"What is it?" I stared at the strange spherical blue-green object. I tried everything to figure out what the thing was. I heated it, I cooled it, I put it in the light, I put it in the dark, I put it in water, I even hit it with a hammer. It didn't do anything. Oh right, i need to tell you where I found this thing. Ok, here it goes:
It was a dark and stormy night, I sat in my house looking out the window, when suddenly I started seeing this strange purplish pink fog every where. I went out in the rain to investigate. I went over to the lake where i first saw the purple snowy stuff. I stood on the shore of the lake watching the purple cloud get closer. It seemed to be teleporting very short distances rather than actually moving. I started to walk towards my house but it was too fast. The cloud teleported in front of me and i fell down into the water. The cloud dissipated and standing in front of me was a tall thing black figure with purple eyes. It was at least 3 feet taller than me. It stood there making sounds that could be translated into pain. The creature fell to the ground. I kneeled in front of the creature. The creature turned into a pile of ashes shaped like his body. What was left of the purple cloud got rapidly sucked into the chest area of the ashes. The rain washed away the ashes revealing the blueish-green shiny orb that has baffled me for the last 2 and a half days. Even though I couldn't figure out what this object was, I couldn't let it occupy all my time.
It is early in the morning, I grab my fishing rod and net and head outside. I stand on the shore of the lake where I first saw the strange beast. I drop the fishing pole onto the sandy beach and wade out into the water with my net. After a few hours of waiting i finally managed to scoop up a squid and a few fish. I brought the squid to the little pond I made behind my house and plopped it in."I'l name you Fizzy" I said to the squid. Fizzy propelled himself to the other side of the pond.
I went back inside my house and lit my fireplace. As i sat down in my chair, I looked over my shoulder at the orb. I shook my head at the orb and continued eating my dinner. After dinner i went into my bedroom and sat on the foot of my bed. "Wait a minute.." I ran back into my living room and grabbed the orb. I ran upstairs to my study and grabbed a blank book and an ink pen off my shelf. I half ran half stumbled down the stairs and back into my bedroom. I sat down in my bed and placed the orb on the foot of my bed and opened the blank book. The ink pen almost fell on the ground but i caught it. I start drawing the outline of the orb. In less than an hour i had completely redrawn the orb. On the next page I started to sketch out the tall figure that i saw that night and next to that, the purple cloud. As I'm writing down all of the information I know about the creature and the orb I notice that its becoming dawn. I've been writing and drawing all night. I sit the book down on the table next to my bed and lay down. I stare at the orb at the foot of my bed until I fall asleep.
The wind blows on my face. Its cold here. I open my eyes to see where i am. I start to look down but the wind blows me backwards. I'm on a high place. The wind keeps blowing me back but i manage to get to the end of the small rocky platform. I look down, I'm on a huge mountain. The wind is wet like fog, little drops of water hit my face. I turn around and look at my surroundings, but instead I see the impossible. A creature like the one i saw in the rain faces me, It's glowing purple eyes are piercing my soul. It's eyes look like swirling pools of purple and pink. It just keeps staring at me, not moving, not flinching, nothing. I turn around, avoiding it's stare. The fog around the platform become so thick that i can't see down through at as i look off the edge. I turn back around to find that the creature is standing right in front of me. His eyes still staring down at mine like daggers stabbing my body. I recoil and trip backwards off the edge of the platform. I except to hit the ground but i just keep going down. As I'm plummeting downward i realize that the crude stone platform is a actually the peak of a seemingly infinitely tall mountain. I can still see the glowing purple eyes of the strange figure staring down at me through the fog. His body is gone, just his eyes glaring through the fog. The eyes seem to be getting closer, or bigger. The purple starts to engulf my entire line of sight until all i can see is the strange purplish pink glow.
"Ahhhhhh!" I'm lying on the floor next to my bed. I struggle to catch my breath as I lift myself up onto my knees. "What? It was just?....." It must have just been a dream, a realistic one at that. I grab the book off my bed and open it up to a blank page. I start to sketch out everything i saw in the dream, the mountain, the fog, a map of the platform, And the creature. My stomach rumbles and I realize that I haven't eaten yet. I go upstairs to my kitchen and make myself a breakfast of bacon, watermelon, and sparkling water. After breakfast I decide it would good to get some fresh air.
