SWISHY WAS DEAD INSIDE.

He didn't know what that meant but knew that someday he'd learn.

Every dark dweller made such a production of their hollow feelings, their profound emptiness and whatnot. I'm not fulfilled. I'm cursed. I'm wretched. I don't feel anything. I don't feel alive.

Swishy never felt alive either. He never felt anything at all. And he was content with that. The darkness was for relaxation. The darkness—when Swishy properly merged with it—was never empty. The darkness shifted and grunted and screamed. The dark gripped you; it claimed you. To Swishy, the dark was the furthest thing from empty, and the exact opposite of death. Truth be told, he quite liked it: the shroud of pitch kept him secure and confident and uncomplicated.

And then one day he was summoned to Cearth, the Cursed Earth, where life was wholly complex.

His sudden birth shocked him: once a free-floating soul, Swishy was dragged from the dark and fused to a pile of wheat. The golden straw swirled into the form of a human child. As a finishing touch, a blue tendril of soul drifted from the headless neck and curled around a nearby jack-O-lantern head. The gourd was drawn toward Swishy and set upon the neck like a crown. He raised his pumpkin head to the sky, an amorphous blue light cycling within his carved oculars.

Swishy instinctively reached inside his chest, searching and searching. He really got in there too—he was straw, after all—penetrating through his back, massaging the air. He didn't know what he searched for exactly; he just knew that something in him was missing. He removed his hand from his chest. Straw bits spilled from the self-healing cavity.

He then raised both hands skyward and shielded his eyes.

Brightness—everything was too, too bright. His soul retreated from the shine, from the blinding orb known as the sun. Sun-blasted and afraid, the world of light seared away his prior comfort. An unsettling feeling set upon him, crumpling the straw inside. Is this…emptiness?

Disoriented. Terrified. Homesick. He didn’t like the un-dark at all—and this was only the start. He shuddered. There was more of the light to come.

He glanced around and noticed the shrine he stood upon. He was encircled by melted candles. Smoke trails rose from the extinguished wicks, and the spent ashes stained the altar's stone. A cracked sculpture stood at center stage—a stone pumpkin head, straight posture, arms rigidly to the side. A perfect cross, a perfect scarecrow. At the sculpture’s base, a shadowy fog ghosted the ground.

Swishy didn’t know what any of this meant; he was freaked by the discomfort of now having to know things. The visual world frightened and overwhelmed him. But the more he tried to get a grip on things, the more confusing his experience became.

Suddenly, a creaking. A crackling. The ground ripped open in multiple spots from which came the tearing sounds of thousands upon thousands of splinters. The forest spawned around him: sprouts into saplings and saplings into trees—the treetops of which tore into the sky, shielding him from the sun and reinforcing darkness. Red and orange and gold leaves fell from above, and thick patches of wheat rose into formidable stalks.

Swishy curiously touched everything around him, brushing his hands across the leaves and bark. As a wheat boy, he was deprived of feeling—but enjoyed the pressure of pressed and shifted straw. He took a couple of experimental steps and new buds appeared at his feet, pale gold and pretty.

Overhead, a flock of blackbirds. They soared as stunning streaks of night. When their feathers fell upon him, he grew absolutely giddy. Darkness falling, darkness raining. He loved it, he loved it, he loved it, he loved it.

He jumped and waved at his feathered heroes. Swish-swish, went the straw. He didn't have a way to call them, but the wind carried his gestures loudly, magically. He was confident his hello could be felt.

CACAW, they screeched, zipping off.

Swish-swish, he waved, swish-swish.

But the birds zoomed away in a V formation.

Why that shape? Swishy thought. For a moment his mind traveled back to the dark. He wondered what formation he and the other souls would've adopted if they could see each other. And then he grew a little sad for them. Swishy liked the dark but the others didn’t. He had an opportunity that others wanted, and while Swishy would've liked to return to the pitch for his usual chill, he began to see the light as possible fortune.

He stared after the birds; he stared at the endless golden plains; he stared at the fertile grounds that produced life with his every step. Emboldened and hopeful, Swishy burst into a full sprint.

With his tireless scarecrow body, he pursued the birds. He ran and ran and ran, stomping through the plains. Each step brought Cearth to life: golden trees emerged, towering and lustrous. But soon the freshly birthed woods assumed lesser forms over time. The sky-piercers shrank into cloud tappers and the cloud tappers reduced to standard-sized trees, and those trees became saplings, and those saplings became sprouts. He'd lost the permanent darkness of the shade but that was okay—birds were the preoccupation, the all-consuming task at hand. After a few cycles of sun and moon, his magic steps were spent. The plains were just plains, no longer bending to his influence. His soul loosened in relief, undulating ghost-like through the gaps and crevices in his straw body.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Occasionally, the birds came into sight. There were no Swishy-produced tree lines to hide them any further. His body swished as the birds cawed in a never-ending game of tag. The pursuit caressed his spirit. Maybe it was that he'd never seen a bird before. Maybe the midnight hues of the feathers reminded him of home. What answers could he possibly have? He didn't know about himself; he didn't know about the world; he didn't know a thing about the light. But there remained one undeniable fact: Swishy brimmed with energy. He sprinted with outstretched arms as if they were bird wings, soaring through the landscape. There were no plains like this in the dark. There was no rustling of straw, no delightfully deliciousswish-swish-swishing. Everything was golden; everything was the color of him.

