The Last Historian

“Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel…corporeal?” The man found himself waking up from something, somewhere, somehow, with more questions than answers swirling through his confused brain.

He was sweating, out of breath and disoriented. A condition not quite normal for a non-corporeal being of his kind. He felt trapped somehow. He felt… alien. He stood up on his feet, his naked and new physical body dripping with sweat. He staggered around for a moment looking to gain his bearings. His surroundings were extremely unfamiliar to him. High vaulted ceilings, spiral ornate staircases climbing to the top, resting near massive walls of books that seemed to go on for an eternity pressed down upon him. He lost his footing once again, falling to his knees.

Without warning, his ears popped, opening to an overwhelming and disorganized symphony of noise which made his disorientation even worse. He grabbed his ears and the sides of his head simultaneously, yearning for the quiet silence of his mind once again. But against his will, his mind began to work instead. Flashing images were coming to him. Images of fighting, war, pain. And then… Nothing.

This was what he awakened from. The nothingness, the Great Silence of which he wasn’t meant to escape. The memories all roared back to him like an uncontrolled torrent. Something had happened. The memories of numerous and vast realities, threads of time abruptly cut, and the Historians that guarded them… Gone. Not dead, but just… Gone.

“Greetings…” a voice said to the man. He looked up to see a floating blue-hued holographic head of an alien creature speaking to him with a familiarity that was unusual to him. Curiosity suddenly invaded his mind like an obnoxious child interrupting someone mid-sentence; and he found himself unable to fight satiating it

“What happened? Where am I?”

“You are in the Archive sir. The repository of all information, time-lines, dimensions and worlds. The Archive is also the vehicle which navigates these. As far as what has happened to you, that is a surprise, especially for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that you have defied your fate. Records show that a great number of Historians were to be destroyed during the Temporal War. You were counted among that number sir.”

“You talk as if it’s a bad thing that I'm alive.”

“Not so much bad, but I am surprised. My data predicted the fall of the Historians as a whole. Timelines, dimensions and realities all guarded and watched by the Historians have been inexplicably deleted from existence. I call this phenomenon, the Great Silence. You however, instead of also being deleted, have been stripped of your non-corporeal form, ousted from outside of time and are now imprisoned in a physical body resembling one of the species of the Prime Worlds and Timelines you formerly looked after.”

“Why do you think this happened?” The man got up on his feet again, this time able to keep his balance on one of the ornate guard rails as his mental fog lifted, and clarity set in.

“I surmise it is because you were the Historian of the Prime timelines, dimensions and realities.”

Getting clearer in mind, the Historian began to remember things from before. Information continued pouring into his mind every millisecond, almost too fast for him to keep up, but he was able to finish the thought of his holographic companion in response.

“And because the Prime TDR’s are anchors to all the others, I must’ve been spared somehow!”

“Correct.” the hologram replied.

“So tell me, does this mean the other timelines, dimensions and realities are all…” he couldn’t bring himself to finish saying the words he already knew in his heart were true. The Historian glared at the hologram with a deep sadness in his eyes; eyes that finally managed to release a tear for the lives lost, both physical, and non-corporeal.

“A great number have been, but not all of them. I am running a diagnostic analysis of all the previous timelines, dimensions, and realities to figure out which may have survived the Great Silence.”

“Of course!” the Historian replied. A realization of hope shot through into his brain, bringing back an optimistic outlook which instantly destroyed the gloom he felt inside. “If certain timelines survived the Great Silence, then that means their Historians should be alive too! We have to look for them!”

The Historian, reinvigorated with energy, darted down a set of spiral steps making his way down toward the center of the Archive to the Control Panel of the vessel. He suddenly stopped in his tracks realizing his physical state.

“It’s gonna take me a minute to get used to this new form. Do you think you could get me some clothing? Something from Earth’s early 1900s”

The hologram ran through its records displaying various outfits from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Eventually, the Historian landed on a clean cut tailored suit that showed a comfortable elegance that had a touch of rebellion. The grey pinstriped three piece suit with black patent leather Oxfords gave the Historian a sophistication that befit his namesake.

Once comfortable in his new outfit, the hologram approached the Historian now as a full body from head to toe, with the final touch of his outfit, a wooden cane with a Darvidian Brass topper and a black Tazarite ring which contained all of the information within the Archive and access to the hologram housed within it.

“So it looks like you are one of the Class IX sentient holo assistants. At this point probably the last of your kind. My name is Hendrix. What do I get to call you?” Hendrix asked him.

“A designation isn’t something I have thought much about. It didn’t seem necessary.”

“Well it’s definitely necessary now. I’m not gonna walk around calling you Hologram. Think of a name you're comfortable with, and that’s what we will go with.”

The Hologram sat thoughtfully for a moment, not used to a physical person recognizing his sentience, let alone caring so much about his opinion and respecting his autonomy. After a few moments he replied.

“Adrian…” he said. Hendrix smiled in response to the name. “I like it… Adrian. And Hendrix… The Last Historian!”

(The beginning…)