I walked over the bodies while shining my light ahead. I came to the wooden dock and looked at the man-thing standing there in its cloak. It stood next to its wagon and as I careened myself up and onto the ancient wood, he revealed his face with those horrible hooks protruding through his cheeks, maintaining his forever smile.

He asked me, "Hungry?" as he motioned to his little wagon of retch worthy gore. Was he pulling the bodies out of the black water and butchering them? Whoever he was distributing these goods to, I haven't the faintest idea. I could not fathom the sorts of things that could feast upon that. As I looked at his face, I didn't feel that same surreal horror I had upon first encounter. His face muscles twitched and as I looked into his eyeless sockets, I realized they weren't menacing, but rather sad.

I moved to his wagon of goods and pressed my shoe against its side, pushing the thing into the river below with one swift shove. "No!" he screamed painfully. He grabbed at his face. "Why would you do that?"

I shrugged at him and walked along the dock as the creature-man attempted to fish out his cart that was now wedged between those faceless victims below. I was a man in a dream, moving through the world with no thoughts beyond Alice. There was little more that this place could do to me. It could set me ablaze, tear me asunder, slurp my brain out and replace it with mush. I couldn't care.

There were buildings there, structures made of rusted metal or waterlogged wood, starting off with small huts, but as I moved among them, it became something of a proper city; for a brief moment I was struck with the thought that this was where all things ‘living’ dwelled there. The air was damp and stank of death. There were muscly pylons jutting from poles that dotted the stone walkways. Running between each of the pylons were millions of wet fibrous tissues. It was as though I was standing inside of a neural network. I saw from the dirt caked windows of some of these craggy buildings that there were eyes peering out at me. They glowed yellow and the tenants hissed from within as I passed by.

"Scary. Isn't it? I wouldn't blame you if you turned around." said the disembodied voice that followed me. It no longer made me jump when it decided to make its presence known.

I ignored it and continued to walk along the stone roadway I found myself on. Up ahead, I noticed that the fibrous tissues overhead slacked in places and lit up areas like streetlights. I clicked off my flashlight. As I continued to move through the city, the damp air grew thicker and felt as though it was literally coating my lungs in some thick substance. My pace quickened.

"Stop!" shouted the voice in my ears.

It took on that same echoing quality, rattling inside of my head. I stopped.

"What?" I asked to the open air in front of me.

A light opened to my left and I turned to face it. I was standing directly in front of an open alleyway in between two tall broad buildings. The structures on either side were made of bright red stone. The fibrous tissues from above took on a mind of their own and began worming their way through the alleyway, lighting the way in strange, blipping flickers. Hesitantly, I turned to look back the direction I’d been walking, seeing the stone walkway change and move, swell and relax.

The ground was breathing again.

I looked back to the alleyway and saw that the tissues snaking their way down the alley were meeting something solid at the other end and curling in on themselves. I sighed and took a few heavy steps down the dimly lit alley, making sure to watch my footing to not step on any of the things lighting my way.

It felt like the walls on either side of me might swallow me up at any moment but still I pushed on and found the ends of the fibers curling around the edges of the first step of a dilapidated wooden staircase without any handrails. I looked up the stairs and saw they ascended towards the black sky. I took to the stairs, two at a time. It took no time at all before I came upon a door. But it wasn't just any door. This one was familiar to me. I turned to look back down the stairs. A sickening realization came over me. The stairs seemed to spiral downward forever. I was well above the ancient city and could see its awkward layout from my aerial viewpoint. Immediately I was struck with an intense vertigo. My whole body seemed to tilt, and I was forced down on my hands and knees, clinging to the top few steps.

There was absolutely no way I'd gone up these stairs; I’d only taken maybe fifteen or twenty steps. It was another trick. I gripped the edges of the steps beneath me with white knuckled hands, digging into the wood with my nails.

The city was nearly beautiful from way upon high. It had an organic quality to it that no human could ever hope to achieve. The stone walkways looked much less menacing when you could see them bathed in the lights of the fibrous fleshy ropes that ran along the pylons from above. The lights traveled along the ropey things like synapses snapping to life and running along from point to point. I took in the city and attempted to control my breathing.

After a few moments of deep gasping and wiping away my cold sweat, I was able to steel my nerves and twist around to look at the door. I focused on the knob and the rest of the world fell away. I charged at the door, twisted the doorknob, and swung it inward.

I stood in my wife's home office once again. It was nighttime and everything was dark. All her paintings and writings were there. I thought that maybe the place was twisting my mind again, but those articles stood as evidence to suggest that this really was the really real world.

I turned to look back into the closet and saw that there was still a cosmic city there, staircase, and all.

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"Go and don't come back." said the disembodied voice.

I knew that if I shut the door, showered, and chocked it all up to bad dreams, that that place would disappear forever. I don't know how I could have known something like that, but I knew it.

I looked back down at the place where my pinky had been. The absence would always be there. That land may disappear, but it would be an impossibility to forget.

"I'm coming." I said, pushing back through the doorway, into the cosmic city.

