Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Power

Invisible hands reached out from the jungle floor, delicately gathering pieces of white stone strewn across the land and carrying them deeper underground.

The hands brought the pieces deeper and deeper under the earth until the pieces were moved into a pool of underground water. With a splash, the pieces emerged into a separate and beautiful landscape.

In this separate plane of existence, a sun shone brightly overhead, illuminating a wide-open expanse of water. The calm crystal blue plane reflected the sky and sun above like a mirror.

The only disturbance to the placid plane was a complicated pile of white puzzle pieces floating to the surface, sending small ripples throughout the mirror waters.

Another shape disturbed the tranquil space as it broke through the water’s surface, sending further ripples and distorting the sky’s reflection. 

First, an elaborately decorated marble lid emerged, glistening with jewels, gold inscriptions, and fine engravings. 

It was followed shortly after by a long marble cylinder that at first glance seemed plain and lacked the finery of the lid on top of it. However, upon closer inspection diagrams, illustrations, and texts covered every millimeter of the cylinder’s surface, so small and detailed that most eyes would simply be incapable of viewing the details. 

The urn, for lack of a better name, settled on the surface. The waters calmed until all traces of its earlier disturbance faded and everything was tranquil again.

The lid of the urn lifted and invisible hands deftly scooped up the mass of white stones floating nearby and placed it within the urn. Once all the chips of white stone were placed within the lid was closed and the pieces were left entombed.

Time passed, and while the clouds moved the sun remained high in the sky shining brightly, position unchanging. How much time passed was unknowable, the clouds moved and moved blown away by some unfelt winds but apart from that, there was no indicator that any time had passed.

Finally, something happened, the sun vanished and the blue sky with it. Over the horizon the faint glow of a moon and an array of multicolored stars painted on a black expanse rose up to replace it.

Under the cover of moonlight, the lid of the urn opened, spilling a thick cosmic-like vapor that began slowly coating the calm waters. As the vapor poured it shifted into creatures, objects, and shapes of impossible geometries.

Along with the vapor, the figure of a white child also emerged from the urn, stumbling and confused. It looked around to see an urn, a starry sky, and a similarly starry vapor around it. 

A strange voice, not a man, not a woman, not human but certainly not a monster, spoke to it “This is an aspect of my power, take it, use it and so long as you are willing you may try again.”

—

The child woke up, in a panic. It recalled being attacked and ripped to pieces and realized to its horror it was buried underneath something. It clawed its way through whatever was smothering it and emerged to a shining sun and a bright blue sky.

An earthy clearing with a window of the sky above and a thick jungle all around it filled its view. Stunned, the child looked around only to be met with more views of a familiar landscape in front of it. 

How was it here again? 

Last it recalled it was deep in the jungle being torn to pieces, surrounded by darkness and monsters. It clutched at its body remembering its dismemberment and then was surprised that it was instead perfectly fine, with all limbs attached and no cracks.

What had happened? 

How was it fine again?

Then the child recalled its earlier vision of tranquil waters and a beautiful urn. Did that have something to do with its miraculous recovery? 

It also vaguely recalled something making a noise. It wasn’t the noise of a roar or an angry chittering or rustling leaves or collapsing boulders. Although the child wasn’t sure of it, the cadence and way the noise had sounded told the child that it had been made to convey something.

“This is an aspect of my power, take it, use it and so long as you are willing you may try again.”

What did any of that mean?

Did it even have meaning? After all, the child was just guessing it had meaning because it sounded different from everything else it heard in a very meaningful kind of way.

Countless possibilities, ideas, and thoughts swirled around in its head before the child came to a conclusion.

At the end of the day, it didn’t know and despite thinking about it for a while it couldn’t figure out what the meaning of those sounds was. It decided not to think about it for the time being and would instead relax in the safety of the earth clearing where its earlier happy memories came from.

It lay down in the clearing and stared up at the sky, basking in the ability to see clearly and to know its life was not under threat. The clearing was peaceful and it wanted to live peacefully.

However it was saved didn’t matter, all the child could think of for the moment was basking in the tranquility of its surroundings. How nice it was to not have to worry about being killed, not worry about predators eating it, and to be able to see and appreciate its surroundings.

Everything was great, everything was perfect and the child soaked itself in the feeling.

A stirring of the earth nearby brought it out of its revelry. The child brought itself upright and looked at the nearby earth. It rumbled, kicking up clouds of dust, not stopping until a form began emerging.

When the dust cleared a familiar creature presented itself. Glossy black eyes, dark rocky carapace, massive mandibles, and countless spikey legs greeted the child. Bug and child stared at each other.

This was the same creature that had torn it to pieces. It was dangerous and the child was not going to give it a chance of hurting it again. The child’s hands turned to spikes and it brought them down on the evil bug, driving them deeply into the beast’s head. 

It stabbed it in the head again and again and again, black blood spraying everywhere. The bug only had the time to shout a brief angry chitter before its head was far too ruined to do anything else.

Blow after blow rained down upon the bug. Initially it chittered and tried to bite the child, then it thrashed wildly trying to escape, then it wriggled weakly until finally, it stopped moving. 

