Broken Chains

For the umpteenth time that day, Puck lay on his back, his ears ringing and his vision blurry and indistinct. Scarlet's stick had hit him especially hard this time, knocking him under his shin and throwing him over backward.

But while lying there, Puck felt something different from before.

Normally, his vision would return after only a few seconds, but not this time. Puck could vaguely hear Scarlet shouting something at him, but it was indistinct, as if he were underwater and she far away.

Wondering for a moment why he was so calm and undisturbed by what was likely another tragic development in his life, Puck felt an answer drift to the surface of his thoughts without him asking for it.

Yes, this was an important event, but far from a tragic one.

From somewhere within, he felt an unshakable confidence and knowledge that this was just as it should be.

Even still, his thoughts drifting sluggishly, Puck tried to figure out what was going on.

When trying to sharpen his vision, Puck felt like something was there to see, something waiting for him. Squinting his eyes harder, the blurry vision of the world outside didn’t turn sharper but instead went farther and farther away until only darkness remained.

That darkness, though...

It was no normal darkness. It was vast, reaching towards infinity, and at the same time, it felt like a true nothingness.

It was the void.

But in that void, a void far more profound than the void between the stars or any other void, islands of something existed.

As Puck found himself drifting in this void without a body, his senses told him stories of impossible and yet so nearby and impossibly far away things that defied everything he had learned and seen in his small life.

Soundlessly questioning what these things were, Puck tried to reach for them with his imaginary hands, and to his own surprise, those things answered.

Like true stars, one distant possibility after another bloomed in the void and shone in a myriad of impossible colours.

Each of those stars felt like Puck could reach them, as if they existed in the same location as Puck or even no location at all.

After all, there was no space here, nor was there time. There were only the void and vast impossible distances without any space or possibility of crossing them.

Not knowing what exactly he needed to do, Puck simply floated or not floated. Existed or not existed, in that impossible nothingness as he studied the different stars.

One felt like a twisting ball of ice and water, of glacier rivers and the impossible power of millions upon millions of tons of slowly flowing ice. Lasting over the eons and never changing, that ice twisted over and over while still remaining the same.

Studying that star ever closer, Puck felt like it was getting bigger and bigger in his vision. The groaning of impossible great movements, the silence of an eternity of ice and nothingness, it all drew ever greater, and Puck felt himself getting drawn ever closer in.

Bit by bit, Puck started to become the ice. He was the glacier, never-ending, never wavering, a force of nature without thought and action and yet still a will to exist, to consume, to become more...

With a sharp pain in his bodiless form and a great effort of will, Puck pulled himself away from the vision that had nearly completely consumed him.

Had he still been in his body, Puck’s heart would now be hammering with an impossible staccato, knowing that Puck, as he had existed until now, had nearly died in that moment.

Even though Puck didn’t know what exactly was happening, he just now had become very clear about something.

Yes, he should be here, and yes, great things could come of this, but the danger was also real. Death, or at least some kind of death, was a real possibility.

Had Puck not acted and let himself get consumed further by that vision, by that impossible star that still drifted near him, trying to draw him in, he would have become the ice, would have become the glacier.

A spirit without thought and action, only the will to consume.

Yes, that was it. He wanted to consume, he was the ice, nothing would resist him, he...

With another bodiless push and a silent scream, Puck severed the connection to the icy giant again and pushed it away from him with all he had.

Trying to get as far away from the icy star as possible, Puck felt his efforts bear fruit as the distance of nothingness grew greater. The star shrank and weakened.

But as Puck was so focused on the icy giant, another one of the stars grew nearer and bigger in the back of his bodyless form. Slowly, Puck felt thoughts of the tireless and endless expansion of the network invade his mind.

The network was all, and the individual was only fuel for the ascension. One mushroom may be eaten by the gremlins or die of missing nutrients, but through evolution and expansion, the network would prevail. As such, there was no greater honour than sacrificing oneself for the collective, pushing the eternal crusade forward and...

With another push and severing, Puck lost the connection to the second star.

By now, he started to feel some spiritual exhaustion and true fear of what could happen started to creep into his mind.

Trying to focus on what he needed to do, Puck pushed at all the stars that were trying to draw him in and focused on the feeling of the nothingness alone to steady his mind.

He was here for something, someone or something had brought him here, and he had a task. These stars called to him in a way nothing ever had. In some way, it felt like his connection with Zephyrian, but then again, it also felt like something entirely else.

These stars felt like they were a part of him.

But no, that was not entirely right. They were no part of him, but they could become a part of him. They could become him, help him, and show him the wonders of existence.

But in the same way that these stars could become a part of him, these stars could also consume him, so that he might become a part of them. Two times already that had nearly happened.

Trying to feel into the vast infinity of nothingness, Puck sensed one star after another, instinctively knowing that there truly was an infinite number of them.

He could only pick one though, and as his already tired mind told him, his chance of succeeding would get lower and lower the longer he searched.

Should he try to pick one of the two he had already interacted with, or should he try to find more of them?

But no, those two didn’t appeal to him especially, and more stars wouldn’t be better they would only dilute each other.

No, Puck would instead need to search. He would need to find the greatest star of all.