An Important Lesson

CDSS 9501, otherwise known as Aurelia’s Object. A Galaxy not far from the center of the universe. Visible to the naked eye as one of the brightest spots in outer space.

Upon closer inspection however, it couldn’t be more dark.

Within the endlessly tall and gilded corridors of Abysma, once the crown jewel of its galaxy, the echoes of small, slapping feet pierced through the calamity of strange noises and sounds. A young Entrophia ducked her head down as she weaved around the long, pointed appendages the creatures of this star system called legs and carried a small bundle under her arms. The creatures dwarfed her in size, her small frame only ever coming up to below the “knees” of the shortest inky creatures she encountered. She was often met with furious, foreign noises that could only be described as indirect humming, not unlike a hive of wasps with a tone frequency more than a million, billion times deeper than the limits of the human ear.

Black Holes.

Phia could hear, but did not understand these noises entirely. Not yet. While she would never be able to pronounce the language, she was ever so slowly perceiving more and more of the terror inducing dialect as time passed by on the cold, empty planet.

What could she say? Terror was her specialty afterall.

The yonng, odd looking “child” darted around a corner into an empty alcove and slid down the unnatural black wall to the floor, tossing her long tangled white hair out of her face. As Phia steadied her breathing and listened through the heartbeat in her throat, she heard the awful, urgent chatter of the Abyssals coming her way. She could barely make out a few words.

“...the Empress’s child?”

“... troublesome…”

“... stole a dormant singularity?”

“... only just formed, I don’t-…”

Phia scoffed. She was no one’s child.

Not 10 minutes earlier, she had snuck her way into the “nursery”. A deceptively innocent word really. It was no more than a holding pen for the dormant singularities to be kept until they were ready for their “awakenings.” Phia shuddered in disgust. From her observations, a sentient Black Hole’s singularity was essentially it’s brain, it’s personality. Without it, it’s “life” would be no more. Turning these indomitable cosmic forces into living creatures simply went against the laws of nature. It was like attaching a head onto a dead body and watching it come to life.

Phia shook her head. She let out a sigh of relief as her pursuers stalked past her hiding place and let the tension in her limbs rush out. She still held the small bundle in her hands. Gingerly, with slight hesitation. She unwrapped the cloth from around the strange object she had so boldly stolen.

A singularity about to awaken.

It was a solid black circle the size of both her hands put together, yet it felt so very small even in her tiny hands. It was also deceptively heavy for its size and was nearly two-dimensional. It thrummed with raw power and in that moment she thought grimly to herself how dead she would be right now if the object of her current attention was a regular singularity.

Phias eyes widened as it began to shift its appearance. Her surroundings dimmed as the thing in her hands subconsciously devoured the light given off by the gaudy decorated corridors.

It did not take a humanoid shape. In fact, it took no shape of any particular thing that existed. It was similar to that of a sentient Rorschach Test, yet constantly changing shape.

The young Nightmare Lord’s curiosity with this new life form was unlimited. Didn’t all black hole’s of the Abyss form into fully fledged “grown ups” right away? She touched a hand to the amorphous not-gas and flinched when it immediately coiled around her arm. It was not a hostile gesture she soon realized, it could be compared to a curious one. The shape circled her limbs a few more times, like it was trying to understand her form without eyes. She watched in amazement as the formless entity slowly reset itself, seemingly fabricating its own pitch body out of thin air.

It took the form of her!

Phia found it strange to essentially be looking at herself without the help of a mirror. Of course it wasn’t an exact replica. It’s body was black and didn’t reflect ambient light, only lightly dusted with what looked like stardust. Not to mention the pupiless, glowing white eyes staring back at her blankly.

She cursed at how teeny she was however.

Then she heard a noise. It was like the deep hums of the grown ups, but lighter, and seemed pinched.

“...Hello…”

Oh… it was speaking to her?

Phia floundered for a moment. “.......Hi?” She managed to force out. Her throat was dry, she didn’t speak much while on Abysma. That combined with the immeasurable intrigue she felt left her unsure of how to approach conversation.”

It hummed again. “...Designation…?”

Phia unclenched her fists on her lap. “Entrophia.. Designation?” She couldn’t help but repeat its question back to it. It stared at her blankly for a couple seconds.

“...Unknown.... ID Count S-96721350001…”

Phia raised one small eyebrow. “Peculiar... I thought your kind were discharged with your name and personality registered into you like some sort of… robot?”

The nameless black hole simply stated at her, unblinking yet again. Phia sighed in exasperation and let her head fall back against the wall as her eyes closed. This was not as exciting as she thought it’d be. She had been hoping to get a bit more information out of this thing, possibly enough to use against her dear “mother”.

Her eyes shot open again as she felt a tiny weight on her head. She looked up and saw that the creature and placed it’s identical hand to her own onto her forehead.

Well this was… new.

She glanced back at the small black hole, wary of what it was trying to do. She heard another pinched hum.

“...Entrophia…”

What?

Phia nodded. “Erm… that is.. correct, yes.”

It didn’t move for a moment, then made an indecipherable humming noise. It was different from the ones Phia heard before. The sensation it radiated indicated it was… pleased?”

“...Entrophia…!”

It’s face twitched in an odd way. It resembled something trying to smile for the first time while having no mouth.

It was somewhat endearing.

