MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF THIS FILE DETECTED. SEE BELOW.
- Revision 1
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UPDATED 08/22/19
Difficulty | ?/5 | Not enough information. |
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Chaos Gradient | ?/5 | Not enough information. |
Basset-Frazier Index | ?/5 | Not enough information. |
Description
The Night is a Limspace more based on rumors and hypotheticals than solid information. It exists in the Archive’s databases as a theoretical locale posing answers to a piece of as-of-yet indecipherable phenomena concerning the whereabouts of countless unlocated wanderers. In fact, there’s so little information about the Limspace as of writing this, that we don’t even know what it looks like.
According to the theories of many a wanderer, the Night is impossible to enter intentionally, rather believed to pick and choose specifically who it abducts as though it were sentient. Those believed to be trapped in the Limspace would reportedly claim a tide of negative emotion or some extreme sense of foreboding would come over them for days or even weeks in advance of their disappearance. Quite often these emotional bouts are seen as uncharacteristic of the vanished individual, with their behavior remaining as such until they are abducted and never seen again.
Some believe the Limspace itself is sentient, taking wanderers by the hundreds or even thousands every year for some unknown purpose. Others believe the Night is the byproduct of an unknown Entity, who created the locale themselves and continuously lures unfortunate individuals into its domain.
Communities
There are no known communities established within the Night Limspace.
Entrances and Exits
Entrances
The means as to how one enters this Limspace, or is potentially selected to enter this Limspace, are entirely unknown. Wanderers are simply advised to be cautious and get their affairs in order should they notice a sensation of unprompted and abnormal grief or dread overtaking them for a period of time longer than 48 hours.
Exits
Not only are there no known exits from this locale, but due to the fact that not a single wanderer has returned from this theorized Limspace, there may not be any exits from the Night at all.
UPDATED 02/14/20
NOTICE
Due to the nature of this document, and the subject matter of which being entirely hypothetical, there is little to no use seen in having this article stored in our archives when it serves virtually no purpose beyond that of a placeholder.
Deletion of this article is pending. Wanderers are asked to disregard the Night Limspace and any hypothesized information about it, as that’s all the locale is, just theories and hearsay.
- Head Archivist Basset
If anyone’s reading this, don’t listen to the idiots over in the Archivists saying there’s nothing to this but rumors. The Night Limspace is real.
I think it’s been a day or two since I got here. No way of telling where I am exactly, but it seems I’m not by myself here. I’ve seen other people wandering about, damn near every direction I look I can make out another figure aimlessly moving to and fro. Talking to them hasn’t gotten me any results yet. It’s not really that they don’t respond; they seem to just be confused and unaware of where the hell they are.
This place lives up to its name, by the way. Even after my eyes adjusted I still can’t make out much beyond silhouettes. The sky here is a dark and looming blue ceiling, speckled with little dots of shimmering distant lights. There has to be thousands of them, at least… kind of like standing in those spots back in Baseline where there’s no light pollution and you can see the night sky on full display. Does that mean those lights are stars?
Haven’t been able to gather too much info so far. The other people here all seem either depressed, apathetic, or scared, none of them really sure where to go. As for the entity behind this place, well, I’ve yet to see any signs of it. Must be a hell of a beast though if it managed to create all of this. The entire limspace is this giant open space in the air, with massive pillars dotting the landscape like a forest, reaching up into the sky beyond my vision, and down into the void below where no visible ground can be seen.
Pretty much the only thing keeping me from plummeting to the earth (however far down that is) are these platforms that jut out from the sides of the pillars. They’re absolutely everywhere, some bigger than others, some with random detritus and materials strewn about. The majority of them have these strange lanterns affixed, but most of them aren’t giving off any light. No clue how to turn them on or off…
Oddly enough, though I’ve had to have been here for at least a full 24 hours now, I don’t feel any hunger or thirst. Guess that mustn't be a concern here. Damn if I’m not tired though…
Gonna try to get some rest on one of the bigger platforms. Looks like someone’s rigged this one up with protective walls made from the debris lying around here and there, should be safe to fall asleep on this thing. I’ll post some updated info once I’m awake.
