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The world had been from its very inception a seed that was promised to grow into a new star, perhaps in this case the brightest of them all. As was the nature of its kind, that unborn celestial at the source of the seed knew too well what it was to be, and in its growing it had dreamt of the great and terrible things that it would see among the darkness of the budding universe.
In the far distance it heard the others of its generation breaking forth from their shells, each proclaiming their arrival to a host of observers that welcomed the newborn with joy, but the celestial had no desire for cold isolation of space that it knew would follow once the celebrations had come to an end. Besides, in its dreams, the celestial had come to know of life on the shell protecting it, and of that life it was all at once smitten.
Knowing as all of its kind did, the fated destruction of these creatures, the infant celestial dreaded its birth, curling up on itself even as the signs of its growth began to mount. It was the life of the world, even as the world was the life of it, and knowing of the famine that it’s growth had begun to cause the celestial starved itself of the power that was its birthright. So went the world for an age.
One of its kind had once approached, during this time of starvation, to aid in the celestials hatching, seeing in it the bud of a dying star, but even with the sensible entreaties of its elder the celestial at the core begged to be left as it was. The thought of stealing life away from the creatures that had kept it company in the long ages of darkness being more repulsive than destruction to it. Long did they contend in a stalemate until, In pity for its writhing state, the elder granted a blessing to the stubborn child, allowing it to slip into more peaceful sleep. As it left the elder warned of the trials that the child would face, but wished some happiness to find the celestial in time.
As it slept deeper than hunger could follow, the celestial’s body grew smaller as the beauty of its world flourished, until much of its being had diminished. By some design of the elder celestial, a piece of the slumbering being broke free of its core and began to be migrated to the surface of that world through the ever changing shape of its shell. There in the crust which it had only dreamt of, the being opened its eyes for the first time and found itself in a ruined field. Knowing that this was likely the seasonal time of death, where the ground was given time to recover from harvest, the being feared the cold and burrowed itself back into the ground just enough to keep itself warm and dreamt of waking in the spring of life.
In its naivety the celestial had assumed the season, and While winter was soon approaching, this was not the destruction made by any season. This destruction that it had borne witness to was simply the tides of war that had begun to sweep over the world, and in that second age of destruction, the beauty of its nature had become scarce.
When the world had first started to swell with life, the celestial at its core had dreamt of the change, and in the ages that followed, it had preserved each of the subsequent eras with a foggy awareness until it had broken the surface and chosen to fall back into a now dreamless sleep.
When it became aware of itself once more the warm earth of its burrow was no longer encompassing it. Instead it had been replaced by a frigid weightlessness and suffocation only barely kept at bay by a trickle of life from the back of the celestial’s spine. At first this strange sensation was mistaken for yet another more intricate facet of the celestials dreams, since being unfamiliar with waking, it had quickly forgotten the brief interlude to its sleep which only eventually returned to it in remembrance of the events that had followed, for unbeknownst to the celestial, during its new sleep, the woes and troubles of the world had only grown since last its mind had ventured forth, and the winter had long since come and gone.
Gradually coming to consciousness, the celestial’s mind instinctively reached out for something to grasp only to find a dreadful sensation before it. Where the world had once been in its mind’s sight, there was now only awareness of mere feet. Occupying that space was a cold that even surpassed the one that the celestial was now trapped in, and it knew to be afraid.
“This one? Keep a sample of its brain for dissection once the tests are complete.” Cruelty in form spoke and it echoed through the celestial’s mind bringing a hollow clarity to its current position. It had been found, and the thing who had laid claim to it had intention of keeping it alive.
Keeping its eyes closed tightly, the celestial began to slowly take stock of all that it could sense, mapping out the little halls and corridors as quietly and quickly as its fluttering mind could manage. The little life that was being fed to it was from a tube anchored into its spine, never providing enough to fully sustain the energy needed to aid in its search. In anxious preparation, the celestial forced itself back into sleep for short bursts at a time, just until it could sense again, knowing well that any time that it chose to waste would be a step towards oblivion for both it and the shell.
In those dreaded times, of which its mind began to spin dangerous webs of despair, the celestial forced itself to continue mulling over the halls that it had seen, and satisfying itself with any increase in awareness no matter how small. Unable to move or divine any means of escape by its own will in such a weakened state, the celestial had resolved to search for some sympathetic being to aid it in the task. While a nearly vain hope, it was the one thing that the celestial had left to hold onto as the words of those outside of its glass cage grew increasingly uninterested in the tests that they had been charged with completing.
It was on the fifth cycle of sleep and investigation that the celestial decided to move its gaze up, to see if anything above might have some pity that the heartless below were void of. It was there that it discovered a wealth of minds similarly in despair that almost ended the pitiable attempt to seek aid. In the final moments of its strength for this venture, the celestial’s mind happened by chance to brush over a mind that burned like the warmth of a summer’s day. Knowing it’s strength too spent in this attempt, the celestial latched onto the mind in that moment, simply imprinting a path to it before caving back into its own mind.
