Town Like Still Water (Nanowrimo 2021)

Chapter Fourteen: A Town That Festers With Growing Things

For once, the mind is not split. He understands what I must do. I understand what he must do.

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There's something in the center of the chamber. A great hulking figure, sitting unmoving in the blackness. My light doesn't quite reach it, but I can feel it, just faintly see it's outline. I don't think it's alive. If it was alive, it would be moving, it would notice me... but more than that, I think I would feel it. I don't feel like there's anything else living down here. I am completely alone.

I approach the figure. It's definitely not alive, because it's made of stone. A huge statue, of a man sitting cross legged on the cave floor, staring vacantly into the blackness around it. Maybe it's just the memory of my dream seeping back, but from the right angle, it does look a bit like Gabe.

Everything is awake. The decay that runs rampant can see me in this place. Understands that I am at the heart of history. Poised, and ready to destroy its core. Every face, every corrupted element. They don't want me here. They are angry. They are coming.

Torn out of the framework of the husks that host them, they are hurtling through the tunnels. Their mass is twisting, becoming a singular. The Rot will be here soon, and all of its maggots are only fuel to its ever burning fire.

I sit at the base of the statue that isn't Gabe. The echo of every little thing bounces around the room before it reaches my ears, distilled by the vastness of the air around it. I can hear every little bug crawling, every little drop of water. It would actually be kind of nice under any other context. But right now, I just hate it. Every time a little sound goes off, it sounds like it could be anywhere, any size. That worm thirty feet away could be a creature right beside my head. That little rock moving sound could be KJ, stuck in a tunnel somewhere, lost forever.

Something feels very wrong about this place. Like it doesn't fit with the rest of the town. It's old. Not ancient, not a lost civilization. But certainly older than anything in Bentley'sburg. Older than the lighthouse. I remember wondering all those times, why the lighthouse was ever built. There were never any ships on that lake. Nobody alive could remember it ever casting any light from it. Maybe that's because there was too much darkness underneath for light to even show.

Once, a fragile body would continue to deteriorate due to what was within. Twice, a pale reflection would never see itself as more, never begin to covet. Three times, an heir would learn the meaning of the past and the dark by embracing them with reluctant arms.

Shadows would move behind bright smiles, Emptiness would spread like a putrefaction from location to location. Snow would wither to dust, ice would freeze time in place, and memory would become nothing but a memory, practiced only by those who forget.

Now none of these things will happen. Because I am going to end it. Because the source of all suffering is hurtling towards me, and I await it eagerly with open and bladed self.

The candle has gone out. I don't understand how it was even lit in the first place. I guess someone must have been down here, relatively recently. I can't say I much like that thought. For all I know they could still be down here. Any of those distant but oh so close noises could be the owner of that candle, creeping up on me.

My light doesn't reach any of the walls either, not from the center here. I can't see all the holes anymore. God knows what could be coming through them. It's just me and the statue in the void. I hate it here.

There must be something I'm supposed be doing, right? I should have asked KJ more clearly, it's only happened to me twice and both times I had no idea what I was doing. Maybe I should have accepted that uranium pill. Who cares about longevity, let the angel go haywire. It would probably know what the hell it's doing better than I would.