Until then.
UPDATED 02/21/20
I have to say, sleeping here is really odd. Once I woke up it felt like I’d had the greatest snooze in my life, but within a few minutes that refreshed feeling turned into a weird heavy one. Not bad, necessarily, but definitely out of the ordinary. It almost makes you want to just go right back to bed.
Can’t sleep forever, though. Need to keep going, wrap up my note-taking, and find an exit already.
My working theory is that the way out of here has got to be somewhere up at the top of these pillars. I did briefly consider if the exit might actually be reached by falling down towards the ground somewhere below, but I don’t want to risk it (not yet, at least). It’s been getting harder to climb up these things as of late, though. I’ve found that the platforms like to rearrange themselves when someone isn’t standing on them. They’ll shrink and grow, move about the sides of the pillars, or even just fall off completely.
Sometimes the pillars will grow exponentially and form bridges connecting the pillars together. Everyone always seems to try to cross the bridges when they show up, but I’m not too sure if they even know why at this point. I asked one person, and their best guess was that the limspace was giving them a path to get closer to the exit. Guess that would explain why everyone only goes one direction when crossing; mob mentality would dictate the larger group is the one with the right idea.
So far I’ve only crossed the bridges once or twice, trying to steer clear of the really crowded ones. I’ve spotted people getting shoved off the sides and into the void if there’s too many folks trying to cross all at once. Besides, my focus is still to reach the top.
However far up that might be…
Another thing I’m noticing is the lamps. I managed to spot someone stopping to rest at a platform with one of the things, and it lit up just a few seconds after they sat down. I’ve spotted it happening a handful of times now since I woke up.
The stars have been growing in number lately. Every time I go to look at them, it always feels like there’s more of them out there.
UPDATED 03/02/20
According to the time on my device, it’s been almost three weeks since I arrived.
Odd. Feels like it’s only been a few days, at most.
I’ve been noticing myself getting a bit more sluggish than usual, like that heavy feeling that starts to show up after waking up is lasting longer and longer. Luckily it’s yet to hinder my ability to climb these damn platforms. I’ve had a few close calls, but we’re just not gonna talk about that for now and pretend I’m a pro at this.
If it really has been three weeks, then there’s something concerning me. One of the folks I saw stop to rest at a platform hasn’t moved since the last time I wrote anything down. I don’t think I’ve even spoken to them, but I can’t help but be worried. I’ve been one this one pillar for days now, constantly able to see them over there on theirs, and all they do is just sit on the platform’s edge and dangle their feet off the side. The lamp on their platform is on, and it’s glowing bright.
I think if I were to backtrack just a little bit to get closer, the light would be strong enough for me to see what they look like, instead of them just being another figure cloaked in darkness like everyone else here.
I’m starting to miss what food tasted like, how it felt to drink water, how reassuring it was to look up at the sky and see clouds or sunlight.
Where the hell is the exit?
UPDATED 04/11/20
Stopped at a platform for a while longer than usual. Another wanderer dragged me up off my feet while I was asleep and asked me if I was okay. Honestly, I was pretty pissed at him for interrupting my rest, but then I noticed the lamp nearby had been starting to flicker alight.
I think that wanderer must’ve been new to the limspace. He was nowhere near as downtrodden and miserable as the rest of the folks around here, actually stopped to help me avoid whatever trap those damn lights are.
And trust me, those things have to be some kind of trap.
I’ve seen maybe fifty people stop at those platforms and not take one step since. I can’t tell you how bad I want to rush over to them every time they get stuck and try to help them back up, but the last time I tried the guy in question brushed me off. His light was already glowing pretty bright, enough for me to make out the orange baseball cap he wore while he had his back turned to me.
Besides, I don’t have time to try and help. I need to get myself out of this mess too, and I don’t want to risk winding up like them.
My clock says it’s almost been two months, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing but a bunch of rambling words on an article the Archivists don’t even pay attention to anymore.
