The mountains opened to a vast expanse in front of him, a desert lush with life. Half of the scene was illuminated in gold by the vibrant luminescence of the setting sun, while the upper and more distant portions of everything he saw were draped in the ominous hues of an approaching storm. The two colors in juxtaposition made each feel far more extreme. It was a dance of the heavens, a churning of the tides, and the darkness was quickly smothering the hopeful flame of the light.

Dark masses careened across the sky. The Storm's clouds held a presence of sentience, convulsing and at war with itself. It felt like staring into the space between reality and the dream and watching the war of ideas battling for their expression into the world. The clouds seemed to possess their own sentience, as if within them lived the presence of the hunt, where both predator and prey dancing between life and death. Such extraordinary energy convulsing just beyond the veil that would occasionally tear, and something would break through with sound of thunder that tore holes in the world. It was like a great beast tearing through the matrix to devour its prey.

Sentience

Then Story began to make out another layer, a darker density within the storm's cacophony. It was pareidolia, an abstract scene revealing a form beneath. The storm had a main body, a central mass from which everything emitted. Sometimes the body would congeal, and a funnel would form in the sky, lunging for the ground, then it would explode, shattering itself in chaos. For brief moments there would be the faintest hint of cohesion, the fragments coalescing into form like a school of birds moving in a body of geometric unity, and then it would disperse again as if disgusted by the suggestion of synergy.

There was something so deeply unsettling about it, like the scene was fundamentally wrong, like it couldn't exist, yet here it was. It was the most beautiful, terrifying, divine, and horrifically diabolical thing Story had ever seen. He felt witnessing it tear something beyond awe in him, something he'd never return from.

Story was taken back by the sight of it all, mesmerized in the storm's hypnotic trance, when suddenly he realized in a very short period of time, the storm had hurdled from the horizon to the vast tundra and was approaching him rapidly. It's cast tendrils of lightning down onto X's surface like a giant predator feeding upon the world through venomous ventricles of electricity. The winds were whirring around him, and many of the rocks began to shake, shudder, and levitate in magnetic response. He wanted to stop and observe this field of levitation, but he quickly realized he was in great danger. He felt static in the air all around him. His hair rose across all his body, and when he moved his limbs through the air there was a sonic whoosh as they passed through a thick field of static. It felt as if lightning were to imminently ignite in the space all around him.

The flood gates released, and adrenaline erupted through his body as he searched around him for cover. Beneath an arrangement of levitating boulders, Story noticed a crevasse leading down into the Earth, and without time to contemplate whether or not he'd be able to find his way out once the storm passed and the boulders fell, he dove into the crevasse. Moments later, he felt the Earth erupt and shake. The storm had arrived.

This world did not abide by Nature's Law that lightning may only strikes once in the same place. It fell like rain, bombs cascading from the sky tearing a city apart. Over and over again as if it were a megalithic shark, eyes blackened, dilated with the taste of blood, tearing apart the reef looking for him. Somehow it was clear, the Storm knew he was here.

He fumbled down the cavern as fast he could, stumbling, frantic with fear as if he could feel the beast's breath on his neck, a thunderous glitching scream, a haunting energy burning his back with an ungodly radiation. He imagined blisters broiling, blood bursting as he tore through the darkness. He'd no idea how far the crevasse would go, but he knew it couldn't be far enough before he was-----

Falling

Falling

Falling

Just long enough to recognize within himself, "I'm falling".