EMPTINESS WAS SWISHY’S SPECIALTY.
It was sad but true. Flying there in the dark, he couldn’t deny the chasm he was born with.
Swishy self-soothed. His hand rubbed against the dark parts of his heart. Some of his touches were meant to massage the hurt. Other touches were rough, like the way he’d seen kids pick at scabs or poke at bruises. Something in him wanted to make sure that his pain was real. He’d disregarded his innate agony for a while and now felt that it needed attention. The heart chasm swirled as if going down a bottomless drain. He knew of the bottomlessness but still wanted to know how much far it went.
How much is it really possible to hurt? I kind of want to know…
Swishy knew he had a toxic relationship with pain and wondered how much of this was his fault.
Fixing himself…changing himself. Where did the process end? When would he be done?
His hand probed and probed and probed, his fingers joining the dance with looping, serpentine darkness. He knew that from this point onward there was no silencing of that chasm within.
Swishy looked back at the village, that autumn hearth, and promised himself to return.
Golden dust fluttered around his person from his newest wing, but that didn’t make him feel any better. He’d all but forgotten to be happy for his flight. He was a boy of gold, a scarecrow of strong heart, but at this moment he wasn’t any less lost than the denizens of the sprawling darkness.
Now Swishy hovered in misery, in miasma, in a storm of snitch-thieves.
He couldn’t feel the development of blackwheat and yet he struggled to climb from the malaise. There was something about being home and relaxing that made the return to combat that much harder. The heart chasm clutched at his fingers with the desperation of a cliff-hanging creature, urging Swishy to grasp it. The shadows of Swishy’s heart sidled up against his too-curious hand. His hollowness offered comfort, a novel trick they’d picked up.
We’re all the same, his darkness said. We’re together in this place we call Cearth. Shadows belong here just like any other thing. Sink into these feelings. Lead us into the world. Choose us. This chasm deserves more. It deserves everything. Grasp us and take it.
But there was another force, a phantom hand that gently pried his fingers from his heart one at a time. It pushed his digits out of the ribbony curse loops, a delicate undressing. Each time the invisible pressure touched him, he surrendered himself to its kind commands.
Then he loosened his grip, removing his hand from his chest completely—which triggered weaves closing right over the opening.
“Myst? Mysty?” He whispered but there were no audible or telepathic messages. Only a pat-pat of the back of his hand.
He calmed down again.
You’re rejecting us…His chasm whined, its voices muffled beneath his layered chest.
“I’m not.”
You are…And Swishy, a supposedly non-feeling scarecrow, felt the bone-chill of FROST radiate from the center of his soul. But he accepted the parts of himself that were more ice chamber than hearth, more hollow than heart.
The coldness crackled along his soul. He couldn’t move except to flap softly, suspending himself in space and solitude.
His chasm roared and roared.
“Now’s not the time!” Trey’s voice thumped against Swishy’s igloo psyche. “Freezing now? Really, boy? If we lose we die. Wallow LATER”!
“My dear,” a female voice said. “Seize victory for us, please.” Sling’s hand broke through the dark and grabbed multiple snitches.
The stolen eggs—whether in the clutches of a snitch or falling back toward Straw Village—were trembling, a frightened red aura heating their shells.
The scarecrow returned to life.
Snitchtalons were flying past him with pirated eggs—and [Zap] beams scorched through some of their wings, forcing them to drop the eggs and themselves.
“Trey?”
“Yeah, it’s me! Now fight!”
From the shadow-obscured city, Trey reappeared with his glowing hands, riding within the talon of a Sling wrathraven. The other two of the trio were with them as well, scanning the area.
A group of snitches approached Trey from behind—always from behind, as is their cowardly nature—but the other two wrathravens shielded Trey with their wings. Their eyes glowed red, activating [Ultimatum]. But it wasn’t much of a choice at all. The individual snitches were too weak to choose. “Die” was one choice. “Just die” was the second.
The birds gasped in terror, then outright disintegrated. Their blue souls left not a single vapor.
But that didn’t stop the other snitches from attacking. They knew the Sling-ravens weren’t fully grown yet—they assumed they had a fighting chance. Still, the birds targeted the weakest, non-flying person: Trey.
The Sling-ravens were slick thinkers, though, and whenever the attacks got too close to Trey, they’d spread their formation apart and toss him through the skies, playing catch, playing keep-away.
