A World of Black and Green

A World of Black and Green

I was alone and drifting amidst the empty hulks that were once life-bearing planets of vibrant color and majesty. I observed traces of great solar systems of civilizations, now fallen to ruin amidst the vast black expanse and frozen in time in the face of eternity. How many countless eons have passed since I departed?

I recall little of prior events. Something went…wrong. A technical malfunction, perhaps. All I remember is I ended up somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, a left turn that should have been a right, an up that should have been a down.

Then I was captured by a massive cosmic orifice, a graveyard of light and time, which drew me in, consumed all that I was, all that I am. A singularity – how little we actually know of such things – ravenous and volatile, devoured my consciousness. A malicious gateway to another plane, one upon which no human has any right to tread.

And now I am here.

-Memory Core (2076)

~Begin Transmission~

I regained my senses amidst a darkened sky of crackling lightning that forked pale green tongues of sickening light across pregnant, angry clouds. I checked my instrumentation and noticed the year displayed, 2076. It was the only bit of information I could gather of where and when I was. All the other sensors screamed red warnings at me, a stark contrast to this world of black and green.

I looked up, hoping for a chance peek at any stellar patterns that were familiar, but the swollen sky offered no such reprieve. I glanced around, taking in my current surroundings.

I had landed below the peak of a massive mountain of black stone that was pocked with traces of luminescent green soapstone. I called it soapstone for that was the closest geological indicator I had to compare it to. Outcroppings of this glowing stone dotted the landscape that surrounded me, and a faint pulse flashed through the material as if to the rhythm of an unforeseen heartbeat.

I snapped several shots of the glowing material and the nefarious sky above with my helmet camera, for later review when I returned to my world and my time, assuming I ever did return. I was more than a little certain that this was not my intended target world. The thought sent a chill crawling up the stairs of my spine, and for a moment I was overwhelmed with a profound sense of dread that would have caused cold sweat to burst from my forehead and brow had I been in my organic form.

I considered enacting my emergency measures, a small button inlaid within my right forearm, which would break the connection to this metal body and return me to Earth, but I was distracted by the sounds of melodic tones carried past me on the wind.

The eerie, melancholy music, rising and falling with each gust, drew me in, and I decided to hold off for now.

I made my way towards the mountain’s peak, wanting to get a glimpse of this alien world beyond what was presented to me by my initial surroundings. My helmet put the peak’s distance around one hundred meters away up a subtle incline. I traversed the distance in a matter of minutes, but upon reaching the summit, was frozen in place by the sight before me.

The mountain on which I stood rested on the edge of a great valley. As far as I could see was more of the black stone dotted with the glowing green outcroppings, but in the middle of the valley the landscape changed. Great spires of stone rose from a massive plateau situated in—what I gauged to be—the exact center of the valley. The spires reached in height to challenge their mountainous neighbors, but unlike the ranges, the spires and the plateau appeared too smooth, too symmetrical. I could make out subtle lines interwoven between the great spires, a webbing of sorts, made entirely of glowing green.

I chinned a button in my helmet and my vision magnified on the site. The spires themselves were tattooed in the same luminescent green, but in such a way as to denote a patterning made with clear intention. Intricate designs swirled up and down the sides, layer upon layer of them.

I found myself caught in the designs, unable to pull my eyes away, and as I fell deeper into the mandala-like pattern, a small part of my mind noticed an increase in the chittering alien music that drifted by on the wind. As the music’s prevalence increased, so too did the sense of foreboding that accumulated in the back of my mind.

I’m unsure as to how long I remained like that, captured by the music and pulsating green patterns of those haunting spires and inter-webbing. I may have remained there forever had not the sound of falling rock below me captured my attention and brought me back to the present.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught hints of movement at the base of the mighty mountain. I directed my attention to the area and initiated a scan with my helmet, one intended to reveal the presence of any signs of life, but the results were unremarkable.

Still, there did appear to be some kind of current, a subtle rolling wave of…something, but I was too far away to make any sense of what I saw. I had to get closer. The need to do so overwhelmed any sense of caution that constricted my chest.

I gauged it took me about an hour to traverse the front of the mountain down into the edge of the valley, but I was underwhelmed when I arrived at the giant’s base. I found no traces of the movement I’d detected earlier.

After scouring the spot that I deigned the location of the movement, my investigation revealed the presence of numerous large holes in the rocky terrain. Each measured two to three meters in diameter and possessed scratches along the rim. From within each hole, a stronger version of the glowing green luminescence throbbed wildly. I considered—albeit, only briefly—delving into one of the larger holes, but a cautionary feeling pricked the back of my neck and this time I listened.

I took several steps back from the edge of one of these terrestrial portals—

A force unseen slammed into my back and I cried out in alarm, but my shouts died in the back of my throat as the synthetic tubing that fed and powered my cybertronic brain were wrenched from the back of my helmet. Everything went dark as I pitched forward into the pale green orifice.

