A small moon, one of several orbiting a purple gas giant constantly awash with storms that could swallow suns, roughly a third of the way across the galaxy from Earth -
'Good luck!' screamed a group of children at eachother as they all scattered from the huddle they were in, leaving behind a little girl with startling red hair, counting loudly and slowly saying each number.
'One' she called.
Each scattering child ran as fast as they could, some darting behind buildings, a few heading towards the nearby park.
'Two.' They hear, picking up speed. The smaller groups begin to form as friends head in the same direction.
'Three.' A little boy trips and skins his palms and knees, all the previous fun instantly forgotten for him.
'Four.' She begins speeding up a little, some of the children don't even hide, they just savor the feeling of running into the distance.
'Fi-' An echoing crack replaces her voice, even though it's against the rules she opens her eyes, turning to see the source of the noise.
Before her body can fully process the command from her brain a wave of cold sweeps over the area, encasing her, her companions, her world, in a layer of ice.
- Some time later.
Air, I need air. I can't move. Why can't I blink. Everything hurts. It'ssocoldI'mburning!
All of these thoughts in an instant, a surge of blind animal panic, the feeling of being locked in place and my prison turning to freezing water.
I … I was running, playing tag, and now. What. Why am I? Am I frozen?
Metaphorically being reborn from the wall he had hidden behind, and subsequently been frozen to, a young boy begins frantically clawing at the remaining ice trapping him to the wall, falling to the ground in a panic.
Everything is scary still, as if a single move would shatter the entire landscape, not even the wind dared to make a sound. The only sign of life in the entire universe is the water quickly puddling and refreezing at his feet.
Thu-crsthckhh A massive boom followed by the sound of glass shattering. Quicky repeated. Repeating.
Out of the mist, rising from the icy ground, stepped something that immediately told the boy that this was no dream. He had died and gone to hell.
At first it seemed to be a man made of metal, with long hair of woven cables, that illusion was quickly dispelled. The cables reattached low on the man's shoulders and chest, after this point any semblance of humanity is lost; there are six freely rotating arms whirring around where a nipple would have been on a human and below that is a torso of epic proportions. A vast swollen facsimile of a library appeared to be what this man had instead of a stomach, 4 rotating shelves the size of a helicopter's cab whirred around in a sort of counterbalance to the rapidly spinning arms. The figure's legs were the strangest of all, appearing to be the only lifelike part of him, three legs that would only make sense on a giant bird sprouted from beneath the strange torso.
Frozen in terror and in reality the boy could only watch as the figure came closer, his lips frozen shut, his eyes frozen open. Barely able to move his body at all.
Upon seeing the boy the figures' eyes became glowing golden bars that cut through the fog like floodlights. As the boy began to try to force a scream past the frozen spit in his throat and cursed his disobedient body in his mind the figure strode directly up to the boy and looked down at him, the shelves rotating slower and slower.
'Ple-' the boy began, just a muffled croak, the ice in the corners of his eyes cracking as tears began to flow and refreeze.
Unmoved, the figure unhinged its torso and crammed the shivering child into the space between the shelves before continuing its lonely pilgrimage.
Surrounded not by the corpses of other small children, nor even by tubes and gears, the boy finds himself inside of a square metallic chamber with smooth mirror finish all around, even the 'floor'. Suddenly steam vents into the space, quickly attacking the crouching child as there is nowhere for him to hide, surrounded only by his reflection.
Surprisingly this steam does not dissolve him, making him easier for consumption as he thought it would. Instead it just brings a gentle warmth, slowly bringing life into the boy. Thawing his still mostly frozen body, mind, and most importantly - to him - his lips.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' a tense, animalistic yell, an unchaining of something that had been building with no possible release for the past 60 or so seconds.
And with this the silence of nearly a millenia within this dark corner of the universe had been truly dispelled.
Immediately the scream echoed back within the small confines of this chamber, assaulting the boy with countless shrill cries. Curling into a ball he saw something drifting down towards him. Words within the fog, accompanied by vibrating in the walls. Rolling through the hellish cacophony was a gentle baritone, riding the soundwaves to the child.
'There we are, I thought you lost.' The figure said. 'Sit, breathe, take in the heat. Organize your thoughts before sharing them with me.'
'Until that time,' The figure began - 'Would you like to hear a story?'
All around the boy the steam began to recede, almost as if the mirror surfaces around him were absorbing it, though once the steam left the cold did not return. Scooting to the side within the relatively cramped space - there is enough room for the boy to stand, sit, or lay, but not to freely move around.
The steam began to climb up within the mirrors, forming almost-clouds, half shapes, like something one would see at nighttime and the darkness forms into something your mind believes to be there. The baritone voice began to radiate its way through the walls and to the boy again.
