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The voice speaks to me as I weave in and out, easily evading patterns that were once too fast for me to discern. The question is always the same. "What lies beyond my blade?" I grow still. The shadow surges forward, blades gleaming with unspent malice, and I let it come, unblinking, unflinching, uncaring. I lower my swords to my sides and let the shadow come, closing my spirit off to the vibrations, making myself blind to the approaching danger. Fate is only an enemy of those who oppose it. The pain never comes. I know, without having to check, that the shade is gone. I know, without having to ask, that I have won. There is only one thing left to do, one question left to answer, and I am ready. "My destiny." I whisper to myself, staring out over the infinite expanse of the void. For the first time since I arrived in this blighted place I see light. A single, perfect shaft of radiance shining down as though from the stars, calling me back from the Pit of the Souls to the world I once knew. All sense of gravity is cast aside as I enter the glorious pillar. The aches and pains wash away, old scars shed as my body returns to its most perfect state. The light blinds me as I begin to gravitate toward the source, burning the visions of the awful place I am leaving behind from my mind. As I draw closer to the celestial luster, the world seems to dissolve around me, any sense of sound or balance or even time cast aside in one divine moment of transcendence… I awaken from the dream suspended in some kind of liquid, my entire body floating limply in a sort of eternal freefall. I flail blindly in the water, quickly realizing that I am far too deep to find the surface. Any sense of equilibrium is spoiled by the jarring transition between worlds, leaving me unable to tell which way is up. My skin tingles. The sensation is impossibly strong, as if each and every nerve ending were fresh and exposed, overeager to absorb the feelings of the world. The sting reminds me of when I was first born, of the pain that came with my first exposure to natural light… I focus on the feeling of the light. The abyss yawns beneath me; the moon shines above. I dive toward the moonlight. The surface is far away, almost too far, but after a hundred years of deprivation, another few minutes without air seems almost insignificant. I emerge from the water like a newborn from the womb, my body glistening and frail. As I crawl forth onto dry land I realize just how weak my mortal form has become: muscles atrophied from a hundred years of neglect, bones brittle from long lack of sustenance, joints awkward as if they have forgotten how to move. Like a derelict ship I drag myself slowly through the surf, naked and weak. Thick hair floats across my shoulders like oil, plastered to my body by the weight of the water. I attempt to breathe purely out of habit; a mistake, as my lungs are heavy with brine already, forcing me to pitch forward from abdominal convulsions. After emptying my lungs and stomach on the sand, I rise slowly, perilously to my feat, swaying unsteadily as if these steps were my first. |
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