UPDATED 05/29/20
Why the hell did I ever come here again? Was I trying to do something? Find something? That one has to be the answer, right? It’s not written down in any of these revisions, so I’ve no way of telling anymore. Why was I climbing these platforms? Why am I here?
I can’t have always been here, that’s impossible. I had to have been somewhere else before I started climbing around this place. Always with the climbing, climbing, climbing! Is this damn theory of mine even gonna amount to anything? I keep going up and up and up and up and no matter what the sky shows no sign of brightening, the stars keep growing in number, the night never lifts, and I never see any single sign of the top of these pillars.
Where the hell was I before this? Earth, right? What did that even look like? Was it better than this? Was the night sky there as dreadful as this one?
What do I even look like?
I’ve just about given up on trying to make my way upwards. Keep reaching dead ends, where the platforms have all fallen off or gotten too narrow to step on. Every time one of those bridges shows up I immediately cross over to another pillar and try to continue from there, but it feels awful watching the crowds of people who gather around me while I cross start to slowly drift away once I resume the climb.
Occasionally I can spot someone acting like they’ve just arrived, confused and scared, still driven and hopeful that they’ll find the way out.
There has to be a way out, right? Someone had to have made it out before, someone had to have started the rumor about this place. Isn’t that right? There’s a rumor about all this? That’s what I said when I first came here, isn’t it?
I try to talk to new people but they don’t seem to hear me. I try to talk to old people but they don’t seem to care.
Was I always this desperate to try and talk to people? To stave off this creeping feeling of dread? Of abandonment?
I don’t remember. That seems to be the theme now.
But there are a few things I can remember without having to glance over these revisions.
I remember the first time I looked out at these stars. I remember how I was breathless, how even though this place was already starting to wear away at me I still managed to find this sense of beauty in that night sky. I used to think these stars were beautiful in a way.
At least, I hope they’re stars. I refuse to listen to the theory one wanderer suggested, that those are just more lanterns off in the distance. I can’t bear the thought that every one of those might be yet another one of us who sat down and stopped. Why does that bother me? Why am I terrified by the thought of people stopping?
Maybe I should stop myself, just for a while. Should give me some time to think, to recall what was so important about this whole mess.
There’s something important about all this, some reason I came here.
Why am I here?
UPDATED 07/16/20
Someone passed my platform a while ago now, asking where some “entity” was.
I think I wrote something about that at one point. Maybe that’s why I’m here?
I think I came here to prove someone wrong. I think I was here to prove that this place was real, that this “entity” was real.
UPDATED 09/22/20
Something woke me up.
I didn’t know what it was at first until I climbed up to my feet and started glancing around, but once I was up, everything felt off. The air feels unsteady, like there’s something I don’t know about, something out there in the dark. Nobody else seems to be aware, but to hell with them anyhow. I stopped caring about those people a long time ago.
I think I can hear someone talking out there. They sound… wrecked. Like they’re on the verge of tears.
“Is anyone out there?”
I’m trying to scan the pillars now, see if there’s anyone who looks out of place, anyone who might be screaming out at the void hoping for a response.
Nothing. They’re all still wandering aimlessly and sitting hopelessly. Who said that?
This place is starting to drive me to the edge. I feel like dread is starting to swallow me whole, sinking further and further into some inescapable pit. Like this strange gnawing feeling, that nobody knows where I am… That nobody remembers who I am…
I can see something. One of the stars, or lamps, or whatever those specks of light out there in the nothing are. It’s moving.
How is nobody else hearing this? Seeing this? Are any of those people even there? Am I losing my mind?
The light’s getting closer, starting to take shape. It’s a person, or something that looks like a person at least. She looks so strange out there, floating between the pillars. I wonder if she’s even real.
Is that her calling out to the void? Is she the one I’m hearing? Is she the entity?
“Please tell me someone is out there…”
Are you blind? There’s tens of thousands of people here, god damn it! How can you not see any of them? How can you not see me?
… Can she see me?
She’s getting even closer, but it still looks like nothing’s catching her attention. Someone has to try to flag her down, there’s no way in hell she can just go floating about like that and have nobody notice her.
This is torture. Pure, unadulterated torture.
