Post by Korski on Jun 21, 2009 1:05:15 GMT -5
*This is one of my longer (still incomplete) works. And yes, I know I used my own name for the protagonist, lol. I wasn't being lazy. There's a reason for it. It's sort of an alternate version of me... yeah we'll go with that. I wanted to try and write around a character that could do ANYTHING. Like a god in his own world. It ended up being more challenging than I first expected since it's difficult to imagine every possible action that could be done at any moment. But I guess part of being human and fallible is NOT thinking of all possibilities at once. Anyways, the following is the result. Enjoy!*
As he sat upon the throne of his sky castle, beside his beautiful Queen Violet, Kyle wondered what he would do on this especially perfect day, the clear blue sky only interrupted by the drifting pure white clouds and shining sun. In actuality, every day was just as equally perfect as this because he had wished it to be so. Kyle had complete control over all aspects of his kingdom and through using this godlike gift he had created a paradise for himself as well as his people. He created the endless fertile plains that the farmers thrived off of, the vast seas for the fisherman and the inextinguishable sources of freshwater. He had gifted the woodlands with astonishing powers of rapid regrowth to ensure that his people always had enough lumber to build their homes while, simultaneously, protecting the habitat of the wildlife indigenous to the forests. He would even travel amongst the many towns and cities himself to inspire and aid his subjects in whatever ways he could. Hatred and war were forgotten concepts. Kyle was truly a kind ruler and, as such, his kingdom was utterly devoted to him.
Perhaps he would take a leisurely flight over the rolling hills, a flight that often turned from leisurely to exhilarating when he decided to see how fast he could soar through the skies. If that didn’t suit him at the time, he could just as well create a secluded area for himself and alter the environment to create fascinating works of art. Among his most impressive creations were the spires of glass that spiraled and flowed out in every possible direction, even in some that were clearly impossible, and glowed radiantly as the sun’s rays fell upon them. Such works of art could also be made to act as dwellings for his people if he decided to perform his hobby publicly. But strangely, Kyle had felt restless as of late and his usual favorite activities seemed to be growing increasingly dull.
Even though he had everything he could possibly want, he felt that something was missing. Something he couldn’t quite completely grasp, a fleeting urge. Slightly bothered by this feeling, he put the thought out of his mind. Kyle surveyed the room. The red and gold silk banners flowed lazily with the breeze, which originated from the many oval shaped windows that adorned the walls. It could still use a little more decoration, but he didn’t feel like dealing with that at the moment. With a subtle movement of his hand he summoned up some soothing music that filled the throne room but, after only a few moments, quickly silenced it with a similar hand gesture.
“I’m… bored,” he suppressed a twinge of surprise as he said it. The words felt peculiarly charged.
Violet glanced over, “What was that, my King?”
“Nothing.”
Kyle noticed a change in the air. It seemed heavier. Though no one else would have noticed, he felt that an ominous presence was looming in the distance. Something was wrong.
Just as he was about to rise from his seat, the large doors to his throne room suddenly burst open and three, rather frantic and breathless, guards hurried forward. “My liege!” The guard took a moment to catch his breath. “There’s a gathering of black clouds right outside the castle gates. What do we do?”
“That’s impossible, I didn’t create any black clouds. Show me this anomaly at once and we’ll get to the bottom of this.” He turned his attention to his Queen. “There is no need to worry, Violet, I shall return momentarily.”
“As you wish, my liege. Follow us please.” As he followed his guards to the front gate, Kyle was sure that whatever these guards had seen must be linked to his previous feelings. Something appearing without his knowledge was a strange occurrence indeed. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed that they had reached the castle gates.
“It’s right outside the castle, through here.”
“Thank you, I’ll handle this myself. I want you three to stay inside the castle until this is settled. There’s no point in needless endangerment.” With that, Kyle stepped through the gates and saw the object in question. He closed the gates behind him and continued forward.
It was a spherical shaped swirling mass of black mist. The anomaly was larger than expected, taking up most of his field of view. Kyle had reached the edge of his castle, looking down past the clouds he could see the perfect world he had labored to create. His gaze rose to meet the black cloud once again. It had begun to swirl erratically, changing directions every few seconds, but seemed to pose no immediate threat. Kyle shrugged and casually waved his hand to erase the anomaly.
