"We're detecting Stickman's signal intercepting the retrieval point," noted one of the Andonian monitors.  

"Great! Pull him through. Lower the barrier," said Tokux, the lead lab monitor. A large glass tube lowered over the ribbon portal, protecting the station in case of an accident.  

The computers suddenly came to life as Stickman entered his end of the portal. The retrieval process began.  

Klaxons suddenly erupted across the lab. "Sir! The portal is increasing in power!" yelled one of the monitors.  

"Get ready to shut it down," Tokux noted calmly. Nevertheless, he checked the readings. "The power surge is coming from within the ribbon?" Then his eyes widened in shock. "What?! The ribbon is exceeding the dimensional threshold. There's something else coming through!"  

Alarms suddenly blared throughout the building. The portal jumped. With a burst of energy, the thin dark line that was the portal split open and five things fell out of it. Tokux immediately slammed the emergency switch and cut the power to the ribbon, terminating it.  

The protective barrier tube was filled with a jumble of confusing things. Stickman had been thrown to the floor and was righting himself slowly, but there was also a huge cat, some sort of equipment kit, a round knobbed disc, and a bizarre floating creature with tentacles. All of them seemed to be extremely stressed and afraid.  

Before anyone could speak, the disc shuddered and convulsed. With a piercing scream, eight appendages shot out from it, penetrating glass and wall, to grapple onto the room's surfaces.  

A twisting mass swirled within the disc's centre, suspended in the air by its tendrils. Then like a drum beat, black shards began to fire out of it. Each shard flared into the air, then disappeared with a withering cry.  

The cat hammered on the glass, entwined now in the tendrils. Startling everyone in the lab, he yelled out, "GET US OUT OF HERE!"  

Tokux stood still, unable to think. The doors were sealed. The other monitors were trying to get out. That horrible disc kept pulsing out those black things. One by one, with the beat of a heart.  

Unnoticed among the chaos of the situation, one of the consoles had begun receiving a link up from the black disc. A message flashed on the screen.  

<Bring the little one XO>

Entoru and Pini march reluctantly into the twisted lands of death.  

The Beckoning Tree greets them, marking the end of one realm and the beginning of another. They feel themselves pass through an invisible physical wall as they pass the dark and twisted tree. A sense of fear grips them. Something pulls at their insides, trying to claw them out.  

Stepping forward and keeping his blade staff ready, Entoru listens carefully for the sounds of movement. There is no dripping, no tearing, no silent muffled screams. For once, the land is quite silent.  

Pini's light diminishes under the weight of the land's influence. The tiny star points skitter across the ground, barely daring to make even the briefest contact. She chirrups nervously, urging Entoru to go on.  

A chill wind catches his cloak. Something has changed in this realm.  

"Stay close, Pini. We are alone for now, but Fe'Hihi is up to some mischief," grumbled Entoru, resuming his march. "She's never passed up a chance to play."  

The two bright souls sink into the darkness of the Fe's Den.

POP!  

In the cold desert near the destroyed Andonian city of Guluth, a hulking form erupts out of the air. It settles on the dusty ground and orients on the world around it. Its hind tentacles flail in the wind, tasting this new place. The light of its being suddenly shines forth from its eyes and illuminates the midnight domain.  

From the distant mountains a light breeze picked up. Over the plains it carried a whisper, across rivers and lakes, to that desolate place. The creature tilted its head to listen.  

"I'm coming. Be ready to open the door for me. Guard my little one."  

The creature nodded in understanding, then raised its claw to crush the fabric of space, sending a signal to be heard by the whisperer. An imperceptible ripple emanated from the thing, out through the universe, to its destination.  

Then it settled down and waited.

The corridor walls vibrated with the sound of the cold hard howl. HAROOO! The beast clattered nearer on its long bones, like some half frozen spider. Stickman and Cat looked at the thing in fear. The mists swirled menacingly, obscuring its form.  

"Stickman, the aperture is destabilising. You need to get out of there NOW!" said the Andonian monitor urgently on Stickman's receiver.  

"No kidding!" exclaimed Stickman as he hefted the device and turned to run.  

Cat collected his kit and sprinted after the spindly Stickman down the corridor, away from the monstrous terror. The floating creature had now joined in their sense of flight and darted ahead of them, slowing every so often to refill its air sac.  

