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Disinterred Darkness
Ages ago, before any race had so much as risen above the feral
beasts of their individual home worlds, the Enlar had
already mastered the art of interstellar flight. Their
huge and powerful brains, composing the majority of
their body masses, had brought them to the pinnacle of
the galaxy’s early technological achievements. They
traveled amongst the stars in gargantuan space-faring
vessels—mapping out the countless uncharted solar
systems and anomalies of their surrounding galaxy.
Though these starships traveled with agonizing slowness, taking
decades to journey from origin to destination, their
voluminous hulls were crammed with enough provisions to
sustain them for generations. Thousands of Enlar were
aboard each vessel, and millions of these vessels
scattered across the galaxy in an unending quest to
shine as much light as possible upon their still dark
and mysterious universe.
An ordinary Enlar Observer class starship, whose name has been lost
within the annals of history, came upon a barren, stone
sphere orbiting lifelessly about some unnamed star.
First appearing to the Enlar as a sort of huge, wayward
asteroid, the planet possessed virtually no atmosphere,
and its surface was completely blanketed in a convoluted
network of deep craters and enormous canyons.
Though at the time it was impossible for them to realize, their
recent discovery would ultimately become notoriously
renowned amongst the entirety of the known universe as
“Old Ignus.”
The Enlar perfunctorily scanned its vastness with their sensors,
expecting nothing of significance. Their departure was
planned almost immediately upon their arrival, and just
as their engine’s powered up for retreat into the black
void of uncharted space—something incredible happened.
They were completely dumbfounded. The Enlar had believed that the
existence of any life upon such a hostile world was all
but impossible. But, to their great surprise, the entire
globe soon became overridden with the presence of
countless snake-like beasts, which spilled forth from
the depths of the crater-ridden rock from the various
gaps and fissures that scarred its hideous face.
Gawking with unbridled fascination, the Enlar watched these
creatures boil to the surface as if in direct response
to their vessel’s radiation-based scanners. Their sinewy
bodies, averaging some twenty meters in length, tapered
to a tail-like point at each of their posterior ends.
Like giant centipedes, their bellies were lined with
hundreds of sporadically convulsing talons. Their huge,
eyeless heads pointed upward to the orbiting Enlar
starship, mouths gaping wide open to reveal an enormous
gullet bristling with a galaxy of flashing teeth, and
razor-sharp fangs.
And in the midst of this astonishment, a blasting message crackled
from the Enlar loudspeakers to every corner of their
starship’s capricious volume.
“We have been long awaiting your pres-senc-se…” began the broken
transmission from the world below. It was the sound of
countless scratchy voices rasping together, slowly, and
near inaudibly soft beneath the static din of the weak
signal. They overlapped one another’s words in a
disharmonious blend of slithering voices. It was as if
they had one mind: one purpose.
“Our pros-sperouss s-civilization wass des-stroyed s-centuriess ago
in a…natural dis-sas-ster. We are all that remainss of
our sspec-siess. Every day our provis-sionss grow more
sscarc-se. Pleas-se…help uss, for we are sstarving, and
are willing give you anything that you want from uss!”
The Enlar, though utterly marveled at their first encounter with
another form of intelligent organism, at once grew
fearful. It was their nature to be instinctively
frightened by the unknown, and there was something in
particular about these serpentine beasts that struck
some ominous chord of fascinated horror deep within
their psyche. They reminded the Enlar of something from
their past, something that screamed out with deadly
warning from the echoes of their ancestral memories….
With their potent intelligence, the Enlar quickly rationalized
amongst themselves innumerable reasons as to why they
should leave; but such efforts were ultimately proven
futile. In the end, it was their driving interest, their
neurotic obsession to attain every last available detail
about the mysteries of the universe—their gift of
creation, from Lord Order, himself—that compelled the
Enlar to stay.
It was this that sealed their fate.
