The Trick to Falling in Style

Void

He was hunched over a book in the library when a voice called out to him. "I didn't know you knew how to read."

"Shut up, bitch boy. I'm focusing," He replied. Despite the serious intent in his eyes, his lips quirked with a humored smile. His gaze flickered up to look at his companion before returning to the pages spread out in front of him once more.

"If you wanted to know about the End, you could have asked me. I know all about it. I'm practically the prince of it." The book was taken from his hands. He instantly rushed to his feet to grab hold of it, but the lanky bastard held it aloft so he couldn't reach it. He glared at his friend until they both sat down on either side of the wooden table. His companion flicked through the pages idly as he began talking. "The End is basically a different dimension. You can use an Ender portal to get there, but most of the portals have been abandoned since the Rift. The End itself is a series of floating islands in a large vacuum. It's called the void. Anything that falls into the darkness, never returns from it. The End is populated by Endermen, Elytra, and Shulkers. We only have chorus fruit there."

"What about the dragon? And the giant pillar things?" He asked, almost reaching for the book again to point out the many different things he wanted to question.

His companion tilted the book away again but still answered the questions. "The dragon is regarded as a god-like being. She is our protector and our demise. She will bring us fortune and ruin."

"Sounds like an indecisive bitch," He huffed out at the vague description.

His companion allowed himself to laugh but the merriment was short-lasting. "Indeed, she is not the most reliable creature to share the land with. We assume that her base instinct is to protect the End. I personally think she's protecting the void or the islands because she isn't afraid to kill a resident if she deems them a threat. That is why young Enderman are taught to appease her from a young age. I didn't spend a lot of time in the End, but from what I can remember, anyone who wanted to overthrow her had been killed hundreds of years before I came along. Everyone else fell in line, and that tradition has continued for a long time."

"And the giant pillars? The one with the ge- go? The word starts with a 'g'. I think it has scope in the name," He asked, his mind flashing with memories of similar structure in his youth.

"Gyroscope. I don't know where they came from or what their purpose is. They mark the dragon's immediate territory. They're pretty to look at, but I have this strange feeling that they're meant for something more than just aesthetic decoration," He was told. Those gleaming purple eyes finally locked onto him. "Why are you researching this? Are you curious about the Rift?"

His mind flashes with a memory- a shadowy figure staring him down from the darkness like a predator searching for prey. Pulsating purple lights that seem to activate the green light now inside of his body, a secret he wishes to bury deep down. Both of the lights terrified him, and he was even more scared that he couldn't figure out which one he should be most scared of.

"No reason... just trying to get to know the hybrids," He lies, thinking about the people of his district with traits that come from the End instead of the creature that is purely made from the other dimension.

The memory in his head does a little to help him. With something to focus on, a moment in time and a location beyond the limitless darkness, he is able to grasp at something of a destination. The freezing cold shadows all around him paw at him, clawing at his clothes and yanking on his skin. The darkness grows thicker all around him, and he feels like it is crawling into his head from his ears, from his mouth, from his nose, clogging up his senses and effectively suffocating him. It is the memory of Ender, the hybrid named after this forsaken void, that allows him to create his own light. It is a single strand, a mere piece of tinsel instead of a sturdy rope. Regardless of the size or durability, he clings to it. He presses his cheek against the light, grasping at even more memories. He thinks of locations and people and moments in time. Most slip right through his fingers like sand, but he manages to snag on a few.