They left the crocodiles behind, then crossed the river. It was the three of them this time. The silver giant, the clay figure. And, of course, the planet on a side.

They walked into a town.

Amoebas and glires lived in there.

Machines and mortars drove around. They waited for the light to change, then went to the edifice nearby.

“You have an appointment?” amoeba at a desk inquired.

“We have the Sun to see,” Proi exclaimed.

“Hold on one moment…” the creature said, then slid away in terror.

Of course, the guards were here from the beginning.

They ran from the elevator en masse. Glires in a uniform, all scary.

“Fire!”

The guns of fishbones blared. Uranium needles through the air speared.

Proi kicked the crystal floor. Most gilres fell from quake resulted.

Pluto flexed. The rest of active guards got sucked into a black hole. The path ahead was clear as day. They took an elevator.

A car was standing there with them. When the trio reached the needed floor, it roared and drove away.

Imeera pulled a door ahead. The entire floor collapsed into the darkness.

“What now, master? It’s dark in here!”

“Ain’t no problem to this rock! But where are we?”

Imeera snapped his fingers. The flames appeared.

The darkness stayed.

“It is an empty world. It has no dreams. We have to move ahead and paint it full.”

Proi made a step forward. A village hut appeared ahead.

Pluto made a step forward. A trail of tiny planets formed a path.

Imeera made a step forward. A land made of dirt filled the plane beneath their beings.

They moved forward. The darkness of the world long gone was endless still, but the lines and stripes of painted dreams enriched the path ahead. The one that only thought could ever master.

But not all rainbow was their voyage. The figures of bones and flesh arose ahead, together with the balls of fur.

They passed by the travellers’ road, marching swiftly. The trio moved with haste, stepping on the path of chiselled stones with names and numbers on the front. Each step, a memory was desecrated.

The Sun appeared on a side, but only a reflection. It was a worm of stature and insight, a vile mind projection. Its flames consumed the world around, by leaving a mushroom of a cloud.

The alien creature had appeared. Two legs, two hands and skin of stone, it stood presently in the dark. No road was passing close enough to bark.

But that’s a ruse - the hatch was there, right underneath the stone. The only way from out there, the world of days begone.

The two-legs held a box in hands. Imeera touched the bump on a side. The sheet on the box had flickered with lurid light.

“It is the day of our demise. The stars of death had fallen from the sky. The ode of destruction sings only twice - once when the exodus starts, and once when it had passed by. The world was traded for our ego… And yet, what pardon we deserved? Perhaps, the Afterlife would be more eager to deliver us what we ourselves had served. We’ve never reached the shores we wanted…”

So said the massage and uncannily aborted. The trio stared between themselves. What kind of power that one desired for the world to rot to death?

The creature shattered from a touch. The hatch then creaked and opened its maw. The only way was lower down, wherever they now were.

They took a chance.

The path they stumbled then upon was white and long, spiralled. The dots of white, of blue and red surrounded them meanwhile.

They made a step ahead. They heard a sound approaching.

The car they left a while had roared then, watching.

It drove them over.

But Proi was an easy prey this time. It stood its ground silent.

The car jumped back and revved. Two folding knives then fast appeared.

It seemed they hadn’t freed the way just yet.

One folded knife had sliced at Pluto. The planet caught the blade with ease.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Your vile tricks are useless, bruja! The slice of ore is but a tease!”

The car then turned around and smoked. Young kin had felt unearthly.

“Master, I’m flying now! Please, help me shortly!”

Imeera chuckled, but approved. His cane had stretched and caught his partner.

Too bad the car did not agree. It screamed and dashed to a giant blazing, its wheels on fire. Imeera waved his hand and then, two creatures of the flesh appeared. They stood as the fence of will and passion. The car then ran into the wall and earned itself a taste of bashing.

Meanwhile, Pluto hugged the knife. It broke in two, the pieces fading. The planet blew at second one and froze it into place, still standing.

The car then drifted and knocked the silver giant off. Imeera flicked his fingers. A caterpillar of thousand-miles long had grabbed the giant and threw him where the fight still lingered.

The trio pushed together. Imeera with the flames of pain, Proi with the strength of weather, Pluto with the breath of freezing gale.

The car exploded. The path was opened.

*****

“I… I am lost.”

“With all the honesty I can muster… me too, dear. I have no idea what I am reading.”

“...It has to have some cryptic meaning behind all of the assortment of these lurid events, no?”

“We’ll see…”

*****

They stepped into the light.

The light spit them out.

The spiral road was all around them once again. Proi glanced down and saw the planes of their dead land all around.

