Book 2 Prologue (1/2)

”Where the hell is he?!” Bellowed the voice waking me from my dreams of stellar marvels.

It took me some time to reorient myself. I was still in the familiar not-new not-dark not-room. I tried to turn towards the source of the voice, but then I remembered I had no head to turn. Or body. Instead, the pitch-black space around me twisted around so that the incensed speaker was right in front of me.

It was The Man. It was a gruff, middle-aged man with a thick mustache. It was a dark, barren moon circling a purple gas giant around a pale blue star. It was both, but neither. It was weird.

Then he/it opened his/its mouth again and The Man came into focus, his features rapidly sharpening like I was looking at him through binoculars while adjusting the magnification.

”We need to find him! We are running out of time!”

”Calm down,” the strangely familiar ocean of ruby chided him before it took the form of a businesslike young woman. ”If we rush things, he will just hide even deeper and then jump out to ruin everything when we least expect it. You know how he operates.”

”I... I’m not sure...” whispered The Boy, his image only faintly overlapping with alien skies endlessly raining molten glass.

”What are you not sure about?” growled The Man.

”I mean...” The Boy began, then hesitated for a moment. ”I mean, he really isn’t acting like himself.”

”He has a point,” The Girl chimed in with a tinkling voice.

”True,” The Woman quickly relented . „But then what do you propose?”

There was a long moment of silence before The Boy let out a strained cough.

”M-Maybe we shouldn’t do anything? I mean, just watch for now?”

”And how is that going to keep him from ruining our hard work?” The Man grumbled as he crossed his arms. I tried to do the same, but I didn’t have any. Being disembodied sucks.

”It worked out this far,” The Girl chirped with a grin. ”Didn’t we all agree that this was one of the better scenarios we put together in a while?”