of Fear and Dust

Of Fear and Dust

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Stretch reach rise the bony fingers into the ever-present abyss above.

From the ground the planet the Earth That Gives comes forth one, big, main; strong and healthy. Sturdy. From this one few more are born attached; smaller, thinner in size, aye, but firm yet. All trying in vain to catch the stars they spend eternity in the delusion of false hope. Stem many from these few, easily bent broken harmed they scatter as they can from their ever-feared destruction, yet offspring they create fragile and frail these are and they are legion. Too precious to grasp the stars they adopt a different plan: too little to get littler instead they grow life colour feeling – a million tiny sails pulsing with life tasked only with supporting the whole to live in its failed state and to spread, spread the Plan the Goal the burning desire to catch a star so brilliant.
And spread they do its new purpose want wish to make copies of itself in hopes of some day leaving its Earthy roots behind and being free. Thus it was that First Form came to be.

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Yet none achieve it yet they enter the cycle the pattern the Plan of the Great Mind they grow they stem they spread until, soon, First Being has nowhere else to spread. Thus she is forced to eliminate some of the older specimens to make room for the newer, more advanced forms.
Ever stronger, better, faster, higher do they get ever are the elder the experienced removed in favour of the more efficient next stage of the Plan until finally as the ground can bear no more a New Form breaks atmo. It is different here. Cold. It tries to release its sails as is The Way yet they immediately freeze and die. Great Mind has lost what First Form, now long lost had seen for itself – when you can go no further you must change adapt evolve; the old ways will work no longer.
Soon no form exists but New Form, useless, aging Old Forms rid of by Great Mind. Gradually the Earth That Gives is sucked dry as Great Mind never falters in her Plan the sky now a blanket blacked out and above the sky stretch reach rise bony fingers into the abyss above. Great Mind and her New Forms begin to die from within the life force pulled from their very veins.

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Time passes and the Plan long failed the newest specimens the last New Forms are almost all lost to the Dry when a pebble a boulder a mountain from the oblivion above strikes Great Mind. The initial blast shatters thousands as the residual shockwave fells millions husks more. Soon a spark a fire a conflagration erupts attempting to reduce the Great Mind and all Forms to nothing.
The flame creeps from the ground from whence they came up the specimens to the few splittings once strong sturdy now naught but ashes, through up up ever up to the myriad offshoots preventing the Earth That Gave from garnering the light it needs so direly. It is not long before the entire surface is ablaze; all connection Great Mind once had with the Earth That Gave now but a thick lair of fear and dust the overhead bubble supported only by other arms of New Form a sphere hull skin hiding the death and decay within.
Yet soon this too ignites; in the pindrop chaos genocide a lone sail lost forgotten breaks free from the torrential onslaught and manages to find drift soar its way to the now-calm sea of ash and buries itself beneath.

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In time the shell too is gone and the embers have long since been consumed. The air clears and the ashes have become part of the Earth That Took. With the sky now open light penetrates deeper than it had in centuries. More years pass and the world forgets in time the slaughter that had once occurred until soon the sole sail bringer of life is roused from its slumber and begins to grow.

From nothing to ashes from chaos to growth the cycle continues as it ever does and ever will.