Shakespeare Sunday: The Undiscovered Country

As yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, this week it seems appropriate to highlight the story written by someone who is better known for his comics output than his short form fiction*.

Ian Edginton is a British comic book writer from Birmingham, known for his work on such titles as X-Force, Scarlet Traces, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and Hinterkind. He has also co-created numerous landmark series for The Galaxy's Greatest Comic 2000AD including Leviathan, Stickleback, Ampney Crucis Investigates, The Red Seas, Helium, and Brass Sun, with still more to come.

For his contribution to Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu he has taken one very famous (some might go so far as to say infamous) sorcerer and developed his backstory. Here's an extract...

I woke to a void, vast and absolute. I called out to Miranda but my speech found no traction. My words fell short from my lips, despite calling at the top of my lungs. The very air, if there was such, seemed closed about me, smothering my voice. Panic rose like bile and it took all the will I could summon to wrestle it back.

I walked forwards, though the ground gave no resistance to my footsteps. I could not be certain if even there was any surface. I felt dwarfed into insignificance by the seeming vastness of my surroundings. I had no perspective, no sense of dimension. I could have been a mighty colossus or an insubstantial mote, it mattered naught to this all-encompassing emptiness. Such an absence diminishes a man’s soul, stripping it of all value, vanity and worth. He finds his true place in the scheme of things.

I stopped and stood as there seemed little purpose in continuing for there was nowhere to go. The silence was eternal. I had no reference point for distance or duration, only the rise and fall of my chest and the steady drum beat of my heart marked the passing of time.

It was then I felt the darkness shift.

You will be able to read the rest of the story when Shakespeare Vs Cthulhu is released upon an unsuspecting world later this year.

Ian Edginton

* At least, at the moment...