I feel terrified, lost, alone, like my chest is about to explode from panicked sorrow… I need something to latch onto. Something that can keep me calm, something that can help me get out of here. Something. Anything.
Someone.
I feel like I can touch her from here, like she’s so close that I could reach out and grab her by the hand.
I have to try.
I can’t stand this anymore. I feel like I’m suffocating.
I have to try to get her attention.
UPDATED 09/23/20
I have no words.
Let’s see… Where do I start?
Well, I fell. I tried to reach out to her and slipped. For the first few moments it felt like the most confusing thing of all time. I didn’t know if I should be scared, furious, sad, relieved…
I was plummeting down, off the pillar’s edge, falling further and further into the void. The void I swore I would try everything to stay away from. The void that I knew would be my doom if I were to make one wrong step. No clue how far down the ground was, or if there even was a ground…
… And then she caught me.
I don’t fully recall what happened in the interim, but my memory picked back up after my feet were on solid ground again. I was suspended in mid-air, a loose platform hovering beneath me and allowing me to slow myself down and gather myself. I looked up and saw her right beside me, just inches away from the slab of earth that stood motionless in the sea of nothing.
Her face had little detail to it, not much more than a mouth, eyebrows, and eyes. Her eyes! I couldn’t tear my gaze from hers once I noticed them, like two pale, murky orbs that swirled and rippled inside her visage. Those cloudy eyes stared at me in a strange confusion, exhausted yet alert, plastered over with this unshakeable feeling of melancholy. It took me a moment to notice the faintest little marks under her gaze, running down her cheeks like stains left behind by a downpour of tears.
“Who are you?”
Her voice bounced around in my head like a faint echo, distant even though we were standing a few feet apart. The air was still, the only movement coming from my fogged breath, yet she seemed to sway like she was caught in a gust of wind, the curtain of hair running from her head down behind her back getting picked up by her personal gale and rippling in the sky.
She asked me again who I was, but what was I supposed to say? How do I respond to a situation like this, a situation totally and utterly alien to everything I remembered?
I don’t think I entirely set out to this place looking for this entity, but now that I found her… it was all I could think of.
“I’ve been looking for you.” I let it creep out of my mouth, almost a whisper. I almost immediately felt regret for saying it, but it quickly changed when I met her gaze again. Her eyes widened with surprise for a moment, before shifting again to a look of relief. A faint smile formed in her face as tears rolled down over the little streaks beneath her vision. Was she crying with joy?
Without saying another word, her arms slowly raised and she crept through the air towards me, latching onto me and hugging me tight. Words cannot properly describe the feeling of warmth that washed over me, but it was the first thing besides biting cold and draining sorrow that I’d felt in months.
As I’m writing now, she’s raising the platform further and further up into the air, towards the sky above that I’d been struggling for so long to reach on my own.
The stars are starting to grow distant, the twilight starting to brighten.
UPDATED 10/02/20
I must’ve been sound asleep for over a week. The moment the platform stopped and expanded outwards to form a giant plane of land, I dozed off once again.
Only difference now is that I feel better than I ever have since I got here. No heaviness. No apathy. Only the warmth of the blue sun above my head.
Waking up earlier came with a bit of a surprise. I could feel a warm, soft surface beneath me that felt as though it was the most comfortable thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. Upon climbing to my feet I came to the realization that my head had been resting on the lap of the same ethereal girl who had saved my life, her kind and calm gaze almost shimmering in the sunlight around us.
This is it, I heard my mind confess. The prize that was waiting at the end of my efforts. The reprieve I had finally reached after an endless night of sorrows. The light at the end of the dark.
A few hours passed as I returned to where I laid and remained for as long as my restlessness would allow me, my rescuer letting words of comfort spill forth like a river of calming water, until my curiosity got the better of me and I gathered myself to glance around my surroundings.
All about us, every direction I turned my gaze, stretched a meadow of pale grass that never seemed to end. Even though the color was all but sapped from the field below my feet, that faint tint of green was enough to bring me to tears. For the first time in untold months, perhaps even years, my eyes finally beheld something that wasn’t yet another shade of exhausting, melancholic, featureless blue.
