They didn't crash onto solid groundâquite the opposite. Like soft feathers, they landed just above the dark bottom of the chasm.
It felt like a world of its own.
No trace of red skies, no eternal daylightâeverything was bathed in a bluish-green glow.
The gorge was so deep that the surface above was nowhere in sight.
But what mattered more was how they had landed so gently.
Ashfall reached around himself, making sure they were still aliveâ
And froze.
They were floating in midairâsuspended, as if the glowing green-blue light beneath them acted like an invisible sea, gently carrying them.
Something was coming from below.
Closer and closer it roseâgrowing brighter.
Blue-violet lightning surged between glowing stones, dancing like electricity across invisible wires.
Or rather, like the stones themselves were the wires.
Ashfall glanced at B-Day and Liraâboth unconscious.
"WAKE UP!!!" he screamed, his voice echoing through the chasm with no effect.
He opened his mouth to shout againâ
But it was already too late.
The lightning was upon them.
~The End.
Not this time ;)
The terrifying blue-violet lightning struckâripping through every particle of his body.
Ashfall's form dissolved, piece by piece, until all that remained was ash, slowly drifting downward.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Like flakes of burnt paper, not just his remains, but also those of the other two, rained softly down to the base of the chasm.
It was like fallen leaves of ash, searching for a ground to land on.
"Am I dead? What about the others?"
The questions echoed through his mind.
It felt exactly like the sensation of crossing into one of the main or side-worlds.
But this time, the reddish glow he usually felt was differentâit radiated warmth. A strange comfort.
A soft, bluish light surrounded him.
Something was pulling him outward.
Like being submerged in a water tank, and someone had suddenly opened a drain.
Ashfall couldn't hold onto anything.
He was swept away.
Like stepping through a portal, he landedâthis time, on solid ground.
Out of instinct, his eyes had remained shut.
He opened them now, slowlyâone after the other, cautiously.
The ground beneath him was made of dark gray stone, stretching endlessly into the distance.
But what truly took his breath away was the sky.
Floating geometric shapes hovered above him, glowing with a brilliant blue sheen.
From small spheres to massive cubes and prisms, the forms drifted gently, far above the ground.
All of them radiated a soft, captivating glowâeven the ground itself seemed to shine like a treasure trove.
"Have I fallen to greed already...?"
Ashfall thought as he eyed a small floating pyramid.
He considered pocketing it.
"Where... am I? And more importantlyâwhere are Lira and B-Day?"
He moved forward carefully, glancing down at his wristwatch.
Its hands still spun wildly, nonstop.
He checked his weapon holdersâhis weapons were nowhere to be found.
And then he realizedâ
His body had been destroyed.
So how was he here now, walking around like nothing happened?
He touched his chest. His skin. His face.
His wounds were still there.
Even the left side of his face, the cybernetic oneâbut none of it hurt.
He began to consider his next steps.
Entering an unknown space was never safe.
But what other choice did he have?
Quietly, he slipped the pyramid into his pocket and kept walking.
He nudged a larger geometric structure with his bare handâit moved effortlessly, as if gravity barely touched it.
He kept going, climbing onto a jagged peak.
Unlike the perfectly shaped floating forms, the ground beneath him was rough, unsymmetrical.
Looking up, he noticed the night sky.
There was no sun. No moon.
It resembled the Unknown Realmâbut the stars here were different.
They didn't distort the mind like the Stars of Madness did.
These felt like silent watchers.
Ashfall wandered onwardâthrough this foreign, dreamlike terrain.
Searching for answers.
No signs of life.
No plants.
Nothing but the rough ground beneath his feet, the hovering stones in the air, and the quiet stars above that softly lit the world.
Everything felt... peaceful.
So calm.
It felt like a dreamâlike a layover before death.
"What is this place...?"
Ashfall whispered, slowly turning in place, scanning every direction.
The silence. The stillness. The serenityâit all wrapped around him like a balm.
He felt saved. Freed.
Even though he obviously wasn't.
He was nowhereâ
No sign of Lira.
No sign of B-Day.
Not even Aethra Prime.
Where the hell was he?
He moved forward through the glowing blue terrain.
No wind.
Not a single sound reached his ears.
He was aloneâutterly alone. Completely on his own... in an unknown world.