Welcome to the Storyverse.
It is a vast expanse of raw potential where all stories happen, have happened or are yet to happen. You could say it’s a… happening place. (See what I did there…? Wow. Tough crowd, moving on.) Any story, myth, fable, embellishment, lie or interpretive dance you’ve ever read, heard or seen has made its home here within the ever-expanding spiral arms of millions and billions of narrative universes.
Looking at the ginormous hugeosity of it all, you find yourself asking: “Who runs this place?” Certainly the Storyverse had gods–in fact, it had too many. Enough that it was impossible for them to be effective beyond whatever small sphere of influence they’d scratched out for themselves. Better to be the undisputed God of Used Matchsticks than throw your hat into the God of the Sea arena. For instance, no less than 204,349,768 entities claimed to be the One True God. They contented themselves by ignoring the other 204,349,767.
“Still, someone had to be in charge!” you scream. “Arbiters? Accountants? Someone balancing the books?”
It’s true, agencies were in place to keep track of the goings-on within this infinitude of fatiloquence (and we ask you to please not scream in here). Several such individuals charged themselves with watching over the place of stories, actually.
They are the Celestial Chorus.
Were you to cast your gaze in a certain direction at a certain time (quickly, over here!), you might’ve born witness to a rare meeting of their membership on the star-speckled shores of the Galax Sea.
The most prominent of them was the Bastard Sun (baritone), primary light source of the Storyverse and mysterious benefactor to the chosen few who called themselves Shadowstories. (No really, he was a giant sun with a face. If you would’ve looked when I told you, you couldn’t have missed him.) He didn’t much care for his brothers and sisters or meetings in which he was expected to pay attention. Unfortunately, he ran out of excuses to push off this portentous confab.
Also present was his sister and opposite number, Honey Moon (alto), her pitted and shadowy moon-face studying him uncomfortably. She was in gibbous which probably meant she was going to be a total bitch about this whole thing. Beyond her was the sparkling yet unemotive Soul Sis-Star (mezzo-soprano), the flaming chunk of ice identified as Meteor Ike (tenor), the crocodilian constellation called Navi-Gator (bass) complete with small plover bird made of a tiny star on its nose, and lastly the roiling void who had no name for himself. They called him The Singularity, or The Darkness, or simply The Void, plus another dozen or so names which did nothing to put anyone at ease when he showed up for functions. He—or it—didn’t speak or sing. Rather, it’s possible he did and no one knew it. No sound escaped his dark gravities. Regardless, he gave them the shivering shits and they were all too happy to pretend he wasn’t there.
Oh, yeah, Sub-orbital Object Stan (soprano emeritus) was here but he’d been recently demoted and no one was all that keen to talk to him either. Bastard Sun found himself hoping Stan would be consumed by The Void and be done with it. At the least, it would break up the monotony of these little meetings.
“You are not troubled by these events?” Honey Moon probed, bringing this meeting back to task after a lengthy third-person introduction.
It took the Bastard Sun a second to realize she was talking to him. “What? No. It’s fine. It’s all fine.” He returned to his grim imaginings of Stan being unceremoniously sucked—shrilly screaming—into the yawning maw of his black hole brother.
“Isn’t it true your heroes have gone missing?” Soul Sis-Star tried again.
His fiery lips lowered themselves from grimace to frown. Strange. They never expressed any interest in the Shadowstories, he thought.
They preferred to sit ignorant on the sidelines, handing out orange wedges and punch as he did all the heavy lifting to keep the Storyverse safe. Now that some new gewgaw or doodad came along, everyone was a Nosey Nelly.
“Only some of them. They’re fine. I have other heroes. They’re on it,” he totally lied. He did have other heroes, none as good per se nor were any of them currently speaking to him… or each other. But he technically knew where they were and that was a good start. He’d gather them up and dispatch them to look for Grebok, Chuckles and R.T. when he was damn good and ready.
“This Infi-Net is a larger problem than any have foreseen,” Meteor Ike said, the dire words emitting from his frozen lips. “Information has become increasingly free. It’ll be anarchy, mark my words.” Meteor Ike was certain the Storyverse was a stone’s skip from anarchy any day of the week. He watched too many news programs.
Honey Moon pursed her lips. “Our economy is crashing down around us. The Storyverse has stopped expanding. No one is creating new stories. Instead they co-opt existing ones, mashing them together or telling some variety of story where the so-called creators are the main characters, splitting off slimmer and slimmer shards of the same idea.”
“With considerably more boy-kissing!” The plover atop Navi-Gator hopped back and forth restlessly. The gator itself simply groaned like the sounds mountains make when they awaken. The rest of the group nodded at this: a marked increase in quasi-fictional boy-kissing abounded.
Soul Sis-Star nodded as best an anthropomorphic star can and added, “What new ideas do come about are torn to shreds by a mad cacophony of circling harpies and knee-jerk critics before those beautiful, glimmering angels can take their maiden’s flight. It is the harshest, coldest arena I have ever seen. It makes me tinkle a little every time.”
The Bastard Sun waved an accusatory phalange of fire around the assembly. “You all said the same thing about syndicated television and comic books. Seriously, every time a new medium comes along Meteor Ike calls it anarchy and the bird accuses it of leading to more boy-kissing. Just stop it. This Infi-Net is no more or less the enemy than they were.” His gaze swept over his fellows and they suddenly found other things to look at with varying levels of embarrassment. Except The Void. The Void’s yawning darkness met his gaze. The Sun felt himself being drawn in as if at any moment he could be sucked into that abyss from where no light escaped and find cold, eternal comfort. He blinked twice and shook it off. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have nothing more important to do.”
With that, the Bastard Sun was no longer there on the far shores of the Galax Sea.
(They could do that sort of thing. You’re just going to have to take that on board.)
The remaining members of their sidereal fraternity frowned at each other.
The plover bird broke their silence. “It’s seriously a lot of boy-kissing this time.”
They nodded, and one by one they then dispersed. First Honey Moon, then Meteor Ike excused himself, then Sub-orbital Stan and Navi-Gator. Lastly, Soul Sis-Star gave one last nervous look to her dark brother before willing herself away.
The Void floated alone.
•••
The Bastard Sun returned to his own private corner of the Storyverse aflurry with an array of special new curses he was inventing by the second. Those other nincompoops were a reactionary sort; anything new meant the end of the world by their estimation. Still, his best heroes had gone missing. The Storyverse had stopped expanding. A lot of boy-kissing was arising in otherwise boy-kissingless settings. They weren’t wrong.
He had other problems. Problems with his band of heroes who patrol the borders between stories, the Shadowstories.
First R.T.P., their starcraft, went off the grid.
Subsequently, while he was sorting out that mystery, the heroes somehow ended up getting separated.
Now Lord Chuckles and Grebok had gone missing. Their last transmission involved boarding some kind of… grass-faring Pirate vessel.
He was too invested in this batch to let them go so easily. It was time to make some phone calls. He needed to get the others into the game. The Weasel. The Geek. Even the Weirdo with all the lemmings. All the stops had to be pulled out.
Would they be enough? Could he even find his prized Shadowstories?
Only time would tell.
