The Ascent

After a while, as they stared at the lake…
“Something’s not right,” Elias muttered.

“Yeah. It’s way too quiet…”

A moment ago, a few birds had still been chirping – but now there was nothing. Not a sound. Not even the whisper of wind. Absolute silence.

They turned and glanced behind them. Nothing was coming.
Their eyes roamed the rocks above the lake, the trees on the hillside… the uneasy feeling that something was drawing near gripped them.

And then, suddenly, the ground shook violently.
“Earthquake!” Elias shouted.

Rocks splintered off the cliff opposite and crashed into the lake, sending its surface into wild turmoil.

“Fly, Fawks!” Elias shouted over the thunder of the quake.

It only grew worse. Even the trees around them began toppling.
Fawks finally took off, skimming above the lake.

“AAAH–too strong!” Elias cried, struggling to find firm footing, barely keeping his balance.
“Why won’t it stoooop?!” he screamed.

The tremors raged on, far longer than any quake should.

“Hold on! I think–you’re drifting away!” Fawks shouted, but Elias couldn’t hear him over the deafening rumble.

“Whaaat?!”

“I said…” Fawks yelled again, just as the quake began to subside, “…you’re drifting away!”

Elias looked at him, shaken to the core by what he’d just endured.
Fawks looked as if he were… receding, slipping backward.
“What do you mean? You are drifting away!”

For a moment, Fawks seemed uncertain. He checked that his tail was still twirling, a motion that confirmed he should be hovering in place – yes, still steady. His eyes shot back to Elias in sudden alarm. "Wait! I'll be right back!"

He soared upward, higher and higher, until he reached above the tallest tree rooted on the hilltop.

From there, the truth revealed itself.
The ground below was indeed moving. Slowly, but unmistakably–it was pulling upward and toward the horizon.
The Common Ground… was shifting as a whole?

He scanned the horizon. The plains around the hill, the forest they had crossed earlier – all of it was in place.
But –His heart skipped– where was the upstream running river?

Fawks strained to see it. Where its banks should have been, the world seemed to… end. The earth itself dropped away.
With a jolt of dread, he darted toward that direction.

Elias, left behind, stood still, heart hammering, his eyes roaming the wreckage. The quake had finally died, leaving only a haze of dust and the hollow echo of silence.
At least a quarter of the forest lay broken–their trunks twisted, their crowns toppled like fallen giants.
If it weren’t for the lake – that one unmistakable landmark – he might have thought himself flung into another land entirely.

The air was thick with grit, and all he wanted was to find some open ground, an open sky, a place to rest–but he had no idea which way to go, and, besides, Fawks had told him to wait.
So he did.
He found a flat stone by the shore, rinsed the dirt from his hands, and sat there quietly, listening to the water lap against the bank.

It wasn’t long before Fawks returned, panting heavily. He landed straight in the lake, splashing water over himself to cool down.

"So... what happened?" Elias asked him just as he took his head out of the water.

“Well, how do I put this?” Fawks shook himself dry, panting. “Elias… we’re on an island.”

“An island?!”

“Yeah… we’re drifting away.”

“The salty river turned into a sea?”

“Emm… no – we’re actually flying!”

“Flying?..” Elias could hardly believe it. Apart from the earthquake earlier, there had been no telltale signs of lift or motion. “You mean the Common Ground as a whole?”

“No, just us!” Fawks took a deep breath and dove down.

Elias waited for him to resurface. “This I’ve got to see!” he said.

“Here, take these,” Fawks handed him a handful of Drael before diving again. They were all shades of blue, ranging from hazelnut-sized to the size of a small strawberry.

“Wait!” Elias called out, stuffing the Drael into his pockets.

A minute later Fawks popped back up. “That’s what we came for–look, more of them!” and dove once again.

“I can’t fit any more–I’ve only got two pockets!” Elias protested, but Fawks dove a third time anyway.

“Alright, alright,” he said, finally pulling himself out of the water. Elias was somewhat relieved, hoping they would at last move on and figure out what was happening. Meanwhile, Fawks stuffed the rest of the Drael into every little pocket he had, until they were crammed to bursting.

For a while he stood there, struggling to squeeze in three last ones that simply wouldn’t fit. “I knew I should’ve bought a bag before we left!”

“Just hold them in your hand and let’s go!” Elias urged, already pushing his way into the forest.

Fawks eventually tied the last pieces together with little chains, hung them on a belt loop, and followed Elias.

It took them almost twice as long to cross the now-wrecked forest compared to when they first entered, but eventually they came out into a valley. Normally, more hills and tree-covered slopes would rise at the end of it. But now all they could see was sky – and a few drifting clouds that first rolled far ahead, then hanging low right above the valley, then quickly passing behind them.

“How high is this thing flying?” Elias wondered aloud.

“And… how fast!” Fawks added with genuine worry – more for Elias, who couldn’t fly, than for himself.

It was late afternoon edging into evening, but there was still plenty of light. Elias ran toward the valley’s edge. As he neared it, he slowed down, and when he finally reached the rim a single glance was enough to send him curling to the ground, gripping the grass as if it could keep him from falling. And in a way, it did – because a tremendous wind gusted sideways along the edge of the flying island. Elias lay flat, paralyzed. He was terrified of heights.

Fawks caught up. “Oh wow! We’re really, really high up!” he marveled.

