Chapter 1: The Weight of Arrival

The clouds tore open like ripped canvas, revealing a glowing tunnel spiraling deep into the sky. A high, sharp scream, laced with desperation, pierced the air. For a split second, a flailing figure plummeted from the light with terrifying speed. The earth shuddered with a thunderous impact, kicking up a cloud of dust. As the echoes faded, a groan rose from a boy lying sprawled and still amidst the settling particles.

He hit hard. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, leaving him flat on his back, sprawled across loose stone and uneven ground. For a moment, all he could do was blink up at the strange sky, mouth open, gasping. A golden cloud of dust still hung in the air above him, catching a strange overlapping light. It shimmered, unreal. A dry cough broke the silence. Then another.

The boy rolled onto his side, clutching his ribs. "What the h-”.

Before he could finish his thought, he heard the soft tumble of rocks rolling off the ledge beside him. He turned just in time to watch them fall, chunks of stone swallowed by a pale mist below. They disappeared without sound or splash. Just stillness. Alex crawled on his stomach to the ledge where the rocks had fallen. He peered over the edge.

"You gotta be kidding me..." Alex swallowed the lump of dread that hung in his throat. A dizzying wave of vertigo washed over him. His hands and knees scuttled quickly away from the edge. There was nothing but a sheer cliff and a sea of clouds below. Was he near the top of a mountain? The air was cool, but not freezing. No signs of snow or frost.

Then Alex stopped. Blinked.
"I fell..." he muttered, barely audible.
"I-I should’ve d- I mean- how am I not dead?"

He patted himself down like he’d misplaced his keys. Ribs, check. No sharp pain. Nothing felt broken. He lifted his shirt.
“No bruises either…”

Still dazed, Alex sat up and tugged at a fraying thread on his sleeve. His thoughts circled uselessly, not settling on anything. 

Then, he felt it. A tickle.

He glanced at his wrist. A coin sized pale bug with a bulbous translucent body was crawling across his hand. Its short and thin legs tapped lightly over his skin. A marble? Its wings shimmered like curved glass. Faint green-gold light pulsed from his body. This was no marble. Alex's realization stripped the color from his face. He yelped and flung his arm wildly.

The bug tumbled off with a tiny “eep!” mimicking Alex's rather girlish scream. Its wings flicked out and began to flutter as it zipped up just in time to avoid a crash landing.

Alex scrambled to his feet. “Nope. Nope nope nope—”

A shimmer lifted from the nearby underbrush. Glowing insects erupted into the air, blinking and buzzing in dizzy spirals of gold and green. They circled him, mimicking his panic with perfect, high-pitched mockery:

"eep!"
"nope nope nope nope!"
"eep!"

Alex swatted at the air. “What- are you- get. off. me!”

The swarm scattered like sparks, vanishing into the trees. The last few lingered a moment longer, blinking out with a final, muttered “nope.”

He stood there, panting, brushing his arms even though nothing clung to them. Air jutted from his nose in frustration. He clenched his hands, his knuckles white. “God— I hate— what even is this place?” he shouted, as if demanding the universe explain itself. The universe, for its part, stayed quiet. Alex picked a few pieces of dirt from his shirt and jean pants before walking a few paces forward, happily leaving his bug infested crater behind. The crunch of broken stone faded into soft earth as he stepped into what appeared to be the center of the clearing where he landed.

Alex raked his hands through his hair, cheeks puffed in exasperation. His eyes dropped to the ground, watching for any other bugs that may try to sneak up on him. That’s when he noticed something. There were three shadows. All of them his. They stretched out from his feet in different directions like the hands of a clock. Each one a soft edged silhouette, outlining him perfectly. They were each tinted a different hue, as if light passing through a stained glass window. One behind him. One veering left. One leading right. Alex turned slowly, checking them one by one. They shifted with him as expected, but something about them made him uneasy. He frowned. Slowly, he extended his index finger and tapped the air above each one. One… two… three?

Searching answers, Alex tilted his head back and squinted upward, following the angles. Above him, three luminous bodies hovered in the sky. Not suns. Not moons. Just... orbs of steady light. One a bright yellow. One pale blue. One soft pink. Their overlapping rays bathed the forest in a patchwork of color. He looked down again.

"That's... different...", Alex mumbled, scratching his head. He turned his attention back to his shadows.

The pink shadow was the shortest, trailing just a few feet behind him at the edge of the clearing where he’d landed—and almost rolled off the edge. The shallow crater still smoked faintly, rimmed with scorched stone. A reminder.

The bright yellow one angled right, extending partway up a nearby slope just a short walk away. The incline wasn’t steep, but it rose far enough to peek above the surrounding trees.

But the blue one stretched the longest. It crept left, into the forest, winding across gnarled roots and vanishing between two leaning trees. It went where the light thinned and the ground sloped gently downward.

Together his shadows formed a ‘Y’ shape on the ground. Alex never had three shadows before. A bit of curiosity swept over him. He tilted his head. Then stepped to the side. The shadows followed, as shadows do. He stepped again. Faster this time. Then turned in a half-circle. They mirrored him—almost perfectly. A small grin tugged at his face. For a moment, he moved like a child playing tag with the ground, pivoting and spinning, watching the shapes shift and stretch. Alex stopped, amused with his light show performance.

