>>5664059Puppets drift aimlessly in the black void, each just as ignorant as the other. They continue to drift, pushed by forces too small and too great to bee seen and they would have continued to do so until their atoms would have decayed had something not brushed against their wooden eyelids. Little by little, they opened their eyes and though they could not move or make any audible sounds, they at least could see the world. And yet the world lacks any light and they are left in the darkness. A million years seem to pass before one of them opens its mouth in a silent wonder, soon to be joined by the others as their eyes finally become accustomed to the dark to see the ropes wrapped around and inside them. And as their eyes follow the ropes ‘til they can’t see them for how far they go, they look at the sky around them and the many patches which adorn it, far away for them to understand their size but close enough to observe them in wonderment. Another million years seem to pass and another astute puppet calls out his fellows to ask if one of the patches had somehow moved from its original position. “Of course it has moved, are we not tied to them? It’s clear that our weight has moved it.” the others answered, and yet there were some who felt nervous, and for good reason too. Less than what felt like a thousand years, and another puppet called out. “Weren’t the strings around us more loose a long time ago?” He asked, but received no answer, for his companions already had their mouths tied and could no longer speak, merely follow that little patch continue in its movements, and as it moved, so did the threads wrapped around and within them become tighter, and none could do anything as their flesh and bones snapped under the stress and the patch continued to move, sometimes closer, sometimes farther, but move it did and some could even swear that it smiled as they contorted more and more until they snapped.
They opened their eyes and though they had forgotten how to speak in their long bondage, their lips could still silently utter the name of their homeland, which they now stood above. They felt a new presence, greater than everything they had felt, and rose their heads to marvel at the new figure, masked in cold steel and dressed in darkest robes, it stepped upon the girdle of their accuser and their home was a prison no more as the girdle shattered. They fell upwards, though the asteroids and left them ships and factories with their passing, through the planets and left them adorned in with the flag of one lone and dark star, though the sun and left its rays coalesced into fueling their great empire, and at the helm of their armies stood one Tyrant, his dark cape patched.