Nothing happened.
“What?” Genuinely surprised, he tried again. Still, the anomaly refused to obey. Kyle began to feel uneasy.
“This can’t be right, why wo-” He stopped mid sentence as the anomaly abruptly halted all movement. It looked almost like it was frozen in time as it silently hovered before him.
Then it spoke. One dialogue, but hundreds of voices.
“We…are the lost… lost… so cold… please help us… HELP US… GIVE US… WARMTH… JOIN US!”
The cloud lunged forward with terrifying speed, giving Kyle only a fraction of a second to react. He materialized a wall between himself and the cloud with a quick, upward sweeping motion of the hand on instinct and frantically formulated a plan as the black mists rushed past him on all sides. Four more walls were created, forming a nearly complete square around him in which the opening faced the castle gates and the entity that had now begun its second charge. “Damn! I’m not ready yet!” he cried in frustration and launched a barrage of small explosive charges into the mist. For a moment he laughed to himself, he had almost forgotten that he didn’t have to limit his abilities to match the simple designs he had chosen for his kingdom. The explosives detonated and disrupted the entity enough to break its charge, giving Kyle enough time to complete his plan. The unfinished square began to bend outwards and take the shape of a large sphere with the opening still present. As the sphere approached completion, the black cloud had nearly reassembled as well.
The time had come, either his plan would succeed or he would meet whatever fate the entity had in store for him. “Come and take me if you can, you abomination,” he taunted while readying himself. The cloud charged forward once more, entering the sphere and filling it with its blackness. Kyle grinned. He glided backwards towards the opposite end of the entrance and opened a small portal in the sphere that he escaped through. The portal closed only moments before the entity slammed into the newly reformed wall that had taken its place. Meanwhile, Kyle had returned to the castle gates, waved goodbye to his insubstantial foe with a smirk, and sealed the original entrance to the sphere, trapping the black cloud inside. It struggled to free itself, but fell silent after a few moments of resistance.
“Well that takes care of that problem, but just to be sure…” Kyle trailed off as he summoned layer upon layer of diamond covering onto the sphere. “Let’s see you get out of that!” he laughed out loud. “Now where to put this thing?” His pondering was cut short when he heard a sound that was clearly inappropriate for the situation at hand. Giggling. Childlike giggling to be more precise. “Who’s there?” he called out, but to no reply. Kyle searched the immediate area but found no one. It was then that he realized where the sound was coming from. It was the sphere. “That’s kind of creepy,” he joked nervously. The giggling escalated to maniacal laughing when the sphere started to vibrate intensely. The intensity of the vibration increased exponentially until the entity’s prison began to disintegrate, breaking apart the structure at an atomic level. Despite the excessive reinforcement, the sphere wouldn’t hold for much longer. There was a loud cracking sound, followed by another and another. He cringed and shielded himself from what he knew was coming. The sphere exploded in a thunderous sonic boom, sending debris flying like bullets in all directions. Looming in the distance, the newly freed black mist crept toward Kyle slowly as he backed up against the castle gates. It approached in a way similar to that of a predator bearing down on its cornered prey, in a way that illustrated there was no chance of escape. He stared blankly at the mist, devoid of emotion. “The situation has gone critical,” he said to himself, “Time for castle lockdown.” Kyle spun around quickly and retreated into the castle.
“Guards! To me, quickly!” The majority of his castle defense staff had gathered behind the door to listen to the battle. “The creature outside these gates is beyond my power to defeat. We need to do our best to ensure that it does not breach the gates!” The guards bellowed a simultaneous, “At your command, my liege!” and readied their weapons. “You two in the back go and escort the Queen to safety. The remainder of squadron three will go and warn the rest of the castle. Tell them to lock and barricade the doors!” A third of the guards hurried off to carry out their orders. “Squadrons one and two, you will stay here with me and help defend these gates.” With a quick thought, Kyle closed off all the castle’s windows and replaced every wall, including the gates, with thick slabs of diamond.
