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THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER Glass Shells

"Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man." Henry Adams

A pair of eyes gazed from within the midst of darkness. A wind from nothingness disappeared into it again past them, forcing them to blink. A hand gently rubbed at the eyes as footsteps came forth towards the light. A light from a cube, blue and white, gently solidifying with each step he made towards it. Like all lost creatures, he felt comfort only within light. As he stepped closer towards it he felt his footsteps soften, as something formed silently over his entire body. The tiniest of reflective shimmers, a clue he never saw. The gentle clack of claws was soon replaced by the odd sound of rolling glass, his hands reaching out to feel only to splay out against solid air. An invisible wall was before him, yet he could still walk forwards, feeling it move his hands down, rolling, feet smoothly walking on until he reached the grey platform. Only within the light, could he see what he was inside. A glass ball.

From the outside, it reflected a solid blue, perfectly smooth without a single blemish like a newborn's skin. From within, he could see an entire layout of a treacherously narrow pathway of cubes. The path turned sharply right, then down. All around him and the path was nothing but a black abyss, where random lines floated perfectly still amongst themselves. Nervous but with nowhere else to go, he walked forwards, gauging every step with the greatest of care, tenderly moving towards the corner and pushing to his right, rolling downwards to a large square area with a small dip in the middle. Here he saw another inhabitant, a large black marble as big as his own, glinting menacingly as it suddenly rolled towards him. Rolling to one side hard in panic, he felt the clash resonate through him as black skimmed past him, and much to his fear he saw from within a crack appear in his vision. At first he was unsure if he should be afraid, for if the marble broke, then he would be free of his spherical prison. It wasn't until he rolled around further that he saw fragments lying everywhere, shattered and crushed into a fine dust. Not all of them however was that of glass. What he didn't know, was how long the victims had remained alive before their fate became the same as their shells.

Fearful of the imposing sphere, he rolled away from it as fast as he could, looking desperately for a way out, rolling everywhere he could, pleading that his shell would remain only cracked. Yet the black ball was relentless, stopping mid-roll to redirect itself towards its new prey. All he could think of now was to make it fall into the abyss that laid around them. His only question was why. Why wasn't even enough to ask himself. But he knew by now from all of his travels, that questioning the logic of a world was impossible, and all he could do was, for lack of a better phrase, to just roll with it. He waited for the obsidian marble to "see" him, watching it charge towards him, rolling gently to himself to prepare for one of the most tried and tested tactics in history with a mindless opponent. He waited for the blackness to be almost upon him, almost ready to bash him away. And then he moved.

Reflexes saving him, he rolled to his left, spinning from the chipping of his marble's skin as the black marble fell into the abyss, wordlessly so, accepting its loss. He turned around, looking everywhere for his exit, now able to focus without the constant danger of being crushed into sand. He saw one way downwards, a path he could have barely seen from the perspective of the land with a banking corner on a lower level. As the rolled tenderly forwards, he began to realise he was starting to feel the air turn heavy, finding it harder to breathe somehow, panting with a strained sound. The cracks were beginning to show. Seeing the holes in them made him realise that there was no oxygen outside of this marble, possibly. Nevertheless, his panic grew, and before he realised it, he had rolled himself onto an incline towards the end.

He rolled downwards fast, screaming and panicking, trying to stop himself, his hands slamming on the glass, unable to grip the walls without burning his hands from the friction. He saw the corner bank hard to the right beneath him. Patience was the enemy here. Timing was everything. As soon as he felt the incline stop underneath him, he pushed right. Crying out with a prayer in his heart, he felt the marble slide across the corner and down another incline hard towards the end, an odd-looking end to the course where red flags flapped in a non-existant breeze. Dreading the worst, he stopped at the flags, directly between them. Nothing happened, but the flags were now blue somehow. There was no crowd, no congratulations. Nothing but flags flapping to celebrate a victory within endless eternity. Instead, a voice came to him. A voice from a dream that he never had. He could barely comprehend it because the voice did not speak as words and sounds. Instead, it spoke with light and warmth. James could hear no more as he succumbed to exhaustion, the air leaving his lungs, murmuring in a wheezing tone of voice. The light of the voice soon enveloped his form, hunched up within his marble womb. His last words of this world echoed to himself as he pleaded with all of his dwindling mental strength to disappear. But not this time. Instead, he saw a hand reach out from the blue light. His claws grasped above his head weakly, as a voice spoke unto him. A voice he knew all too well, as shadowy claws brought him into the light. The cold light consumed him once more as a horrifying realisation came to him. The last thing he ever heard, before he would wake up again, was the sound of the demon summoning his own body towards another world. A dark castle bathed within moonlight. First he had lost his flesh. Now he was being robbed of his power across dimensions. All that remained left was his heart, and with each passing second, it began to turn weaker. Only death would come welcome him into the next world...but then, a light had come to him.

A light shining in the darkness like the feather upon a still dead lake. His soul faintly flickered as his eyes looked up seeing someone's hand. Smooth yellow scales like the sweetest buttered warmth, four fingers grasping out as a voice clear as day came trickling out before the sweet circle of light above him. His own hand reached out with three pale fingers of wretched auburn clasping as love pulsed through him. He knew it was him. He could not see him but from his hand alone as fingers softly rubbed against each other tightly, he knew that it was him. His heart swelled up with love that spread through his body hotly, a wondrous feeling of relief as the golden hand clasped tighter upon him as if threatening not to let go ever again. His eyes closed with such simplistic bliss that he did not even notice the other hand that crept along his arm as a sinister clone of itself, mimicking his claws with black nightly shade deeper than anything, almost outlined against the darkness. The hand of darkness tugged at James' wrist, forcing him away but the hand of light suddenly pulled him back resisting at the first sign of trouble. A struggle was made fighting for him to grab on as he pushed forwards desperately to reach his lover's hand, gasping with his last breaths just to picture his warmth once again. But the darkness would not let him, slithering its grasp along his palm as it squeezed fiercely tight with claws pressed into his flesh. The hand above snatched forwards grappling around James' wrist, and he in turn grabbed his lover's wrist in turn pleading to not go, screaming silence into the light wishing he could hear him. But the hand of darkness sunk its claws deeper in to the warm yellow flesh like butter. Blood soon began to pour through weakly in its clasp, raking itself along his barest skin as it slipped beyond the knuckles before tearing across the yellow hand. But he did not let go, simply grabbing tighter, feeling blood drip between them. Then it tried to pull the light in, bringing the arm itself harshly towards the infinite blackness, a bestial sound harbouring deep within James' ear as it grabbed his lover viciously, tearing along his arm violently as the flesh began to tear and start scraping its claws darkly like nails upon the chalkboard. James felt tears down his cheek as the hand of light gripped and spasmed violently with a hot searing pain as howling screams came to him, screams he had once known and wished never to have known again gasping his need for him as his pain ran forth passed through his lover's grasp. Pain that James felt as he whispered to him sadly. Two words was all he needed before he simply let go upon seeing the darkness rip into the younger flesh, mauling with avaricious greed. The hand of darkness grasped onto James' tightly as the hand above him found nothing to grab onto, bleeding down his yellow fingers with a twitch of sorrow and desperation. He saw grief shake through his tips, outrage clench up into a fist before his palm stretched outwards quivering with a fear and need that came howling from beyond dimensions, pleading for him to come back. He could never come back again, lest the demon would harm him once more as he saw the hand take shape into something greater before the darkness took him. Something that remained forever in his heart as sorrow took his consciousness.

He saw Koopin weep, with bloody tears down his fingers.