A Black Book Lightly

It was becoming glaringly obvious that Adam was lost. A looming black sky stretched out into forever above. Below, the black crystalline terrain faintly glowed exposing thin channels and ridges running in every direction. Together, the land and sky drew a horizon of jagged peaks and plummeting valleys. A crunch beneath his boot sent fragments of the brittle rock skittering across the surface. He came to a halt. The last thing he remembered was opening his backpack, but he no longer remembered when that was. "Where am I?" he called out apprehensively.

An echoed clinking snapped his attention to pale filaments of light emerging from the ground. They flowed up in streams winding themselves together only to branch off then meet again and continue rising upward. The filaments spun circles and squares outlining an ornate desk. From the desktop they then swirled and spiraled constructing a woman in the midst of turning towards him. She wore a fixed, warm smile with a gaze that missed him completely.

I found the book you requested, sounded from everywhere. Her smile and gaze were frozen in place. Her mouth had not moved. She set a large light-constructed book down on the desk. A thud and clinking of rock shards drew his attention away to a second book lying on the ground beneath the desk. He knelt down to pick up a simple black book with a fountain pen fixed to the cover. Quickly rifling through the pages revealed the book to be completely blank except for the very first page. A single line read: You are here. "I am...what is-are-where...?" he mumbled while looking up from the book to the woman. His mouth closed. She, the desk and the glowing book were gone.

He ran a hand through his hair and sank from kneeling to have a seat with the book spread open on his lap. He gently rolled the pen between his fingers examining dents while his lips tightened into a frown. "I am here," he wrote as he thought. A tearing sound accompanied the clinking of filaments weaving right where he knelt. He scrambled backwards with a wordless shout clutching the book to his chest as a jump-suited figure coalesced midway into putting on a flight helmet.

"H-h-hello?" Adam called out.

There's no time..., rang from all around.

The figure faded as it donned a helmet. A beam of light burst up from the horizon arcing through the sky. As it dipped back down out of sight, a second beam chased after. A low, grating rumble swelled from off in the distance. Adam began to vibrate along with the earth as the rumbling drowned out thought. Tiny chips of black crystal began to shower his face as a piercing howl rose above the din of the reverberating earth. No time. Spires erupted up from below to tower overhead. Towers splintered into branches as they relentlessly grasped further skyward. Wind hurled dagger-sized slivers through the air to collide into massive, twisted pillars sending broken spikes plummeting back down to earth. He screamed through the tumult, "I need shelter!" as he scrawled frantically in the book.

Crackling black tentacles surged up from the ground in rows of circles as they twined their way around each other. They slammed together overhead forming a dome that drowned out the cacophony of rock careening into rock. Crystalline hail beat like static upon the outside of the walls as the structure tolled with the rumble of the earth. What do I do what do I do what do, his mind raced in the dark...I do what do I..., he crushed his legs to his chest gulping for air while fighting back tears...I do! His breath caught. He gasped for air. I! He exhaled through tightened lips. His arms relaxed around his legs. His attention went to the expansions and contractions of his chest as a groan rattled his throat.

What DO I do? I have shelter. Food? Water? He shivered. Shelter. His eyebrows scrunched together. Adam ran his hand along the ground and found the book and pen beside him. He carefully opened to the first page, held his breath and wrote, "I need light." He watched in apprehensive satisfaction as a line of light traveled down one of the grooves in the rock as the sound of paper tearing echoed through the dome. The light stopped at his feet and a tendril rose up from the ground offering up a glowing orb. Through widened eyes he stared back and forth between the book and the orb. He reached out to the light carefully. His hand passed through unscathed. He fanned the book's pages. He checked the binding for any signs of tears. Everything seemed in order. Adam pulled the pen cap off with his teeth. "Show me what is happening," he wrote nervously.

A bright white light engulfed the bottom of the dome while the deep sound of fabric tearing boomed throughout the chamber. The light moved up through the walls leaving a clear view of the world around. Stillness. He again inspected the book through narrowed eyes. There was no damage, but the book was thinner.

Above, an enormous mass of fissures and spikes filled his vision as it menaced the horizon. Adam stood transfixed as the mass slowly rose and sank. He turned studying its enormity and found a massive black sphere looming on the skyline behind. In place of spikes and fissures were two parallel white arches. He turned back to check the mass. It was rising again. He flipped open the book. Only a handful of pages remained. A strangled sigh escaped his chest. "Show me what's wrong," he implored his writing.

