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- *The Darkness*
- TLG just lay on the ground face down but unscathed.
- He lay there for a moment to gather his thoughts. His lightning cloud was arcing lightning bolts to his head as he lay there on the ground with his face was pressed against the its cold surface. In fact, it was so cold it felt like ice. He could see the reflections of his lightning bolts in the cracked, icy surface, dancing like little fairies along its broken edges.
- As he pulled himself up, he noticed it was ice. The sky was completely black as was the ice, except for coarse fractures caused by TLG's impact.
- TLG studied the cracks radiating from his landing point. They stretched out like spiders legs, radiating in all directions connecting to the cold, darkness like cockroaches running to hide in the shadows.
- There was a dim ambient light that seemed to emanate from nothing as if the cold damp air itself was the its only source, occasionally overwhelmed by the sparks of TLG's storm.
- TLG took a step on the ice but as his boot came down upon the ice, the ice fractured effortlessly. The spokes of the fracture instantly reach the horizon. TLG froze in fear of the ice collapsing under his boots. Eventually, he gently shifts his weight from side to side to prove the ice can hold his weight.
- Realising that the ice had survived the impact of his fall, he reasoned to himself that the ice was safe to walk on.
- Suddenly there was a loud crash as Robin landed hard on the ice next to TLG. Robin's impact also radiated spokes of ice fracture from the point at which he landed.
- ‘Robin! Are you OK?’ TLG said as he lent his hand in assistance. Robin was lying on the ice looking stunned and bewildered but his huge eyes relaxed when they met TLG's.
- ‘Thank you little one for your offer of assistance but I'm OK.’ Robin clambers to his feet also noticing the ice fracturing in every direction as he moves.
- ‘We are here finally.’ Robin says scrutinising his surroundings.
- ‘Where are the stars?’ TLG asks Robin, half expecting what he answer will be.
- ‘There are none here. This is a starless realm. The natural laws here do not permit the formation of such heavenly bodies.’
- TLG stamps on the ice watching curiously as another series of fractures scuttle into the blackness.
- ‘What is this place? Are we on a planet?’ TLG inquires.
- Robin glares into the darkness as if trying to detect something hiding just out of view. He scratches his furry chin with a sharp claw in a display of contemplation.
- ‘I'm not sure this place works that way. This is a finite plane universe. There are no heavenly bodies. Just a single plane with no edge’.
- ‘How can it be finite if it has no edge?’ TLG asks reflectively.
- ‘Well, if you where to walk in one direction in a straight line you would end up in the same place.’
- ‘I'm am certain you mean a globe. We decided our realm was a globe from studying the heavens and plotting the courses of the planets. Although no Gnome has ventured far from the village, we would have expected to return to the place we begun if we travelled far enough.’
- ‘It is a kind of globe. But it is not the surface that is curved. It’s the universe itself. All universes are like this, but in this unusual universe, space has caved in, bringing this effect to closer to us. In fact, this universe is so malformed it is lucky we have space at all’
- TLG looks around in the darkness searching for Odelin.
- ‘Where is Odelin?’ TLG asks.
- ‘He is here somewhere.’
- ‘But what if I put him in my mind again, surely at this proximity, you can see his whereabouts quite clearly.’
- ‘I am afraid not, little one, this universe does not conduct such activity. It will not work this close.’ Robin did not look at TLG when he said this, making him appear insincere.
- ‘So what you are saying is: you can see Odelin across multiple universes, across many quantum horizons but you cannot see him when he is under you feet?’ TLG scoffed.
- Robin looked TLG in the eye. ‘If I could explain:
- Imagine you were in a ship at sea.
- You can see the light house from many leagues of distance.
- Now imagine you were inside the mantel.
- No, imagine you where inside the flame itself.
- Could you then see from where the light originates?
- I think not!’
- ‘But we are not inside Odelin.’ TLG states.
- ‘It just doesn’t work and it is too hard to explain. We must search in the darkness by foot.’
- TLG stares into the black wind. He shuddered at the thought of the tiny creature alone in such a miserable appalling realm. If there was any place in all existence, reserved only for the most retched and broken of all things, this must surely be that place he TLG thought to himself with horror at the prospect that Odelin may not be what he imagined. TLG turns to Robin and says
- ‘Shall we go looking him then?’
- ‘You lead the way?’
- TLG took another step and the ice cracks underfoot but he is no longer concerned so he just keeps walking.
- Robin follows, as they both walk off into the darkness, but soon Robin starts feeling self-conscious of this folly and finally asks
- ‘Where are you going?’ with a slightly mocking tone.
- TLG realised how it seemed but he turns back and glares at Robin.
- ‘It does not matter, as whichever way they chose to go they would eventually get back to the place they started.’
