graven

Imagine a doorway to a obscured reflection. A window into an alien landscape. Our world, yet much older and much more advanced.

Strange echoes, hollow noises come from the pitch black stairway beyond. You take a small step. The smell of must grips you and you hesitate only a moment, before closing your eyes and taking another step forward. You make your way down the slippery steps, feeling the slimy, spiderwebbed walls and sliding your toes forward to find the next step down.

You wish you had a flashlight, but after a few minutes of this handicapped journey, you find the first torch on the wall. You take it from it's notch and stare into the foreign carvings on the steel handle.

The staircase curves and drops, the steps become narrower, then wider, then you have to jump a small gap. Before long, you're on solid ground. Your feet are rested on cobblestones and before you is a great darkness. The stones beneath your feet stop suddenly a few yards ahead and you notice faint glimmers, eyes of torchlight like fireflies in the yards, the miles ahead.

You barely noticed the creaking when you first came down, but now it's growing louder as you grow accustomed to your surroundings. It's a wooden boat, made by hand and sitting on what looks like a huge, underground sea of black water.

Where do you have to go? You have no where anymore. When there's nothing behind, you must move forward.

The step down to the boat is long, but you half jump, half step inside. The boat rocks a moment and your heart stops as you plunge face forward towards the water. You're holding onto the sides of the boat, your heart slamming against your chest, but you're safe in the boat, staring down at black water. You obviously don't know how deep it was.

If you knew how deep it truly was, you'd have left the boat and ran back up the stairs in fear.

Taking the heavy oar in one hand, you untie the anchor and kick yourself off. You place the torch in a specially made slot (just for such an occasion) and glance around. It's an island you were on. An island of stones and mortar in a dark world. Above you are rafters of stone and as you push forward, you make your way past the first huge column. It rises from the black water like a dead tree rises from a swamp. You make your way along and the columns come by every few feet in a pattern.

Beyond, in the infinite void around you, is nothing but the occasional echoing call (from what, you can't tell) or splash of water.

It's an hour later. You've found little to nothing. Just a few minutes ago, you saw your first fish: a proud, silver trout jumping from the water as if showing off. And then a larger splash and a bubbling. You wonder if the trout stood a chance, but by the scale of the splash, you know it lost it's life quickly.

You're no longer guiding yourself. Yes, you occasionally have to push away from a column that seems to come directly at the boat, but mostly you're drifting. Toward what goal, you obviously don't know.

You can't go back, because there's nothing behind you.

Something rocks the boat. You get to the center in defense and see large, black scales coming from beneath hull. They go together in a undulating line like a snake and slither slowly away. There's a deep, resonating moan from no where.

And then you hit something. You panic as you imagine whatever went beneath your boat is now mounting an offensive, but instead, you see a large, bright doorway ahead and above you. Your boat has hit another stone mooring.

And something comes from the darkness ahead. A hand. You take it and are pulled from the boat, to the safety of shore.

"You've made it," the voice says, amazed.

"Was I expected or something?" you ask.

A laugh. "We never expected anyone to ever make the journey again. Come with me and I'll get you out of the dampness of this cavern sea."

Your new companion guides you up a much cleaner, much more well-lit staircase of stone. You see him for the first time.

He's wearing pure silver armor, etched subtly, yet beautifully, with a long, black skirt along his waist. You want to laugh, because regardless of how frightening and beautiful he looks, he still looks slightly comical.

You follow your shining friend until you reach a huge, metal door. He pounds on the steel and the door slowly opens, letting in pure light.

"It's so beautiful," you whisper as you see the world before you. "What's happened to me? Where am I?"

The man in armor turns to you and takes his helmet off. It's a face you have loved for years. The one man you trust more than anyone. Your heart stops and he simply says, "Welcome to After..."