My piece for the Collapsed Stars Reverse Mini-Bang! || AO3 Link
My collab partner was the amazing @cactusjuic. Go check out their artwork for the event, it's beautiful!
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It’s a ghastly sight, and the last thing you expected to find on this barren comet. Yet here it stands in all of its smooth, ancient glory; a Nomai ship. What’s left of it, anyway. The towering structure is hardly recognizable, encased in ice as it is, though its ever present glow is unmistakable.
To think, sometime in the not too distant past Nomai stood where you’re standing now, eager to traverse the frozen terrain that lies ahead in the pursuit of knowledge. The discovery should drive you dizzy with enthusiasm.
So why are your hands shaking?
You tell yourself it’s just excitement and carry on, venturing another step towards the shuttle until your toe thunks against the sleek metal of a Nomai recorder.
The transcript within does little to soothe your nerves. Their plan to split up is mostly without fault, yet you can’t shake the feeling that it did their team no favors. Would it not have been safer to travel new territory together? Difficulty be damned, this decision prioritized efficiency over safety.
A nasty voice in the back of your mind reminds you of similar decisions made on your part that lead directly to your last five or six deaths, and you grimace.
Hypocrisy aside, you determine there’s nothing left for you here and opt to head up to the face of the comet, knowing not what you will find there except, with any luck, a patch of stable ground beneath your feet.
Though you would love nothing more than to crawl along the ice in search of answers, your oxygen supply is diminishing remarkably fast, and you want to avoid closing out this loop via the agonizing ordeal of suffocation if you can help it. The mere possibility of it brings you chills (no pun intended).
Your arrival at the light side of the comet was only a slip, slide, crash away, as it happens. Momentum hurtles you forward and carries you into the narrow crevice between rigid stone. More ice awaits you there (ugh) but at least it’s better than losing your teeth to the uncaring foundation of solid stone. In a bitter twist of irony, your embarrassing slip along the ice managed to thread you between the walls of broken bone and concussion, allowing you to come to a stop within the icy cracks virtually unharmed… save for your pride, that is.
Shaking the frost from your suit is the easy part. When it comes to regaining your footing, well, that’s a different challenge all together. One that you are exceedingly grateful to not have witnesses for. It takes more time, effort, and use of your fuel than you would like to admit before you’re back to your feet again. And once there, you’re forced to hold yourself up by the small canyon of stone on either side of you just to prevent another fall.
Inevitably, you find nothing of immediate value on this side of the comet. No transcripts to pour over, no mysteries to unveil, and nothing of archeological note to take back to Riebeck, unless you count stories about ice, rocks, and more ice. You’ve just about bled your supply of oxygen dry in the time it took you to reach this point alone. Even if there were something worth finding around here, you wouldn’t very well have enough breath in your lungs to explore it for long. Could this loop get any worse?
As if the very stars themselves are eager to answer, your string of complaints is interrupted by the familiar clinking of your spaceship and the distinct, unmistakable whir of it flying overhead. Lo and behold, your neck doesn't need to crane far to spot its clunky shape drifting aimlessly a few meters above your head, the slow blink of its crimson light waving you goodbye as it ventures past the point of retrieval long before you have the time to finish processing that you are now fully stranded on a glorified boulder until the supernova decides it's time to put you out of your misery. Had you known the interloper's gravity (or lack thereof) was enough to pry your ship from its perch you might have attempted to land it less haphazardly among the comet’s spines, but there's little to be done about it now. Hindsight, as they say.
A familiar glow warms the back of your shoulders, prompting you to face it, and it’s here that you discover that the interloper (and you, by proxy) are quickly gaining traction on a beeline for the great big ball of fire in the sky that wants so desperately to have you in its arms ahead of schedule. And you decide, then and there, that suffocation – as the alternative to being roasted like a marshmallow – actually isn’t that terrible of a fate.
As your inevitable doom swiftly approaches, you’re left reminiscing about all the better ways you could have spent this loop. Ways that don’t involve dying a horrible death. It would have been nice to visit the other astronauts… even if they don’t remember you by the time you come around again. Maybe you could have lingered on Timber Hearth this time around, said hello to old friends. There’s always more to explore just about everywhere. So why, when presented with an entire star system in need of exploring, do you find yourself here?
The answer lies beneath your feet, separated by the ice you’ve spent this whole trip avoiding. It splinters and groans as you near the mighty sun, yawning open all at once, and you fall through the mouth before you’re given the chance to realize what’s happening.
You’re swallowed down its throat and fall into the belly of the comet, where danger awaits you still, waiting for its chance to strike the moment you step a foot in the wrong direction. Your suit beeps with a warning no astronaut ever wants to hear.
DANGER: GHOST MATTER DETECTED NEARBY.
