Aurelio drifted in the abyss. His body was infinitesimal compared to the great wall that was the Monolith.

It refused to adopt features that would make him comprehend the entity better. Its crystalline body was composed of impossible edges and columns and gravity that threatened to decapitate him if he lifted his incorporeal head farther than a bow.

Despite the immeasurable weight bringing him to kneel, Aurelio flared in defiance.

“Finally? After all you’ve put us through, all you have to say for yourself is finally?” Aurelio struggled to project his voice against the immovable wall. “Fuck you and your challenges, you stupid damn pebble!”

He delivered insult after insult, feeling the energy drain from his mind with each ineffectual shove until finally all that was left was an endless silence.

“IRRELEVANT.” The Monolith bellowed.

“YOU NOW ANSWER THE CALL.”

“And why should I?” Aurelio spat back. “What’s to stop me from finding another method of leaving all of this?”

His body jerked and shifted uncomfortably as the Monolith let out a reverberating laugh.

“YOU CAN’T!”

Aurelio was sapped of his mental willpower in trying to remain conscious after the shout.

“OTHER CHOSEN HAVE TRIED. YOU ARE LESSER THAN THEM. THEY FAILED, SO YOU WILL FAIL.”

Disappointment.

He could not hold his tongue, “Then why the fuck did you pick me? Why am I here?”

His face would be full of tears if he wasn’t floating in a void. The hesitation and inadequacy building up within Aurelio bursted over his heart with a nauseating ache.

He waited for eternity for the Monolith to deliver its final judgment.

“YOU WERE NOT CHOSEN.” The Monolith answered.

A weight lifted off his shoulders and with it, an immeasurable amount of anguish.

“YOU ARE AN ERROR. A MISTAKE.” The Monolith continued with its impassioned assessment of Aurelio’s being.

“YET YOU ARE CHOSEN. CORRECTIONS DO NOT EXIST. I MUST WORK WITH WHAT’S LEFT BEFORE THE END.”

Aurelio was subsumed by a mountain of melancholy to properly pay attention to the god’s words. The idea of coming to the world of Dying Ignition was a passing fantasy he’d had with his brother but one that he’d only clung to when they were deep in their campaigns.

Here he’d been taken from his normal life and forced to survive. He’d found solace in carrying this dream for the both of them.

And even that was a mistake.

How long would he wallow in his sniveling hesitations?

Forever.

The embered core within Aurelio cooled into a dim flame.

“Why am I here…” Aurelio whispered.

“IRRELEVANT. YOU ARE HERE NOW AND MUST ASSIST WITH REACHING THE END.” The Monolith dismissed Aurelio’s question, commanding him to focus on the task at hand. “YOU ARE LESSER. YOUR SUBJECTS ARE NOT. LEAD THEM TO THE LIGHT ABOVE.”

His flame reacted to the insult, roaring with the passion that had consumed him on his parting shot with the Vessel.

He was not lesser. He was all this stone had for a corporeal avatar.

“I will do nothing,” Aurelio gathered his fire, “Until you give me a satisfying answer.”

The Monolith snuffed him out.

What passion burned within him disappeared in an instant as the entity snapped his heart and mind into shards.

“ALL CHOSEN ARE WEAK BEFORE ME. YOU CANNOT DEFY MY WILL.”

Aurelio screamed until his throat went raw. Until time in the void felt like a searing agonizing nightmare from which there was no escape. His skin chafed at the world's stillness, at the steady unceasing weight of the Monolith pressing down on his very being.

A primal thought ran through Aurelio that defied logic and expectations.

He struggled. He squirmed under the immovable stone, feeling his soul fray at the edges to stare up at the Monolith and DEFY.

There were no expectations for victory. He did not delude himself into thinking that passion would overthrow a god in its domain.

But the will to reject his circumstance and rebel was the closest thing to a fight response he had in the void.

And so his body was sliced by self-inflicted wounds with each push forward.

Eventually, the gravity around him eased as the Monolith pulled away from Aurelio’s pitiable state.

“WHY…” The Monolith pondered, its attention directed at Aurelio for the first time in their conversation. He knew it didn’t ask for an answer and anything he provided would be irrelevant to the tasks it cared for.

And so Aurelio did the only thing he could think of to squeeze blood from this stone.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I cannot lead these subjects if I do not know what must be done,” Aurelio grit his teeth through every syllable, lava filling up his lungs, “So I state once more; give me an answer to why I am here. To what we are doing.”

The Monolith considered his appeal and shifted, ever so slightly, to accommodate for the chosen’s perspective.

“THE VOID CALLS US FOR THE END. I CANNOT LEAVE THIS ALL BEHIND IF THE LIGHT IS NOT SNUFFED OUT AS WELL.” The Monolith answered.

Aurelio was overwhelmed by the single concrete motivation the entity had.

The Monolith wanted to stop existing. The endlessness of its obsidian frame bore with it the compounding burden of time.

“YOU ARE CHOSEN. YOU HAVE MY GIFTS. WEAKEN THE LIGHT. LET THE VOID CONSUME IT AND I. LET US CEASE.”

