(this story contains no typos)

Lucy idly strode through the grove. The weather was overcast as always, but the greenery and air felt like Spring. Madame, we must return to the castle at once, said the heavily armored knight that was trailing behind her.

“Why must we go now? So pleasant it is this morning,” Lucy said halfheartedly.

It is almost nightfall, and there are terrible beasts that roam about after dark. Lucy glanced into a bush slightly off-path finding thousands of large gristly eyes staring back at her from the shadows. Lucy shuddered, then looked up to the evening sky for a few moments. With new composure she continued walking through the grove.

The knight dashed in front of her, standing in her way with his arms outstretched – ready for an embrace or tackle. You must return now, Madame! It is your sacred duty to the kingdom. Lucy shut her eyes and shook her head annoyedly.

“There are worse beasts in that castle, you know,” she muttered.

The knight looked at her. Yes. Yes there are. But they are beasts you must serve for all our sakes. Madame, you are the only one left for whom the sky opens! Lucy suddenly shoved the knight aside and bolted down the wrong path. The knight glared after her as she disappeared into the thickets, his eyes fading.

Lucy ran frantically by involuntary spasms in her legs. Eventually, exhaustion took her, and she fell lopsidedly to the forest floor. The dirt was soft and warm in the evening sun, and she began to roll joyfully in its comfort. Her arms and legs sank naturally into the mud, inducing a tingling sensation. She dipped forward and closed her eyes, facing into the ground for a depth. Lucy fluttered her eyelids slightly, but her head’s clay encasing held her in a statis.

After what seemed like hours, she slowly regained her will and finally rolled over onto her back, gasping for a moment. She opened her eyes and found a familiar castle looming above her. Lucy wearily rose to her feet and began to walk along the tall, stony, and cold wall of the castle. She reached out her hand and scratched it across the wall’s rough surface. Her fingernails traced an intricate fossil array with which the wall was embossed; each giant stone was covered in colorful spirals and spikes so small she could not focus on them directly. Eventually the wall fell suddenly fell away – she was at the enterance.

Lucy timidly walked through the tall corridor. It was very dark in the middle part of the entrance, and by the time she got to the other end the only light left was from the moon. The streets of the castle’s inner keep were empty, and all windows and doors to the neighborly dwellings had been removed. She slowly walked the perimeter of the castle, dreading with every moment what she must do that night.

After traversing the empty courtyard, Lucy had arrived at the inner tower. She opened its small wooden door and shuffled inside. The carpeted spiral steps seemed extended her vision around the winding corner, and as she climed she felt treading in place, or even slipping backwards. Her eyes were sleepy, her eyelids drooped, and a few times times her eyelashes got stuck into her socket. Finally she made it to the top floor. Looking out the tower window, she could see she was much higher than the clouds and the castle grounds were dwarfed by a murky nightscape stretching in every direction. In sharp contrast, the moon hung in the empty black sky so huge and crisply detailed it was almost within her reach.

Lucy’s attention was drawn to a single figure standing across from her atop the tower. The face was hard to discern as it loomed over. It stepped toward her, standing in the center of the tower’s platform. Lucy, are you there? If you can hear me, try to blink. Don’t move Lucy. Lucy glared at the figure.

“Why do you want me here? Why must I blink?” Lucy asked of the figure.

The figure said nothing in response – instead it paced back and forth between the parapets as a indistinguishable sound emitted. Suddenly a gust of wind picked up, like a vacuum had erupted. The air felt thinner, and colder, and harder. The moon swayed in the sky, seemingly with the air current. Lucy stared in surprise as the figure was roughly tumbled across the platform and right off the edge. Then she snapped down to held on to the wooden boards, short of breath. The moon rocked closer on a pendulumnal trajectory with the tower. She crawled desperately towards the downward stairs, squinting through the turbulence of the next handhold. Her direction felt vertical. And her grip was weak, and the vacuum was too strong.

Lucy lost grip, scraped herself along the planked platform, and ricocheted between parapets. She felt her battered, weightless form plummetting, and above she saw the moon finally hit the tower. Brightness sparked with a supersolar luminance. Even through her winced eyelids her eyes were seared. She thought to lift her arms, but they were strengthless after being torn away.

The ground arrived suprisingly suddenly. An incredible weight strapping her to a deep indentation where she landed, as if a powerful magnet held her. The remains of her body were a brittle metallic material, with a flexibility only revealed under intense heat. She lay still and dared not open her eyes.

