Chapter Text
There is a tear in the sky.
It drips golden as it eats away at the stars and dark night.
The wind surrounding the Grove had intensified to a feet sweeping storm. Godpoke watched in horror as their loose curly fur ruffled in response to the impossibility in the sky. Something was wrong, it itched up their back into the cricks of their neck.
The Spire stood strong against the Rift. Its red and black architecture was stark against the Rift’s golden glow. The Spire was being slowly consumed. The rift ate away at it, it ate away at the last pillar that stood between the Grove and the Rift’s hunger.
In the distance, Godpoke could faintly see the silhouettes of the gods, and in turn watched as they fell from the heavens one by one. Godpoke watched as they were forcibly consumed and digested. Godpoke felt sick deep in their bones. Inspekta and King were nowhere to be found. King was meant to ascend, but no one had heard heads or tails of her. She had disappeared, with no word to anyone.
Something about that seemed wrong. She didn't seem the type to up and leave, leaving heartbreak in her trail.
Godpoke glanced next to them, Patty sat clutching her legs as she stared up into the Rift. Her face is soured and she looks… scared. Terror fills her face as she watches the gods fall. Hot tears well up in her big brown eyes, and she is terrified . Godpoke quietly wound their tail around hers, and leaned against her. Godpoke was lost. They couldn't play the hero anymore, they couldn't help anyone.
Will they die here? Will anyone be left to remember them when the Rift envelops the Grove? What will happen after that?
They didn't want to die.
They didn't want to die.
They clutched Patty’s hand, and leaned against her, listening to her sniffle quietly. Godpoke watched idly as the rest of the Bizzyboys hurried around. Gruj looked as lost as Godpoke felt. They waved him over to sit with them and Patty. He seemed stressed out of his mind, but leaned into Godpoke.
Godpoke saw another star fall out of the rift.
Then there was no seeing.
Up on the Spire, the Rift has opened its maw too far. It tore the sky apart in beautiful, terrifying, golden ribbons. The wind the rift consumed threatened to snatch King’s hat off her head. King couldn’t look away. She watched as the gods desperately tried to close the gaping wound in the sky, with no success. It had opened too far. The rift was so large, so bright, it was hard to look anywhere that wasn’t it. The gods looked at her. Apologies spilled like water from a faucet, but all King did was smile. There was nothing any of them could do anymore.
King watched, and watched, and watched. After all, that’s all she could really do. She was trapped up here, forced to watch as the world ended, as they all believed she hated them below.
She watched as the sky consumed the gods, one by one. As They fell from the heavens as beautiful shooting stars. They streaked against the sky, leaving marks in the disappearing sky. She watched Their bodies turn into stars, then fire, then dust, then Their holy makeup was dispersed into the sky. She watched as Inspekta smiled from His throne in the heavens, finally alone.
King watched. And waited.
She looked to Inspekta, in His impossible form, His hands that skitters like bugs. She spoke, quietly, she wondered if He knew the rift will not stop at the gods. She wondered if He knew, knew it would consume the spire, then her, then the Grove. Will you be happy in the heavens of solitude, King questions. The last and only god offered no response.
King turned back to the Rift.
Her thoughts buzzed like a live wasp nest, engulfing her. The rift was going to eat her alive. It was going to digest her and tear her apart, separate her muscles and bones, consume her brain and her memories with it, she mused. She wondered how much it would hurt. Maybe it would take only a moment to consume her very soul. Or maybe the rift would take its sweet time, tearing her apart carefully, letting her grieve her chance of ascending. She then allowed herself to ponder, to wonder why the Grove had a rift in the first place. Many would say it existed for more gods to populate the expansive heavens. Yet, It seems all so cruel to her. The gods have to close the injury to the sky themselves. Has the rift always craved the divine matter of the deities? She supposed it doesn't matter now, staring into the eyes of her demise.
Will anyone mourn her? Will they care? Will they still think she betrayed them?
The rift was so close, she could feel its magnetic pull, she could feel its hunger for her soul. She was powerless to resist it. She was only mortal, after all. She fell into the jaws of the end of the world.
At first, her body felt numb and weightless, like drifting on a cloud.
Then it didn’t.
Her body tore itself apart ligament by ligament, tendon by tendon. It tore her limbs off, like it was taking its sweet time to digest her, a sharp heat built and built in her chest, threatening to explode, turning her into a fiery mark in the sky. King felt her soul be bitten, chewed, swallowed. She couldn't scream. The rift had stolen her breath from out of her lungs for itself.
It hurt. It hurts it huRTS IT HURTS-. It was going to destroy her. Take her apart atom by atom till nothing of her was left, until she was just a cluster of molecules dispersed into the endless void. She swallowed around dryness, her throat scratched and burned and ached. Her sinuses burned. Sharp air filled her mouth and nose, she gasped around the invasive air. It filled her entire body, her lungs filled and filled and filled. She c lenched her fists close to her chest, curling up like a newborn.
She didn’t want to die.
She didn’t want to die, not yet.
The rift burned. it burned and burned and burned. It blazed in her eyes, her mouth, it sneaked into any crevice it could find, and stole her words out from under her. Her eyes watered as the golden light flooded into her pupils, she looked out, and saw the form of Inspekta, a terribly tall pillar of apocalypse. She felt a lot of things. Anger. Confusion. Sadness. They swirled into a nauseating pool in her stomach.
King briefly mourned the loss of not being able to say goodbye to Razzma, her partner, her compatriot, her star.
Then, like all things that die do, she became a star too.