The ragdoll Trey winced, nauseated from each unexpected launch. “Not again,” he whined, still reeling from the memory of his initial kidnapping. But just like his exit from the wrathraven nest, he used his [Soul] ability to phase slightly out of his body. The partial, torso-only astral projection knocked his main body out enough to dull the nausea and wind-chill.
Blue-Trey even took a moment to shout at Swishy. “If I can fight, so can you! You’re not alone!” And to prove it, Trey-less Trey began charging a [Zap] beam on his fingers. The Clayborne, still dipped into his body, was able to manage simple commands. Run away. Charge beam. One order at a time.
Swishy, realizing this, was proud. “Okay! Help me find Myst!”
“Sure thing. Now light-bright your weapon and hit somebody!”
“I will!”
The rake glowed.
(…)
While the village handled the egg situation, Swishy and Trey focused on Myst.
They traveled in silence at first, scoping out this constantly transforming land.
Sling’s wrathravens escorted Trey, one carrying him while the other two patrolled, their chosen formation. He was proud of Trey for coming down here like that, braving the speed with his true body. Even outside of combat or being tossed, Trey sometimes toted two heads, Trey’s [Soul] spell slipping him from his vessel. He even used the technique to speak clearly rather than letting the rushing winds steal his words.
And so with full clarity and confidence, Blue-Trey declared: “Shadow Bitch, oh Shadow Bitch, where are youuu?”
“Is that really going to work?”
“Maybe not. But if we can’t find her, she always seems to find us.”
“Well, you’re not wrooong.”
“I’m never wrong.”
“Hmm…”
“That hmm is disrespectful.”
“Hmms louder.”
Trey reached to smack Swishy’s gourd but his wrathraven taxi pulled him away. The trio clicked their beaks in a ah-ah-ah scold.
But Swishy decided to try out Trey’s advice, attracting Myst. His shadow sibling hadn’t seen him fly before so now she could.
Swishy spun, he somersaulted, he copied the acrobatic tricks that she’d employed when gaining a heart. Amid the snitchtalons rushing to and from Straw Village, stealing wrathraven eggs, Swishy put on his performance. He wasn’t ignoring them. He told himself that this was trust too. Straw Village would handle it. They’d have to from this point forward.
Trey, however, took [Zix-zhooter] potshots at whoever was in range, then smiled at Swishy. “Can’t let these jerks just fly for free. Pay the toll, losers!”
When the snitches brushed past him, some had unique injuries—zap burns from Trey, ruffled plumage from the straw-bound weaves, Sling bandage caught around their ankles and necks.
The boy shrugged because Trey was right: the snitch raiders had to pay.
“Myst, where are you? We don’t need wishes. We don’t need anything from you other than you. Mysty, please, show yourself!”
“Her name is Shadow Bitch.”
“You can call her that. Let me be a good scarecrow, okay?”
“Of course, little homie.”
Everyone laughed and they began their scouting in earnest.
The High Chasm was close and the boys knew that’d be the only place where Myst would be.
Swishy’s mind wouldn’t let go of the mysterious removal of his hand from his heart. The impression of touch still lingered on the back of Swishy’s hand.
The High Chasm was more immense that he ever remembered it being, an impressive root-bound metropolis, a buzzing hive of shadow. It was a tree that housed other trees, fields, buildings. There were hills of wheat, little farms positioned inside of warehouse-sized hollows. Each flock of snitches that flew from it appeared so tiny. Even the occasional wrathraven was small, faraway, dwarfed by the lair his first heart fed.
When Swishy gazed at The High Chasm, he was pleased that it wasn’t all dark. There were standard colors found within, evidence of the original life forms that were now corrupted. The scarred oak was the natural dark-brown color of damp and well-hydrated wood. The soil between the roots was packed and dense, a gorgeous, fertile clay. And there was the occasional portal, a specifically Ruby-borne touch.
It wasn’t all bad, Swishy was relieved to discover. There was obvious promise in the area. There was still more autumn for the boy to create.
It was a home indeed—to everyone but Myst.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He remembered that Ruby had taken her altar. He shuddered to think of what’d become of Myst’s home. Swishy added that to his look-for list as well.
“If I knew it was going to become this, I never would’ve started working here.” Trey shook his head, disappointed, maybe a little ashamed.
“It’s okay, Trey. You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t even see souls until recently.”
“I know, but I’ve always been able to see crazy. And I ignored the red flags, or black flags I should say.” Trey ducked beneath an everytree branch offering him a black pumpkin.
“I like that you’re avoiding pumpkins but hate that the everytree knows you still want them.”