I slammed the door behind me without glancing back and staggered down those towering stairs in weak and shaky legged motions, sure that I would fall away into the open air with each step.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and exited the alley, moving onto the stone street as it breathed beneath me. My feet pounded under me relentlessly without my body knowing I was sprinting. I moved through the city, not sure where I was going but knowing that I was getting closer to the epicenter. The air was thick again. The humidity forced the hair on my head to cling to the back of my neck and made the baseball bat slick in my hands, but still I pushed on.

Before I knew it, the buildings disappeared; instead, there were massive rock formations and open holes in the stone floor that undoubtedly fell away into the center of the earth. I moved towards one of the jagged holes and it swallowed all light that met it. Before peeking my head over the edge, a massive cloud of gaseous liquid sprayed forth from it and I felt the stone beneath my feet move. That would explain the breathing floors, I imagined. Small aquatic creatures with mandibles and spindly limbs skittered underfoot as I moved through the weaving formations of large stone. One creature the size of a dog stopped, looked up at me, let out a screech that seemed to emanate from the two holes in its head where its eyes should have been then scurried away in a centipede fashion, clacking in its pointed exoskeleton.

I shuddered.

Up ahead it became apparent that the rocks formed circular formations around some startling blue light that shot from the center of them like a magnificent beacon. I wiped the moisture from my face with my wet shirt and moved on, shifting over the water-smoothed stones until I came upon an arrangement that formed a perfect circle round the blue beacon. I moved around the thing entirely, expecting all the while to find an opening, I could walk through, but there wasn’t one to be found.

I clamored over the slippery rocks, moving steadily but also losing my feet with every other shift. Without knowing where to put my hand during one of my reaches upward, I slipped and knocked my chin against the rock in front of me. I saw white and heard my aluminum baseball bat ring as it struck the ground beneath me and rolled away into the darkness. Briefly I wondered whether I should go back for it, but ultimately decided against it as my muscles screamed at me to keep going.

I pulled myself over the top of the rocks and lost my grip, sliding down the other side into a glowing blue ring and scraping up my hands and knees. At the center of this circle of rocks was a pillar of glowing blue light that shot right up into the endless ceiling of the subterranean lair.

I moved like a caveman approaching the first fire, reaching my hand out to touch the pillar of blue light. My rational side took to the forefront and I jerked my hand away, examining the pillar of light. It- it was water. It was a perfect pillar of calm bright water with no container to speak of. I circled the thing and could feel mist coming off it.

There was a form in the center of the strange body of water, levitating yards off the ground. It was humanoid. I circumvented the pillar until I could see its face.

It was her.

Her hair floated out like symmetrical angel wings on either side of her head. Her skin glowed and I had no other option than to believe that beautiful light came from her. Her eyes were closed. Her body was static in the still water, almost peaceful.

Without thinking, I pushed my hand into the water.

She screamed and her eyes shot open and all went dark. I was in pitch black nothing with my hand stuck inside of the water that was rushing around like mad. It splashed my face and felt like a storm.

I pushed my whole self into the water and swam through empty black open space. My being was carried away in the rush of the current, whipped around and tossed all about. At some point I slipped out of my pack as I was passed around from spot to spot like a rag doll in a washing machine.

Frantically I reached out with both of my hands, daring to cling at any unknown thing I could. I felt a body slam into me, knocking the air out of my lungs. I forcibly gasped through the water and could feel it filling me. I grabbed the form. It thrashed and fought and clawed against me. I could feel its wild hair whipping around in slow motion.

I hugged it.

I hugged her.

She continued to struggle in my arms, throwing slow fists at me. I could feel our bodies sinking in the water as I could feel my consciousness leave me. It was a slow coming dream. Comfortable. Drowning was sublime, welcoming. We went limp and sank like anchors together in the cold water.

My brain went black.

I could feel her go still in my arms.

Up above, I could see a pinhole of light.

I kicked. I clamped onto her and god I kicked. I struggled against the jostling, angry water, pushing myself up towards that small hopeful light. I wrapped a single arm around her waist and began clawing at the black water around me with one hand while thrashing my feet. Was this some illusion? Was this the thing I see the moment before I succumb to this watery death? A bright swelling light as my brain is deprived of oxygen. Then my lungs will burst like popping bladders. Is this it? Do I die like this?

We flew through the light and into the day. I was no longer holding onto Alice. I was on a hardwood floor and my vision was blurry. I hear coughing and as I retch up brackish water onto the floor, I realize that it is me. Every heave is a pinch in the chest as my shallow breaths pain through every inhale. I cough and gag and fall into a pile of my own vomit and water.

My body collapses and I roll onto my side to see the woman I'd pulled with me out of the water. There she is, on her side, gagging up great big bouts of water. I scooch across the hardwood floor of my wife's home office and pat her hard on the back, forcing up more water.

We were alive.

She was alive. I'd saved her.

Alice fell onto her side and we held one another.

She stared at me with those water-green eyes and said, "We can lay here together forever."

"Yeah'. Forever." I smiled the biggest, dumbest grin.

Forever