The Zenith of Nadir

[Xeim]

The day began as any other in the human world. The sun rose slowly, turning the sky from an abyss-like navy to a shallow, light blue. Men, women, and children rose from their beds to go about their daily business. But there was a disturbance in the lives of many on this day, a disturbance that was not easily rectified. Grieving families sat hopelessly in hospitals and watched those close to them in an undisturbed sleep.

The day ended as any other in the human world, but still they slept. Or so it seemed.

-~-

There was no day in the spirit world. There was no night. There was only the limitless abyss, so dark and frightening that one might call it darker than black. It was darker, more frightening than anything you were ever able to perceive previously. It was an unearthly darkness, and its perception was not hindered by the limits of a physical body.

Floating here, you think that it is all over and Hell is just a tad bit more boring than you had imagined it to be. But it isn't over. Oh no, it is far from over.

And by the time you're finished here, if you finish here, you might find yourself wishing that it had in fact been over when you first played with that thought.

Welcome to Nadir.

A bell tinkled in a nonexistent wind, and the sound floated across the airless space as if it were carrying an important message. A young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties stood regally in a lightless abyss with raven hair that matched her surroundings quite well cascading down her back. Her head was held high, and her expression skeptical. A small frown played on her full, red lips.

More "corrivals." More unsuspecting, whiny humans were here to muddle up the fragile peace and fancy themselves gods. "Wonderful," she growled, and took a step forward. Her tattered but elegant purple wings were disturbed from their resting place on her back because of the movement. "What are we to do, Nadir, what are we to do?" She sighed, and the bell around her neck tinkled again. "I'll let them wade in their self-inflicted chaos for a while...perhaps they'll be worthy of salvation later."

Then she was gone.

-||||-

"O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!"

Of all the exclamations a man can choose when they awake from slumber to find themselves in an unknown place, Stephen Winter chose this lesser used one that is often only heard...well, not ever heard, really, when a stage is not involved. But, it was with this exclamation that Stephen found himself in a dark abyss, the same abyss that has been described over and over, and will undoubtedly be described over and over again in quite the near future. Around him were others, exclaiming much more appropriate and believable things.

One person near him, a muscled man with short brown hair saw fit to react in this way: "Where the hell are we? What is this Hellhole? One minute I'm in the gym working on my abs and the next I'm...what the HELL?" Stephen, who had been thinking about their current situation rather intently, saw fit to respond with what he had come up with so far.

"Season your admiration for awhile, with an attent ear, till I may deliver, upon the witness of these gentlemen, this marvel to you," He said kindly, and his brown eyes smiled just as much as his mouth.

"And what the hell are you supposed to be?!" The muscled man exclaimed, his confusion doubled sevenfold by this strange, ginger haired young man with a rather heavy English accent. Then he sighed, "Well, go on then. What is it?"

"I daresay we aren't on Earth anymore, sir." Stephen said confidently.

"Oh, so what, we're on Mars?"

"I believe Mars would be...redder. I know not our location, only that it isn't on Earth."

"Oh great, you're such a help. Screw this, I'm going to go look for a way outta here."

"I doubt you'll have any luck!" Stephen called after the quickly receding figure of the man. But it was too late, and Stephen was left to look at the other panicking people surrounding him.

That was when he really got the first good look at his dismal surroundings. There was a forest off in the distance, an inviting beach or two, even an old victorian mansion, but none of them looked tangible, or even three dimensional. They looked like paintings on the wall of a house, the inhabitants of which liked black a little too much. There was no sun or even other, more distant stars. There was nothing. A world of nothingness.

And Stephen finally despaired. He rose his head to what he thought would have been the sky, if there had been a sky here, and exclaimed, "O, I die, Horatio; the potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; but I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; so tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, which have solicited. The rest is silence." He fell to his knees, with a pained expression that made him look as if he were about to begin sobbing.

"What IS that rubbish?" cried one of those in the crowd. "England? Poison?"

Another, more educated soul who had heard all of Stephen's outbursts to date exclaimed, "What, do you have the whole thing memorized?"

"Have what thing memorized?" Inquired the first.

It was with the conversation of these two that Stephen realized most of the people around him were silent, their eyes affixed on him. He decided to add a little more onto his charade.

His eyes wide and damp and his expression saddened and longing, he carefully whispered, "Now cracks a noble heart!" And then fell, as if fainting. He listened as a collective gasp rose up from the small crowd around him, and he was satisfied. Opening night had been a success.

-~-
NOTE: If Stephen makes no sense to you, don't worry. He's not supposed to. For those of you who for some reason have Hamlet memorized the same as he, you can giggle. Or you can still be confused. But that's okay, that's the point. He won't be quoting plays ALL the time.

