Broken Chains

After realizing what he needed to do and what truly could be done, Puck stopped simply being an observer in this impossible reality.

This was a test, a challenge, and by all clues and purposes, this was a onetime opportunity.

But even if it was something he could try again at any time, Puck would give it his all. That was the creed he had started living by since nearly being beaten to death.

He would never cower again. He would rise. He would not be defeated by some strange stars.

Wanting to find the most potent and fitting star, Puck tried to reach out with his senses in all directions, covering one star after another. Some felt as if they shone stronger and nearly drew him in again, while others were on the verge of winking out.

There was a star of life so bright and so powerful that it defied all Puck's senses, and opposite to it, there was a star like a black hole in the nothingness, drawing everything in to bring it to its ultimate end.

These stars were at least somewhat understandable, even though still being far outside of Puck's scope of understanding. But there were also others.

It was there, twisting in dimensions of impossible proportions. Ever-growing ribbons of flesh and void. Eyes upon eyes and an unending hunger, a gluttony for him, to consume him, to take his flesh and his eyes and make them part of its collection, of its body, so that he may become part of the divine.

After finding that star, Puck had to fight with all he had not to get drawn in, not to get consumed. To become part of something greater, to become divine.

He, Puck, was divine, he was flesh of God flesh, and he was the eyes of all things. Nothing could escape him and...

Again, Puck could only barely escape, and this time he realized something needed to change. He couldn’t simply spread his consciousness, trying to find something by covering as much NOT area as possible.

He would need a new way of searching.

Trying if he could use something more resembling sight than the simple spreading of his consciousness he did before, Puck did not get drawn in anymore, but he also simply couldn’t really judge the stars, and finding the right one was simply impossible.

Instead, though, if there was one perfect star for Puck, if there truly was something like that, wouldn’t it call out to Puck? Wouldn’t it call for him with the same desperation that Puck did call for it?

Yeah, it would. Puck was certain of it. After all, all the stars called out to him and all wanted to merge with him one way or another. His one true star should call to him even more than all the others.

So, he should listen, he should try to take in their calling and find the right one. But could he do that?

Puck's soul shuddered from the idea. Right now, he was trying to search while holding the things he searched for away from him. He was trying to prevent the stars from reaching out to him in fear of being consumed.

Could he truly let the stars in and remain himself, hold on to the small part that was him, Puck, the small green Gremlin? Furthermore, would he still have the power to make the star he searched for finally part of him instead of being consumed by it?

He truly didn’t know, and fear started creeping into his being, but he wouldn’t back down. Not now, not ever!

Deciding to give it his all, Puck finally let all his walls against the intrusions of the stars fall. At once thousands of impressions stormed in on him, and he welcomed them.

The glacier came first, then there were the mushrooms, life, death, and the impossible divine flesh and eyes. All of them came, and a million more.

At one point, Puck was a simple creature living in a vast and predatory jungle of millions of beings, all living by a single creed, the law of the jungle: either consume or be consumed.

Then he was a vast and unending plain without any life and without plants, but simply trillions upon trillions of small stones being blown around by the wind. The heat there was greater than anything Puck the Gremlin had ever felt before, and there was even the sky looming above.

But there was no Puck in that moment that could wonder over all those things.

Puck was simply a collection, a maelstrom of impressions and visions of all that was, is, and possibly could be.

But while all those visions tried to draw him in, they all tried to do so at once, and so no single one could possibly succeed as they fought over him.

And then, finally, it came.

At first, it was only the barest whisper, only the smallest of impressions in the chaos of a million others, but still, where for a single moment or even a whole eternity there had not been a Puck, now there he was again, as he started focusing on the single whisper.

While the other stars still raged, Puck now felt them all gliding back into the distance as the whispering got louder.

At first, it was simply like a gentle touch on his soul, a promise of something he ached to find more than anything else.

After all, more than anything, Puck had done one thing over the last months, yeah, subconsciously even over his whole life. He had been searching for something new, something greater and something exciting at every moment. Even while getting sucked into the terrible grey monotony that was his Gremlin life.

Only recently had he started getting a taste of it. Started truly searching for it and now truly realized what he wanted.

Freedom.

Not just any freedom, though. He wanted the freedom to truly do anything, to try out all his most stupid ideas and after that go on and do something even stupider.

He refused to be chained down again by anything. At least by anything he didn’t truly and willingly choose himself.

The star that was now drawing in on him was one unwilling to be bound by anybody or anything, even this dimension and his vision. It flickered in and out of his vision as if to show him it was only here because it wanted to be so.

The first true vision Puck got from the star was one that he had imagined only shortly before.

Suddenly, he was standing on a vast plain of slowly swaying grass and looking up into a vast and unending blue. And then, he was flying. Wind whipped around his face, and tears started rolling down his cheeks. A strange bird was flying by, and Puck laughed into the air while whirling his head around to see and feel everything.

This, this was perfect. He never wanted to go away; he would be part of this; he would become the wind and forever flow over the plains.

But, forever flowing over the plains, forever doing the same, wasn’t that a kind of restriction, a kind of chains in itself? Wasn’t that what he just had realized was exactly what he didn’t want?

With an effort of will greater than any before, Puck pulled himself free of the star.

Yes, this was his star. It was freedom incarnate, and that was more than anything what he wanted. He, Puck, though, would never be chained down, not even by freedom. Instead, he would need to take freedom in as a friend and as a partner. For freedom also would never accept to become a part of him and be chained down.

Offering the star before him his deal, openly showing it all his intentions, dreams, and ideals, he felt it approve.

Freedom was what he would get, but as it was his partner and not a part of him, he would need to prove himself to it every part of the way.

He would need to prove that he was worthy to acquire more and more of its ideals. The first, and perhaps also the most fitting one, though, would be the wind.

Never stopping and never getting tamed, the wind would blow on forever. Perhaps, one day, the wind would even carry Puck up in the sky to see the true stars.