Scattered about the field I could see quaint trees, overflowing with gray leaves that swayed and rustled in the cool breeze. The way the trees grew was somewhat peculiar to me, limbs and bows buckling and bending like some artificial construction, bark that when touched was unnaturally smooth and shiveringly cold.
As I paced about the meadow I could feel her gaze on me like a friendly hand upon my shoulder, following me to and fro, amusedly watching as I satiated my need to explore all around me, looking close when I type once more into my trusty device with my back slumped against a frigid tree.
She’s calling me now.
UPDATED 10/18/20
Something I came to discover shortly after arriving in this meadow is that the trees here bear fruit. A few days ago she showed me what they looked like and patiently guided me through the process of harvesting them from within the canopies. I’m not entirely familiar with the process quite yet, but she assures me I’m practically a natural.
The fruit is bizarre in appearance, seemingly some form of apple, yet its surface is almost perfectly rounded over and its skin is a hue of blue so dark I’d hardly realized at first there was any color at all.
Biting into it was an experience unparalleled. I’d forgotten how good food tasted, the sensation of sustenance entering my system, the relief of hunger finally being satisfied. Truthfully I’m unsure if I was of any decent judgement regarding the food’s quality, but regardless it was good just to have something in my stomach again.
Just this morning I woke up to find my newfound companion is apparently accustomed to occasionally levitating in her sleep, which given how tightly she was holding onto me, means I found myself adrift dozens of feet up in the air. It likely goes without saying that my realization of this quickly woke her as well. She only recently just stopped apologizing for the ordeal.
UPDATED 11/30/20
Woke up feeling sluggish and lethargic. The first that’s happened in a while.
I’ve come to find the fruit around here isn’t quite as idealized as when I first ate it. The taste has a bitterness to it, but I suppose I can stomach it given the alternative. I went too damn long without eating before, I’ve no plans to stop again.
As for my companion, she’s started to linger alongside me everywhere I wander here, refusing to be more than a few feet from my side. She’s been starting to give me this strange glance when I go to write on my device. It kind of concerns me. Up until now her face had been practically plastered over with happiness. Does she not like me being on this thing for some reason?
The constant affection I’d received from her before has shown signs of slowing too.
Still, better I stay up here with her than ever even conceive going back down into the dark. I’d been stranded down there for such an inhumane space of time. Nobody thinking anything of me, me not thinking anything of anyone else… That was horrible. Nobody would ever say otherwise.
I feel an ache somewhere in my mind.
UPDATED 03/09/21
writing as much as i can when shes not looking. its the only thing i can do besides eat sleep or be clung to
shes started to get mad at me for having this thing out. had to pretend to get rid of it
food tastes like garbage
my head is killing me
shes started dropping me in her sleep when she starts floating. only apologized the first time
I wonder how many people are still down there below us
wonder if any of them saw me when i was carried here. do they wonder what happened to me?
ive asked her where some water is up here. she said she will make some soon
wonder how exactly shes able to modify and create things here
how exactly does one make a limspace?
UPDATED 06/30/21
Well, I suppose that’s one way to get some privacy. No clue for how long, though.
Okay, let me do my best to recount this…
I’d woken up earlier today a few feet away from that inhuman girl who’d taken over my every waking hour, finding that much to my relief she was still sound asleep. I suppose that she’d even grown tired of sleeping near me now. Noticing that I finally had an opportunity to explore the meadow unwatched, I crept away from her and chose a direction to start walking in.
I wonder how long it took her to wake up and notice I was gone. It felt like the entire day had gone by while I kept wandering aimlessly onward.
Eventually I came across something I hadn’t seen yet. Nestled in a clustered grove of those twisted and unnatural trees, amidst the disgusting stench of that fruit I’d grown numb to the awful taste of, sat a stagnant pond of cool and clear water. My first reaction was to rush to the pond’s banks and start lapping up as much water as I could stomach, almost taken aback by the sensation of something cold and refreshing running down my throat for the first time in who knows how long.
It wasn’t until I finally stopped that the waters settled, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection.