A gigantic obelisk erupted next to her with a voice booming incomprehensibly. Lucy desperately writhed in the sunken earth to get free, but every turn drew her deeper into the surface. Lucy! Grab her leg!

The clouds suddenly parted with a flashing, scorching rainbow boring through. The light was brighter than the Moon’s explosion; the shining permeated her senses so directly that everything she had ever seen were merely diffusions in retrospect. Lucy writhed, trying to focus on anything but the light. Someone was talking. Or yelling?

The space beyond the clouds gradually split into colored shards of infinitely detailed jaggedness. As they settled more distinctly, Lucy could see that the shards were pushed by a celestial current – they flowed fluidly around the skyscape in unpredictable but seemingly natural patterns.

Mustered all of her strength in a final effort to lift her left arm, she did. It angled out to her side in an abrupt spurt. The back of her hand hit the smooth, cold surface of the giant obelisk next to her. It felt hard and metallic on the back of her hand, but in hitting it she could sense a sort of lively recoil. Like some sort of machine it was rumbling slightly.

The shards continued to dance in the sky more and more prominently, and the clouds stopped moving. Lucy tried to find some sort of grip on the obelisk — something, anything, to hold on to. She could feel her mind racing, but her heart felt like it had stopped. She wondered if she had sunk to the bottom of a lake and was drowning. She blinked several times, then concentrated on her skin to tell if it was wet. After a few moments of considering her sensations, she determined that she was not wet, and likely not drowning.

Lucy noticed that the small crater in the ground she had made had started to feel more comfortable. A warm sensation developed in her arm, and then it traveled up to her shoulders, and down her back. Lucy’s neck relaxed slightly.

The shards in the sky slowly began to fade more and more into obscurity, and the light’s intensity faded. The clouds moved slightly to cover up the hole, but still left a large oval opening by the time they were still again. Lucy took several deep breaths, absentmindedly patting the spirited obelisk. But, between pats, it precipitously disappeared.

Instinctively, Lucy turned her head to inspect the obelisk. There was nothing, but she realized her head could turn again. She lifted her other arm carefully out of the small crater. The movement felt bulky and awkward, but still possible.

Lucy rolled effortfully onto her side, out of the crater at last. She dared to glance upward, and saw that there were still precise shards swirling around in the oval cloud-hole. Though not nearly as blinding as before. She finally arose to her feet and looked around. None of the buildings appeared to be damaged, and there wasn’t even any sign of obelisk that had been right next to her. She peered up at the tower, where she saw that in place of the highest part where she had been was a ruined stump, but it was difficult to see where the debris had gone.

Once she regained her composure, Lucy began walking away from the castle as briskly as she could, which was not so much as her body felt oblong and heavy somehow. After only a few minutes of lumbering along, she was greeted again by the dreaded knight, which she could no longer escape. Oh madame, it is a misfortune you fell off the tower. But you have served your kingdom well, and every one of us pledges dedication to your Highness. The knight kneeled alone.

“At least I am done with it, though I am still recovering. I have also decided I’m leaving, and I do not know when I shall return,” said Lucy.

The knight looked up solemnly. A priest walked by. The whole kingdom’s citizenry thanks you, your Highness. The sky is Opened! The Endless Darkness is banished! exclaimed the priest. Let us all rejoice!

Lucy turned back to her knight, “I can’t do it again, the next time.”

The knight took a concerned look for a moment, then resolved. You do need some time away, Madame. But do not worry yourself, I have consulted the astronomers and they say the sky has many months before re-opening, said Lucy’s knight. In the meantime, your leave has been arranged. There is an outpost at seven-day’s travel out of the Se where you can stay. We have trained a interim Queen to subsume your national duties.

“You knew I wanted to leave?”

Lucy’s knight glanced up at the tower. No, Madame.

Lucy started her journey the next day. A pair of servants traveled with her on horseback to help carry supplies. Even though her body was still lethargic, the powerful movement of her mount helped her forget. During the days as they rode, Lucy avoided looking at the sky-hole. The shards showed wildly different patterns every time. Sometimes there were blacks and grays with intermittent flashings. Other times there were greens and whites with barely any flowing at all.

During the nights, Lucy would lie on her back and stare straight into the sky hole. The light was not painful anymore, but with no moon left, the sky hole was an omnipresent shimmer in the dark, as if it was always dawn. She found herself finding constellations in the shards, connecting them to form animals, people, buildings. With all of the movement, it was easy to impart agency to the shards as if they moved around and interacted with other shards by their own will. The sky hole loomed imposingly in her mind when she slept.

