even comprehend exactly what those extra dimensions will look or behave like. Consider also how we have not yet understood what' space' really is. If you remove all air in a vacuum bottle, you are left with what our reality calls 'Nothing'. But that nothingness has eluded our understanding. What really constitute nothing. Its only after observing the behaviour of the 'something' (matter / visible tangible cosmos) that scientists realised that nothing or space is not really nothing in the sense that we use it colloquially to refer to emptiness.

That understanding didn't suddenly make sense in a single year or decade but spanning almost the whole century and involving multiple intellectuals who elucidated different parts of what we now understand as dark matter.

Dark matter is not so named because it is black or dark oi colour, but the denotes how our view of it , is devoid of any light. Put simply it is because we don't know what it is .Surprisingly it is said to constitute 80-85 % of all the matter in our universe yet we have no solid or tangible clues on what it actually is.

But everyone agrees it exists. How so,?

The reason takes us back to the time of one of most intelligent and decorated scientist to ever walk the earth, Albert Einstein. While solving the mathematical basis that proved his theory of general relativity, he noticed that at cosmic scales his equations broke down and hence required to be balanced by adding constant. He called it, the cosmological constant.What it meant was at jscales of galaxies and beyond his equations would describe universe that is unstable and that should have collapsed inwards on itself. But reality disagreed, the universe has remained stable for billions of years. From his understanding and perspective at this time he could only propose that the cosmological constant would solve that flaw. As you will see he wasn't waywardly wrong in his thought process. The mathematics was indeed correct and because mathematics don't lie he checked again and still came up with the same result.

Space missions, including landing the man on the moon succeeded as testament to the validity of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Unfortunately conjuring up the Cosmological constant would later come back to haunt him. He would come to regard that decision to force his

equations to predict a stationary universe in keeping with the general understanding at that time , his greatest blunder. How so?

An astronomer, Edwin Hubble among his many achievements, managed to observe how light from further away stars tended to be red shifted. He deduced that the red shifting meant galaxies where actually moving away uniformly from it other. That law, Hubble's law dispelled the once universally agreed concept of a stationary universe. And he actually calculated the rate of the expansion of the universe.

Those observations by Edwin Hubble indicated that the universe appears to be expanding not static, this was consistent with a cosmological solution to the original general relativity equations that had been suggested by the mathematician Friedmann, working on the Einstein equations of general relativity. What Einstein had wrongly solved with the cosmological constant was essentially the rate of expansion of the universe. The universe did not collapse as predicted by his equations because it was not static. It was expanding

And allowing for an expanding universe as opposed to a static one, his original equations were correct. The mathematics do not lie indeed. But how he had interpreted correct information based on a skewed understanding of reality.

If one of the most intelligent individual in human history can be misled to make incorrect assessments because of a poor understanding of the true reality, what of the rest of the generality of average thinking humans?

Is it not presumptuous to completely denounce possibilities of juxtaposed realities based on way less than a plank length of information that we have at our disposal.?

It is only after combining Einstein's theory of relativity, Friedmann's mathematical solutions, Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky studies on galaxy clusters and Hubble's astute observations, that one can even begin to try to make sense of it all.

By taking multiple steps back, away from the proverbial elephant, the greater picture will come into clearer perspective. It became obvious that the universe was expanding as all galaxies were moving away from each other . Zwikys theory of Dark matter or dark energy that was pushing or accelerating all matter in the universe, then made reasonable sense. So we have never seen dark matter but strongly believe that it exist because of its influence on the behaviour of planets and galaxies. However it should not in any way escape our mind that it took knowledge gathered over multiple years, from different disciplines of Science and multiple individuals spanning a couple of overlapping generations, who were certainly at the pinnacle of their intellectual prowess, to build towards a better common understanding of true nature of the' emptiness of nothing'.

That thirst for knowledge overlaps to our day as strides are made at the Large hydrogen Collider(LHC)at CERN, in Switzerland have proved fruitful in chasing the once quite elusive Higgs boson in proving the plausible existence of a Higgs field which may be a starting point in understanding what constitutes the fundamental fabric of the reality. So it is quite perfectly possible for a rational someone, to believe in the existence a God depicted in the Bible and at the same time subscribing to the scientific method.

