He-Thing fell,

and fell,

and fell,

through mountains of wind,

through gargantuan

husks of light,

and through the algebra

of imaginary reason.

His body was ruined,

his ego had collapsed —

and he plummeted

into ancient fear.

The ground beneath

He-Thing

appeared both imminent

and vastly distant.

Darkness encroached

on the edges of his vision;

his body...

...stretched away from him,

until he could no longer

feel his fingers or his toes;

his head spun,

his broken ribs shivered,

and his skin vanquished

into oblivion

as

he lost consciousness.

No —

his mind was still here,

awake,

the air was hot,

wet,

he felt fat leaves

brushing against his face,

he pushed through,

seeing nothing

but an indigo color

tinged with luminescence

far ahead of him –

but growing closer.

There was

an increasing brightness

and He-Thing wondered:

Am I dead?

But he knew,

or had been told,

that the After-Worlds

had been annihilated

at the end of the Linearity.

No — he could not be dead.

He still was.

The jungle in front of him

gave way,

he pushed through

a final branch,

and a world

became visible.

He-Thing came through

a colonnade

onto a sumptuous balcony

of a majestic palace.

A lioness

brushed past him,

turning her head

with disinterest,

before lying down

next to two others

delirious in digestion.

In the distance,

a night sky —

vaster than anything —

revealed a

dense flow of stars,

spiraling

into bottomless infinity.

There was a woman —

with her back to him,

faceless —

standing

in front of the stars,

nude,

but holding a sword,

her skin indigo,

her hair curled,

her female curves

inducing

a fever of arousal

in He-Thing’s flesh,

that was tempered

only

with the terror

of his knowledge,

that this was no woman —

but a Goddess.