I'm Afraid of Changeling (and other short stories)

by Cold in Gardez

Nickel-Iron-Cobalt

Author's Note:

Anthro, for once! This took about 40 minutes, with another 20 or so for editing.

This prompt-based story was originally written in the game Elegy for a Dead World. See this blog post for details.

Everything about this planet is synthetic. I didn’t realize that until my craft hit the upper atmosphere and started to brake. There is no oxygen on this world – the blue sky is the product of countless trillions of small machines, each no larger than a snowflake, floating through the air like dust. Even now I can see them coating the exterior of my suit, and where they have touched it shines like oil. I do not know their purpose.

I decided to leave my suit on. The suit's computer says there are no toxins in the air, and the temperature is a balmy twelve degrees, but there’s still the little matter of breathing. If I were a more daring woman, I would simply use an oxygen mask. But I am not.

*

There is a statue to the south. A stone sphere, supported by three male caryatids, all crouched together with the globe resting on their shoulders. Their expressions are lost, filled with pain.

That term – statue, as if it were a decoration carved from marble – does this monstrosity no justice. It is larger than a mountain range. The curve of the planet conceals the statue’s base, and as I watch, clouds break against the tortured muscles of the slaves holding it aloft.

The craftsmanship on display is awe-inspiring. This monument contains more stone – if, indeed, it is made of stone, and not some exotic material – than any human work. Not even Terra’s Elevators contained this much raw mass. It is enough to affect the local gravity; although my navigation system insists that I am standing on perfectly flat ground, I feel as though it is sloped down toward the statue. It is drawing me closer simply by dint of being.

*

The statue is decaying. I thought it was due to erosion at first, but the breaks in the stone are too deep to be caused by the elements. The fissures are not the result of rain or wind. Something within is eating them, and out shines a pale blue glow.

My suit believes the blue glow matches the spectral lines associated with Cherenkov radiation.

*

I climbed down a hatch and discovered a vast cavern extending in all directions. It is not lightless – in the distance I see more holes connecting to the surface, some of them the size of lakes. The growths here are less organic, more crystalline, than above. They may be the product of thoughtless mineral accumulation, or perhaps some rigid intelligence that imagines a world of straight lines and perfect angles. This is not a human place.

*

One could suffocate down here. It is time to go back up.

*

I see what appears to be an ordinary hill in the distance, perhaps four kilometers to the south, but as the rains began to dwindle its true nature became apparent. It is a sphere, like the one near my landing site, though all but its crown has been buried. Forests grow up to its sides.

The exposed surface of the sphere is broken, but rather than tumble and form heaps of scree at its base, the loose rocks are suspended in the air. They hang there, frozen, absent any support I can see or my suit’s instruments can detect. The largest fragment would qualify as a large asteroid if it were floating in space, and not stuck here like a fly in amber.

*

Why would creators who had such power produce such a monument, and then leave it to decay? It seems even gods cannot defeat entropy.

*

Climbing back underground, I found an artifact unlike the statues above. It has the appearance of a control room, with large screens at the far end showing two statues like those above. The sky in the image is a purer blue than the real one outside, and the two monuments are standing intact. I must assume this is archival footage.

*

The clouds on the screen are moving in real time. Based on the shadows cast by the statues and the position of the sun, the video is from a late summer day, and takes place either 1,400 or 9,500 local years in the past. My suit suggests a third option, though with a low confidence value: 232 years in the future.

I hear air moving in the cavern around me. It is rhythmic and labored. I think it is breathing.

*

Having seen the video below, I now question the wisdom of coming here.

No, that is not true – I have long questioned the wisdom of coming here. But it is too late for that.

*

In the distance I see another mountain range, its peaks and ridges worn soft by eons. Something has carved it in places, tearing kilometers-wide gaps in the stone, as though a set of massive claws had rent them apart. High towers emerge from the breaks, spanning their edges like sutures. I cannot guess at their purpose.

Before me is an odd stone monolith, perhaps six meters high. It is blue, with the same oily sheen as my suit now bears. Spectrographic analysis suggests it is mostly nickel-iron with high levels of cobalt. A meteorite, perhaps, but an unusual one.

*

Addendum to my last entry: it is not a meteorite.

