Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Silhouette

Irus sandstorms were some of the most powerful weather phenomena in the galaxy . The winds could travel at more than 62 miles per hour, and throwing dust hundreds if not thousands of feet into the atmosphere. These sustained winds could last days , and in some cases months if the condition were right. Entire civilizations had been entombed in sand never to be seen again, cities buried alive in a sapphire sea of copper dust. Ancient ruins were often uncovered throughout the Irus dessert after large sandstorms, revealing the remains of hundreds suffocated and starved under miles of rolling sand.

The Capital city of Irus was one of the oldest unburied cities on the planet, but still it fought a constant battle to keep its head above the rolling sand.

Once upon a time massive patricians had been built into the ground along the outer edge of the city holding great underground mechanisms that could be deployed high into the air creating a barrier against the sand and rolling wind.

Though these patricians blocked the worst of the sand, it could not block everything.

Overhead the Moons of Irus were snuffed by a swirling wall of particulate. No bodies moved I the streets, almost completely black with the lack of light. The occasional orb lamp glowed an eerie blue through the rolling particles, obscured one moment only to brighten in the next moment.

There were no patterns in the rolling sand, no order, only the simple pattern of natural chaos.

Except for a small space at the base of the wall, where the particulate did not go, swirling and undulating around the object, but without actually touching.

The form shifted, and so did the sand, rolling past and bouncing off the strange outline as it rolled as a shadow through the abandoned streets . The form was completely silent as it moved, blending almost perfectly with he blackness and the sand. Passing under an orb light, it would have taken an incredibly observant bystander to notice the change in the chaotic pattern of the wind highlighted in diffused blue sand.

It would have taken an even more observant bystander to notice the slow pulsing orange light at the center of the form's chest, radiating in thin lines outward and through the creature's limbs as it moved.

It did not deviate from its course, did not slow.

There was no need to .

There were no obstacles to its mission.

Its destination was just up ahead, at the center of the city circle.: a massive building that dominated the skyline when the sun was out and shining, but under the sand, it was no more dominant than the other buildings that squatted in the sand, hunkered against the wind and particulate that battered their walls.

Rundi guards hunkered in booths around the building monitoring cameras that desperately worked to pick up heat signatures through the sand.

No one in their right mind would be out during this time, and their patrol was lax.

Only one figure still moved within the whirling chaos.

It slipped past the guards with contemptuous ease, making its way up to the side wall of the building. It stopped for a moment, head cocked as if it was listening before turning, and beginning its slow, spidery progression up the wall and towards a waiting skylight.

Still, it's movement went unnoticed , shadow darkening the window, and what little light managed to leak downward and onto the stone floor below.

***

He didn't know what woke him.

It could have been a sound or, maybe a smell he supposed, but upon waking up he could not pinpoint the stimuli that had brought him out of his slumber. Adam sat up in the near darkness, his human eye struggling to make out anything but indistinct shapes and masses around the room.