In the darkness cast within forgotten crevices of a city bathed in light, a shudder electrified the air. A hum penetrated the silence, punctuating it and leaving in its wake a void that expanded across a ceiling.
The void was born of nothingness; as most voids are want to.
What began as a thrum of energized void the size of a pinprick began to grow until the darkness of the abandoned room shone bright in comparison to the patch of expanding void. The patch grew till it gaped open above the dust covered floor. The edges of this anomaly seemed to fold in upon itself, somehow caught between existing within this plane and another and incapable of deciding which it preferred.
Something stirred from within this void. One could tell because whatever had stirred had bothered to stick a scuffed shoe out of said void and with it kick around in the most experimental of fashion. This protrusion caused no irregularities upon the ethereal portal. Had there been an observer present, they would not have looked up at the ceiling and seen what the kicking foot belonged to. They’d have perceived nothing more than an oval outline around which one could make out blackness and of course… the kicking shoe.
Not for long, however. The shoe quickly retracted back into the void. The hum that had signaled the birth of the portal was heard once again. Now, the portal that appeared to enjoy a close resemblance with a black hole quivered. It did so visibly. Where it had once been nothing but a smooth… something, it now shone with iridescence too pale to cast light upon the floor below but just enough to see a ripple run across its surface.
In the darkness that occupied that forgotten room; in the darkness that sulked as its ego had been shattered by a passing anomaly, a figure emerged from the offending party. The figure emerged from the portal and was welcomed, as lovingly as a mother-in-law, by gravity.
A sound escaped the figure as it quickly met with gravity’s best friend – The ground. A cloud of dust engulfed the figure that had dared disturb its year’s long endeavor to form a uniform and well maintained carpet of indigence. An exclamation of pain was quick to wheeze away into a fit of coughing as the figure turned to see the tear in space that it had emerged from slowly collapse in on itself.
It looked like a bubble that had been popped, but instead of instantaneous disintegration, it chose dreamy implosion. Just like that the void disappeared, its life proving short but truly awe-inspiring. It also had the pride of leaving behind a memento… One that currently lay on the floor, encased in a thick overcoat and a cloud of annoyed dust, alternating mysteriously between coughing and groaning. Mysterious being the key word, seeing as the figure which was assuredly human was wrapped in enough cloth to dress a family of two and a half.
In the darkness that was slowly regaining its sense of self, the figure slowly stood up. Still coughing and moving in a manner that suggested a bruise in the making, it produced a matchbox from within the folds of its many layers of clothing and lit a single match. It looked around the tiny room with dark eyes outlined with suspicion and poorly concealed fascination.
“I can’t believe that worked…”
The darkness shrunk away from the light the matchstick cast across the room, stymied at its poor luck and hoping that it would be allowed to resume its quiet existence soon.
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In a secret room hidden within a secret building not so far away as the ceiling invading figure would have liked (had it known such a room existed) a particularly severe looking woman stared at her particularly important looking screen and frowned a particularly furrowed frown. She wasn’t one to dally and quickly bursts into a flurry of multi-tasking the likes of which would have awed the most experienced of mothers.
A dispatch was sent out by the time the ceiling invader’s matchstick ran out.
This dispatch was read by a man whose severe expression and furrowed frown put the woman’s to shame. By the time this man had finished reading the dispatch and called for actions to be taken, the clothed stranger had shed his outer-attire and disappeared into the streets of a city so bathed in light, its darkness took its existence far too seriously.
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And that's it, folks! This has been cross-posted from my own Blog where I generally touch upon topics pertaining to Game Design.
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