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I went to a land where the Moon blazed, with no night nor day, sky glowing like blood and wine

I went to a land with black snow on the ground, and ashen trunks far away into the distance

I went to a land where water whispered and sang, and hands reached up at the unwary, pulling them into the dark

I went to a land where there were none to weep, and the dead were memories, with statues that hung from quiet nooses, and cried silent, black tears

I went to a land where the mighty had fallen, rusted and annihilated, and the red sky watched, wearied by streaking charcoal clouds

I went to a land where the ocean mourned, endless and abysmal, waves that crashed, snatched, battered; roaring in the ruined day

I went to a land where the war machines marched, bronze Goliaths stamping, steaming, and spitting, their banners flapping in howling winds, unaware their masters had perished, waiting for orders that never came

I went to a land where the churches burned, dead Gods in sullied tombs, as marsh and swamp grew in ticking time, thick sinews from hungry roots pushing up and out of the graves

I went to a land where the Moon commanded the sky, a cracked visage, bleeding down her ravaged flanks, red on ash on alabaster

I went to a land where the voice led me, familiar and beautiful, quiet with husk, drawn with intention

I went to a land where the voice sang to me, gorgeous words that could split stone with sorrow and turn lashing rain into hushed snows

I went to a land where the voice cried out to me, all love and lust, romance crimson, bright as atomic sunrises

I went to a land where the voice commanded me, righteous, furious; bringing me to my knees, shutting my eyes, concussing my thoughts

I went to a land where the voice howled at me, and shook the mountains, shattered the seas, toppled the machines into pits of wreckage

I went to a land where the voice cried out to me, begging and pleading for promises made, mercies shared, memories cracked into broken glass, scattered like so many shimmering stars, pathetic, beautiful

I was alone in darkness, huge and sweeping and impossible. A glittering constellation above me shined, insane, stars beneath the surface of the Earth..

And then a voice rang out, a voice that could buckle God himself to his knees, that could churn Him up into dust and whittle all the pantheons of Men down into worthless ash and pitiful prayers.

“THERE WAS A BENEATH BEFORE THERE WAS AN ABOVE.”

The not-stars blinked, fluttered. Refocused.

They were a labyrinth of eyes.

My heart trembled and squirmed, desperate to escape up my tight throat, pounding in parasitic fear. Thump. Thump. Thump. Blood roared in my ears into a numbing thunder, my hands thrown up, legs askew in catastrophe as I drifted; embryonic, tiny.

Crimson light pulsed in endless blackness. It illuminated only the faintest of conceptions of what lay before me, so gigantic that even across what must have been fathoms upon fathoms of distance still it dwarfed me, dwarfed the sun and the moon that would hang skyward back on the surface. The light impressed upon me huge, jointed legs. Onyx-dark plate chiseled into midnight smoothness, impermeable and ancient, invincible of anything that existed. A nightmare that even to this day I cannot describe, cannot understand. It spoke once more as constellation eyes focused upon me, unfurling like an abyssal flower.

“WE ARE TIMELESS. WE ARE INFINITE. WE WILL FEED UPON YOUR ROT. WE WILL FORGE YOUR BONES INTO SOMETHING PERFECT. WE AWAIT. WE AWAIT. WE AWAIT.”

And then, like the birth of Creation, there was Light—

*… everything is overgrown, everything is swallowed up like it was just a dream. Vines, moss. Trees big as the skyscrapers downtown from the Academy that had to have grown in a day. I think sometimes I can hear them warbling. Like music..*

*—- can’t find my way back. The path forks. Over and over. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a tunnel, or maybe an egg. Everything bends up over me, and I can look down at myself, surrounded by so much green. Little lights dancing. I don’t remember the last time it was night, but I know there is no daylight here*

*I tripped and stumbled into a pool that glittered and crackled. It burned. It tasted like the sea on my lips, and now I feel it, layered over my bones, crashing waves to the pulse of my heart. I can feel the warbling. A Pattern—*

*I see so much in my vision. I see this place, all burnt and ragged rock, stretching off into the horizon broken by so many blazing mountains. I see this place as the Traveler sings to it, weaves life up from sulfur and hell and death, makes hazard into haven. I see this place, a seed tucked away in possibility, thinking. Unfolding. It looks back at me. Standing on so many cracks, marooned across so much potential. It has a single, blaring red eye*

