The Stars of Death

The City

The bells chimed 5 times.

It is Mondaya the 48'th in the month of the Dragon's Birth, year 219,650 ADL, on the twenty-sixth hundred midnight hour. The pair of automaton shrine bells chimed across the Capital City of Labunian with the wind carrying the bell's soft voice. The city slumbered in the dark peacefully. The aerial skyscrapers loomed over the megalithic city, casting their shadows, like fingers from the illuminated silver moonlight. Echoes of the bells flowed through the uninhabited streets of the capital city.

15 times the bells sang and danced in the quiet city.

A silhouette human figure cautiously seated itself upon the even ledge of a high-rise skyscraper overlooking the capital, whilst their legs dangled towards the nothingness of the dark city. Their ears were attentive to the singing bells and their eyes gazed at the shapes of the buildings that stood silently covered in a glaze of silver moon lights.

Their mind was silent, their heart was silent, and their body was silent.

The bells had struck 22 times and it was almost the time for the universal tradition to occur at the midnight hour on all the known worlds. The stranger shut their eyes and focused on their sense of sound, patiently listening for the bell's voice that was carried high and low and in between the slumbering city.

25 times the bells sang, and within the strangers mind, a memory of a prayer was called forth.

"May the Ascended walk among us on this midnight hour. May the Ascended guide us out of the darkness that has violated our Shine. May the Ascended be remembered for who they were through body and Shine. And may the Ascended find their sleep amongst the Life Beyond." The person placed two right index fingers on their forehead and spoke aloud in a gentle, feminine voice. "In the name of the Ascended, the Life Beyond, and the ghostly Shine."

The bells swung for their 26'th time and the Capital City gave birth to light. She could see the light through her shut eyelids and took a deep breath to recognise the environment and body once again. Her eyes and ears adjusted to the senses, and she slowly opened her eyes to gaze upon what was once a moonlit, lifeless city to now a city full of multicolour light and life. The uninhabited streets were now painted by black dots that were on the move and interacting with each other. The voice of the bells was now replaced by the voice of languages from these beings who filled the streets.

Her eyes watched the dots with great fascination and awe that something which was lifeless has now been reborn with life. This event reminded her of a saying that has existed for aeons across the universe. Eyelids closed; her mind full of memories that the Hippocampus within her brain has hoarded throughout life.

Hunting and hunting for the memory that this event has called upon. The memory got closer, and nearer to her grasp. There, there played the ancient words of the old ADL, Genesis 1:3 from ancient books if time.

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light."

A small delightful smile was produced from this memory that was found. She laid down on the pristine aerial skyscraper and opened her eyes to gaze upon the heavenly universe. She reached her hands out toward the stars as if to touch them and gazed at the stars that were caught between her fingers.

Her larynx was ready for command within her neck, and it produced the words that were being relayed from the mind. In a euphonious voice, these words were echoed towards the stars.

"And let there be darkness to consume the light."

As those words had echoed, a dot in the night sky that was between her right index and middle fingers, started to slide graciously slowly towards the left.