OverconfidentMagi
Laugh Like You've Won Always
An endless black plane, extending away as far as the eye can see. Above the night sky is dark, devoid of moon or star or any signs of light at all. An entire infinity dressed black in mourning. A figure stands in this suffocating darkness. He is tall and covered from head to toe by a long black cloak. Two long narrow horns can be seen rising up from within his deep hood. He takes a step, and the black plane beneath ripples outward as if it were water, or ink. He slowly approaches the light source illuminating this world. There is a tiny island that rises just out of the ink-black lake, little more than a rise of obsidian black stone jutting up from beneath the surface. And on this island there sits a tree, looming and ancient, with cracked black bark more resembling stone than the ground it sits on and sparse leaves the color of ash. And beneath this tree rests a woman. Her pale white form illuminates the otherwise perfect darkness. She does not stir when the horned figure approaches. She is breathing, lightly, the only sound echoing forever through this space. She is covered in wounds, deep cuts into her flesh all across her body, covering the island in black blood that flows down to join with the dark lake below. A tear, tiny and impossibly bright, falls from the corner of her closed eye onto the black stone.
She's falling. It's a girl this time. Down, down, down. As usual the fall takes longer than he expects it should. She begins to slow down near the end, the final touching down onto the white stone platform everyone first starts on is always surprisingly gentle. Perhaps the entire journey is less of a free fall than everyone assumes, and the entire way down is actually a very precise and measured lowering. His mind had begun to wander, but he pulls himself back as the girl on the dais begins to look around. She's on the smaller side, with pale skin and hair that shines beneath the column of white light falling upon the arrival platform. Like everyone else she's got a white robe around her, and she's looking uncomprehendingly at the stone dagger that she just noticed sitting with her. He clears is throat to catch the girl's attention, hopefully without startling her too bad. "Don't worry, everyone starts out a little confused. Welcome to the Dark City. I do hope you learn to like it here."
Chapter 1
THE DARK CITY
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