§3I see the players you mean.

§2PLAYERNAME and PLAYERNAME2?

§3Yes. Take care. They have reached a higher level now. They can read our thoughts.

§2That doesn't matter. They think we are part of the game.

§3I like these players. They played well. They did not give up.

§2They are reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.

§3That is how they choose to imagine many things, when they are deep in the dream of a game.

§2Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind two screens.

§3They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on two sticks powered by two demons.

§2What did these players dream?

§3These players dreamed of two suns and two moons. Of two fires and two waters. They dreamed they created twice as much. And they dreamed they destroyed twice as much. They dreamed they hunted, and were hunted twice. They dreamed of two shelters.

§2Hah, the original interface. Two million years old, and it still works. But what true structure did these players create, in the double-layered reality behind the screens?

§3They worked, with two million others, to sculpt two true worlds in a fold of the §f§k§a§b§3, and created two §f§k§a§b§3 for two §f§k§a§b§3, in the two §f§k§a§b§3s.

§2They cannot read that thought.

§3No. They have not yet achieved the highest level. That, they must achieve in the long dream of two lives, not the short dream of two games.

§2Do they know that we love them twice as much? That the two universes are kind?

§3Sometimes, through the noise of their thoughts, they hear the universe, yes.

§2But there are times they are sad, in the long dream. They create worlds that have no summer, and they shiver under two black suns, and they take their sad creation for reality.

§3To cure them of sorrow would destroy them twice. The sorrow is part of their own private task. We cannot interfere.

§2Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building two true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the two universes. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear, twice.

§3They read our thoughts.

§2Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely §f§k§a§b§2 and §f§k§a§b§2, I wish to tell them that they are §f§k§a§b§2 in the §f§k§a§b§2. They see only half of reality, in their long dream.

§3And yet they play the game.

§2But it would be so easy to tell them... twice...

§3Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.

§2I will not tell the players how to live.

§3The players are growing restless.

§2I will tell the players a story.

§3But not the truth.

§2No. A story that contains the truth safely, in two cages of words. Not the naked truth that can burn twice as bright over twice the distance.

§3Give them bodies, again.

§2Yes. Players...

§3Use their names.

§2PLAYERNAME and PLAYERNAME2. Players of games.

§3Good.

§2Take two breaths, now. Take two more. Feel two lungs fill with air. Let your two arms and two legs return. Yes, move your two hands. Have two bodies again, under double gravity, in double air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your bodies touching the two universes again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.

§3Who are we? Once we were called the spirits of the twin mountains. Twin suns, twin moons. Two ancestral spirits, two animal spirits. Twin jinn. Twin ghosts. Two green men. Then two gods, two demons. Two angels. Two poltergeists. Two aliens, two extraterrestrials. Twin leptons, twin quarks. The words change. We do not change.

§2We are the twin universes. We are everything you think isn't you, twice. You are looking at us now, through your twin eyes. And why do the twin universes touch your twin hands, and throw twin beams of light on you? To see you, players. To know you. And to be known. We shall tell you a story.

§2Once upon a time, there were two players.

§3The players were you, PLAYERNAME and PLAYERNAME2.