Remembrance In Ruin

Disease spread swiftly when it was introduced to vulnerable bodies. Weakened hearts and immunities made tired flesh ripe for decay, and now, a few hours after their fight, as they moved quickly through the chalk-white forest, Wretch felt her throat begin to burn. At first she lied to herself and told her mind that it was just raw from screaming. Since there was nothing to be done about it at that moment, she hid the details from the others and hoped that no other symptoms of rot would arise.

He led them into the mountain, hoping that the forgotten paths of stone laid before time would offer guidance to a remotely clean pool. If it was partially running, that would be enough. The rest could be resolved by him.

Further and further they went, moving once more in silence to keep a watchful ear up towards any other treachery or monstrosity. But the caverns stood silent and isolated, filled with nothing but softly crying winds that snaked between cracks and moss that grew without purpose in the damp stagnation.

“Listen for droplets, or streams,” he said to them.

“I know,” Wretch replied coldly.

Short, quick exhales from his nose told her he was laughing softly.

“Sorry. Of course you do.”

His voice had returned to its gentler, heavier tone, and the glowing of his hands and eyes had gone white once more. Still, Wretch found herself intimidated by him, as well as other perplexing feelings she could not quite refine. In the most animalistic, basic parts of her, she found herself calmed by the brutality she’d witnessed. Being in his hand and hearing his words spoken to her felt like nothing but safety. If that beast of cruelty was lurking below his surface, he did a well enough job at keeping it from rising towards her and her sister.

Burden scratched her fur with frustration, struggling under the dried cake of filth that was now hardening into a stiffened top layer that crusted and cracked with every subtle movement. She hated all of this. Life had been nothing but suffering and cold, and she wished every morning to find some form of escape. Her older sister told her that there was no escape. Dying naturally led to being a wanderer who would linger on for a few more months before ultimately fading. Feeling joy or being killed by another wanderer would turn one eternal and crystal, forever cursed to limp through the abyss. If there was any form of new life after death, she hoped it was far from this place and far from this dark sky.

She wanted to reach out for her older sister for comfort, but her older sister forbade such things. To know comfort was to be too close to joy. So they sat in unpleasantness every day, beside one another yet forever alone.

Still, he was gentle to her. To them.

She liked how his hand shined in the dark.

And she was grateful that he had kept them alive. That was not the way she’d wanted to die. Only her sister’s plan appealed to her. His acts had kept them in this world for at least one more day of trying to reach that distant place where her sister said they could finally rest.

Wounds along his face, chest, and other arm told her that he was in great pain. Skin was peeled back, charred at its edges from the dragon fire and still burning blue, as though it had not fully extinguished. Never-ending shakes in his hand hinted at ongoing agony he was doing his best to mask.

“Thank you…” Burden whispered.

“Hmm?” Sol asked.

“Thank you for saving us,” she added.

Wretch started to speak, then stopped herself and nodded.

“T…thank you,” she agreed.

“I won’t be distracted again. It was my fault,” Sol replied.

“It was,” Wretch said in a flat tone that he could not identify as vindictive or neutral.

Not long after, they reached an expansive chasm that was deep and tall enough to be consumed by pure darkness in both vertical ranges. Raw stone made way for polished tile beneath their feet, telling them the path was now intentional. After measuring their odds, Sol decided to continue that direction.

Burden looked up in silence and watched the total darkness peer back at her, hypnotic, full of mystery and timeless stories she would never know. She wondered if it could see her as well, and if it could, what it thought when it did. She wondered if, when the day came and everyone was gone, would the darkness still be there, or would it vanish as well once none were left to notice. Her throat scratched, and a heating gnaw bit at her ears.

Slowly, more and more signs of creation began to drift from the abyss to welcome them. Square obelisks angled imperfectly from the ground to the unseen realm above. Wretch leaned closer to marvel at one and its simple imperfection. Chunks were sporadically missing and scraped lines covered every surface, as though the pillars were made from the time before them, when the ancient fire carriers of the first worlds built without tools. Nails and palms and rocks chipped away for months and years, steadily reducing organic surfaces into makeshift architecture, and for a thousand years, that had been enough.

Wherever they were, its subterranean halls were made long ago.

They reached a wall of glossy black, and Sol’s faint radiance danced palely along the soft sloping ridges before catching in the spirals of gypsum flowers that bloomed outward in uncontrolled undulations. Not far away, a large opening revealed itself. More decorations lined the edges, creating a makeshift doorway of immense size that even Sol’s stature could fit through with ease.

Something began to well inside of his chest, carefully and slowly, like a vase being filled drop by drop. It was not invasive or concerning, merely there for him to note. Chaotic, broken images burned and flickered in his thoughts, telling him stories he could not decipher but using a language he found familiar.

He saw a vision of himself wandering this place before, alone and bright, not mutilated or bent. He heard the cries. He heard the weeps, but they had not made him afraid.

“I-I-I I have been here before. In a dream of my spirit, or in ages long past,” Sol muttered to himself as they moved through the doorway and into a long hall.

