Chapter 2

Walking was a comfort. Walking meant the world could support me, the ground was strong, and simply that everything existed. Once, when I was walking through the market, I glimpsed a doorway down an alley. It was carved with swirls and designs, and through it, I glimpsed darkness. The first time I had ever seen it, I had no idea what it was, and bolted past stalls, startling all the shopkeepers. I had never seen it again, until years later, when it was closer, at the end of a street I was walking down, and the darkness seemed to be calling to me. I had walked towards it, and it seemed to be pulling on my arm, trying to get me through. Then someone called my name, and I ran a second time.

Finally, after an even longer period of time, I had spied it again, this time replacing the doorway to someone's home, and that time, I had heeded its unspoken request, and entered the doorway. The darkness seemed warm, welcoming, and I kept walking down a pitch black hallway, and as I did, I felt a weight beginning to pull at my back. I whirled, but there was no one there, and the weight stayed, dragging and slowing my advance into this world of darkness. My eyes eventually seemed pleased to show me things in this world, in the darkness, and I saw that I was in a tunnel of dark brick, stretching so far I could not see the end.

I kept walking, and the world seemed to shrink, the tunnel growing smaller as I continued along, pressing in on either side and down towards my head. It got close enough that I had to turn sideways to fit through. It squeezed so that I had to hold my breath to pass through, and then it opened up into a huge chamber with a waterfall cascading down every side, flowing through tunnels in the middle of the room. From a distance, the water looked completely normal. As I made my way closer through the trees- but they weren't trees. They were made of pure darkness, darkness nothing could pierce, yet they were solid, and I could not pass through them.