Cutscene: Sparky (Preview Draft) (Patreon)

Cutscene: Sparky

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

He feels it.

The weakness.

The cold.

The darkness creeping in with each passing moment.

His thoughts flit, flicker and fade as he sees lips below glowing eyes move, forming words he can't hear anymore.

He opens his mouth.

H-

His heart stops.

And the rest of him pulses despite it.

Like a single heartbeat within every cell of his body.

A heartbeat that refuses to drum a second beat, but instead continues like a single note, growing stronger every second.

Every inch of him screams.

Not with pain, but with raw sensation.

He feels it.

He feels it more than anything he's ever felt in his life.

His eyes are closed but he sees.

Light.

Powerful, bright.

Blue.

Gold.

Both battling each other, force against force, yet one blazes like a bonfire as it’s light meets his flesh and the other…

The other seems to struggle to latch on.

In the center of his heart, he sees with those same unopened eyes, a figure staring down at him, eyes like miniature suns brighter than anything ever had the right to be.

It raises a fist and he feels it.

The fist opens, squeezing nothing but air, but he feels the heartbeat within him thrum, thump and thunder like a drumbeat.

The figure opens his mouth like he opened his fist and a voice resounds through every inch of him.

"WHO THE FUCK…”

It rang with power, each syllable pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

The words echo across the border of existence and non-existence, drumming in his bones and rattling his soul.

His breath hitched, each inhalation a battle, each exhalation a victory. His heart stuttered, faltered, and then began to beat again. Slowly, unevenly, but undeniably. The light subsided, but it did not disappear. It pulsed within him, a second heartbeat, a silent promise of continued existence.

His eyes wrenched shut as sensation rushed back into his previously fading form, but golden light burst from behind his eyelids even still.

“TOLD YOU…”

His mouth opened in a silent scream as his insides pulsed harder, golden light spilling forth like a beacon from inside his throat as he felt his back arch, body moving despite itself. An unseen force pulling him back from the brink, tethering him to this world, asserting an undeniable claim over his being.

The golden light within him responds, thrumming in time with each syllable, each pulse acting in sync with his heart, each drumbeat a refusal to surrender.

“THAT YOU COULD…”

His back arched, skin prickling as every single pore of his body became an aperture for golden light that refused to be contained any more. His body, a beacon in the black void, a defiance against the inevitable, a monument of resilience against the unforgiving march of time.

“DIE?!!!"

The words reverberate in his mind, in his soul, challenging the very fabric of his being. Light as bright as the sun but far, far denser pulsed again but this time in reverse as it vanished, hidden beneath flesh and bone.

He breathes and for the first time…

He exists.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

An expanse of nothingness, a vast canvas of sand, spread out to infinity. In its midst, a solitary figure walked on. A trekker in the desert of the surreal, where sand met sky at the horizon's edge, an edge that never draws closer, yet seems to recede with every step. A dance with the sun above, a dance of shadows and light.

Larger than life, the sun. A giant, golden disk in the limitless sky. No friendly beacon, but an inferno. Unforgiving. Merciless. Its fiery tongues lapping at his mind, searing him from the inside out. The world around him shimmered and wavered in the brutal heat, a hazy mirage of existence.

The heat wrapped around him, a tangible entity. Seeping through his skin, into his bones. Sweat trickled down his body, a river of desperation. Each droplet that hissed away under the unforgiving light drained at him, the clear fluid somehow his lifeblood.

His footsteps echoed in the silence, a rhythm of persistence. A testament of his journey. But the sun... the sun drew nearer with each passing moment. A celestial body, defying the laws of space and time. A paradox.

Reality blurred at the edges, a painting smeared by an unseen hand. His body slick with scarlet sweat, flesh glistening under the relentless sun. His strength waned and the desert floor embraced him, hot and unyielding.

His sweat-soaked body imprinted upon the grains of sand, a testament to his journey.

A voice rang in  the silence. It echoed from the heavens, a deep, resonant sound, words that made no sense, a tongue forged in the heart of a star.

Again.

A voice. A din as infinite as the desert that echoed through the silence. Words strung together, their meanings lost in the roar of a million furnaces. His mind grasped at them, a futile attempt to comprehend.

The sun was closer now. A face within the golden inferno. A face that was no face. A riddle wrapped in a mystery. Sparky squinted, his eyes stinging from the brilliance. The sun, larger than ever, filling the sky and his vision. A burning paradox, threatening to consume him.

Yet, he did not burn.

Words. Words that were not words. A communication of sorts, a conversation with a celestial entity. The sun spoke, its voice a symphony of heat and light. A language born from the heart of a star.

The sun spoke again. A single phrase that echoed in the vast emptiness. A command, a plea, an inevitability. "DON’T DIE. DON’T DIE. DON’T DIE.

PLE-

I’LL DO ANYTHING.

COME BACK TO ME.

DON’T DIE.

I’M SORRY. I’M SO SORRY.

DON’T DIE. PLEASE.”

With those words, the world shifted. The desert, the sun, the voice, all fading into the background. The echo of the sun's words lingered, a faint whisper in the recesses of his mind. A dreamlike existence, slowly dissolving into the ether of reality.

He looked up again and the sun was upon him, close, so close. A face, a vague impression of a face, on the sun. It filled his vision, a blinding panorama of golden light. The sun, it spoke, its voice a symphony of celestial melodies.

The words, unintelligible.

The roar, a million furnaces.

They washed over him, through him, the intensity of the star's language scorching his very soul.

The sun, now a lover's distance away, leaned in. A celestial kiss, an intimate moment between star and man.

Flom slow burn, now a raging fire.

It consumed him, devoured him. His silent screams echoed in the vast desert, his body writhing in the sand, a silent plea to the indifferent expanse.

And then, the sun's voice again, a whisper amidst the chaos. A command, a plea, an existential truth. "WAKE UP".

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

With a suddenness that he knew was not normal, Sparky felt himself wake.