In my personal capacity i have settled to the understanding that yes you can't successfully present the 'theory' of God and the supernatural through the current Scientific method of reasoning. However it is us who set the parameters of what should be considered reproducible and thus can holdfast against scrutiny of the discipline. And as we have seen, our perspective of what is reasonable reality actually is limited by laws of nature as prescribed by the rules of our 3dimensions of space and 1 of time. We are also a miniscule drop in the vastness of the entire cosmos.

There is also that which is around us though we can't see(dark matter and energy) , which is five times more abundant than all the matter in the visible universe. We also know that the visible universe lies within the limits of the 14 billion year period that the earth has been around for and that's the matter whose light can possibly reach us . Beyond that point of our universe's horizon, lies probably far greater things that will not be able to examine in our collective lifetimes. And then there are unknown unknowns. Matter, anti matter, energy, media of reality, dimensions, laws, disciplines of ' science' and probably vastly more may actually be lurking around us that we are unaware of either because we ignorant of their existence or we are just oblivious.

And even if we had just a glimpse into everything, the negligible few decades we individually live and few thousands of recorded human history will be like standing in a crowded market with your eyes closed then opening them up for tiny fraction of a second and expect to have fully comprehended every little detail of the market and everyone in it down the size of a grain of sand. The possibility of an average human achieving such a feat is in essence impossible. Yet those odds would certainly be dwarfed in comparison by any attempt to absorb the whole cosmos in a few decades or even thousands of years .

That and many other ideas presented above should indeed humble those who are truly open minded. Meaning before we speak of the nature of reality in absolutes of YES or NO terms, our vocabulary should be laden with words like maybe, possibly, probable. That shows we understand and acknowledge how very little we actually know. And it means we will not hastily disregard or refute that which we don't know. For it is those who admit ignorance who enthusiastically assume the responsibility and the drive to quench their thirst to continously marry cause and effect,while those who quickly fall back to the blinkered default of blissful oblivion of what they already know and understand, deny themselves the need to wonder and discover.

In the end, when all is said and done the conundrum that we certainly find ourselves into, can be best approached using seventeenth-century French philosopher, theologian, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal's (1623–1662) wager.

In it, Pascal’s states that every person has to make a wager with his or her life as to whether or not God( hence the supernatural /spiritual beings / realm Pascal says).

He states,

..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

"That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.. '

Pascal presents a situation where both the existence and non-existence of God are impossible to prove by human reasoning as is the conundrum of this discussion. In , supposing that human reason alone cannot determine the truth between the two options, one must "wager" by weighing the possible consequences of each choice. The assumption is that, when it comes to making the decision, no one can refuse to participate; withholding assent is impossible because we are already "embarked", effectively living out the choice.

We only have two things to stake, our "reason" and our "happiness". Pascal reasons that if there is "equal risk of loss and gain" (i.e. a coin toss), then human reason is powerless to address the question of whether God exists and with him a supernatural realm . That being the case, then human reason can only decide the question according to possible resulting happiness of the decision, weighing the gain and loss in believing that God exists and likewise in believing that God does not exist.

He points out that if a wager were between the equal chance of gaining two lifetimes of happiness and gaining nothing, then a person would certainly be an idiot to bet on the latter.

He then argues that it is simply unconscionable by comparison to bet against a possible eternal life of happiness for the possibility of gaining nothing. The wise decision is to wager that God exists, since "If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing", meaning one can gain eternal life if God exists and he live as if so , but if not, one will be no worse off in death than if one had not believed at all in the first place . On the other hand, if you bet against God, win or lose, you either gain nothing or lose everything.

If each one of us doesn't consciously make that wager, our actions will certainly do that for us as there is no escaping making that choice.

So if it is mathematically wiser to wager for existence of a supernatural being and also if we accept that like Jon Snow ( a character in G. R. R. MARTINs series of books, A song of Ice and Fire) WE INDEED KNOW NOTHING wouldn't it be wiser to rather choose a path that lies between Science and Spirituality.