I fell for a short eternity all while my arms flailed in a desperate attempt to find purchase on anything that could halt my mad descent. The last thing I recall before I fell unconscious was pressure wrapping around my middle and an abrupt decrease in my downward acceleration.

I awoke to an abundance of the pale green light and a slight forward momentum, though I felt somehow suspended in the air. To my surprise, my braincase was receiving power again. It was a shocking indication that someone, or something, had reattached the tubes. I stifled a shudder and focused on my surroundings.

My limp body was being propelled through a glowing tunnel with smooth walls inscribed with strange symbols and sharp etchings of—what I assumed was—an unknown language. I heard more of the haunting melodies along with the strange chittering chant and the scraping of pointed appendages.

I lifted my head to chance a glance around and immediately regretted it.

The first thing I noticed was that my arms and legs were and tied up with thin strings of material reminiscent of the webbing I’d seen intertwined between the great spires of the valley. These strings of glowing green were connected by a thicker strand that stretched down from the roof of the tunnel. It was this thicker strand that served as the mechanism of my forward progression.

There was something familiar about the nature of the strands that brought panic to the forefront of my mind, and when coupled with the characteristics of the tunnel, increased my panic’s prevalence and caused me to shake all over.

Such tunnels and strands were similar to those found in burrows created by the Earth creatures that revolted me to my core and had done so since I was a small child.

Spiders, such as those like the Cteniza sauvagesi or trapdoor spiders, were known to create habitats such as this—a thought that made me question what fresh hell I’d stumbled upon.

A misguided glance at the ceiling directly above me confirmed my worst fears.

The creature that moved above me and which served as the true mechanism for my progression through the tunnel had a number of long, thin legs that glistened with black chitin. Each plunged into the glowing stone with ease, as if the solid material of the tunnel ceiling provided as much resistance as a softened block of cheese.

I counted eleven of the nightmare appendages, each varying in length and thickness. Each possessed a crop of bristling hair or cilia which extended over a squat abdomen and a gangly thorax. The disordered proportions of its segmented body made me wonder how such a vile creature managed to keep its parts together.

A small oblong head, eyeless and dented on one side, sat at the end of the thorax, and from this, two pairs of incisors, one set long and pointed, the other stubby and ridged moved with frantic motion.

I realized that much of the chittering issued forth from a mouth that dripped slime-like secretions. Several globules of this slime landed on my legs and proceeded to melt away small portions of the alloy casing.

I murmured a quick word of thanks that this body wasn’t equipped with tactile sensors.

The tunnel exited into an open space and I found myself once again beneath the angry sky as flashes of lightning crisscrossed chaotic paths across the dark clouds.

As the spider-creature dragged my body across the plateau, I was subjected to a new round of fresh horrors. Beneath me the ground pulsed with the same throbbing green light, adding a level of transparency to the terrestrial surface. Within the glowing soapstone I saw other creatures, ones I assumed were also not of this world.

One creature possessed a physique akin to that of a great ape, with two long muscled arms attached to a barrel chest and short, powerful legs. Two thick tusks protruded from the creature’s mouth, and a layer of fine hair covered its entire body. The creature possessed two sets of eyes, one of which tracked my movement. The realization that the poor thing was still alive sent fresh waves of terror through my synthetic body.

Another creature sat preserved in the translucent stone not far from the ape-thing, this one possessing a form much stranger than that of the simian-like beast. It had features more alien than anything on Earth possessed, except for maybe its head which resembled the cephalopods of Earth’s oceans. The head was ovular with two beady black eyes and a fan of thin conical tendrils that snaked out in various directions. Its body was slender and bony, but the angle it was preserved at prevented me from discerning much more.

There were others, countless others, of various shapes, sizes, and physiques. It seemed the entire surface of the plateau was riddled with the preserved forms of a variety of life from the farthest reaches of a multitude of galaxies.

I pondered how such creatures had arrived at such a place. Likely through similar circumstances as my own, I decided.

A shadow crossed my vision, drawing my attention upwards. The great spires, first glanced from afar, now towered over me in a circular fashion. Several layers of dense glowing strands crossed from spire to spire, each pulsing and glowing with malicious life.

At the center of the phosphorescent webwork sat a creature, a queen of creatures, the very sight of which threatened to break my sanity entirely. It was another spider-creature, though this one was an order of magnitude larger than the one dragging me across the plateau’s surface. Where my captor had eleven or so legs, this one boasted a hundred or more, each twitching with malice.

I counted seven segments of its body in total, three of which possessed their own dented heads and sets of mandibles. From the heads ejaculated slime-covered strings that shot out towards the various spires, into the waiting appendages of other spider-creatures which rested on the spires’ surfaces.

