Perpetual Cycling

Deeper Outside

Splashing steps guided the monster toward it's prey. Where would this little creature go? The predator knew it had him. There was no escape in such a space-

Glowing food.

The beast's attention was deflected and before it could follow Yoch he sprinted ever further down the darkness.

Was it following me still..?

Yoch knew his plan had worked, but felt he needed to put distance between him and the monster. An omnivore obviously, but it was so well suited for these sewers! It scared Yoch to imagine what might- Yoch's foot slipped and he fell into a vat of fecal sludge. Immedietly vomiting up all the goom he had previously eaten.

Swimming, heaving, straggling to climb out of the vat and onto the chambers walkway. His naked body was now bathed in toxic material, and shivering uncontrollably.

What a sight he musy have been, stumbling around in the dim light of goom. His eyes and nostrils burned, and each step slapped onto the concrete in a wet gross noise.

He kept moving, trying to rub off the gross gunk on the walls of the sewer tunnels. Why had his first outing had to be so bad? He wanted to return home, but that creature blocked the way! His purpose had been fulfilled, but he had vomited back up the goom shortly. He was starving, back at square one. This time he was also lost and smelly.

Yoch's wet slapping footfalls would let anything or anyone know he was coming. He hadn't thought about this but the creatures around him living in the sewers could sense his approach long before he even entered the chamber or tunnel. Thankfully for the young boy, no sensible predator would go after something reeking of rot and fecal decay. What luck he had.

The light of goom slowly began to increase until he came to a massive towering metal wall. This chamber was different! He saw many complicated locks and mechanisms covering the metal barrier. Strangely the area around it was covered in vegetation, glowing patches of goom hung high, lighting up what the man-made lighting couldn't.

Yoch was about to walk up to the door when the sleek slimy maw of a predator leapt toward him from within the goom patches! It had been hanging to the ceiling, and almost had him in its grips. His adrenaline kept him going, and soon he left behind the slithering beast.

Where am I again?

Yoch realized he had lost track of his location, and where his home might have been. There was no turning back, but he tried anyway. Following what he thought was the way back. His navigation had been wrong, leading him to a large ramp of a tunnel, wide and tall.

The form of another great locked metallic door stood imposing at the top of the steps. How was he to open these magnificent roadblocks? Yoch eyed the thing, curious as to what was on the other side.

He ate some goom, taking solace in the fact not a single predator wandered here. However the sound of clanking metal on the other side of the barrier made Yoch shudder. He backed away from the door as the clanks and hisses of hydrolic mechanisms began to get louder. The door moved, shaking and pulling apart like a terrible giant paper being torn apart.

Yoch tried to run, but his stumble caused him to trip up and fall onto the concrete floor. Painfull he rolled over, looking up to see the massive doors finish opening. Footsteps echoed through the doorway, slowly approaching. A figure, black hair ragged and flowing to the shoulders, wrapped in grey torn cloths, stood in the opening of the gate.

"You aren't a wandrite- are you?" The figure said to Yoch, tilting his head slightly. The boy had a soft ashen face, quite unlike Yoch's. Yoch did not know what a wanderer was, but he did know how to speak.

"I am... Not... That." Yoch returned to the mysterious boy, his words shakier than normal with isolation.

The boy seemed to lighten up at his response, and stepped down next to him, eyeing him curiously. His dark eyes darting up and down Yoch's body. Curiously.

"So whats broken about you kid?" the boy asked, his voice barely above a whisper. It seemed less like a question, and more like a challenge.

Yoch's skin was coarser than the average person, and looked as if it belonged to a tortise. Its rough craggy surface deflected most sharp objects, but in between the bumpy hide there were soft spots. Yoch had been like this as long as he could remember, but he hadn't thought of it as a bad thing. Was he really broken?

The boy pulls back some of his cloth, and showed his chest and arms were all dark. His face was only less so because of the white of his eyes. He was ash, coal, dark as a night in body and color.

They said nothing for a long while after that. They backtracked, and the boy kept watch while Yoch picked the goom he could get to. They traveled in silence, seeming to understand it would be too dangerous to converse here. They both desired to understand the other, and so they kept walking. Soon the boy turned, and they went back the way they had come.

The metallic door was closed now, and before Yoch could cry out in dismay the boy pushed a strange metallic object into an opening by the door. It opened, cranked, and steamed with powerful machinery as the walls of it pulled back to open before them both. This time there was a blinding light on the other side, a brilliant light that outshined anything Yoch had ever seen!

"That's called the sun..." The boy said, turning to look at Yoch with a grin. Yoch was glad to trust in another living thing, even if he wasnt sure of its intentions.

"And I am called Night."