Kyle figured that the only reason the entity escaped from the sphere prison was the fact that it was an enclosed space. It had allowed the creature to build up an enormous amount of pressure within the sphere by hyper-accelerating its own gaseous form along with the air around it. But now, in this instance, the entity was outside his impenetrable fortress and there was no way it was breaking through this time. It was by no means a permanent solution, but it allowed ample time to devise one.
He could see the cloud waiting outside through the diamond walls. It made no attempt to break in; it simply floated there patiently. “Well at least it seems to know when it’s defeated,” he turned to his castle guards, “Stay here and keep an eye on it. If it starts doing anything suspicious, and I mean anything, come and report to me. I’m going to go and make sure everyone else is safe.” Kyle left his loyal defenders and started making his way to the living quarters. He let out a tired sigh. Why was this happening to him? What had he done to deserve the attention of such a tenacious and persistent enemy? Furthermore, he still hadn’t even figured out where it came from. He surely didn’t create it so it shouldn’t even exist in the first place. The whole thing made no sense.
As Kyle traversed the now empty hallways of his castle, he noticed that daylight was fading. “Is night falling upon as already?” He looked up. At first he didn’t know what he was looking at, it was as if the night was overtaking the sky in a single blanketing motion. Realization struck him, hard. Night wasn’t blanketing the sky; the cloud was blanketing the entire castle! A voice was shouting from behind him, “My liege!” he turned and saw one of his guards rushing towards him, “The creature has begun some sort of attack!”
“I’ve noticed,” Kyle replied sarcastically. The light continued to fade until he and the guard were standing in complete darkness. A thick layer of black mist now blocked the natural light that had once shone through the diamond walls. They were truly inside the belly of the beast. Kyle conjured up a few light-emitting orbs. “Here, take a few of these and pass them out to the squadrons.” He went to hand over the orbs, but there was no one to hand them to. The guard was gone. “Hey did you run away already?” he called out. “Whatever, I guess I’ll have to distribute them myself.” He continued his original path down the hallway. Suddenly he was struck with a forceful blow to the back that lifted him off his feet and sent him flying down the hallway, landing in a sprawled heap some distance away. The light orbs askew, they cast an eerie glow. He groaned and struggled to get up, but something was on top of him. He managed to roll the object off of him and sat upright. Kyle strained his eyes in the dim light to see what had hit him. His eyes focused and he saw the limp body of a man. It was the guard from before. His head had been twisted backwards at an unnatural angle and a look of surprise was frozen onto his face. He realized what he was seeing and scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. His mouth opened and closed silently, lost for words. Kyle’s moment of shock was cut short when screams and sounds of battle began to echo throughout the castle.
He had to make a choice, either help the guards or help Violet and the other residents of the castle hiding out in the living quarters. But it was never really a choice. The guards wouldn’t want their king wasting time with them when the lives of innocents were at stake. No longer having the luxury of time, Kyle opened a portal to the living quarters, picked up one of the light orbs and stepped through.
On the other side of the portal, Kyle stepped into a massacre. Bodies were strewn everywhere across the floor, some not completely whole. “This can’t be,” he stared in disbelief, choking back a wave of nausea. A sputtering cough close by caught his attention. He ran to the source and knelt down. It was a young girl in her early teens, her legs looked to be broken and there was a deep gash across her chest. She turned to look at him with unfocused eyes and clutched onto his arm. There was nothing he could do for her; the only limitation to his powers was the inability to directly affect anyone but himself. “It’s okay now, you’re safe,” she smiled for a moment but it faded away, “Can you speak? Can you tell me what happened here?”
The girl coughed a while longer and began to speak in a soft whisper. “They came from… from the ceiling and the walls. Grabbing everyone,” she erupted into another coughing fit, but regained composure and continued, “They killed anyone… everyone. Mom and Dad tried to protect me but…” tears filled her eyes, recalling the event was clearly too painful. “You’re… going to save us, right? You will… I know you will,” her eyes began to glaze over and she looked to the ceiling, “This… is just a… a dream. I’ll wake up soon… and everything will be alright.” She smiled one last time and fell silent.
