Prologue: Snowcrosser

I remember a time when I had worried about survival. It is interesting to reflect on the early writings of my journey into the darkness of the deep, looking at the person I used to be. Shall you peer into the rusted remnants of my past with me?


A Reflection on Entrance


The sky is now a mirror of ice.

For the first time in a very long time, I have become lost in my travels. The cave’s maw had sparked an unexplainable call in my mind, beckoning me to go deeper and deeper within, and I obliged its instinctual request. My body had been worn from days of travel between the southern stretch, providing me with a dark place to rest. I set down my gear, closed my eyes, and fell into my usual slumber. When I had awoken, the entrance I had passed through hours before had vanished, simply becoming another wall. Time was burnt slamming my shoulder against the blocked entryway. I have given up.

My theory is that I have found myself in a limspace completely apart from the mountains I had wandered, with the cave acting as the medium between. It’s unexpected, but I shared no ties to those accursed peaks. If these caves allow me to experience something new, then dare I say that I prefer them already! I still sit by the sealed way home as I write this down, but this is the warmest I have been in years.

Only one path forward presents itself. I shall go further into the darkness, hopefully discovering more about where I am. I mean, what other option is there?

A Reflection on Furthered Efforts


I almost fell into a bottomless pit earlier. I’m off to a great start, huh? Let my foot slip. and my legs stumbled forward, sending me headfirst down into the abyss. I, of course, caught myself on the other end of the gap, but it is evident now that things are more severe than I first presumed. I let my mind wander into some sense of security due to the new surroundings, but any remnants of those ideas in my brain have been shattered. Only focus can remain in my soul as I continue to spelunk these caves.

Not much has changed in the surroundings. The path only gets darker and darker, and it’s hard to discern anything not illuminated by my headlamp. The ice has become a deep blue rather than its original off-white coloring. My initial curious surprise about this cave has turned into little more than dread, but like I said before, there is no option shown to me other than to continue walking.

Finally… I think I’m starting to dream again. I had slept after writing my previous entry, and the vague memory of a yellow sky persisted in my brain from then. Was I thinking of home? That world feels like little else than a distant thought, but it has now wormed its way back up from the depths of my subconscious if I am correct. Another struggle to deal with.

Who knows what awaits me beyond the deeper dark?

A Reflection on Progress


Things are finally changing.

I have reached another wall, this time made of grey brick instead of that darkened ice. Something or someone has come before me, with their handicraft becoming absorbed into the environment. It is an intense relief to know that I am not the first to walk through these passages, although the message that has been scrawled out on the wall only confuses me.

“Salvation lies beyond the bottom of the sea.”

This feels like a weird motivational message, if anything. Salvation is certainly a choice of wording, but otherwise, it seems to be here to encourage those who read it to keep pressing onward toward freedom. It is interesting, though, that this message was my introduction to whatever new area of the caves I find myself in. At least some amount of light has returned to my surroundings, making it easy to wander without fear of interacting with the natural hazards. Other smaller relics of stone are buried in the ground and the walls in the spaces surrounding the brick surface. Perhaps instead of this wall having been constructed naturally, this limspace mocks the structures of humanity, recreating the bare elements without any meaning. There’s no real way of knowing how any of this works, but this message continues to vex me. What sea? Why is one’s deliverance below it?

Perhaps my analytic mind takes things too far. It really could be some insane man’s scribblings or some weird religious metaphor. It’s hard to discern truth in a world where almost everything I’ve been told and everything I have seen is a lie.

Beyond the command I have been issued by the wall, it’s interesting to see how things have changed around me, and it does give me the idea that I’m making progress toward an exit. The passage I stand in front of looks almost unnaturally smooth, like it had been cut out of the ice by a circular drill.

There isn’t anything of substance besides that. It’s hard to write about things other than my emotions, and that isn’t something I want to write down. One note I have is that this place IS unlike the mountains. It feels repetitive, and I should be used to that, but I still feel a primal fear. What’s there to explore here besides more claustrophobic paths?

Something of substance, I pray.

It feels like I’ve become some sort of rat in another hollow maze, something I said I would never let myself return to.

A Reflection on a Moment of Solace


I was not expecting to find a dining hall entombed in these narrow spaces, yet here we are. It’s been nice to sit in a chair for the first time in months, and while everything is broken and ice has overtaken half of the room, it’s still a sight to see and experience. Forgotten elegance lost under a great freeze. It makes me wonder what could have caused the current state of this limspace if structures had definitely been built and seemingly lived in. Good question to ask… but where can I find the answer?

Though this little experience has been soothing, I’m beginning to fall back into the main problem that is occurring. I’m not making progress. This room had sat at the end of a confusing path upwards that had taken me hours to navigate and would take me hours to get back out of. A stop in my progress, like the three other paths I had navigated to their stopping points, where nothing awaited me. I'm killing time exploring places that do not take me any closer to a potential exit. Hunger is beginning to rear its ugly head at me as my bag lies empty save for a small camera, already broken from years of abuse. I need to get moving now.