Edwin Shadreck Mbereko

[email protected]

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perpetually-jungshook · 6 years

Text

Without You: Bloodstone (Part 26)

Genre: AU, bts!werewolf, fantasy, angst

Warnings: language, violence, suggestive content

Word Count: 3k

Summary: Werewolves, contrary to popular belief, are usually gentle creatures. Except for a very specific set of circumstances, they would never hurt a human (on purpose). The few unfortunate times when mistakes were made put a permanent dark mark on the beasts and people began labeling them as monsters. What the human population failed to recognize was the fact that they were protecting us from something much more sinister. Luckily, a few survived and the gene was passed down hereditarily until one day finding its way to me… in the form of my best friend.

Loyalty is often as blind as justice should be, as unstable as a lightning storm ought to be, and as misplaced as an opinion in the truth.

Chapter 26:

That voice. I know that voice.

How did Halsahm find me so quickly? It’s only been a month. My gaze flicks up and down the halls, ears straining to find anything unusual. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I’m not here to hurt you.

“Bullshit,” I whisper, wiping the tears from my eyes and turning back to the door. I need to get outside. I need to find Jungkook.

I’m your other half, Eun. You can’t run from me.

“Watch me try.”

My nerves are already frayed from my argument with Jungkook, making my grip shaky and unreliable at best. I’m decent with a knife, but by no means am I ready to fight a demon. Besides, Halsahm, with its blood red eyes, can control my mind. Wait. Control my mind? No, it has no influence over what I think-

That’s right. I don’t.

And yet it can read my thoughts. It’s not control… it’s… I can’t quite think of the word.

Projection. There’s a slight pause. It’s the same thing as divination. Why do you think you have that ability? It’s because I have it. I allow you to have it.

Why am I not moving? A thought pierces through the fog in my mind. I have to get outside. I reach for the door, but this time a hand stops me. I have just enough willpower to scream. The next few seconds occur in what seems like snapshots of reality, quick, successive, unreal. The world lurches, I fall against something warm, solid. Splintered wood sprays around me, accompanied by the thunderous sound of the mistletoe doors dropping to the ground, broken loose from their hinges. A flash of black, and snapping jaws.

A whimper.

I roll sideways, catching a glimpse of a middle aged woman with golden hair just before she bodily throws the black wolf. The knife leaves my pocket and I push myself into a crouched position, blade at the ready, almost parallel to my arm like Munhee taught me.

My palms are clammy and the weapon shakes in my hand, but Jungkook can’t do this on his own.

Don’t fight me. You can’t win.

I have to keep my body under my control. I can’t freeze up. Projection… if it’s using summoning magic, maybe I just shouldn’t look at it’s eyes, which are the point of manifestation. Could it be that simple? I have a feeling it’s not, but so far it’s the only thing I’ve got. I can’t help but glance at Jungkook as he gets back to his feet. The massive lupine creature is furious, eyes stained with piercing amber and the primal intensity to kill.

The demon laughs, speaking aloud, “You don’t want to have this fight. One young wolf and a little girl can’t win. Just come with me willingly and I won’t-”

Jungkook lunges again and Halsahm side steps the attack easily, then kicks. There’s a sickening crunch as its foot meets the werewolf’s side and another as the creature heavily hits the concrete corner of the kitchen branching into the hallway. Naively, yet knowing the danger, I step between my friend and the demon.

Eun, just come with me. He doesn’t need to get hurt.

The whimper behind me makes me wince. Jungkook doesn’t need to suffer… For a moment, I actually consider giving up as a legitimate option. If I go with Halsahm, maybe Jungkook will be safe. Maybe Halsahm will just leave them all alone. The only thing that stops me is the “maybe.” It is equally likely the demon will go back on its word, using its “completed self” to take down the pack. I don’t know whether possessing me, its “other half,” will make it more powerful, but if the evil spirit is willing to go through all this trouble, I can’t imagine it’s all for nothing.