And beneath them, the body of the alien creature stood. The head was gone, absorbed by a spiral right above, with particles there flying.

The hand held a scepter with a skull.

And they had no way back from there.

“What now, amigos? The land is out of reach for now, with dancing mountains underneath.”

“We’ve reached the dream that ascends us. Good, we leave the mountains be.”

The red light raged in Sky, all fire. The flames had showered the lands beneath. But since above the plane they stood, the weeping was no danger.

The Sun emerged from skies of fury, as always cowardly and vain.

“You lucid path is now over, for you have nothing to sustain! With me as only Progeny awake, the land is lost forever! For every choice you now take, you’ll never reach the dream, Imeera!”

The giant only stood as pillar, with voids directed somewhere else. The Sun shuddered in impatience, throwing his words to waste.

“The land is refugee for tormented! It is then dried and gone! You look for a needle in the passing, but the quest is done and gone! The wise of old had used the land, no more there could be living!”

The Sun had taunted the trio, still riding the caterpillar.

Imeera simply bowed down and ripped the piece of road beneath. He then threw a white ball on his belief.

The projectile crossed the planes with hundreds thousands of size. The white stone landed in the ocean, the green and toxic, bouncing twice.

The waves had risen, ripping the well of infinity apart.

The ocean stood up and loudly proclaimed,

“The fool that dared to awake Me will suffer death eternal. Imeera, what brought your path to I to bring you the pain Infernal?”

The giant pointed at Sun, who still was hanging there. The ocean swung, its hand precise - and coward was then wrecked.

The caterpillar drowned in waters, so green and sick - no life was there. The Sun himself had screamed and burst, enveloping in the sphere.

The orange fires rose above. The Sun had changed demeanour.

“Your shadow of struggle is no more. I bring the set of rules. This land deserves then nothing else - my mercy’s made of woes.”

The land was cloaked in torturous white. The rays of stars had rained. Whenever landed they, the land was there shattered and drained.

The gift of mercy fell apart. The Light had come to gather.

Whatever left of heroes now, there was no point to bother.

*****

But then again, would Death be angry? In a place, where nothing left to live?

The yellow dust was underneath. The bluish silk of water danced against the edge of land. The trees of green shook at the slightest whiff, and finally, the sky was covered with clouds.

Imeera came about now. He glanced around.

What was that land? Untouched, unharmed, with no stench of rot around? The tower speared to the infinity above. It touched the stars with walls of mirrors and illusion. The giant couldn’t comprehend, what purpose served this ancient structure.

Proi stared. The soothing sounds left a mark.

“What place or miracle we see?”

“The land before the Death arrived,” Pluto had known. “The Light devoured, changed, and crumpled - but Life back then had won. It changed together with the Light, it bound its core to serve. But then, the Life stumbled on its pride again - and sang its latest song.”

“The Tower is one to keep the place,” Imeera joined with them. “It is the last linchpin of space - if gone, this piece is but a dream.”

The soothing sounds of the water had brought the peace abound. They looked ahead, between themselves, and moved to change the ground.

They passed the land with wheat and flowers.

They passed the land with grass and artiodactyls.

They passed the land of ice and wind, with ursids laying down.

They passed the land with rivers and lakes, with fish drifting around.

The Tower stood in place, all solid. The loom and doom of vitric spire, that got the skies to bow to it, drew the souls of Light and fire. The land of Life that sprouted around, the green, the blue, the white, and yellow, all went together bound.

The nail of land had no entrance. Imeera knocked on the wall in vain.

“O, habitants of wisdom! We ask no penance, but a way back to the land of pain!”

The Tower was one stoic image. But then the crack beside appeared. Pluto changes his visage and stepped into the crack, unhindered.

Imeera and Proi then followed after. The world behind them shut its doors.

The town greeted them in silence. The shadows crept the streets of absence, not living, but not dead.

“Have you seen the Sun? We have a matter to discuss,” Proi had no gentleness by now - The Sun would be turned in a piece of brass.

“Pardon out his ray! Extract beneath vast!” the shadow spit the nonsense out and turned then into dust.

What could they ask of creatures’ contour? The Sun extinguished all the sapience. Their only path of blessed honour was to reach the ascendance.

The edifice rose up from the land. It grew and grew, not moving from its stand. Soon, it touched the Mother-Sky in full, corrupting it in abundance.

And then the Sun had spread its boon. The Light appeared as the disaster.

They had no time to ponder why. The edifice was the straw of chance.

They ran inside, with shadows disintegrating by. The only solution was to advance.