The moon, the sun, the flatlands, the blackbirds: the world couldn't be more perfect—

Until, one by one, the murder of crows darted over the stone, wheat-covered walls of a city.

Swishy eased his sprint into a cautious stroll. He'd never seen a building before, let alone a bridge, a cobblestone road, a massive wooden door. He stepped onto the bridge, feeling the sturdiness below him. The hard ground felt much different than the bouncier plains. His feet clap-clapped against the stones as he approached the massive front door.

Swishy closed his eyes, the blue orbs in his pumpkin husk head condensing into thin, wavy lines. He reopened his sight, determined. After an eternity of knock-knock jokes in the dark (Knock-knock! Who’s there? NOTHING!), he knew the drill and poised his fist over the door—

Creak...creak...

Swishy backed away as the door eased open.

A young man—black-skinned, burgundy beanie, dark-gray parka—emerged from the door. He chewed on a long bit of straw, golden and field fresh. He squinted suspiciously at Swishy, evaluating the wheat-boy and his strange body. And then his eyes shot back open, brown pupils enlivening with recognition. "It's you!"

Swishy tilted his head to the side. He pointed to himself in confusion.

"I've been waiting, bro! Nice meeting ya—I'm Trey." And then Trey held out a closed fist.

Swishy stared at the fist, copied the gesture, and bumped against Trey's.

"Nice, nice. You're a quick learner, my guy. Now tell me your name."

The scarecrow thought for a second. Then flung his arms out in a swift T-pose, a scarecrow scare-crowing—dynamically. The swishing sounds were tremendous.

"Swishy? That's amazing, to be honest. We're gonna be good friends, Swishy, you know that?"

Friends? There were a lot of words that didn't exist in the dark. The communication, the sense of space—everything was different. But for as ignorant as he was, he was excited too. Swishy was already glad to have met Trey. He liked the attention, the gifts, the kind voice. And he liked that Trey's blackness reminded him of those precious birds. Swishy was reminded of the night. He was reminded of home. His soul brushed against Trey’s radiating positivity. Friend? Trey? Swishy decided that, yes, both of those words belonged together.

"Now come on," Trey opened the city door.

Swishy tilted his head to the side, confused.

"It's cold as fuck, bro. Let's go." The icy breath jittered its way out his mouth. Ice specks bedazzled his disappearing straw-chew. Swishy hadn't heard anyone complain about cold—whatever that was—but his new friend looked uncomfortable.

Swishy moved to step inside but was stopped.

"Wait! Clothes first." Trey rifled through a duffle bag, pulling out mittens, a scarf, a beanie, a parka, black skinny jeans, and beige Timberland work boots. Swishy clothed himself. He’d never seen clothes before, so he just copied whatever Trey did. "Nice, bro, nice. Even a scarecrow could do with a dope fit."

Swishy pranced about in a circle, admiring these...clothes, and found that he especially enjoyed the clomp sounds his Timbs made against the stone. And the bite of the cold(?)—wondrous, incredible(!)—because the frost collected on his sleeves in shimmering world-bending droplets. It was so beautiful and mesmerizing and without the dreadful shivers of his new friend. Swishy was pleased. Blue sparkles shot from his soulful eyes.

[https://imgur.com/mfWVTlF.jpeg]

But while Swishy stayed immersed in his fitting-room freshness, Trey gazed into the distance. "Aye bro. You do all that?"

Trey pointed his straw-chew toward the flatlands. From the city entrance, you could see the sky-piercers, the cloud-tappers, and the blooming straw swaying in the distance.

Swishy shrugged.

"Oh, you're a humble one," Trey laughed. "Whatever you did, that's a powerful spell."

Spell? The Swishy head-tilt.

"Don’t even know that one, huh? I'm gonna have to teach you some words." Trey pulled the handle of the city entrance, straining hard from its heaviness. He head-nodded to Swishy, signaling the scarecrow to come with him. “In fact, there’s lots to cover about life on Cearth.”

Swishy paused, his blue ocular orbs swelling with an inquiry.

“Cearth.” Trey stomped his foot. The clomp-clomp euphorically buzzed through the straw boy. “Cearth—the Cursed Earth.”

Many questions drifted through Swishy’s tenuous consciousness, new ones about life and curses and Cearth. But Trey gave him a straight answer—an indecipherable answer, but a straight one all the same. The scarecrow calmed. His eyes returned to their natural size.

“Let’s get cracking. We’ve got a long day ahead. Ruby’s waiting.” Another stomp accompanied by its pleasing clomp.

Ruby? Swishy wondered about this…Ruby. But he figured that if Trey was his first friend, Ruby would be his second. Swishy nodded—not knowing its meaning, but the gesture felt right.

He then approached Trey with clomps of his own, skipping, making sweet music upon the rounded stones.

"Yup, yup. Willingness is the way. Now onwards—to Straw City!"