For a great length of time, their ship hovered above the planet in
high orbit, observing all that happened with their
primitive scanning instruments, and ignoring the
incessantly pitiful cries for aide of the starving
creatures below.
They diligently watched, with cold-hearted reserve, as the giant
serpents collapsed lifelessly to the earth by the
thousand. And it was not long before the Enlar began to
wonder exactly what caused this world’s obvious
devastation; exactly why these creatures were presently
starving to death; and, most importantly, how they had
simply known that the Enlar had arrived.
“Help uss!” the slithering beasts never ceased to wail, in their
utter desperation. “And we will give you whatever you
want from uss!”
And when the answers to these questions did not come, for all the
careful scrutiny and speculation that their prodigious
brains could afford, the Enlar grew impatient. It seemed
that the more knowledge they gathered, the more riddles
came to surface, and the more insatiable their appetite
to learn became. It was then that their inexplicable
interest in the strange creatures, catalyzed by their
paranoia into an almost obsessive compulsion, became
manifest in their actions.
“We will provide you with enough food to survive,” the Enlar then
stated flatly, causing, for the first time since their
arrival, a distinct lull to the unending transmissions
from the world below. “But you must yield to our
demands...”
“Anything” the slithering voices responded. “Pleas-se hurry…we are
sstarving…”
“You must provide us with one of your kind,” the Enlar
then asserted. “A non-living specimen for us to examine,
‘freshly terminated’ for our research.”
And so the Ignus made haste for the preparation of a corpse, with
which to deliver to their Enlar benefactors. Mere
minutes passed before the Enlar received yet another
transmission, informing them that the desired specimen
had been acquired, and was now ready for transfer to the
orbiting vessel.
But the Enlar, skeptical of the creatures’ seemingly innocent
countenance (and downright terrified to go anywhere near
the planet’s surface), merely sent a small,
resource-gathering probe down to the world below.
Descending through the planet’s thin atmosphere, the unmanned probe
traveled to the specified coordinates. But, upon
acquisition of the corpse, the autonomous machine then
blasted off, without hesitation, to the safety of orbit,
without so much as providing a single scrap of food to
the starving peoples.
Afraid of their giant, slithering bodies and lacerating appendages,
the delicate Enlar quickly calculated that it would have
been a grave error, on their behalf, had they provided
the potentially deadly serpents with any sustenance: an
unforgivable act of foolishness. In much this same
fashion, they also quickly concluded that, upon the
advent of their specimen, they would promptly leave,
having acquired sufficient data on this striking
phenomenon….
Before the creature was so much as brought onboard, a number of
detailed biological scans were done on its transport
vessel. And once these various, drudging, time-consuming
tests had all confirmed that not even the faintest spark
of life existed within the serpentine beast aboard, the
small carrier probe was then carefully loaded into the
main hull of its mother ship.
Still, the Enlar were not yet satisfied, as they continued to scan
the miniature vessel with every useful instrument at
their disposal. They began to feel firmly convinced that
the organic cargo was, indeed, lifeless, and so they
then decided to open the main hatch upon the small
probe’s hull—under the careful scrutiny of several dozen
armed guards.
In all their observations of the broken world below them, the Enlar
had never bore witness to a creature of such immense
size. The beast before them was so large, that they were
unable to view the entire length of it colossal body in
a single glance. And so, uttering great cries of elation
at their marvelous fortune, the Enlar inched their way
closer, slowly boarding the small transport vessel: it
was the perfect specimen
Completely overwhelmed with fascination, each Enlar present stared
with his lone, glistening eye at the monster’s countless
three-pronged talons, lining the entire 30-meter length
of its scaly underbelly. The behemoth’s enormous mouth
was closed shut, as it now lay resting lifelessly upon
the probe’s metallic floor, protecting its deadly teeth
from their view.
