Kieli

The pursuer from the deep, part 1


Round stones in the bottom of wells in the vast darkness. Some glow, some do not, some blaze, some have the most precious substance in the cosmos.

Water.

For water brings the life which is the food of the thing which sought the absence of of all things. And this thing that sucked at existence til it became absence was the food of the seeker from the stars.

The seeker dove into the gravity well, down to the dim wet-shining jewel in the bottom. It’s long length pulled into the depths harder, faster as the vacuum became an odd, thicker and thicker substance. It was suddenly water, at which the being exulted, twisting, corkscrewing in the surprising richness. Then it became something thicker, harder, and swimming became sliding, slipping, crawling.

That which it sought, behind him, so the being turned away from its fascinated distraction, and looped back, exploring, finding a place where hard became the softness of water without the thickness. They called it “air”.

Beings small and large, of many shapes and colors swam through the thicknesses. Life, bright, shining, vulnerable. But at its approach, all shied away from its amorphous length. The being paid attention to how they did, felt the sentience, felt the food its prey sought. Another world to suck dry.

Unless….

The being sought for sentience of a singular kind. Fierce, implacable, hunter unstoppable, hunger insatiable, power unceasing, sight inescapable. It found what it needed in a horde of travelers and it traveled with them unseen. The travelers then did something it had never seen, and it learned from them, fascinated once more. So the big made others of themselves, that began small and grew, became many.

To do what it must, it would have to become many. It budded off a piece of itself, and watched. It was very patient, this one. That bud melted into one of the ovoids that became the others; joined with that perfect being. It itself could see through all its skin, and the little’s many many eyes were quite sufficient.

Once freed from its shell, the bud had the form of the creature called Mirror. Many eyes had she, including the tip of the bud that emerged from her fanged maw in the shape of a tongue.

She, Kieli, would be the first of many, to scour from this world the alien, the sucking nothingness known as Shade.