Well hai there! This is the prologue to a new story I'm working on, and I think you're all going to like it (hopefully)!
Now, before I go any further - yes, I know Pluto is technically a dwarf planet, but which sounds like a cooler title, 'Out of the Silent Planet', or 'Out of the Silent Dwarf Planet'? Just... just go with it, ok?
Ok, time to blurb this thing. This story is about Danny Simms, a 16 year old ferret who is told it is his destiny to save the Earth from the hoard of daemons that were banished to Pluto some 12 billion years ago for horrific things that I won't go into right now. There's action, there's drama, there's flintlock pistols that shoot magical lasers - trust me, you're going to love this!
Comments are appreciated, as always, because really it's just nice to know someone besides me reads and likes this stuff. Anyway, enjoy!

++<STORY BEGINS>++

For the first time in hundreds of years, a breeze gusted over the surface of the cold, forbidding planet. In the sky above, stars twinkled gently, the same stars as seen from Earth, but in very different constellations. In the centre of the sky, glowing with a fiery intensity subdued by nearly 6 billion kilometres of space, was Sol, the source of – almost – all life in the Solar system. One must, of course, say almost, for on that planet, no life of natural origin dwelt.
Since time immemorial, Pluto had been home to entities not of the Solar system. Dark beings, far older than the planet that housed them, who had been cast out from their own blasted corner of the universe for deeds no sane mind can comprehend, and that not even the First Ones could forgive. They were known by many names – their true name consisted of a thousand syllables, and had not been spoken since it was used to bring them into existence; their accepted name was the Dro’nakshel, and was the name used by the twisted, depraved mortals that worshipped them; but the name that they were known by most commonly was simply the Darklings, the name written down in the stories and the legends that were used to warn people of the dangers and threat they posed to all life as it was known on Earth.
On that night, the Darklings had gathered around one crater, a full kilometre across, and it was truly a sight to behold. Thousands of creatures stood on the lip of the crater, and not one was the same as those next to it. Some were bipedal, some held taur forms, and some still were fully quadrupedal. There were creatures with horns, scales, fur, and some that appeared to have no form of covering at all, their internal structures open to freezing air. Of course, this would be suggesting that all of them kept to such conventional notions as keeping a stable structure. Many of the beasts standing around that crater were possessed of bodies that seemed to morph and change as they stood there – limbs sprouted and were reabsorbed, eyes swam over the surface of their mutated flesh, and even such seemingly fixed things as their heads appeared to be able to change at will, growing, shrinking, splitting in half, and even disappearing completely into their malformed torsos, only to reappear elsewhere on their bodies, for why should a head only exist at the end of a neck?
At the northernmost point of the crater a stout metal scaffold had been erected, jutting out ten metres into the crater. The first five metres was a slightly arched walkway, one metre wide and rising a metre from the ground. The second half of the construct was a circular platform, five metres in diameter with a metal lectern raised up at the edge. Onto this scaffold walked a creature clearly superior to the others surrounding it. It stood a good eight feet tall, although the top foot of the being’s height was only comprised of its horribly malformed skull. It split above where its eyes should be – for it didn’t have a face, or any of the features or shapes associated with one, be they mouth, nose or muzzle – the bone ripping through the pale, milk-like skin like an open shirt collar. The exposed area where its brain should have been was instead filled with a mass of writhing, pulsating black tentacles, slipping over and around each other like snakes in a bowl. It wore a set of robes that came down to drag along the ground, the coarse black fabric hiding the dozens of clicking, clacking, insect-like legs that took the place of a simple pair. The only ‘normal’ thing about it was its arms – a simple pair, ending in hands with five long, clawed fingers each, bedecked with rings that emanated dark energies, from simple bands of gold to chunks of metal inset with gems the size of walnuts.
The creature came to a stop at the lectern, placing its hands down upon it. In an instant, hush settled upon the crowd surrounding the crater. As they quietened down, the tentacles within the thing’s head parted. From them rose a single eye, the size of a grapefruit. It was bisected down the centre like a snake’s, and was supported by half a dozen tentacles acting as optic nerves. At the same time, a slit appeared in its head roughly where a mouth should be – barring the fact it went round nearly ¾ of its head. Slowly, with a deliberateness that commanded the attention of all those gathered, the thing raised its arms, and began to speak. Of course, the language it spoke was as far from English as it’s possible to get, but this should suffice.
“My brethren,” it said, its voice an agonising sound comprised of the slithering of snakes, the booming of thunder, and the sound of all that is wrong in the universe. “The time is coming. The Alignment is almost upon us. As I speak, the mortals on Ka’Sol are doing their part, securing the Gate and trying to secure the Key. But this time, we have something new. I know by this point the rumours have reached most of you. I wish to put the rumours to rest. Bring him forward!” From behind the speaker, two more beings emerged, dragging with them someone definitely not of that world – a rat. He was 5’6’’, thin as a rake, with lank brown fur, and a look on his face of sheer, raw terror. He wore the remains of a once-pristine pinstriped suit, now torn and tattered by the claws and protruding spikes of the creatures holding him. “This mortal, this rat, is here because we’ve done it. After nearly two hundred thousand Ka’Sol cycles, we have managed to successfully exchange the matter of one of our own with that of a mortal, this mortal – without the Gate. But that is not all. With the blood of this mortal, we will be able to reawaken the Prince, and–”
“Did you say blood?” the rat cried, now up on the platform next to the speaker. “No, no way! I already did that on Earth, there ain’t no way I’m–”
“Silence!” the speaker cried, its voice laced with razors of sound that elicited a scream of pain from the rat as his eardrums burst and his eyes filled with blood. “You dare to speak in the presence of your masters, you mewling quim? No matter, I suppose. You won’t be able to for much longer.” As it spoke, the speaker raised its right hand, spindly index finger pointed up. Unable to hear the daemon’s words, the rat looked at the thing with an expression of utter confusion. However, this soon turned once again to terror as the claw ending its finger suddenly lengthened, from a half inch claw to a two inch serrated blade. “What is it your people say? ‘Prepare to meet your maker’, I think?” With one deft swipe, the creature slashed the rat’s throat. The rat stood there for a second, supported between the two other creatures, blood gushing from his throat. The speaker then grabbed him by the throat, and with a strength that belied his cadaverous frame, threw him into the crater. He seemed to fall forever, before finally landing, surrounded by a pool of his own rich, arterial blood. For a moment, all was still. The speaker stood there, looking down, the daemons around the rim of the crater shrouded in eerie silence.
Suddenly, a sound – a huge, cracking sound, like a mountain being split in half. At the base of the crater, cracks began to form, spreading out from the now lifeless corpse of the rat, and through those cracks shone a baleful red light. They continued to grow, spreading out to cover the entirety of the base of the crater, a demonic spiders web carved in red. The cracks finally reached the edge, and for a moment all seemed still – but it was far from over. As the creatures watched, the floor of the crater began to collapse, huge chunks of rock falling away into the pit of fire that appeared to exist beneath the crater until eventually there was nothing left. For a brief moment, there was once again silence, but this was not broken by a crack – this silence was split with a roar of ancient, primeval rage.
“The Prince awakens,” the speaker said, the slit of its mouth forming a hideous facsimile of a smile. “Prepare yourselves, my brethren. Ka’Sol awaits.” From the crowds came a cheer, a cacophonous sound that merged in agonising harmony with the roaring’s of the pit, a sound that despite all laws of physics managed to travel the billions of miles to Earth, and filled the minds of the sleeping masses dreams of desolation, and the destruction that sought so eagerly to follow that noise to the peaceful, unknowing planet.

++<STORY ENDS>++