'Long before even my - ' suddenly the figure was cut off.
'Excuse me,' the boy managed to rattle out, the first syllables cracking blood blisters in his throat and tearing open the dry skin of his lips, even his tongue felt like acid danced all along it. 'What is your name?' He swallowed the blood and half frozen bile in his mouth, afraid of offending the figure by spitting it out in what appeared to be its stomach.
Suddenly the boy became aware that they had been moving, the motion so smooth he only noticed when it stopped. A gentle vibration made its way through the walls, almost rhythmic.
Seconds later. 'Hu hu hu hu, to be taught manners by a shivering lad, the shame!' Declared the figure, the boy could not see but a dramatic pose was struck by the metallic figure, throwing one hand out to the side in a fluttering motion, one to their forehead, and the rest fanning out to maintain balance on the treacherous ice fields. 'My creators designated me EZ.R.A.I, stretched out it is EZ-Recording Artificial Intelligence, though an old friend once found that a mouthful and decided to call me Chronicle.' Another dramatic pose was struck, this one a pantomime of being stabbed in the heart and slowly dying. 'Alas they are all not currently around, but if you wish you may call me Chronicle. Now, young lad, relax and hear my tale.'
A force seems to pull the boy to the floor, spread-eagled. Suddenly the space seems to close in on him, rapidly encroaching before stopping. Holding. Exploding outwards in a display of speed the boy had never seen before. An unstoppable wave of momentum was flying out with him at the center, patches of light and color blossoming but too quickly left behind. Just as the boy began to black out the space flickers and resettles. Stabilizing and slowly rotating with him at the apex - a veritable sun within a hidden universe.
'This is a tale of the far past, of all of humanity having to pay the sins of those who came before. Over and over in a cycle of ever worsening depravity and injustice.'
Within the mirror room the boy began to see at first the words reflected upon the surfaces, but now the steam seemed to take shape, into that of multiple viewpoints colored in a pale blue light. Reflected within the mirrors were several different silhouettes, each projecting a slightly different image, as if an echo of individuality. The silhouettes looked to be stick figures, running along the walls colored in black but with a purple glow around their figures. Their movements were jerky and stiff, as if they were simply being replaced with new images instead of truly moving.
'Long ago, humans were birthed upon a wondrous planet known to us as Terra. Eventually they outgrew this veritable garden and stumbled out amongst the stars.'
Within the room the boy watched as the silhouettes disappeared one by one, each stick figure seeming to become a bit more defined. Some grew wings, some began swimming through the air, some simply walked, but many of them left, leaving only 3 in the space with him. Rapidly each of these three became larger, growing definable hands, feet, and hair. The glow around these silhouettes changed to pink.
'Eventually these wayward children of Terra lost contact with their home, establishing new bastions of humanity amongst the stars. These few were referred to as the Voyagers, and those they left behind on Terra eventually came to feel betrayed at the fact that the Voyagers never returned with knowledge, resources, or opportunity.'
All along the ceiling, or sky, or whatever it currently was to the boy in the mysterious chamber - suddenly there came field of the deepest navy with white lights wining into existence across it, some forming constellations the boy had seen before the ice came. The silhouettes from before scattered into the chart and once they stopped moving near a star they mixed their glow with it, some forming unique colors. All across the ceiling roughly a quarter of the stars had changed from their original white.
The remaining three silhouettes with the boy began to alter further, from a warm pink light around them into one of a light orange, with one in particular edging towards red. It wasn't overly noticeable but the colorful edges around the two orange figures seemed to flow into that of the reddish one.
'To this end those left behind decided once more to journey out. But this time they did it with a plan, and with the intentions of burning every Voyager world they came across. For this they created the next wave of Voyagers in secret, disguising it as a grand game that those few left on Terra - in their waste and depravity that millenia of excess greed and corruption will inevitably bring on - easily fell for and bought into.'
Within the mirror room the boy saw the silhouettes begin to multiply, the light orange turning to a pale gold across countless versions of the original. Millions of stick figures outlined in gold, all looking up at the single remaining silhouette, now surrounded by a deep crimson.
Suddenly the view zooms back in and he is looking at a field, clouds looping overhead and gentle background music playing. Surrounding him are hundreds of the silhouettes, each with their aura rapidly shifting to crimson before being replaced with a unique color before they disappeared and only one remained in place, surrounded by the aura of the most brilliant blue. After seeing the figure would not leave the boy eventually looked up.
Hovering above him writ in gold -
Welcome to The Cradle, where life begins anew! Create a character, choose your starting point and become a galactic pioneer!
'This is where our story begins, with the birth of the Pioneers.'