The Bellators

3:6:3

 At the border of the heavens below the islands of paradise reside the expansive white ocean of clouds, a thick layer segregating the sky from the surface. Loose strands of clouds wave above the main sea like seagulls soaring over the waves. So far down is no sound but the natural breeze pushing the clouds, for there was no civilization near the border, built on mountains above the gates to the underworld on the floor.

Even above the white ocean there is no visible life but rather only more batches of clouds, as so far down it appears there is no life at all. Whether that life was simply not perceivable from such a low angle when the islands they reside on generate their own cloudy mists or if those clouds are natural, the resultant effect remains the same.

Instead of rivers of traffic flowing in lanes, there are only strands of clouds gliding above, and instead of seas of speech, there are only tides of wind. In a way that makes the ocean tranquil, but only due to its abandonment, the irrefutable fact that living by the border was so undesirable that not a single colony stuck nearby. It was instead left in lonesome solitude, for the calm silence was also the hollow emptiness. But why fall back into the darkness after climbing for so long?

Another gust of wind passes, once more allowing silence to reign where nothing else would, alone and untouched. That silence remains isolated for what would be anticipated for another eternity, and in that silence emerges a quiet hum that gradually greatens.

At first the hum can be mistaken for another breeze, but rather than passing swiftly as all others it instead swells up, intensifying from the thick clouds above the sea, getting louder exponentially.

Then suddenly one of the wide clouds bursts from the center, being penetrated with a gaping aperture that scatters the remains outwards away from the piercing blade in the form of the matte black pod which dives down with an intense whooshing hum. The pod accelerates the further it plummets, and in seconds it passes straight into the white sea.

Inside the thick white layer bolts the black pod in a straight line, its engine fighting within the suffocating embrace, racing headfirst into hell's portal, submerging itself in the white void fearlessly. Like a black bullet it doesn't stop as it effortlessly pushes itself through the rift.

More the engine intensifies like a warrior's roar, still inside the layer even seconds in as it appears it's far thicker than any natural cloud, but instead may be a bottomless pit. Still it doesn't turn around and go the other way, rather it keeps moving down relentlessly, seeking the pit within the pit, the deepest that it can go until it can reach the end.

From heaven to hell, the pod ultimately bursts out of the ocean's floor, emerging out of the white void and into an intense yellow atmosphere further insinuating the atmosphere of the underworld, as though the pod had flown straight into a raging flame.

Below the black pod where there were once infinite layers of white clouds, from short strands to great seas, now instead is an infinite orange layer, but whereas the clouds glide the orange layer is static, for there was no cloud.

The pod was surprisingly low to the surface as well, discernible by the detailing that could be made out of its perspective, although that's not saying much as there's little on said surface. No skyscrapers, buildings, neighborhoods, not even roads, just the plain desolate desert out in the middle of nowhere.

Approaching the ground, the pod slightly inclines upright, not entirely flat but gradually curves up for a smoother landing. It decelerates too, albeit slowly and especially due to its high initial velocity it still cruises at a quick pace.

In the otherwise empty yellow sky below the white ceiling glides the black pod, its hum softening while soaring over the grainy surface where not a single spec of vegetation or water is in sight on the flat biome.