What had happened to me?
I barely resembled what could be considered a human anymore. My body had shrunk multiple sizes smaller than what my ragged and dust-stained clothes were made for. What bits of my old hair remained were grayed and wiry, hanging on by a thread from the back of my scalp. And my face… I felt the pain and aching in my head worse than ever before when I finally beheld what my face had become. Even if I’d forgotten how I originally looked, I knew for certain that what I was now wasn’t even remotely right. My skin seemingly bleached white, black veins peering out from beneath and sprawling across my entire complexion. My eyes sunken into the backs of their sockets, a pair of grayed and murky orbs surrounded by a sickly dark hue from constant exhaustion and expenditure. Upon closer inspection, I even noticed that in my pallor lurked the faintest tint of blue, pulsating across my scared expression with every beat of my heart.
My mind immediately knew just who to blame for my condition, my disfigurement, my mutilation.
She was doing this.
Quickly I took back to my feet and ran as fast as they could carry me. The wind picked up around me mere seconds after I’d begun, the sky seeming to start dimming as I could hear her voice echoing in my head, sorrowful and confused just as when I’d first heard her.
“Where have you gone?”
The fields shifted with each step I took, a howling gale changing to sound like a chorus of murmuring voices, the pale green grass shriveling and dying beneath my feet, the bright blue sun dimming as the sky shifted to a dark and hateful orange.
“Don’t you dare leave me here!”
Her voice again, grown from her once pitiful whines and pleads into the booming howl of some tumultuous force, furious at my disappearance.
I could feel her gaze burning deep into the back of my skull.
I knew she had found me.
My heels ground into the dirt as I came up to an impossible obstacle. Standing just before me, stretching off in either direction of me, was the edge of the meadow. A quick glance down to the nothing below revealed faint shapes in the clouds billowing far beneath me. Shapes I recognized almost instantly.
“Come back from there now!”
I couldn’t tell the difference between her voice in my head and her voice just behind me. Another moment and I’d have no means of escape, no fate apart from her outstretched arms and unknown fury. No way of telling what she’d do if I get caught.
I only had one option before me.
Without another thought, I took a running start, and flung myself from the edge of the meadow.
The plummet back down below was a nigh incomprehensible assault on my senses. The skies darkened further and further until the old black vault had returned to my vision, painted in tens of thousands of lights that sped past my vision faster than I could properly perceive them. Far above me, I could hear the echoes of some abysmal wail. It was impossible to tell whether she was enraged, miserable, or perhaps even in pain.
A few moments passed before I’d even realized that I’d stopped. Scrambling upright, I found that I’d lucked out and landed on a bridge spanning between two pillars, unusually vacant of any other people. Not wasting any time, I returned to running, slowly realizing the severity of what was now unfolding around me.
The entire world appeared to be falling apart. Gone were the blue tints and undertones of the pillars and platforms, now replaced by the same burnt orange I’d seen before my descent. The lights off in the distance, now less akin to stars and more so to distant balls of fire, began going out one by one as the sounds of distant rumbling and the rising cacophony of shrieks and screams began to invade my ears. About the other platforms was a total fervor of people scrambling up and down the forest of stone monoliths, no care for one another as hundreds were shoved aside and thrown screaming down into the void below.
My pause to absorb the totality of the chaos around me was only broken by a roaring crash coming from a nearby pillar, grabbing my attention just in time to see it come crumbling down and fall entirely into the nothing, along with everyone unfortunate enough to be on it when it collapsed.
The past few hours have been a nightmare of unpredictability. I’ve no clue whatsoever how many innocent wanderers have plummeted, or how many pillars have turned to nothing more than a cloud of dust, or even if mine might be next, but if I don’t write this down now while I have a chance to breathe, I don’t think I’ll ever get to.
I see a familiar pale blue shape bobbing between the towering forest before me, starting to gain speed.
She’s found me.
UPDATED 07/01/21
As every time before, her voice reached me long before she did.
“How dare you try to leave me!”
Every sound she emitted was a pain to my ears, a jab in my brain, a twitch of my hands.
