by Holly Hook
I was sinking into the sand.
I looked down to see that it had risen to my thighs. Sand filled in the gaps between them like the particles falling through an hourglass. This world was pulling me in and soon I would join all the dead remains of dreams and loves and hopes.
“No,” I muttered. “Let me go.” I tried to pull my left leg out of the sand, but I was sinking...sinking...an inch at a time. I couldn't stay here. This wasn't survivable. I could go a long time without air—I had timed my breath holding at almost twenty minutes in the bathtub when I was seven—but that wouldn't do me any good if I couldn't get out of here. A feeling of claustrophobia washed over me and I thrashed, which only made the sand close in faster. “Come on!” I held back calling for help.
No one cared here.
I still had my sword.
I took the blade and sank it into the dust in front of me. The sand crept up towards my pelvis. Soon I would have no leverage to pull myself out.
I pulled and grunted. Even with my far above Normal strength, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. Slowly, inch my inch, my legs emerged from the cold sand, which had crept into my shoes and up my pant legs. I felt like I was merging with the sand and if I came out again, I might be a Shadow Wraith after all. I was cold inside. Dead. Or maybe I was already after Russell Fox bit me.
But at last, I lay across the sand, my legs out of the mire.
My muscles were weak and tired. My legs were freezing. I felt like an ice cube from the waist down and I held back tears. Despair filled me, but at least while I was lying across the sand, I wasn't sinking into it. It must be like thin ice. You could crawl across, but standing upright would make you fall through.
I looked up. Two Shadow Wraiths floated nearby, watching me with that darkness underneath those hoods. Both turned away and left me there, pathetic and unable to stand. This place would make me crawl. I couldn't walk in this sand or I would run out of energy before I got anywhere.
It was humiliating. More tears threatened to spill out of my eyes, but I held them back. I couldn't remember shedding real tears since, ever. I had thought my condition prevented it, but maybe not. Maybe this place was meant to bring out every bad emotion it was possible to feel and amplify it until it was unbearable.
This underworld was messing with me. I was normally tough. It was reducing me to an emotional mess.
“Come on, Alyssa,” I said. “Now you know how Xavier feels right now.” How much time had passed? I had never heard of an underworld like this. Well, I guessed the Shadow Wraiths had to go somewhere when you defeated them or whenever they vanished. This was the place. So far, they were the only creatures I had found here. Maybe only Shadow Wraiths came here. I hated to think of people and animals coming here when they died.
So I crawled. I crawled towards the nearest ruins, some very crumbled stone building that looked thousands of years old. I had the sense that dead ideas came here, too. This wasn't a place for those who died. It was a place for death and sadness itself.
I crawled and crawled, dragging my sword and creating a line in the sand. I wasn't sinking, so that was a plus. I tried propping myself and walking on all fours, but the sand started its pull again and I had to flop back down on my stomach. I felt like a snake, but at least I could move. The sky shifted overhead and the green glow remained, pulling and pushing against itself like molten rock.
This was the place Xavier's old battle partner now called home. I wondered if Xavier ever had nightmares about this place if he still had some bond to her.
At last, I reached the bottom of the stone ruins, a circle of broken stones that might have been a temple or something like Stonehenge in ancient times. Some of the stone was crumbling into black dust. This was something even older than the ruins in Turkey. I stood, grabbing onto one of the stones and keeping my sword with me. Sand fell off me, little remains of heartbreak, and I stepped onto the stones, glad to have something solid under me.
“Now what?” I asked myself.
A single Shadow Wraith rose from the sand about twenty feet away and watched me in utter silence. This place drowned out whatever horrible feelings it was giving off. A single Shadow Wraith couldn't add much more despair to it.
“Hello?” I asked, waving and speaking in the most happy voice I could manage. “Can you tell me where Death is? I've been looking for her but your roads here really need to be fixed.” I stumbled on the stone. It wasn't stable. These ruins were little more than a pile with one stone pillar emerging from the center. The next set was about half a mile away. “Can you just point in one direction for me?”
The Wraith backed away as if it couldn't stand my attitude. The ground underneath shifted as if I had poked it with something sharp.
“Aw,” I said. I had an idea. “Are you upset that I'm not crying and beating my fists? How do you like laughter?” Just to try it out, I laughed. I felt crazy and stupid doing it, but I was willing to try anything.
The ground rumbled this time and shook again, so much that I went down onto the crumbled stone.
This place did not like happiness.
I'd keep that in mind.
I picked myself up and brushed myself off. More of the stone crumbled into black sand. Some of it was on me again, mixed with little pieces of rock.
A crow cawed.
I looked up to find the black bird perched on the center stone column. It eyed me with those beady, soulless eyes as the Shadow Wraith behind it melted back into the dark dust. A bit of eerie green light reflected off its eyes as it gave me a hard but inviting stare.
“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my tone light and happy. I would do anything to hurt the creatures and the place that wanted to drag Xavier in. “How are you? You're such a beautiful bird and I'm sure you can help me.”