My heart thunders and I’m acutely aware of the fact that the demon can probably hear it. Can it still hear my thoughts too?

Yes.

I grit my teeth. Don’t think. Just act.

Two steps and a stabbing motion. Halsahm blocks me easily, grabbing my arm and twisting. The knife clatters to the floor, pain disorienting me, driving a sharp wedge between me and the ability to use my other senses. Only the thought of Jungkook causes me to blindly scoop along the floor and, with my non dominant hand, slice upward.

It’s just a scratch, but the wail that follows suggests something more, confirmed by the milky, white foam that seeps like soapy water from the wound.

Halsahm’s grip immediately loosens and I wrench away like an injured animal. I stagger backward, pain throbbing in my arm as the demon drops, writhing, screeching. It’s the same uncanny sound I’d heard before when this evil spirit got loose from its cell in the bunker- many voices, tones, and pitches all wrapped up in one sharp scream.

I hurry over to Jungkook, urging him to get up. He tries and fails.

“Kookie, we gotta go. C’mon,” I whisper, all too aware of our unknown, but quickly approaching time limit. Think fast. We can’t stay in here, Halsahm could probably break through any of the metal doors. We can’t outrun it either, not with Jungkook in this condition and I’m not leaving him here. Think.

Can demons perform revelation magic? I’ve never read anything about it. Maybe…

“Jungkook, get up,” I command with force, employing the same tone I’d used while training with him.

The raven black wolf painfully rises to his feet, the amber irises seemingly unfocused, dull and glazed. He must be severely hurt. I urge him forward, cooing and coaxing with all the gentleness that time allows, which isn’t much.

We somehow manage to make it down one hall, then the next and hope surges through my veins in a burst of adrenaline as soon as I see the second set of mistletoe doors. Munhee has long since gotten rid of the lock, especially after she started trusting me with magic. Thinking back to Halsahm’s escape, I can’t help but wonder if it was a mistake. Then again, if the demon can easily manhandle a werewolf, could it have broken open the door with the lock on it anyway? Another unwanted thought enters my mind. If Halsahm had been freed, do demons have the capability to perform revelation magic?

Anxiety gnaws on me, but I currently see no other option. I’ve made this decision and have to stick with it. There’s no way we’re getting back to the bunker’s exit. I close the doors behind us and lift my non dominant hand and summon the green flame, rushing to the hidden entry at the end of the hall, the one leading to the workshop. I manage to get both of us inside just as I see the shadows of the demon’s feet in the small line of light beneath the mistletoe doors.

“Sit,” I command, turning the flimsy deadbolt lock. The raven black werewolf obeys, somewhat. He collapses with a pained huff, the amber gone from his eyes.

Running my fingers through my hair, I stare at the one entrance that doubles as the only exit. How long would it take for Munhee and the others to return? Will we still be alive by then? If Jungkook and I somehow both manage to get out of this unharmed, how soon will Halsahm find me again? Well, there’s no point in being worried about the future if I get possessed and Jungkook dies right now. I can’t let my guard down. I need to keep thinking. There has to be something.

Sigil magic? But that only seals demons inside their host bodies. No, wait. In my divination vision, the little girl had been stuck in a sitting position upon a symbol. Maybe if I can replicate that symbol in here, just behind the door, it could work as a trap.

I look over at Jungkook, as if he would be able to affirm or answer any of my thoughts or questions.

He stares at me, lupine ears pinned back against his head, expression a revolving mix of anxiety and aggression. I try to give him a sympathetic smile, but it falls almost as soon as it finishes forming when I hear the sound of a door falling off of its hinges, then the inhuman scream and subsequent, deep, hollow thud of the mistletoe doors hitting the concrete floor, underscored by the metallic ring of the silver inlaid studs.

How desperately does Halsahm want to get to me if it will risk touching silver?

