Chapter 10: The Black

Shadows filled the room. There was no light down here at all. Not a glimmer of it. No torches, no sun, no flashlights, no light. A stone chamber, completely square, far darker than night could ever be. Empty.

Or so it would seem.

The stone walls were incredibly smooth, not a single pockmark or tiniest ledge marred there surface. There was no door, just smooth, cold, dark rock. But not ordinary rock.

The stone was touched by shadow, by darkness itself, tainted beyond any hope of return. Any light that was even attempted to be lit would be snuffed out instantly, and the darkness of the walls would grow stronger. Corruption leaked from them, evil flowed from it like acid, polluting the chamber. Empty.

Or so it would seem.

The shadow-tainted stone chamber was cast out, adrift, floating. Ripped out of the very fabric of time, it was wandering aimlessly outside of reality, a gray, bleak, barren expansion of nothing. There was no light outside of the chamber either. But nor was there darkness.

Few things were lost here, tossed away from the world, circling it endlessly, always in sight of reality, always out of reach. A massive entity passed by the stone chamber, brushing, just barely, against the edge of the world. But it couldn't return. Nothing could. When reality abandoned them, when time disappeared, there was no returning. A rip, a tear, a massive, gaping wound that could never be repaired.

The stone chamber drifted further and further away, passing another being. The immense creature stirred, just barely, from its eternal, timeless slumber. But the dark chamber moved on, and it returned to its trance.

And yet, as the stone room drew further and further away from one reality, one time, it consequently came closer to another. Threads of life snapped around, and another, tiny, shattered dimension drew nearer.

A lone figure stood on a towering spire, a mere thirty feet across. He looked across the fragmented word that was his home, bitter and angry. The Cataclysm had scarred it forever, destroyed most of it, so that only that one pocket had survived. It was so small that, from his high vantage point, he could see to the edge for almost all of it, except for the one side that was blocked by a large mountain, about even with the spire. But that wasn't the worst part.

When the Cataclysm had struck, it had done more than smash the world to pieces; it had torn the atmosphere apart, until it no longer remained. And because of that, the world was only hanging on to reality and time by a few threads. If he wanted to, he could simply walk on over to the edge and fall straight into the emptiness. All around his little pocket, he could see the gray emptiness of the Unreality. Very, very occasionally, something would pass by, and he would watch it with interest, wondering how exactly it had been cast adrift. At times, he was tempted to enter the Unreality, but he knew there was no return from that. So he stayed. Wishing that his small remnant of the world hadn't been saved, that it had been crushed along with the rest.

He stood, watching the stone cube appear from far away, a tiny, black dot that grew steadily, but slowly, larger. To anything in the Unreality, it was but a few moments, but at the same time, millennia. But for the man on the spire, the chamber took an entire three years before it reached his home. And when it did, he wished fervently that it had stayed far, far away.

The few threads of reality that were left still attached to the remains of the world latched on to the chamber, taking a firm hold to its shadow tainted shell. Or maybe, the walls drew the threads to itself. The man didn't know. He just saw, inexplicably, it grew closer and closer, until it was too close than should be possible. Then, and only then, did he begin to worry. Something was very wrong.

The threads latched on the walls of the chamber, and it shook slightly. In the darkest corner, something stirred. After countless millennia and a few moments, it moved. Terrible eyes opened, taking in the darkness of their surroundings. Long unused, the neck muscles tensed, slowly turning the head. And it began to sit up.

It could do no more than that. So it waited. Waited for what it knew was coming: arrival.

One thought ran through its sluggish mind: it had to find its enemy. The one who had thrown it in the prison, the chamber, and ripped it from reality. The memory burned brightly inside its mind, in place of everything else. It didn't what it was, it's name, or even where it came from. It just knew it had to find him. And it would.

Its mind was still sluggish, barely functioning after eons of imprisonment, solitude, and inactivity. It couldn't tell how long it took until it landed. In fact, it couldn't feel anything at all. It struggled to move its arms and legs, and barely succeeded. But then the chamber shuddered, and it could feel that the floating sensation was gone.

The man outside stepped backwards as the chamber struck the spire, settling on a good two thirds of the entire tip. A feeling of dread crept over him, and he felt the urgent need to climb down from the spire. But he stayed to watch. Something was very, very different.

The cube shuddered, and small cracks ran from the bottom, slowly traveling upwards. He took a nervous step back as he realized it seemed to be forming a doorway. When the cracks met, the area inside of it crumbled. A gaping hole was left on the side of the chamber.

Pure darkness boiled out like smoke, invoking another step backwards. The darkness descended down the sides of the spire like lava flowing down the slope of a volcano. As the shadows deepened, a silhouette appeared in the back of the chamber. It took slow, shambling steps forward, leaning against the doorframe. The man on the spire took another step back.

Terrible, maniacal laughter bubbled forth from the thing's dead lips, and it took one more fatally mindless step forward. The shadow that had been obscuring its face moved away, and the man on the spire dropped to his knees, screaming in terror. Still laughing, the creature stepped towards the man, and shadows engulfed him. His screams rang out endlessly along the barren remnant of the reality, but the creature wasn't paying him any more mind. Instead, it turned its head and look upwards, farther than should be possible. Until it focused in on another reality and incredible distance away. It watched the figure begin to set out on his quest to find the armor. It had found its target.

The Black had arrived.

A.N.: Hello! It's me again. The writer. Yep.

So, yeah, this one is relatively short to, but again, it fit. Kind of like the last one. It was really interesting to see what you guys thought the watcher was, although it seemed no one guessed the guardian. Thank you for that. Just so you know, you were all wrong.

Thanks for all the support, and PLEASE review on this. I want to know what you guys think and some ideas for me to add in. Every writer needs some help. Even me.

I know this chapter was a very different writing style than what I usually write (or pretty much anyone on FanFiction) but it really helped make it creepier and more…well, you know. I can't think of the word for it. The Black is completely original, as well as the whole Unreality, different Realities, and such. To be honest, I might use them in an original writing that I'm doing. Again, thanks so much for the support.

READ ON!