CHAPTER 119: RULES

Eo looked at Nick for a moment with wide eyes before nodding with a smile.

"Not quite." But where’s the fun in saying that he’s right?

Nick’s excited expression dropped.

"It would be more accurate to call them rules." Eo rested her elbows on the table and looked at the plates.

"Dimensions are...I’m not sure if it’s best to call them a bundle of rules or if they are governed by rules, but something like that. These Rules of Existence decide what works and what doesn’t work. They decide what everything does and looks like. They decide everything, basically." Eo looked up at Nick expectantly.

Nick’s brow was furrowed as he thought about it. Something like the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and so on. Evolution, gravity, photosynthesis, and everything else he could think of. Those are the Rules of Existence, and they are limited to dimensions.

"That means, the place outside dimensions has no Rules?" He asked, still uncertain.

Eo nodded.

"Can you imagine what life like that is like?"

Nick’s frown deepened as he tried to imagine it. The closest he got was the vacuum of space, but even that was made up of the Rules of Existence. Things like lack of oxygen, stars, darkness, and whatever else he could find in space were all because of the Rules of Existence.

Without those...

Slowly, he shook his head. He couldn’t imagine it.

It wasn’t the opposite of everything he knew, and it was nothing like he had ever seen or heard of before. It had no connection to anything he knew anything about. It was completely blank. How was he supposed to imagine it when all he knew was that it was nothing like his current surroundings, while also not being nothingness, since that was a concept found inside the dimensions?

"Exactly. That’s what an outerdimensional being is," Eo said with a confident nod, as if she had perfectly explained it.

But that was the point.

How was she supposed to explain something that couldn’t be explained using words based on rules that didn’t apply to what she was trying to explain?

Nick’s frown deepened even further as he continued trying to understand it. But it was hopeless.

The brain of an ant couldn’t understand how a TV worked. The brain of a dimensional being couldn’t understand outerdimensional existence. But that wouldn’t stop an ant from watching TV, and it wouldn’t stop Nick from hanging out with an outerdimensional being.

"I think I kind of get it," Nick said after a while.

Eo just nodded.

Nick looked at the table with a new frown.

"But there are ’rules’ for what goes on the table, too, aren’t there? I wouldn’t put mud on the table."

"Two things." Eo held up two fingers. "The first is simple. It’s because, as I said, it’s a flawed representation. It gets better if you expand the perspective. It’s not the table that’s Existence, it’s this house. But you wouldn’t put a hill in your house, so, the land is the Existence, and the house is the dimension.

"But you wouldn’t put the ocean on land, so the world is Existence. But you wouldn’t put the sun on the world, so the solar system is Existence. But you wouldn’t put a black hole in the solar system, so the galaxy is Existence. But there are probably a million things you don’t want to put in your galaxy, so that doesn’t work either. The number of things that don’t fit in the ’representation’ of the Existence grows infinitely smaller the wider your scope. But it will never reach zero unless you go beyond the scope of dimensions. But then, it’s no longer a representation of Existence. It will be Existence itself."

Nick nodded along. That made sense.

"The second thing..." Eo folded one finger. "That’s a very good point. That’s why we’re here, actually," She said lightly.

"What?" Nick said. He had an easier time following along with the first thing she had to say in response to putting mud on the table. But that was because there wasn’t as much nuance in the words. This time, though...Eo could mean several things with that.

Was that why they were here by the kitchen table? Because they wouldn’t put mud on it? Or was it...

"’Here’ as in..." Nick pointed at the kitchen table. "Or...?" Nick flipped his finger and pointed widely at everything around them. The kitchen or the dimension?

Eo nodded with a serious expression. The dimension.

"You remember what happened when I put things that didn’t belong on the plates, right?"

"I removed them..."

"That could be called a representation of the Rules.

"Technically speaking, I don’t belong in any dimension. So, the Rules of Earth pushed me out."

"But you were in my house for six years? Why did it take so long?"

Eo was already hesitant. She had said before that it wasn’t her fault that they had moved to another dimension. That was true. But it wasn’t the entire truth.

She was worried about Nick’s reaction.

"I guess it’s similar to how you don’t notice a tiny speck of dirt and thus won’t remove it until you notice it? Only a small ’part’ of me lived in your house for those six years. But as time passed, more of me gathered, I guess you could say. Eventually, my presence provoked Earth’s rules to push me out."

Nick frowned. That was pretty easy to understand.

"But then why is it fine here? It feels like your presence is much more pronounced here than it ever was on Earth. How come we’re fine here? In the first place, why did my house and I tag along when Earth pushed you out, and why did we end up in another dimension instead of outside them?" The dam to Nick’s mind opened up, and he threw out question after question.

Eo’s revelation was a little difficult to smelt, but as soon as he did, Nick couldn’t rest easy without getting even more answers.