Broken Chains

Somewhere in the depths of the infinity layers of reality, between impossible large stars and stretches of space where no matter seemed to have existed for an eternity, a small point of dust floated through the endless nothingness.

This small point of dust, seeming so utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, was a world known by its inhabitants as Pandora. Even though Pandora was less than a speck of dust on a universal scene, it was no small planet. The exact opposite in fact, Pandora was an unimaginable large planet that had been floating through the vast nothingness of space alone for an impossible long time, as it had consumed its own sun eons ago.

Now, some beings, for example a bunch of scientists from a planet from the other side of the universe known as earth, likely would like to ask how a planet could sustain life without a sun to warm it.

Well, that would thoroughly be a pertinent question, and would someone take the time to study Pandora more closely, one would find a million more pertinent questions like that. All these questions had one simple answer: Pandora didn’t operate on the rules and principles of causality, and neither did it operate on those of natural laws. No, Pandora operated on its very own rules. Those rules, seemingly not understandable by their very nature, were nothing to be studied or calculated, no, they simply were.

Even though Pandora had no sun, there was light, there were livable temperatures, and there were seasons and days. For those scientists from earth, already mentioned prior, things like that would be reasons to be baffled over for their whole life. But not for the inhabitants of Pandora, not those at least I’m going to tell you about in the following.

No, those inhabitants had other things to worry about. The Gremlin’s, a race living in one of the coldest parts of Pandora had no easy life. The exact opposite in fact, the whole race of the Gremlin’s, at least the whole known part of it, were part of one single clan.

This clan, only some thousand individuals strong, was always petering at the edge of oblivion. There were many reasons for the predicament of this clan, but none of those shall be elaborate on here, no, those reasons you will learn out of the sight of one particular poor Gremlin.

This Gremlin, known as something unintelligible to the human speech, wasn’t too smart, but it knew many words, in particular insults, for whom there is no counter for in the speech of earth humans. In fact, all the names and even many words in the Gremlin language would have no counterpart in the human language. So please let me refer to this particular Gremlin as “Puck” and let me invent names and translations for the rest of them as well.

On that note, I think it is time to start with the story, as our favorite Gremlin is experiencing a situation, right in this moment, that is all to telling on its miserable life.

With that, let the story of Puck the Gremlin begin and let all of Puck’s insults against God and the world ring through the universe. In particular towards a planet known as dirt and most notable to some undefined scientists there, Puck certainly wouldn’t like.

Puck hated many things, stones, mushrooms, work, life, … and …, the list of things his small Gremlin mind hated could go on for eternity. But most of all Puck hated his fellow Gremlin’s that liked nothing more than to make his day worse.

Many of the other thing’s Puck hated also had to do with the other Gremlin’s. For example, the already mentioned the stones. Afterall nothing is worse than getting thrown to death by stones, at least that is what some would say, but not Puck. He would say, that being thrown to death by stones mixed in with lizard shit was even worse.

Oh, but there were not only thing’s Puck hated because of the other Gremlin’s, oh no. There were oh so many things Puck loved above all else because of them. You could say they were the very lifeblood of all his activities. Curses. And Curses. And even more Curses.

Puck liked nothing more than to curse his enemy’s, if loud or quiet, if in long sentences or short statements. Puck made an art of it. So also right now, on this lovely morning in the Gremlin’s caves in some undefined part of the eternal Ice of Pangea.

As Puck slid and ran across the eternal Ice that was all the Gremlins knew of the world, he cursed, and in what fantastical ways he cursed.

First, he cursed the dimly gleaming moss on the walls and the ceiling. Afterall, it wasn’t bright enough to see clearly. Because of that Puck feared to stumble at any moment. And if he stumbled, the impact on the floor would be the smallest of his problems. The bigger problem would be the flock of laughing and shouting Gremlin’s behind him that gave it their all to catch their prey.

That was also the reason why those Gremlin’s got the bigger share of Puck’s cursing efforts. Firstly, he wished death on them, after all, it was always good to start with the basics, no?

After death, so Pucks imagination, they would have to work eternally on mushroom farms with too low a ceiling and mushrooms with terrible stench.

As Puck ran on through the nearly completely dark tunnels of the eternal ice his mind drifted further and further away from reality, wishing the most horrible things his gremlin mind could come up with on his enemy’s.

Truly, Puck could envision how they …

Sadly, for our dear Puck he couldn’t spin that thought on, as his mind had wandered to far already and his foot got stuck on a stone outcropping.

With a terribly high squeak and after a second of atrocious slowness where Puck sailed through the air, he hit the ground, and all the stale air of the caverns left his small gremlin lungs.

After one, two, three aching roles Puck would have expected to come to a standstill and get pummeled by his pursuers. But no, as the ground below him got steeper and steeper and Puck only got faster, true fear entered his heart.

Afterall, his pursuers wouldn’t kill him if they found him. This mushroom dung contaminated slope though potentially would. Why “mushroom dung contaminated”? Because it was the best curse Puck could come up with in that instant.

It seemed that lost in his thoughts and the darkness Puck had entered a part of the tunnels in the eternal ice that the gremlins normally didn’t enter.

Would it have been less dark; Puck would have noticed it. Would he have been less distracted by cursing; he probably would even have been able to notice when he lost his pursuers as they weren’t willing to follow where he went. But he did not.

And as such he rolled on through the darkness, getting faster and faster and being less and less conscious as his head hit stones again and again. And after a short time, …, only darkness, as puck lost his conscious completely.