The light in the Abyss
by Penelope Pagan June Sea Witch

The darkness of the pit is a predator, chewing up defenseless rays of light and spitting up pure black. You know you have a lantern, know it’s attached to your backpack, yet there is nothing to see. You don’t let it bother you. The unnatural hunger reflects the horror your beloved is in.

It had taken many years to track down where they had taken them. Many more years to gain trust and blackmail, keys and passcodes. But you were here now, here to save them. You knew you would be rewarded for it, the only one to come to their aid, the only one worthy.

You tread forward using your touch. The pit is a cylinder, the stairs a spiral attached to the wall. The repetition makes it easy to traverse. All that keeps you company is the sound of your boots crunching against stone and your soft breaths. You don’t remember how long it has been since you first started down. A few hours maybe.

You move to take another step down but instead find the flat certainty of the bottom. You contemplate leaving the safety of the staircase behind. Once left, you would be at the mercy of the sea of dark and you may drown before you ever found your beloved.

A solution comes to you, one birthed from the sea. You fumble around in your bag, your hand eventually finding the rough texture of rope near the bottom. You pull it out and tie it around yourself and the staircase. The rope wasn’t that long, a mere 15 feet or so, but it gave you some much needed reassurance. Now you were prepared to venture forth.

You step away from the spiral staircase into the unknown. You walk, arms out stretched, in small steps. You were too focused on what could be in front of you that you didn’t consider what could be beneath you. Your foot finds no purchase, and you fall forward, tumbling and tumbling, the rope snapping from the momentum, your body battered by each successive hit against the floor. Finally you slam into a wall, your breath is knocked out of you and blood wells in your mouth.

It is a long period of agonizing pain before you stand up again. You manage it, if only because you know your beloved is suffering worse. Locked away in a forgotten end of the earth. You press your hands against the wall and realize it is actually a door. You try the handle but it won’t budge. Feeling around the door you find runes, etchings that speak of blood for passage.

You do not hesitate, fumbling around in your bag again, you find the cold certainty of sharp steel. You pull it out, and press the tip to your palm, the pain numb in comparison to your already aching body, until you feel your skin break. You press your palm to the runes but nothing happens. It was not enough.

This time you slice, the pain sharp and hot against your palm. The sensation of liquid trickling down your arm proves the quantity should suffice. Again you bring the hand to the runes, smearing your life against the rough texture, and again nothing happens. It still was not enough.

In desperation you hack, the pain unyielding as shock makes it’s way up from your wrist. You keep going, raining down several heavy blows until finally, your hand drops into the darkness with a small thump. You search for it, your fingers finding your own, and you fight to keep down the bile raising in your throat. The dark made it easier to pretend.

You press your own hand into the runes and the door opens, loud grinding of stone against stone fills your ears. You move through the opening, a familiar sensation greeting you past the threshold. You are no longer alone. You can hear your beloved again, their whispers caress your mind with visions of a more perfect world, a world of light.

The presence of their thoughts seeps out from you. You cannot contain the entirety of your beloved’s love, no one can. A Faint glow of true light radiates from your body, light that cannot be consumed. For the first time since your descent you see.

You are not in a dungeon but a tomb. The room was empty save for a single stone coffin at its center. It was as large as a sailboat, and the chains that encased it were as thick as a man’s arm. They had meant to bury them here, to starve your beloved until they truly died. You rush forward in anger, thinking of nothing but their freedom.

There were no locks on the chains, no way to undo them other than to destroy them. You open your bag to find destruction. You have no cutting equipment but you do have explosives. It is cumbersome work, to wire up the explosives with only one hand. Your beloved’s presence eases the burden, the whispers cooing softly. It makes you forget all about your pain, of lost limbs, letting you focus until the task is done.

You step back a safe distance and then light the wick. You track the spark’s progress as it makes it’s way ever closer to your beloved, each second bringing them closer to freedom. You look away at the last second, the heat of the blast singeing your skin and the sound blowing out your ear drums.

You can no longer hear, but it is no matter. The whispers are getting louder, fervent, ravenous. You turn to look back at the coffin, and a smile plays across your lips. The chains are gone, your beloved is free. But as you stand there expectantly, only the whispers get more intense. The coffin remains still, and you wonder whether your beloved has the strength to stand.

You move to the coffin, it’s walls taller than you, and try to climb. It is futile, there is nothing to grip and you have only one hand. You try anyway, smearing your body against the unyielding stone, the fingers of your good hand coming undone as your flesh breaks against the wall. You give up, falling onto your back, only the blood
marking your efforts.

Just as tears start to well in your eyes, the whispers, growing as they had been, suddenly become a roar. It fills you, floods out of you, your entire body becoming a beacon of bright impossible light. You feel it then, the awakening of a god. The coffin’s lid explodes upward. Thick unbearable tension, the air itself comes alive with power. The dimensions of the world became uncertain, shifting as too much filled one space. You feel more, are more, so much, too much, but you know, even as everything else fades from understanding into a quagmire, that you succeeded.

You are graced with the face of your beloved before you dissolve, the true face, the face of a god. It is so alien, so unlike the statues made in their likeness or your imaginings. A form of harsh light that resembles more creature than man. There are no expressions to recognize, no eyes or face to interpret. It gazes down on you, on your broken body and failing mind.

It reaches down to you, a tendril of light wraps around your body. You lose sensation in your legs, your arms, your torso. You can feel your body becoming undone. You don’t panic, can’t panic, the whispers are too soothing, your self too fractured. All you can do is stare up at your beloved, stare directly into that unknown, and find it beautiful.