*A saw a man in the forest. I saw a dragon that spoke to him. Fireflies danced around and between them like so many stars in the night, beautiful amber motes. The man looks like me, and I know I am him, but he is not— me. He has traded his memories for something so much more. I can feel what radiates out. It is so powerful willows around him groan faintly as they grow, white tendrils sprouting vermillion and violet flowers. Secrets are traded. Fates are sealed*

*A shadow crosses the ground and speaks so many lost names, smothering brass in rot, drowning glass in night, and I am falling, falling, falling*

The Thing That Came in Summer

The world changed. Boundaries shivered. Something that had been *right* became *wrong*, just for a moment, just long enough for the slightest passage. No fanfare, no drama, no lights and catastrophe. Just the motion. Just the transition. Easy. Simple. Welcoming.

The world slid around the visitor like so much smooth water becomes glassy and transparent moving quickly across river stones. Sharp-edged shards appeared suddenly— some breakage would always occur— but then it was over. Unnoticed.

This place was like the last one. A warm, comfortable night. Moonlight thrown down from a crescent slash across verdant growth, murmuring water not far away. Voices, maybe, but hidden as small living things sang their final climactic choruses in the omnipresent dusk. The *hum-hiss-chirps* came everywhere. In a multitude of directions.

*Opportunities*. All of them.

The thing lay still. Unmoving from its arrival. An impossible chill radiated off of the strange, glossy shell in shimmering waves. Steaming faintly like so much unnatural foggy streamers. Anyone nearby would’ve noticed their breath despite June heat. But already, icy tendrils and summoned flakes were dissipating, leaving only wet traces here and there, exposing the thing.

It tasted the air. Unseen cracks and pores flexed. Inhaled. Exhaled. Scented growth, sensed heat, tasted motion. Unnatural senses unfurled in an eerie kaleidoscope. Somewhere at the core of thing came excitement. Eagerness.

Something dark and wet shivered. Shook, slightly.

There were voices now— close. Everything else had fled away into the incoming darkness, birds flittered and squirrels dodging, insects silenced and stilled. So the voices came. Close. The thing had no need to detect their joy, no desire to catch the flirtatious tones. Words meant nothing but signifiers of life, mind, and potential.

The bodies neared. They shone warm, bright as stars, vivid with pheromones and heat. The thing spied deeper, elated at glimmering brain waves and lightning neuron-linkages, all awash in so many dancing colors. Memories. Thoughts. Feelings. Innate, ancient drives that were beautiful, striking. But they paled compared to the thing, felt tiny and childish to it’s own singular drive, the final purpose that even now came in increasing waves.

*So close*.

But the thing had to wait. Kept itself tidy, tight. Moonlight and sunset vestiges glinting in cool, cold rivulets across its chitinous exterior.

The voices were close.

Closer.

Closer.

Just *there*, just at the edge. They mingled and tangled, brought so much rising into the air. The thing knew it could not fight it’s instincts any longer.

It shivered. Shook.

And grew.

Review

“It’s you this time.”

Look at everyone. All the staring faces. So many wide, watching eyes trying to mask their terror. The macabre interest hidden just behind is all to obvious— because you’ve done the same thing when the Calls came. It was you a few days ago, watching the Selection, feeling the strange thrill spasm through you. Fear from the potential, arousal from the promise, and all of it mixed by relief when someone else was chosen. You too had been part of the many quiet whispers and loaded, meaningful wordless looks. Thinking. *Who would it be this time? Who? Why? Why were they chosen?*

Someone coughs and all your thinking implodes. That was *then*. This is now. It’s you. The stares, the quiet whispers and exchanged glances; a solar system of human emotion all about what you will undertake. You lower your gaze to the Phone.

That’s just what it is. A Phone. Sharp, elegant glistening black. It should be worn, scuffed from all that usage, it’s paint changed from how many gripping sweating hands have held it tight to their faces. It seems almost embryonic. Fragile. Too small for the transaction it undertakes. But that’s the power of it, you think, isn’t it? That’s why all of this happens, why it all comes through. Because the *thing* itself is part of it, because—

The Phone rings. The hand holding it trembles. Slightly. The presenter has been holding it too long already, you should’ve already been holding it, already waiting and prepared. Suddenly you are drenched in sweat, slick like something caught in a downpour, needing to be shaken and dried and cleaned. Your suit is your tomb. It clings to your skin, mummification robes prepared. Completed.

