ʋαȶ אש ʋɛʅשȶɦɛʅ?

[The King Of The Moon 5123]

A silver disc hung reflected in the pond, though when he looked up he found no moon in the sky. The man drew closer, leaning over the water's otherwise onyx surface. It was placid, though he knew beneath it lay be oblivion. Mud squelched underhand and he took note that here he still had both arms. In his own reflection, he also saw both eyes that he assumed were once his. 

 

"Helun-Velulaeya, vat yx laht?" He begged the pool. "I am afraid." he confessed thereafter, yet it won him no sympathy. No answer came from the waters. The man shuddered in desperate misery, and began to weep.

 

Each tear drew ripples across the once tranquil sheet of water. Then ripples became splashes. Splashes became waves. The pond swelled and churned, vomiting its inky depths out over the trench it once belonged to and flooding out past his ankles, knees, waist and onward.

 

"Velulaeyael kee!"

 

A voice that was not his own screamed. A man's, or a woman's? A mortal or a god? The tempest continued to boil up around him, finally claiming his head as he hung submerged. There were other figures, struggling in this flood; a woman whose shape he knew well and an infant that looked like him. He could not save them. Desperately the man struggled and writhed, trying to outpace the rising ocean which consumed them, though he found himself ensnared. The roots of a great tree clung about his legs, anchoring him underwater. Wide eyes beheld names etched across each bramble - ӄɛչשαɦ, ɮαשðɛ, ʊʅðℜשʋȶ, ʂɮℜαȶ - and from them more thorns pierced his shins - ʊʅʅռ, ʋɛʅשռαℜ, שʅαℜשα, չɦשoռɛ - and his vision began to darken around them. He drowned.

 

He could not save himself.

 

Darkness consumed him and he awoke, but no light took its place. Was he still dreaming? Where was he, even? He lay, perplexed, as sweat beaded upon his brow and tears streamed down his cheeks. He could not trust reality itself anymore; he was a consciousness, a voice and ears to hear other voices. The rest was up to strangers to depict for him. One lie could guide him off a cliff, or into the sea. "Helun-Velulaeya," he sobbed aloud, unaware yet uncaring of who heard him. The steel claw where his hand ought to have been scratched at the dry soil beneath him, tracing a pattern that had now become his gospel: ʋαȶ אש ʋɛʅשȶɦɛʅ?