A Reflection on Endings


Dead End. Dead End. Dead End. That is all that is to be found as I persist forwards. I have become the rat, skittering from passage to passage, only finding where I started or at a new stopping point. The ice has receded, giving way to more structure and stone, but no progress is being made. I’ve wasted days of energy trying to navigate my way out, only for the reward to be a harder struggle. I want to shatter everything around me. I want to find freedom as I have done so many times before throughout so many other spaces. This miserable experience will not become my fate.

My dreams aren’t helping either. Each time I lie my head to rest, I’m thrown into a lucid nightmare, navigating the empty streets of my past to find my way back to a house at the end of the neighborhood. The oppressive yellow sky still hangs high above, reminding me that whatever I long for at the end of my journey will never be enough. It will never be home. I stare at the front door, the one I have looked at so many times, and I tug at the doorknob to no avail. I have not earned entry. Everything fades back into my awful reality after that.

There was something here before, perhaps a society or a network of people living within these caves even before this megacomplex of ice was formed around them, but now, only snow and bone remain. I have noticed a few skulls amongst these passages lined with rubble, but those are natural. Some of the other bodies I have seen are anything but that. These people had been completely frozen over with ice, even enlarging their corpses, with every aspect of them paused in time. Their horrified, somber faces remain on display to the world. It’s terrifying to think of what could have done such a thing, but who knows? They may have given up, stopping all of their movement and letting the frigid environment consume them. I’m tired of guessing, but there’s no evidence for anything.

It’s so fucking great that my mind, body, and dreams have been thrown into needless turmoil. Something needs to change before I end up like one of these frozen husks. I refuse to write another word until then. Even if I find myself on the verge of death.

A Reflection on Hope


I stand above the carcass of a giant blue spider.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written at all. I feel grateful that I have food in the form of this armored beast’s entrails, but despite this chance encounter that I find myself frantically writing about now, virtually nothing has changed. I’m walking nowhere, doing nothing but cycling through the passages as more and more time slips out of my grasp. This encounter has imbued me with hope. The arachnid is freshly dead, which means, at least to me, that something else killed it. Giant claw marks have broken the wretched thing’s armor and flayed its stomach open. It will have to do for me, and I’m glad I didn’t run into the “alive” version. Its legs look like they could impale me on contact.

What I’m doing here is symptomatic of my greater struggle. Not so many sleeps ago, when I lived amongst the peaks, I would have been revolted at the idea of eating an animal’s raw guts. I’m looking forward to it now. That feels wrong to think, to say, as if I’ve become some sort of savage feasting on whatever scraps I can get. I cannot remain here. I cannot.

An exit could be close, though! I have never seen an animal here, and I doubt that animals live within these dead caves. This, and whatever killed it, must have entered somewhere nearby. That's wishful thinking, at least. I don’t want to have to scour all over for something that is nothing more than a hypothetical in my head, but what else do I have to do? I’m burning the last sparks of my faith on this chance. If it works out, I escape these accursed subterranean paths. I don’t want to think about what I will do if it doesn’t. No more time to write in this journal for now. Freedom could be within reach.

A Reflection on Egress


Freezing winds blow onto my face. A light snow covers the top of my coat. After the past hour, I have earned this privilege. I do not think I have truly escaped, though.

There was no transitory zone, no odd shift. I simply crawled through a claustrophobic outcropping dug into the wall, my stomach being cut and scratched by the rocks beneath me as I pushed toward the wind. When I emerged, I could only feel satisfaction as I fell backward onto the ground, looking towards the empty dark sky. A huge tree line fills my view as I leave the giant slab of ice behind me. It cannot be explained how good I feel to be outside. It had only been so many days since I first entered that web of tunnels, but there had been so much apathy and lethargy stacked up upon my conscience that it was hard to keep going. Keep chasing “Salvation.” I don’t have to worry about that place and its problems anymore. What I do have to worry about is what to do now.

The empty expanse of snow and wind puts fear in me when looking at it. It is vast. I’m not sure which direction to go in nor what action to take, but that feeling of adventure and that call to continue has returned like my initial discovery of the passageways had first sparked. One thing that isn’t welcome is the reimbued cold. It is much colder than the mountains. Still better than being trapped, though.

Looking back upon the place I had emerged from, I think I can confirm that those pockets of dead civilization I had explored were built by people and not created by the limspace itself. A massive spire pokes out of the ice, reminiscent of a watch tower! I may have been in a buried city, and although that is incredible to me, I have to wonder once again, what caused it to subduct beneath the surface? It could be the passage of time, or it could be some massive divine shift. Another unanswered question to store in this journal.

I’m going to walk forward. See what happens. That is what my body is telling me to do, after all. The environment shift has given me the morale I need to continue onwards towards whatever awaits me.
It couldn’t be worse than rotting away in a passage under the ground.

A Reflection on a Glow


I’ve been walking towards a faint glow in the distance for a while. It intrigues me with its light blue hue, something so very alien in a world of whites and greens and grays. It feels good to have a temporary, solid objective. I’ll figure out what the source is, do what I will with that information, and then press onwards. It’s a good plan. Simple and fun.

The weather is getting oppressive as the hours pass. Visibility ahead of me grows lower and lower, and in the far distance, I can hear the sounds of light screeching like a beast being slain. I most definitely won’t be walking towards that, but it at least shows that there is more than me in this forest. That’s… rather comforting instead of sparking fear. Even if it’s a terrible thing beyond my comprehension, it is still a THING and is proof that life has persisted here. Plus, it’s the only stuff I can write about, as these trees are nothing special, and the ground is simply snow. I need to keep these entries interesting, no?

