The Shattered World:
Book Two in
The Corrosion of Ages
Trilogy

Prologue – The Fatal Mistake

Roughly 10,000 years ago

Safere

Air smelling of burning citrus flowed around dangling tendrils of gossamer crystal, so delicate and yet untouched by rot or ruin. Ultraviolet light bathed the reflective metallic fields in an unending display of alien perspective, reflecting off those same tendrils to create a dizzying display indeed.

Some may look upon such splendor and feel joy or awe, maybe some epiphany of meaning in the universe. Safere felt no such thing as he stared intently with his face scrunched up, not a flicker of anything good or holy. He felt nothing dark or unholy either.

Just… nothing.

How was it possible to be born with almost no capacity for joy or beauty? How could anyone be expected to live as he had? Only his family offered some small warmth in the vast cold of a meaningless existence, but he ruined that. Their relationship with him was non-existent after…

IT IS ALMOST TIME, HOST.

Safere grunted at the discomfort the voice brought with it, like his skull was inflating from the inside, and said quietly, “You still haven’t told me what the plan is.”

YOU KNOW ENOUGH.

“The fuck I do! All you will say is that we are taking a ship by force,” Safere shouted that time, feeling the subtle claws of manipulation in its words.

WE ARE GOING TO CREATE SEEDS. DIFFERENT THIS TIME.

Seeds? They had filled some caves and barren deserts on populated planets with masses of darkness that had writhed and pulsed, though Safere was of course not told why. His head spun in a confused daze, but the sinking weight in his gut told him he likely didn’t want to know anyway. Safere dropped the issue with an angry sigh and stared at the dull world around him until a feeling came over him.

It was time.

The darkness suffusing his soul and body writhed, enveloping his body, clothes, and nanotech swarm with the ridiculous name in a swirling storm of darkness. Who named a bunch of robots H.U.G.H?

The question had no time to gestate as reality corroded around him, burning the fibres of the universe like acid. In a matter of seconds, the darkness faded enough to see the bustling void-ship around him. Being in an alien world one second, then hurtling through the expanse of space the next was always an odd experience, but it was one he was becoming more acquainted with.

Alarmed shouts sprang up from every directi on as Safere spoke two echoing words, “I’m sorry.”

The darkness within him burst outward in grasping tentacles tipped with talons, each arcing toward a person with lightning speed. Safere reached into a pocket and pulled out H.U.G.H, programming the cell function with two taps on its shifting surface. A word rose on the surface; facticulating.

And the nanobots fell to the floor like water, eating minuscule materials and replicating to reach the numbers required for his trap. They spread in perfectly straight lines as thousands of passengers were rounded up by the darkness in the centre, then built upward at the corners. Suddenly, a transparent wall of energy appeared between the connecting lines of nanobots and sealed all of them inside. The darkness remaining in the cell spread out among them and burned their hair and clothes away before dissipating like steam.

“What will I do with them?”

THEY WILL BECOME SEEDS, LIKE ON ALL THE OTHER PLANETS.

Safere flinched back, confused. The other seeds weren’t… weren’t people. Were they? He said, “Seeds? But-”

THEY MUST BE SLAUGHTERED. BUT FIRST, ACTIVATE THE REALM-PIERCER.

Slaughtered? That didn’t sound good, and he certainly wasn’t going to listen to that order. The darkness was right, though. He needed to get out of there before someone saw his crime. Spinning to the display, he walked toward the controls at the helm and focused his gaze on an impressive lever.

When he stood before it, Safere grasped it and pulled without hesitation.

Light twisted upon itself in dizzying patterns as stars and galaxies were crossed in seconds, Safere’s stolen void-ship shuddering like it was barely holding together. The swirling darkness suffusing his soul positively cackled with glee.

“I…” his voice was cut off as the darkness directed its vindictive attention upon him and words louder than sound overcame him.

WHY DO YOU STILL DOUBT?

“This is too much!” Safere shouted, his composure cracking. He panted and continued, “I can’t go through with it.”

THAT IS NOT AN ANSWER, HOST.

The words reverberated through his skull like a strike of lightning as the swirling light changed. In its place were gargantuan eyes darker than the void framed by rotten needles of teeth larger than galaxies. Safere screamed and tore his throat, the damage healing instantaneously; the rotten power refused death to him.

When his throat was usable, he rasped, “Because I don’t want to be the reason so many people die. What is beautiful about that?”

The darkness did not reply, save for the disappointment radiating through his bones. The vision faded back into the dizzying light of humanity’s ultimate scientific discovery; realm-piercing was the only reliable way to travel through the expanse of the void without it taking millions of years.

Safere sighed, frustration boiling away in his ribcage. He would have said more, but a set of green pulses emanated from the display and demanded his attention. Leaning forward with his brow furrowed, he gripped a lever and waited as the green grew brighter and brighter.

When the hue was just right, he yanked the lever toward himself and clenched his eyes shut. Even through his eyelids, the blast of light was searing and hurt his retinas.

Just as quickly as it came, it was over. Safere opened his eyes and saw something that stirred a deep ache in his chest. A blue sphere floated in the endless void, peppered with the yellows and greens of natural landmasses as the pale moon of his homesick nightmares orbited it tirelessly.

It made him fucking sick and filled him with joy. His heart cracked as memories of loving eyes and high-pitched giggles singed the edges of his mind, pain like an avalanche rendering him unable to speak.

This is my home- Safere thought, his internal words cut off by a much louder, much more sadistic voice.

WAS.

Old fury and pride filled the cracks in his heart like quickly hardening cement as the dreadfully familiar planet slowly grew closer.

The void-ship wouldn’t be able to move fast for a while since realm-piercing took a lot of energy and it needed to cool down. He forced his mind to continue thinking of logistics and problems he could solve instead of what lay behind him in the ship, but a noise drew his attention like iron to a magnet.

