To Become the Myth

The pain in Silas’s chest was a constant, crushing vise, no longer a warning anymore. Every breath was a struggle as he started the long, slow climb out of the mine. His backpack, now empty of concrete but still holding his tools, felt like it was made of lead. The beam of his headlamp was growing yellow and weak.

He didn’t know how long he had walked. The tunnels all looked the same. His map got wet from a drip, and the ink blurred. He was lost. The pain grew sharper, radiating down his left arm. He knew what it was. He had pushed his old, tired heart too far.

He stumbled into a small side chamber and collapsed against the wall. There was no point going further. He was in a dead-end. A fitting place, he thought with a strange calm.

The darkness in the tunnel was absolute. It was the opposite of the Heartwood’s gentle glow. This was the dark of endings.

He thought of the Watcher. He hoped the water was clearing. He hoped the young ones were playing by the mushrooms. He had saved them. That was what mattered. A life of searching, and his final act was to protect what he found. It was a good end.

He took out his journal and his pencil. With trembling fingers, in the total dark, he began to write. He wrote about the lichen. The petroglyphs. The Heartwood Chamber. He described the Watcher’s wise eyes, the glowing garden, the symphony of life. He wrote down everything --- the location of the cave, the meaning of the drawings, the poison from the mine. His words were his final testament. He wrote until the pencil fell from his numb fingers.

The pain was everywhere now, but his mind was clear. He was not afraid of death. He was just very, very tired.

And then, he saw a light.

A soft, blue-green glow, seeping from a crack in the wall of the dead-end chamber. It was the lichen. It grew here, too. This mine tunnel must be close to the cave system. Very close.

As he watched, the crack seemed to grow. A few small stones clattered down. Then a few more. And then, with a soft sigh of earth and stone, part of the wall crumbled away.

On the other side was a tunnel he knew. It was the steep, upper tunnel that led down to the Heartwood. The lichen was bright here.

And standing in the tunnel, framed by the living light, was the Grey Watcher.

It had come. It had heard the echoes of his hammer, or sensed the poison stop, or perhaps just known. It stood there, looking at him. Its dark eyes held no judgment, only a deep, ancient understanding.

Silas smiled. A true, peaceful smile. He had not died alone in the dark. He was being witnessed.

The Watcher stepped into the chamber. It moved silently. It knelt beside him, its head tilting. It made that low, humming sound, but this time it was soft. A lullaby.

With great effort, Silas lifted his hand. The Watcher looked at it, then slowly, gently, lowered its massive, furry head. Silas’s trembling fingers touched the soft fur between its eyes. It was the softest thing he had ever felt.

The two young Watchers appeared in the tunnel opening, peering in with curious eyes. The family was together.

In the soft, dying light, a final, peaceful thought crystallized: The Watcher watched him watching the Watcher. He laughed for the last time. 

Silas’s breath grew slower. The pain began to fade, replaced by a spreading warmth. For Silas, He was not in a cold mine anymore. He was back in the Heartwood, surrounded by green light and the smell of growing things. He was part of the symphony now. Not an observer, but a note in the song.

With his last bit of strength, he gathered his journal and pushed it, along with his pencil, through the new opening into the clean tunnel. Someone worthy might find it one day. Someone who would understand.

The Watcher watched him, its eyes holding his until the very end. Silas Morrow’s last sight was of beautiful, glowing life. His last feeling was of a gentle touch.

He was gone.

The Watcher stayed with him for a long time. Then, with infinite care, it used its long fingers to pull more stones from the broken wall, covering Silas’s body in a gentle cairn of rock. It was a burial, a sealing. It placed a piece of the brightest, healthiest lichen on top of the stones, where it glowed softly.

Then, it picked up the journal and the pencil. It carried them down, deep into the Heartwood, to the place by the stream where it rested. It placed the journal inside a dry, hollow log --- a safe place. A library for the future.

The poison had stopped. The clean water flowed again. The lichen’s light grew stronger. The young ones played. The symphony continued, its newest and most silent note a man who had given everything to hear the music.

On the surface, Silas Morrow was listed as a missing person. Then, a tragic death in the old mines. A foolish old man chasing fairy tales.

But deep in the stone and the silence and the living light, he was not foolish. He was not lost. He was the guardian. He had become part of the myth. And in the soft glow of the cairn of stones, his story was remembered forever. 


                                                                                                                           Where the Grey Light Grows
                                                                                                                                               By Epti