Blue light, here I come.

A Reflection on Purpose


An illuminated tree.

I don’t have words. When I first approached it and saw what it was, I stared at it for a moment, letting the wind overtake my ears from the usual ramblings to myself. That’s one of the most special moments I have had in a very long time. Its leaves are bathed in a heavenly light. The bark emits a melancholic blue. Apples hung from their stems, the color of cyan. I took them, of course, and they now fill my backpack to the brim. I must have… at least 18. The tree had them in abundance; I had to indulge myself. I need to give one a taste soon.

I find myself regretting the despair I felt before in my earlier writings. This forest, awful and cold as it may be, was worth the struggle I faced. If I can witness miracles of the universe like this tree that I lay my back upon, then my initial ventures into limspace have been worth it.

That was the whole reason I took the plunge in the first place, after all. My life had slowly become meaningless, and I had held no connections to anything material as year by year passed. There was little reason to do anything in my life, and no one left to do it with. Then the rumors spread around about the bunker under the mountain on those old decrepit forums, and from there, I found myself thrust into limspace, discovering all it had to offer to me. I had a purpose. To explore. To view and enjoy things like these anomalous trees, shining like beacons in the darkness. It all brings me great joy. I wish my camera worked.

I do not want to leave this moment of peace behind, but there is more to explore. Perhaps more wonderful bends in reality like this. I can’t know until I take the steps outwards back towards the uninteresting trees. There is at least more of a drive within me to continue after this, one that may erupt into energy once I begin trying these apples.

A Reflection on Strangers


Too much has occurred since the last time I decided to jot down my thoughts in this worn book.

In my work exploring this forest, I have found myself in the ruins of a castle, clearly crafted by something and not natural to the world, which is something consistent I’m beginning to notice. While this did amaze me, it was what it held within its walls that truly has kept me from writing.

I am now amongst a group of three fellow humans who have used the castle as a respite from the constant storm. When I first saw them sitting around the hearth, I did not speak. I simply stared at them from the darkness, watching them conversate and move. It has been… years since I have been in the presence of others. Perhaps I was too used to seclusion because, by the time they noticed me, I couldn’t even say a single word! I simply sat down alongside them, as they mostly stared apprehensively at me. I was a stranger, after all. The only person who did not look at me with uncertainty was the large man across the fire, cloaked in the pelt of a lustrous wolf.

At first, I was intimidated by his presence, but when he began to speak, my fear quickly faded.

“W-what is your name?” He asked, in a soft and stuttering voice that seemed impossible out of him, showing immediate care for my identity.

I quickly told him, and from there he welcomed me into their grouping. The large man had designated his name as Null, and the other two were introduced as Kee and Ali. It felt good to share my name, as they had to me. They all returned to their actions, and I ventured off, beginning to explore the castle after spending some more time discussing my situation and how I would like to join them. As I write, I sit at the highest point in the ruins, looking out at the fog that blocks my view of the veiled horizon. A sort of melancholy bubbles in the air. It’s nice to be with other humans after so long. Travel companions with which I can trade information and stories, and people to watch my back as I would watch theirs. Yet, I have become so accustomed to being alone. The idea of having to rely on others is something so alien to me, yet I must adapt so suddenly. It’s scary.

The pros massively outweigh the cons. I need to take this chance and embrace it, hopefully beginning to understand these people and the stories that led them here. Maybe I can understand myself better through that socialization. Gotta get off this rubble, have my questions answered, and set a new definitive goal rather than returning to my sporadic wandering.

Back to the campfire, I go.

One last note to self: Those apples are REALLY good. I should give some of them to the others to garner goodwill.

A Reflection on Learning


I’ve been learning many things since my first day with the three. I had stumbled into the realm deemed Shivergate—a threshold to the system of liminal spaces known as Thalasso. We are also having friendly discussions about personal experiences.

Kee has been very open to telling her story about how she got here. Null and Ali have been much more… averse. Kee hails from a subterranean town called Slaterock, where people have developed lives for themselves, defying the intense dangers of the world around them. She cast off this life of hiding underground and wanted to enter Hailscream to make her way to Thalasso. She had met Null and commissioned him to keep her safe on a journey to Crag Dock, a border town between the outskirts of the forest and the shore of Hailscream. I respect the call that she shares, as it burns bright in my heart as well. Somehow, along the way, Ali joined them, and so have I. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do at the dock when we make it. Maybe I can journey into Thalasso alongside Kee. Settling in a place is not something I plan on doing, and Thalasso is something much more vast to explore as they describe it, as little as I know about it. That’s all hypothetical, however. I need to make it to the dock first.

Overall, for today, I am glad I could learn so much and grow my connection with my fellow wanderers. Null estimates it’s about six more days of travel as long as the snow doesn’t flare up. I trust him. It’s hard for me to process that some people were BORN inside of limspace because I had never really thought about it, but it’s a natural fact of these worlds beyond Earth. People like Kee exist. What more can I learn from them?

Good question to end this record on.