It doesn’t take a technologically advanced space suit to make that sort of observation; you can see the lethal material with your own four eyes, deceivingly sharp where it protrudes en masse around the entrance of what looks like your only way forward. You really hope that isn’t the case though. Sure, it doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard to go back the way you came, but you aren’t sure when the ice is going to melt enough to grant you your freedom again, if ever, so finding a secondary exit is now your main priority. You can retrace the Nomai’s steps once you know for certain that there’s a way out of here.
Besides, there isn’t too much ghost matter. It’ll hurt like crazy getting through, obviously, but there’s not enough of it to kill you...right?
You send the scout through on its own first. Just in case.
Unfortunately, the initial photos tell a doomed narrative. Ghost matter lines the walls within, spread throughout the tunnel like an infection. You won’t make it to the other side.
But all hope is not yet lost. Through the use of your scout you find a light at the end of the tunnel. That is, you see your scout’s light literally at the end of a tunnel that you hadn’t noticed until now. What choice do you have but to follow it?
Your enthusiasm is woefully short lived. This tunnel leads you to, you guessed it, more tunnels. All of which boast a small handful of ghost matter. Your only salvation upon entering is the sight of a small, crooked tree, and the undeniable rush of replenished oxygen that follows.
After taking a much needed breath to calm your nerves, you steady your scout in front of a tunnel, having picked one at random, and launch it with the intention to repeat the process until you’ve found a safe way through. It isn’t until the room lapses into darkness that your eyes pick up on the telltale glow of another recorder.
“I’m receiving much stronger energy readings now that we’re beneath the crust. Whatever it is must lie somewhere below, closer to the comet’s center,” it reads. “And I’m starting to think it’s more dangerous than we realized.”
There it is again, that feeling you can’t quite explain that drives a violent tremble through your hands. The translator groans as your fingers clench tighter around it, opting to ignore the sensation in the hope that it goes away.
There are four tunnels in total, and only one of them allows you entry without the promise of being immediately vaporized where you stand. That isn’t to say there’s no deadly ghost matter at the end of your chosen tunnel, just that there’s…less of it. If your hastily snapped photos are to be believed, the tunnel sweeps into a wide circle towards the end with plenty of room to halt your momentum before you’re flushed into what appears to be an entire room of the stuff. You can only hope the pattern follows and you’ll find another less lethal tunnel inside.
Well, here goes nothing.
Having naively left your scout at the end of the tunnel, the ride down is anything but pleasant. You find yourself surrounded by darkness, lead blindly down a cold, merciless slide to who knows where, forced to go along with the ride or die fighting it.
Your body is aching by the time you come out the other side, yet you allow yourself a minute, and only that, to catch your breath. You aren’t sure when next you will find another tree, and you don’t want to waste the precious gift you’ve been given. Not when you’re this close to discovering what lies beneath all this ice.
First thing’s first: you need to find a way out of here that doesn’t end in your death, and you need to avoid falling into the enormous pit of ghost matter flavored agony while you’re at it.
You solve this problem using the same solution as before. Launching your scout in various directions hasn’t failed you yet, after all, so why stop now?
Sure enough, your scout reveals the entrance to what appears to be another tunnel near the roof of this area. You follow it a short ways down, and at the end you happen to find… yep, you guessed it. Another tunnel.
And what’s an Interloper tunnel without its fair share of ghost matter? This one has plenty of it to spare, judging by the multiple warnings your suit throws across the screen. You’re getting real tired of this pattern.
Alright, from the top! Angle, launch, click. The images on screen immediately reveal another set of tunnels (no surprise there), but that’s where things get…tricky. See, these tunnels, unlike the rest, are pressed flush against each other with very little room in between. One has ghost matter in it, and the other doesn’t. Simple enough, right?
Wrong. You angle the scout to go down the tunnel without any ghost matter, only to find another set of identical tunnels a short ways further down, and this time, the ghost matter is on the other side. No matter how many times you reposition your scout, you just can’t swing it. The ice is too fast. You can take two lefts, or two rights, but not a right and then a left. That would take more control than you have over the scout.
The implications are damning. If you want to know what’s down there, you have to take the plunge yourself.
Worse still, you need to commit to the idea despite not knowing whether or not you would make it to the other end. For all you know, both tunnels could be full of ghost matter. You could be making this decision based on nothing but quick observation and pure luck, and for no purpose other than to sate your curiosity.
Ah, screw it. You’ve died for less.
Your scout is launched preemptively this time, offering you the faintest glow of light as you cascade faster, faster, faster still down the tunnel. Angling yourself to fly through the first set of tunnels is easy enough, but forcing your body towards the other side of the icy cavern in time proves more difficult. You just barely make it, skimming the side of the wall on your way through. That’s a bruise you’ll be happy to be rid of when the next loop comes around.