Again he was met with a deep tearing sound that left the book with a single page and little room left to write. A maroon sphere darted across the sky passing another sphere the color of dark amber. An ochre-colored sphere dove to the horizon as an olive one jumped up to arc across the sky. A royal blue sphere leapt into view as an indigo sphere and a mauve one sprang deftly behind. "What is this?!" he muttered.

Thundering hooves jerked his head around to see wispy filaments of a horse pulling an armored figure in a chariot as it charged towards him. Fear is its own enemy... The soldier's face showed the black of the sky through slits in the helmet as it leveled a spear in his direction. Chills quivered through Adam as filaments of war horse wove into two larger horses pulling a carriage urged on by a cloaked figure. Death awaits...Adam waved his hands above his head desperately while he screamed at the rapidly approaching driver "Hey! STOP! HEY! ST-ohhh sh-!"

Instinct took hold as he dove to the side out of the path of the assailing carriage. As it rumbled past, the horses collapsed as filaments wove into wheels. The carriage bent forward while swirling into the body of a sedan that sprayed the contents of a luminescent puddle in his direction. There is peace still. Adam patted himself down. He felt cold and wet, yet he was dry. He looked back up to witness the vehicle dissipating into a cloud of black static. "Peace…?" he reproached. The forgotten glowing orb began to pulse.

Black filaments undulated wildly binding the ground he stood on with the mass in front of him and the black sphere behind. The filaments lashed out at the colored spheres as they traveled near then stretched and snapped with black sparks in their wake. Still, the spheres began to build their own mass of crackling filaments as they bound through the sky. Crackles and sparks punctuated a low, rising hum. Fissures formed in the spheres as enormous swaths of light broke through their surface. The twisted pillars of his terrain erupted sending thick, black bolts skyward as shockwaves tore through the landscape hurling jagged debris through the air. The bolts careened towards the spheres.

Colossal white beams rushed from the clefts in the spheres intercepting the bolts. They met in a deafening CRACK! with a flash so brilliant and a dark so black that Adam threw up a hand to cover his eyes as he turned his head away. Afterimages floated in his vision as CLAP! a second wave knocked him off-balance. A hissing scream pressed him to look up to see scattered white beams storming towards him as black veins spread like webs around the spheres. He threw open the book in search of some answer. "One...maybe two lines left..." he lamented.

The sharp sound of rock splintering tore his eyes skyward to see black webs crushing through the surface of the spheres. Volleys of white beams crashed down around him. The land buckled open fracturing into plates flinging Adam into the air. He looked with despair as he fell into the abyss of a chasm that had been torn open below. There was no fear left in him. There was nothing he could do. All around rock tore open as spires collapsed into cavernous maws of a world hell-bent on consuming itself. His body shuddered with tears unwept as a half-hearted smile touched his face while he closed his eyes.

A small orb of light tore downwards through the chasm wall freeing a slab below. BOOF! Adam's eyes snapped open as the air was driven from his lungs. He clutched at the grooves in the rock as he choked for air. The slab screeched downwards against the walls sending chips flying. Adam desperately tried to pull in air as panic gripped his mind. BREATHE, commanded the world around him.

He breathed out the last of his breath then air surged into his lungs. Loose rock tumbled from above crashing down around him as the pale glowing light came to rest beside his prone body. There draped on the orb was the book with the pen clipped to the front. "Peace," he revered. Adam took the pen in hand, opened the book and wrote.

The sound of tearing boomed throughout the land and echoed in the heavens. Everything began vibrating in place. His descent halted. Rocks froze in midair as spires defied their own collapse. The spheres above cracked open in dazzling rainbows of color. Black filaments receded into the depths of the sky followed by beams of white. They swirled together forming a dense cloud as Adam turned to the orb. “Go on now,” he whispered as he rolled onto his back. It surged upwards and was lost to the cloud. Adam breathed deeply watching the cloud churn and shrink to nothing. Everything was still.

BOOM! The sky exploded with countless orbs. Water rained down filling the fissures. The book rose from the ground, collapsed inwards with a CRACK! and Adam was gone. There in the rock he had been clutching sprouted a single seed enveloped in a torn scrap of paper.

* * *

In the same moment he bent down to retrieve his backpack from amidst green blades of grass beneath a tree. A bright yellow sun poured out warmth from low in a cerulean sky. He pulled a white journal from inside his pack, unclipped a dented metal pen from the front and flipped open the book to the very first page. A single line read: Let there be light. He put pen to paper with a small stroke down then a flick upwards. Check. A gentle breeze stirred the landscape in all directions. He tucked the journal gently into the pack. As he slung the pack over his shoulder, a moon began to set behind him. There where his pack had rested sat a fragment of black rock forgotten as he walked away.