The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

"Thirty" (Draft 2)

Dark blue, the sky was going Dark blue, and there was yet no moon, thought in the darkness the city floating above shone with its own light, and Morpheus saw Angels dotting the sky like stars as they flew to and from it. Beautiful, this ending of the world. Morpheus hoped Opium and Daniel would make it. He hoped they would find Joy and close the tear.

The ground bolted beneath him and Morpheus fell for the third time. He lay on the grass of his father's dying region on the ground littered with the skeletons of birds and fishes and listened to the rumbling that came from all around. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to find that he could die. He was crying again. But he didn't feel bad, not about the crying. Anyone would cry to see this, the destruction of The Land, the shallow world balanced between the empty one and the one shining above, the loss of its summery twilight in this beautiful violent night.

He picked himself up again and asked River if he was all right. "About as good as I can be right now," River said. As Morpheus walked across the Land his three Djinn walked behind in their mourning clothes weeping, because he told them to. They were having a little procession, mourning, because no one else really was, they were all just numb and accepting of fate.

Morpheus looked up and prayed that Daniel would get to his siblings, he prayed that Opium would be all right, and that Jibril would not find a way to die.

The ground quaked again. Morpheus could see the shining bridge across the Styx bolt and sway in the light that came from The Forbidden City where Angels and divine talents dwelt in more perfection than even those here could dream of. Morpheus wondered what those below were doing, the Satans and their minions, living in the darkness beneath The Land that was yet part of their world, in the place they called the Pit and the DarkLand. He wondered if the quaking had brought them all up.

Lucifer would probably be more pissed off that ever when he saw the ground was falling down around him, and that finally he could get up and look up at the city he was outcast from only to see it was as perfect as ever.

Morpheus walked over a hill, buckled land. And he felt another quake, they were so much more frequent as the empty reality pressed in, though the regions still fought to shift. And then the ground opened up, it was really so fast that Morpheus had no time to move. He felt as if in a cartoon, that the jagged black line would come speeding toward him, and then something funny would happen. He would stand with a foot either side, or fall down and send up a cloud of dust, or hold up a sign that said: OUCH!

But he only stumbled, fell into the crevice, fell against rock so that his arm was cut and then slid farther down. He hit his head. He lay with his eyes rolled back in his head, half-conscious wondering if the sickness would keep his wounds from healing. He heard a small voice by his ear, "Almost lost ya, boss."

Morpheus wanted to tell River to stop calling him boss, but he knew River only did it when feeling most affectionate, when he was so emotional he needed to joke. Morpheus laughed, and it hurt. And then he heard a scuffling sound, and then another voice.

"Omigawdomigawdomigawd..." And then the tiny drops of blood ran down into his mouth.

Morpheus reached up through the pain and pulled Julien to him. They were kissing desperately, caring more that they kissed a lot and did it fast than that they should really feel anything. Julien kissed each of his eyes several times, as if in a fit of panic. He was crying over Morpheus, shaking him. And when he gave that one almost slow kiss that kept him from saying "omigawd," repeatedly he began saying "IloveyouIloveyouIlove you."