Kyle closed the girl’s eyes and stood up slowly. “I’ll save us.” He scanned the room and was greatly relieved that Violet was not among the dead. He had to find her and the others as fast as possible and hope he wasn’t already too late. Continuing deeper into the living quarters, the amount of bodies was lessening. It seemed like the majority of them got caught in the entrance hall. They must be holed up in the royal quarters. Kyle lifted himself from the ground and flew through the winding hallways, arriving at the end of the corridor just in time to hear a familiar scream coming from the other side of door to his room. “Violet! I’m coming!” He burst through the door and saw Violet backed into the corner of the room, warding off the black tendrils protruding from the ceiling. The entity was phasing right through the diamond walls! It must have has this ability from the start, it had been toying with him from the beginning.
“Kyle!” Violet had noticed him, but in the moment of distraction a tendril grabbed her and lifted her off the floor. She screamed and fought to free herself.
Kyle had had enough. Destroying his castle and murdering its occupants was an atrocity on its own, but threatening the life of the one he loved was in an entirely different league. A rage surfaced within him unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He closed his eyes and the air around him began to shimmer, he levitated off the floor. The shimmering air burst into an aura of blue energy and he spread his arms wide, opening his hands. Two swords bathed in crackling blue energy materialized within them. He gripped his new weapons and opened his now equally radiant blue eyes. “How dare you touch her!” With a sweep of the right-hand sword he produced an immense arc of energy that obliterated the tendrils holding Violet captive as well as the entire right half of the room, exposing it to the open sky. The entity recoiled. Kyle moved with incredible swiftness and caught Violet before she reached the floor. He placed her back onto her feet. “You need to get out of here, I’ll take care of this,” Kyle opened a portal behind him, “It will take you out of the castle and onto the mainland, you should be safe there. Go, quickly, I think it’s only interested in me.” She stared back at him with preoccupied eyes, still shaken by what had transpired, but nodded.
Violet approached the portal and looked back. “I’ll wait for your return to the mainland, good luck Kyle. And give this monster a good thrashing for me.”
“You know it,” he was smiling, the thrill of battle taking him over.
She stepped through the portal to safety and he closed it. “Too bad I can’t win,” he said to himself. He had known this for a while, but he had to get Violet to safety first. The entity’s particles could be disrupted, but not destroyed. It would take him in the end. The least he could do for his opponent was give it one hell of a fight. He flew out to the roof of his castle and met the black cloud just as it had finished reforming again. This was the final stand and he was going to make the most of it.
“Whatever you are, I hope you can feel pain because I’m going to tear you apart,” he grinned, his lust for battle not yet satiated. The entity shot hundreds of tendrils toward him. “Is that all you can do?” Kyle jumped forward to meet the tendrils head on, dodging and weaving through them as he sliced viciously. The severed limbs fell and turned back into mist, rejoining with the body of the cloud. He charged toward it and unleashed a swift vertical slash, rending the whole cloud in two. The entity merely pulled itself back together again and produced more tendrils. He made several backwards leaps to evade the grasp of the entity and pointed his swords toward it. He crossed the blades and swung them outwards, generating an enormous wall of energy that advanced toward the cloud. The tendrils were destroyed but the entity shot upwards at the last second to avoid the attack. It swirled through the air and then charged downwards in his direction with its entire mass. “Let’s see how you deal with this!” Kyle hurled his left-hand sword into the front of the mists, paralyzing it with a powerful current of energy. He pointed his remaining sword toward the raging immobilized cloud and reconfigured it into a beam cannon. He aimed and fired. An explosion of ion particles erupted from the cannon and enveloped the entity. The beam dissipated and the creature was gone. Kyle let the cannon drop from his shoulder and he kneeled to rest. “Hurry up and reassemble yourself, you’re starting to disappoint me.” A few minutes later, he could see the mists forming again. Small at first, but they grew and grew until the entity was once again whole. Kyle laughed. “Well that about does it for me,” he said breathlessly, “Time to face the music.” The entity was bearing down on him, blocking off all avenues of escape. It was closing in all sides. Kyle realized he still had the light orb in his pocket; he grabbed it and threw it at the cloud. “Heh.” His final act of resistance went unnoticed by the entity as it closed completely, engulfing him.
He floated through the darkness, listening to the barely audible whispers all around him. Unable to speak or move, he could feel his focus slipping. He felt so cold, so lonely. Drifting apart. Memories came, but were they his? An overwhelming sense of emptiness washed over him. Silence now… darkness… then nothing.