The most gruesome feature of this queen of nightmares was the multitude of glowing green, lidless eyes that proliferated its segmented body like a plague of boils, each weeping fluid and swiveling around with no apparent coordination. It is not an exaggeration to say there were hundreds, if not thousands, of the menacing ocular organs.

Surely, I had died amidst my initial departure from Avatars, Inc. on Earth and ended up in this hell. Hell is the only term strong enough to describe the terrible sight before me.

As we approached the queen of monsters, the vast majority of those pustule-like eyes came to bear on me and my captor, and upon receiving the focus of those eyes, my psyche was bombarded with a collage of horrific images of past, present, and future.

In that short period, I witnessed the destruction and consumption of countless worlds, galaxies, and civilizations. This nightmare queen was a destroyer of worlds, a cosmic oppressor of light and life. It possessed an insatiable hunger and the endless need to devour. It was ancient and evil in the truest sense of the terms.

I realized that my world, my Earth, was in danger should this creature ever learn of my origins. I had to escape, had to enact my emergency measures to release my memory core and set it on a path back to Earth. I knew that, should this creature be allowed to probe my mind, my thoughts, it would find a way back to my realm, to my universe, and unleash an eternal barrage of death until nothing remained but darkness.

But how was I to escape? I was secured in such a fashion that I could do nothing but behold terror in its truest form.

A chittering chant rose up from all around me and I noticed thousands upon thousands of the smaller spider-creatures vomiting forth from unseen holes and rifts in the blackened ground. They skittered across the plateau’s surface at great speed and came to rest at the perimeter of the plateau.

I recognized the signs of a ritual and knew with dreadful certainty that I was the sacrificial lamb.

A piercing screech ripped through the air as the queen of monsters quivered upon her webwork throne. The sense of anticipation exhibited by the demonic deity and its followers was tangible even to my synthetic form. It oozed from them like the slime secretions oozed from their dripping mandibles.

A beam of black light, of radiant non-light, shot out from the base of the queen’s abdomen. It was so brilliant that, for a moment, my ocular sensors were rendered useless. It was several minutes before they regained their full function.

When I could see again, I was met with a wonderous sight. The swollen sky had cleared in the area just above the queen’s position, granting me a view of space beyond and the gargantuan blackhole that served as this planet’s host.

I recognized it for what it was, the ominous gateway through which I’d found myself on this hellish world. But rather than falling deeper into despair, a faint glimmer of hope kindled in my synthetic breast. If only I could find a way to free my hand and depress the button on my forearm, I could eject my core and maybe, just maybe, save my world.

I’ve never been one to adhere to the belief in a higher power, but in that moment, I prayed with every fiber of my synthetic being.

Something must have heard me and took pity on my desperate soul, for moments later I found my hands freed by my captor. I was being prepared for the queen and the foul demon wasted no time in scuttling down the intricate web towards me.

It was all the time I needed. I slammed my hand down onto the button inlaid within my forearm and pointed the top of my head as best as I could towards the center of the singularity hovering with menace far above the planet’s surface.

There was a thirty second delay, during which the monster queen must have noticed my actions and sensed my intent. Another gut-wrenching shriek pierced the air followed by a flood of spider-creatures rushing my position.

I threw a metallic elbow at the closest creature, my captor, and connected which a satisfying crunch. The gravity of this planet added force to my blow and the creatures foul head buckled under the weight of the strike.

In the time I had left, I recorded my thoughts as a warning to any who might find my memory core. My core’s traversal through space would render my consciousness in a state of stasis and I knew I’d be unable to affect any measures of my own volition during that time.

“IMMINENT DANGER TO EARTH, TO SOL, TO OUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE! DO NOT RETRACE MY STEPS. DO NOT VENTURE THE UNKNOWN PATHS THAT MY MEMORY CORE HAS TRAVERSED. VIEW MY CORE. SEE THE DANGER. WITNESS THE HORROR OF WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE SINGULARITY. THE END OF ALL EXISTENCE AS WE KNOW IT RESTS AT THE END OF THIS PATH.”

“I REPEAT, DO NOT FOLLOW IN MY FOOTSTEPS. DEATH AWAITS US AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL. TO ANY WHO RECEIVES THIS MESSAGE, THIS CORE, DO. NOT. FOLLOW.”

I felt the pull of my core as it ejected from the back of my head and the resulting loss of power to my subsystems. And as my lingering power supply dwindled away, I had just enough time to see a barrage of spider bodies fly through the air on a collision course with my person. Thankfully, everything went black before the impact.

I hope I make it home. I hope my efforts were enough to prevent the end of everything I’ve ever known and loved. As I said before, I’ve never ascribed to the belief in a higher power, but today faith kindled in me. I pray it wasn’t all in vain.

~End Transmission~