I have found another stone, nearly the same height as the first, composed of the same nickel-iron-cobalt. But this has been… ‘worked’ is the only term that seems appropriate. Someone has carved it in the form of flowing water.

*

More stones. They are vastly larger than the first two, each at least a hundred meters high. I suspect they extend well below the ground, or they would have toppled over many years ago.

There is something almost organic about them. They twist like living things, but frozen. When I blink they seem to have shifted.

My suit insists they have not. It is only an optical illusion, caused by the air and the reflection of the moving clouds on their skin.

Skin – what an odd word to use. I meant their surface, of course.

*

And then the final tableau: a cloaked figure, seated on a throne, all carved from the same nickel-iron-cobalt material. The figure’s face and hands have been polished to a shine.

Upon closer inspection, there are two figures here; the dominant, cloaked form, vaguely feminine in the cast of her shoulders, and a small humanoid curled off to the side. The second sculpture is gnarled and hunched, with misery etched in its features. Its back is to the woman who dominates this piece.

*

This world didn’t die from a lack of sculptors, at least.

I look away, toward the dawning night approaching from the east. This is a small world, and it rotates quickly. Already I can see the stars spinning above me.

I look back, and the sculpture has moved. My suit disagrees, saying that I am imagining things, that my blood sugar levels are low, and toxic amounts of heavy metals are accumulating in my bloodstream. They are nickel, and iron, and cobalt, and I feel cold.

I look back, and the sculpture has moved. Its – no, her – hand extends, gesturing to the pitiable stack of gnarled bones at her feet. She bids me to gaze at them.

I look back, and the sculpture has moved. It is flowing now, unfrozen in time. It is staring at me. I can hear her breathing. She asks me if I—

*

I look back, and the sculpture is as it was. An amber light in my helmet blinks twice a second – my suit is worried. It says I have not moved in nearly twenty minutes.

I dismiss the alert and turn away. It is time to go.

Comments

[pterrorgrine]

It was good then and it's better now, but I'm not seeing the ponification -- the narrator still refers to it as "This is not a human place", (establishing her as human), but I didn't notice anything equine about the statues, etc. Did I miss something?

[ClockworkMage]

Well damn. Put me on the first survey follow up team for that one!

[Shogoki]

[PhycoKrusk]

There is a special place in my heart for this kind of suspenseful, cosmic almost-horror.

[Singularity Dream]

Very nice. I'll have to up my efforts on the next world I explore in that 'game'. My first test run was fairly simple.

[Forderz]

Change out human place and craftsmanship for equine place and craftsmareship and I think we've got a winner.

It's a damn fine piece of writing either way. A lonely planet that hungers for companionship it can never know.

[djthomp]

So, let's see if I'm getting this right. Twilight goes insane, turns the inhabitants of the entire planet into nickel-iron-cobalt humanoid homoculi, imprisons Celestia and Luna in past-monumental stone spheres (possibly Equestria's original sun and moon?) which are held aloft by the other mane five plus Sunset, and rules forever with Spike chained at her feet?

Yeah, I don't get it either, it makes no sense for Discord to be completely absent. Oooo, maybe the perfectly ordered society is keeping him depowered?

Nope, still don't get it.

[blank check]

I didn't quite get what the last story meant.

[Themaskedferret]

5384378
5384537
5394800
5417606

As the blog post says, this is based of a story prompt game. You walk around an area and are given various prompts or views of a world and given the option to write about them. A sample image can be found here

[dafiltafish]

This is a great story, creepy as hell though.

[Cold in Gardez]

5993271

That was one of the nicer ones, wasn't it? Maybe someday.

I'll have to update Inky's name, though.

[TheMWord]

How much actual writing skill does this game demand? I really want to pick it up and play it, but I'm fairly worried I'll just be writing variations on, "Yup, looks like all of 'em died. Pretty ruins though".

[Cold in Gardez]

6164362

The prompts it offers are pretty quality, actually. The only problem is the game doesn't have much variety -- the stories all end up being variations on a fairly narrow theme. Now, if space exploration is your thing, then absolutely go for it. Otherwise, you can do just as well by participating in groups like the Writeoff, I think.

[Butterwings]

It looks like you accidently dropped your jar of asterisks all over the story.

[Alondro]

5388387 Then the Borg assimilate it.

They do that a lot.

[Dafaddah]

Wonderful piece of writing, CiG!