She closed in on me within seconds, stopping just short of me and starting to lower herself down, standing on the platform perfectly level with me.
“Come here. Now.”
She was growling in the back of my psyche.
I was fighting the urge to tear my own ears off in hopes she would finally fall silent.
“We’re going back up, right now. Do you hear me?”
If I obeyed her, I would die wasting away in her arms.
If I tried to run from her, I would die falling endlessly into the deep dark beneath us.
She reached out and began to grasp for me.
“Come here or I’ll make you regret it!”
Everything around me was fading out of my mind. The biting pain of my malformed visage, the deafening chaos of the Night falling apart, the booming commands of the horrendous maker of this world, all drowned out by a sudden nagging feeling in the recesses of my consciousness. A quiet thought, a simple urge, a single sentence…
“LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Without thinking, I screamed as loud as my lungs were capable of and rushed forward, slamming every last bit of my weight into her as I just barely caught a glimpse of her terrified face. In less than a second, I now found myself arms outstretched, just stopping myself from tumbling over the platform’s edge.
She, however, was falling.
Just when I thought my ears hadn’t been through enough torment, a long, fearful, and startlingly human scream echoed up towards me as she plummeted, the world about me flashing a brilliant bright white as if it sensed its creator was meeting her demise. The light hadn’t much more than a few seconds’ time before being snuffed out once more, her scream fading fast as she disappeared from view.
There was no more rumbling, no collapses, no plummeting bystanders, no fiery lights… Nothing.
As the last bits of her cry for help fell silent, so too did her world.
The stars had gone out. The blue shades and tints now naught but a gray undercurrent. The other lost souls were gone from view.
Not a single sound. Not a single movement.
Just stillness.
UPDATED 08/14/21
I’ve sat motionless for who knows how- you know what? You get the deal by now. It’s been a long time, and I’ve done nothing in the interim.
At least, not until just now.
Just a few hours ago, the silence that had washed over this place since last I wrote was finally broken. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but it was easy to find the source once I started looking.
“Hello! Can you hear me over there?”
Standing just across from me, over the endless chasm below, another figure stood on the pillar opposite mine. What little I could make out of their appearance suggested they had long, unkempt hair and heavy clothing. Above their head, the orange light of an uprooted lamp post flickered determedly as they waved it about in their grasp.
As I waved back to them, they called out once more.
“Do you see that bridge far up ahead?”
Glancing to my left and peering far into the dark, the faintest shape of a long and narrow walkway hung on the edge of my vision.
“I think we can both get to that from where we are now! Try to meet me there, okay?”
Unsure of myself, I called back asking why they were reaching out to me.
Their reply felt like it echoed across the entire forest.
“I think I saw the way out of here during the flash a month ago! It’s a giant gate! Thousands of feet tall! I saw it down the same way as the bridge!”
Was this person telling the truth? Did they know the way out?
And more importantly, why bother with trying to get someone else’s attention about it? Nobody had ever tried to actually stick together here since the moment I arrived, nothing more than the bare minimum to keep you walking or a single outstretched hand if you nearly fell. Why was this different?
I asked them why they wanted me to accompany them.
“Because you looked like you needed help? What kind of question is that?! Just let me help you out!”
I still don’t get it. Even as I’m writing this all down, marching down this pillar and towards that far away bridge and even further escape, I don’t feel like this is at all normal for this place, that someone would be willing to spend the energy helping me like this.
It feels like a relief for that to be the case, though.
I can’t say for certain how long it might take me to finally meet up with my new friend across the chasm below us.
I can’t say for certain how long until we find this exit some great distance ahead.
I can’t even say for certain what we’d be returning to once we get there.
But I know I was somewhere before this. Somewhere that was bright. Somewhere where people weren’t just a crowd of faceless shadows walking up and down a maze of platforms. Somewhere where fruit tastes delicious, where there’s solid ground beneath your feet, and where you know exactly where in the world you are and where you’re headed.
And I know that, sooner or later, I’m gonna find my way back there.
Written by this idiot right here. Please direct your pointing and laughing to him.
~ Kosef Sturre