After a while of planting wheat, I decide to go over the river, to the meadow. The meadow is a small patch of field full of wild flowers and grass, it is one of the reasons why I moved here. Besides that, the small plain that i live on is an intersection between a forest, a desert, and the meadow. Plus it has a river. Once over the river I go and sit on the bench that I put there a long time ago. I look off to the horizon searching randomly for something that may or may not be there at all. A smooth breeze starts blowing by, it feels almost ominous. The sun is at it's peak. I walk half way over to the forest and look around at the border. I spot a small birch tree just outside the border of the forest. The tree looks small enough so I pull my axe out of my backpack and lob it at the tree. The blade goes half way through the trunk and the tree falls to the ground. I stride over to the fallen white tree trunk and start to split it up into 2 foot pieces. After I'm done with the trunk I whack the grayish green leaves with my axe until its just a pile of small twigs and leaves. I wrap up the leaves and twigs with some extra leather in my pack. I lift the bag onto my shoulder, stuff the planks of birch wood into my pack and start walking home. When i get home I lay the bag and the wood down on the side of my house and head inside.
My dinner consists of pumpkin stew, bread, and milk. I eat it slowly and considerately as if I'm waiting for someone to come into my house, no one does. After dinner I go into my bedroom and continue writing about my dream, the creature, and the orb. By the time I'm done writing my mind seams to have completely submerged in thought, I can barely feel my body and it takes my a while to remember my surroundings and completely wake up from my strange day dream like state. My mind still seems like it's swimming in a pool of dark murky nothingness. The same few pictures still flash back and forth in my mind like a broken camera. The orb. The tall dark creature. The mountain. But also something new, a seemingly endless starry void. I stumble into my kitchen and splash cold water on my face. The water is colder than I estimated and it feels like my face just got stabbed with a thousand icicles. I look out my window, the sun is either going down or coming up. It can't be going down because when i ate dinner it was already dark. It just now hits me that it's actually morning. I must be coming back to reality because i can feel my stomach rumbling. I decide to go back to bed
When i wake up, the cold morning seems to have been consumed by sunlight and warm air. There are no clouds in the sky whatsoever. I go outside for a quick glimpse of the wonderful day and then go back inside for breakfast. I easily scarf down 2 and a half loaves of bread and a whole glass milk for breakfast. The sunlight pours into my house like rain in spring. My body still feels tired but my mind is awake as it could be. I argue with myself trying to think of what to do. I eventually opt to go on a walk.
The fresh outside air almost makes me forget about the creature, almost. There still isn't a cloud in the sky. The weather couldn't be more perfect. I walk through the forest slowly, noting everything that I see. I cross a few small streams and walk over some hills. everything is just perfect. I find a nice tree on top of one of the hills and sit underneath it. A light breeze blows by causing the leaves to ruffle lightly. My mind feels numb, empty. I don't know how long I sat underneath the tree but when i finally get up my limbs are numb and cold. I start walking back towards my house. The path seems longer than before, and also more swampy and wet. The trees are bigger and the canopy in thicker. It takes me a while to realize that I'm lost. I stumble into a small clearing and sit down. I don't have a backpack or any supplies. My brain scrambles around. I try to consider my options but I'm too panicked. I lift myself into a nearby tree and try to spot my house. Theres a swamp to what I think is the north, another small clearing with a small cave opening in the middle to the west, a desert far off to the east, and more forest to the south, but my house is nowhere to be seen. Its getting dark so I decide to lay down in the tree and sleep until morning.
The next morning I wake up to my stomach rumbling. I am very hungry but there doesn't appear to be any sources of food nearby. I climb back up to the top of the tree to try to see my house again. The wind on the top of the tree is cold and wet. The sun is still rising in the sky. I look off in all directions. I don't see anything until I look south. I see something about the size of my house poking up from clearing of trees. I'm so happy that I half fall-half jump out of the tree and start running south. My legs are getting scratched up from running through the bush but I don't really notice. After a while of running I think I can finally see the clearing. I reach the clearing but I don't keep running. In fact, if I could make my body move I would start running backwards. What I see is a giant pile of wood, sand, dirt, stone, and leaves, But thats not what scares me, It's the hundreds of tall, black purple eyed creatures that are as of now, staring straight at me.