Before she could react however, Phia was violently yanked away by a massive black hand, attached to something incredibly tall. It could have only been the Abyssals from earlier. Filled with adrenaline and fear, Phia twisted about and kicked and screamed at her fully-grown kidnapper. In a fit of instincts her normally-hidden mouth pried itself open, and sunk its sharp teeth into the “skin” of the hand that held her. The Abyssal dropped her and a harsh ringing screech-hum filled her senses. She wasn’t scared of these things. She hissed angrily as she looked up at her assailant and smugly noted the dripping stardust from the bite mark she had left on its giant hand, before running back towards are little hiding place containing her new… friend? - or at least attempted to. When she turned back it was nowhere to be seen.

“What?! Where did it-“ Phia whipped around searching for the creature she had watched take form not 5 minutes ago, but was only met with the unblinking stares of other black holes that had come to see what the commotion was all about. There were many low decibel hums but she couldn’t make out any of it. It was driving her crazy.

“WHERE IS IT?!” The little Nightmare Lord screeched at the crowd of adults simply watching her. She was enraged, they didn’t seem phased by her yelling at all.

Her hot anger was quickly doused with ice water when a booming familiar voice shot up her spine.

“What are you doing now, Starlight? Causing trouble for the Abyssal Guard again, hm?”

Phia’s entire body seized with fear, a rare feat. It’s not easy to make a being of fear tremble. All the muscles in her small body clenched simultaneously and the overwhelming volume of the voice made her vision blur if only for a moment. And yet, she did her best to hide it all, the only indications of her terror being a small twitch only a well trained eye would catch. Phia bravely turned around to face the voice.

The Abyss Empress. Sladecosa. The Worldeater and Enemy of All Life.

And, her “mother”.

Her form, despite being a creature that consumes all light, seemed to simultaneously illuminate the whole room. It was a sickly shine that made her chest hurt. Slade adorned herself in excessive gold jewelry, and a red dress that flared out dramatically at the ends. Her “hair” flowed unendingly like it was underwater. Phia had to squint to look at her at first, but she would not willingly show her fear.

Never to her.

“Where is it?!” She blurted out, somehow managing to contain the crack in her voice.

Slade stared down at her “daughter” with a smile. To a fool it would seem as though it was a completely innocent gesture. But to Phia, it was ruthlessly cold, and it sent the feeling of pins and needles straight through her. It felt like she could cease to exist at any moment.

“You desire the fledgling singularity?” Slade stated rhetorically, and in a gross patronizing tone. Phia, so young and innocent simply nodded.

Slade raises a single arm and Phia noticed the massive, gaudy red and black ring that sat on her finger. It seemed to churn with an unimaginable horror just beyond its thin glass. It disgusted her to look at, but she watched it as Slade’s finger twitched upwards with a terrible elegance and it seemed to glow darkly.

She was suddenly aware of a presence behind her.

Before Phia could fully turn around, as was backhanded across the face.

It was a small, but powerful slap that sent the little Nightmare Queen cascading across the hallway and slamming hard against the ugly black metal wall. She coughed hard, and looked up from the floor in time to see the singularity from earlier in the process of resetting its form yet again. The previous look of her own innocence that it once held squirmed away in a disgusting display and was replaced by another cruel, unfamiliar face of a fully awakened black hole.

She did her best to try and stay on her feet, but right when she’d seemed to catch her balance, the newly awakened beat her again - each time more painfully until she no longer got up past her knees.

“Do you still desire it?” Slade asked in a sweet voice. Glancing down at her out of the corner of her vision.

Phia’s back made contact with that damnable wall one last time before she fell to the destroyed floor in a heap. Shards of glass and stardust stuck painfully into her back from where she had been thrown against. She looked like a discarded mop. Betrayal burned behind her eyes and she willed herself not to cry. A sea of negative emotions erupted painfully in her chest. She felt stupid for even attempting this. She mentally berated herself for her naïveté as she coughed up her own blood.

“No-!“ Phia tried to shout, but it came out as a strained wheeze. “I don’t..”

She saw the pointed legs of her mother step into her vision. As she craned her neck upwards she only saw the inky silhouette of a monster against a malicious halo of stars on the ceiling.

Slade chuckled softly, but it rang in Phia’s mind like alarm bells. “Oh Starlight. What you’re feeling right now is weakness. Do you like the way weakness feels, my dear?”

Phia looked down and shook her head.

“What have you learned?” Slade asked.

Phia despised this. Humiliated in front of dozens. Her pulse raced in her sore throat and she cursed herself for being so weak. If only she were bigger, she could rip the condescending look of that monster’s face. But she was small, and so young despite all the years she’d been alive. She wanted to desperately to yell her head off, to say every horrible insult she had ever thought about her dear “mother”. But her life, and her dignity, were both in the hands of a cosmic tyrant. There was nothing she could do. She loathed every second of it.

Phia shuddered “Not to steal from the nursery...”

She spat in disgust of her own submission.

“Exquisite!” Slade clapped exuberantly as the other black holes all dispersed immediately and headed back to their mindless tasks. “You’ve learned an important lesson today, Starlight. I’m so proud of you.”

Phia felt a horribly cold hand stroke a lock of her hair before disappearing without a trace.

She lay frozen on the ground as every other living being around her seemed to immediately forget that she even existed. Boiling rage filled every corner of her mind and consumed her entire soul. Soon enough her tiny, clenched fists were dripping blackened blood from the force of her grip. Her teeth cracked as she forced herself not to say anything. She has certainly learned a lesson alright.

The lesson that taught her how to truly hate.