The crow cawed with annoyance.
And flew off.
“Crap,” I said. I watched the bird, barely visible against the darkness of the sky above, fly to the next set of ruins and perch there.
This was the first actual creature I had seen down here. I knew crows were symbols of death even to Normals, so it fit in pretty well. But it was the only crow I had seen at all. What did it eat?
Maybe it was waiting for me to follow.
It was such a long expanse of sand between me and the next crumbled stone pile. I sighed, unable to think of anything sarcastic or funny to say about this. Following was the only option.
I walked across the ruins. I stepped on stones only to watch some of them crumble into pure dark sand, which ran down through the ruins to join the rest of the world. Things rotted down here. I hoped that it didn't apply to me, too.
It was another long crawl across the sand, but the crow waited as I made the trip. It took what felt like twenty minutes to make it to the next pile, but at last, I crawled up onto the broken rock.
No. It was concrete.
Rectangular pieces mixed in with pebbles and bits of rock that were held together in a gray, stony glue.
And the one wall that was standing was wooden with white paint on the inside.
This was the remains of a house.
The crow perched on top, staring at me, waiting dutifully. Bits of white carpet were tucked between the decaying concrete and the wall had crayon marks on it, purple and blue ones in the faint shape of stick people. Something ached inside of me.
I used to draw on the walls when I was little, according to Dad. I went through a streak of it when I was three and four.
This drawing stirred something inside of me.
I had drawn this.
I took a step back as the crow cawed like it was trying to tell me yes.
I squinted at the drawing. I had drawn a small stick figure—probably myself—holding the hands of two bigger stick figures.
My parents.
My father and my mother, who had left a few years later.
The crow cawed a second time. I felt like it was laughing as I stared at my memory, which was crumbling into d
ust right below my feet.
I had been right that this was a place of broken hopes and dreams. I just hadn't expected to see mine. I stood on the ruins of my worst broken hope.
My family.
Happiness.
A Normal life.
The ground rumbled again as if chastising me. The concrete shifted and darkened, turning into more of the black sand. I watched as it crumbled around me, rotting into tiny fragments that didn't matter.
The crow took off into flight and the wall collapsed, throwing up woody dust.
And then it, too, darkened and crumbled into dust.
“No!” I shouted as the ground softened under me, threatening to take me down with it. I should flop back onto my stomach, but I remained standing as the rest of the wooden wall decayed into tiny black particles that I couldn't tell apart from the wasteland around me. The concrete was gone. The crayon marks were gone.
There would be no happiness for me. There couldn't be—not for someone who had to bite people or use blood bags to stay alive.
I wanted to sink down in despair and join the rest of the decay below me, but I couldn't. I might be a monster but I had to keep going, to regain whatever dignity I had left. Xavier was counting on me. I would be something even worse if I gave up now.
The crow made that horrible sound again. I had the sense that it was laughing at me. The creature circled above me now, a faint shadow against the cracked, green glow. This place was so dim that my color vision was barely holding on and my gray vision, which was more detailed, couldn't kick in because it was just barely too bright. I had to wait until the crow crossed one of the green cracks to see where it was.
“Are you done leading me along?” I asked, trying to push the images of my crumbling memory out of my head. My other life. The life I wanted—the one this place was telling me that I would never have again.
The crow flapped its wings with the faintest sound and flew off again, this time towards a hill that gradually sloped upward. I squinted, noticing it for the first time in the thin fog. A few Shadow Wraiths drifted between me and the bottom of the hill, but so far, none of them had bothered me.
And on top of that hill was a large castle, one that looked more like a gathering of black, pointed rocks than a building. Unlike the others in this place, this one wasn't crumbling and the hill looked like it was made out of the same black rock as the castle itself. It was the first thing I'd seen here that was intact and not decaying.
The crow continued to fly towards the castle until at last, it became too small for me to see.
But at least I knew my destination.
“Great,” I said, eyeing the distance between me and the castle. It was miles. At least, it seemed like miles. This place was strange. Even the distance from here to the base of the solid hill was a long way off. I would have to crawl the entire way. I felt like it would take a day to get to the hill.
At least.
Under my feet, the last of the concrete turned to dust and I found myself falling back into the sand, slowly sinking in. I forced myself to take a step and then another. Each time my foot landed, I sank a couple of inches, but I managed to keep going. Maybe this would work. As long as I could walk quickly, I was okay. It would be faster than crawling but I knew I'd get tired fast.
I looked back. There was nothing left of my childhood memory but dust. It had all barely held together until I reached it, only to decay into nothing. All signs of the concrete had vanished into tiny black particles that would never see the light of day again.
“Come on, Death,” I said. “You're putting me through a lot here.”
I had stopped and I was sinking. I pulled my feet out of the sand, which filled in my footprints and left no trace of them. A Shadow Wraith was watching me with indifference about a hundred feet away. Sword in hand, I broke into a jog. Walking fast wasn't good enough.