- TLG's face was void of expression as he turned it to the darkness and continued walking. He was determined to go somewhere, so he had just picked a random direction and started walking. The ice creaked and cracked under their feet as they walked in that lonely place. With the fractures from every step emanating in all directions, they crisscrossed each other forming an erratic lattice pattern in the ice as they walked. It was eerie how the fractures disappeared into the darkness as if they were evil messengers, running to alert their demonic master. TLG imagined that, by treading in this place, he was summoning that something or someone.
- It was cold and windy and dark. Robin just followed TLG as if Robin needed TLG to guide him. There was snow and rain in the air but the ground seemed to swallow it up and crystallise it instantly into its flat reflective surface. There were no land formations, just a cold and desolate nothing. It felt like they had entered the coldest and most desolate place in the universe of all universes. A place where nothing can grow and nothing can live and nothing can die. A very broken place indeed. But just when he thought he was absolutely sure there was noting here he heard singing.
- TLG gestured to Robin to stop. ‘Do you hear that?’
- ‘No.’
- ‘Surely with ears like that you can hear anything. Listen.’
- ‘I cannot hear anything. Let us get closer, I will follow you since you can hear it. Are you sure your mind is not playing trick on you? A universe like this can drive one quite insane.’ TLG turned to Robin, who just looked insane anyway. The irony of which made him laugh briefly but he regained his composure and a serious face and returns toward the singing sound.
- ‘I'm not even sure what my mind is anymore, let alone know what tricks it may play upon me.’
- Robin does not reply but keep following TLG towards the singing.
- *Odelin*
- The song was beautiful but he could not hear any words; Just the song. How could this be possible? The more he tried to listen the less sense the song made. Although TLG could hear every word, it was as if he were prevented from understanding them. What was being uttered was indescribable and esoteric.
- TLG persisted toward the soft music, peering into the inky black searching for the source of the song. It sounded like a female Gnome, softly singing to her offspring to lull them into sleep with some magic spell of becalming, but it was so compelling, is was as if the song was the universe, inseparable and infinite.
- Then in the distance he notices a silhouette disrupting the perfect icy floor. As TLG gingerly approaches, the inky blackness slowly revealed the form of a small Gnome partially buried in the ice softly singing to itself.
- The Gnome was Odelin.
- TLG knew instantly he had finally found what he was seeking. In that instance, it was as if he were complete, as if he were a parent, reunited with a lost child. Nothing else mattered in existence. Not the situation of the encounter not the place or the grave danger that was about to befall them all. Odelin had blackish grey skin and huge eyes that looked out of place for its tiny half-buried stature.
- Its face was haunted and horrific, starved and emaciated and moved unnaturally, as it sung its beautiful song. But its eyes were bright and glassy and shone with sorry and wisdom. But there was a warning in the eyes of that fragile creature. One of foreboding, of impending danger. Suddenly and inexplicably, TLG felt panic.
- ‘Odelin!’
- *The Unexpected*
- Just as TLG spoke, Robin leaps from behind TLG and comes crashing down on the ice placing himself before Odelin. TLG is instantly confused and horrified by this violent approach. It was in that instance that time froze for TLG. TLG watched helplessly in what seems an eternity as his whole world comes crashing down before him.
- He watches as Robin seams to swell and grimace with a fury he had never witnessed of any creature before. He watches as he raises his huge right paw and clenches it in a tight fist above Odelin’s head. As TLG realises what is about to happen, TLG can but watch no more. In that instance, TLG finds himself struggling against time itself in a fit of paternal protection. It was as if he were in a dream, as if he were walking in molasses and his arms and legs were casts of lead.
- But even though his body felt frozen and cumbersome, his storm cloud was not. TLG’s storm cloud instantly rises and inflates causing everything in existence to respond to the rapid expansion as if buffeted by massive sudden gust of wind. As TLG screams in horror, the ice landscape fractures and implodes around them and then seams to bulge as if be pulled upwards by the sky. Then suddenly, as if to meet the height of these calamitous events, a single bolt of lightning breaks out and bares down upon the terrifying Robin. And just as the lightning bolt strikes Robin’s skull TLG realises he was too late. Robin’s fist comes crashing down upon Odelin’s crown sending Odelin’s frail self, to oblivion. But just when TLG imagined it was all over, time seams to falter even more. TLG realises that his lightning bolt is now fixed on Robin’s head like a constant arc of fire joining Robin to TLG’s storm cloud, fixing Robin in his fateful and devastating pose.
- TLG just watches as Robin’s face starts losing its perfection. He notices a morbid deterioration in Robin’s perfect form, as if time was finally claiming its debt for a stolen immortality. TLG starts to notice a more Gnomely nature in Robin's appearance as he disintegrates. His huge eyes mellowing and yellowing, his fur defoliating and his teeth blunting. He painfully turns his gaze to TLG as if to say good bye. But his eyes just sink into the red glowing mass which has now become his head and deflates to the ground in a lifeless pile of ashes. All the remains it a shrunken skull lying in the ashes.
- Suddenly the lightning bolt has gone and TLG rushes toward the carnage. He looks down at the place where Odelin once was. There is just a hole in the ice with no bottom.