It didn't take long. It was effortless, they just picked me up and threw me around. After about 3 throws I was knocked out, and now I'm in this room made of strange black rock. There is not entrance or exit to the room, Just a four inch hole in the wall close to the floor where they give me this strange soup made out of mushrooms. The soup seems to have a healing effect because every time I eat it some of my injuries disappear. They slide in a bowl of the soup every half an hour, I'm very hungry so I ate about six bowls of the stuff. After my seventh bowl I started saving the soup up because I wasn't hungry anymore. After about 4 more bowls of the soup came through, one of the creatures made the mistake of sticking its hand too far in the slot. I immediately, without thinking, grab the end of the long claw tipped hand and pulled it as far as I could. I heard the creature slam into the wall and then the hand went limp. I pull the arm into the slot as far as I can. Attached to the upper arm of the creature is a band with a small grey and purple object shaped like a dagger with a flat end instead of a point. I rip the band off of it's arm and untie the object from it. I try to figure out what it does, but I can't. I isn't until stab the wall with it out of rage that i find out what it does. The blade part of the object slides smoothly into the wall. An outline of a square starts glowing int he wall with the object in the exact middle. The light isn't daylight, its yellow and dim like a stagnant swamp pool. I stare at the wall. suddenly theres a bright flash and then the area within the brick-shaped outline is gone and the object falls to the floor. I take the strange object that saved me and stuff it in my pocket Beyond the wall is a dimly lit hallway that strangely seems to be getting smaller and smaller. I start jogging down the hall but the door doesn't seem to be getting any closer. After about a minute of running I'm still not any closer. I pull the strange "key" out of my pocket and look around the room for anything I can use it on. After trying it on all the walls I eventually just stab the air with it. Sure enough, theres a bright flash and I'm at the end of the hall.
A musty fog lingers around the long black stone hallway. There are a few small passages trailing off of the main hall. The strange fog blocks me from seeing were the hallways go so i continue forward. I can't see the floor but my feet make a gravely scraping noise when the skim the floor. A bright purple flash emanates form one of the side passages. I immediately freeze. I see another of the tall creatures coming from the same passage and i immediately drop to the floor. To my fear the creature is walking towards my end of the hallway. I hope that the thick musty fog will conceal my flattened body on the floor. The long slinky legs of the shadow creature slowly march toward me, making the same scraping noise that my feet made. His left foot starts to step over me slowly, as if in slow motion. The fear of the creature stepping on me and realizing I'm here starts to pierce my mind. The foot of the creature lands a few inches away from my head, he doesn't notice me. I start to breath sigh of relief but stop my self realizing that the creature is still there. After about three minutes of waiting I finally get up off of the rough ground which I now know was made of small shards of rocks. I get back up and start sprinting down the hall with the strange key object in hand. My lungs start to tire from sprinting down the hall. I start to slow my pace, although I am still running. The hallway seems to be almost endless. I hear noises behind me and I quicken my pace. My heart stops and i fall to the ground. A black figure bursts out of the passage in front of me. The creature quickly reaches his long dark claws into his leather belt and whips out a long scimitar with a blade made of some sort of blue stone or crystal. The blade swings down towards me with a large gust of wind that blows the thick fog away. Without realizing it I swing the bladed key through the air. I close my eyes prepared to meet death, but that is not what happens. There is loud screeching noise and metallic purple liquid splatter all over my face. I open my eyes, in surprise that I am still alive. The creature flings the sword down the hall behind me and grabs his wrist. I don't know what just happened but I take the opportunity and kick the creature in the leg. The creature slams to the floor with a loud bang, still screaming. I quickly dart for the sword, scrambling along the ground. I clutch the sword in my hand and jump to my feet.
