1
Those scarce few who remember this place, know of it only as a place they must never go. It is a piece of a time long forgotten, an age - an eon in which the laws of the realms and the worlds were still unrefined.
It is a piece of… before; before the ideas of heaven and hell were molded, before the dreamlands and the waking worlds were pieced together and separated into balancing concepts.
It is a place that the fledgling New Gods - the Spirits sealed away so long ago to hide from those who came before them.
They remember it as Tehom.
Those mortals who have learned of it, know of it as the Abyss.
Bottomless beyond bottomless, the Abyss precedes all ages and eons - precedes the birth of Creation and the Ones Who Rest Above.
Scattered throughout the unfathomably deep and scarcely lit darkness, They are found.
Those who can not die yet, yet do not live.
This is their home.
This is their prison.
…
The Abyss is a quiet place.
That shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
They mostly sleep after all, dream away the ages and the eons without interruption from the mortals who scamper across their tiny piece of Creation under the light of the Ones Above.
It only gets a bit noisy when one wakes them up, peeks beyond the thresholds of their reality and calls out to One who sleeps in the dark.
Now was such a time.
Lounging about in the deep, One could be found cracking their glazed eyes open as they were roused from their slumber.
Pulled from Their slumber, they take a moment to ‘move’, Move limbs and appendages that hadn’t shifted for seventeen of Creation’s Resets. In the dark they blinked, vision needing but a moment to adjust to the light that pierces the veil and illuminates this shard of the fathomless deep that makes up the Abyss.
From their place in the dark, they begin to move again, drifting, crawling, creeping towards the ethereal, whispering gate that led towards Creation, and the one who was calling out to Them.
A Follower?
No. Mortals did not pray to This One, least last they checked they did not pray to Them, and wish to draw Their attention.
But there's always those delusional and desperate and dumb few… this one?
They just stared at Them for a moment, not in amazement or relief that They had answered them.
They looked at them with what could only be described as pants shitting horror.
“What the fuck is that?”
As soon as words left the one who called to them, the one who’d breached the boundary between Creation and the Abyss took a step back then another and other before running off, disappearing out of sight from the Gate’s opening as the One they called upon moved on, limbs curled around the edge of the Gate as the body moved through. A blasphemous apparition pushed themselves through the Gate and found themselves in the domain of Mortals.
Their presence did not go unnoticed.
Mortal’s take on technology started too short.
Animals started to bark and howl and scream out into the world.
Reality itself seemed to shutter and weep as they felt the existential ‘weight’ of something that It could not hold.
They paid it little mind, instead taking a moment to see their surroundings for what they were.
From the looks of it, it was a basement of sorts. Not the largest Mortals had ever managed to create, but not the smallest either. Still it was… filled out a bit. There were candles burning blue and blasphemous symbols etched on a small chalkboard. There were dozens of occult trinkets and a ceremonial knife. Beyond that though, there was a book on the floor.
A book that reeked of overripe fruit and formaldehyde.
Lifting the book with a limp They stared at it looking at the pages laid out before them.
The noise they made could only be considered a sigh.
“Why am I not surprised these things are still around?”
They closed the book, flicking it closed as their form started changing. Limbs to many started to come together compressing into what seemed like a black oily cocoon of sorts. When they unfurled they revealed not an abhorrent thing from beyond the veil, but a young man with long gray hair and golden eyes.
A free hand went to their waist as it rested on their pocket while the other used the book to scratch Their head.
“I swear…” They - He begins as he looks back at the book, noticing that the casing was more like a carapace of a beetle than hard leather. “I wanted to believe that these things were lost near the end of my Creation.” He sighed. “Alas that’s just wishful thinking, isn’t it? You lot will be here even after the New Gods have been reduced to carrion lost in the Abyss.” He muttered as he shook his head before looking backwards to the lingering Gate. Looking through it he saw the Abyss in all its glory.
Dark beyond dark, but littered with the burning light cast from long extinguished stars.
Littered with Others, those who called the Dark home.
Littered with the Lost, those who had gazed into the Abyss, and lost themself to maddening revelation.
Without a word he raised his free hand, ‘touched’ the space between ‘here’ and ‘there’, and twisted a gloved finger as the Gate vanished. It didn’t close like a door, rather it was like an eye closing shut, an eye that refused to open once again.
That done, the One from Beyond turned and started walking off, moving up the stairs and heading towards the door that had been shut - no doubt by the one who had run upon realizing they had no idea what powers they were attempting to deal with.
Just looking at the door, told Him it was locked, but he didn’t really mind, instead he just continued climbing the steps before walking through the door.
He doesn’t break it down or make it disappear. He just… went through it, like it wasn’t even there. Entering the living room of this place, this home, he took a minute to glance around, seeming to look for whoever had summoned him.
Upstairs. Insight told him as he glanced up and in a certain direction before turning away and heading for the door.
He didn’t have to ‘look’ to know that they were in their parents' room, or that they were putting their fathers usually locked away handgun into their mouth…
Walking into the city they had been summoned beneath, the One from Beyond just looked around for a moment as they listened to the sounds of the city.
The barking dogs, the howling cats, the screeching cars, the screaming televisions, and the weepings of Creation.
It was so damn loud.
Honestly he hated it.
“Quiet.”
Just like that everything stopped, the screams, the howling, the crying… it all stopped, because he told it to.
He likened it to such things not wanting to anger something like Him.
Something old, something that could hurt them in a way mortals could not understand.
He could - but he didn’t want to.
Still that fear was there, an instinctual, primitive fear inherited by anything born of nature.
Walking through the streets the Entity looked around, getting a feel for the city he had come to.The name of this city?
He knew its name without even needing to ask; Canterlot. A city in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills with but a single road leading out of town.
He knew, almost on an instinctual level, that it was a boring little town, or at least it used to be, until magic crept in from beyond - not the Abyss, but a realm nearby. He knew why it was creeping in, he also knew where it was strongest, and he knew who had it as of this moment.
It was a curse and a gift of sorts; being able to read - to learn about the Realm and its happenings.
It was not Omniscience - to be all knowing; this was much simpler, and far more focused.
Regardless, walking through Canterlot city, the Entity from Beyond lifted a few twigs and branches that had fallen from old city trees and ran them between his fingers. He barely acknowledged the fact that dogs being walked whimpered in fright as he went by, also ignored the small bit of static punching through a few phones and electronics that he suddenly passed. He just continued on his way picking up a few twigs and leaves as he made rounds about the city. He stopped only when he found a place that caught his attention.
Glad to know these places survive Reset.
It was a jazz club, the kind of place he’d frequented when he took another form. The music was good, as was the coffee.
Walking into the club, his ears found themselves blessed with the sound of a saxophone. He wasn’t aware of the name of the song that they were playing, but to be honest it didn’t really matter. It had been a good while he had listened to jazz - really it had been a while since he listened to any kind of music. Not only that, but the scent of rich coffee that filtered through the air was certainly inviting. Seeking out a place to sit for the moment, he holed himself up to one of the booths before leaning back to relax.
“This is nice…” He admitted as he started to relax reaching for the leaves he had picked up and turned them into dollar bills. “Man, this takes me back.” He mused as he saw a waitress start walking up to him.
“What can I get you?”
“Something strong enough to wake up the dead.” He made a noise. “Or at the very least someone who’s been in bed for way too long.”
“Coming right up, big guy.”