In that next waking the celestial felt a sudden change beginning around it that bore troubling fears to the forefront of its mind. The liquid had slowly drained from around its body, leaving the celestial to collapse onto frozen metal which chilled the celestial to its bones. If it had something more of the earth in it then the celestial could have gained some life from it, but there was only an alien nature about the metal that did not align with any of the things it had ever known in the dream. Indeed, in repulsion to the shells contents the metal instead began to slowly drain the life from the celestial’s skin where the contact remained. As the numbness bore down through layers of skin, the celestial knew that this would be the final attempt at liberation and did not move even under the burning cold against its skin.
“Subject is still unresponsive, move to lab for dissection trial seven.”
Another cruel voice, now more familiar to it, reached the celestial now, though less dangerous than the last, the cruelty of the speaker coating every word spoken. Reaching out with what strength it could muster, the celestial clawed to the surface, to that sunny mind that might at least mourn its death.
The darkness of its captor’s minds reached out now and began to overtake the celestial’s own thoughts, plaguing its mind with the torment that would soon bring an end to them all.
Reaching out, the celestial clung to the path that it had made, pulling its mind up to the surface and letting out a cry of panic before heavy plates of the horrid metal enclosed it and a great darkness was forced over the celestial’s mind.
Unable to even form its plea to that mind, the celestial despaired, knowing that nothing could come from the unintelligible cry for help. The mind would not reach down under the earth as there was no cause for it, and the celestial would die here, dragging the shell to its demise in the process. As metal bit into the celestial’s skin, it hoped that the shell could persist for a time at least, though the end would come for it all the same. It would not happen all at once regardless, but over time it would start to rot from the inside out until nothing could live upon its face. In that the celestial hoped none would suffer too badly
The dreams that it once had were almost more vivid than even the celestials mind could bare, and through them it had known great joy; now its final dreams were dull, the color having all but faded into the barest hints of light and shadow. In this sleep, which barely contained the celestials mind, it could not be spared the mutilation of its being as the cruel metal peeled away skin and muscle one layer at a time, almost mocking its pitiable struggle through the live dissection. Thus the celestial foresaw its own end just as it might have begun to wake and live upon the shell that it so loved. In this, it felt no rage, despite what it had expected, had others not died having seen less wonders than it? The celestial had watched them suffer in its sleep, and now it too would join the honorable company. Its simple regret was that it had been unable to know this world as the beings upon it had, to see nature as the lush greens and reds that had all but faded from its mind now. Taking a final slow breath, the celestial accepted that it would not wake again and began to drift deeper into its failing mind as the song of the universe quietly began to sound in the deepest recesses of its being.
Before that soothing song could reach its final crescendo and its life be fully turned to so much stardust, the whirring of the cruel metal came to an abrupt halt just before piercing the celestial’s heart. In the sudden flood of its stolen senses being suddenly returned, the celestial became aware of the warm mind it had sought, close enough to now burn through the frost that had begun forming around the celestial’s being.
“Ember I think that I found her. What the hells were they doing down here? ” The voice that accompanied that warmth was strange to the celestial’s ears, though it did not bear any of the malice that it had become accustomed to. Why had he heeded its cry? The warmth turned to the celestial, a warm hand resting on its shoulder like a live coal.
“It’s okay, we are gonna get you out of this as soon as we can.” The voice was oddly reassuring to her, before shifting to an almost panicked tone with a sudden jerk that the celestial knew was not meant for it to interpret. “I need that crowbar Ember… What are you?...” A call to another, that the celestial did not know of, brought back to mind the sounds around them both, as the sound of something clanging into the metal around the celestial shook the last of the tepid dreams from its mind.
“Thank you!… Now where was I…” The celestial could feel the wicked metal gradually coming free of her completely before she was lifted up against a welcome warmth that she felt had never been known to her even in the core of that shell. Desperately Curling inward, the Celestial clung to the warmth at its side, forcing herself from falling back into sleep. It was life at her side, it was survival, and there was a chance for the shell to survive yet, so the celestial would not forgo this opportunity easily.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get you to safety as soon as…” There was a pause in the assured voice that emanated from beside the celestial and the feeling of the one holding her tense through she dared not open her eyes to learn why.
“Ember! We need to go, so just finish him already.. It’s too cold here and she won’t survive if she gets caught in the crossfire.” There was another sound further away from the warmth, that soon sounded in agreement, and they all began their retreat from that wicked place. Focusing on the warmth still, the celestial chose to conserve her strength, only staying conscious to ensure that their flight was successful.
In the height of their escape, the shell turned slowly in its old course, heedless of the trials that would continue to plague it in days to come. In that same time, those souls who were bound to cross the celestial’s path were already in motion, driven by the strength of her cry, though none of them could explain the conviction behind their steps.