The Phone rings. A second ring is unheard of. Sacrilegious. Anger and fear splits the clustered crowd across so many watchful faces, dances from expression to expression. You study each finger clinging around the receiver. They are bone-white. *Will they even let you answer?*, you think, seeing each finger curled around them like that. So tight.

A blink and the Phone is in your hand. Your fingers are the ones tight around it, gripping, sweating against the impossible paint that refuses to wear. Flesh against cool, black metal. Everyone is watching. Holding their breath.

An overpowering night. Even with the backbone of stars above its ancient darkness sprawls, swallows up the earth beneath like an oncoming ocean from above. It is the greatest enemy of the People. The night shelters their foes and predators, cloaks the stalking tigers even as helpless familiars are dragged off into tall grass or hides marauding Others, their fierce gazes and fiercer obsidian knives unseen. The night is the first and final God, a beautiful destroyer, merciless and immutable to the fates that play out beneath. The People fear it, respect it in a matter-of-fact absolutism. It *is*.

They pay little mind to an unfamiliar star above.

They are few. Numbers and abstractions are as far away as those twinkling, cold constellations. These people have short memories, awareness like a mirage over far away sands. But they know that they are less. The People are dwindling just as cool water dwindles under scornful sun. Voices forever vanished and dexterous, shaping hands stilled. In a world so big with the People so few, each loss is a Holocaust. Soon there will be none.

Bodies huddle in the dark as attentive, fearful eyes peer out into the blackness. Waiting. Each breath is an anxious rattle bound by animal-fear heartbeats pounding, sometimes screams erupt and throw themselves echoing into the darkness. Long grass bends, under sun rustling as antagonizing shapes manifest for the briefest of seconds before vanishing. Unseen Others circle. Hooting to themselves. Preparing. Starlight glints over sharp, brutal looking stone knives like so many lifeless eyes.

A frenzy passes between the People. No prayers exist yet, no gods have been born to give name and respect and loyalty to what lives deep within mankind. Even their emotions are thin things. More instinct than empathy. A frost of humanity over primordial depth. The hoots rise, hands thump at muscular chests, teeth barred and feet kicking, stamping into dry season dust. No rallying cries. No sympathies pass between adults and their clutching, cooing infants. When the Others emerge, all that awaits them is untamed fear and territorial aggression. War is an ancient impulse.

The foreign star observes, sentinel over a dim world. Words-without-words are exchanged. Unfathomable processes respond. *Thy will be done* relayed with majestic computational composure. The prairie below experiences sudden, catastrophic daylight as golden-red illumination splashes in all directions, like a rippling sea of wildfire. Everything in a hundred miles skitters, runs, jumps, howls. Undisturbed, natural darkness has been violated, and the terror it invokes is absolute. Even the elephants, giants of memory thousands of years long and deep, scatter, turning the savanna into pandemonium as all that lives beneath their command responds. *Flee*.

The Others are there. The Others are not there. Binary thinking shatters like predawn darkness meeting glorious, gilded morning. The world is burning. The Night is banished. The grass is alive with motion and sound, People falling to their knees, hands upraised by this intrusive sunrise. Silent. No sounds to conjure in the face of this. Unanimous clatter as brandished weapons meet solid earth below.

The foreign star looms. It is the first *made* thing to ever kiss the soil of this place. It will not be the last. A passageway opens, unfurling with the same practiced and liquid ease of a blossom in springtime. And like a blossom, it bears something within. Many somethings. New, and strange to this world. They stand. Taller than the mightiest matriarch amongst those tusked behemoths. Too many feet for one individual touches down amongst the undulating grasses. The People are laid bare before their visitors. Small as children, quivering in fireball illumination.

The night has been usurped and it’s place comes new, unfamiliar daylight for unspoken centuries to come.

Time is the great band. Beginnings bleed into endings, bleed into beginnings. This is the nature of all things. What dies nurtures the soil, and life rises out of its black foam, and what falls upon it is consumed in turn to nurture what comes next. Out of the muck from the earliest days until the hammer blow of extinction sent it back, only to crawl once again forward— ever forward. Defiant to the cyclical ends that are so numerous. Death. Plague. Conflict.

How many times were our ancestors reduced, resigned back to primitive form? How many generations of potential obliterated by so many fearsome ends, each form cut away by that cold scythe that dictates what lives and what dies? Ninety-nine percent of all life forms upon the Earth have withered and died. A cathedral of the extinct is the greatest achievement of this living world, not the things it has produced that breath and fight and breed, no— it’s mightiest haul is all the bones, all the skeletal remnants tucked away in her soils. The chorus of life is but a whisper to the requiem that follows, millions upon millions of voices strong.