I sprint overtop of the creature and start jogging down the hallway. I look back hoping that I'm safe but that is not the case. There are about 5 of the creatures lumbering down the the narrow hall, their long legs tripping over each other. I turn back round and focus my attention on getting out of this hallway. The smell of kicked up dirt and gravel mixes with the musty fog in the air causing a smell sort of like mud. The fog that hits my eyes as I run along burns, the sensation is nauseating. The small 3 foot wide hallway seems to be infinitely long. The I consider swerving down one of the small side halls but rule that option out as there could be more creatures waiting for me right inside. No matter how far I peer down the narrow hall I still seem to be getting nowhere. I hear the crackling screams of the creatures slowly gaining behind me. use as I'm about to turn around and try to hold off the dark creatures, I hear a warped metallic pinging sound that deafens me for a split second. Suddenly a cloud of dark purple dust fills up my field of vision preventing me from seeing. I swing my arm violently through the purple dust and fog to reveal a tall black mass standing in front of me. Still barreling down the hallway, I instinctively swing the strange sword back and forth in front of me. The sword along with my arm slam into part of the large mass in front of me causing the sword to ricochet off of it and into the adjacent wall. Since the sword is heavy and made for larger beings than me, Its weight pulls me forward and into the hard wall. I tumble head over heels forward down the hall and past the dark mass. Just before I slam into the creature in front of me, my sword lashes around in mid air and slashes the creature multiple times. I whip past him and crash into the ground. My legs slam into the walls and fall back to the ground. I try to get up as quickly as possible but my legs are badly bruised and very soar. I swing my head around so I can see the hallway, the end of the hallway is close but I can hardly move. I manage to pull myself off the ground and start limping towards the end. The creatures are behind me, very close now, I thrust my body back wards and flail the blue crystalline blade around in the air. I hear some of the creature stop and some of them scream in pain. I make my best effort to keep running down the hall. The dark grey gravel on the ground is slowing my movement. I see then end of the hall, theres a small covered balcony probably about 20 feet off the ground. In one final lunge I throw myself off of the balcony. At this same instant I suddenly realize that I highly underestimated the height at which the balcony is above the ground and it is in fact about forty-five feat above the ground. I frantically try to think of what to do to buffer my fall. The creatures! there is at least three of them down below so I try to aim for one of them. I slam into the creatures back and it immediately falls to the ground shrieking. I get up and realize that I am surrounded by hundred if not thousands of the pitch black creatures.
I frantically look around hoping to find a way out of my current situation and realize a few things, first of which is I'm on a giant plateau made of a pale yellow stone, second of which is that the sky is pitch black and theres a thick fog lingering around the whole plateau, third of which is that the plateau is littered with giant black cylinders of varying size. I start sprinting to the largest cylinder that I see hoping that there will be some kind of refuge waiting for me there. One of the creatures appears in front of me causing me to recoil in fear. I run forward and quickly swerve around the beast at the last second slamming my blade into its stomach. I suspect it screeches in terror as the others did but there are too many strange noises to even hear it fall to the ground. before I can stop I slam into the colossal cylinder. I try to recover as fast as I can and start feeling around its tar-hued surface. The whole thing is about 25 feet thick and as tall as the clouds, if there where any. I can hear the strange jibber of the creatures behind me and quicken my pace around the perimeter of the column. Suddenly my hand leaves the wall and I fall down seemingly into the pillar. I get up and realize that I fell into a small opening in the cylinder. I turn around to see a pair of diagonal potato's made of the same thing as the cylinder leading down underneath the column. I crack one of the doors open, dive down into the stairwell and slam the door shut as hard as I can behind me. I turn around and scan the small low-ceilinged room before me. Three of the creatures dive at me screeching like some kind of dying animal. I jump up and kick the first of the three to the ground and land on its back, another one grabs my arm and flings me to the other side of the room. I get up and grab the blue crystal blade with both hands and charge full speed at the shadowy monsters that stand in front of me. One of them runs at me while the other one stays put, I swing my knee up into the creatures stomach and swipe my blade hard against its arm. The creature flies into back wall and falls limp. The last of the three creatures starts backing up quickly but slams the back of its head into the low ledge above the doors and falls to the ground. I smirk at the sight of the creature but then I realize, it was scared of me.
I look down at my tattered stripped sweater, small metallic purple splotches litter its white fabric surface. For the first time, I look around the room. The walls and ceiling are made of the same black-purple stone that makes up the rest of the pillars. The floor is tiled with what appears to be a combination of the black stone and a mix of small transparent gems ranging from dark blue, to lavender in color. The walls are dotted with strange runes which seem to faintly glow. At the far end of the room there is a spiral staircase going up through the ceiling. The walls are lined with many strange instruments, most of which are engraved with the same strange runes as the walls. I walk down the room in-between the rows of strange instruments paying close attention to the variety of test tubes, stands, glass jars, and strange tools laying all around. My eyes lock onto an overturned circle made of a rough, very dark grey cast metal. The small disk makes a clinking noise when I flip it over, indicating that it was in fact made of metal. I turn the object over in my palm to reveal a 4 pointed star with a pale blue-green gem set into the center. The edges of the medallion and rims of the star are decorated with yet more of the runes. I feel around my belt for a minute and find a small burlap pouch clipped onto it, I unclip the small bag and stuff the medallion into it. I clip the pouch back onto my belt and take one last look at the strange room before striding towards the spiral staircase. I take my fist step on the glistening polished black steps and start trotting upwards. I keep a steady pace walking up the spiral steps. All of a sudden a bright greenish slight starts flooding down the stairwell. I turn and walk a few steps down the stairs and cling to the inside column in the stairs. Slowly, I edge over to look around the corner and pull the azure sword out of my belt. There seems to be a small doorway up ahead emitting the blue-green light that suddenly poured into the hall. I step up a few steps and jump into the opening, sword clenched in both hands. "Ahhhhh!" I yell into the small room beyond the black carved stronghold but nothing is there. I slowly take a few slow steps further into the room and around the corner. What I see beyond the curve strikes me with awe.