“I can work on my diet later, let’s keep this Myst focused.”
But the everytrees kept offering pumpkins and Swishy kept giving Trey judging nods.
The Sling-ravens joined, too, because it was fun.
“Yeah, yeah,” Trey said.
As the boys approached The High Chasm, lowering themselves into the woodland thicket, their senses sharpened. The everytrees, now more alive than ever, leered at him as he soared between them. Some even moved their roots aside to clear his path. Swishy brandished his rake at every instance of creepiness, waiting for threats to manifest.
Trey also kept [Zzt] orbs ebbing on his fingers.
But thus far, they woods let them through, releasing low and cracking laughs.
“This is the biggest of oh-hell-no that I’ve ever experienced.”
“And you’re here!”
“I can’t let you go it alone!”
“I know, thank you.”
Even the Sling-raven trio offered a wing upon Swishy’s shoulder.
The crew flew beneath the canopies, nervous that they’d now lost sight of the village for good. Every few seconds one of them would peak back and notice their little flame of village, barely perceptible, but there.
Swishy flapped ahead, using the dark wing for a [Wing Jump] propulsion while the golden one steered him around snitchtalon obstacles.
By now a groups of wrathravens up above had prepared a vicious attack, ones Swishy assumed had taken the wishwillows.
[Submit]—a spell from which a spew of dark nails chased after Swishy. The spell was endless. The nails were of all shapes and textures, bent and rusty and factory-fresh new. The beasts used everything in their horrific imagination to skewer Swishy like a voodoo doll. But he knew this wasn’t their own strength. They fed from Ruby. Within the clouds, he sensed her disapproval float along.
The rain of nails was laced with SUBMIT words that spiraled around its surface.
But there were also smaller words beneath that face of the spell, instructions on how the submission should be. Agony and hopelessness and despair were present.
One nail was in truth a barbarous stake. It drilled through the clouds at Swishy—who barely dodged.
Slave was what it read.
Swishy’s rage swelled to its maximum before receding. He’d processed and packed it away quickly for his own good. Two more slave stakes whizzed past him.
A stake had come close, knocking a couple of his golden feathers into the air.
Swishy focused on his brightness, swallowing down the disgust.
“Steady, steady…” He heard Trey say from somewhere behind him.
“Right,” the boy told himself, and kept flying.
The everytrees chuckled. Dark splinters fell from their mouths.
But the rain wouldn’t allow him to rest and collect himself. Whatever stores of blackwheat the attack had caused remained. Swishy proceeded to flee from the clouds that conjured above his head, shooting corrosive nails at him.
“Myst?” A question. Doubt. It made him fly a little sluggishly. He’d struggled through a few moments of close calls amid the nail-gun weather.
The scarecrow had a solution in mind but he didn’t want to do it.
He wanted her to come to him—of her own accord—and not for him to utter the words that lingered upon the edges of his straw. Swishy was a stubborn boy and knew that his principles were right in this matter.
“I wis…”
He wouldn’t say it. It felt wrong.
Say it…the weather urged, no doubt puppeteered from the wrathravens. Now that steady and familiar sizzle of curses took over. Everything in the air fizzed. He sensed the soulscape filling with entities. Even though there was nothing but space all around, a fullness was felt. He was surrounded as if he were inside a cube. And on each wall, endless sets of eyes.
“I wish…” The boy considered summoning his friend like a genie, asking the Cearth to deliver her. Why not?
But the why not was clear. The carbonation repeated after him mutely, mouthing it out with their amorphous maws. They’d only cancel his wish with their own. He didn’t want to subject Myst to any more tug-of-war than she’d already experienced.
“I…never mind, I’ll find her myself.”
Cearth will do it for you. Please, go ahead. It did the same for us.
“Ugh.” The boy hurried but the shadows were everywhere. The harassment chose silence but remained present.
Swishy used the brief break to speed to The High Chasm, his Wingy producing an air-dash effect that boosted him across several meters in one quick burst. Dash, then a cooldown, then another dash followed by a lull in his momentum. It was an uncomfortable trick of inertia but he’d get used to it. He found immediate use to it, too, activating it to outpace the next nails.
Once clouds appeared above his head, Swishy timed his air dash accordingly.
“Myst I’m coming! I have no request. It won’t be you giving to me, it’ll be me offering to you…as a friend!”
Clouds full of nails. Air dash. More clouds, more dashes.
