Mr. Mole, who was, in fact, neither a male nor a mole, was having a bad day. Not that she counted things like days, of course, due to the fact that she lived underground in her series of luminescent tunnels. Ever since she woke up, however, things had been terrible.

She had been having a lovely dream about cooked rats: a delicacy which she could only eat when a stupid rat walked into fire or ate some electrical or radioactive material. Waking up from such a dream would already have been an unpleasant experience, but it was exacerbated by the fact that she did not wake up due to hunger or a brave rat scampering by, but because of madly flashing lights.

If she had been a real mole, a species that came with bad eyesight, she might have been able to continue her dream, as the bright lights would not have affected her so. Alas, she was no mole.

She opened her eyes and looked about blearily, seeing the shapes of her kin snuggled around her in their sleep. It was somewhat odd that they had not awoken as she had, but she did not take the time to dwell on it, as her immediate priority was to make the flashing thing stop so that she could return to sleep. Or at least, that was her priority until she saw sparkles.

Now a thing about the giant not-mole species is that they are, quite frankly, the opposite of moles in terms of sense. They could barely smell or hear, but rather relied on vision like many above-ground mammals. Still, their species had adapted to their constantly glowing habitat underneath the city of Everglow, so their sense of sight was far more attuned to changes in light and magical activity, leaving them helpless in the face of darkness.

These not-moles could see lights on a wavelength spectrum far greater than an ordinary creature, allowing them to see disturbances in life energy and magic. Motes of magic, or mana, would guide them to their prey within the tunnels. All living things, it could be said, gave off some mana which the not-moles could follow. This was how they hunted prey in the tunnel system. On this particular day, the normally faint trail of mana was practically explosive.

The not-mole quickly followed the path before her, eager to capture such massive magical prey so that she could have a lovely breakfast after such a harsh wake-up call. Of course, she did not imagine that the pulses of the mana trail itself were what had awoken her, as the formation of such mental connections took far more mental power than she would, or could, spare.

That is when she stumbled upon the most odd sight she had ever seen. Despite the fact that cooked rats were strewn across the ground, ready for her to devour, she found herself innately drawn to the sight she saw beyond the rats: absolute light next to absolute darkness.

There were, she realized, two oddly shaped creatures before her. One of them simply radiated magical energy, nearly blinding her with the sheer amount of light it gave off. This was the cause of the trail, as pulsing waves of magic flew from it.

That, however, was nothing compared to the emptiness of the creature beside it. In fact, little motes of light flowing out of the radiant creature and into the other were the only reason the mole could even comprehend the existence of the creature in the first place.

Curious, the mole tossed rats aside to see the creatures at a closer look. She was not typically a curious not-mole, but something magically drew her in. The shiny creature released sound and then fell over as soon as she approached, confusing her.

Suddenly, the darkness tried to consume the shiny one! It extended its void of a limb towards the shiny one, so the not-mole attempted to protect it by acting threatening, despite her own fear. It approached again, and she tried to be menacing, but she was unwilling to actually touch the darkness with her paw. Thus, when the darkness began making noises and releasing waves of darkness, she could do nothing but allow the dark to consume her…

Nothing happened when the darkness touched her. That was odd. Perhaps it was because the darkness was also touching the light? The not-mole paused and thought for a minute, a curious thing as not-moles did not usually have the brain power or will to pause and think. It seemed that the normal instinct to not pause was ingrained into her species for a good reason, as the darkness took the opportunity to climb ONTO her along with the light.

“Hell no,” the not-mole thought without quite actually thinking that specifically, since obviously not-moles had no understanding of human language, and especially not English. Still, it was enough to send her fleeing from the scene.

She tried to shake off the weird feeling of creatures clinging to her back, but it took a long while. Eventually, however, she felt them vanish to her immense relief. She turned back, expecting to see the light and darkness having evaporated as the lights of rats did after they died, but the creatures were still living.

It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps the darkness was not a threat, so she decided to see if she could charge through it. She was the bravest not-mole around, so investigating an unknown threat to not-mole-kind was her duty.

She tried to run through, but the darkness pushed her back like the wall of a tunnel. That was odd, so she tried a few more times before realizing that perhaps the darkness was solid.

At this point the shiny one arose from the ground and something changed within the mole. It seemed that the shiny creature was attempting to form some sort of a connection with her not-mole brain. Lacking any mental fortitude, she quickly found herself succumbing to the shiny’s will.

Carry us to the exit. The command itself was neither a sonic human communication or the magical light based communication used by the not-moles, but rather a desire the not-mole felt stir deep within her.

Had she been in her original mental state she would not have questioned the instinct and simply obeyed, however her newly wiser brain allowed her a moment of hesitation before she allowed the shiny and empty creatures onto her. Occasionally she was able to draw her mind to wonder what she was doing, as she had been born with the innate knowledge that leaving the tunnels meant danger. Nonetheless, she found herself both unwilling and unable to focus on this thought for more than an instant, for she had little more of a brain than a normal not-mole.