The red light on his desk activated, indicating that someone outside the door requested entry. He gave permission and a troubled subordinate in a lab coat emerged from the doorway.
“Sir, there’s been an incident with test subject 23-A.”
As he sat upon the throne of his sky castle, beside his beautiful Queen Violet, Kyle wondered what he would do on this especially perfect day, the clear blue sky only interrupted by the drifting pure white clouds and shining sun. In actuality, every day was just as equally perfect as this because he had wished it to be so. Kyle had complete control over all aspects of his kingdom and through using this godlike gift he had created a paradise for himself as well as his people. He created the endless fertile plains that the farmers thrived off of, the vast seas for the fisherman and the inextinguishable sources of freshwater. He had gifted the woodlands with astonishing powers of rapid regrowth to ensure that his people always had enough lumber to build their homes while, simultaneously, protecting the habitat of the wildlife indigenous to the forests. He would even travel amongst the many towns and cities himself to inspire and aid his subjects in whatever ways he could. Hatred and war were forgotten concepts. Kyle was truly a kind ruler and, as such, his kingdom was utterly devoted to him.
Perhaps he would take a leisurely flight over the rolling hills, a flight that often turned from leisurely to exhilarating when he decided to see how fast he could soar through the skies. If that didn’t suit him at the time, he could just as well create a secluded area for himself and alter the environment to create fascinating works of art. Among his most impressive creations were the spires of glass that spiraled and flowed out in every possible direction, even in some that were clearly impossible, and glowed radiantly as the sun’s rays fell upon them. Such works of art could also be made to act as dwellings for his people if he decided to perform his hobby publicly. But strangely, Kyle had felt restless as of late and his usual favorite activities seemed to be growing increasingly dull.
Even though he had everything he could possibly want, he felt that something was missing. Something he couldn’t quite completely grasp, a fleeting urge. Slightly bothered by this feeling, he put the thought out of his mind. Kyle surveyed the room. The red and gold silk banners flowed lazily with the breeze, which originated from the many oval shaped windows that adorned the walls. It could still use a little more decoration, but he didn’t feel like dealing with that at the moment. With a subtle movement of his hand he summoned up some soothing music that filled the throne room but, after only a few moments, quickly silenced it with a similar hand gesture.
“I’m… bored,” he suppressed a twinge of surprise as he said it. The words felt peculiarly charged.
Violet glanced over, “What was that, my King?”
“Nothing.”
Kyle noticed a change in the air. It seemed heavier. Though no one else would have noticed, he felt that an ominous presence was looming in the distance. Something was wrong.
Just as he was about to rise from his seat, the large doors to his throne room suddenly burst open and three, rather frantic and breathless, guards hurried forward. “My liege!” The guard took a moment to catch his breath. “There’s a gathering of black clouds right outside the castle gates. What do we do?”
“That’s impossible, I didn’t create any black clouds. Show me this anomaly at once and we’ll get to the bottom of this.” He turned his attention to his Queen. “There is no need to worry, Violet, I shall return momentarily.”
“As you wish, my liege. Follow us please.” As he followed his guards to the front gate, Kyle was sure that whatever these guards had seen must be linked to his previous feelings. Something appearing without his knowledge was a strange occurrence indeed. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed that they had reached the castle gates.
“It’s right outside the castle, through here.”
“Thank you, I’ll handle this myself. I want you three to stay inside the castle until this is settled. There’s no point in needless endangerment.” With that, Kyle stepped through the gates and saw the object in question. He closed the gates behind him and continued forward.
It was a spherical shaped swirling mass of black mist. The anomaly was larger than expected, taking up most of his field of view. Kyle had reached the edge of his castle, looking down past the clouds he could see the perfect world he had labored to create. His gaze rose to meet the black cloud once again. It had begun to swirl erratically, changing directions every few seconds, but seemed to pose no immediate threat. Kyle shrugged and casually waved his hand to erase the anomaly.
Nothing happened.
“What?” Genuinely surprised, he tried again. Still, the anomaly refused to obey. Kyle began to feel uneasy.