The tunnel spits you out like bitter sap wine and throws you across the room you had been in only moments before. Your scout looks as if it’s going to fall into the pit of ghost matter below, and (while kicking yourself for ever believing this was a good idea to begin with) you mentally prepare yourself to do the same. Teeth clenched, throat dry, eyes welling with tears…and then you see it.
You’ve never been more happy to see another tunnel.
This one is small, so tight you aren’t sure you’ll even fit, but your body slips through its narrow walls like a well oiled fish and you find yourself still inexplicably alive by the time you slide to a stop.
You waste little time in getting back to your feet. Though you would love to spend some extra time patting yourself on the back for coming out of a Feldspar level stunt in one piece, you can’t afford to use up what little remains of your oxygen.
With your scout retrieved and your breath recovered, you head down the cavern in the direction of a dimly lit opening that you can only assume to be another tunnel.
Just as predicted, you arrive at the narrow opening in the ground to find that it drops into…into…
There’s that feeling again. Heavy as a stone in the pit of your stomach, bitter like acid at the back of your throat. It weighs on you, stronger than ever before, as you stare at the body at your feet.
5 MINUTES OF OXYGEN REMAINING
warns your suit.
But you don’t budge. How could you?
You had spent so long swerving through tunnels that you forgot why you came here to begin with. To find Pye. To find Poke.
It looks like something else found them first.
4 MINUTES OF OXYGEN REMAINING
You can’t spend the rest of this loop with your jaw hanging open. Even if you had the time, there’s nothing to be done. You can’t help her. You’re too late.
3 MINUTES OF OXYGEN REMAINING
It’s easy to ignore the warnings. Every breath feels like sandpaper against your lungs, as though your oxygen has long since run out and now you’re just waiting to die. Your hands are numb now, as if you’re already dead.
But you’re not. Even though death would hurt less. Even though death would be kinder a fate than this. Your lungs contract, your heart beats, your hands tremble. You’re alive. You’re alive.
And you have to face this.
You wish you could be anywhere but here right now, but you can’t, and you aren’t, and you won’t leave without finding out what did this to them.
You don’t send the scout in first. Not because there isn’t time but because you don’t care. Not anymore.
Your body slips through the narrow entrance and you plunge into the gut of a vast and weightless cavern, and it is here where you finally come to understand the feeling that’s been crawling beneath your skin.
It isn’t excitement, or enthusiasm, or curiosity.
It’s dread.
Death greets you, though not in the way you’ve come to be familiar with. Rather, you’re made to look it in the eyes; this enormous stone casing, sharp and jagged and ugly, its ruptured organs having mutilated every surface that surrounds it.
And there, at the center of it all, is Pye.
Her corpse idles there, weightless. Stagnant. Little more than a fly caught in a web. The ghost that trapped her here has brilliant phthalo teeth and the hunger to swallow every star whole. There is nothing left of her but an emptied shell.
Despite the egregious amount of ghost matter that blankets the cavern, your suit does not feel the need to warn you. The ghost has been satiated. Its body serves no more purpose. It is harmless in this state, when you can do nothing to stop it, because it, too, is only an emptied shell.
There are two corpses in this room.
You steady your hand as it raises, unprompted, towards the Nomai. You didn’t know her, and she didn’t know you, but there is a sensation welling up in your chest that you can’t quite ignore. In a way, you are your own ghost. A shell of your own making, chipped and chiseled at by unending loops until all that remains is a fickle, hollow shape. You relate to her in the worst of ways.
Dread becomes shock becomes sympathy. You want her to reach towards you, to take your hand, but she doesn’t. She can’t.
She’s dead.
Pye, Poke, Clary, every last Nomai to have ever existed in this star system. Of course they’re gone. Of course they’re dead. You’ve known this your whole life. You were raised on stories of their past, on the sight of their bones tucked neatly behind glass. They haven’t been alive for a long, long time.
But this grief you feel is devastating. It curls you into the palm of its hand and closes its fingers around your body until everything is dark, quiet, suffocating–
60 SECONDS OF OXYGEN REMAINING
You had almost forgotten. Not that it matters too much now, of course. There is nothing to be found here but another reason to mourn.
Even so, you carry on, forcing yourself forward if only to rip the answers you seek from the cold hands of uncertainty. The recorder at Pye’s side will tell you every grisly detail, and you will wake again with a greater appreciation of the knowledge you gained, no matter the cost of its retrieval. Your trip here isn’t in vain. This will all have been worth something.
So why are you crying?
“The spherical stone casing here seems to be the source of the energy readings… No, rather, the source is what’s within the stone. I’m detecting some form of exotic matter."
