Before The Fall (origins)

It Begins

A black shape trudged through the forest. And also through everything. As it passed through the greens around it, the forest bent and withered. The world was being warped just by the shape of this thing. It stopped and noticed the warping. Slowly, it breathed out a long breath, and the world righted.

It looked around, and saw a brown object in front of it. Some little voice in the back of its head called it a tree. And so it was a tree. Another little voice told it to squeeze. And without moving, the shape squeezed. No muscles clenched. The tree just imploded, crushing the fauna in the bark.

Not enough.

Purple tinged black formed above the fallen trunk. Sharp, needle like shapes formed, the size of a very large man's arm.

Sword. The voice again.  And with the image of the sword, the black above the tree molded itself into a collection of roughly crossed shaped blades.

Sword.  Pain.  Fear.  Death.

Loss...

Rage...

The black blades writhed as the thing writhed.  The vast void of its mind was being filled with emotions and nuances.  A tap was leaking into the thing's heart from a spring of memories as old as time.

Rage. This thing had no emotions. But this word brought out images. Frighteningly new images. Of world burning. Of people twitching between the boundary of life and death. New things. Different things.

It didn't like different things. Different things always fought back. Automatically segregated you from their society. So they were a threat. Threats needed to be eliminated. Everyone needed to be eliminated.

And with a sickening crunch, the black mass plunged into the fallen tree with a sickening snick-snack sound. And there was no more tree.

*

Magrathea woke up in a cold sweat with a pounding in his head. Like something inside was calling out. A prisoner in his cell about to be hit by a flood.

The floor was cold under his bare feet. The window displayed a calm night. A new moon night.

Wait. Tonight isn't a new moon night.

He stood up immediately, every system on full alert. Something didn't feel right. He needed to warn the General.

Magrathea tip-toed up the stairs slowly. The General had gone upstairs to talk to Yap. They had said something about the Armory unlocking. When he got to the top, he heard hurried voices and saw faerie light. The eerie green glow only made the sight of two grown men and a woman hunching around a cube even weirder.

The two men looked up immediately. The eyebrows furrowed, and then rocketed straight up.

"You felt it too?"

Magrathea nodded numbly, although he didn't know what they were talking about.

"Good. It means that you're beginning to resonate with the Armory.  It's almost ready."

"What is the Armory?"  Magrathea knelt down between the General and Yap.  The woman, Krista's mom, watched him curiously.

"A sealed dimension within this cube created to seal away the great artifacts.  Some say that the greatest artifact of all is in here."  Yap patted the cube.  Perfectly cut out and solid black, it didn't seem out of the ordinary.  But that was without the strange resonance coming from it.  It seemed afraid...

Magrathea tried to recall something.  He was supposed to tell the General something.  Something about something scary.

"Eh.  Dad.  The moon isn't up."

The General twitches slightly.  Yap and Krista's mom turned their heads to look at the General.  He was looking down at the cube, eyes...afraid?

What?

"General?  What's-"

Then it hit them.  A wave of what one would simply call despair.  Hopelessness.  Emptiness.

The sound like a vacuum being unleashed shook the night sky. It filled the house, echoed around the room, and then went silent. Everything went silent. No one moved. No one breathed. Dead silence.

"General...this is..."

"Nothing I've ever seen before. Yap, get the rest of the Elite Guard together. Bring the lady. Leave Krista with me. Go!"

The couple left to room to head for Krista's to rouse her. The General turned to Magrathea and started to speak. That's when the purple light razed through the house.

A fine purple line appeared between the General and his son, and instantly widened into an inch, and then two, and then erupted as the house was split in two.

"Magrathea!!!" Magrathea faintly heard his father's voice as he fell past the floor and landed hard on the ground floor, knocking the wind out of him. The General leapt out of the cleaved section of the house, arcing towards Magrathea.

As Magrathea tried to get up, he found he wasn't so winded after all. The impact was strangely minute.

"I got him, General," Yap shouted across from the remaining structure. His hand was outstretched, a faint bluish-white glow emanating from him.  With another gesture, a sleepy but unnaturally alert Krista was lowered beside Magrathea.

Another curtain of purple shot from the ground into the sky not far away, followed by screams.  So many screams.

"Dad!  Come on, we have to go help!"

The General glared back at his son.  And Magrathea saw that this time, there was no hatred or pity or disgust or regret in the General.  Only fear.  And resolve.

"Yap," he said, ignoring the big, "find the rest of the Guard.  Now.  Then meet me at the village gate.  The one facing the mountain."  The General turned to look at Magrathea again only to toss him a cube.  The Armory.  It was vibrating noticeably.

"Run."

"But I can help!  I can-"

"Run."  Was that a tear?  Magrathea had no time to register it.  An explosion ripped through the village gate, and Krista started dragging him away towards the forest.  So many things happening at once.  Gripping the cube tightly, he tried to dig his heels into the ground.  But his body felt all too light.

As he was distracted trying to fight Krista, the General touched his son's forehead, and the world went black for Magrathea.