PUER MORTIS (Child of Death)

21: Space & Danger

Leilyn slowly opens her face, peaking through narrowed lids. Her eyes snaps open, going wide in disbelief.

She’s in space.

Holy. s**t.

Leilyn laughs; her laughter filled with incredulity and awe.

This is so unbelievable.

She inhales and exhales, baffled that she could breathe. She turns back, mouth going agape as her eyes settle on the globe.

They’re going further away from the planet in a fast pace. It isn’t long before they pass the moon, evading the floating debris of moon rocks.

When they were far from the earth and its satellite, Leilyn manages to speak.

“Wow.” She croaks out.

Chibi chuckles, highly amused. “Seeing as I can’t take you to the planets of your curiosity, let me show you a little bit of the wonders of this Universe.”

Chibi proceeds into taking Leilyn on a joy ride. They fly at a supersonic speed; but even at that, Leilyn isn’t affected and could still clearly see the outlines of various planets and their moons.

Turns out that there are other suns in the galaxy. According to Chibi, the milky-way has about one hundred suns alone. Leilyn recognizes some planets that she has studied. She uses her Holo-Watch – which was suddenly upgraded by Chibi to withstand the frequency of outer space – to record their journey.

Leilyn could do nothing but marvel and gape at the sights she comes upon.

“This… this is amazing.” Leilyn rasps out.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” Chibi says. “Hold on.”

Leilyn did just that and grips Chibi’s antlers tightly.

The Eldritch, once again, begins to fly upwards. They keep going up for what feels like minutes. Leilyn feels a little bit of fear grip her when it seems as if they are reaching the edge of the galaxy. She shuts her eyes tightly, unable to look. She breaths heavily, heart thumping loudly in her ears.

“Lyn. It’s okay.” Chibi says in a soft voice. Leilyn grunts in disagreement, making Chibi to chuckle. “Honestly, it’s okay. Just open your eyes.”

Leilyn inhales deeply before exhaling heavily, her hands tightening around the antlers the more. With an internal count of three, she slowly opens one eye. What she sees makes her open the other, both of them going wide and her jaw going limp with shock.

Galaxies.

Before them, behind them and besides; in all colors and in multitude. Some planets were here and there outside them too. Leilyn feasted her eyes on them, unable to look away.

“By the Cosmos…” She whispers out.

The beauty around her distracts her from the crushing feeling of being in a black vortex. If it isn’t for the light being provided by the galaxies, she would have been caught up by the unsettling endless darkness around her.

Leilyn releases her grip on Chibi’s antlers, taps the watch on her wrist and begins to capture the beauty around them. She has a wide smile on her lips, an awed expression lighting up her face. Her head turn from side to side, eyes trying to devour everything around her.

“I take it you approve?” Chibi asks.

“This is amazing!” Leilyn gushes out. “I know that there’re many galaxies, but this is spectacular! But can we see them this much? Shouldn’t they be far apart or something?” Her brows furrow in confusion.

“They are. We’re currently way above them, higher in height.” Chibi replies. “Also, you see these symbols on the shield?” Leilyn nods. “They’re oxygen seals, along with magnifying and gravity control. One of them is also the reasons why you’re not affected by the speed – which is akin to hyper drive – I’m traveling with. ”

“Ahh. I see.” Leilyn nods in understanding. Leilyn looks at the bright balls in which the planets and stars rotate around. “Those large balls in the middle of the galaxies… are they really black holes?” She asks.

“Yes.” Chibi replies. “Although, I advise not to jump into them. Those shits are painful; for mortals that is.” They chuckle with a wide grin.

With a sigh, Leilyn asks, “I take it you destroyed a galaxy then?”

“Galaxies.” Chibi corrects with a wide grin, getting a noise between a snort and scoff from Leilyn. “I think that’s why Michael imprisoned me. I was kinda disrupting their work.” They chuckle again.

“You’re a terror.”

With a wide grin, Chibi proudly says, “I know.” Leilyn rolls her eyes at them. “Although, those black holes could be used as portals to Alternative Dimensions.”

Leilyn eyes go wide in shock. “Are you serious?”

“Yep. If you mortals could survive the journey that is.”

“Wait… there’s a chance that we could survive entry into them?” Leilyn asks, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Well, maybe.” Chibi hums. “Major gods with tremendous Divine Energies could travel through dimensions using them. Angels do too. Well, 1% of them that is. Most just stay put in heaven and listen to orders from the the Three Upper Classes like the perfect dogs they are.” They roll their eyes in distaste.

Leilyn just hums, knowing that that wouldn’t be explained to her. For some reason, Chibi refuses to elaborate on somethings like this.

“Although, the black hole has to be ten times bigger than this.”

“There are black holes bigger than this?” Leilyn asks incredulously.

“Yep. I think it’s my fault that the Dominions stopped making them; seeing as the bigger ones kinda have their energy imprinted in them.” They laugh nervously.

Leilyn makes a noncommittal noise. “How troublesome were you?”

“The collar placed on me is a perfect answer.” Chibi snickers. “And by the way, I still am troublesome, Lyn.” They grin.

Leilyn chuckles, honestly amused.

Leilyn once again looks around, a wide, excited smile on her lips. She spreads her arms wide, throwing her head back and closing her eyes shut, and inhales deeply.

Although dark and dreary, being up in the darkness of Upper Space is a pretty cool experience.

If she could, she’ll stay up here forever. This is nice.

Leilyn slowly opens her eyes, a soft smile on her lips. Her smile melts away when something catches her eyes.

