Away from all other cities
Far from any walkway or road
Lies a simple city on the sea
Known only as Mrn


The city would rise and fall
With the tide of that great sea
Which gave it the lasting title
Of the Tidal City


None for sure knew
How exactly the city moved
For the mechanisms that allowed it
Never had to be repaired


But this did not worry the simple folk
Who lived in the city and along the coast
For they were happy and content
Playing on the warm seashore


Every spring all manner of turtles
Would rise out of the sea
To bury their eggs in the sand
And wait for their young to hatch


The people of Mrn were particularly fond
Of those turtles and their precious eggs
Often they would sit on the beach for days
Guarding the eggs from potential predators


The costal folk lived there
Peaceful and content
In that tidal city of Mrn
That rose and fell with the waves


At that shore on the edge of the world

Dust and worn leather bound books
Some older than the ancient tower
In which they were stored


A small fire crackled
Its embers ever threatening the books
Yet never quite reaching them


An old man sat in his chair
Neither awake nor asleep
But somewhere in between


There was an open book on the table
Sitting next to his the wooden chair
The lock on its cover laid open


Whispers in the dark
Swirled about the room
Strange runes illuminated in the book


The whispers grew louder
To a near audible level
Then the fire went out


But in a moment it was rekindled
Replaced by a burning eye
Of cinder and black ash

Melodies pierce the water
An ethereal song
From somewhere in the night
Beyond the Turn Tide Sea

I would sit on that shore
At night on the edge of the woods
The sand would glow dimly
Alive with phosphorescent light

And I would hear her voice
All the more vivid
Now that the world was quiet
And had gone to sleep

I know not where
That sweet voice came from
But it calmed my spirit
And put my soul at ease

All that I could see
Was illuminated by the silver moon
And in the sky I saw
A flutter of cloth

There is where I saw her
The source of that divine music
A goddess from beyond the sky
That great mother of night

Upon seeing her I awoke from my dream
And looking about I realized
That the waking world was the dream
And I had been asleep

For a very long time

The thick grass gently blew in the dusk air
Every evening I would make my way
Through the dense and deep green
To that lone tree sitting on a hill


From there I would simply watch
The stars above in their distant glory
Marking the constellations
And the occasional shooting star


This night was no different
I made my climb up the grassy knoll
And laid beneath the old oak tree
Turning my eyes towards the heavens


The night sky was vast and full
Of far off light that just now
May be reaching our planet
For the first time


I wondered what the point
Of such far off suns may be
But my thoughts were interrupted
By an even brighter light in the sky


All too quickly did I realize
That it was something falling
Into the Earth's orbit
And it would land very near me


I quickly slide down the hill
Hoping to get out of the object's path
Looking back I realized however,
It was much smaller than I initially thought


In an instant it landed
With a great flash of light
And a loud impact
Into the very tree I had laid under


When the smoke cleared I slowly walked
Towards the smoldering tree trunk
And peered at that object
That had fallen from space


It was some sort of crystal
Or luminescent rock
Cautiously I reached for it
To see if it had cooled


I noticed the closer my hand got
To the strange space rock
The brighter it became
Until it almost pulsated with a deep red glow


With this glow could I see
That there was something inside the crystal
A black shape
Of unknown form or mass


Curiosity getting the better of me
I continued to reach towards the rock
Whose strange luminescence
Only seemed to increase


Then I touched the fallen meteroite
Nothing more than a brush of the fingers
Across its smooth crystalline surface
And something strange happened


I heard a voice
Distant and deep
In a language I could not understand
Yet somehow its meaning was clear


The message was not long
A deep desperation in the speaker's voice
Urged him to make it quick
And soon it was over


All I could think
Once my head returned to silence
Was that it was coming
That primordial darkness

From beyond the Gates of Night


And with its coming
Would the heavens be torn asunder