Something wasn’t right. Arkon had been through these caves before. He recognized their subtle defining markers, though many moons had passed since his last exploration of theses particular caverns. Still something was strange. Different. It nagged at his mind as an itch crawls beneath your flesh. Cartographers never forget a place they have visited before, and Akron was the highest ranked Cartographer among his people. Still, he could not shake the feeling that he was exploring this system of twists and turns, and not simply returning to them. That uncertainty made him uneasy, sending a wave of discomfort sliding down his spinal cord.
Was the world changing that much? Recently his home world of Zendikar had began to behave in strange new ways. With each day it was becoming more hostile than it had ever been before, something many would have thought to be impossible. These changes were usually rather small in scale. A copse of trees forming together and striking back at would be lumberjacks. A mountain peak crumbling under the weight of a newly formed gravity well, its remnants spinning slowly in the air above its roots as a testament to its past existence. This; however, would be the first time an entire system of caves shifted out of place. The strain of it all seemed incomprehensible yet Arkon soldiered on, as was the way of his people, to uncover more information that might bring to light a reason for the changes he was experiencing. Reaching into his pack Arkon pulled out his safety ropes, eye-anchors, and a roll of vellum as he began a slow solo trek into the now unknown, charting a new cartograph of the coiling caverns.
Arkon moved forward, slowly threading a ropeway to follow a steady decline deep into the heart of the world. Tens of thousands of pounds of stone bearing down on him, Arkon continued on unhindered. His people were used to traveling long stretches beneath the surface, and the distance of stone above him was not unsettling.
Arkon was threading the hook of a freshly set anchor when without warning he felt it. The unmistakable feeling he was being watched. As quickly as the feeling came it was gone, yet the uneasiness in his nerves remained. Then he heard it.
thrum……...thrum……...thrum………
Arkon stopped, pulled out his grappling hook, and tried to pinpoint the source.
thrum……...thrum……...thrum………
The sound was constant all around him permeating the very stone--a rhythmic pounding within the center of his chest. Most unsettling to Arkon was the distance at which the sound seemed to be emanating from. So buried, so impressively remote, and yet to Akron it felt as though it was also within him pulsing like a second heart. Continuing deeper into the black abyss of the caverns before him, Arkon followed the sound. With each step the pounding in his chest increased almost in concert with the steadily increasing rhythm of the stone
thrum…...thrum…...thrum……
Arkon moved with no concept of his time within the caves. With no way to tell whether the world was experiencing day or night he felt alienated from the surface above. Was it even above? Yes, it had to be, otherwise his feet would not be supported by the cold stone beneath them as he walked. It was at that moment Arkon realized that he had abandoned his rope. He was no longer slowly charting a route along the walls of the cavern, setting eye-anchors in the calcified walls to support his weight. He had no idea when or where he had stopped charting his path, or where the roll of vellum may now be lying on the cavern floor behind him. This level of recklessness was unheard of among his race. How could he have been so careless? Suddenly Arkon looked up. The rhythm had stopped. The stone was silent. He was alone.
Arkon put his back to the wall of the cavern and slumped to the stone floor. Embarrassed at thought of the predicament he had allowed himself to get into, he began going over the supplies remaining in his pack in order to formulate his best plan of action to return to his homeworld above the stone.
thrum…thrum...thrum…
The sound! The pulsing rhythm of the stone was back. Was he running now? Arkon did not care. He wanted, no, needed to find the source of the incessant throbbing beneath him which seemed penetrate his soul. He ran at a sprint into the dark unknown of the caves ahead following the pounding within the walls. As he rounded a sharp twist in the coiling cavern, the black abyss was interrupted by a soft permeating light emanating from a chasm in the stone floor. Advancing slowly, Arkon felt the relentless beating of the rhythm pounding faster and louder with each step.
THRUM.. THRUM.. THRUM..
As he peered over the edge of the chasm, he first saw nothing but a distant light. The pounding had become too intense to bear, moving up his spine from his chest and into the deep recess of his brain. He understood it. The sound was not a rhythm, not a beating or a pulse. It was a call.
COME. COME. COME.
Without sense of self preservation Arkon flung himself into the chasm. Arms outstretched as if to embrace the abyss, he fell.
COME! COME! COME!
Arkon speed toward the call. The stale air forced itself into his mouth and nostrils with a force that prevented breath. The sudden changes in pressure caused his eardrums to burst under the excessive force. Falling into the bottomless expanse of light and smoke, he thought the pit may be bottomless, leaving him to fall until starvation stopped his heart. The winds whipping past his face slowly began to fade, his hair no longer pulled back but floating around his head. He was no longer falling, but suspended within the light and mist. Suddenly there was an increase in brightness as a multitude of colors began swirling around him. At first it was a blur; but then forms, all infinitely unimaginable, removed themselves from the chaos of his surroundings. The twisting horror defied all Arkon had ever known. All he would ever come to know. It glided forward through the mist reaching out assaulting his mind. With a breath it suggested, demanded, pleaded, insisted images of horror, destruction, and awe. Arkon’s thoughts unraveled before the entity as it relentlessly forced its way into the recess of his fractured mind.
His will splintered, his mind shattered, his spark ignited.
Arkon awoke on a new plane, in a new world, with a new purpose. His mind sufficiently shattered by his encounter, Arkon felt awakened with newfound purpose. Cartographing Caves seemed so menial, so pointless it was...Madness. Others must be enlightened to the notion of their madness, the single certainty of their existence. His mission would be to share with them his experience, that at the heart of it all lies one ultimate truth.
CHAOS...beautiful chaos...
No comments:
Post a Comment