Star Child

Six - The Disparity of Existence

"So you're a planet?" I wondered as the vixen called Astraphae crouched down at me. She was taller than Vhen for sure, or at least this form of her. Apparently she was also the planet I was on, Phlyf, home to the space foxes that I had met a few minutes before. At this point I was no longer angry at Dyrnitix or Ara for being so illusive; in fact, I was feeling rather empowered that I was taking things into my own hands, even if it was to accidentally stumble upon the face of the planet itself.

"That I am," she spoke, her strong voice sending tiny vibrations through my bones.

"But, you're also a Fenya?"

"I am not a Fen, if that is what you mean." She stood and beckoned me to follow her, and as she turned her enormous tail whipped like a hurricane in my direction, but as I ducked my head to avoid being bashed to death it passed right through me. She then walked away, and I had to sprint to keep up with her pace. In only a few minutes, she led me to a clearing which overlooked a glen hidden from all mountaintops by the many towering trees that grew around. In the center of the glen was a fissure of some kind in the ground, and it seeped the same mist I had seen in the forest, only much, much more intensely. "There is where you will find the truth you seek, though it may not satisfy your yearning."

So without thinking, I trudged down the glen and walked up to the steaming fissure. It made a sound like a tea kettle about to burst, and as the vapors spewed out it hit my face and burned my skin. I jumped back, but Astraphae urged me on. I exhaled one final time, held my breathe, and peered into the opening. At first all I felt was the hot steam spraying my head, but suddenly my entire body was freezing. I felt like a block of ice, my body frozen solid and unable to move. Silence like I've never experienced surrounded me, and black perforated my entire view. I felt isolated, empty. It was how I imagined being dead, or maybe never being born at all.

I suddenly saw a small ball of light in front of me, and I wished very much to see what it was. Whether I willed it to me or I moved closer to it, or even if it just grew, it suddenly became intensely hot. I felt like I was melting by the time I tried to stop it, but it kept coming, and I was powerless to move. It came closer and closer, until at last I was consumed by the giant star. As I burned my mind was filled with everything - every kind of knowledge from the Void from all of time and space. I tried to process it all, but my brain felt like a full stomach, something I thought wasn't possible. I saw the history of the universe played before me, all the way up until that very moment, and I even thought I spied a bit into the future. So much life and joy, yet simultaneously so much death and sorrow. I saw every creature in existence struggle for life and ultimately be consumed by death, death which recycles life as a never-ending circle of futility, only breaking for those unfortunate enough to be squelched in the bitter fires of extinction, or those destined to join the path of Existence.

At once I was back on Phlyf, and as quickly as the thoughts came, they vanished, slipping out of the crevices of my mind from the intense pressure they put on my skull. I guess my human mind was too weak to hold all that information, though it was strange I had not remembered anything. But there did seam to be something lingering from the trip, something like a feeling more than a thought.

"Well?" the giant ghost-vixen asked above me, her furry figure shining like a giant night light amid the dark sky. I guess I was out for more than a few hours, since before it was still really bright out (or the world's days were much shorter than Earth's).

I thought about how best to answer her. "I don't know," I said, slightly dejected. She had warned me not to get my hopes up, but deep down I knew I would. "I feel sad, but I'm not sure why."