The smooth stone gave way to flowstones of unnatural structure. In nature, they were wide and round at the top, before tapering into pointed spears. These started narrow and bulbed at their ends, terminating round and heavy as they layered upon themselves innumerably. As they walked by, several new streaks poured down and hardened. Burden reached out to touch one but her sister stopped her. When she paused, they both heard cries in their minds that sounded like the other’s voice.

“The rocks look like teardrops,” Burden said.

“What is this place?” Wretch cautiously asked.

Sol could not answer. All he knew was that something primordial was pulling him forward, as though he was returning to a place that was once important to him.

The hallway ended, and they found their destination. Burden did her best to restrain the gasp, but it escaped nonetheless. Before them, a haunting, ancient den of worship stood empty yet alive.

Dozens more square black columns lined the edges, with simple sculptures of beings weeping along their bases. Roughly carved visages of prayerful solemnity all stood statuesque as they held their hands up in sorrow. Then they saw the pool and channels, and Sol sighed in relief.

At the center of the darkened chamber was a single, enormous bust of a woman weeping. Her cheeks were plain and round like a hume or elf, but her head was furred and adorned with antlers that bent outward and turned to hands that held chains in their palms. The expression on her face was somber and tired, and both of her eyes were lined with crystal white flows of water that fell in steady, silent currents into the pool at its base. Veins cut from the rectangular reservoir and trenched across the room in angles of purpose.

There was a pensive heaviness to this place, but it felt safe.

Wretch tried not to focus on the fact that her throat was now screaming and each tensing swallow of saliva felt like it was pulling a dagger down. She hoped a bath and mouth rinse would help.

Beside her, Burden found herself kicking at her ear with her healthy leg, trying to pull the aggravation of remnant invasion from the fleshy grooves that fed into her skull.

“Are you okay?” Wretch asked quietly as Sol lowered them to the ground.

“I don’t feel good,” Burden admitted.

Faint pangs of dread built in Wretch’s chest as she looked at the drooping rigidity of her sister’s usually springy ears. To his credit, Sol immediately moved to the pool and inhaled.

It smelled clean and purified, like the ritual waters of old.

“This place was a temple…” he realized.

“For who?” Wretch asked.

Sol scanned the room, settling his focus on the face of the weeping woman. He felt like he knew the answer. As much as his broken psyche was resisting recalling the old days, he wanted to remember.

More images cracked and fell through his recollections.

Her eyes were always sad, yet set.

She looked at him with gentle longing but he never returned the feeling.

Meak, frail bones carried crushing weight.

When she walked, flowers bloomed behind her, but none found them beautiful.

Deep in the darkness, he heard her cry.

When he turned, a faint blue light flickered to life within a soul stone.

“Little ones. Come to me,” Sol said in a low voice as he held out his hand.

Wretch couldn’t stop the sigh of exhaustion as tears threatened to rise. Fever was starting to make her sweat. Burden could not stand up straight. Still, they moved to his hand, bracing for more running, or worse, fighting.

The cries rose, and now they could hear them.

It wasn’t a single weeping voice. Instead, it was hundreds, all layering over one another in a tragic harmony that was peaceful and horrific.

Sol shook his head as the melody of lamentation scratched deep into his memory.

“I know you. I know you.”

“You do,” the gentle voice replied from the dark, causing Burden to flinch in fear.

Wretch heard more cries moving to clarity, and she recognized the sounds of her mother and father’s voices. But that was impossible. They were gone, and she’d never heard them weep like that. Still, they were there in the air, wailing along with so many others as the ancient hums of somber songstresses beckoned the deity of the temple forth.

“Y-You are not dangerous,” Sol whispered.

“No. But all still wish to never know me,” she replied with an echoing, hollowed sigh of acceptance.

Diluted blue light gave definition to her as she neared, and Sol saw that she was the woman from the statue.

She was similar in size to him, with bone white skin covered in ashen robes that held mourning banners at their ends. Her antlers were still made of hands that strained to hold the massive chains, which dragged the cage she herself was confined within. Amateur attempts at makeup lay smeared across her mousy face, as though she had attempted to make herself more approachable but did not know how. Her lips parted but her gaze stayed low.

“I was your womb mate; your sister born to be your opposite yet forever your companion. I loved you and longed for you to come and rid me of myself. I wept for a lifetime then thrice more when I thought you were dead. But here you are, my… my beloved brother.”

Sol tensed as the torrent of memories slammed against him in waves. She had been the one who knew him the longest. Made together in the womb of souls, meant to walk hand in hand, but he had fled her frail embrace. Just like everyone else, he had not desired to sit with her. To do so was to feel the heaviness of existence when it felt too hard to persevere.

Both of the little ones leaned forward in captivation as the lonely being finally reached them.

“I was the bereaved mother weeping at the grave of a child gone too soon. I was the mournful notes of songstresses when one of their own left this realm. I was the weight of loss pressing on nervous shoulders. The only warrior left alive after a slaughter. The failure of a bad harvest. Sorrow and misery were my ways. For, I am-”

“My sister…” Sol softly replied.

Fidgeting muscles fought to turn to a smile, and her head slowly lifted. Raw lines of tears carved through the makeup, burned away by the incessant tears that continued to run down her face. They met eyes, and Sol found himself crying in shame as memories from before the fall and the moment of his failure drowned him.

“Grief,” Sol choked.