Then the blue shadow moved, just barely. Not with him. On its own. A tick, like a second hand jumping forward on an unseen clock. Alex blinked. A shiver shot down his spine.

"Wait a minute.. I-I didn't-" he said under his breath.

The boy froze in place, waiting for it to happen again. But the shadows would not move. A moment passed. Still no movement. Impatient, Alex took a step to his left. All three followed—normal now. He took a step to his right. They followed. Still normal.

"Huh.", he said shrugging his shoulder in resignation. The boy exhaled slowly, but the unease lingered. He rubbed his eyes and face as if recalibrating his senses. He straightened and looked to the right toward the hill where the yellow shadow pointed. The slope crested upward, opening into a rise with more light above. Perhaps he could get a better view of the area around him from there.

The top of the slope wasn’t far. Just a short walk and a gentle climb. Or was it? Alex walked across the clearing and up the right to the slope. The terrain changed from the soft grass of the clearing to a blend of white gravel and grey rock. The slope wasn't quite as smooth as it looked from afar. Loose gravel gave way beneath each step, shifting underfoot like sand. His ankles twinged with discomfort as he attempted to keep his balance across brittle rocks that cracked beneath his feet. The incline made of loose rock and patches of slick grass threatened to send him tumbling at the slightest misstep. As he passed half way up the rugged slope, he could feel a cool breeze rolling through. The surrounding trees began to fall away behind him, shrinking with each step. The forest below waved in the wind, cheering him on. The boy could feel a sharp pinching pain in his calves. His legs began to tense and cramp, struggling to keep up. "Almost... there-" he grunted to himself.

Climbing the last few feet, he dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for air. White gritty powder coated his palms. Finally. At the top. The slope flattened out into a small plateau. It dipped slightly in the center with large grey boulders resting around the perimeter — as if he was on a giant hand offering him to the heavens. Alex paused, catching his breath. The wind was much stronger up here. It whistled, passing through the gaps in the boulders. Dust clung to his jeans as he brushed his palms down his thighs before heading directly down the dip and across, determined to not let the wind push him around. He stepped carefully to the gap between two of the boulders. Stretching his arms out wide like a bird he anchored against the boulders to either side. Alex shifted his weight forward to look beyond the boulders. Then just stood there. Washed in a mixture of awe and terror.

The sky stretched endlessly, layered with soft glowing clouds. They rolled and shifted in slow spirals, tinted in gradients of amber, rose, and pale blue, catching the colors from the three celestial bodies above. The clouds move too slowly to be weather, too deliberately to be natural.

Far below, suspended in the clouds, were islands. Fragments. Some tiny as houses. Others vast enough to cradle whole forests. They floated in lazy arcs, circling each other like forgotten moons. One had a glowing tree at its center. Another bristled with jagged towers of white stone. All of them were tethered together by thin, shimmering strands — spider-silk made of light — delicate and trembling, as if the world had been pulled apart and was still trying to hold itself together.

And then it hit him. He turned around. The trees, the clearing, the crater. They were all perched on one of those fragments. This island, this place, was floating. Wind coiled around his ankles, tugging at the hem of his shirt. He stepped back from the edge, his breath coming quicker now. Both hands cradling his face in shock.

"T-t-this is some- kind of- dream... right?" his voice quivered. But the chill in the air, the light brushing against his skin, the ache in his legs from the climb, was all too real. He was here. Wherever here was. He stood there, breath shallow, heart rattling in his chest. This wasn’t some mountaintop. There was no ground far below. No path back. Just sky. And fragments. And himself, on one of them.

He turned, instinctively looking for lower, safer ground, anywhere to get his feet back on something that wasn't one mistake from a bottomless pit. As he pivoted toward the slope, the clearing below came back into view, and with it—his shadows. The blue one, longest of the three, had pointed toward the forest. Not the crater. Not the slope. Just the trees. His eyes followed the shadow’s path, toward the woods beyond the rise. That’s when he saw it.

A pale shape stood, tall and unmoving. A statue, perhaps. It stood in a hollow of trees he hadn’t noticed from below, hidden by the slope and the thick canopy. Its silhouette was softened by distance, but the pose was clear, two arms raised outward, almost welcoming.  Three tiny sources of light twinkle in its center, like glass catching sunlight. Alex lingered at the edge of the plateau, gaze fixed on the distant figure. For a moment, his anxiety gave way to wonder. Then he began the descent, stone crunching beneath his feet as the statue faded once more into the tangled veil of the forest.

Returning to the clearing, Alex felt the silence press in heavier than before. The crater had cooled. Mocking bugs were nowhere to be seen. Shadows still stretched from his feet, faint and unmoving, with the blue one pointing into the woods. He stared after it, arms folded tightly across his chest.

“Alright…I guess you win” he muttered, voice low. “Let’s see where you go.”

He approached the tree line. Branches, like grasping hands, arched overhead, their surfaces cool and damp against his skin. Roots tangled the earth, a living labyrinth beneath his feet. He paused, the impossible world above now feeling distant and unreal compared to the immediate presence of the woods. Then he stepped into the trees. A low hum vibrated through the ground and into his bones, and a faint whisper seemed to weave through the rustling leaves, too indistinct to understand, yet carrying a sense of ancient awareness.