The Tales of the Shadows

17.2. No More.

Darkness pervaded the land.

Palpitating aura, shifting between quietude and destruction. A still existence, somewhere on the brink of life but unsettling in truth. They interacted with the darkness of sentience, pulsating. In this land they were okay, in the other it switched like an alarm triggering panic.

A little boy walked slowly across the land, merely wishing to go to that one particular site full of energy.

Burning sphere. Curiosity.

Curiosity?

Tendrils of smoke being sucked into that whole, swirling in, spinning. Curling into a geometry of encapsulation... an emotion transfigured from the abstract into something in a convoluted way. Bizarre, tinkering dangerously with energy and aura...

Unnatural? What separates the two, anyway?

What separates thoughts and emotions?

Something must have, since they were of emotions.

The geometry spun faster, fluctuating between a myriad of manifolds. How must it work? How must it define itself? How must it prove itself? How must it make sense?

Must think of everything since something is fundamentally wrong. As if the language it is built on is itself false...

Spin. Spin. Think. Think. Who will think? What is spinning?

This energy comes from the land. Feeling sympathy for this lost speck of an odd thing called emotion. Which emotion?

How does that matter?

Who?

Who? A useless question.

Something sparkled in the boy's eyes as the energy burned brighter, faster, harder. Big and big and big until it began contracting and reached its... shape.

How does something sparkle in lifeless eyes? What are they made of? What are their functions, really? How do these bodies work?

What do they mean?

As it burst did another vessel come out. Small, fragile, clad in a deep green cloth. 

So tiny. Oh, it's growing? Very fast. Already double the size. Triple. Double that boy's size, now. Already reached adulthood? Now time changes its pace and the progression is humane. 

Earthly.

The new being walked slowly away from the crowd, on its own to explore the land and the other creatures obliged, giving it its space.

Large curled hair, feel like a doll's. Feel? Eyes empty like a shallow drawing on paper. Such a small nose, such drooping ears. Thin legs, thin arms, thin bones, hollow on the inside...

The cold floor it could not feel. The stenches it could not smell. The vibration could not unsettle it as it did not reach it. The darkness it could not see.

The darkness... it could not comprehend.

Aura was a concept incomprehensible. Energy was a feature incomprehensible.

Everything... not uncertain, not confusing. Simply incomprehensible.

What do these bodies mean?

A little spark ignited and caught the curly-haired one, dragging it across the land. All creatures stared in unison at the swift streak for the briefest moment after which they returned to their drab motion.

Into the abyss of one, out of the abyss of the other, hurled through the skies, appearing.

It stood behind the wailing girl.