[SYSTEM OBSERVATION LOG]
The darkness here behaved differently from other kinds of dark the system had recorded. It was not the stagnant dark of sewers, where decay gathered and nothing moved forward. Nor was it the false brilliance of the previous dimension, where light had tried very hard to pretend it was truly light.
This darkness gathered itself around a center. The center was empty. The floor was not.
Across the floor spread tendrils. They stretched in every direction the system could observe. Each tendril carried at least one eye. Some carried several. None of the eyes looked anywhere in particular yet.
They waited.
They waited with the tension of an audience that had arrived early and taken their seats before the performance began.
Then the third one arrived.
