To Taste Oblivion, and Drown

[Sorcerio 4599]

Spoiler

 

Please do not post unless it is related to the spirit of the post. I plan on updating the narrative in the future through comments, so avoid cluttering it with unrelated comments.

 

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The brine-bound beasts were relentless as they dragged the man to his watery tomb. Clawing, gnawing, biting, tearing – they carried him off into the abyss. The sunlight had now become a distant vision – an opium dream – as the darkness engulfed his broken body. He could no longer see, but heard rattling; chains in the distant deep, their chime a disconsolate dirge. There were utterances between those eldritch beasts, but none that he could discern, as they garbled to something unseen. Only then did the voice warp into something decipherable:

 

“What has the tide brought me…? Something useful? Something strong?”

 

“Where am I? What has become of me…?” He called from among the rusted chains, which rattled loosely in taunt yet remained ever-binding. 

 

The voice seemed to come from every direction, flitting between different tones:

 

“Safe unto perpetuity. There is purpose in all things, yours is yet spent.”

 

 

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It was dark, ever-so dark beneath the waves. There was no warm embrace, but only the suffocating grasp of the crushing infinite. Flesh to bone, bone to brine, in such a way did he wither in his prison of rusted steel and sodden marrow. His armor, a once-opulent companion that had gazed upon many battles, now had decayed to reveal his clandestine façade: black sinew clung to his skeleton like rotting tarp, and barnacles now festered like tumors across his sullen skin. But even then his spirit did not pass, remaining trapped there far beneath the sea and sky. 

 

He could not move, he could not breathe. He could not die. 

 

The man cried out to the darkness which engulfed him, but to no avail; the silence spoke louder. 

 

Oh, what he would give to die.

 

His body was fettered and chained, fastened unto a great, slick rock of coral and thalassic cysts. He rattled the shackles in desperation, hoping, pleading that by some miracle they would severe their hold. But no; they merely clattered loosely in the deep, mocking the one they bound. 

 

He had tasted oblivion, and he had drowned.

 

Days and nights, stars and moon, all of them passing overhead in their daily procession. But for him, it was an eternity. The waves washed overhead in pelagic jeer, knowing well that he could only imagine what lay above, but never reach it. Sunlight, that deplorable beacon, seemed like a distant memory; its warm touch just beyond his reach. If only he could muster the strength to hold the beams of warmth in his hand, even should it destroy him. But that was a childish thought, he felt the reprimand of the sea bear itself against him like a suffocating weight. What a wretched punishment, inordinate to his crime; to trap him here to forever face slow death, but not its release. Was not his miserable existence punishment enough?

 

He looked out into the hadalpelagic void, desperate for answers – but the water concealed what lay beyond its impenetrable murk. Only the level blanket of dunes could be seen receding into the black horizon. Shadowy beasts called out like peals of thunder in the distance, their song echoing through the depths; some were sad, some were spiteful, and even some remained alone with no one else to join them. He would have reflected upon those lonely songs, had he a heart; but his heart had long-since been drowned. He could only hear, but not yet listen. 

 

Soon, he would begin to listen.