And the landscape beneath Swishy rapidly changed. He’d left autumn and entered a boiling blackness. The ground released thick, popping bubbles. Little hands reached toward his cast-off feathers, absorbing the black plumage while tug-of-warring over the gold. The hands slapped, pinched, and clawed at each other. His gold feathers glowed like a candle about to get knocked from the edge of the table.
Swishy was unsurprised at the pettiness but disappointed.
From far back, he heard Trey again—laughter this time. Flashes of light appeared from behind him.
“Did you shoot them?” Swishy called back.
“Duh, they’re idiots.”
Swishy smiled. He loved the jerky support.
Meanwhile, the forest floor had traded its original rough-hewn texture for a slickness, a wateriness. The ground was an ocean of jellied shadows, a curse-hive of boundless depth. He wondered if he’d sink if he dared stand upon the surface.
A hand grabbed his leg.
“Stop it!”
But it held and held. Other hands joined.
“Let go!”
He flew onward but the shadow hands stretched endlessly as shadows were prone to doing. Only when the boy beat them with his rake, forcing them to atrophy from light, did they release him.
Still, the corrosive touch lingered on his ankle. His spirit quivered right above his Timb, a numbness that soon settled back to normalcy.
Despite his rush, Swishy chose to be kind. He took his gold-tipped rake and hung it toward the ground. As he skimmed the forest’s surface, the inky shadows bulged to graze the light. Even the curses required a purpose, a type of hope. Swishy was sure that they’d forget about him as soon as he’d left and would return to despair. But he didn’t know that for sure. It wasn’t his place to limit hope. Everyone was in the business of wanting to change, as he’d learned in a plethora of ways.
He only hoped that change would turn out favorably for someone.
It had to, at least once.
Swishy recognized patterns in shadows, curved and whirlpooling arcs of air—matching the wrathraven chasm from the nest he escaped. The boy knew that the chasm had made it out. Now that it was in the world, left to its will, it searched around for a new nest. He’d even heard it say that.
A nest, a nest, somewhere for the eggs to hatch…
Swishy couldn’t deny the sweetness of the gesture, its selfless mission. He hoped the wrathraven eggs could feel the thoughtfulness from wherever they were, especially if captured by snitches.
“Someone, something cares,” he whispered.
(…)
Then came more everytrees, a battalion. They continued to root-walk themselves in military-styled rows. They stood upon their tippy-toes, their raised roots, and welcomed Swishy. Some even took bowing postures like a woodland butler, crossing their branched arms across their midriff trunks.
As Swishy passed, their black nebulas changed into heart-shaped berries. He couldn’t name the fruit and was sure he’d never eaten such a thing before. But the popcorn hearts tracked with what his greatest desire was at this moment. To share heart, to complete the incomplete. Every hand that’d reached from the surface needed something to hold onto, a meaningful core to settle their hunger.
“Swish dear…” The word touched his psyche like a kiss of wind. That tone, that cadence, that silky influence that stirred the shadows on his body.
“Mysty, is that you?”
“I…”
But several clouds conjured. Instead of directly above him, they circled the air-dash range, nearly baiting him into a faulty boost. Nails came down from each cloud, perfectly timed with his would-be dash. He stayed put and the dark metal jangled all around him.
It was loud, deafening whatever it was Myst tried to say.
After the flurry, the clouds thinned and disappeared.
Swishy pressed on, considering where he was likely to find her.
“What a talented flyer you are, hehehe…” Myst’s voice trailed off. He followed its direction. She’d given him a faint lead—he only hoped that the faintness wasn’t weakness, that it wasn’t defeat.
(…)
Another crown of clouds—some in the air dash range while others instantly targeted him. Nails spewed out and the boy dodged to the empty spots on the left.
The next several rounds proceeded as such, hunting Swishy while drowning out Myst.
Swishy flew above the bulging roots. Some of the everytrees stood as tall as they could. He found himself flying over some roots while threading himself beneath others. It was a gothic obstacle course, one that laughed at him as he weaved around it. The nails continued to come after Swishy but he used the trees to shield himself. It was a worthy convenience—but the shadows couldn’t have that.
While Swishy stuck close to the trees, they went out of their way to contribute to his mental damage. As they grew their strange heart-shaped fruits, they tossed their berries to each other. Swishy was distracted by the periphery and decided that it wasn’t an attack.
He was correct, thankfully, but heard the off-putting crunch of wood. The boy looked up and noticed that their torn trunk, and their split-open mouths, were consuming the heart berries.