Arrival at the outpost began a cycle of perfect daily monotony. Each morning, Lucy would sit on the small beach and perpendicularly look out over the river for several hours. The servants and soldiers that maintained the outpost would sometimes cross her view or talk about her quietly in her periphery, but after a few days she ceased to notice. During these hours Lucy developed a relaxing sense of unity with the river’s current. When the thick water splashed over the river banks, she could sense it right before it happened like it was connected to something instinctual in her, or even influenced by her somehow. Eventually Lucy would say she became nauseous with an advancing headache, and so each evening she would retreat inside the outpost to attend to any recent letters and any royal judicial duties.

In the remaining hours of the evening, Lucy sometimes would take out a fresh piece of parchment to begin personal writings. For an hour or so those evenings, she would write about whatever came to mind. Sometimes it was a story about a younger version of herself growing up in a large future city with cars and computers. Other times the writing felt so relaxing that she found herself hours later with pages and pages of scribbles in a pulse or wave pattern. One time the writing was of something critically urgent, and she wrote desperately to not forget any detail, but the next day she could not even discern the letters she had written.

A few weeks after Lucy arrived at this outpost, she awoke one morning to a pleasant sensation she thought she might never have again — the heaviness that had burdened her since the sky opening had disappeared entirely. Perhaps it had waned gradually and she hadn’t noticed, but this morning was very evidently different. Lucy sat on the beach as always, but this time basking in a new vitality. She barely noticed that her incorporeality weakened her sense of unity with the river’s current now, as if the river was trying to grasp on to her but her reception kept slipping through its fingers. Your majesty, please let us have your council, said a soldier waiting patiently behind Lucy. She took a few moments to collect herself, then stood for the soldier. Walking across the sand felt like floating. They walked to a large chamber where the outpost’s officer was stationed.

We have received word from the kingdom that after four months’ retreat, you are due to return at once. We shall prepare a return party for you to leave with in the morning. said the officer robotically. Lucy nodded, then returned to her beach. As she crossed the the sand once more, she noticed that the sky hole had shrunken substantially since her the last time she had looked. The swirling shards were dim and indistinct against a heavy gray background of the overcast stretching indefinitely in all directions.

In the evening, Lucy felt compelled to write earlier than usual. She shirked her regular duties and stared intently at a blank parchment. Lucy stood, taking the parchment in one hand and her quill in the other. Lucy wrote

“I won’t go back. I owe nothing to the Kingdom of Darkness. No, I am a Bringer of Light, and I will establish my own rightful domain. Today, I walk directly out of my room and straight into the forest.

A few servants stare at me confusedly as I walk into the night. I continue walking. And walking. The forest is almost entirely dark, with no moon and with such dim, ghastly shards. A few times I peered up to see the Aperature obscured by a tree’s silhouette, and the sky was empty. I can’t avoid tripping over the gnarled roots and shrubs. I continue walking. Walking feels effortless now — now that I am not cursed with weightfulness. I can walk forever…

It was been several days and nights, I have found the end of the Se. There is nothing of note here where it seeps into the crevices of the ground except for the surprising viscosity of the warm mud.

I am not sure how long or far I have walked, but I have arrived in a wasteland with a single tree. The tree is a marbled white with no leaves and a trunk so tall that it stretches up further than I can see. I can peel its surface with my fingernails, and the little bits have a unique dirty texture when I grind it between my fingers…

Today was the last day. The skyhole is entirely gone, and with it all the light in this world. I can still make out the black ink on this page as I write it – although mostly from touch rather than sight – but I have found any previous entries to now be indistinguishable from the parchment. I have taken refuge here with my back to this tree, its bark so white it still stands out in the lightlessness. A few times I have attempted to climb it, only to find my arms have no strength. Only my fingers are nimble enough to move with any control. I lay flat with my hands on this page, and I worry that if I write too much more, I will not be able to change to the next page. And besides, I would not dare climb with the risk of dropping my quill and paper. If I lose them, I shouldn’t even find them again…

The ground below me feels different. It was certainly barren hard when I first arrived, but now my legs are embedded in a soft, warm gel. I haven’t traveled further, have I? I loss sense of my legs long ago, so maybe they traveled me unconsciously. Perhaps the Se is flooding, and I just can’t see it? My body feels slightly cold, so the gel is very comforting. I will just lay in it now, to regain some warmth. I did not know how truly cold I was. The sensation spreads up my legs and back and down my arms and neck…