Birth

December 16, 1889, over the deserts of Arizona. Using Dr. Jeter’s airship, Elizabeth Wells and Dorian Gardner had escaped the Archangel and the massacre of Los Valle. They set out for the wilderness, chasing rumors of cracks within the universe itself. Perhaps, Elizabeth had hoped, she could escape the past the same way she had been thrown into it, falling once more into the void. Neither Dorian or Doc were told of her intention to try to travel through the crack, only knowing that it somehow represented a means to escape the impossible monsters pursuing them. The skeleton crew manning the airship didn’t even know that much. None were prepared for what was to come.

Elizabeth and Dorian spent much of the trip in each other’s company. Seeing the destruction of the town that had been like a home had affected both deeply. Elizabeth made herself hide her grief, displaying only a front of confidence. She thought that no one saw through the mask, but….

“Elizabeth?” Dorian said as they waited in the yet unfurnished passenger room.

“Yeah?” She said.

“Everything’s going to be fine, right?”

“Of course it is.”

Did his stare linger a moment too long? Did he see the lie for what it was? That doubt didn’t have time to settle in Elizabeth’s mind before she felt a familiar chill swell over her body. She leaped into motion, running through the airship as Dorian followed. Into the engine room, where waiting for them was the Slender Man.

The monster looked out of place amongst the chaotic machinery of the room. Its face pure white and featureless, its black suit without wrinkle. Lying at its feet were the eviscerated bodies of the crew who had been manning the room.

“How did it get in here?” Dorian asked, but Elizabeth offered no answer. “It can appear anywhere it wishes” is not the most confidence inspiring response one can say, after all.

Rashly, Dorian pulled out his revolver and fired at the faceless creature. His aim was true, but the bullets had no effect, vanishing into the Slender Man without creating so much as a ripple in the suit.

In response, it lifted its unnaturally long arms to either side. Its hands morphed into tentacles as dozens other tentacles grew out of its back. Those tentacles began to destroy the room, each swing cutting clean through the metal machinery.

Elizabeth knew the monster’s intent in an instant. “Oh the fucking humanity,” she muttered as she grabbed Dorian’s arm and ran out of the room. She knew enough of her history (or of the future, given the time period she was in) to understand that running wouldn’t save them from the explosion. But she had never been the type to stand passively by as death came.

The helium gas flying the airship erupted, creating an inferno which utterly destroyed it. Anyone still onboard died in moments. That’s where it could have ended, with Elizabeth and Dorian burnt alive. And in an infinite universes, it did end there. But in this universe, there were forces apart from the Slender Man at work. As the explosion was spreading, black creatures flew to the airship. Black, leathery skin, with horned faceless heads, and bat like wings which made no noise: Night Gaunts. Before the blast could reach Elizabeth and Dorian, the night gaunts flew through the airship’s frame and grabbed the two humans. Both had been rendered unconscious by the explosion.

The night gaunts had only begun to fly away with their passengers when another explosion tore the airship in two. The Slender Man stood atop the falling wreckage, surrounded by the flames. It pointed an arm towards Elizabeth, and a tentacle speared out from it. She would have been impaled, had a night gaunt not flown in the way and taken the attack instead.

The two night gaunts carrying Elizabeth and Dorian continued flying on, but the remaining dozens turned and flew back to confront the Slender Man. As they neared, it tilted its head to the side, and black hands rose out of the flames around it. The hands ripped apart the night gaunts as they flew close. Not one made it near the Slender Man alive.

But the two night gaunts with human passengers had used the time to fly away from the burning wreckage and the Slender Man. They flew across the desert, taking paths no mortal creature had traveled in millennia. Beyond the world of mankind, and into the twisted realms beyond.

Their destination was a mountain, larger than any seen by man. At the side of the mountain was an ebon door, which opened as the night gaunts approached. They dropped the two humans inside the cavern beyond, and then flew away. As the night gaunts left, the door closed, trapping the humans inside.

Elizabeth was the first to regain consciousness, followed shortly by Dorian. “Where are we?” He asked. “How did we get here?”

It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to survey the surroundings. They were in a cave stretching into the mountain. A light could be seen ahead, coming from beyond a twist in the passage. “No idea.” She replied. “Let’s go find out.”

Down this corridor they walked, until they reached the end. It was another door, carved out of the mountain’s stone, and sealed shut with massive chains. On the door was a glowing sigil, which had been the source of light they’d followed. Looking at the sigil strained the eyes of the human observers, for it seemed to somehow be both a five pointed star with an eye in the center and a branch at the same time. Dorian moved to touch the door, but was stopped by Elizabeth.

“Don’t.” She said. “See that symbol there? It’s a kind of ward. Whatever’s behind that door, it’s best that it stays behind it.”

But it was not the door which drew Elizabeth’s attention. On a wall of the cave, seeming at first no different than any other wall, a tiny crack had appeared on the stone. The crack was small, smaller than her hand, but behind it was nothingness. This was the crack in reality which she had been seeking.

