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The moon hangs on the sky like a large clock mounted high on a wall. But it is closer than any moon should be. He feels that he can almost reach out and touch it. It is close and gargantuan and perfectly round. It is gray, and if he could graze his fingers across its expansive surface, he just knew they would come away covered in dust. It hangs there doing nothing. But he knows what it’s really doing. It’s waiting. Promising. Looming.
And then he hears the voice in his head.
Y̴O̷U̵ ̷W̴I̷L̵L̴
A shock of white overtakes his vision for just a moment, but it is gone even quicker than it came. Now the moon looms even closer and he can feel it. He feels it in the air: a soft hum. A vibration that is almost gentle enough to massage his bones. But it is not gentle enough. It doesn’t massage.
It rattles. The faint tremors of a distant quake. It makes his teeth buzz.
And the voice again.
C̴͕͘Ö̵̺́M̷̝̋E̴͎ ̶̳̄B̶̼̾Ä̵̬́C̸̫͂K̶̬̂
For one second, colored fabrics—silvery and navy blue—obscure the moon, swishing with movement. For one second, the moon looms larger than before and the air rumbles even harder. For one second, metal plate of steel, smoke, and gold shifts into place. The moon looms even larger still and the air rumbles even harder. So much harder.
The air no longer rattles. His bones do, like a rattlesnake’s tail.
And the voice again.
T̴̢̓Ȯ̷͇̓ ̷̬̼̂͐M̸̖̬̾E̴̼̥̚
The moon is before him now. Not above him. Before him. It sits in the sky before him like a great round window, but someone has flipped the surface somehow. Rather than a round opening of nothing in a solid wall, he looks now on a round solid wall in an opening of nothing. A wall of dust and indifference.
The air is still, he realizes. No. Not quite still. But . . .
It hums.
And the voice again.
W̵̘̙͂E̵̡̙̹̕ ̷̖̲̽̆̈͜Â̸͔Ṛ̶̮͓́E̸͍͕̍̃̊ͅ
And there it stands, between the moon and him: a mighty figure in the armor and tunic he’d seen before. He watches from behind it as the figure, tall and strong and foreboding and too many things to feel—let alone say—draws its mighty blade. Two ribbons of metal, some eldritch mineral from a place and time other than his own, weave around each other and meet in a point so sharp it could pierce magic itself.
It brings the blade low, by its right hip, and grips the hilt with both hands. It doesn’t hesitate a beat before it swings a diagonal arc upward, and then the moon cracks. The figure holds its sword upward and watches as the lunar orb splits. A chunk falls away, pulling with it clods of rock and grain—and opens wide a maw to what lies within.
The inside of the moon glows. It is warm and orange and somehow he is as certain that it is blood as he’s certain that it’s magma. As he’s certain that it’s neither. That it’s crystal, glass, candy, all, or none.
Whatever it is, it kills the air.
It kills the hum that he’d felt in his bones. It kills the sound that had flooded his ears, the cacophonous breakage of stone and dirt and time. When the glow within the moon came without, all sound fled or died.
And then the figure turns its head.
It looks over its shoulder, and its face glows. Its eyes, a milky white. The marks on its cheeks, a bloody red. The mark on its forehead, a rich blue. They glow through the curtain of its white hair, and the sight of them alone is enough to make his face burn. He feels the marks on his own forehead, his own cheeks, and they burn and itch and squeeze.
He can’t breathe.
And the figure looks at him. The figure looks through him. The figure looks at you. Yes, you, Fidget.
The figure looks at you.
Ị̸̡̺̬̎̓N̴̘͔̳͊͂͜E̴̲͋̽͛̈́̄V̶͙̑̎̆̈́̃Ḭ̶̧̂̓̄͜ͅT̸̠̅̓͊͜A̸̜̳̜͙̖͗̄͑Ḇ̶̨̡̛͉̀ͅĹ̴̡̨̧̰̹̆̏̕̚Ê̸̻̺̹̳̯̌̿