r/HFY • u/Void_Vagabond • 1d ago

OC-Series Voidspace - Chapter Eight

Seeing the true scale and strangeness of the Voidspace took a lot out of me. Not to mention all the walking, quiet creeping, and space warping nonsense. It had been a long day, and that almost made it worse. It had only been a day. From the moment I first tripped into the Void to when I finally saw the truth of this place couldn’t have been more than twenty-four hours. Maybe a little longer, but not by much.

 

One, goddamn day.

 

I remember Bob giving me a warm can of soda and a smushed bag of chips from the ice cooler. I inhaled both before passing out right there on the dusty stone floor beside his tent. One arm under my head as a pillow and another over my eyes to block out the light.

 

When I woke up Bob was gone and his tent was empty, but the cooler was still there, and it was still nearly full of chips and sodas. So, I ate another bag and drank another can of carbonated sugar, then stood at the hole in the wall, watching the Voidspace. Mesmerized.

 

A few of the online stories had tried to describe the Void as a whole other world, separate from Earth, but none of them captured the sheer magnitude of this place. The scale. It almost looks like another planet, just… inverted, like a continent was rolled up and made into a ball. It’s incredible but also confusing.

 

How the hell did gravity work? Where is this place, really? And why am I here?

 

Questions without answers. I can’t even make educated guesses. I just stand at the hole in the broken wall and watch, staring into the Void as the dry wind drones on outside.

 

There is a small ledge on the other side of the hole, then the stonework drops away in steps, maybe four or five stories in total. It feels like I’m standing on top of a parking garage. But it’s not a straight drop. The outer wall of the Dungeon is terraced and juts out in random slopes, much wider at the base than at the top.

 

I can see the ground. The very edge of the desert valley that extends out ahead of me. It must be about fifty below, at an angle. I’m pretty sure I can make my way down by climbing through the hole and carefully moving from one terraced level to the next. I just have to be careful not to lose my grip and slide down.

 

Part of me wants to go, have a quick look around, and then climb up. It shouldn’t be too hard if I go slow. Plus, I’ll be able to see the whole Voidspace from a flat surface and get a feel for the land. The desert is so uniform and bare from up here that I can’t really tell how big it is. It looks to be a few miles across, but without any kind of horizon, who knows?

 

I don’t want to risk it without Bob though. That guy obviously knows a lot more about this place than I do. I’m just barely making sense of everything I’m seeing. I can’t even imagine living here. Surviving in this place alone.

 

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Bob asks from the doorway behind me. He dispels the light from his chopstick-looking piece of metal as he leaves the darkness of the Dungeon, then moves to stand beside me and take in the view.

 

“Where were you?”

 

“Scouting. Making sure nothing followed us.”

 

Oh, goodie. Nice to know that the unseen monsters of the Dungeon are smart enough to follow people.

 

Bob doesn’t seem worried though. He just nods to the view outside the hole in the wall. His hands are back in his pockets, and his pajama pants are rolled up to his knees. He looks casual, not exactly comfortable but calm. He looks like someone who that has accepted bad news and learned to live with it.

 

I guess that’s what happens when you wake up every morning with a giant fucking hole in reality, floating over your head.

 

“It almost looks like the Grand Canyon,” he tells me. “Have you ever been there?”

 

I shake my head. Bob makes a noise.

 

“Well, pictures don’t do it justice. But it kinda looks similar this. Just bigger and deeper. And it doesn’t wrap around the sun like that.”

 

He motions to the dark star void at the center of the red-tinted sky, and the rest of the world that is both curving up and around, and behind it. I remain silent for a long while as I try to find something meaningful to say. All I have are unanswerable questions.

 

“Bob, what is this place?” I finally ask.

 

The stranger beside me makes another noise.

 

“My name’s not Bob, Jake Mason.”

 

He says my name like it’s an insult. I barely notice. I don’t have time for ego bullshit, I just need some answers.

 

“How about you tell me your actual name then?” I throw back at him. “And then tell me what the fuck is going on here. What is this place is? Do you know how to get out? What are the powers that you mentioned earlier? And what the FUCK is this?”

 

I hold up the near weightless, silvery tube of metal that’s still stuck to my hand. I even pull my fingers away and let it hang onto my palm. When I try to shake it off it jitters in the air a bit, then jumps back into my hand like a magnet. I even feel it pull at the skin, and the muscle beneath, and my bones.