Elizabeth reached to touch the crack. The ground violently shook, throwing her and Dorian off their feet. The shaking grew in intensity, until the top of the cavern was torn away, letting in the sky’s light. The Slender Man stood in the air, its tentacles cleaving the top of the mountain off.

The destruction of the mountain, however, had damaged the seal on the door. A roar echoed from behind it, followed by the ground once more shaking. The door was torn open by a clawed yellow paw, alone twice the size of Elizabeth. The walls cracked as the rest of the creature forced its way through, smashing its way into the light. The monster was a grotesque creature, its multiple heads covered in eyes and convulsing appendages along its back. Dorian screamed in instinctual terror at the sight, and even Elizabeth stumbled away from the unnaturally shrieking roar it had.

That roar was silenced when hundreds of the Slender Man’s tentacles shot downwards and pierced the monster. It cried in inhuman pain, but couldn’t struggle free from the Slender Man’s grip. The tentacles lifted it into the air on level with the Slender Man. Its blank face looked over the struggling creature for a time, then in a sudden motion, the tentacles tore the monster apart.

Dorian was enraptured by the sight of the incredible monster’s death, but Elizabeth’s eyes had been drawn back to the crack. She realized it was growing; slowly expanding to the size of her arm, then two arms widths wide, the cracks spreading from beyond the wall onto the ground.

Her attention was so focused on the growing crack that she didn’t turn from it even when the Slender Man vanished from the sky and appeared on the ground with them. Her concentration was only broken when she felt a tentacle impale her through her chest.

At first the pain was dulled by surprise. But when the Slender Man flung her off the tentacle into the air, it hit full force. Before she landed, more tentacles grabbed her. Those wrapped around her legs began to pull, straining muscle and bone until they tore. Both her legs were ripped off, and the rest of her body thrown back to the ground. She was allowed to crawl a few inches before the tentacles struck again, ripping off her right arm. Her attempts to scream came only as choked gasps. Blood was flowing freely from her wounds, and her eyes started to close as numbness spread through her body.

The Slender Man seemed content to let her bleed to death, and in the calm, Dorian ran to Elizabeth’s side. He held onto her, calling her name, but she was beyond the point of replying; even breathing had become a challenge for her. In a rage Dorian grabbed a stone for a weapon and charged at the Slender Man. He never made it close: a tentacle slashed across his stomach, spilling his organs out onto the floor. Dorian stood dumbfounded at the wound, unresponsive as a tentacle wrapped around his neck. The Slender Man lifted him into the air and then slammed him to the ground with such a force it broke his spine. Yet even this was not enough for the Slender Man, and it tightened its grip around Dorian’s neck, trying to crush out what little life was left in him.

That delay proved a mistake for the Slender Man, for while it focused on killing Dorian, the crack was growing faster. It was spreading across the floor, with lines of nothingness appearing beneath Elizabeth. The Slender Man only noticed when the cracks had reached its feet, and by then it was too late: the shard of reality had begun to fall away into the void.

Elizabeth dimly felt herself falling, falling from reality into emptiness. She was too far gone to care about her surroundings; there was no more pain, only weakness and cold.

But then the emptiness was broken by a voice, a voice so familiar it broke Elizabeth from her sleep.

“Lisa!”

Elizabeth opened her eyes, searching the emptiness for the one who called her.

“Lisa!”

There, falling toward her, was another woman. Long black hair, an eye patch over her right eye, long brown coat….

“330!” Elizabeth shouted, trying to draw back her strength.

Their hands reached for each other, and for a brief second they touched. Then black tentacles wrapped around I-330, and pulled her away. Elizabeth shouted, “330!” again in desperation, but she was gone.

Still Elizabeth reached out, desperately trying to think of a way she could help I-330. She was in trouble, and Elizabeth had to do something….

“I’m too weak….

I can’t save her….

I can’t even save myself….

If I was just stronger….”

Deeper into the void she fell. It began to consume her body, breaking it down into nothing. The further she fell, the more she was consumed, until her entire body was destroyed.

Yet her soul was never taken by the Quiet. Something was waiting in the very depths of the void, something which at the last moment saved her soul before its destruction. For untold aeons it had waited for a soul such as this, one perfect for its plans to remake the world. A new vessel would need be built for this soul, not a fragile human body, but a perfect form, a weapon, designed to take revenge on the gods.

The thing waiting in the Quiet carefully crafted its new weapon, combining its own essence with the very fabric of time and space. Human in appearance, but in reality far, far more.

The weapon was never to be completed. Before the finishing touches could be placed upon it, a gate between the void and reality was torn open. The weapon was pulled from the Quiet, back into the universe from which its soul had originated.

And on June 3, AD 2012 of the human calendar, the being known as I-330 opened its eyes for the first time.