There is a deep verdant perfectly-cut jewel about the size of a potato sitting atop a light gray stone pedestal. Beyond the small triangular stand holding the crystal onto the pedestal is a small slit in the
jet-black stone allowing the emerald light to seep out. Before I have time to leave the room, I realize that one of the creatures is standing with his back to me in the corner. Realizing its too late to turn back now, I thrust my blade into its back before fit has time to turn around. It screeches and falls to the ground. I backhand the crystalline object off of the stand and watch it explode into dust on the ground.
Before I can get far up the stairs I come across another, this time smaller, doorway coming off the side of the stairs. I peer into the small room and instantly feel compelled to go in. This room is much bigger than the one before it, about thirty-five by thirty-five feet. Inside is massive piles of materials ranging from sand, to large piles of stones, to logs, to rich fragrant dirt. Some of the materials I don't even recognize, like the thick dark brown sand-like substance in the right hand corner of the room. Deciding that the piles of dirt and sand have no use to me, I continue up the long dark spiral staircase. After a few more minutes of sprinting up the stairs, I finally decide to stop because I'm running out of breath. I pant for a few minutes and listen to my own breath. My breathing sounds weird, crackly. But then I hear it, short faint tapping noises. I hold my breath for a few seconds so I can hear it better. The crackling isn't my breath, and neither is the tapping. "Oh no..".
I start back up the stairs faster this time than before. The tapping and crackling is getting closer. I see something up ahead, light. The dull twilight of the strange world outside of the pillar. I drag myself up the last few steps and jump out of the stairwell. I must not of thought this escape out too well because I now realize that I'm on the top of the pillar. I've hit a dead end, theres no where to go now, and I can't turn back. I pear over the edge of the thick column into the grey fog below. Green flashes of light dart back and forth between the towers rapidly now. I gaze around my shoulder just in time to see four or five of the creatures coming up the stairwell. The creature in the front starts making an odd gurgling sound followed by a wave of his long noodle-like arm. The other three creatures surround me to the edge of the column. My eyes search for something logical to do but find nothing. One of the creatures holds a sword exactly like the one I now hold in front of me. I decide to do the only thing I can do, charge full speed at one of the creatures.
My head plows into the creature's leathery midsection and we both go tumbling across the roof of the pillar. As we slide I start to unsheathe the blade. Before I know it we are both plummeting over the edge of the pillar and into the great billow of grey smoke below. I swipe the blade twice across its chest as its arms flail in the air. I watch its arms and legs quickly disintegrate into smokey powder and then get blown away. I now realize I may have just killed my only chance of surviving this fall. I snatch at the appearing metallic-blue sphere in the chest of the creature. As a final attack the creature flings the remains of its dusty arm at my face, temporarily blinding me. The smooth orb flies out of my grasps and to the ground below as I desperately clutch the dusty mass left in my arms. I close my eyes and prepare for my my demise. A shattering sound rings out in my ears and I feel my back gliding against the rough ground.
I slowly open one of my eyes, pondering if I am dead or not. I see sections of the ivory hills, and the pillars that jut out of the landscape like candles on a birthday cake. The Shattered remains of the opalescent sphere lay at my feet. A cloud of grey and purple dust emanates from the pile of jagged shards. I heave my battle-hardened body to my feet and start running. I run at full speed still pondering how I survived, toward the only thing I see on ground level, the prison. My eagerness to enter the very building I escaped is not highest but It is the only way I see fit to escape this place. Already the beasts are starting to surround me from all corners of this grotesque continent. Only one guard protects the doorway to the giant dark mound of the prison. I charge at him, blade held high. He diverts the slash with his own blade and throws his own slash at me, I deflect his blow and he starts to reel up for another. Before he finishes with his wind up I slap him across the face as hard as I can with the flat of my sword. I am surprised as to how lightweight these things must be as when I hit it crumples to the ground five feet away. I lunge forward, throw open the door and slam it behind me.
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