Sobbing.

Safere sighed, forcing himself to stand from the comfortable captain’s seat before slowly turning around.

The massive transparent cage took up only a third of the floorspace of the control room, but it was the only thing his eyes could register. More specifically, it was the thousands of naked prisoners cowering from or staring at him in utter terror. Young men and women cried hopelessly, not understanding the purpose of their capture, but dreading it all the same.

He wanted to turn back around, to ignore them. However, he found his feet methodically walking forward until he stood with his nose almost touching the cage. Safere opened his mouth to try and explain his actions to them, but the darkness finally spoke again.

IT’S THE TEXTURE AND SOUNDS.

“I… what?”

YOU ASKED ME WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL ABOUT MANY DEATHS. IT IS THE TEXTURE AND SOUNDS. CAN I TRUST YOU TO DO WHAT MUST BE DONE?

Safere shivered in revulsion at its almost introspective musing, not liking that it felt comfortable enough to share. Its question struck him like a bullet to the forehead as he said, “No, find someone else. I am not strong enough to do what you want of me.”

He started to turn toward the navigation controls, intent on piloting the ship away from the blue planet. Instead, his muscles turned to unpliable stone as he became unable to move. A sickening tingling erupted across his body as a keening sound nearly split his head wide open, followed by the disappointed smugness of the darkness.

ALLOW ME TO DEMONSTRATE, HOST.

The tingling grew painful, then agonizing, as his fingertips turned midnight black and a horrible twisting rose throughout his body. Finally, a single blob of dark grew from his fingertip and congealed into some nightmare creature of spikes and carapace. It twitched hungrily, spines moving independently from each other.

Safere could do nothing as the creature leapt from his finger and onto the cage, melting through the nanobot shield like a flame to soap bubbles.

Thousands of naked victims squealed in terror and tried to back away from the horror, but there was nowhere for them to escape. It coiled in on itself and squealed in delight before leaping at the nearest man and splitting his skull in twain.

Then it jumped to the next person, a woman. Her screaming mouth was its target and it fell in with a spray of blood and a gagged scream.

Her stomach exploded. A flitting black monstrosity leapt from the gore and onto another. Then another.

And another.

On and on it went until each human being was violently brought to the end of their lives. Still, Safere could not turn away, like his body was not under his control. His eyes burned, but he could not even blink to alleviate it.

Finally, the creature flew back into Safere’s waiting hand and absorbed through his skin. His arm continued moving of its own accord toward the cage, stopping only when it was pressed firmly against the hole. A monumental rush of dark energy released from his hand and into the cage of corpses, suffusing each in a cloud of concentrated darkness.

Still, he could not turn away.

That’s when a sickening series of sounds drew his attention, an echoing ensemble of wet clicks and wrong cracks that grew in volume as he tried to make sense of what was going on.

The corpses…

The corpses were twitching!

The darkness entered the unrestful dead, twisting their naked features from gored human to mutated nightmare. Fat beasts of wing and tusk exploded from the withered back of an old man, attached at the abdomen like a grotesque angel from one religion or another. Another, a young woman, grew four heads as her bones melted away. One unidentifiable corpse literally mutated into a giant, bloodshot eyeball.

More and more changes ripped through the previously dead. Limbs his nightmares couldn’t dream up were commonplace as a stink of rotten blood filled the ship. Then, disgustingly, each mutated corpse rose from the ground and turned to face him with rapture in their eyes.

TOGETHER WE WILL MAKE THE ENTIRE COSMOS PERFECT. DO YOU SEE NOW, HOST? CAN YOUR MORTAL MIND COMPREHEND THE BEAUTY MY TOUCH IMPARTS?

His body came under his control again, and he promptly fell to the floor and vomited bile onto the metallic floor. Suddenly, pain like every nerve in his body had been set afire at once filled him. Safere screamed again as the voice rose in volume within his mind.

ANSWER ME, SAFERE.

“No, damn you! This isn’t beautiful… it’s unholy!”

AND TO THE CRUX OF IT. YOUR ‘GODS’ ARE FALSE IDOLS, AND I BECAME THE ONLY GOD YOU NEED WORRY ABOUT THE DAY YOU SAID YES.

“I don’t care what I fucking said! I won’t do it; I’ll crash this ship into the moon before I let you do this to my home!” Safere yelled through the pain, clutching at the sides of his head. He made to stand, to make some valiant attempt to alter the ship’s course, but his body once again locked up.

NO, YOU WILL NOT. IT SEEMS YOU ARE IN NEED OF A LESSON; FREEDOM IS A PRIVILEGE THAT YOU LOST WHEN YOU LET ME IN.

It filled his body and mind like it had never done before, the sickening darkness so vast and intimate he could scarcely grasp its shape. The pressure grew worse and more intense until his mind became unmoored from his body, watching from afar as a silent witness while his body stood without him telling it to.

Even more horrifying, his lips stretched into a wide smile as nasty, jagged words forced their way from what was once his throat, “And now I will show you the joys of this universe, my Host. You may not be strong enough to commit to the path you chose, but that is fine. I do not need your compliance, consent, or approval to exercise my Will.”

No! You can’t take my body; this is not the deal! Safere’s words were ephemeral, less effective than an intrusive thought. Less bothersome than a buzzing gnat circling a God’s head.

“That stopped being up to you the moment you let me in, Host.” Safere’s body turned around and faced the window, noticing with abject terror that it was much closer. He watched as his hands pressed against the glass and slowly turned black and bulbous, features mutating into something other. It continued in a gleeful whisper, “It is too late. The End has come.”

Thank you for reading, that’s all folks! – Jasper L. Walker