by James Robinson
~ 500 words
TIMESCALE: SOMEWHAT OUT THERE
Pebble the Poacher was a thoroughly bad man. A thoroughly bad demigod, to be specific. He knew this to be true and told anyone who would listen, though folks never listened for long. He hadn’t always been called Pebble. He’d just seen one once. After that, the name had stuck.
Over the course of his current days, he spent most of his time encamped. His encampment was a nest of squishy tubes. His own bulbous ghillie-suit blended quite well within, thanks to an excess of noodles and nodes. Pebble loved being camouflaged. He also loved being perched atop the Seam. While most nearby sections were either enclosed or obscured, Pebble’s hobby required a clear line of sight.
So now, for the fun of it, he watched the sky full of hells. This was not a metaphor in the slightest.
For you see, Pebble the Poacher was on a grand search for meaning. He had tried cultivation and hedonism, exploration and invention. Yet it was in suffering—particularly of others—where he finally found his spark. His weapon was a slingshot. It did not launch pebbles. Pebble launched magma shuriken instead. While true complex weapons would never last long in the Seam, there was still ample room for creativity.
Pebble sighted his slingshot at various exits of the Grubbiness. Grotesque shapes flickered on high. They were gelatinous sphincters, floating like clouds, spitting out bodies of the newly redeemed. Of the most common drop zones leading out from this hell, quite a few crossed near Pebble’s encampment.
To be sure, the Grubbiness was not the worst of all hells. It was not the scariest, nor the most painful, nor the most emotionally draining. It was, however, the grubbiest. The muck was filled with worms and the worms were filled with grubs. The grubs produced many imaginative diseases.
Thus Pebble’s gleeful chortles as he sent folks right back in, right at the final cusp of being done. Finally freed from their torment. Compasses transforming into silver parachutes. How idyllic it must feel for them gently floating down.
That’s when he got them. Right as they were released. Pebble would magma-slice them right back to hell.
Those whom he killed would grow wise to his tricks. Eventually, they figured out better paths. None, as of yet, had tried killing him in return. Sometimes, he wondered why. Perhaps they feared a return to the Grubbiness even more than they wanted revenge.
So went his routine. Sweet rhythms of life. Poaching would distract him from himself.
Yet now and again, he would find himself wondering: had he always been such a dastardly man? He knew he had not always been a poacher, nor had he always been Pebble. What had become of his original life? Who had he been? Who really knew. After all these years, his prologue felt like a dream.
He wasn’t sure why he did it. This was the truth. Especially after it had become his sole routine. Pebble could not fathom why he kept poaching the Grubbiness. So much effort towards making random lives worse. He did not know why. Yet still, here he sat. At the very least, it helped him pass the time.