"Cat, follow me! I have a way out," cried Stickman as he ran. "Can you climb the walls?"  

"Not sheer walls," panted Cat as he ran.  

"Might be a problem then," screamed Stickman, then looking up as the floating creature bounded ahead of them again, said, "We need to get higher up!" Stickman pointed at the creature just above them. Cat nodded.  

The Andonian control centre rang through the chaos suddenly, "Stick, you've only got twenty seconds at most. If you're not at the retrieval point in time, we may not be able to find you again."  

HAROOO! The blood so close!  

A vicious stab of bone crushed the floor near Cat's tail, causing him to hiss in fear. Stickman rounded a corner, yelling for them to follow. Cat scrambled wildly at the floor to turn the corner while the floating being hit the wall and bounced off. Moments after, the massive skeletal beast crashed into the corridor wall with a sickening crunch. The smell of marrow filled the air.  

"CAT! HERE!" bellowed Stickman. He was standing at a dead end, pointing up a shaft in the ceiling. The floating creature was disoriented after hitting the wall and sagged to the ground, trying desperately to reorient itself.  

Catching up, Cat looked up to where Stickman had been pointing. A faint bluish glow was growing some distance above them. There was nothing to grab hold of to get up to it. Stickman seemed panicked to reach it.  

"C'mon! We've got to get up there! The light! It's right there!" cried Stickman, pointing feverishly.  

"I can't climb up there!" hissed Cat.  

"Then... get on!" called Stickman, as he deftly leapt atop the dizzy floating creature that was dragging on the floor, holding the spider-thing-a-ma-jig between his legs. As soon as it felt something climb atop it, the creature's body tensed sharply. Cat snapped out a paw to grab the nearest appendage of the creature, a tail-like thing. Suddenly, the whole group of them launched into the air, almost ripping Cat's arm out of its socket. The creature's lower appendage had sprung with all its strength, launching them up the shaft.  

HAROOO! HAROOO!  

Air rushing past,  

Blue light engulfing,  

Bone spear slash,  

Ribbon torn open,  

Mirror tunnel path.  

"This is the day, my children, that your great suffering will come to an end. Be free of your dead lands! Soak a new earth with the blood of your playmates. Let the mirror shatter and the plague run through!"

Snap, snap, tendrils twist,  

Fine lady of reversal,  

Faithful feeder of soil,  

The crop soon sated.  

"The glass will soon shatter, my little ones. Let's be ready, shall we?"

Through twisted woods, Breche moved, crushing spongy ground beneath his feet. He could not tell whether it was water or something else making the ground soggy.  

None from the outer lands ever entered this territory unless they sought death. Onwards he pushed.  

Then the sound. A scraping sound, of bone against broken bone. Breche stopped dead, waiting. The painful rhythm continued, having detected a new playmate.  

Scritch, scritch, squish. The sounds of the moving thing sickened him, but he knew he must bear it. It was hardly the fault of the beings living here that they were as they were. Though saying "living" would not be quite correct. "Dying" would be more true. For from birth, everything in this land seeks death, bends to it, breaks to it.  

Scritch, scritch. A soft tree broke and fell to the ground just in front of Breche. He shivered, fearing the thing. Through spindly branches a bony broken claw emerged, then a torn face, followed by a skinny, destroyed body. One of them had arrived.  

It breathed through a torn throat, gazed listlessly at him, turning its head side to side, wondering at this undamaged thing. Finally, Breche held out the egg to it and waited.  

A dried eye shifted in its loose socket to behold the egg. This was something beyond knowing for it. Nothing was born here. Nothing hatched. Everything died into life. That is all it knew.  

"Take it," urged Breche, his voice trembling.  

The creature wavered on its thin legs, eyeing Breche, then the egg. It considered what lay before it a moment, then appeared to come to a decision.  

Through a raspy wet mouth, it intoned, "I will play with you."

Beneath the stars, across an open field laid bare by the light of the moon, a mound of earth erupted.  

Three claws pulled a metallic body from the ground. Rumbling, whirring chains burnt forth. Laser scalpel spins into readiness. A harsh metal claw snaps hungrily.  

Across the dirt the three piercing legs stomp, tools of cutting and slicing flitting about, causing nightmarish shadows to dance in the moonlight.  

The Dissector roams the land, seeking to explore the innards of breathing souls.