The Riddle of the Eyebods

By Tyler Skylight

The quaint seaside town of Wilbey is about to become the epicentre as two species compete to the death to survive. Before the battle rages, can our hero or villain Professor Lacy resolve the unimaginable challenges that lie ahead before it's too late or Will the professor's efforts be thwarted by something 'out there' that's too frightening and disturbing to comprehend. Only time will tell?

The Riddle of the Eyebods is the prequel-and-parallel short story to Tyler Skylight's "Something Happened on Cottage Row".
Set in Wilbey the week before doomsday, we find humanity struggling to uncover the mystery behind the Eyebods. A secret government agency has been unable to discover the reason for the Eyebods' appearance and in a last-ditch attempt have passed on the task to Professor Lacy. Carrying out such a dangerous task will require some help and good fortune from some unexpected but fascinating characters. Characters from "Something Happened on Cottage Row" are expanded on, giving a fuller picture of earth's last days.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyler Skylight
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739613822

Tyler Skylight

I have penned four stories, "70's Ted" (its working title), "Hoyen And The Unstoppable Force Of Honey", "Something Happened On Cottage Row" and "The Riddle Of The Eyebods". Only the last two are currently published. The last book took over six months to complete and was written in the most uncomfortable, hottest months I have ever experienced. The heat was so unbearable that I regularly covered my head with a wet towel just to cool down!I always felt that there was some unfinished business regarding my first published book: "Something Happened On Cottage Row" specifically, why destroy the earth? and who was behind it all? This led to the prequel, with more fascinating characters and cameo roles from characters in the first book.I reside in the Pennine foothills of Yorkshire, England and enjoy travelling all around the world when I am able. The beautiful, jaw dropping Brazil-Argentinian Iguazu Falls and also the amazing Australia being my two favourite destinations. I have a keen interest in the arts particularly Theatre and the garden is a never ending chore and joy.I hope you enjoy reading "The Riddle Of The Eyebods" and look forward to your continued support.Regards, Tyler SkylightP. S. Feel free to click on the Review button if you would like to leave a review of my book

Book preview

The Riddle of The Eyebods

Tyler Skylight

Published by Wilby Turing at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Tyler Skylight

All rights reserved

The follow-on title by Tyler Skylight is Something Happened on Cottage Row

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For James who enables my creativity to flourish.

Contents

Chapter One: Sensorium

Chapter Two: The Miraculous Seer of Daria

Chapter Three: Ethan

Chapter Four: Toby and The Professor

Chapter Five: Andy Ripping

Chapter Six: Puzzles

Chapter Seven: The Cafe at Rest

Chapter Eight: An Unexpected Visitor

Chapter Nine: Unpleasant Incarceration

Chapter Ten: Decisive Decisions

Chapter Eleven: Miraculous Discoveries

Chapter Twelve: The Dark Crystal

Chapter Thirteen: The Finalé.

SEQUEL: Something Happened on Cottage Row

Complacency is endemic among nations who take no responsibility for causing environmental degradation to those unseen, for you are the apex predator unrivalled, unchallenged, until now!

Tyler Skylight 2022

Chapter One: Sensorium.

Sensoriums are minute sentient bug like parthenogenetic creatures with unrivalled skills in terraforming moons. By using their extraordinary know how, they are able to calculate when a particular star's hydrogen would be exhausted. Evidently the lack of this elemental gas ultimately destroys all within its reach including their home: Earth's Moon. Therefore, at some point Sensoriums need to send drifts, like spores, into space to seek out a new suitable moon for them to colonise. Once the dark side of a chosen moon has been selected for terraforming, The Ring, a device used to fold space, facilitates the Sensoriums' evacuation en masse.

Their minuteness enables them to carry out their tasks undetected and crucially in secret. Over the millennia they have found it extremely important to remain undiscovered for their survival. However, should they be discovered or feel threatened their action is uncompromisingly swift with devastating and catastrophic effect.

With that in mind Sensoriums prefer to live peacefully and do so successfully beneath the mysterious Dark Crystal coating the darker side of earth's moon. It matters not that they don't fully understand the Dark Crystal or how the Dark Crystal follows them from one heliocentric system to another. What matters is that they co-exist for the benefit of each other. The Dark Crystal provides life, light and protection in return for maintenance and being fed rare minerals found only on the sunnier side of a moon's surface. The particular minerals are concentrated within a moon craters, which tend to be the perfect bowl shape for attracting the sun's radiation needed to produce these highly prized resources. It doesn't take the Sensoriums long to mine millions of tiny intricate tunnels below a moon's surface to enable easy mineral extraction. The payoff from the sun's strong radiation is that the bright lunar rays dispersed from the moon onto Earth's exterior. Being so light and miniscule the Sensoriums learned how to piggyback onto electric particles within the lunar rays allowing them to be beamed expeditiously onto the Earth's surface.

