It Awakens - A Finish the Story Ending for Week #15

      This ending was written for @F3nix's Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #15. Each week, he posts a beginning to a story, then asks that the participants write an ending which they can post it on their blog or in the comments. Three of his favorite endings are rewarded with shares in the Steem Basic Income program and the SBD is split among the honorable mentions. Grazie, F3nix!

      Now, on to the story...

It Awakens

As the Kunst Meister tried to move with caution, the twist brought him a chorus of pangs along the neck, till exploding within his head its white vowel of pain.
Far away, to the south, the white smoke of the stalled hoverbike no longer stood out from the purple sky.
Everything in that cursed place was wrong and the black powder was a whisk, shaken by the suffocating wind of a perverse and tireless djinn.

Now he had the certainty that all those stories whispered by candlelight were not only true, but also a pale and dull representation of the deafening truth in front of his eyes.
At every shallow breath, the macabre dunes of the Obsidian Desert reminded him of the long distance covered.
Since he had left the hoverbike behind him, he had tried to taunt himself about the creeping and imperceptible movements of the sand. By now, however, it was no longer possible to ignore it: the dunes had definitively assumed the shape of deformed faces. The Meister struggled not to look at them but could not ignore those soulless empty orbits, which peered his every uncertain step. Those mounds were reproducing his face, multiplied in a kaleidoscope of abomination.

Among the dunes, madness used to arrive well before dehydration.

He almost did not notice that the Tesseract 19 could be seen to the naked eye, right at the horizon. The column pierced the black sea and challenged the streaked clouds. The awareness of his distance made him wince. That construction was huge, that artifact was Moloch's sharpest tooth.
The warm wind delivered to him, intertwined with dust, an imperceptible howl: the wail of the monolith, an omen of death.
The man waited, an immobile exoskeleton bent over the black sand. The helmet laying abandoned beside him. Soon everything would be accomplished, one way or another.

      Meister's hand lowered, brushing over the pouch strapped to his thigh, bulging from the burning contents inside. In the black sand surrounding him, his replicated faces contorted in agony, mirroring that of the man who'd let desperation become his guide.

      He continued on, eyes firmly on the towering structure, the highest point of the beast. The dark sea of faces rippled and flowed around him, prodding at the fragile raft of sanity he clung to. Visages of his sins, these sirens of this wretched desert sang to him, "Join us." He wanted to. To fall back and be pulled under, let them carry him deep. After. If there was an after, they could have him. It was what he deserved.

      Kunst Meister arrived at the smooth outer wall, his legs quivering with exhaustion. His hand ran across the surface of the artifact, seeking an opening as he circled. There was none to be found, no cracks, no seals and no way in. The faces mocked him as he rounded it a second time, he'd come here for naught. All he had done... had been for nothing. Unforgivable.

      His hands tore at the pouch, ripping it open and spilling the heavy blood red stones within out onto the black sand. They weren't cold yet, the light they emanated had dimmed, but their fires were still burning inside. This had to work, the stories had been true so far. It HAD to! He couldn't have... He never would have...

      Meister screamed his heartbreak to the wind, to the horrid tower, and to the faces. He gathered the five stones, clutching them to his chest as he rocked and wailed on the sands. The price of his failure was too high. The cost of his sins were overwhelming. What had he DONE?

      Behind him, the black of the sand shifted, forming an expanding hole that crept towards the defeated man. The walls of the Tesseract 19 began to shimmer and pulse. Still unaware, Meister howled, begging the rocks he gripped for forgiveness. The widening edge of the hole found their target and in he fell.

      Down. Plummeting deep below, surrounded by the deepest void of darkness, watching the light of the violet sky shrink away, then disappear. Trapping him in what felt like a fall through forever. An always of emptiness with nothing but the soft glow of the stones. He closed his eyes.

      When he opened them again, he was standing in front of an dais. In the center was an altar. Meister crossed to the steps, taking in the images adorning the walls. Constellations he couldn't recognize. A throne hovering in a sky above a throng of figures. Fires consuming tiny darkened shapes. A depiction of the Tesseract in a forested paradise. Children on an altar, their chests glowing with a familiar light.

      Reaching the top, Kunst Meister carefully laid the precious stones down. Giving the hearts he'd taken to banish the black desert. Violent flames shot upward, consuming the willing sacrifices, leaving behind a mound of deep black sand. The images on the walls disappeared, shimmering away as the floor shook. The air thickened, rank with the odor of time and blood. He choked, his knees slamming to the floor as he struggled for breath. Again the light dimmed, this time from his eyes, as he watched the room unfold itself, millions of stars surrounding it. His eyes drifted closed, for him, it was over.

      He gave a final prayer. Begging forgiveness from the next world the Tesseract 19 landed on.

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Thank you @Omra-sky for my sweet Squirrple Necklace separator!
Main image via pxhere

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art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

Thank you @Omra-sky!😻
Thank you @Omra-sky!

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Thank YOU for reading!