“This can’t be right, why wo-” He stopped mid sentence as the anomaly abruptly halted all movement. It looked almost like it was frozen in time as it silently hovered before him.
Then it spoke. One dialogue, but hundreds of voices.
“We…are the lost… lost… so cold… please help us… HELP US… GIVE US… WARMTH… JOIN US!”
The cloud lunged forward with terrifying speed, giving Kyle only a fraction of a second to react. He materialized a wall between himself and the cloud with a quick, upward sweeping motion of the hand on instinct and frantically formulated a plan as the black mists rushed past him on all sides. Four more walls were created, forming a nearly complete square around him in which the opening faced the castle gates and the entity that had now begun its second charge. “Damn! I’m not ready yet!” he cried in frustration and launched a barrage of small explosive charges into the mist. For a moment he laughed to himself, he had almost forgotten that he didn’t have to limit his abilities to match the simple designs he had chosen for his kingdom. The explosives detonated and disrupted the entity enough to break its charge, giving Kyle enough time to complete his plan. The unfinished square began to bend outwards and take the shape of a large sphere with the opening still present. As the sphere approached completion, the black cloud had nearly reassembled as well.
The time had come, either his plan would succeed or he would meet whatever fate the entity had in store for him. “Come and take me if you can, you abomination,” he taunted while readying himself. The cloud charged forward once more, entering the sphere and filling it with its blackness. Kyle grinned. He glided backwards towards the opposite end of the entrance and opened a small portal in the sphere that he escaped through. The portal closed only moments before the entity slammed into the newly reformed wall that had taken its place. Meanwhile, Kyle had returned to the castle gates, waved goodbye to his insubstantial foe with a smirk, and sealed the original entrance to the sphere, trapping the black cloud inside. It struggled to free itself, but fell silent after a few moments of resistance.
“Well that takes care of that problem, but just to be sure…” Kyle trailed off as he summoned layer upon layer of diamond covering onto the sphere. “Let’s see you get out of that!” he laughed out loud. “Now where to put this thing?” His pondering was cut short when he heard a sound that was clearly inappropriate for the situation at hand. Giggling. Childlike giggling to be more precise. “Who’s there?” he called out, but to no reply. Kyle searched the immediate area but found no one. It was then that he realized where the sound was coming from. It was the sphere. “That’s kind of creepy,” he joked nervously. The giggling escalated to maniacal laughing when the sphere started to vibrate intensely. The intensity of the vibration increased exponentially until the entity’s prison began to disintegrate, breaking apart the structure at an atomic level. Despite the excessive reinforcement, the sphere wouldn’t hold for much longer. There was a loud cracking sound, followed by another and another. He cringed and shielded himself from what he knew was coming. The sphere exploded in a thunderous sonic boom, sending debris flying like bullets in all directions. Looming in the distance, the newly freed black mist crept toward Kyle slowly as he backed up against the castle gates. It approached in a way similar to that of a predator bearing down on its cornered prey, in a way that illustrated there was no chance of escape. He stared blankly at the mist, devoid of emotion. “The situation has gone critical,” he said to himself, “Time for castle lockdown.” Kyle spun around quickly and retreated into the castle.
“Guards! To me, quickly!” The majority of his castle defense staff had gathered behind the door to listen to the battle. “The creature outside these gates is beyond my power to defeat. We need to do our best to ensure that it does not breach the gates!” The guards bellowed a simultaneous, “At your command, my liege!” and readied their weapons. “You two in the back go and escort the Queen to safety. The remainder of squadron three will go and warn the rest of the castle. Tell them to lock and barricade the doors!” A third of the guards hurried off to carry out their orders. “Squadrons one and two, you will stay here with me and help defend these gates.” With a quick thought, Kyle closed off all the castle’s windows and replaced every wall, including the gates, with thick slabs of diamond.
Kyle figured that the only reason the entity escaped from the sphere prison was the fact that it was an enclosed space. It had allowed the creature to build up an enormous amount of pressure within the sphere by hyper-accelerating its own gaseous form along with the air around it. But now, in this instance, the entity was outside his impenetrable fortress and there was no way it was breaking through this time. It was by no means a permanent solution, but it allowed ample time to devise one.