A Reflection on Strength


I think this is becoming a daily journal, but that isn’t a bad thing. Marking down the story of my journey day by day will be much more interesting to read back upon rather than bursts of writing when I only feel compelled to, like in the caves.

Continuing today was very interesting.

To start, my dreams are becoming more and more lucid, and it feels like I’m spending days asleep while it's only a matter of hours in the waking world. Time spent wandering around the empty streets of twisted memories, half-coherent and half-fragmented. I get lost in the haze, and it’s taking an increasing amount of time to find my way to my home. The door still isn’t opening. It feels like it never will.

When I woke up alongside the others, my brain grew calm again. We all got up and without a word, began to walk. Sometime into moving through the forest, one of the owls described to me by Ali before reared its immensely ugly face, almost taking mine with a single swoop! My initial shock was immediately replaced with awe as I watched the feathered devil land on a nearby branch, eyeing our entire group with a stone gaze. Everyone was frozen in fear, but Null simply started walking towards the creature. It immediately swooped down, aiming directly for his head, but Null caught the squawking thing’s foot, slamming it against the ground with such strength that it shook the ice beneath us. It was dead on impact. Ali and Kee seemed unimpressed with such a feat, but for me… It felt like I had witnessed an apex predator destroy its prey.

For what we did with the body, it turns out that baking some of these apples alongside the leg of a Rockback Owl makes for a very good meal. I’m glad we could turn its body into food, although I continuously had to pick fragments of bone out of the meat. Ali got it the worst, as he complained about massive pieces of the bird’s skeleton being lodged in his cut of the food. While we ate, I also learned a bit more about where Ali hails from as we engaged in casual conversation. Like me, he started outside Shivergate, although it seems he was pulled in by one of the glowing trees “capturing him and shuttling him through the ground itself.” Sounds worse than my little opening in the mountains. At least it was fast.

Everyone’s turned in to rest, and I also plan on doing so soon, but there is still something inside that wants me to stay by the embers for a little longer. It’s better than being stuck in the world of my dreary memories.

A Reflection on Desires


It’s been two days since I wrote. Guess the idea of daily jotting fell through, although nothing as incredible as the owl has occurred. We are three days out from Crag Dock now, and while we are lucky that we haven’t run into anything else… It's kind of disappointing to not be able to see all the grotesque denizens that inhabit this place. I really shouldn’t think that way, but it’s in my nature. I value discovery and knowledge over my safety. It’s always been so. I would gladly face an imminent death if it meant I got to witness something truly magnificent.

Then again, it isn’t just me making my way towards Hailscream. I’m alongside my companions, and they deserve to have their lives protected, even if I barely know them for now. Perhaps my true concern lies in how overly easy this journey has been. Null seems to share my sentiment, being suspicious of the lack of any resistance. He’s smart. Better than a simple nomad like me in every way. A survivor forged in the gauntlet that many in this limspace have to run, I would imagine. If he’s concerned, I’m not sure what to think about what may be ahead. Who knows. I can reflect on what happens once I’m at the shoreline on a boat.

Other than my odd selfish wants and thoughts taking the forefront of my thinking, things have been going pretty well. These people I venture with have kindness beyond what I thought possible from humanity. Ali, in particular, seems to be much more open to talking to me now, consistently sparking interesting conversations on the facts he knows about Shivergate. I’m learning twenty new things a day from him, whether it be about the whales frozen beneath the ice, the colossal “bergshell” crabs out in the seas of Hailscream, or the ferocious "tremblebar" bears that can raze small villages in minutes. I keep saying it, but this limspace truly is incredible. Native wildlife, cultures, and ideas flow freely here. Compared to the isolation and vacantness of the mountains… it’s everything I could have asked for as an explorer.

That may have been my problem with the life I led before entering these realms. Everything had already been documented, analyzed, and solved by the time I had been born into the world. I couldn’t discover a thing on my own. Every island was charted, every mountain climbed, and every land conquered. That is what humanity does with the finite. We break it down to its bare elements, killing any intrigue for the future in our lust for more knowledge. This is why the infinite is our perfect match. We can never cover all of it. Yet we still try to.

This feels like a good place to end off. Hopefully, tomorrow is interesting enough to warrant me writing at all.

A Reflection on Stories, Companions


Today was mundane… but there were some moments along the way that I have decided to write down.

To start, Null decided to tell us a story while we walked to pass the time, stuttering through with little confidence. I’m not quite sure if it was his narrative that he had made or if it was a common tale in Shivergate, but I want to save the general idea of the plot here.

The story follows a father who has three sick children, all suffering from different diseases. One had a problem with his lungs, another was slowly losing his eyesight, and the last could not move any of his fingers without experiencing immense pain. The father, stricken with grief, left the dying home to look for a solution out in the darkened forest. Stumbling upon a cave, the father came face to face with a wolf the size of a mountain, its fur bathing the cave in light. He spoke to the wolf, asking how he could cure his children of their ailments. The wolf laughed in his face, simply asking the man a single question: “Would you be willing to lose all aspects of yourself to give your children what they need?” The father nodded, and the wolf’s grin grew wider.