[Sinister]

“A flash and Throbbing pain.
A mindswept ice fire. Ruined wastescape.
Outwardly projected from this inward brain.
And what’s my regret, again?”
-Salvidor Lisker

Salvidor felt the soft missing tug of gravitation. His eyes were closed and he felt very much at peace. Enjoying the small lifting and floating sensations, as if he were underwater. Slowly opening his eyes, the presence of others had not gone unnoticed, but largely ignored. He felt like a well of indifference floating in an ocean of apathy. It was a warm soothing experience.

His surrounding was lightless and yet vision was not denied him, only things to see were lacking. A few people were standing around him, as he felt himself lowered to his feet. He quickly ran a hand through his unkempt platinum hair and straightened his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose.
A woman stood to his left, pale and tragic. She appeared to be severely wounded and was bleeding alarmingly from her eyes, nose and ears. Her long hair was even paler than Sal’s. Her skin had the appearance of someone who was either in shock or simply had no blood left to lend color. Sal cocked his head to the left in curiosity.

“Are you alright, maam?” His voice resounded in echoic timbre.

“No.” Came a soft whine that refused to echo. Sal could barely hear her though he was standing next to her.

“What’s wrong, why are you bleeding?” Salvidor asked, with an eyebrow arched in presentiment.

“I’ll never get out… They won’t let me out…” The soft cries replied. Blood seemed to flow and seep from her face. In seconds, she appeared in a graveyard, standing before a great stone monument fashioned in the likeness of an angel. It held a sword out at the ground and it’s piercing eyes seemed to be staring at Sal. The woman fell to her knees before the cold gravestone and Sal’s eyes widened in horror. The woman began to…melt and fade away at the feet of this statue. It started with her head as more and more blood began to abandon her. The end result was total dissolution and the graveyard faded away.

Salvidor stood bereft of words or thought unable to resolve whether what he had witnessed had truly occurred. He had to admit that this place or lack of place could not be taken at face value. If the great Tao flowed even here…then there was a way to flourish and a way to fade.

Sal’s heart steeled over and he felt reassured. This place was the ultimate test of mettle. It was nothing new to one well-versed in the Tao. He relaxed his mind and quickly re-chanted a short mantra. The place may seem lawless and without reason but every place and even a lack of place has an ecology. A system that differs to the circumstances. Each system has a flow and one can travel with it or against it. Sal’s eyes shot open. If he could find that flow...then this place would become just as good as any other.

**********

A tiny black-robed figure sat, perched in watch of the new arrivals. Underneath the dark hood was the unassuming face of an adorable twelve-year old boy. His light brown hair orderly arrayed in a mess. His grey eyes were flashing from one new arrival to another greedily, an ignoble grin spread across his features. He was adorable to look upon, sure, but if you had stared long enough you could see a frightening creature grinning through the features of this twelve-year old boy. As if the cute face was a rubber mask disguising some hateful gremlin. He giggled lightly, covering his mouth politely with his hand. Looking on the new arrivals, as single thought occurred to him. ‘fun.’

[Itachi Uchiha]

Soft ripples disturbed the ever still air of Nadir as the focused thought took form in the blank surroundings. From a wintry sky fell the gentle snowflake, in there millions massed, across the frozen picture. High peaks of mountains were shrouded by dense grey clouds, a forest of white crawled on their backs and a faint taint of green shone through the distorting snow. The lake before Nihility was bitter cold to touch as the flames of his body caressed the surface ice.

The scene was peaceful. Not a mark in the bleak whiteness. Not a sound pervading the air. All that moved was the torrent of snow sent down from the heavens. Yet this place played out ever more in his mind, haunting him eternally. The memory seemed more like an itch now that lingered onto him. When he first arrived here, in the blackness, this scene caused a feeling to stir within him. Again the itch of something which he could not put his finger on returned to disturb his observation of what was briefly created.

And so it began. The actors took their places, as they always did, across the purity of nature and trampled, trudged and struggled vainly through it. From the wood they came, a soft laughter ringing in their wake. Often he had pondered what they were doing. But, eventually, his thoughts took him from not what they were doing, rather what he was. That face he had forgotten so long ago, and the one he abandoned. It was before the blackness it had happened, when he had a real face. And he was doing something; something with someone whose face was now fading. A strange upward turn of the lips marred their young faces. The question returned: Who was that other boy?

So the play ended. Nihility’s thoughts twisted again to what he presumed followed in the broken chain. A roar broke out, echoing infinitely around him. The sound vibrated back and filled his ears with sweet nothingness. The amalgamation left before his eyes, so blank and void of anything except for that pure blue, continued it exist. Slowly it expanded and contracted, as if the vision before him breathed like a living thing. And as always, it occurred again. The fading. The consuming darkness that crawled from the edges of the projection until all was gone. And floating in the void he had come to know as Nadir, Nihility drifted on with little care for what he came into.