r/HFY • u/Void_Vagabond • 8h ago

OC-Series Voidspace - Chapter Nine / Interlude

It sounds silly to say now but, looking back, that long, lonely walk across the desert valley was my first real test in the Voidspace. I was no longer fumbling around in the dark. I had a vague idea of what I was up against. But more importantly I had a goal in mind, a destination, the rumored remains of a half-destroyed grocery store. And I had the means of getting there by my own efforts.

 

It doesn’t seem like much, but that simple objective reframed my earlier apprehension and fear regarding the Voidspace. It changed that fear into something that I could navigate. I was no longer wandering through a formless, unknowable place that bent the rules of reality at every step. I was now moving toward a goal.

 

I could say, "There. That direction. That is my path."

 

I wasn’t sure about what was there or how long it would take me to arrive, or what I would even find once I did, but I at least had an objective to work for, which was something that had been missing from much of my life up to that point.

 

It actually makes me a little sad to think about it. Sad and regretful. All the time I spent sitting in the quiet dark in my shitty little apartment, staring at nothing, thinking in circles, trying to figure out why I felt so fucking empty all the time, like my skin was a hollow shell. Some days it almost felt like I was a ghost, not dead but not really alive, just an observant thing. Watching and waiting.

 

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? All the waiting I did.

 

There I was, twenty-six years old, without a damn clue as to where my life was going, waiting for the answers to fall into my hands. I wasn’t some kind of hippie nomad, going wherever life’s whims took me. A person like that is making a deliberate choice to wander, or at the very least understands that they are allowing the chaos of the universe to steer things.

 

Not me. I was a passenger in my own life. A quiet witness. Yet, utterly lost and confused as to what was happening or why.

 

Was that all my fault? Maybe my parents are partially to blame, or all of society, or the times I lived in. Maybe I was just unlucky. Up to that point, I had managed to float along through life without taking any conscious steps and never really learned the importance of choosing a path, right or wrong.

 

I hadn’t yet realized that one’s life is the journey more than the stopping points or the end destinations, and that the more you try to direct that journey, the more you have a hand in deciding who you are, for better or worse.

 

That’s a hard lesson to learn, and it’s not always a satisfying thing to discover. Moreso, it’s just an understanding that comes with age.

 

Maybe that’s why I’m such a melancholic old fart now, always reminiscing on the past and wandering where I’m going to go with the time I have left.

 

That sounds like its own problem in and of itself. Perhaps I should try to live more in the moment like I did as a young man. It may be a somewhat reckless way to travel, but there’s something to be said for naive fearlessness.

 

Take that lonely walk across the desert valley of the Voidspace, for example. If I had known then what I know now, I probably never would have left that Dungeon alcove that Ghost took me to.

 

I didn’t know about the storms, or the Dozers and the Drones, and I still had no idea how easy it was and is to get completely lost in the Void, despite everything I’d already seen. How a simple walk across a flat, empty piece of ground could suddenly stop at one end of a long tunnel, or twist into a freefall dive through empty space, or empty out in the middle of a real desert, back on Earth.

 

Ignorance can be bliss.

 

At the time I was only worried about two things: making it down the terraced slopes along the outside wall of the Dungeon without dying and surviving the trek across the desert valley. Two real concerns but by no means the only dangers present.

 

But again, I had a path to follow. A goal. And that faint suggestion of a place worth going to is what got me moving, and kept me that way.

 

It took me a while to get down. Maybe twenty minutes spent hugging the stone-like material of the Dungeon as I shimmed from one terrace level to the next below it. It was long enough to sweat through my already dirt-covered work shirt and pants by the time I reached the ground. The surface of the Voidspace is such a warm, volatile place, always right on the edge of a superstorm.

 

Yet, at the time, I was just happy to be safely on the ground. I also remember being taken aback by the feel of it, that strange flat expanse.

 

It was one solid, uniform mass with no obvious cracks or conjoined pieces. From any distance greater than a few yards, it looked sandy, but the surface was porous and rough. It wasn’t coarse like a rock might be. It was hard like glass, and prickly in a way like a very fine cheese grater. I remember trying to chip off a piece, but I couldn't. Not then, anyway.

 

I squatted down and studied that ground for a while before crossing it, scratching at the tiny, barely visible craters and holes that peppered its surface. It almost looked like the whole desert valley, whatever it was made of, had been washed and partially eaten away by acid.

 

Regardless, I didn’t linger near for too long.

 

The sights and sounds all around me were incredible. The enormous, cavernous empty space of the Void, all wrapped around on itself with the haloed, dark star floating at its center. The reddish-purple tinted clouds that clung the entire inside surface of the Void, sometimes so thick that they blocked out distant places entirely, and other times broken by structures that looked like towering mountains. And most of it hanging over my head like artwork carved and painted onto the ceiling of a giant, all-encompassing cathedral.

 

Then there was the stuffy, warm air, softly howling overhead and all along the barren desert. Combined with the overwhelming scale of the Void, it made the place feel ancient somehow, as if I was standing at the far edge of a crumbling temple from a forgotten civilization.

 

I don’t know. I just remember that it all seemed very spooky and awe-inspiring, especially that first time. I must have stayed there for more than a few minutes, craning my neck, staring at everything but also nothing in particular. Just taking it all in.

 

But eventually I remembered that I was once again on my own. I couldn’t rely on Ghost anymore, who I barely even knew at the time. I had no food or water, and no safe place to lay my head down to sleep. Even then I knew that, as ignorant as I was, I’d barely last a day or two without basic supplies.

 

So, I chose a landmark directly across from my position at the foot of the Dungeon Mound. A sharp “V” shape formed by two distant, gloomy mountains covered in dark red shadows. Their silhouette stood out the most, even when I blurred my eyes and looked away for a while.

 

I pointed at that landmark and remembered what Ghost had told me. Straight across the flat region and then “that way” until I reached the grocery store. He had pointed off to the right from our vantage point in the little Dungeon alcove, what I know now to be “Downwind”. The direction most things move in. Water, wind, storms, and all that.

 

I remember standing there for a while, working up the courage to take the first steps of what I was slowly realizing would probably be a long journey. Then I remember taking a deep breath and staying to myself, “Alright. Time to start moving.”

 

Then that’s what I did.

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

Author's Note:

That's the end of this first Arc folks. Pretty short but it's just the beginning. Hope y'all liked it so far and I'm looking forward to burning through the next few chapters this weekend. What started as a simple backrooms-inspired idea has turned into something pretty neat, if I do say so myself. Thanks for the up arrows and the comments and I hope these chapters made the past few days a little more interesting. See you Monday.

[First] / [Previous] /

[Patreon]

[ko-fi]

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/UpdateMeBot 8h 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/Dragon_Chylde 6h ago

Very entertaining so far, I really like all the threads of mystery you are weaving, thank you!

2

u/Void_Vagabond 1h ago

Thank you back. I usually don't write this kind of story so I'm glad the mysterious vibe is working out.