NOTHING

“That’s right. Take pride.” The Scribe croaks. “You have the favor of my presence.”

Nothing sways, the ringing in its ears competing with balance. Propped up by a hand at its chest, like an external rib cage.

“And the Eye does not just show its glory anywhere you know.” The scribe recovers smoothly.

A repair drone drives needles into bone and staples into skin. A hasty patch-up job, but better than a number is likely to receive at the hands of a back-alley butcher.

“Speak, child. So shy! You endear me! Where is this prisoner Alpha that inspired this intriguing report?” The Scribe coos as they drift forward.

“Come. Come. Don’t frown so.” A repair drone doubles back to affect a purely cosmetic repair. “You have made me quite curious. And how often does nothing make you curious? Nothing should be proud if nothing could be!”

The scribe heaves with appreciation for his own wit.

The drones stimulate the nothing with injections into his optical nerves and electric shocks.

“Now, my sweet nothing.” The Scribe shifts in his ambulator, causing it to lurch forward. “If you do not answer, I will be quite displeased.”

The nothing rasps a breath, hand feeling the patch-job on his face.

“See there, the Scribe reaches out, putting a hand to the nothing’s face, taking iron and salt. “Good sweet nothing. I suppose any small thing is hard for nothing.”

“But do not forget,” He wags a finger. “I ask you to speak, not merely to answer.”

The nothing mumbles.

“Later. Later. Am I impatient?” He glides along the hall. “Come, come.”

“Tell me, my chit.” The numbers feet drag on the ground, as hands bear him forward, one now raising his head. “Why these sacks are allowed the air? While this…prisoner of yours, this wild thing, is behind that?”

He gestures to the heavy vault.

“Merciful” The nothing’s head is lifted. “Merciful Lord. May this nothing, who is not worthy to be called even that, receive permission from his gracious Lord?" The nothing stumbles to find the right words. Words that might not offend. “Permission to recite reasons, that those, who are not nothing, yet not worthy to be called something by you…”

“Yes, Yes.” The Scribe waves. “Are we not friends you and me? You grieve me!”

The nothing winces at the punishment he incurs with every fresh offence.

“Speak freely, child.” The Scribe's smile is slow and deliberate. They know. They always know. “I insist.”

But the nothing has no choice but to continue. “Some, higher nothings, with permission for reasons, believe the prisoner Alpha to be dangerous.”

“Come now, mi amor, don’t be modest.” The scribe is unrelenting. “Do you not know this danger personally?”

“G-gracious Lord. If nothing could know something.” The number tries to untangle the obvious snare. “It would know what you say.”

“Hmmm…You don’t believe me? Dear, dear!” The Scribe strokes the point on his chest. “Be still, heart. Nothing means nothing by it. Yes, he is cruel.”

“Yes — I mean, no, Lord. I mean.” The Scribe squints through his remaining eye. “I am unworthy, Lord.”

“So modest! Nonsense, Nonsense!” The Scribe claps his hand together. “Your story is the talk of the hemisphere and what am I but a weaver of stories!”

“Please. Your report was perfectly satisfactory. But I must admit, hard to believe. That a *sack* do this thing!”

“Please, Lord. As you have said, most wisely, I am nothing, and less than nothing.”

“Hmmm…so nothing can control nothing!” Emotes explode into colorful projections. “Oh, that is delightful. Isn’t it, isn’t it?”

“But I give you more credit. You fought like a hero.” The Scribe raises a finger. “The talk of the hemisphere, I say! Your report is everywhere. You should see the patterns! One might think my lines no longer entertained them!”

“My Lord. I did nothing…Nothing would never.” The nothing stammers.

“Hush, hush, rabbit. I thought you drones were tough. But you are wobbly jelly.” He shakes the mound with natural hands and his laughter bounces among weaving drones. Emotes rapid-fire into the air, their faces leaking cruelly. “Where is the courage I saw when you battled this fiend!”

“Ha!” He chops the air, flesh wobbling. “And, ha!”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He heaves back, sobbing with laughter. “And your possessor, this sack, is it here, also?” He gestures to the bodies left and right.

“Yes, my Lord. Correct. He is indeed a parasite of the worst sort. But if you will permit?” The nothing raises its stapled-assisted smile. “He is in the here that is in there.”

The nothing points an unsteady finger to the massive titan vault.

SLATE

The chances of getting struck by lightning on earth are one in several hundred thousand.

Earth is an arbitrary and antiquated point of reference.

Then again, I’m standing across from a wolf in forest out of myth.

So the old world seems relevant.

But it seems to me that the chance of being hit depends greatly on where you are standing during a storm.

I do not know what the chances are on this planet.

I guess I’m just lucky.

The world explodes with violet light and a concussive THOOM!

My entire body seizes in electric pain.

Every cell is frenetic.

I am frozen in the moment of doom, punished for the hubris of thinking I could so easily walk on an alien planet.

It has come to correct the mistake of my survival.

It is a gambler's logic, which entails some cosmic force that balances good and bad.

The arc of lightning is the only thing that keeps me upright, pinning me like a bug to the mounting board.