The wolf then proceeded to take the father’s lungs, replacing them with the failing ones of his child. Then his eyes, replacing them with the suffocated ones of his next child. Finally, he stripped him of his fingers, replacing them with the aching ones of his last child. The father stood there, with the final sparks of his vision fading, and the wolf cackled at his misery once more. The father had lost everything for his children to thrive, and as he wandered back out into the forest to die, the wolf instead walked alongside him. For years and years, they continued to roam the woods until they became one being. A single thought of persistence, ever chasing freedom from the world’s suffering. After much time had passed and the three children had grown, suddenly having become healthy after their father had abandoned them, they finally found their dad while hunting for the day’s meal. With their three blades in hand and sorrow in their hearts, they put the amalgamation down for good, watching the twin souls of Suffering and Malice fly freely into the empty sky.

That’s the general gist of the story. It's not the best recap. I would get Null to write the actual tale barring no details in this book, but I don’t want to piss him off. He’s an utter stranger to me, and we haven’t even spoken to each other yet, outside of him softly reciting his tales to the whole group. His voice does not match the deadly visage he carries, like an empathetic child placed inside of a warrior's body. Still, I want to connect with him like I have with the others. Everything in my body maintains some sort of fear of angering him, and hearing those kind words turn into something darker.

I hope something happens to bring us all closer because my time will soon be over with these people, and I want to have connections if this world should become my new home to venture through. It’s sad to say, but there are more paths beyond that lie in store for me. The next step simply needs to be forged at Crag Dock, as I have said before. A new goal after satisfying the old. I am uncertain if it will be alongside Kee, Ali, or Null though. I pray I can find purpose with them if I decide to stay beyond Hailscream, simply following after their adventures and exploring this world. That’s all I need out of life.

To close today, as we sit and reflect in our little circle underneath an Oak Tree, I find myself staring off into space, into the endless blizzard as I always have done. Everyone else shares small talk like they have been together for years and years, and I’m simply sitting here. Quiet, facing down the white void and left alone. Perhaps wishes for union between us survivors are misplaced and overly hopeful for the small window of time I have spent with these three. My mind dramatized the idea of meeting other thinking beings into an immediate goal of trying to befriend them. Years of isolation have ruined me, leaving so many words unsaid out of this chipped, frozen-over mouth of mine.

There seems to be another distant blue glow in my view, barely breaking through the gray like the beacon tree from when I first entered this forest. I’ll mention it to Null. Then at least I can use my voice for once, instead of continuously listening to everyone else unto infinity.

Plus, I’m dying for more of these Ghost Apples. Its magnificent taste calls to me like the ocean…

A Reflection on CHAOS/PEACE


Hours wasted.
My companions are gone.

I walk towards nothing now. No future. No greater destiny on my path. I am simply a hollow vessel, not unlike my tormentor, with the last vestiges of thought in my brain burning out. I spent hours crying, punching trees, doing whatever I could to distract myself from the fact that because of my naivete, the two who had chosen to put their faith in me to join them had now vanished. How could I let myself lead them to their demise? How could I fall into that thing’s grasp?

I wasn’t even aware enough to realize that something had gone wrong. We had gotten so close to the glow… my mind slipped somewhere along the way, and I found myself in that distant dream once more. I was fully conscious, unlike the half-lucidity I had always been stuck with. Things felt wrong. The sky remained that oppressive yellow, but the wind was so, so cold against my skin. The chill of death. I wandered towards my home as always, and the door sat open. Inviting me indoors after nights and nights of temptation. Upon my first step… I could feel a twist in my stomach. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I had cast this world away. Yet I kept moving further and further down that hallway filled with so many memories. My mother’s call. My father's sigh as he closed the door behind him. It hit me like a bullet through the brain, shattering the walls of bullshit reasoning I had erected to protect myself from the thoughts of my childhood.

I had fallen to my knees without knowing it, feeling the cold wood below me spreading onto my fingertips. I regained my footing, but as I truly looked at my surroundings, I only found desolation. The kitchen lay barren, aside from a hole in a marble countertop where a sink should have been. The living room was a box of carpet alongside an empty fireplace. Every little aspect that had made this place what it was had been stripped away. It was an empty shell. The darkened stairs invited me upwards. They seemed to stretch on forever as I walked up them. I turned the corner at the top, after an ascent that had taken all of my strength to complete. A single door sat at the end of a dark hallway with all the other doors I expected having vanished. My final passage into the unknown. I soon found myself at the door, and I had presumed it to be locked, but it swung open wide.

This was my bedroom. The cracks on the ceiling. The lack of windows. The awful green wallpaper. Everything had been stolen away like all the rooms before, but one thing had persisted, sitting right in the center of the room where I had placed it on my 8th birthday. My bed. The wooden backing. The simple white mattress with all its stains, with a camouflage blanket placed on top. Exactly how I had left it when I moved out, running away from it all. I was so tired. Losing consciousness in a dream.

I laid my face and body against the mattress. My eyes began to close. I was slowly fading into nothing. Like returning to the primordial void before existence. It wasn’t a bad nothing, but something more… material. Peaceful.

