Soon I was possessed, too. The others as well. We followed some of the new elders about, the ones we were comfortable with. They didn't speak much. Not that they did much before, either. Today was an unsettling mix of non-descript chores and dichotomous breaks at seemingly regular intervals where... we could talk then? Who made this place? I knew I couldn't ask those kinds of questions. We all knew, even Zax. I tugged at Xertain's frock, "when do we eat?" I touched a pinch fist to my lips, gathering charm between my eyebrows.

The rocks caressed our toes, radiating. The sun had drooped. Some of the elders had slowed. It wasn't normally this hot for the passage. I remember when my pop's pop, Verull, left. We were still in the thaw. I asked him so many questions, we all had a vision of this far off place. I thought it was all upside down, like the trees grew from the sky and we could walk with the clouds. And we would all float to sleep in the steady cradle of the forest above. Verull didn't have many answers for me, besides basically saying no to all my dreams with a belly laugh. There was one thing that he didn't laugh about, when I asked why he could come back. Something practiced appeared on his lips after one of those twitches that rips at your jaw, begging to be let out. He paused too long between the twitch and his response.

More stories. I should have known. You aren’t allowed to bring truth back from the other-side.

We made our eyes our enemy, built a world of flashes. Our organs are epileptic now. They say the surface area of the brain is what gifts us higher thinking: sulci and gyri, the folds and creases. We stopped exploring those grooves, stopped unfolding the mysteries of ourselves. It's easy, you know, to become engrossed in someone else's drama than to explore how deeply inadequate you, yourself, are. And I don't blame you. I can hardly look at myself without a curdle in my gut, for all the promises failed to myself. Even of the things I have done: I cannot look at the past, what it has accumulated to, and not feel the heat of embarrassment, the trickle of moisture down a cold spine. But the day comes that we tire of the sickness, tire of living the same trauma by hiding from it, and face how weak we truly are. It wasn't the past self that couldn't manage, they were busy surviving. It's the now self that refuses to acknowledge that today is our last chance. The future cannot change, it can only forgive.

Despite reliving my waking nightmare every night, there was a peace beyond the fear. The crisp air pretended to whisper freshness, and the stars danced a calm melody into our march. We, like most of the pilgrims, believed there was a place to go. The truth of that didn't matter to me. I had to believe in something. It wasn't too reassuring that everyone described it differently, that the thirsty preached of cool waterfalls, the hungry of cornucopia. The broken, they mostly followed. Yet no matter how feeble, everyone had a special wish to cast. I began taking down the wishes on pages between withered leather. Some nights I wished I could draw it, could craft an image for others to hope upon. I tried to, dig for lines in my mind. My imagination fizzled too. Everything was blurry at night.