SquidgeWorld Archive

Part 1
by Christopher A. Huff

Something happened.

Something was different.

He has spent so much time in the blackness that he had become madly familiar with every shade of black. It was not normal darkness. Black was all around him. He could not see or feel anything except himself. He knew he was not blind. He could see his hands and body. He could move his hands and legs. He could flex his bone blades. He was not paralyzed. He could walk, but there was nowhere to go. He could not remember how long he had been here. Forever, he assumed.

So much blackness had made remembering the past difficult. He remembered a ship, some women, an annoying boy and an adversary worthy of being a friend. A maggog. He knew what they were, but why did he remember this one as...friendly?

There was a burning man. Alien from somewhere else. Gods and Demons fighting for the universe.

They had sucked him away and left him here in this blackness.

"DYLAN!!!!"

He suddenly remembered. If anyone could get him out, it was that insufferable do-gooder. But, then he remembered. That had been long ago. Or yesterday. Either way, he had given up on that hope.

Then there was light. Or more specifically, a light in the distance.

A shadow whisked by, blocking the light for a moment, then dashed off, a pointed tail dancing in its wake before dashing after its body.

"Trance!" He called out and ran toward the light. Something hit him and he fell. He kicked out, struck something solid and then sprang to his feet, bone blades flexed and stance low and wide.

Something came at him from behind, loudly to Nietzcheian ears that had nothing but silence to hear for eons. Part of his brain realized that he should have been able to hear his heartbeat and breathing. But that was a mystery for another time. He shifted his stance slightly and felt his attacker miss him by centimeters. He swung his arms back, bone blades seeking a torso. Nothing. He spun in a whirlwind of kicks, punches and dodges, but hit nothing.

Something hit him hard, several times. It felt like a Force Lance set to kill, but just kept hitting him. He fell to the ground, or at least the nothing this that counted for ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the light dimming. His last chance or his life. It didn't matter. It was dimming.

"Fight if you must...but only if you must" Rev Bem's ghost said in the distance.

"Beautiful things can save the universe," Trance's memory said.

"You are the survival expert," Beka's image said.

Dylan's voice. "Call me crazy, but I'm betting you have a back-up plan."

Of course, I do, he thought, and rolled out of the way of the next blow, more accidentally than intentional. He sprang to his feet.

And ran.

He crouched low, dodging a few blows, but accepting more, only caring that he got to that light before it vanished.

His attacker tried to get in front of him, but he just barreled through, leaping into a roll and not stopping.

Something bit down on his shoulder, like a lion trying to take down his prey. He reached up, grabbed at the attacker and ripped it off, tearing away his own skin and muscle.

The light was in front of him.

"Stop," a voice said in his head. "You cannot go back there."

"Why not?' He asked, and dove through the light, crashing into a wall.

A wall of a familiar corridor. A corridor of Andromeda Ascendant.