What spread out beneath them now was nothing like before. Earlier, they had only been “high.” You could still imagine climbing down. But now they were so far up that the world below looked like a giant textured map: towns were smudges, their houses just pinpricks lost among forests, hills, mountains, and rivers. It was as though giants were peering down on a world of ants.

Slowly, Elias recovered from his dizziness and sat cross-legged a safe distance from the edge, watching. The wind wasn’t as harsh anymore. All of the suns were sinking around the horizon, except for the two dim ones on top that stayed through the night and one that seemed to be the last to set – probably the slowest-moving sun of all. For those below, dusk had likely fallen. But up here, the light felt even stronger – almost too strong.

“So that’s why the deer bolted earlier,” Elias realized.

“Yeah… they sensed it,” Fawks agreed.

Elias studied him for a moment, then asked, “So… have you decided?”

“What do you mean?” Fawks replied.

“I think you’d better go.”

“Go… down there?!” He turned to glance below in doubt.

Now there was nothing but clouds beneath them.
“Fawks, it seems like we’re constantly rising… and fast. We don’t know if it’ll stop – or when.”

“What goes up must come down… right?” Fawks tried to excuse his hesitation, unwilling to throw himself into the abyss.

Elias stood and gripped his shoulders. “It’s okay. It’s the right thing to do.”

As he said this, both the light and the heat around them began to intensify.
“Oh no!” Fawks squinted, nearly blinded, trying to see what was happening as he raised an arm to shield his face.

That last setting sun now appeared to be heading straight for them. Or rather, their floating island seemed to be drifting right into its path.

The suns in this world were smaller than the Common Ground itself, and incredibly close – but they were still suns.

The grass and foliage around them withered instantly.
“Fly!” he urged Fawks

“No… I can’t see! It’s too high, I won’t make it!”

“Then run!”
Elias grabbed him and pulled him along the path they had come. The heat was unbearable, the light overhead so blindingly white that everything looked like snow. The whole world around them was burning away into desert.

By the time they entered the forest that surrounded the lake, small rocks, withered branches, and even parts of the soil started flying up. Soon after, Elias and Fawks also felt a strong pull upwards.

“Come on!”

Running through the now burned-out forest shouldn't have been easier than before, but he desperate situation forced them to move at a breakneck pace.

The heat and blinding light were so intense that it felt like they were scorched. Their lungs burned as they gasped for breath.

Just before they reached the lake, which now looked like a turbulent, brilliant-white surface–
“AAAHH!”, Fawks suddenly began to lift off the ground, dragged upward with the other fragments of earth breaking free around them. His weight was no longer enough to anchor him; his tail slipped loose.

Elias spun and seized him with both hands, but the upward pull was fierce, tearing at his grip. For a moment it seemed as though he could hold him–until Elias felt his own feet sliding, tugged from the soil, his balance tipping toward the sky.

With one last desperate effort, Fawks stretched out his tail against the pull, dragging them both into the lake behind them. The water was still cool, refreshing – a stark contrast to the blazing world outside.

But as soon as they surfaced to breathe, the scorching light struck again. The water began to boil away, turning into a reverse-rainfall of droplets rising toward the sun. Neither could see anymore, even squinting.

Their situation was dire. The sun was burning them and stealing the very lake away. At best, they’d survive with nothing but blindness.

Elias, in a final act of will, summoned all the imagination he could muster. Out of nowhere, a vast dome formed above the lake, shrouding them in darkness.

Inside, only their panting and the slosh of disturbed water filled the air. But above, something battered at the dome, as though trying to collapse it.

“Oh my God,” Fawks gasped.
“Do you think we’ll make it?”

“I think…” Elias started, “that if we were going to crash into the sun, it would’ve happened already. I hope I’m right.”

The dome trembled like an earthquake. Cracks appeared, spilling thin beams of searing light into the dark. Chunks broke loose, splashing into the lake.

“Look out!”

A massive fragment nearly crushed Elias, pulling him underwater. Down there, he caught a faint blue glow from the clustered Drael – a light that one alone could never give off, but together… together they shone.

He surfaced again. The thunder and trembling above them were finally starting to fade.

“It’s over!” Elias sighed, rolling onto his back to float, letting the water hold him as relief washed through him.

“We’re saaaved!” Fawks splashed his hands in the water, giddy with joy.

The light that had been seeping in through the cracks of the dome quickly began to dim, as though the sun itself was setting.

Elias swam to the edge and pressed his hand against the dome’s surface. There was no solid ground beneath them to stand on; the dome had anchored itself partly onto the lake’s shore and partly onto the rocks on the far side.

“How are we supposed to get out?” Fawks asked behind him.

“We need a door here,” Elias replied. He pictured one–
and there it was, right before them. “I could get used to this,” he thought with a smile.
He pushed it open slowly, stepped onto firm ground, and climbed out, with Fawks following close behind.

Before them lay desolation.

Yet–though they stood upon a violently ravaged, darkened stretch of land—what unfolded above was so breathtaking, it made them forget everything else. Their eyes could not pull away from the heavens.

It was as if they had traveled to the farthest edge of the cosmos… or back to the dawn of time, when the first stars and galaxies were taking shape. Nearly every star above were fiery, bright points each one wreathed in clouds of colored stardust. The hues of the nebulae spilled across the sky, reflected faintly upon their own faces.

It all seemed alive with impossible motion–shifts so vast they could only be sensed if one stared long enough. And yet, in truth, it was still. Still, and impossibly far away.