Then, I felt only pain. The skin-tearing cold returned. My eyes adjusted to the myriads of things around me, and once again, a bone-shattering pain rippled through my body. Somebody had been punching me across my face, attempting to pull me back into reality. I don’t know who it was. I don’t know how I was ripped out of my fate. I looked up to face the sky, but my eyes were met with a gaze. Hollow eyes. Mouth agape and empty. Whatever had been creating that blue hue now stared deep into my soul. It was blatantly obvious that it had done this to me, doing something to my unconscious mind to make me comatose. It had tried to exploit my memories to reap my soul. As I continued to stare, my attention was quickly snapped back to the stranger, who threw me to my feet and screamed a single word directly into my ear.

“RUN.”

My feet moved first. Within seconds, I had already passed tree upon tree, not caring about anything else but fleeing. My head rotated back a bit to see if something followed behind me, but that was not the case. All I saw in that moment was the stranger, wreathed in reflective light like armor, holding his axes to the sky. He bellowed out words once again, almost in defiance of the root of the nightmares I had been experiencing all this time. “YOU SHALL NOT TAKE ANOTHER LIFE.”

I kept moving. My run slowed to a walk. My walk eventually grew to a grinding halt. I had lost them. Kee and Ali. My future friends. Had they been consumed by the demon sprouting out of that defiled tree? Abandoned me after I had lost my grip on what was real. Who knew? I had failed them by bringing us to that tree in search of more temporary pleasure.

My reason for continuing has been torn out from under me. I will have nothing but a shattered psyche when I arrive at the dock. I still do believe I must make my way out there, to perhaps see if my doubts were wrong and Kee and Ali wait for me at the gates, but so much has happened that I want to lay and sink below the ice, joining the cacophony of beating hearts as I fade back into my never-ending tranquility free of manipulation by some greater force. Out of my own volition. Then that would be selfish to the person who had saved me, defying their wishes for me to escape. That doesn’t work out. I’m stuck at a crossroads where each path offered will only hurt me more.

I need to contemplate. I need to sit with the cold and think about what I do next.

A Reflection on LIFE/DEATH


More silence. I feel like I’m trapped in a tomb.

I couldn’t sleep at all. My body physically won’t let me rest. Every minute was spent in anguish thinking about how everything had gone wrong and what I needed to do. I came up blank. I can’t pick a path. I don’t think I’ll have to, considering what I have now.

I had felt the weight in my pocket not long after I found myself in this little sunken outcrop between the trees. An ornate compass had been placed on my person without my knowledge. I wonder if Ali or Kee had given it to me, although the things within tell a story for someone I had never met, or at least a side of these people I had never seen. Within the compass’s shell sat the titular device itself, but on the inside of the cover, there was a small picture taped on. Three small children, not even aged past five at first glance, all gathered around smiling. Somebody’s memory is now thrown into the hands of a useless husk devoid of any meaning. That wasn’t all, though. On the bottom, a simple message had been carved into the shimmering gold, giving me a direction.

“S - DOCK, N - LABYRINTH”

South was the way to the dock. A path has forcefully been opened to me, tearing my thoughts away from the arms of death and towards continuing forward despite it all. Would it not be what Kee and Ali would want for me? They could be waiting, ready to apologize for creating the thought in my mind that they were dead when they had simply run away. I must find out, one way or another. No use dying when there’s so much more to do in this place anyway, and I have had my time to wallow and work through those darker thoughts. If they have passed on, I wish them well. It was my mistake traded for their demise, and I will always have to live with that, knowing that it will always be my fault two innocent people were exploited by something beyond anyone’s comprehension. I had fallen for a trick.

I should have seen that something was wrong with whatever illusion of a fourth person I was viewing throughout our initial push toward Crag Dock. This Null that I mention over and over in my earlier writings seems like nothing more than a fictitious delusion I had been suffering from while being influenced by that abhorrent thing that had risen out of the Beacon Tree. It had reached out to my cerebrum from miles away, simulating a person to be a leader for us. Maybe even implanting false memories into someone like Kee. “Null”. I have no memory of a person named that, now that its hold on me is gone. The persona of Null that this monster had played led us right into its maw, my thoughts too gullible due to it being the first time I had seen other human beings in years. I was a fool. I couldn’t see reality then, and I’m not even sure if I can see it now. I could still be asleep at the foot of that empty-eyed face, it eternally staring down at my slowly freezing body. I would end up no different than those corpses from the caves.

None of this matters. I’m wrapping myself up in a spiral of raw thought and emotion and dumping it onto the page. I need to get to the dock for Kee and Ali.

Nothing else can matter.

A Reflection on ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE


I have arrived at Crag Dock. It was straightforward to navigate once the plumes of smoke came into view after walking south for a few hours. No sign of Kee and Ali at all to start this off. I think I can put that foolish idea to rest. Now, I have to come to terms with what exactly I should do.

To start on a lighter note, this place is incredible. People’s entire homes are made out of the shells of massive dead crabs, and I have never seen so many humans in one place since… forever. Everybody knows everyone. People shake hands in the street, clasp each other on the back, discuss the day’s work, and seem to get along. However, nobody smiles. It seems people know what this place is, the pain it can inflict, and have accepted it amongst their community. What was upsetting, though, was the looks I received when I first entered through the wooden walls on the border of town. People looked disgusted. Scared. Like I wasn’t human like I had been turned into some horrid thing to be sympathized with. It was humiliating.