The connection between the Monolith and Aurelio snapped.

---

Aurelio took in a deep breath before the heat in his lungs and the turbulence in his stomach caused him to keel over and hack up molten bile on the outpost floor.

He groggily wiped the viscous liquid off his lips, disregarding the light sizzle of skin.

The outpost gates were open and with them came his SUBJ-his crew.

Aurelio shook his head and composed himself, approaching the group with open arms.

Kalani was leading the pack, with Cantwell and Elena dragging the pristine shell of the Vessel. Phineas clung behind the rest of the group with a real spring in his step.

The moment the two locked eyes, Phineas charged at Aurelio and gave him a wind-knocking hug.

“You beautiful bastard you!” Phineas lifted Aurelio up in his exo-suit. He struggled to escape the pint-sized warriors' grasp to no avail.

“Quit the rough housing, Phin. We need him intact.” Elena chided.

Being put down, Aurelio redirected his focus to the haul and his system flashed with their latest acquisitions.

SUBJECTS HAVE ACQUIRED

His eyes zeroed in on the Vessel Heart. A very lucky drop to acquire and one that could be put to good use.

Kalani snapped her fingers at Aurelio, “Our eyes are up here.”

“Man am I glad to see that all of you are safe and sound.” Aurelio sputtered out bashfully.

“Not for a lack of trying.” Kalani replied.

“Phineas got us in trouble.” Cantwell stated.

Phineas swiveled on his heels and poked at Cantwell’s chest, “I did no such thing!”

Cantwell nodded at his own assessment of things, much to Phineas’s dramatized chagrin.

“I don’t know Phin,” Elena started innocuously, “One minute everything’s fine and the next minute, our scout's knee deep in metal shredding muck trying to save a monster.”

“How was I supposed to know that? First time out in unknown territory hearing a young man’s cry for help? How could I not heed that call.”

“Easily.” Cantwell answered directly.

“Things were a lot less malicious this time around,” Kalani informed Aurelio, “And your resource allocations proved to be really beneficial in dispatching that pristine Vessel. Didn’t expect your [Ember Lance] to pack a punch like it did.”

The small victory lifted his spirits.

“I’m just glad that you all are safe,” Aurelio looked at Phineas, “And did the [Black Needle] prove to be a worthwhile weapon for you?”

The face on that man was like a kid unwrapping Christmas gifts early.

“You sure know how to get on my good side, kid. Holy fuck these things were a treat to use.” Phineas showcased the [Black Needles] mode shifting ability, rotating his wrist between the viscous black tentacle into a thin pointed needle and back again.

“Thank Cantwell for that one. Talking to him made me realize our resources would’ve been better spent on something like that for ya.” Aurelio replied.

Kalani placed her hand on his shoulder, “And did you do as I asked?” The way she asked her question felt equal parts friendly and threatening. Aurelio slinked away from the commander.

“Yes and no. Good news is that I should be able to make an alphabet but I’d need someone's help to do so. My rune reading abilities don’t let me shift back to runiform so if you’re interested in building a language with me, I can set us up.”

“Did you do anything useful then?” Elena venomously asked.

He took a deep breath and nodded, “Yeah. I learned a number of things during my off time here and I finished interacting with the third Solar Cycles event.”

“Whadda wha?” Phineas fumbled.

“Um, do you remember how the Outpost lit up and requested us to enter the radar nest with the Monolith? That was an event. It’s scripted, etched into our future.”

Kalani slowly nodded, “And you dealt with the next event then? Already?” She scrutinized Aurelio now, “Did you know about the event and kept us out of the loop from it?”

The jovial atmosphere was dampened for a moment.

He shook his head, “I’d completely forgotten about the events. I think with enough time to recall, I can pull up the first ten Solar Cycles and their respective events, along with a few outliers here and there.”

“So what happened here?” Elena gestured for Aurelio to get on with it.

“I spoke to an Apparition of the Past. Someone that lived in the Outpost who’d yet to move on.”

“And what did it say?” Kalani raised an eyebrow.

“It sapped my energy and gave me an innovation card for my troubles.” Aurelio answered.

“Sounds like you suffered a raw deal there.”

Raw didn’t begin to describe the suffering he endured.

“I unlocked {Connection} for us.”

Phineas and Cantwell were unfamiliar with the gravity of his acquisition but Elena and Kalani shared a disturbed gulp.

“Did you…” Elena didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Yeah…” Aurelio muttered.

“What did it say?” Kalani asked.

“What did who say?” Phineas interjected, confused with the flow of the conversation. Cantwell, for his part, pulled his friend back and shushed him.

“It didn’t reveal all that much and I don’t know what it’d allow me to divulge. I don’t want to fuck around with the boundaries so soon after having it break me into a million little mental pieces.”

His breathing tightened upon recollecting the fresh memory.

“But we gained something out of it, right?” Kalani stressed the positives for his sake. He gave her a soft smile.

“Yeah. We gained something out of it.”

He wasn’t sure if it was worth it.