Chronicles of Hub World

         Death soaked Ned's lungs with every breath. His friends' deaths, miles behind yet still so close. Sarah's death, saturating his muzzle as he rushed her fading body hastily through the rain slick edge of the Hub's rim. And his own. A quickening of blood and pain and peace. Such a subtle scent, yet maddening. A weighted odor, pulling him closer to the muddy earth, clutching his paws with ethereal fangs. Shackles built of spilled blood choking his resolve in an exhaustive poison.



Ned wanted so much to stop. To cease the rhythm-less shuffling of his filthy paws. To drop the limp human, once a figurehead of hope, onto the gnarled limbs and wet leaves that masked his footfalls. His head could rest on her cold body as he listened to the heavy rainfall transform into Cat's voice singing their pups a sad lullaby; all meaning lost on naive ears. So much beauty in such a sad song...



Somewhere behind him a clicking voice issued orders and Ned jerked awake. Whatever comfort he'd found quickly vanished as stark reality innervated his thoughts. Cat was another reality away and safe. But only so long as he kept moving. So long as he kept death's enchanting kiss from his lips and moved.



Numb legs lifted himself and his burden to once again take pace. Each breathe of air was shallower than the last. He was oxygen starved and tired. Heavy with rain and aching with the weight of Sarah. The occasional mumble or twitch assured him that she was still alive, though only just. He had only one thought now; she must reach the gate while life still hung to her. So he forced another step, and another, and dozens more still. He denied the acid exhaustion running through his thighs with angry indifference while, little by little, gaining ground. 



In the thick woods that lined the Rim's interior it was hard to determine where he was. Materializing from his left was the Rim Wall. Massive beyond comprehension, the Rim Wall was both a barrier from non-reality, and a proof of power to whatever beings resided in the Spire. The Spire was to his right. Surfacing in the exact center of the circular Hub, it was the center of all things. Light, weather, water, life. The featureless cylinder was there long before his people discovered how to enter the Hub. Many people from many realities traded in the Hub, but all agreed that whatever lived within the Spire was a God, or as close as one could come to such a thing.



Now the spire glowed dimly, its light cast equally bright from its source as it was leagues away. Ned wasn't a godly man, but it seems his prayers were answered tonight. The rain masked his clumsy rush and the low visibility gave his nose the advantage against his vengeful pursuers. The Wall to his left, Spire to his right, and, North, the gate. His destination. Where he could die in peace. The Rim Rose flowers he'd ordered left at the gate stung sweetly through the rain and death. He was getting closer.



He tried to keep his mind on the gate. Visualizing the unusual gilded arch in the wall that designated another universe. Each gate was unique in shape and decor. His people's gate was overly tall with a flowing gold cascade speckled with shards of color. A splendid and proud sight. The human wall was short and basic. The same grey metal as the Rim Wall, it was the only gate without decor. The matching build and bare presentation gave the wall an acient feel. But humans were one of the later species to discover the Hub, and none of the travelers ever seemed to realize how they arrived. With the exception of Sarah.



Such normal thoughts made Ned feel he was living in some separate world than the one he had just escaped. He remembered Sarah standing bravely before the Lantis legion. He could only remember ever seeing a handful of humans in his royal visits to the Hub, yet he knew she must be beautiful. It was the way she stood. Small but straight and substantial. He'd heard her talk of being a mother, but it seemed another creature from another world. The Sarah he knew was a warrior, a general, an eidolon. He would sooner have expected to see the Spire crumble than see Sarah break.



But she did brake. Body and mind. A new Lantis alliance, the shaodwmen, came like a storm and fell with their strongest weapon, fear. Shadowmen, who could only be fought from within. They find a weakness, manifest it, and leave nothing but a weeping shell. Those who have studied them say they are the remains of people who were in the Hub when their worlds were destroyed. Its the isolation of existing without a reality that has driven them mad. Previously they were more ghosts than any real threat, lingering in places of important until someone stumbled upon them. Yet tonight they had fought with purpose. The Lantis had somehow weaponized living paranoia.





Ned could only prey that there were other survivors to relay the message. His mission was more important. Hard as it was to believe, Sarah was a mother. And the Hub needed her son. With the Shadowmen and Lantis together, all creation needed her son.