Snow crawls through the air. The wolf stands motionless.

The bolt blasts every door in the halls of my mind at the same time and I am aware of every exquisite sensation.

I am *in* the lightning. It is ark and aura around me and I feel something in the pain — perhaps it is the pain pushing my brain to the edge, like euphoria at the point of death.

It feels like I am swallowed in a storm of intention. A small mind, absorbed by a greater; that is, if minds were bare and could merge like clouds.

It feels neither hostile nor friendly, just crushing powerful.

If it is god, it is an old god — a storm father. From before men had words. Something only remembered in their bones and awakened by lightning strikes.

The intention resonates with my own desires — maybe that’s all it is.

To put it into human words is to lose a universe of meaning.

“STAND. FIGHT. LIVE.”

If words were suns colliding, then it spoke in words. If suns were words colliding, then it spoke in suns. And I am caught in the solar winds of meaning that break over me.

It is an utterance, if it can be called that, that only makes sense to a brain jacked on psychoactive lightning.

Is this how a world speaks? In the language of storms?

It may strike once or a hundred times. What effect it has, I cannot be sure.

Steam rises from my body. I should be dead, not standing.

And though I feel the icy chill; I’m not cold anymore.

A bent whine is all the sympathy I get from the wolf, but it's better than being eaten.

Its thick hair stands on end, making it appear larger than before, if that is possible.

Most people struck by lightning live to talk about it, which is why there are sayings about getting struck twice. I reck it is a smaller number who are standing afterwards.

I hold onto the words, but they slip like fine sand through my fingers.

A small handful of sand. Feels about right.

The thoughts of gods, translated into the language of a man. “Stand, fight and live.“

The burns in my chest promise a lasting reminder. Twin burns between the shoulder and pectoral muscles.

The marks have a certain symmetry.

My fingers trace the wounds with a grimace. Burns occur where lightning enters and exits the body.

And whereas lightning entered and exited, the words still echo in me, heavy with portent and potentiality.

Their gravity makes me search for deeper meaning, meaning to equal the weight of the words and the speaker.

“Stand. Fight. Live.“

I fail to consider an important possibility: that this is not the case of a simple creature failing to understand complex meaning. It was a case of a greater creature, unable to communicate in the medium of lightning.

The message was simple.

“Stand. fight. Live.”

The wolf growls a low growl.

Snow falls around us.

The land has been exposed to extreme catastrophic forces.

A black gully is ripped into the dirt — wide, deep, and suspiciously ship-sized, which is to say — big.

It is not the forest it was moments before — or however long that is. Before I tore through.

I was separated — ejected, is my guess.

The ravine is raw with exposed roots and snapped trees. Steam rises from the broken earth. Red fire glows on snapped branches like welding torches left naked to burn.

Fire is death in space. Here, it is life. If that can be believed.

These flames will not turn the sky into an inferno of darting flame. They will not steal the air, in the sense that there is enough air that no fire could burn it all.

And this demon should be my friend? Keep me warm? Cook my food?

I start as I feel the sinking earth creeping between my toes like a living thing, as I step off the chamber’s lid.

Soft and unnatural, the soil sucks my feet. I work my feet into its soft belly. It has no proper bottom.

It is all so strange, so new, and — aside from lightning strikes — I feel alive.

I know I’m supposed to pay attention to the heaving mound of black dirt and I am — just not exclusively.

I’m hoping that heaving isn’t a characteristic of all soil.

“Stand. Fight. Live.”

Aboard ship, I would have access to weapons. At the same time, there would not be aliens bursting from the bowels of the earth.

I bend and pick up the door of the stasis chamber, It is roughly shield-shaped. The hinges and clasps are acceptable handles, if awkward.

I could just crawl back into the chamber and hide, but that would leave me trapped and vulnerable.

Either way, I run the risk of being exotic alien food.

I decide to stand on my feet, rather than lie down in a coffin.

For all I know, my whole existence has been that narrow box, though living is too strong a word.

I never want to be in a box again. No matter how safe it is.

So prison door becomes doorway. Doorway becomes a shield.

It is solid enough. Awkward, but better than none.

I smell it first.

Waves of acrid stench.

It smells like the juice of waste compactors, if the trash were bodies.

The smell is needle-like in my eyes and nose.

I feel the smell like some sick that will rot me from the inside until I become like it.

The wolf is ramrod straight and silent.

The ground wobbles and heaves like there is a giant slime creature within.

The first limb bursts upward, showering dirt, before slamming down.

It is a colossal pointed forelimb, with joints like a crab, but without the decency of a shell.

Its muscles are exposed fleshy tissue threaded with sinew, like an anatomical reference — as though it lives in constant pain or feels none at all.

It seems disoriented. Being plowed into the ground by a thousand tons of superheated metal will do that.

But enough waiting.

What did you think?

That I was going to wait for the creature to emerge from the ground, show its power, perform some threat display?

Frag that.

This isn’t some dumb holo.

When it is down, is the best time to kick it in its alien nutsack.

I run forward, shield in hand.