Like timid scavengers preparing for a feast, the Enlar continued
their way closer. Their writhing, electrified tentacles
sparked with mystified interest, and their crab-like
legs tapped frantically against the metal floor in
anticipation of the monster’s dissection. Surrounding
the beast in a tight circle, they crowd of meaty,
brain-like organisms began their experimentation upon
the beast.
No one knows the exact transpiration of the following events. Some
speculate that it was, perhaps, the Enlar’s electrical
appendages. Other scholars maintain a firm understanding
that the monster’s latency was completely controlled by
will. But, regardless of the cause, the effect was all
the same.
The monster’s body, having been in perfect hibernation, and devoid
of any metabolic activity whatsoever, proved too thick a
veil of deception for the Enlars’ delicate sensors to
penetrate, until it was too late…
The gargantuan serpent began to writhe and twist
violently—exploding to life as it effortlessly
extricated itself from the tiny probe. The hull of the
beast’s container was shattered like a hollow eggshell,
crushing to death all those helpless Enlar within.
Rising to its full height, the monster’s elongated body
arched upward and cleaved through the ceiling of the
cargo bay as if it were a mere sheet of tin foil.
Then, before the terrified throng of Enlar, the beast's mouth
slowly opened to reveal an arsenal of pointed blades,
sparkling wet with saliva. Its expansive craw, noisome
with the stench of its internal fumes, was a yawning
black hole of death and decay. And at once, the Enlar
were reminded of their past—and the blaring pleas of
mercy from their long-dead ancestors rang through their
brains in remembrance of the ancient predators of their
birth world.
The huge serpent’s slashing talons then detracted from their
sheathes and began lacerating to shreds anything that
came within the grasp of their razor-sharp edges. Its
protracted, slithering body crashed through the thin
metal walls of the surrounding vessel, laying waste to
all that came into contact with the vehement motions of
its meteoric mass. The surrounding victims screamed with
high-pitched terror as their electric tentacles were
systematically ripped from their bodies, and the soft
severed flesh of their oversized brains shoved down the
gigantic gullet of the starving colossus.
Mere seconds after its awakening, the monster had already consumed
its entire greeting entourage. Minutes later, its huge,
trashing body had nearly ripped its way throughout the
entire vastness of the Enlar vessel, devouring all
within.
Those few Enlar unfortunate enough to be spared from the monstrous
serpent’s initial wrath were forced to reveal the
secrets of their species’ hard-won accomplishments. The
creature took great delight in its methodic torture of
the overly sensitive Enlar, who seemed to experience
pain at a greatly magnified intensity. The Enlar,
helpless to do anything while their skin and body parts
were ruthlessly pealed asunder, were soon horrified to
discover how fast the enormous beast could master the
complex, procedural methods necessary to pilot their
space-faring vessel….
Not much time had passed, before the behemoth lowered its recently
captured spaceship to the surface of its world. The main
hatch of the colossal vessel opened to reveal the
victorious Ignus champion.
The few remaining Enlar captives were hoisted like trophies into
the air. Before them stood an ocean of writhing
snakes—stretching further into the distance than what
their powerful eyes could see.
“Leviathan! Leviathan!” the sea of serpents screamed in their
simultaneously slithering voices, as the Enlar were then
tossed into their midst like discarded entrails to a
pack of ravenous hounds. “You have brought us our first
sscrapss of food ssins-ce the last Great Feas-st!”
The Ignus serpents snapped and cackled with festive delight,
fighting amongst themselves for even the smallest bits
of these delicious morsels. The Enlar were ripped to
stringy strips of flesh upon impact of the crowd,
shrieking with hell-born excruciation while they were
devoured with the starvation of a hundred years’
hibernation.
“I have brought you more than that!” Leviathan then roared in its
great, booming voice as it stood before the gigantic
space-faring vessel. “I have brought to you all the
stars in the sky, which we are soon to plunder! This
world of ours has been sapped dry of its flesh, utterly
destroyed by the ravishing nature of our kind—but there
are many more amidst the heavens that will fill our
bellies for every age to come!”
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