When my people arose it seemed that we were the inheritors of a mighty mantle. An impossible age was upon us. Immortal, invincible— the apotheosis of industries and arts that our minds had summoned from purest imagination to hardest realities. Continents became little more than gardens for us to shape, the weather and its rebellious storms tamed with simple amusement until every day was pleasant and demure to our liking. We forged metal, flesh. Even light became just another palette to the artist and the engineer in all the shapes of our divine whim. We kissed other worlds until the stars in the night sky sang with the influence we wrought. Those first travelers, machines as they may be— they were the heralds of our coming upon the Galaxy..

And then came the loss. The disease that was upon us then was slow and ancient already, a stilling sickness that did not rot flesh or weaken bone; no, no, this silent dredge did nothing more but dull our minds, weaken our wills. Immortality brought weakness, endless resources stifled creativity. Our art, majestic and vast and mighty as it was, and it was mighty!— all of it blended, meshed. We were all doing the same in our countless, same-same-same heavens.

That was not what killed us, no, but it did weaken us just enough. Cracks in the walls from tenacious vines, hungry mold. Just waiting for the right push.

The Adversary came. Our Nemesis. And it was relentless. Merciless. It was the face of annihilation. An out-of-context event that turned so much divinity and so much power into ash, into the painfully folly that was. We crashed, we burned. We broke. So many beautiful fresco shards immolated. The continents we had tended melted away into slag, the storms we had tamed became raging gales that stripped the soil and stone from so many surfaces until all that was left was obliteration. They scoured all that we had touched. Like God erasing our hubris from his creation.

We ran. What else was there to do?

We vanished into the dark. Burning and burying all that was left behind, all that might incriminate the direction of our exodus. Some fled to a distant galaxy, believing this affliction was here and here only, amongst familiar stars. Others buried themselves in obscure, esoteric ritual and mindsets, hoping to vanish into regressive pasts that might unfold. Legions of dreamers and acolytes wove wonderful delusions for themselves, for the minds that remained, bodiless and hidden in tiny alcoves scattered. Others still went out into the Maw, believing they could reason with our oncoming extinction. Their questions were all silenced. One by one.

In our flight we found the ruins. The tombs and abandoned projects, the memories; all of it came with the realization of what had come before. The endless cycles of time realized in fragments, in pieces. Life arose, mind igniting in the sludge and the cold and the harshness, the inevitable ascension. And then the hurried, black silence that was total and uncompromising. Snuffing out civilizations in a methodical diminishing. One by one. Until nothing remained but the silence. When we found the remnants of our distant, forgotten forebears, and the telltale signs of their own inescapable fates, we had no time to mourn. The Adversary was already upon us.

It still is. We are at our Cradle now, though it is unlike to be where we truly originate from. It is all that remains. Our enemy walks the surface and soon will be amongst here, down beneath. Finishing their ultimate work. We do not why. Never will we know.

In our final hour, in our last struggle, we leave this record for you. These few, precious gifts.

May the cycle end with you.

Or let your end be sudden and complete.

Added 30+ more original stories to my site! Check ‘em out! @ https://thesovereignarchive.blogspot.com/?m=1

The Night Church has many followers.

Beneath moist, worn floorboards and in the bellies of listing ships moored at graveyard harbor, they wait.

The Night Church has many hymns.

They rise up from cavernous mausoleum keeps and ring out in churches claimed twice; once by the fires of ruin, twice by the hunger of green roots.

The Night Church has many commandments.

Thou shalt stain the snows with hoof prints, thy shalt knock thrice at the windows of fearful parish, thou shalt not cease thy march until row upon row of abbey lies empty and lifeless..

The Night Church has many teachers.

The headless, bare-bodied feminine statue in that hidden garden, where the whispers come from more places than just breeze. The starless-night colored monolith standing sentinel on its cliff faced sanctuary, lulling sailors to dash their fates on razor rocks. The book that weeps bloody tears, tucked under a floorboard, waiting for frightful pages to be turned.

The Night Church has many paths.

Up through rotten cellars and across harvest moon skies, down bottles tainted black by feral touch and into dreams you dare not speak of.

The Night Church is boundless.

The Night Church is eternal.

The Night Church is coming.