The child didn’t care, it kept smashing its spiked hands down until the bug's head was reduced to nothing but pulp, moving on to its body until that too was nothing but a stain on the nearby earth. Only when the bug was reduced to nothing but a pile of gore did the child finally stop. 

The child stepped back and stared at the scene of carnage it had caused. It then sat down on the earth before flopping to the ground to stare at the sky. It stared at the beautiful blue expanse, occasionally covered by a blanket of white clouds.

It felt… sad. 

It thought here it would be safe but instead, it seemed that it would never be safe here. 

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It recalled in its first memories emerging from the ground and then not long after observing a rocky creature emerging from the ground as well. It seemed that creatures were constantly rising from the ground and since the evil bug had emerged that meant other evil creatures could too.

Why couldn’t it be left alone peacefully?

What should it do?

Again the child was forced to ask itself this question. All that pain and all that trying for it to end up in the exact safe position it was in earlier. It had made no progress and had accomplished nothing. 

Should it even bother trying?

Why bother trying when after all that work it ended up in the same position? 

Everything it did felt pointless and hopeless and terrible. It couldn’t think of any way to be safe and happy. 

It was all out of ideas.

The clearing was no good, if an evil bug could come from the ground then so could an evil ball of tendrils or an even eviler monster.

The jungle was no good either, the monsters and darkness made the whole place a deathtrap. 

The trees weren’t an option, although the evil bug on its own had been less dangerous than the jungle monsters on the floor, the amount of bugs there made climbing an even more dangerous prospect. 

A Scraping of something against the ground stirred the child’s attention. The child brought its head off the ground. The noise was faint but growing steadily louder by the second. Soon the scraping escalated into a constant drone of ripping and tearing. Pouring down from the trees a tidal wave of evil bugs surged toward the child. 

It wanted to laugh though it wasn’t sure why, it really was in the exact same position it was in earlier wasn’t it?

It stood up to face the horde. It supposed that the situation wasn’t exactly the same. The last time its body was broken this time its body was fine, not that it mattered much. Broken body or not there was very little it could do against so many bugs.

The child shuddered at the memory, it didn’t want to be ripped apart again. It was painful and scary.

After that… the child recalled the vision it had. The calm waters, the urn, and the starry vapor that emerged from the urn. At the end of the vision, words were spoken to it.

“This is an aspect of my power, take it, use it and so long as you are willing you may try again.”

What did those noises mean? 

Did it have something to do with the urn?

It pictured the urn in its mind, the starry sky, and the reflective waters below. It pictured the starry vapor pouring from it, morphing it into all sorts of fascinating shapes.

To the child’s surprise, it realized that the same vapor was now faintly wafting off its own body and pooling at its feet.  

“Power” was that was this was?

The child was brought out of its thoughts as the horde of evil bugs approached. Scraping, angry chittering, and thousands of glossy black eyes bore down on the child. 

Hopefully whatever this “power” was could help it out of this situation. 

The child recalled the moment when the bugs had swarmed it. During the encounter, the bugs had left it alone when it was unconscious on the ground and unmoving but the moment it began moving that was when bugs swarmed it. 

Perhaps this meant that the bugs only attacked things that moved.

It wasn’t much to go on but it was something.

The child pictured the vapor in its vision, changing into shapes, monsters, and countless other things, and the vapor at its feet followed suit. It then pictured the vapor turning into a duplicate of itself and soon the child was staring at its perfect doppelganger.

The child then imagined an army of duplicates running into the forest and leading away the horde of bugs.

To the child’s disappointment, the vapor didn’t follow its imagination this time and only formed a half dozen doppelgangers instead of an army. 

Despite the power’s failure to follow its order to create an army it followed its other order. Without pause, they ran into the jungle and the child prayed that despite the lesser numbers its plan would still work.

With angry chittering, the horde of bugs stampeded toward the constructs. They surrounded the duplicates and began attacking them. The child made sure to suppress the urge to run and to be perfectly still as the horde mobbed the few fake copies.

As the horde swarmed the vaporous constructs, their mandibles, legs, and bodies continuously punctured holes and tore the illusions apart. However, every time a creature bit or clawed at the construct the damage would only briefly turn the affected area to nebulous vapor. Before long the area reformed and any apparent damage disappeared. 

Over and over again the horde attacked the copies. The sound of angry chittering and scraping moved deeper and deeper into the jungle as the illusions ran further and further away. Before long the sounds faded until there was nothing but a distant echo. The sound continued to die until the child wasn’t sure if what it heard was the horde or just the sounds of the jungle. 

For a long moment, the child stood still, carefully listening to the sounds of the jungle around it. The occasional rustle of leaves was the only answer it received.

In one moment the tension that had been building in the child released. The child couldn’t believe what had just happened. It had just tricked an army of evil bugs to run away from it. A horde beyond its ability to count, a horde that had previously torn it to pieces. 

The stupid horde was too stupid to realize any of the things it created were fakes. They were all too stupid to notice it standing still. With the power that came from the beautiful urn, it’d tricked every stupid evil bug in the horde. 

A happy, giddy feeling began filling the child, the future seemed bright with its new power. With this power things would now be different. With this power it’d be safe anywhere. 

Concentrating for a moment the child exhaled a plume of starry vapor and formed it into a gentle green light. With a bounce in its step and confidence in its heart it ventured back into the jungle.

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