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Walking a bit more, I left the desert and reached a point where the mist was faded. Geysers were visible in the
ground, torn right through solid rock. They drew air in and out; when they inhaled, a strong force of suction drew
in all nearby objects, never to be seen again. Upon exhaling, thin clouds of ash or nearly invisible, slightly
caustic gases would be released. The ersatz mouths melding into the ground slavishly imitated human breathing patterns,
but their breathing was labored. The geysers possessed a clearly unnatural quality, as if the world beneath it
were dying. The loud, echoing sounds they produced were upsettingly cacophonous. I intuitively resented the geysers'
presence, so I quickly continued past them.
The rocky plains led to a volcano that seemed patently out of place. Although very, very large, the volcano was
not very solid, and wobbled about. It emitted a soft hum from the inside as it began to quiver more and more profusely.
Eventually, the volcano settled, became very solid, and spewed forth a blue-gray liquid that separated into huge
drops and very slowly drifted down from the air. As the drops started to land, some quite far away from the volcano,
it slowly… very slowly… began to shift around again. I noticed a glob of liquid land mere feet away from me; it
was thick, but it sunk into the ground hungrily. Where it had landed, the ground changed color and started to shift
back and forth a tiny bit, as if to an unseen flute. Grass-like extensions slowly protruded out and took odd forms
and colors, and shifted in tune with the land from which they grew. The simple glob of mud gave off a barely visible
light that pulsed and subtly changed colors. It seemed that a part of the ground was somehow transcending its inanimate
state. I would have watched the development before me longer, but I then noticed, behind the volcano, a much bigger
structure far off in the distance. I was enticed to seek it out; it seemed to be calling out to something inside
of me.
I jogged along, gliding through the mist with each step as if I were hardly heavier than a feather. It took me
several minutes to reach a point where I could clearly see it; I noticed, in my peripheral vision, the volcano
going off again nearby. Eventually, I got a good view. I couldn't even tell how far away it was, but it was easy
to see. A mound, huge beyond belief, of black, cracked rocks stood at the base. Tendrils protruded from the mound
and the ground near it and swayed, aimlessly but energetically. Atop the black mound was a series of solid, curved
protrusions, gargantuan in size, curling up above the mound like a cage. Within them was a sphere of red, floating
in the air and emitting a bright, white light. The sphere had many smaller spheres of tissue inside of it, always
pressing together and sliding around, and the light pulsed, rapidly pulsed, and I was beguiled once again. I felt
as if I had never, up until that point, really used my eyes, as if I had only pretended to open them. I paused
momentarily when I once again had a strange feeling that something was watching me. I turned, and was startled
to find that another being was here, that I was not alone.
A hollow, transparent, globe-shaped, hairless head with very few features. Eyes, drawn into the head like funnels,
ending in tiny holes entering into the center of the head. A ball of blackness at the center, sucking up light
around it…I stood and stared at the being before me, for seconds, then minutes, and eventually I lost my sense
of time. The ball of un-glowing energy would periodically burst, creating temporary, narrow, cone-shaped formations
all around it, like an urchin. Purple waves flowed across its face, and at any given time, several bits of purple
spiraled off of it, forming very loosely defined faces of their own. Each time the darkness burst, all of the purple
visages were drawn swiftly back inside of the hollow head through the spiral passages behind it's eyes. They moved
away from the blackness immediately, as if magnetically opposed to it. Once they collided with the inner borders
of the barely visible, transparent structure of the head, they sank through it, to the other side, where they began
to move in waves again, occasionally soaring back off of the face just as they had done before. I didn't need to
concern myself with rudeness; I knew the being didn't care. After watching it, and noticing my perceptions of everything
else dull themselves in the beings' magnificent presence, I eventually decided to try to speak to it. I opened
my mouth, but I couldn't talk. I simply could not find any words. My new companion spoke first.
"I am called Echo. Welcome to my world."
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