You try to keep your eyes on the translator, but it’s hard. Her body sits in your peripheral. You can almost feel her there, like a warm body pressed up against you, leaning in for a better look at her own fate.
“The stone is muting our energy readings; they should be ten times what we’re seeing, at least.”
“Pye, I don’t think we want this matter interacting with us. As far as I can tell, direct contact with it would almost certainly be fatal."
“I’ve never encountered anything like this casing, but it’s all that’s protecting us from what’s inside. Worse still, this matter is disturbingly volatile.”
Dread returns, uninhibited, and bites down along your arms like pins and needles. Realization strikes harder than any stone. It crushes you from the inside out.
They didn’t know.
You were raised to respect the presence of ghost matter by steering clear of it at all costs. To you, its existence was a constant factor of life. Its lethality was predictable. You knew to fear it.
“...Pye. Whatever the matter inside this stone casing is, it’s more than just profoundly unstable; it’s under tonnes of pressure. Look at this density scan. I’ve never seen anything this tightly compacted before! What is this?"
How could they not know? The question drives you to the brink of delirium; laughter escapes your throat, dry and bitter. Salt sneaks into your mouth.
Their technology far excelled your own. Their knowledge of the universe was profound. Their advancements incalculable in measure. They learned how to warp through time and space, taught themselves to live inside the core of a planet, harnessed the energy of the sun. Surely there is more to their deaths than this.
“Return to the shuttle, right now! The rest of our friends need to know they’re in terrible danger. Leave your equipment and run!”
“What are you doing, Pye?!”
“The more we know about this alien matter, the better our chances of survival. I will learn what I can here. Go warn the others; maybe they can construct shelter somehow. Now, Poke!”
You laugh again. How could you not? The absurdity of it all catches you off guard, and you’re not sure where to go from here that isn’t a downward spiral. Tears warm your cheeks and soak into the padding beneath your chin until the room around you is little more than a watery blur.
It’s getting hard to breathe.
Pye remains where you left her, still a shell of herself. Just bones and cloth. Her death was not spectacular, nor was it foreseeable. Worse, still, it was mundane. To think, a species so highly advanced they crossed the universe in search of the Eye, and just like that, they were taken out in a blink by something that saw them as irrelevant. It’s ironic, isn’t it?
10 SECONDS OF OXYGEN REMAINING.
There’s a bitterness under your tongue that longs for the words you want to say, but nothing feels right. There is no point in laughing in the face of hypocrisy when no one is around to listen. With the last of your breath, you let it go. Empathy takes its place and buries itself between your ribs.
“We aren’t so different from each other,” you tell her, sipping on asphyxia.
Your eyelids grow heavy. Your lungs feel tight. With all that remains of your energy, you place your hand within her own, and feel the trembling begin to steady.
It is the worst fate of them all to die alone. Though you’re thousands of years too late, you hope that somehow, someway, your presence brings her comfort.
hey guys. earlier today my mom and dog (Samson) were attacked by someone's off leash dog at the park. My mom had to physically wrestle the other dog off of Samson and as such got banged up. she's already gone to the emergency room and cleaned up with shots and shit so she'll be alright, thankfully. We're at the emergency vet with Samson right now.
She managed to get the dog owner's license plate and we're going to file a report to have him pay the bills for this but who knows how successful we'll be or how long it will take.
My mother is already homeless living out of her car and she can't afford to be saddled with bills like this and I don't have a consistent enough income to offer her nearly enough support on this, so I'm swallowing my pride and asking for help.
I can't open my commissions yet so I have nothing to offer immediately but I'll open requests when I get home and at least see if I can get some small prompt oneshots out in thanks.
I'll update this when we know for sure how much it'll be costing us and just to update you guys in general on the situation. Thankfully Samson is doing alright as of right now (we got the bleeding to stop) and is just trying to rest until the vet tells us what happens from here.
I know times are rough right now so I'm not expecting everyone to give and I completely understand if you can't. Please don't donate if it would put you at risk or if you need the money yourself. I'm only asking for spare change, here. I don't want to put anyone in a bad spot.
Either way, thank you for your support, be it financial or just in general. This happening so soon after having to put our other dog down is obviously putting enormous strain on everyone. With any luck we'll get out of here soon with an affordable bill and a healthy dog.
Thank you thank you thank you
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made a small (SMALL) pot of coffee but did it on auto pilot and used the usual amount of scoops (enough for a full pot) (pot is family sized) and the concoction I've brought into existance can no longer be considered coffee. it is dark enough to show Narcissus his reflection. Boss music pours from the spout. four shots of adrenaline housed in the confines of an 8oz mug. my Palpitation Potion, if you will. if this beast takes me out know I died by no means but my own hubris like god intended.
