I felt the air slowly choke in my lungs as I gazed outward and into oblivion. At least, that's all I could make of it. The sky was coated in an inky darkness that only let the brightest stars shine. Even with their strength, they were mere dots in the endless obscurity. I wasn't familiar with the imbalance, as my home had a sky of endless wonder and merriment. I could recall gazing into the sky with my father, who'd tell me the story of every star.
It was all made up. But it didn't matter to me. It captured my attention and wondered like nothing else. Still, a part of me wants to see that sky again. The beauty that permeated it.
I don't know what changed me. The world became a darker place. Maybe it was because my dad was gone. I never was able to recover that sense of self. The security I once had fizzled away with his passing. Like a dead soda, it had life at one point, now just sat as a painful reminder of what could be. What could have I said differently? What could I have done differently? Thoughts plagued my waking hours, leaving me emptier than I have ever felt before.
Giving up wasn't an option though. So I searched. I searched for someone who could fill my life with that wonder of the cosmos that my father did. There had to be another out there with the same passion I had. It was a feeling of being so little and so insignificant that I loved. It felt like I wasn't alone in my suffering, and it made me feel stronger.
If it wasn't clear enough, I started searching. Years elapsed, I aged, my standards changed. But no one had the spark I did for the cosmos. I knew, for even a moment, what it felt to be the only one of my kind. I was isolated, fed to the dogs of the zeitgeist. People were too worried about survival and safety rather than the natural beauty of the world.
With my sea exhausted of its fish, I moved back in with my mother. She had found something that gave her hope about our survival. And better yet, it was about the stars.
The priests were eternals and the audience was filled with starry-eyed people. They saw the cosmos for what it should be. I wasn't alone anymore, I found my people. That should have been where the story ended. I spent my weekends attending their services, as they spoke on how the cosmos worked and what they meant. The tall tales my father told me each had some truth in them, and that truth I learned about while there.
Most sermons were with the same few people. They were geniuses, no doubt, but if you needed certain things, you learned to only attend certain days or hours. One of those sessions, I decided not to attend. My mother did, however. The hairs on my neck stood at attention as I thought about it, and there was something I couldn't grapple with. A profound sense of discomfort it was. A sense of impending doom. I didn't trust the sense at first, and waved goodbye as she stepped out of the house.
I was a fool to not act on it.
I remember hearing about the chapel being set aflame, supposedly by those of the red city. I stared silently at the tv while it happened. Something came over me at that moment, but I didn't see horror or suffering. The thoughts of tragedy washed over me like the coastal waves. My eyes fixated on the fire. Within the cool blue walls of the city, it shined with perfect beauty. Each crackle was almost ethereal, and the heavy plumes of dirty smoke floated upwards. I would consider it a torturous art. The stain of beauty on suffering.
Even thinking about my mother was hard. The thoughts of her were fleeting like sand. What did she even look like? Was her hair curly or straight? How many freckles did she have? The memories of her, in every sense, began to be scrubbed away. My eyes glossed over some, only fixated on the fire as the news anchors seemed to slip up on their words. A wave of memories, mow being removed from us.
Something in the fire did not just kill them, it wiped away all we knew. The flickers of our memory sparked the burning chapel even more. That's what it looked like, at least.
It was that moment when I realized the power of the cosmos. The fire was simply too much to be made by man. It would've been stopped. No, this was something far above what I understood. Oblivion enchanted me with a sultry voice. And then, is when I started looking for answers. It was that, or the answers came looking for me.
The first leg of my hunt started at the desecrated remains of the chapel. Before my eyes laid the collective tomb of many people, identities which would fade from my memory as soon as I thought of them again. A blockade of thoughts and feelings, too strong for the common man to break down. As I watched the news speak on this "freak accident", even they struggled to emphasize the mass grave. I wasn't alone. The holes of memory passed through everyone who talked about the monastery fire.
Slowly, the wreckage would be cleared. I felt time march on around me as many moved on, their mind protected them from the pain. The fight of mind and will played out with me too, and endless war. Despite all the emotion I felt to the fire fading quickly, my will kept the candle aflame. Willingly, I spent nights connecting together the pieces that I could even consider. With so much lost, it felt like a puzzle's missing pieces.
Like the puzzle, I had to work with what I didn't know. I built the walls of a house with no foundation, even though they were weak. Carefully, the info I could learn defined the hole. I knew what didn't happen that day, yet never could know what did. The pins on my wall grew denser and the notes I left for myself became layered. It started with an image, the gravesite of many finally cleared out by the city, now safe to access. Many days were spent there, all while I juggled the rest of my life. The number of balls only seemed to grow, however, and I became obsessive.