Fantastically and quite by chance they discovered that if any living thing with eyes looked up towards the lunar rays, then they could enter through their eyes, known as 'The Coupling'. For some reason human eyes tended to be a perfect embryonic vessel making them the perfect host. Once inside the eye sac, Sensoriums could be seen floating all shimmery and iridescent like fire opals. More importantly they were able to take complete control of the host's nervous system including the brain.

Sensoriums initially found that they could not return via lunar rays alone, something to do with earth's gravity. Therefore, the return journey was rather tricky and required the use of the host's eyes to propel them back to the moon via a mini version of 'The Ring'. They just needed a fixed location point to make it happen and, in this case, designated lubricated tunnels on the moon's surface were used. A chemical solution for holding each eye awaited at the end of each tunnel enabling the Sensorium to separate from the host's eye and move about freely, known as 'The Uncoupling'. The host's eye floated about in the protective solution awaiting its Sensorium, eventually both would return back to the host's body, back on Earth. Although it only took seconds to move from Earth to the Moon and back, the procedure left the host's body vulnerable and in a dormant state. Fortunately, a coagulant secured enough time to return the eyes back before the host body perished. This method of travel allowed the Sensoriums to learn all they could about the living things on the planet below. Encouragingly they found early humans to be relatively inferior and therefore no threat to them or the symbiotic relationship shared between themselves and the Dark Crystal. A relationship that had worked in perfect harmony for over thirteen billion moon cycles … until now!

One could say it started on 21st July 1969 with the moon landing, as humanity celebrated their new reach into space, Sensoriums felt violated. The careless mechanical activity from humans mining on the moon's surface killed thousands of Sensoriums. Some were even taken captive in samples, though these never survived the arduous journey back to Earth. More recently, mankind's thirst for carbon rich fossil fuels weakened the lunar nodal cycle resulting in rising sea levels on Earth and altering the moon's axis. Worryingly human advancement in technology and evolved intelligence seemed to make certain people resistant to 'The Coupling,' whilst those they could affect were not listened to!

Mankind's blindness to any consequences for their actions, particularly in weakening the moon sent the Sensoriums fears over the edge. As mentioned previously Sensoriums are generally peaceful creatures, nevertheless, once provoked they can be deadly foes, and this human blindness, together with their unprovoked assault on the moon, just accelerated the latter.

Chapter Two: The Miraculous Seer of Daria.

Daria, real name Ms Mavis Wigglebottom, was the owner of a respectable and quite lucrative tarot card shop on Wilbey's seafront called 'The Miraculous Seer of Daria.' She kept the business as part of the settlement from her recent divorce after catching her husband Charles in bed with his best friend Everard, which might seem ironic because she had not seen it coming!

The Tarot shop frontage had a slogan 'Trust me, I can see you want to come in', written in bold white letters on the outside window along with the month's special '50% off your first Reading.' Dense cream coloured voile made it difficult to see into the shop giving it an air of secrecy and intrigue. A sign on the green wooden door confidently read 'All Readings Strictly Private and Confidential' with customary contact details, web and email address as well as a phone number. The front door opened to the ring of an old vintage doorbell and a seductive smell of jasmine from smoking joss sticks wafted by, tingling your senses, unless of course you had an allergy problem. Once inside, calming green tones on the walls along with gentle mood music put you instantly at ease. In order to keep with the relaxing continuum Daria positioned a sumptuous and comfortable black leather sofa close to the entrance to entice customers while they waited. Directly opposite the sofa was a large antique counter discreetly displaying various items for sale such as joss sticks, natural oils and crystal pendants. The whole journey purposely designed to get the customers to part with their cash and put them in a state of readiness for what was to come….and that was Daria!

Daria was a consummate professional in her craft. She made her dramatic entrance from behind black silk curtains that framed the 'Reading Room' doorway. Her eyes were like black opals flashing flecks of orange, reds and blues each catching the glints of excitement in her customers' eyes. She moved with an assured grace which was quite a feat considering her tallness and broad shoulders, on which hung a black ruffle wrap tied loosely at the front covering a purple and green handkerchief dress. Her black lace up boots went right up her legs and over her knees, her nails were black gloss as were her lips making them stand out on her whitened complexion. Completing her commanding look was a large green amethyst set in a gold pendant, and over-large gold hoop earrings. Numerous decorative gold cuff bracelets encircled each wrist and gold rings on every finger. The faintest smell of bergamot would waft as she greeted each customer in her soft, kind, self-confident voice.

After a brief and familiar chat, she would lead the customers into her sacred place, The Reading Room, where everything was also perfectly placed to achieve maximum effect. A green shaded lampstand offered just enough light to cast over a simple square green baize-topped table upon which a deck of Tarot cards waited. Two Shaker