Soon after I had found myself the attention of every person out and about, my body collapsed into the mud after reaching the second main path of the town. That’s what the man who took me into his house is telling me, at least. At first, I had thought of him as another sympathizer who had never seen the horrors of the forest. Who am I to talk to, though? I was only there for… 14 days at most. I don’t know anything. I should have been commending this person for even letting me into their home.

Jumbling my thoughts again.

I don’t know much about the man, but he seems to be quite nice from the things he’s talking to me about. His name is Jack, and he’s been a shrivel farmer for most of his life, whatever that is. Keeps asking questions too. I haven’t spoken a word yet; don’t plan on it. It’s very nice to be in a real home again. Someone put love into this space to make it their chamber to rest and relax after long days of work. The human touch. I think I’ll be able to sleep in a bed too. That’s something I’ve longed for since I realized I was stuck here, beyond the domain of even humanity’s smallest creations. I hope my wish is granted, although it’s not worth getting ahead of myself.

I still need to figure out what I’m doing now. I don’t plan on becoming a shrivel farmer, at least. Perhaps Jack can help me determine the next step when I get to know him more. If he doesn’t kick me out after I finish drinking this tea. We’ll see. I still feel so disconnected from the world around me to the point where I can’t even formulate a spoken sentence, so convincing him of anything is going to be hard. I’m struggling to even write this down without turning the page and erasing whatever stage of denial I’m in, throwing me right back to the moment I lost control of myself.

I’ll be telling Jack whatever he needs to know soon enough. For now, I need to try and invest in establishing myself as more than a vagrant stranger picked up off the road out of pity.

Till then.

A Reflection on Healing


It’s been going better these past few days. I’m allowed to stay with Jack. As long as I help him with basic tasks around his field, he’s willing to let me stick around for as long as I need to get back on my feet. I’m getting to know him better, and in turn, he’s finding out more about me through the small chats we have while tugging the shrivels out of the snow. They take a hellish amount of strength to pull out, but the tools Jack has made the job easier. I’m not sure how they would taste, though, especially with their fleshy pink hue. I guess I’ll have to sneak one of them away tomorrow.

Jack is much kinder than I had first imagined. He lives a humble life, simply collecting and planting these things and trading them away to keep things steady. He told me of his dreams of exploring the seas to find his wife, who had left with their daughter some time ago. I tried to ask more of it, but he countered me with a question of his own, prying into the reason he heard me walking about during the midst of when we were supposed to sleep. I was honest. I let him know about what had happened only a day before our initial meeting. Why I sometimes silently cried during our harvesting. Things have moved so fast that I haven’t been able to properly process what happened in that little stretch of time, so emotions quietly seep out of me at random moments when the idea floats through my brain again about what I had caused to happen. I can’t accept those thoughts yet. It feels impossible to.

I’ll be figuring out my goal for the future soon enough. I want to encourage Jack to chase after what he wants too. He deserves something to take him away from this mundane life, even if he is satisfied by it. I can tell that what he truly wants is to explore. The same spark that exists in me exists in him. We need to make a fire out of it.

A Reflection on An Offer


The proposition is struck, and the idea is ripe in my mind.

We went to the market today, where Jack and I sold the fruits of our labor from the past week. It had been my first time visiting the place, and while I was still an utter enigma to most of the townsfolk who knew quite possibly everyone else, glares of fear had been replaced by wide eyes of interest. I had a man, coated in grease and drenched in the aroma of liquor, come up to me and shake my hand vehemently, asking if I was a friend of Jack’s. While I was quickly was pulled back into navigating my way through the various small wooden tables of goods, it was kind of shocking to be treated with such respect and warmth. I’m a fellow person to these people now. That brings warmth to my heart.

Onto the actual thing of interest, Jack and I ran into a veteran sailor who, with a booming laugh, took Jack underneath his arm, beginning to rub his fist into Jack’s hair with a vigorous intensity until he tapped out. The sailor, Coral, had known Jack since he was a kid, growing up alongside him in this small port town. While Jack had chosen a life of peace, Coral set out to cross into Thalasso. He’s been trying to reach the furthest bounds of hailscream for years. According to him, his latest attempt was the closest he had gotten with his crew, but they had encountered the same Bergshell that had been tormenting them since they first reached the deeper waves. They had to pull back.

Coral claims he senses that his next voyage will be the one to push him over into Thalasso. He even offered us a spot on his ship, the SV Exodus, as long as we could carry our weight. It sounds perfect. Like what Kee was planning on doing. Jack is much more reserved about the offer, claiming that he refuses to leave his farm behind to rot. I understand the sentiment, but it would be strange to join his friend on a one-way trip without him coming alongside us. That is the problem, though. There’s no coming back if we get through to Thalasso. He would lose access to everything he’s built over the years, the life he's worked so hard to sustain.

In turn, he would be offered a shot to find his family had they crossed through. Though, I can’t say that to his face. It’s up to him to decide what he does with his life. I know what I have to do with mine. I’ll be carrying out Kee’s dream, after all. There’s no way I can pass on this chance.

I’ll see if I can find Coral amongst everyone else tomorrow. We set sail in a week, given I secured my place amongst his crew.