He could see the cloud waiting outside through the diamond walls. It made no attempt to break in; it simply floated there patiently. “Well at least it seems to know when it’s defeated,” he turned to his castle guards, “Stay here and keep an eye on it. If it starts doing anything suspicious, and I mean anything, come and report to me. I’m going to go and make sure everyone else is safe.” Kyle left his loyal defenders and started making his way to the living quarters. He let out a tired sigh. Why was this happening to him? What had he done to deserve the attention of such a tenacious and persistent enemy? Furthermore, he still hadn’t even figured out where it came from. He surely didn’t create it so it shouldn’t even exist in the first place. The whole thing made no sense.
As Kyle traversed the now empty hallways of his castle, he noticed that daylight was fading. “Is night falling upon as already?” He looked up. At first he didn’t know what he was looking at, it was as if the night was overtaking the sky in a single blanketing motion. Realization struck him, hard. Night wasn’t blanketing the sky; the cloud was blanketing the entire castle! A voice was shouting from behind him, “My liege!” he turned and saw one of his guards rushing towards him, “The creature has begun some sort of attack!”
“I’ve noticed,” Kyle replied sarcastically. The light continued to fade until he and the guard were standing in complete darkness. A thick layer of black mist now blocked the natural light that had once shone through the diamond walls. They were truly inside the belly of the beast. Kyle conjured up a few light-emitting orbs. “Here, take a few of these and pass them out to the squadrons.” He went to hand over the orbs, but there was no one to hand them to. The guard was gone. “Hey did you run away already?” he called out. “Whatever, I guess I’ll have to distribute them myself.” He continued his original path down the hallway. Suddenly he was struck with a forceful blow to the back that lifted him off his feet and sent him flying down the hallway, landing in a sprawled heap some distance away. The light orbs askew, they cast an eerie glow. He groaned and struggled to get up, but something was on top of him. He managed to roll the object off of him and sat upright. Kyle strained his eyes in the dim light to see what had hit him. His eyes focused and he saw the limp body of a man. It was the guard from before. His head had been twisted backwards at an unnatural angle and a look of surprise was frozen onto his face. He realized what he was seeing and scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. His mouth opened and closed silently, lost for words. Kyle’s moment of shock was cut short when screams and sounds of battle began to echo throughout the castle.
He had to make a choice, either help the guards or help Violet and the other residents of the castle hiding out in the living quarters. But it was never really a choice. The guards wouldn’t want their king wasting time with them when the lives of innocents were at stake. No longer having the luxury of time, Kyle opened a portal to the living quarters, picked up one of the light orbs and stepped through.
On the other side of the portal, Kyle stepped into a massacre. Bodies were strewn everywhere across the floor, some not completely whole. “This can’t be,” he stared in disbelief, choking back a wave of nausea. A sputtering cough close by caught his attention. He ran to the source and knelt down. It was a young girl in her early teens, her legs looked to be broken and there was a deep gash across her chest. She turned to look at him with unfocused eyes and clutched onto his arm. There was nothing he could do for her; the only limitation to his powers was the inability to directly affect anyone but himself. “It’s okay now, you’re safe,” she smiled for a moment but it faded away, “Can you speak? Can you tell me what happened here?”
The girl coughed a while longer and began to speak in a soft whisper. “They came from… from the ceiling and the walls. Grabbing everyone,” she erupted into another coughing fit, but regained composure and continued, “They killed anyone… everyone. Mom and Dad tried to protect me but…” tears filled her eyes, recalling the event was clearly too painful. “You’re… going to save us, right? You will… I know you will,” her eyes began to glaze over and she looked to the ceiling, “This… is just a… a dream. I’ll wake up soon… and everything will be alright.” She smiled one last time and fell silent.
Kyle closed the girl’s eyes and stood up slowly. “I’ll save us.” He scanned the room and was greatly relieved that Violet was not among the dead. He had to find her and the others as fast as possible and hope he wasn’t already too late. Continuing deeper into the living quarters, the amount of bodies was lessening. It seemed like the majority of them got caught in the entrance hall. They must be holed up in the royal quarters. Kyle lifted himself from the ground and flew through the winding hallways, arriving at the end of the corridor just in time to hear a familiar scream coming from the other side of door to his room. “Violet! I’m coming!” He burst through the door and saw Violet backed into the corner of the room, warding off the black tendrils protruding from the ceiling. The entity was phasing right through the diamond walls! It must have has this ability from the start, it had been toying with him from the beginning.
