Void Cast

Worlds Away

  He dreamt he was in the realm he called home. He was standing on a bridge in the middle of the night. He could feel the cold breeze brush across his skin as he stared at his reflection in the frozen river below the bridge. Attached to his hand was a golden string, and attached to the string and flying wildly in the wind was a strange, silvery kite. 

  Mars gazed at the kite while it danced about, the moonlight bending in weird ways as it bounced off of it. The oddly metallic-looking surface threw the beams of moonlight in all directions, casting erratic shadows everywhere. The wind howled as it picked up even more speed, wrenching the kite out of his grasp.

   A magnificent lightning bolt struck the ground with a loud, hot snap right beside him and he stumbled back, toppling over the side of the bridge. He fell for only a second before his head smashed against the frozen river.

  He started screaming in pain, clutching his head in his hands as warm blood dribbled over his fingers. His ears were ringing so loud, he could not hear the ice cracking beneath him. Suddenly, he slipped under into the freezing water, trapped by the ice. The shock to his system caused him to curl into the fetal position, still holding his head in his hands. And he floated there like that until he grew very numb.

 Until he became the cold, and all he knew was this deep, penetrating numbness. That is when he finally felt something sliding against the inside of his palm. He opened his eyes to see the golden string wrapped around his finger, the kite floating in front of him. 

  He reached out to catch it, but it melted into his palm like liquid metal, forming a silver pool in his cupped hand. He could feel the warmth of it cut through the cold. He watched as it slid over his fingers and became a silvery glove with strange golden etchings of a dead language scrawled across it. And then he wasn't underwater anymore, he was in the crystal cave, awake from his horrid dream. But he remembered he was Under, and wished he could have gone back to sleep. 

  Mars felt a tug at his waist, realizing that is what must have awakened him from slumber. The golden rope's glow played off the cave walls beautifully. He didn't have long to enjoy it though because another tug came from the rope tied around him. This one was much more forceful than the others. He lurched forward, tumbling out of the mouth of the cave. 

  A weird electric charge flowed through the pitch darkness around him. He saw nothing, again, but the rope trailing into the unknown in front of him. He had the strangest urge to take off running towards it and so he did. Blindly, he dashed forward, tether wrapped around his hands. 

  "You are still so far," the voice whispered. 

  Mars stumbled at the sound and slowed to a walk. 

  "Why me?" Mars muttered, shaking his head and staring into the abyss. 

  Small pinpoints of light far away almost resembled the stars in the sky where he came from. He wished, once more, that he had not fallen down the rabbit hole. That he had not allowed himself to be tethered in the first place. He wondered if he would ever be able to find his way back to the Void, and more importantly, back to his home. In his own comfortable, predictable little galaxy. 

  "You were my only hope.." 

  One "star" in particular appeared to be moving closer to him, and flashing a color Mars had never seen before. He took a few steps back and growled in frustration. Now it was hurdling at him at an insane speed, like it was a ship spiralling and losing control. 

  "You picked the wrong thing to believe in!" He shouted, staring at his impending doom fearlessly. "I'm just a spec!" 

  As it neared, Mars saw that it was a giant bluish body of plasma. A parasitic comet, leeching the energy from everything as it passed. And it was coming straight for him, it seemed. But why would that be?  

  Just as he was asking himself this question, a black flash intercepted the comet. Mars watched as the obsidian serpent's jaws unhinged and it swallowed the celestial leech whole. The serpent looked back at him with it's hypnotizing emerald eyes as it did so -almost as if to say,

  "You're welcome."

   Then, it swam away leaving a trail of deep blue sludge in it's wake.