‘Hold that thought.’

She turns her head to the side, her eyes narrowing and her brows furrowing in a heavy frown.

It looks as if the darkness is… moving? Towards them no less.

“Umm… Chibi?” She calls out.

“Hm?”

“What’s that?” She points at the incoming thick mass of darkness.

Chibi raises their head to look at where she’s pointing. Their movement jolts her and she quickly grabs hold of their antlers. For some seconds or so, she and Chibi just gaze at the moving darkness.

Suddenly, Chibi lets out a choked grunt like gasp, body going stiff. “Oh no.”

“Chibi?” Leilyn frown deepens and her body tenses. Her eyes narrow into slits.

Then she feels it.

It’s as if someone suddenly dropped a huge brick on her chest.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her body goes rigid, her heart starts beating heavily and fast against her ribcage. Her eyes go wide with fear, and beads of sweat starts dripping down her face. Her throat becomes dry all of a sudden and she gulps with difficulty, a lump forming in her throat. Her body starts trembling, and her palms become sweaty. Her eyes are still focused on the incoming darkness, unable to look away.

What is this blood curling pressure?

“An Elder.” Chibi hisses out.

Leilyn inhales sharply, head snapping down. Although Chibi couldn’t see her, Chibi knows that Leilyn has the look of shock and fear on her face.

“We have to go. Now.”

And they are off.

Leilyn tightens her grip on Chibi’s antlers as they launch down, wings tucked to their body as they air-dived. She decides to look back, and what she sees almost gives her heart attack.

Huge deadly antlers; glowing purple eyes; and sharp teeth spread wide in a feral grin – all cloaked in thick darkness. The magnifying seals made things more horrifying.

“Holy f**k!” Leilyn yells out, head snapping forward. “It’s gaining on us Chibi!”

Chibi lets out a loud cuss before their speed increases tenfold. Leilyn is launched forward, but her grip on Chibi’s antlers prevents her from flying into the air. The seals on the translucent shield disappears. Leilyn’s sure that it’s because Chibi is currently focused on getting them to safety that they decide to drop the seals. Not that she could blame them. Death – and not the kind she’ll like and appreciate, much less right this f*****g instant, thank you very much – is at their literal heels.

Suddenly, red circles with unknown seals and sigils appear behind them, firing red beams of light at the dark mass. The darkness cloaked Elder effortlessly dodges, moving from left to right with unnatural grace. The beams that even manage to get close to them are batted away, and those that even hit them seem to have no effect at all. Those beams are no joke in power and destruction, seeing as some of them made planets explode and crumble apart upon impact.

Chibi was right. These bastards are powerful as f**k.

Shit.

“Almost there!” Chibi grunts out. Leilyn turns her face and faces forward, her grip on Chibi’s antlers becoming painful, her knuckles turning white. The two sees the outline of what looks to be the Milky Way – oh! Thank the f*****g gods! – and Chibi increases their speed, going faster than before.

If they could reach the galaxy on time, they could find earth’s coordinates and either teleport Leilyn home or open a portal to earth and throw her through it. They just hope that they won’t throw her into the middle of a b****y ocean or the Wastelands.

Something catches the corner of Leilyn’s eye on her left, and she whips her head to the side to look at it. Her heart almost flies out through her mouth when her eyes meet eerie glowing purple, with a swirl of fiery orange in them. Their grin stretches wide more and Leilyn couldn’t stop herself from rearing back, a cold shiver traveling down and up her spine.

What looks to be a clawed hand – the darkness cloaking them is f*****g unnatural – outstretches towards them; towards her to be specific. The Elder keeps getting closer and closer to them; intensifying the feeling of dread. Leilyn couldn’t speak or scream, her breath caught in her throat. All she could is stare at the entity with eyes blown wide in fear. The pressure from before comes back, but this time it’s harsher than before.

“f**k!” Chibi yells out. They outstretch an arm at the Elder and a humongous circle appears outside of the shield; but this time an angry red in color. With a frustrated grunt, Chibi fires a huge blast at the Elder.

Which proves to be utterly useless, seeing as the Elder walks – or is it flies? –through it, their mission of making their way towards them undeterred. The deflected beam manages to destroy the planets besides and behind the Elder. If Leilyn was to estimate, she’d say about a hundred or so planets were either reduced to ashes or burning desolate worlds. Within a second, the Elder is just a few feet close to them.

Huge dark claws were about to wrap themselves around the shield but suddenly, the entity halts.

They just suddenly stopped.

Chibi releases their wings and pauses in the air. The sharply turn around, eyes focused on the Elder.

“Why the hell did we stop?!” Leilyn hisses out.

“They can’t get in.”

“What?” Leilyn snaps her head up and she stares at the dark entity. She blinks in confusion, eyes still narrowed and brows furrowed.

The dark entity is hovering few feet away from them, the darkness cloaking them seemingly billowing like a cloak in the wind. Eerie, vivid purple eyes seem to narrow into slits, glaring at them.

“Why aren’t they moving?”

“Remember that Eldritch I told you about that’s on earth?”

“Yes?” Leilyn drawls out, blinking owlishly.

“Well, turns out that they aren’t really an Eldritch after all.”

Agate eyes go wide in understanding. “You mean-”

“Yes.” Chibi nods their head. “They’re an Elder. That’s why the Elder before us can’t step foot into this galaxy. Elders tend to like begin left alone, so of course there will be a rule for others of their king – who are known for causing unnecessary drama like Creators – not to step into their territory.”

Ohhh shittttt.