The AhziRa

5: Song of the Vortex




Dropping In



Story spent many days exploring the surface of planet X driven by a hunger within him to experience the space that he couldn't quite understand. Today in particular, the call to explore was raging in him, inhabiting a form so strong it was almost ravenous.


He explored out further than he'd gone before, setting his sights for the highest mountain around. It was one of the unusual days in which Story felt light, freed from the burden he faced often at camp, crumbling in the despair of never seeing another person he loved, never sharing the beauty of this magnificent place. He sometimes felt guilty for experiencing such serene landscapes alone, as if it were wrong to keep all this majesty to himself. He'd learned so much in his time here. The Anomaly presented an entirely different language to approach reality. He knew the renders he'd collected upon the worlds he'd travelled would give scientists material to study for generations. It would be such a shame if he never made it home to share of this space, and the pain of that ever so likely probability haunted him like a leadened weight he carried through every motion. But today was different. As he climbed through the rocks and quested into the mysteries of the planet's surface, it was the first time since he'd arrived, he felt truly free from all context. There was no before nor after, only now.


Though he'd initially set his eyes upon climbing the tallest peak he could find, he abandoned this notion as his mountain revealed a valley of stone like black obsidian. The mountains created a barricade from the wind, and between their shelter, the silence was thunderous. He could hear his heart beat, his breath between them. A fog poured through the rocks like a ship of ghosts on their way to another world, and Story was breath-taken by the beauty inhabiting the space.

He started to walk through the valley. Each footstep echoing softly off the black glass as he smiled in their resonance. His fingers traced the ridge lines of boulders like a child in play, and slowly his movement began to vary. First, a hop, from one stone to another. Then, a twirl between two more. And then, like a child who'd just escaped from the adults to play with the others, he was off- tearing through the rock formations, up and down spires, carving through them with an elegant grace that made him feel Alive, so fully inhabiting his body. The Earth felt invigorating beneath his feet as if it too relished in the experience of having its surface so utilized. Story imagined himself and the world dancing together as he hurled over boulders and swung through cracks in the rocks.

The earth in this valley between goliaths was perfect for movement. The stone was large and heavy set providing sturdy platforms for Story to leap and land. They were beautiful, rich with a presence of a current indicative of an ancient magmic river carving the mountain in two.

The further down the riverbed he moved, the more complex the structures became. The rocks formed with more motion in them than anything solid should seem to have. some of the liquid sprung out from itself and froze in time like a jungle's vines leaping through the surface and back into the water. Other portions became textured and geometric, jutting from the Earth in vast arrays of rectangular prisms which Story used as a platform to launch from, sidestep upon a black obsidian spire and land upon a smooth pane of granite. He couldn't conceive any liquid which moved in such exquisite formations and didn't spend any time contemplating how things came to be the way they were. He was wholly enveloped in the brilliant bliss of flying through it all.

It was like he was driving an ancient stick shift that didn't have a limit towards the amount of gears he could rev the engine higher, and higher, and higher. His motions were athletic, his vessel ecstatic, each movement dropping him into a deeper sense of communion with the stone. He mirrored its formations with his own as if they were speaking a timeless language together. When the rocks sprung up in walls, he'd ride them like a surfer in a barrel.

Fluid, fast, silent until he wanted to be loud and stomp on the ground in a space which created the darkest echo.

The whole valley narrowed into a cavern, funneling all the energy of his dance into a single stream. Instead of slowing down into its darkness, he placed his feet upon the gas, flying through the place like an arrow loose to space. Directed, precise, swift, and silent. Each moment demanding every ounce of his presence, utilizing every drop of combat awareness where life's lips hover just before the kiss of death.

Then suddenly, all the stones parted. The rocks parted, giving way to a vista, and Story ripped to a halt to ingest what he saw.