Black juice sprayed over Swishy’s body, a sickening cannibal mist that stuck to his wings. There was no poison. No ill physical effect. Only a taunt before the everytrees now began to speak.
You wanted a heart so badly that you stole one from the land when you were born. You’re a true savage. We respect these tendencies. The voracity with which you eat. Sharing is the way of the land. Energy is shared with us through our roots. And fruit is shared with you from us. And you…what will you share? That heart, perhaps? Give us a taste.
“Never!”
But you gave Myst everything.
“It was mine to give.”
And ours to take…those awful smiles returned, that wood-chipping laughter. The snapped cackles resounded violently within Swishy’s head. But there was one human voice in there, too, the sardonic laughter of Ruby. He realized then that he was right on The High Chasm. Beneath him, the roots were stretched like city blocks. If he had to guess, he’d been there for a while, chased far from home.
Swishy glanced behind him and there was no sign of the woods his magic had transformed. But the memory of all he needed to save, of his bright vision for the world, was clear. He soared into the active darkness, knowing there was no going back. He had the blueprint and now he’d change the nature of abyss itself.
The boy dragged his rake along the root, scarring it with light.
“Always so willful,” said a woman’s voice, “Never thought I’d find you marking territory of all things.”
“Myst! Give me a sign of where you are.”
“If I could, I…”
Nail rain, one barrage of several clouds all at once. Then when Swishy dodged another batch of clouds took its place. The deluge wouldn’t let up. And he now saw that while the wrathravens overhead were guiding the magic, piloting the voodoo-driven violence, the power came from the everytrees themselves. Each time a cloud was born, the root nearest to Swishy would shrivel and atrophy.
A dead root, a smattering of clouds.
A few more dead roots, and a homing-attack flood.
And the flood became literal. The murky waters above him rose in shadow, spent nails riding along the surface. Bobbing upward, attempting to gain buoyant momentum to jump at Swishy like a piranha. One scratched the back of his hand and his soul burned.
“Ouch!”
The straw sizzled for many moments, too many for his comfort.
From above, the nails shot out. And from below, they hopped toward him in small arcs. He was in the wrong position for this hex sandwich.
Swishy felt his soul get tired. He wasn’t used to flying. He’d been out of that game for a long, long time. And the enemies refused to give him practice time to refine his techniques. As soon as he’d acquired his wings, it was time for war, as was the case with his nature-building, his rake-conjuring, and his other feats and blessings.
Once the boy had gained for himself, the avaricious nature of the city attempted his harvest.
The rains continued and though he could hear the slight din of Myst in his head, the communication was cut. There was too much jangling, too much stimulation of all kinds.
The land needed to be silenced, just for a moment, just so he could hear his shadow sister talk.
What was the move? The technique? He wouldn’t think about it. Using his mind was always a too-slow, too-cumbersome affair. His heart had the answers, uncertain though it be.
He reached into his chest and gripped hard. The solid parts, the abyssal parts, were rotating in tandem. He hoped that the sum of his insides, of that heart he’d earned, would help him.
Trees died all around him, the entire clearing deflating like popped balloons.
Above him, a storm conjured.
“I wish…” Swishy said, squeezing his heart.
A torrent of nails burst forth.
“For—”
A drowning of nails, a hardware store cacophony taking over.
But his rake glowed. He raised it high, protecting himself with a bubble of light. It wouldn’t last, though, not with the way he panted. His soul dwindled at the fastest pace he’d ever experienced.
“Spit it out,” Myst urged.
“I don’t want to do it.”
“Do it, I said it’s okay.”
“I…”
“My dear, don’t be so soft. I haven’t bullied you for nothing, have I?”
“I wish to be her altar!”
And on cue, a daintily footed spider crawled within the rims of his gourd.
“My, my, my,” Myst said. “First you give me your heart. And now your body. You could’ve made a more trivial wish, you know.”
“It just felt right. If I didn’t, they could just wish you back, right?”
“Mm, that’s possible…likely…probable…it’s actually quite hard being me, isn’t it?”
“And this way I get my heart back.”
“Oh wow, that’s impressively greedy.”
“I know. Are you proud?”
“Giving a girl a heart and then taking it back? Ruthless. It makes me want to cry tears of joy.”
But she didn’t have tears. Just relief. Just trembling, spidery legs. Her grand diminishment left Swishy unnerved.
“I’d like to know what happened, if that’s okay with you.”
“Oh, just another day in the life,” she wistfully sighed, spinning a heart-shaped web in his eyehole. First she made a big one. Then little ones. And then smaller ones still.