Jogging was easier than crawling or walking. I didn't sink in much, but I could feel my energy draining with the effort of pulling my feet from the muck with each step. My sword glimmered with faint green light. I had a passing thought that it would look good on a fantasy book cover. A dark fantasy book cover.
The hill slowly loomed larger and larger. It got taller the closer I got to it, like a distant mountain slowly growing taller. The stone was pure black and only reflected the green above, making it look like hardened motor oil. It was the grossest rock I had ever seen, but at last, when my legs felt like jelly and I was ready to flop down to my stomach again, my foot sank into the sand to touch something solid.
I stopped, but I didn't sink. I had reached the base of the shallow mountain. It was just barely covered in this sand. I felt like I was wading in the most depressing ocean ever and this was the darkest beach in the universe. It might be.
I looked behind me at the expanse of sand. It was an ocean, a still one with debris poking out here and there. I just hadn't realized it until now. This might be a world with continents and islands but I didn't want to explore it further. My stomach rumbled. I was hungry now, weak, and I couldn't stay here for much longer before I'd be too weak to do any fighting.
The castle, now that I was closer, was huge. Its rocky, pointed towers looked almost as if they could touch the strange sky above.
But I climbed up the shallow mountain. I had no choice. I heard the faint call of the crow again, urging me forward. My sword dragged on the stone. I was so fatigued that it was getting hard to hold it up in an intimidating way, which would have been a great idea in this dimension.
The castle had no even lines. It was all jagged, black rock mashed together with a very large mouth in the front that had to be the entrance. It looked like some misshapen horned creature was screaming in silence. For once, couldn't anybody put some flowers out or even some plain old trees to spruce things up a bit?
The crow cawed again, louder this time, and circled over my head. I hadn't even heard it fly towards me. The bird stayed with me as I climbed the hill, trying to regain my strength and failing miserably.
But at last, I stood at the door of the castle.
And peered inside.
“Hello?” I called, trying to sound happy and cheerful. Before me was a very large, jagged stone room that reminded of that scary tunnel to the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, only it was made of the black, oily stone. Not a single torch lit the walls. It seemed like Death didn't want any lighting, either.
I tried to flick my wrist, to summon some of Xavier's power. He had made a magical ball of light to see before. Maybe I could do the same. But nothing happened. Instead, a wave of sadness swept over me and I had to grab onto the side of the entryway to avoid sinking to the floor in despair. Our link was still working but Xavier was unable to help me. I could feel his moods if I tried, but there was nothing else. My battle partner was incapacitated.
“Hello?” I called again, shaking my head to drive the feeling away.
The crow flew past me from outside, sailing into the castle.
I followed.
Somehow, there was just enough light in here to keep my gray vision from working. It was the same greenish ambience that filled this place, mixed in with the gray fog. I was really starting to hate it. This was hard for me to navigate. I could only imagine how it was for a Normal.
The sounds of the bird's wings stopped and little feet clicked as it landed on something. I continued forward, leaving the exit farther behind.
“Come closer.”
A silky voice, a woman's voice, echoed through the chamber from where the bird had landed. It sent a shudder down my spine. There was something enticing in the voice, something that was drawing me closer, but there was also a sharp edge that could destroy me at the same time.
“You've been shy enough. Step closer.”
I thought of Xavier and I did.
At last, a large, ornate chair appeared in front of me. My eyes focused the best they could and the form of a woman, not much bigger than me, sat on the chair with both hands on the arm
rests. She had her legs crossed and a black skirt that was decorated with little green sequins draped over them. Almost her entire dress was black, except for more green sequins around her collar, and her long sleeves draped over the armrests. They looked like the sleeves of a black robe. Death's robe. That was the only part of Death that was familiar here.
I tried to make out her skin, but then I realized that it was a dark gray, almost black, and it wasn't the lighting, either. Death also had very long, very black hair that rested on her chest and flowed down to her skirt. I couldn't tell where her hair began and where it ended. It was almost as if it merged with her flowing dress. When I looked closer, I could see that there were black feathers mixed in with her hair. The crow was gone. She had been the crow that had guided me here.
Her eyes were closed.
And then she opened them.
They were the brightest green I had ever encountered and they were the same shade as the cracks in the sky above.
I took a step back, but then she smiled.
“Alyssa Choy,” she said in that dangerous voice. “I'm so glad that you could come and visit me. I was hoping to meet you at Gobekli Tepe, but when I got there, you were not present. Instead, I found only Thoreau in his new and unfortunate state.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but this was by far the most intimidating creature I had ever met, and I was including Gaozu. Her voice was a lot of it. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through me. I felt exposed, like she could see all of my secrets.
If this woman ordered me to drop dead, I would.
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked. “What were you expecting? A skeleton in a black robe?”
“Well,” I said. “Something like that. Yeah. You don't even have a scythe.”
Death laughed. “The scythe,” she explained, “was an image that Normals gave to me during the Plague years, as if I were responsible for the spread of the disease. That was a mere eyeblink ago.”
