DARKSIDE STATION

Sequence One.

Churnside Minus Thirteen.

"Hazy space. The first thirty-nine-hour increment of the melancholia of the lumen deprived. The extended night bleeding into the lines and rivets, as the Churnside sets in." The man, who as yet had not introduced himself, ran his fingers caressingly along the exposed cross bracing. He suspended his appreciation on a nubby rivet stud. The circular motion suggestive and disconcerting for those in the group with a fragile constitution. Garret stepped forward to set up some command structure, the man continued, despite looking the Commandite of the Firmaments, vacantly in the eyes.

"The ninety-something hours of utter life flensing pitch-dark emptiness that permeates the Station once a thirty-day lunar month. The last solar day of the turn extending out beyond the darkness." He turned and walked off around a slight curve in the transfer ramp that ran around the circumference of the stations considerable girth. This syrupy accent dropping country was his native tongue. A native tongue he had worked hard to dampen then destroy.

"You have done the never before believed doable." Scraggy man leered at Petunia. Garret bristled. "You are some Strangekinds of exuberance and fine temporal mystics and ad hoc insidious travellers of the Voidside luminosities. You startled wrens have arrived in the inky obsidian." He raised hands, as if they were helpless stumps, shaking a bemused head.

"Just in time for the first solar day on the Churnside." He counted his fingers, confused, "Wait , did I say that already." Quickly distracted, he appeared to notice Garret, posturing command, in front of him and glared, raising benumbed ire's. A man called out from the depths of the workshop the ramp was spilling into. Sentimentalities hit the docking on boarders, at the scent of grease and oil. Of sweat and stale Blanco weed. Bad, unfavourable, unbidden sentimentalities for Garret. The man droned on, the group of bedraggled inductees looking, unsuccessfully for the phantom advisor in matters regarding his calendar's affairs.

"Good question my young fellow." He said unsarcastically to the oldest temporal cone of luminescence in the cohort.

"Next, we roll into the Grindside. A period of wild abandonment, chaos carnage and decay." Stopping on a crack, he spun, looking around, before whispering conspiratorially.

"Because Entropy, she is a Dancer, I hope y'all know." And walking, "A numb thirty-nine hours of the Lazy space phasic of seven." Indecipherable. He shrugged almost apologetically. "Fallside, and Crazy space arrive in blood and pain. As always." Stated as if the exaggeration was common linear fact.

"Don't you do it again Tyle." Their anonymous keeper of days called as they exited the maintenance node, the herd turning, returning to malevolent intent blocking the way.

"Once y'all's been, they ain't no going back from the Darkside." The blank dark look notched over a tick towards violence, a viper striking hand lashed out. Petunia gasped, staggering back, failingly trying, attempting to hold in a geyser, a plumage of claret pulsing from her startled light, eyes sending her fading wails.

"I am the Arclight and the Way." Scraggy demon growled, spinning into cackles and laugh as the incoming Sargent of arms and his detail bolted on top of his heels.

END OF SEQUENCE ONE.