A Reflection on Time Passed


One more sleepless night until I set off. These past days have been quite the adventure of their own. I had connected with Coral as soon as I had woken up that morning, and as I had told him I was in around the middle of the day, with a massive grin on his face, he pulled me away into a tavern on the edge of the coast, offering me my first look at the ocean ahead of me. Deep blue waves crashing down on themselves. Almost pitch-black clouds suspended in the sky far above, striking lighting down far away. My perfect gauntlet, ready to forge me into what this world needed me to be. Once we entered the tavern, with a sign reading “Sorrolethe” hung over the doors, I was shifted into an environment that seemed much more harrowing than anything else seen in Crag Dock.

Men in long, tattered robes with unwashed hair sat slouched at the wooden bar, surrounded by empty glasses they had blown through hours ago. Their faces were covered in small nicks and scars, with a few missing limbs and eyes amongst the grouping. Most were completely unconscious, but a select few stared into space, dazed by whatever obscene amount of booze ran through their system. That was the point of drinking for many, after all; to temporarily throw away all their woes to try and enjoy the current moment. Coral guided me over to a large round table tucked away in the corner of the wooden structure, illuminated by a single lantern hanging from the wall. He waved towards the people huddled around it, and they all waved back, wide drunken smiles on their faces.

I was introduced to them one by one as I pulled up a chair alongside Coral. There was Uffo the repairman and Fosco the navigator, who claimed to be twin brothers even though they looked nothing alike, although they had quite substantial roles on the ship. The other three, Morgan, Erasmus, and Dorian didn’t have jobs as substantial or defined as the first two, but they were all incredibly kind. Finally, there was Mara, the wife of Coral and the heavy lifter of the whole crew as she claimed. These were the people I would be working with, and after an hour or so to acclimate myself, I couldn’t have been happier to have them as my companions. It reminded me of them, despite never having anything quite like this during my short time traveling. I had to step outside after that, vomiting like every other drunkard who had stumbled outside.

Coral walked out after me, simply patting me on the back while I sat huddled. After a few minutes of that, I returned to my feet, wiped the tears from my eyes, and wobbled my way back to the table. Coral didn’t ask a single question. The rest of the day went quite well, although I’m not sure I’ve ever had that many drinks in my life. My true initiation into Shivergate, I like to imagine. These other days leading up to writing this haven’t been nearly as interesting, although I have grown my connections to the crew, especially with Erasmus. Me and him clicked from the start, sharing the same ideas and interests in exploration and discovering the most niche knowledge in this world. The rest of them are pretty astounding too, though. We’ve spent a few of our days touring the ship for me, and showing what roles I may need to fill while we are out on the open sea. The ship itself is a beauty, although compared to the massive hunting ships docked alongside it at the port, her proportions are quite small. The bow is an ornate carving of a whale, though, and that already gives her more personality than those cookie-cutter behemoths. I also got to etch my name into the rudder alongside theirs, which was a nice gesture to show my involvement. I’m excited to see what exactly the ship can do.

Although my days have been filled with newfound purpose, I can feel some strain between me and Jack when I return to his home each day. The conversations we once had have vanished, replaced by awkward silence as I do what I need to do around the rooms. I tried to help in the mornings with the fields, but my focus was always pulled away to what I would be doing with the others during the day, not getting the yield expected of me. I’ve neglected the person who brought me into this society. That must be mended, although it may be the simple fact that I’m sailing away with his compatriots has scorned him.

One last thing to fix before leaving these shores behind. Tomorrow is the start of a new future. I want to depart on good terms, at least.

A Reflection on the Future


A cold breeze flows across my face as I write this. We are departing in a matter of minutes, and to my gleeful surprise, it seems Jack will be joining us after our conversation yesterday. I sat down next to him and began talking about my time with the people he knew, discussing how lovely it had been to meet them. I then emphasized the point about how I couldn’t have done any of that without him, and that caused Jack to open up about his fears. He likes the life he leads, and while he desires to venture outwards, his mind is simply permeated by fear that whatever awaited him beyond Shivergate would only be worse than what he has now, without a way back to that. That was easy to refute, acknowledging his fear but also letting him know that without ever trying, he would always be stuck in a life like this, always asking questions but never having the will to hunt down the answers. That isn’t living life; at least to me. I left soon after to enjoy another sleepless night, but it seems my words shifted his opinion, at the very least. Coral almost pushed him off the dock when they hugged at the port.

I stopped the problem before it became one. Perhaps that’s a testament to how much I’ve been through over this past month, learning from all my mistakes to create a better life for myself and others who need to hear those words of encouragement. Yet, I still feel so hollow now, even after giving myself a purpose and people to lift. I’m not the same person I was so many days before. I can never be that person again, and that creates a sense of melancholy within me despite all the disdain I have for the foolishness that overtook all my senses not so long ago. Maybe it’s regret. I’ve built and lost so much in such a short period, with nothing in my life compared to the events I have experienced recently. I have never been to a place like this. It was always some vacant space, without any clear idea or connection to what was surrounding me, living day by day and recording incredible things when I could.

The one question I keep asking over and over now, even as my newfound friends call my name from above, is “Would I have entered that cave, knowing everything that was to come after?” I keep finding the answer to be no. It’s up to what I do now to change that, alongside the ones who have bestowed a second chance.

For Kee. For Ali.

For myself.

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