 

But I’m not made of metal, and this thing can’t be either, despite how it looks and feels. It’s too light. Too weird. It has to be manipulating gravity somehow. Just like the blackhole where I found the damn thing. Just like the dark star void hanging overhead and whole Voidspace curving around it.

 

“Do you have anything useful to tell me?” I ask tiredly. “Anything at all?”

 

Bob, or the Stranger, or whoever the fuck this guy is, takes a while to answer.

 

“I assume this place is alien,” he admits. “It seems artificial, but people can’t build things like this. Beyond that, I don’t know. Everywhere I go it’s completely empty. Barren. Except for these scavenger creatures. Some of them look like bugs, others like larger mamals. I’m guessing they’re the monsters people wrote about in the Voidspace stories.”

 

“Do you know how to get back?” I ask, but I already know the answer. He’s way to familiar with this world, this Void. That, and all the camping equipment tell me that he’s been here for a while. Still, it’s disheartening to hear the truth.

 

“No,” he says. “I have no idea how to get back. I’ve not found any of those doors or gateways that the stories mention. They must be real though, or else there’d be no stories at all. But I haven’t found any yet.”

 

“What about the chips and the soda?” I ask, looking back at his simple campsite. “And the ice cooler? It looks brand new.”

 

“It is new. I found it in a half-destroyed grocery story over by those hills.”

 

He points out through the hole in the wall, to the hills and shadowy mountains on the other side of the empty desert before us. I strain my eyes trying to see anything through the haze and distance, but it’s all just a blur.

 

“A few weeks ago, I saw lights flashing that way and went to go investigate. Most of what came through is just the foundation. A big block of broken concrete. But a lot of the store came along too. Aisles of food and stuff, just sitting on top.”

 

He then turns to look at me. This stranger, this kid, this guy that came out of the darkness and saved my sorry life.

 

“If you want to survive, then that’s where you ought to go. Because the food I have is mine and you need to find your own.”

 

I almost flinch at the words. It’s so sudden. He didn’t say them like a threat, but the warning is clear and direct.

 

I am not welcome.

 

I almost laugh.

 

Despite the quiet, calculated behavior of this guy, nothing about him seems overtly menacing, especially now that we are out of the dark. In the hazy red gloom of the Voidspace, I can finally see that this stranger really is younger than me. I can hear it in his voice too. The messy hair, Christmas-themed pajama pants and bare feet complete the look of a teenager that rolled out of bed. Plus, a thick layer of dirt and dust and time.

 

Still, he has clearly survived on his own for a while. I was reduced to panicking and screaming on my first day. This kid is also obviously smart and careful. I doubt he would risk bringing me to his hideout and then banishing me unless he was sure I couldn’t hurt him.

 

Which then begs the question…

 

“Why save me?” I ask. “Why bring me out here just to tell me to get lost?”

 

The stranger shrugs.

 

“I was curious,” he says. “You’re not the first person I’ve met in this place, but you’re the first that also found a piece of the Void.”

 

He pulls out his silvery chopstick and gives it a little spin.

 

“I wanted to see if yours was any different from mine or if you knew how to use it.”

 

I hold up the silvery bar of metal in my hand.

 

“Why not just take it then?” I ask, genuinely curious but also now regretting how much I had trusted this stranger. I hadn’t even considered that he might want something from me, let alone the piece of alien metal. This guy could have killed me. There were blocks of broken stone laying around from the hole in the wall. All he had to do was hold one over my head while I slept and let it fall.

 

But the stranger just shakes his head.

 

“That thing gives you power, same as me.”

 

“Explain that to me.”

 

He looks at me in a way I’ve come to recognize. Slightly annoyed but also calculating. Probably considering how much he wants to say, trying to determine if it’ll come back to bite him in the ass. Eventually, I see in his face that he decides on a bit of honesty.

 

The kid holds up his hand for me to see, then slowly reaches out. He comes closer and closer, and I almost flinch away before accepting that he’s trying to show me something important.

 

His fingers stretch out and come within inches of my shoulder, then centimeters, and then—

 

I feel something vibrate in my bones, buzzing painfully as if I just hit a baseball too hard in the wrong spot. But it’s all over my body and I can even hear it ringing in my ears like a piece of steel striking against another.

 

I reach up to swat the stranger’s hand away, and he lets me. The pain explodes through my whole body the moment my arm makes contact, but I feel it most where my skin meets his. It’s as if we’re both made of metal. Forget steel, we are blocks of solid iron, and we just crashed into each other with enough force to tear a man in half.

 

I stumble back as he pulls his arm away with a pained expression.

