The Gods Looking Glass
On a cold and wet night on Mesphelas, that dark and dingy outpost not too far away from the edge of the known, lies a small shed that’s far away from anything, called Hope. It has a sign above it asking all those who enter it to give up, something that started out as a joke but has now become something of a legend, a dark history that has a reputation to uphold. The wind tries to batter it down but its foundations are made from something more, time has tried to wither it, and failed. Out of nothing and hidden by the sound of the thunder in the distance comes a ship, one of those new, fancy, gleaming ships out of civilisation they call Lanterns. Its force is something to be reckoned with though, and its dual engine’s clear away everything from under it, up to the tiniest specks of dust, the ground illuminated by the light on its undercarriage.
The Lantern hovers briefly, searching around the shed for any sign of life, and, not to its surprise, finds nothing. Stage two commences and it begins to descend, until it finally rests its landing gear gently and smoothly on the ground, with the precision of a stable and experienced hand. The landing ramp comes down slowly, and a girl, no older than 17, walks briskly down it and jumps off the end before the ramp can finish. “Shoddy” she says as she looks the shed up and down with a glare half worried, half excited. Looking strong and standing tall in a black knitted coat with the hood up, black military grade trousers and long, tall riding boots, her hood though is constantly blown down by the wind to reveal auburn locks of hair, shaved on the side with a scar that travels the side of her left temple to the back of her head, that tells of a bad memory. She walks up to the shed and bangs on the door hard, harder than many have ever dared to, causing the sign up above the door to loosen and dip a bit, “I think Hope abandoned this place long ago” she thinks to herself and, confident to an extent, pushes the door in.
She slowly but surely pushes the frame, one hand on the door, the other by her back pocket holster, a leather casing with a button on it lays an inch away from where she places her hand, in case things get rough. She has no need to fear though, as the door opens to reveal nothing but an empty shed, some gardening utensils on the side of the wall, such as a rusted spade or a pair of 21st century clippers. And on the table, covered in cobwebs and dust, as if it had been forgotten for a long time, or time in memorial, lay a looking glass. Like the ones detectives used in the books the girl had found in that ship from long ago, not the fancy ones they use now. Old and a bit dull she thought, it’s lack of colour or more importantly, glamour, is what had saved it from scavengers, if they were brave enough to come out this far, and these lonely days, they were.
She walked over to the table cautiously. She had heard the rumours same as everybody else that bad things happened this far out, people went missing, deliberately or by mistake. She decided to scan it before touching it, reaching in to her right inside coat pocket to grab the scanner she had stolen off that Markovian 2 weeks before. Stolen, but in this world, that meant it was earned. The scanner was brand new, she knew that by the marked date on the side, 241.2.12. Yet it was battered and looked as if it had gone through many an owner already. She switched it on and and with a loud buzz a green light sprang out of the machine and darted around the room, until she fixed its gaze on the looking glass. It picked up its form alright, standard looking glass but with a button on the side, yet no history. Unusual, scanners picked up everything and knew everything, yet this had no history, and therefore in the scanners curious eye, didn’t exist. So it switched itself off instantly as it had nothing to do. She turned it back on, “piece of shit, come on tell me,” conversations with inanimate objects are common place these days, they do have a mind of their own y’know. And yet this inanimate object was stubborn, and refused, because it had nothing interesting to find, nothing worthwhile to scan. “Pointless.” She decided against the fight and put the scanner away, and moved towards the looking glass. As she moved closer, the wind seemed to start to howl and the shed moved ever so slightly. With every step she took the wind moaned and growled at her as if it ordered her to turn away, move on. Undeterred by Mother Nature’s attempts she moved closer until she couldn’t hear herself think, the wind battering at the wood, making it groan and hiss and sway, everything moving and cursing her very footsteps until she reached the table and it stopped. She noticed and ever so slightly, became scared. “They’re just stories Amalie, just stories.” She stared at the looking glass a brief second, then picked it up. Everything around her became still and quiet, deafening quiet. She put the looking glass up to her face slowly and cautiously, wanting a full inspection. Yet as she held it level with her eyes she froze. She couldn’t believe her eyes so she lowered it again. Still holding on to it, yet shaking. “The stories were true.” she said out loud, too confused or scared or both to comprehend the words. She raised it back level with her eyes and looked into it again and saw through the looking glass, a field of long, flowing, natural grass. Grass to her was a myth, the rich and fanciful she mugged talked of it, the stowaways and vagrants she shared stolen cabins with preached about it, yet surely just a myth. A myth no more. And yet familiar. Her hands shaking, she had been told, no, warned by them all that The Man who treads the ever green grass lived here long, long ago, and had lost all hope and even he fled before the end. The stories told of the world he fled to, everlasting, undying, and pure. One of fantasy. A place inhabited by a man who flicked between the past and the future like it was nothing. Before she pushed the button she took one long, deep, promising breath, smiled, and disappeared in a click, the wind rushing around her vacated space.