76.
Re-appearing with a familiar flash of purple, Ziriothrax staggered slightly, though Jeffbob was unfazed.
This is not spatial re-orientation of the classic sense, no...this application of anti-saniton decay had only ever been theorised, never tested. Not to travel, but to re-arrange the universe around you, such that you end up exactly where the most chaos will result. The mathematics checked out, but the sheer energies involved were greater than all the matter in this pitiful galaxy contained.
And yet this buffoon manages it just like that?
Jeffbob, in the meantime, was surveying their new landscape. A sharp contrast from the desolation they left behind, what graced there eyes now was akin to a man stranded in a desert coming across a new spring.
A refreshing feeling, washing away a bitter aftertaste, purifying the body as it passed through. Strangely, it felt like Jeffbob knew this place, or perhaps knew of it. Not for the first time, the aching void in his mind where his memories once belonged frustrated him.
Furrowing his brows, he felt the words arrive unbidden, as if it had always been this way.
"The glade, beneath a starry sky..."
As he muttered those words, it was as if a crisp pane of glass shattered. A sound that seemed to reverberate through their souls, leaving behind a cloyingly sweet scent.
A scent of flowers.
Ah, yes...the flowers.
The rest of the forest was dense with shadow, but that only allowed the silvery light of the moon illuminating that clearing to be that much greater. Small, white flowers dotted the glade, almost translucent, petals as fragile as a breath.
It was hypnotic, demanding the attention of those who watched. Consuming the attention of all those who watched.
The flowers were arranged in a spiral pattern, as if to trace one's eyes inexplicably towards the centre. As his glassy orbs moved glacially, something else seemed to tickle at the back of Jeffbob's mind, but it was too far away, too distant. Muted, smothered by that which lay in front of his eyes in that very moment.
It couldn't have been more important, anyways.
The spiral arrangement of the divine flowers gave rise to the almost sacrilegious possibility that they were merely planted in order to venerate that which lay in its centre. A profane thought, that planted and sprouted its seed within Jeffbob's barren mind.
What lies at its centre?
Ziriothrax found himself caught by the same spell, his layered minds consumed by that thought until almost the very deepest core.
Stolen story; please report.
What lies at its centre?
"I must see it."
His insect voice was uncharacteristically raspy, yet a sudden impulse arose from his most hidden weapon.
DO NOT LOOK!
For a moment, he dismissed that thought. Abruptly realising the meaning of such a thing, he shut his eyes immediately. A powerful pressure descended centred on him, but it seemed contained, lessened somehow.
As a strange wind picked up, Jeffbob continued to follow that narcotic spiral in a trance. He did not blink, as if fearing the sight before him would disappear like a lucid dream in the purifying rays of dawn. Such a thing terrified him, and so he kept looking.
DO NOT LOOK!
At last, after an eternal second, his gaze finally reached it. The summit of the mountain, overlooking the entire world spread out beneath his feet.
There, beneath the blind stars and the dead moon, on the planet once known as Life, lay ■.
It took a second before it hit Jeffbob like a visible wave. A sense of wrongness akin to a physical force rippled from that spot occupied by ■ unholiness. How dare they? Steal it? I must have it back I must have it back I MUST HAVE IT BACK WHERE IS IT!
At that moment, the cricket who lay locked in a seemingly equal battle with that strange oppressive force, cracked open his eye. A grin split apart his facade of despair, and fury lit behind his eyes as he roared out.
"Do not look? DO NOT LOOK? I SEE YOU ■, AND YOU ARE NOTHING!"
Spittle flew from his mouth, insect veins popping out from his eyes as he began to bleed. All the while, a mad grin plastered onto his face. With a roar that shook the trees, the stalemate around him broke, and a wave of force emanated from him at it centre.
For a split-second, it appeared he debated something, before begrudgingly coming to a conclusion.
He turned to grab Jeffbob, shouting at him, though the creature remained in a daze-like state.
"Snap out of it, you great, lumbering bewilderbeast! It's all smoke and mirrors, can't you see that?"
He was desperate, but Jeffbob remained unchanged from his catatonic state. For a moment, Ziriothrax looked around, a grim realisation settling on his face as if he were ready to make a final stand.
And I almost was starting to hate this universe a little less. Oh well, I can always begin again.
Sensing a strange, unforeseen level of danger, the forest itself began to shake, leaves rustling like an ominous warning. At the same time, seers across the galaxy began to bleed from their eyes uncontrollably, babbling on in a strange tongue about the coming of the Herald of Extinction. Even beyond the meagre borders of the Watchful Eye, the true Hunters that lurked in the unfathomable depths of the Dark Forest stirred, sensing an emotion for which they had forgotten the word.
Fear.
"This is wrong."
A baritone voice shattered the building tension like a Prince Rupert's drop smacked on the tail end with a falling meteor.
"No, no, you're doing it all wrong. ■ is not supposed to be there. Did you not even learn the basics of cultivation? Vegetables need water AND sun, and this place is under a perpetually 'starry sky' or whatever."
His voice had grown increasingly distressed, while the strange force pervading that place and Ziriothrax were both frozen, unsure of what exactly to do. Ignoring their distress, Jeffbob continued, tutting like a disapproving llama upon witnessing a small lizard not spat on.
"This is NOT the way of Vegetable-kind. In fact, I would wager you don't even really care about Vegetable. You know what, I won't stand for this any longer. I WILL be having a stern word with your farmer, Mr Glade Beneath a Starry Sky."
With a disappointed shake of his head, Jeffbob and Ziriothrax disappeared in a purple flash of light, leaving behind an lingering air of extreme confusion. The trees rustled, but before long, silence once again reclaimed its apex position in the hierarchy of that place.
That glade, beneath that starry sky.