The Anastasia Was Discovered Adrift, Nearly Two Hundred And Fifty-eight Light Years From Its Projected

The Anastasia was discovered adrift, nearly two hundred and fifty-eight light years from its projected path, and nearly another sixteen beyond any likely malfunction generated disturbance routes.

Anastasia was completely undamaged, found simply in power-down-mode and crewless, all one hundred six hands missing entirely. Security records came up blank, sensor webs empty of digital record keepers, ambiently powered drones that should’ve lasted a lifetime frigidly silent and inoperable for impossibly long. Anastasia was literally senseless: blind, deaf, unable to recount any reason at all to this failure.

Within a cycle of her detection the Anastasia was powered back on, retrieved, and piloted back to Hünean-Cyvolich shipyards in Guon for retrofit and repair. As of this record, the SSV-Hünean-Cyvolich Anastasia remains in operation.

Stone Footsteps

Were these my footsteps once?

They are smooth and graceful. Three-toed strides that move purposefully across a muddy wetland. Evenly spaced talons made cool by afternoon waters.

Did I walk here, in a time long before this body’s first breath?

A gorgeous lake, expansive and dark with deep water, ringed by enormous trees so high they felt like wooden mountains in their own right. Scaly bark plastered with brilliantly bright new flowers and damp moss and tussling clover. A ground crisscrossed by ferns and horsetails, yet alien—without grass..

Have I rested here, in time before?

Watching golden sunrise arch over purplish-pink dawn, gaudy brilliance sprawling naked over still waters. Hearing the droning insects and cacophony fliers, vividly colored like flapping banners. Swimming bodies foreign as they slip beneath silent waves, softy aglow at night; eerie phantoms dancing on the lakebottom.

Was I joined here, who else visited this place?

Giants so might they shook the earth with behemoth footsteps, who made thunder with their cataclysmic voices. Sweeping necks and tails that supported the sky on atlas-backs. Horned-faces and their warpaint frills, tossing knightly heads this way or that, grizzled beaks chomping. Armored tanks slow, dim, but noble in their ignorance; clubbed tails wagging gently in muggy afternoon feedings. A din of squabbling runners in their vain feathery coats, jittery dancing along the shoreline with their woodland gossip. Marching nomads from the north, big like hills, moving in herds melodiously billowing.

New York City; City of Ruin

Can you imagine how New York City must feel? Obliterated by asteroids. Swarmed by zombies. Vaporized by aliens. Infested by humanoid cockroaches. Ground Zero for the New World Order and Capital of the Kingdom of Earth. Devastated by giant monsters. Plagued with pterosaurs roosting at the Statue of Liberty. Frozen by flash ice ages. Crumbled by colossal tsunamis.

The toughest thing to kill on Earth is truly the New Yorker.

Playing Mass Effect 3 and I feel a mixture of sadness and honor in my last missions on Earth

Woah.

Plucking Soap-bubbles

Do you ever have a thought in your head, these flashes of things you can see, and they just linger? Over and over. This vivid kernel I can just.. pluck out of the dark, expand and contract it, make it real. But every time I’m close, every time I’m there, I’m missing something when I get close.

The Tyrant, Regal-Eternal

Come and marvel at my obsidian bones.

See my mighty jaws swallow the mountains long after I can bite, my shattering roars crumble the sky even without vocal cords.

Midnight feathers ripple on ebony scales, riveting even in death, phantoms summoned by awe to once again quiver atop my cathedral skeleton.

Look upon me and tremble, and fear, and desire. Witness.

Many prone before me in this grand tomb of stone and metal. I hear their prayers, their wishes. Even so long after I have perished, my Reign continues in the imagination, in the soul..

I am a Primeval King, I am an unending God, I am a force of the Earth herself.

Forever.