The wall of points has become my waking thoughts, even the ones of my dreams. I grew afraid of light itself, as I saw it flicker, I thought of fire. Even though I couldn't remember why the light scared me, I knew to abide by it. The darkness became my safety, and the light, a cruel warden. Yet as I spent longer in my cove, it became more clear that what happened would never be known. The Watchers were nowhere to be found since the fire, and the ones that escaped have returned to life like usual. Only I haven't moved on.
Perhaps in another time I could go through every option to discover what the truth was. Eventually every falsehood I could create would create the space around the truth, an inverted maze. A mental labyrinth not where you searched for the exits, but searched for the dead ends instead.
But as I kept searching, I started finding new questions. Each answer was only provided by another assumption, an endless pit of improbabilities. The pins started to consume every part of the house, with string stretching out for several feet. The holes of knowledge still had to be defined, as there was no way for me to ask every question. For a while, it was simply impossible for me.
Though that changed.
Sooner than I thought, I found my answer.
I was watching reconstruction efforts of the chapel, the watchers surveyed the reconstruction, quietly speaking to the workers on what to do. As I spent longer staring, I watched something else join them, speaking to two of the watchers. My hairs stood up as I observed it, and a lump built itself up in my throat. It was clear to me that I was staring into a pneuma of light. Its hood glowed in an otherworldly orange, illuminating the layers of robes it had on. Ones that weaved over each other delicately.
Unsatisfied, I kept observing. One of them moved closer to a watcher, their discussion seemingly growing more intense. Both corporeal and incorporeal, human features barely masked a divine presence.
When I returned home, I looked at the map of dots and information, the gaps of what I knew staring back at me, mockingly. That night was a sleepless one, as I turned and shook, wondering what sort of being I had watched. It was divine, an asset to a scale I could not comprehend. For a brief time, I saw that responsibility, and it left me quickly. A knowledge of a greater world that I could not contemplate further than that.
The array of notes, for a finite moment, felt possible. I knew the solution to the fire, to the death of all those that came with it, and what happened to my dear mother. For a moment, I held the key to these questions. But it was stripped away for me, creating a hole I knew a solution would be in, but never what that would become. Through my deliberation and trials, I had not helped anyone. There was no closure in the array of points and information. It was madness.
I had been driven mad. A ploy made by the servants of the stars. What I once knew about all that lay above was reduced to specks of sand in the chronological continuum. Yet I had one over them, I knew their name.
Solarnoids are a species of fire essences first identified in the late 16th century. Most commonly, they take a humanoid form with their upper body draped in loose, gray cloth. Solarnoids have not been seen with a consistent lower body, with it being replaced with a ghostly figure. Their heads may be covered by tattered cloth hoods, often bright orange or yellow. The physical body of a Solarnoid is unnaturally bright, with many claiming it to feel like staring into the sun. Other common traits have included bird-like masks and thin appendages. The physical body of Entity 13 is made of densely compacted hydrogen and helium atoms, moving quickly to form the plasma compound. The entity's height remains unclear, with estimates ranging between 3 and 4.5 meters tall.
The intelligence of Solarnoids is generally unknown. Despite their ability to form coherent thoughts and words, they show no signs of free will or choice. The actions taken by the entity are believed to be directed by a higher power, alongside many other facets of the Solarnoid's identity. This leads to interactions with Entity 13 to be highly unpredictable. While the entity only attacks those it is directed to, why it does so remains unknown. The behavior has also been seen towards other entities found in the Backrooms, with Solarnoids responding variously to other entities. If violent, Solarnoids will chase after their target, using their extreme heat to burn the target at specific points, varying in fatality. Only one instance of Entity 13 will go after any target, further attributing to their rarity.
Within a 5 meter radius of Entity 13, temperatures will be significantly higher. The localized difference ranges from a 20 to 30 degrees difference, and grows exponentially the closer one is to the entity. This burning phenomenon also impacts the surrounding area, with significant exposure causing the exposed to "glow". This glowing effect makes the targeted area appear to be lit up, and it'll be upwards of 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding area. The glow does not impact other objects, as long as it was not in the initial area of effect. Objects and entities have also been seen to be affected by this, but it is extremely rare. Removal can only be done naturally, with it taking several months for the affected area to revert back to how it originally was.
The stars are your guises
Illuminants of a sinful world
Wheather by kindness
or by malevolence
Your job is the judge and jury
The axe pressed against skin
It glints in the summer light
A soft, healing shining
Yet with a world that keeps turning
Our attention must go elsewhere
By our hands, we act on stars
We serve them, and they reward us
The gods have been dead forever
And humanity isn't fit
Its time for a new force
The clocks march on
Slowly ticking away by every breath
Time comes to its conclusion
We, the warriors of the cosmos
We are the propagators of this change
The veil of eternity
May the stars lead with strength
And the world lead with respect
What we know is going to change
Either you work alongside it
Or are crushed like cinders under a boot