Voids Embrace

Wow, I actually really like how this one turned out despite me coming up with the idea on the spot and violently writing it.

Enjoy!

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When the second sun died, it dipped towards the worlds, engulfing our empire in a void of darkness.

The fringe worlds faded one by one. Reaches of progress and illumination stretching into the boundless abyss, engulfed by the darkness in succession.

Thousands of scrying cores shattered in mere centuries within our great monasteries. Entire systems overrun by the organism of darkness.

As world after world was lost, many others were proven useless, so our collective made a decision. Burdened by a threat to our future, we deemed thousands forfeit, opting to conserve the insufficient light remaining.

Yet, this great abandonment proved the most heinous of our folly. For as we dropped world after world into the sea of the cosmos, those bonded to the planes — those we called kin — died alongside them.

Being such a long-lived race, having such numbers, we maintained these sacrifices worthwhile; necessary in a vain attempt to ration the remaining light. For they proved all too eager a sacrifice for our race’s endurance. The bonded lived within the nexus — the wave of the empire. They would sacrifice themselves before it fell.

Yet, minor success was marred side looming failure, and our central weakness emerged after so many millennia. For as our worlds dwindled, the amount of bonds possible between them diminished. 

After but a handful of centuries, we lacked the necessary bonds to dam the tide of the void. Realizing this and realizing that even the hope of constructing a new edifice of light was no longer possible, we fell into despair. The nexus was shattered, light spread thin. Soon We failed to even recognize the great starways within the oppressive darkness. Constellations washed from the canvas of the sky.

As we fell back to each defensive, our core worlds fell, the great bastions of knowledge and culture falling with them. The great monasteries silenced after so many tides; cosmic links shattered one by one. 

Finally, as the hulking dead mass of our original edifice crested the rim of the central nexus, the core of the empire, our ends became reality.

Only one final world, our original world, remained; we did not part with it lightly. Through the sacrifices of thousands, we were able to stem the tide for a time. Yet, ultimately even their retained light was not vast enough to maintain a front for long. The darkness quickly consumed the planet, the remainder of our race falling to silence.

And now, all that remained was us, the Monitors. Protectors of the great artificial machine reason, tasked with the administration of light between our worlds through the nexus for millennia past.

If this temple fell, it would have spelled doom for the empire long before even the sun died. Yet, as was the plan, it remained alongside us, all that persisted within the darkness — all that remained.

There I stood amidst the center of the machine’s hall, clad in a film of brilliance. The light radiated from my form as if I was a shining star; a beacon of hope. 

My robes bathed the accompanying chamber. A lengthy brutalist and cathedral-esc tunnel. Polished silver floor running the length of which, stretching upwards past a small staircase; finally ending below a hulking machine. This machine now glowed black, rarely moving save a contraction or stutter. The light it typically radiated reduced to a mere candle flicker in the grand scheme of its working.

We knew, all 35 of us arrayed about the hall. When it finally gave, when the last vestige of light escaped its hollowed tubes, the empire would truly be dead. Yet, we dedicated ourselves to its protection. Even in the face of total silence, we would stand as a final vanguard.

And the cathedral door shook. The massive obelisk buckling as an unseen assailant dug into the durable material.

A murmuring thought spread through everyone present, Focai tightly gripped by despairing minds.

The void had come.

The smashing continued, each reverberating bang sending the remaining attendants deeper into doubt, despair, hopelessness.

Even I was not exempt from these despairing thoughts. Our race was gone, the nexus of worlds shattered. There was nothing left of us, nothing left to fight for. Yet, I maintained, we wouldn’t give so easily. For all the empire had been and the great achievements of our race, I would not allow us to embrace the darkness with an end so close.

I sent a solitary thought of determination through our link, brightening my apparel a degree as my companions were brought out of their unbecoming stupor.

We had all trained since our birth ages ago. We would never falter in our divine duty and we steeled ourselves for the hopeless struggle to come.

And finally, the doors gave. 

The entire ten-foot-thick slab of basalt was shot flying to the side, ripping chunks of machinery from the walls in its wake. In the gaping maw of our final bastion stood the gulf of nothing itself, a liquid wall of pitch darkness.

With slow, almost hesitant progress, the pristine surface of unaltered black fluid flowed past the cathedrals mouth. I tuned my adornments as it approached, the light radiating from my form increasing in visible intensity.

To this the wall stopped, a single rounded ripple flowing across its surface as it receded a foot. Yet, the ripples continued, and with each imperfections passing, limbs grew from the voids’ facade.

Liquid black claws ripped from its embrace, pulling horrors of millions, into the light.

The creatures fell from the wall, silent maws crying out as newborns towards the bright cathedral interior. viscous cordlike muscles ran their length, their forms contracting and pulsing like a heartbeat. Each hosted a random assortment of clawed appendages, shambling amidst themselves as pitch liquid dripped from their undersides, dying the flood in darkness.

Finally sensing the origin of their pain, they froze. An eerie and alien stillness spread over the beforehand writhing creatures; their heads rotating in unison towards me.

And I gave the call.

Dozens of Focai discharged into the mass of darkness before us; rays of light, seeking into a hopeless abyss.

The creatures spread their maws in silent pain as radiance seared through pulsing limbs. Rushing forwards in a tide of black fluid; the flood of darkness colliding with the light.

For a time it seemed as if we could hold out, yet progressively, my comrades Focai began to run dry.

First, the darkness engulfed our first line, the creatures tearing past our reinforced kiln shell, exposing the volatile light within. My comrades began to snuff out, one by one as their internal light was extinguished by void. Before long it was down to me and a handful of others. The only remaining individuals of my race shielded behind my brilliant garments, their maximum radiance barely holding back the tide. 

I knew this would not last. Without a suitable source, the light would soon fade from my robes and in vain I thought to the origin of this predicament.

If only the nexus had warned us of the sun’s volatility millennia prior. If only the monasteries hadn’t been so rooted in tradition that they could have sought past reliance on the twin suns; possibly obtaining an alternative source of light should they fail. But, even these thoughts were deemed heresy in the grand scheme. It was just who we were. The first sun had died long before I was born; we should have anticipated the second, but we grew complacent. The elders of our race, so waxed by the passing of time, believing that nothing could change, and nothing should.

As the light faded from my robes, as the tide of horror and unity flowed over me, I fell backward. Lying there amidst dying and fallen companions, as the creatures corroded my kiln, I gazed upwards through the cathedrals’ open roof.

First I gazed at the shield surrounding our world. The final panels on which flickered as the light faded from them, white radiance no longer projected from their embrace towards the dying planet. Then I gazed past, out through the planetary hole positioned above our sacred monastery; towards the darkness beyond. 

There stood the hulking mass of our once great sun. The metallic construct around it generating a limitless amount of light before it fell silent. It was a grand design. One of the greatest feats our race had accomplished. A construct requiring the material of thousands of worlds to make possible. Yet, the sun was now dead; the heart had ceased beating long ago. 

And finally, I gazed past the sun’s material shell, straight into the eye of the black hole at its center, the corpse of our empire.

The era of light was at an end, and an eternal darkness had taken hold.

In my final moments, I prayed.

I prayed that someday, millions of years, perhaps on a different plane, the light can once again grace the cosmos.

And with my final thought, I slipped into the void.