- TLG drops to his knees on the edge of the fissure in utter deflated disbelief. He puts his face in his hand and cries for his loss, his tears drop onto the ice and freeze instantly leaving no trace.
- ‘Why should this happen to me!? I wish I had never left Gnome Village.’
- TLG sobs and looks to the sky. He notices the sky looks smaller than it was. How a vast, black, miserable sky can look smaller seems impossible but he perceives it as if the sky had been pulled down like a half-closed shudder. TLG wipes his eyes and pears into the inky blackness searching for a ceiling but there is none. He looks back at the hole in the ground.
- Just as he did, he notices something to his left in his peripheral vision. He turns, and there is the Ghost head floating there staring at TLG with a terrified look on his face.
- ‘You are indeed a powerful creature and I must beg your forgiveness.’
- But as the ghost head spoke, TLG could perceive another motive under the deep tone of the ghost heads resonant voice. It was as if the ghost head once freed from the Robin's cocoon was unable to retain a single though. As if his mind and all intentions were leaking from this ghostly and porous structure. It was then all intentions became apparent to TLG.
- TLG grimaces and glares with all his might, at the ghost head floating before him who seems to cringe at the revelation that he can hide no thoughts.
- ‘You have been using me for your own ends. You did not want to help me find Odelin! You just wanted to destroy him! You knew that Odelin and I would be your end. You did not take me here. I took you. You needed me to take you to him, so you could destroy him therefore saving you own miserable existence. I despise you.’
- But just as he finished he noticed another intention.
- ‘Stay away from me!’ TLG shouts in horror at the now menacing ghost head.
- ‘You will not succeed because I am destined to be with Odelin and there is nothing you can do!’ TLG berates the ghost head.
- ‘Ah, but it would appear that destiny has already gone my way!’ the ghost head bellows and smiles arrogantly.
- ‘You wish to possess me...’ as TLG spoke a ghostly tentacle protruded from the ghost head’s mouth and stared to approach TLG. TLG’s storm cloud which had retreated after the commotion was now sparking and growing again. TLG started to run for his own protection but the ghost head did not get further away. TLG turned back to see the ghost head had effortlessly matched his speed and the red and black tentacle was still approaching. In his desperate struggle to escape the ghost head, he glances at the ground to notice the pile of ashes and the hole. He sidesteps the hole just in time before falling into it. He continues running but the hole and the Robin's ash pile keep reappearing as if he is running in a tight circle. TLG realises in that instance that this universe is about to collapse and there is no escape.
- As this thought entered his head, the ghost head suddenly stopped, and retracted his tentacle. TLG looks at the ghost head who has also noticed this odd condition of their surroundings.
- *The Hall Of Mirrors*
- TLG looks around him just about falls over in astonishment. He and the ghost head are repeated as if they were in a hall of mirrors. But the reflections do not behave like a mirrored reflection. The reflections are facing the same direction as TLG. TLG turns to face a reflection behind him but the reflection turns also. It feels as though he were looking into a mirror for which you could never see you own face, only the back of your head.
- Then he notices something else happening. The reflections a getting closer as if an infinity of himself and his cloud and the ghost head and a hole and a pile of ashes were caving in to a single point to be wiped from all possible existence. An infinity lost.
- Just then the ghost head glides to the hole and disappears down it like a wisp of smoke disappears into a chimney.
- Suddenly TLG realise that the ghost head has not finished. TLG dives down the hole after the ghost head. As he falls, the walls of the hole are lit only by the occasional flash from TLG's lightning that has now become quite active. It was as if he were flint, sparking against the edge of a cold metal shaft.
- *The Vortex*
- TLG peers down into the black pit below him to try to catch glimpse of the ghost head. But it’s too dark and the flashes are not sufficient to see very far. So he just resigns to his falling. He turns himself in the air to fall head first. He pins his arms to his side to pick up speed. As he increases speed his storm cloud has trouble keeping up and starts sliding over him until he has passed through it and it is trailing him from behind. He can feel his speed increasing and cold wind and ice scrape his face.
- Suddenly he notices a faint smoke lit by his lightning flashes. It’s the ghost head. He thought. As he fell faster he could feel himself gaining on the ethereal creature. He could feel anger and frustration building up like a static charge in his soul. The cloud that was trailing him was pulled before him and he felt powerful and invulnerable, but this time it would appear that he has discovered a new talent.
- TLG focuses all his intention on the ghost head who he is now almost immersed within, and lets lose a terrible fire upon him. The ghostly mass is suddenly a fiery mass of arcing and burning. TLG has to dodge the splinters of energy as they fling out uncontrollable from the ethereal heart of this creature.
- The mass does not resemble any form. Just a column of burning gas. Again TLG unleashes a fiery talon of lightning at the burning mass. This time the mass flares violently with blue and orange arcs that hit the wall of the hole and streak off behind them into the distance. Now he perceives something moving in the mass. As he approaches, he can see tentacles writhing inside the burning mass.
- The brittle star?
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