My next breath is shaky. What if the demon can perform revelation magic? I have to think. I have to find another solution. My gaze sweeps across the room, which suddenly seems hot, suffocating. The smell of herbs mixed with dust and faint rotten egg almost makes me coke. I look down at the pit in the middle of the floor. Those symbols. Maybe-

A low growl makes my skin prickle and I turn to look at Jungkook. The black fur on Jungkook’s neck bristles and his upper lip draws back to reveal pale fangs.

Stop… hiding…

The voice in my head is weak, almost shaky. I can’t help but wonder if the silver has weakened Halsahm.

The growl gets louder, culminating in a sharp snarl that makes me startle, especially due to the sharp contrast of the unnatural silence. The moment hangs in the eerie stillness.

My feet hurt. My hands shake. My heart pounds, a deep drum. Bu-dum bu-dum.

Jungkook leaps to his feet, one of his knees buckling, but it doesn’t stop his for legged charge forward. He barrels into the door, bouncing backward with a yelp. Dread attempts to welds me to the spot at the sight of the giant dent in the metal barrier.

“Jungkook stop!”

He doesn’t listen, amber eyes glowing with renewed ferocity. He throws himself against the door again and I rush forward, trying to grab him. If he breaks the door, Halsahm will no doubt be able to enter.

My fingers slip through his fur as he charges again. A few strands rip free from his skin, sleek, soft fibers still clenched between my fingers. His shoulder hits the door, causing it to collapse in on itself and fly outward into the once mysterious hallway with a monstrous clang.

“What are you doing?” I scream. Does it matter? He’s already done it. Attack instincts, fight or flight response, whatever it is, I can’t dwell on it. If I don’t act fast, we’ll both be dead.

For just a second, my body is caught between wanting to rush to Jungkook and retreat further into the room for my own protection. Obviously, I choose the former, but with a very specific purpose.

I step into the hallway, locking gazes with the demon’s blood red eyes. My body involuntarily shudders, but I stand my ground.

The demon’s lips curl up into a smirk, “You made a mistake.”

Halsahm, in the woman’s body, walks toward me, turning almost casually as Jungkook scrambles to his feet, jaws ready to clamp shut around whatever he can grab first to stop the inevitable march forward. But with uncanny ease, Halsahm grabs Jungkook by the lower jaw and throws him aside.

The only thing that doesn’t make me run away terrified is the repeated thought: I’ll save Jungkook, even if it’s the last thing I do.

I back up into the workshop, matching the demon’s pace. Don’t think. Just act. Just get it away from Jungkook. I almost trip into the pit, but regain my footing, positioning myself in the middle.

Halsahm stops, tilting the head of its host, “You think I’m naive enough to just step into a demon circle?”

Demon circle?

“Well if you won’t step in it, I’ll be safe in here.”

It sighs heavily, as if I’m trying its patience, not even seeming to pay attention to the haggard, raven black werewolf practically dragging itself into the room. Why won’t he quit? Why can’t he just run?

Halsahm’s smile widens and I realize it must have heard my thoughts.

“Sure, you’ll be safe in there, but your friend won’t be…” The demon turns slowly.

Fear permeates through me like ice and I’m ready to just give up, hand myself over if only Halsahm will leave Jungkook alone, but then the ultimate deus ex machina arrives in the form of a shadow falling across the end of the hall. It’s just a flash of movement, but my attention flies to it in despair as if to ask “what now?”

But then I feel the sweet release of momentary relief. The coffee colored wolf carefully, agilely bounds over the fallen doors, its toned muscles bunching and extending smoothly beneath its pelt.

“Jimin,” my voice is only a whisper.

His ears fall back against his head and a low growl builds in his throat.

The demon sighs again, “You’re only prolonging this.”

Walking on all fours, Jimin circles slowly around the woman, obviously intent on coming between her and me. I shake my head, pointing, “Not me. Jungkook! Protect Jungkook!”

The coffee colored wolf glances at me, confusion in his brown eyes, but the emotion fades, quickly replaced by a look of determination. He stalks around the woman to stand firmly between the demon and the youngest wolf in the pack, his haunches tensed to spring and fur bristling.

