CHAPTER ONE: Impact.
"You know, the Manavoid isn't the only thing that separates us from the gods." William said, his gaze affixed upwards. The stars that danced in the night sky reflecting in his emerald eyes.
Sat beside him on the high branch of the large tree was his fifteen-year-old son, Lucian. At this age he was already the spitting image of his father, except his hair was nearly black instead of brown -- thanks to his mother -- and his much fairer skin had not yet faced the test of time. He was much slimmer, too, and short for his age. His expression was one of awe, as the sky took a shape that was entirely foreign to him. This was the most amazing thing he had ever seen!
The boy lingered for a moment, too enamored with the infinity above to fully process what he heard. "... wait, what? What's the other thing?" The boy asked, blinking a few times.
"It's... a long story. I'll tell you when we return home." William answered, a bit of hesitation in his voice.
Accepting that, Lucian became enthralled by the Manavoid again before giving it too much thought. Normally, the stars loomed in an even, unmoving spread across the canvas of the Manavoid. They shimmered with an iridescent glow, refracting a faint aura of purples, pinks, blues, and rarely a hint of green depending on how you held your head. This glow was dimmer at night, and brighter during the waking hours – at which point the backdrop of infinite blackness assumed a faint gradient. There was no sun to rise in the morning, at least, not anymore. It was a distant memory, countless generations had come and gone since it was extinguished.
But once, every one hundred years, the stars above would shift in small increments little-by-little during the last week of Winter. Half of them moved north and the rest southbound. It was on the final evening that the celestial bodies reached their ending position, solidifying the wide gap between the doubly dense clusters of prismatic light that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. The break in the sky was like one long galactic highway, a slash in the great beyond which bisected the entire world.
It was just seconds away from midnight, soon to become Spring, as William placed his calloused hand on the shoulder of his enamoured son. There was a slight twitch in the older man's eye that his child hadn't noticed. Small in presence, but with fathomless implications; a glint of hesitation and worry that contrasted with his projected excitement. He even trembled a bit, too, but his son was none the wiser.
Then, a moment later, it happened. The Foretelling Comet exploded into view from the fissure in the stars, and tumbled across the skyline with an audible burning roar. It shone such incandescence that one could faintly feel its heat from the ground.
The comet was an impossibly large sphere of chaotic blue flame, appearing suddenly in the center of the picture-esque frame of the Manavoid. It flew eastbound, with a long white trail of similar flame-like energy just behind it. Breaking off from that trail were what appeared to be twelve star-esque masses that were over five times the size of normal ones.
These split fractals shifted through their various colors rapidly. In response to this, the boy cooed, dazzled by the wondrous lightshow above. Lucian again hadn't yet noticed his father's hollow expression, too excited by all the happenings.
"Father! This is... amazing!" He exclaimed, tugging at the older man's sleeve and pointing ahead. But William did not respond, the look on his face turning grim and his jaw clenching tight. He shook more apparently now, too, which Lucian finally noticed.
"Father?" He whispered, blinking a few times as his eyes focused on the dark expression William held. The boy's voice was dotted with growing concern as he repeated his call for William a bit louder, and glanced nervously between the comet and the man who raised him. William, after some time, raised a shaky hand to wipe his eyes and collect himself. Whatever haze the emergence of the Foretelling Comet had put him in was gone, and he began to speak sternly, masking his absolute horror with conviction. Only someone who had spent their entire life with William would be able to see through the man's sudden mirage...
"The comet is supposed to go west. He failed. Which means we have to take up the mantle." William said, his gaze rapidly jumping between the separated stars, the comet, his son, and the area around them that appeared to be a little bit brighter. Lucian opened his mouth to speak, but before the boy could let out a single sound, another loud rumbling began above them. The two males whipped their heads back up, seeing then that the greater stars left behind by the trail had grown even larger, and the soft heat they had previously felt becoming a bit stronger
The twelve masses now bellowed their own roars, their energy searing with terrifying intensity. Larger, and larger still they grew as Lucian then exclaimed, "they're falling!" with a gasp. But before the child could finish his shout, William had already lifted him into his arms and leaped down from the tree in a single fluid movement. It was a fall that would shatter any normal man's ankles and yet the desperate father immediately took off into a tireless sprint. His boots pounded on the grass and then the dirt trail as he raced at a speed greater than even their fastest horse.
Everything around them grew brighter, the terrain around them bathed in an ever-growing white incandescence. The falling stars were so low after just a few seconds of William running that they blotted out all that existed beyond them. The father carried his son farther, and farther still. Doing all he can to get Lucian away from the immediate site of impact.
The scream of the star that is closest in its descent above them drowned nearly all other noise. Only a few words could be heard by Lucian as his father screamed out a furious command, his last attempt to rage against the oncoming desolation. The final act of a father who would do anything for his son -- even while the world was ending, again.
"The basement -- go to the basement! If I don't make it through this, take the key from under my mattress and go down there."
The star collided into the world behind them, the explosion so powerful, and producing such great sound and blinding light that neither of them could perceive anything for several seconds. Even their sense of touch was consumed by what felt like the flames of hell.
Lucian lost consciousness moments later, the last thing he saw being the oppressive white fire that was sure to take everything away from him.