“Kyle!” Violet had noticed him, but in the moment of distraction a tendril grabbed her and lifted her off the floor. She screamed and fought to free herself.
Kyle had had enough. Destroying his castle and murdering its occupants was an atrocity on its own, but threatening the life of the one he loved was in an entirely different league. A rage surfaced within him unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He closed his eyes and the air around him began to shimmer, he levitated off the floor. The shimmering air burst into an aura of blue energy and he spread his arms wide, opening his hands. Two swords bathed in crackling blue energy materialized within them. He gripped his new weapons and opened his now equally radiant blue eyes. “How dare you touch her!” With a sweep of the right-hand sword he produced an immense arc of energy that obliterated the tendrils holding Violet captive as well as the entire right half of the room, exposing it to the open sky. The entity recoiled. Kyle moved with incredible swiftness and caught Violet before she reached the floor. He placed her back onto her feet. “You need to get out of here, I’ll take care of this,” Kyle opened a portal behind him, “It will take you out of the castle and onto the mainland, you should be safe there. Go, quickly, I think it’s only interested in me.” She stared back at him with preoccupied eyes, still shaken by what had transpired, but nodded.
Violet approached the portal and looked back. “I’ll wait for your return to the mainland, good luck Kyle. And give this monster a good thrashing for me.”
“You know it,” he was smiling, the thrill of battle taking him over.
She stepped through the portal to safety and he closed it. “Too bad I can’t win,” he said to himself. He had known this for a while, but he had to get Violet to safety first. The entity’s particles could be disrupted, but not destroyed. It would take him in the end. The least he could do for his opponent was give it one hell of a fight. He flew out to the roof of his castle and met the black cloud just as it had finished reforming again. This was the final stand and he was going to make the most of it.
“Whatever you are, I hope you can feel pain because I’m going to tear you apart,” he grinned, his lust for battle not yet satiated. The entity shot hundreds of tendrils toward him. “Is that all you can do?” Kyle jumped forward to meet the tendrils head on, dodging and weaving through them as he sliced viciously. The severed limbs fell and turned back into mist, rejoining with the body of the cloud. He charged toward it and unleashed a swift vertical slash, rending the whole cloud in two. The entity merely pulled itself back together again and produced more tendrils. He made several backwards leaps to evade the grasp of the entity and pointed his swords toward it. He crossed the blades and swung them outwards, generating an enormous wall of energy that advanced toward the cloud. The tendrils were destroyed but the entity shot upwards at the last second to avoid the attack. It swirled through the air and then charged downwards in his direction with its entire mass. “Let’s see how you deal with this!” Kyle hurled his left-hand sword into the front of the mists, paralyzing it with a powerful current of energy. He pointed his remaining sword toward the raging immobilized cloud and reconfigured it into a beam cannon. He aimed and fired. An explosion of ion particles erupted from the cannon and enveloped the entity. The beam dissipated and the creature was gone. Kyle let the cannon drop from his shoulder and he kneeled to rest. “Hurry up and reassemble yourself, you’re starting to disappoint me.” A few minutes later, he could see the mists forming again. Small at first, but they grew and grew until the entity was once again whole. Kyle laughed. “Well that about does it for me,” he said breathlessly, “Time to face the music.” The entity was bearing down on him, blocking off all avenues of escape. It was closing in all sides. Kyle realized he still had the light orb in his pocket; he grabbed it and threw it at the cloud. “Heh.” His final act of resistance went unnoticed by the entity as it closed completely, engulfing him.
He floated through the darkness, listening to the barely audible whispers all around him. Unable to speak or move, he could feel his focus slipping. He felt so cold, so lonely. Drifting apart. Memories came, but were they his? An overwhelming sense of emptiness washed over him. Silence now… darkness… then nothing.
* * *
The red light on his desk activated, indicating that someone outside the door requested entry. He gave permission and a troubled subordinate in a lab coat emerged from the doorway.
“Sir, there’s been an incident with test subject 23-A.”