Halsahm stares, then narrows the eyes of its host. They must be talking- or, thinking and projecting. Their silent conversation is an eternity that passes in less than a minute. Suddenly, Halsahm puts its hands up in surrender, “Fine. Have it your way, but I’ll be back.”

The woman collapses, frothing at the mouth, before going limp. The uncanny stillness leaves the atmosphere, the sound of the air hissing from the ventilation shafts resumes, and the quiet ticking of Yoongi’s watch on my wrist returns to normal.

Not thinking, I leave the pit in the center of the room and drop to my knees beside Jungkook as he lies down, slowly transforming back into a human. Wearing nothing but elastic shorts, I can see his battered body trembling.

“Kookie,” I whisper, hands hovering over his skin, not wanting to touch him out of respect for his boundaries. “What’s wrong? Tell me what I can do.”

“It hurts,” he croaks. “Everything hurts…”

I’m immediately taken back to my first nights here- that mantra. Always in pain, always calling for me to make it better.

I can feel the presence beside me before I see him in my peripheries. Jimin, now human as well, kneels down next to me. His tone is blunt, yet his is voice quiet, “We should get him out of here.”

“What about the woman-?”

“Don’t worry about her. Lift his legs.”

Jimin stoops down, fitting his forearms beneath Jungkook’s. I grab my friend’s ankles, but he gasps and jerks away with a whimper. The older of the two wolves notices this and waves me off.

“It’s fine. I got it.”

He shifts positions and scoops Jungkook up, clearly struggling to stand, but his jaw locks and he grits his teeth.

“Where are we putting him?” I venture.

“His room, obviously.”

I walk ahead, dragging the fallen doors aside, out of the way, and turning down Jungkook’s blankets when we reach our destination. Jimin sets the broken boy down.

“When is Munhee coming back?”

“I’m not sure. They didn’t give me a specific time.”

Jimin nods, his dark, coffee colored hair falling over his eyes, “Have her take a look at him as soon as possible. And have Yoongi take care of the body.”

“You’re not staying?”

I stare at Jimin, disbelieving. He comes back just in time to save us, then leaves?

“No. Why would I do that? Everyone here hates me.” There’s a factual bluntness in his tone that makes me feel guilty.

My gaze drops and my voice lowers to a whisper, “I don’t hate you.”

“Really? So that’s why you push me away, get mad at me for everything I do, and- what’s the point? Just forget it. Forget me,” he turns away, walking toward the door, murmuring, “Everyone else does.”

My throat pinches with pity and something I can’t exactly describe, “Jimin wait.”

I step forward to stop him, but a hand catches my wrist, “Eun…”

Jungkook’s voice causes me to turn and look at my best friend. Concern is in his eyes, the same look he used to have when he first imprinted on me. He always seems to get hurt because of me.

Jimin’s head turns sharply, his lip twitching, gaze dropping to Jungkook’s hand as if the touch yanked on some instinctive string, but then he shakes his head and continues out the door.

“It’s okay, Kookie,” I try to soothe him, tugging away.

“But Eun-”

“I’ll be right back. I promise.”

By the time I manage to get free, Jimin is already down the hall, heading toward staircase.

“Jimin stop.”

He continues ascending, not even sparing a glance backward, “Why? Give me one good reason.”

“Because- well because…”

Jimin scoffs, throwing open the door of the shack that conceals the bunker and walking out into the thick blanket of fog, “See? You don’t have one. Just let me go. I’m trying to do the same for you.”

I sprint up the stairs, muscles aching, nerves frayed. I’m not sure why I’m doing this. Isn’t this best for everyone? Jimin stops making our lives difficult and he gets to stop being shunned by people he doesn’t even seem to like. Yet here I am, about to selfishly ruin everything.

I catch his wrist, clenching my teeth as he pulls away.

A strange desperation makes me try again, this time knowingly going a step too far. I wrap my arms around Jimin’s waist, pressing myself against his back. His skin is warm, muscles firm. He stops walking.

“Don’t go because… I don’t want you to. Please. I forgive you.”

✩✩✩♔✩✩✩

A/N: Only a few parts left~

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