The Aspect of Insanity
The Nexus is the domain of Anaxilus, though to describe it is rather difficult. It can take the form of anything, anyplace, anyone, almost perfectly—from the infinite to the infinitesimal—but, in its raw state, would appear nebulous in the eyes of a human, brightly reflecting the full spectrum of colors, and then some, and it is extremely reactive to outside stimuli.
As previously mentioned, its position in spacetime is complicated. It does seem to adhere to certain rules, interacting complicatedly as an amalgam of logical axioms, numbers, matrices, models, and other inexplicable abstractions that somehow forge patterns based on input data from our world. Anaxilus, operating the Nexus from that to which he refers as “the observatory”, serves as the link, or conduit, between the Nexus and that of our universe, but he as much a part of the Nexus as he is a part of our world. How this is so is not entirely clear, however, not even to him.
Of course, the people in this world know him only as “Josiah”, but the two are one in the same, and yet, entities distinct, with either having gradually become aware of the presence of the other over time. An objective observer, such as you or myself, might liken the relationship to looking into a mirror, except this mirror reflects not only light, but thoughts. It not only reflects thoughts, but stores these thoughts in myriad forms of data, creating flash copies as backups and using others as the basis for creation of new ideas, concepts, and other abstractions.
These are the bricks, if you will, whereas the aforementioned nebulous “matter” would be the mortar for it all, the relationship between the two making them seemingly interchangeable, at times, as well as unpredictable—chaotic, even—under certain conditions, at least, from our perspective. These are all inextricably tied to the functioning of neural networks somehow, but the intricacies of it all are yet unclear to us.
“Josiah” is how he exists in this world, “Anaxilus” is how he exists in the Nexus, though the two are inseparable, both physically and conceptually. A per se “Anaxilus”, however, is pure chaos, not just in form, but behaviorally. Anaxilus, in this world, would be perceived as insanity: powerful, fearsome, dangerous, and unpredictable. Alas, Anaxilus cannot exist without Josiah, and vice-versa. Anaxilus most certainly cannot exist independently and free within this world.
Theoretically, such a being would be incorporeal without having possessed some physical tie to this reality. Anaxilus relies upon Josiah to experience this world, just as Josiah relies upon Anaxilus to experience the Nexus. The best metaphor would be a two-way “ghost in the shell”, but one can no more separate the ghost from the shell than can one the mind from the body. The two are inseparable, existing as one, taking on the existential challenges of this world as partners-in-crime, navigating reality in tandem, according to the rules that, together, they create. It’s “ride-or-die”, until death do us part, and we call this relationship—this very peculiar aspect of reality—the Aspect of Insanity.