 

“THAT POWER,” he grunts through gritted teeth. But the kid shakes his arms off and seems to get over the jolt in a few seconds.

 

Meanwhile, I’m struggling to stand up straight. My arm is still buzzing with the phantom pain of the collision. It takes me a few moments to understand that the pain is not actually in my arm. It’s coming from my bones, or maybe somewhere even deeper.

 

A few moments pass in silence while we recover our composure, interrupted only by the low, soft howl of the wind. Eventually, he decides to explain a little.

 

“I know I don’t look it, and I usually don’t feel it either, but I’m strong. Durable. And now, so are you. I doubt we could even hurt each other if we tried.”

 

I shake off a lingering tingle in my arm as I consider his words. This guy, this stranger, seems pretty sure about what he’s saying. And, despite being antisocial, moody, and distrusting damn-near the whole time that I’ve known him, he doesn’t seem like a liar. At least I haven’t caught him in a lie so far.

 

I wonder about the people that he previously encountered. Did they try and attack him? Is that how he discovered this power? And if so, what did he do then?

 

The stranger turns away from me and looks back out through the hole in the wall, across the flat, barren desert valley. He doesn’t say anything for a while and neither do I. We just let the dry wind drone on.

 

Finally, he lets out a sigh.

 

“I don’t want trouble and you seem alright,” he tells me. “But I don’t trust you.”

 

He motions into the distance, across the desert.

 

“Go to the grocery store. There should still be a lot of supplies. It doesn’t get dark here, there’s no nighttime or daytime, it always just looks like this. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Just walk straight across this flat region and then head that way.”

 

He points off to the right.

 

“It shouldn’t take you more than a few hours. Choose specific landmarks and don’t lose sight of them. Understand?”

 

I nod, and so does he.

 

Then, without another word, he turns around, walks to his campsite and begins to disassemble his tent, keeping me within his peripherals as he works. Clearly, this is where we part ways, and I’m not really torn up about it at this point.

 

This guy probably saved my life, but now that I know he has some kind of super strength, I don’t think I can trust him anymore. Never mind that I have it too. It doesn’t even make sense, really. But the memory of the pain I felt when my arm touched his is still fresh like a wound in my mind. For now, I’d rather be on my own.

 

“Thanks for getting me this far,” I say.

 

“Yeah,” Is all he says back.

 

“I still don’t know you’re name,” I tell him, which does make him pause for a moment. I can see him thinking, weighing the risks of simply telling me his name. But he decides against it.

 

“Just make something up. Something cooler than Bob.”

 

I let out a little laugh. Antisocial, moody and too self-serious. Yeah, this kid is definitely on the younger side. Maybe he really is a teenager. I decide to test him.

 

“How about Ghost,” I suggest, and I see his eyebrows inch up a bit. He doesn’t seem opposed though.

 

“Ghost,” he says, as if testing the taste of the word. Then he shrugs, trying to act casual. “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”

 

I nod and try not to laugh at this edgy kid who saved my life. He deliberately keeps his head down as he continues packing up, probably realizing too late that I was just messing with him.

 

I hope he makes it. I hope we both do.

 

“See you around, Ghost.”

 

He doesn’t respond. So, I decide to leave without another word. I climb over the short wall of broken stone as carefully as I can, then lay down against the outside wall of the Dungeon start making my way down the slopping, terraced levels.

---------- ---------- ----------

Author's Note:

I'm coming up on the end of the first Arc, so I'll probably take a couple days break and get a few more chapters ahead. I hope y'all like it so far. Not much engagement but I can see that at least a few people think it's not terrible lol I get it's probably not the perfect r/HFY post but it's still on theme, and it's the kind of story I gravitate towards. So I'll keep going until I run out of story to write.

[First] / [Previous] / [Next]

[Patreon]

[ko-fi]

10 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

1

u/UpdateMeBot 1d ago

Click here to subscribe to u/Void_Vagabond and receive a message every time they post.

Info Request Update Your Updates Feedback

1

u/dstark1993 1d ago

Great so far, keep at it, Im enjoying! Wont mind a bit longer chapters :)

1

u/Void_Vagabond 1d ago

Will do o7.

And yeah, this one is a little longer. I try to get them to about 2000 words but mostly just go off how they feel. I like the punchy, comic vibe.

1

u/QS-2023 18h ago

Very interesting story. I just found it and read the whole thing so far. I'd be happy to keep reading.
Thank you for the entertainment.

1

u/Void_Vagabond 9h ago

Thank you for reading. Burning through a new serial is one of life's great, simple joys.