“The last time I jumped into a pit, things didn’t go so well,” Zeke said, peering over the edge of the pit in question. The hole in the ground was a few hundred feet across, and the lip was lined with jagged, black crystal. Even with his enormous endurance, those sharp shards of glass-like material were capable of cutting through his flesh with ease. He knew that because he’d been forced to cross more than a thousand feet of the stuff. No matter where he stepped, his feet were shredded.
But as he’d done since the beginning of his descent – or really, since he’d begun his journey – he endured, and finally he was on the precipice of reaching the next circle of Hell. According to Eveline, there were seven more, each one representing a specific sin. Unfortunately, she didn’t know the order – in fact, it changed from person to person, according to the legends she’d heard – so Zeke couldn’t mentally prepare for what was coming.
There was a good chance he wouldn’t even recognize the setting for what it was until it was too late. Some could mess with his mind, as the Plains of the Forgotten had. In retrospect, it was obvious that they were meant to represent limbo, but how that knowledge could have helped him, Zeke didn’t know. Regardless, there was no way to prepare for what was coming.
Which made his hesitation illogical.
“At least you recognize it for what it is,” Eveline stated. “It’s fear, Ezekiel. You’re not so divorced from mortality that you can’t feel the same emotions.”
“I’m just uncomfortable not knowing what’s in store.”
“Maybe you don’t recognize it, then. Self-delusion is a powerful thing,” she responded. “Are you going to go? Or should I expect you to continue standing here for the rest of eternity? You wouldn’t be the first.”
Even as she said it, Zeke noticed hundreds of skeletons peppering the field of jagged crystal. Many of the bones had been sliced in two, but some had only been scratched. That suggested that the crystals hadn’t stopped them. Instead, they’d simply given up rather than brave the pit.”
Zeke refused to let his fear – and in his own mind, he could acknowledge it as such – dictate his actions. Or inaction, as it happened. So, he took a deep breath before climbing to the top of the lip. Even as he dragged himself to the peak, his body was shredded, but when he reached the top, he didn’t dare halt his momentum. Instead, he leaped.
His heart jumped into his throat as he fell, and soon, he’d left the subtly glowing crystals far behind. He continued to fall for a few minutes before something slapped against his face. It was cold and wet, but in the utter darkness of the pit, he couldn’t tell what it was.
As he fell, his mind conjured hundreds of horrible things, but he pushed those aside, recognizing that such speculation wasn’t helpful. It hadn’t hurt, so he wouldn’t devote too much energy to trying to identify it.
After a few more minutes, he was being pelted by more and more wetness, but he was more concerned with what he smelled.
“The ocean.”
Zeke had grown up within a couple hours’ drive of the Gulf of Mexico, so he was no stranger to the briny smell of the sea. It immediately made him think of home. It had been years – more than a decade, though he wasn’t sure how much more – since he’d died, but his memories of Earth remained as sharp as ever.
It highlighted just how much he’d almost lost in the Plains of the Forgotten.
After a few more minutes of continued freefall, Zeke saw a pinprick of light far below. It was the first change he’d witnessed since he’d begun his fall, so it was more than noteworthy. Gradually, the source of light drew close, growing larger with every passing second. Still, because of the distances involved, it still took a few minutes before it was large enough for him to see what it illuminated.
Even then, Zeke couldn’t make sense of the grey expanse.
Not until he came significantly closer, at least. Only then did he recognize the roiling sea below him. Grey waves and white foam characterized the seascape, but once he drew within a few hundred feet, Zeke saw that a storm had affected the ocean below.
Then, he was through the gaping hole.
The second he passed the threshold, Zeke was battered by swirling winds and driving rain. He flipped around and saw that there was no evidence of the pit. It was like it was never even there.
But Zeke couldn’t concern himself with where he’d been. Rather, he needed to focus on where he was going.
The storm was more powerful than any storm he’d ever heard of, and it knocked him off course. He was like a leaf in a hurricane being violently thrown in every direction. So, the fall to the ocean took far longer than he ever could have anticipated.
But gravity eventually took hold, sending him plummeting into the ocean. He landed in the trough between two waves, and when he surfaced, he saw that those waves were the height of mountains.
And one was about to crash down on him.
He took a deep breath, then steeled himself for the impact. However, no degree of precautions could have ever prepared him for what was coming. The falling wave hit him harder than he’d ever been hit before. His bones broke, and his organs felt like they were pulverized. He instinctively reached for [Hand of Divinity], and thankfully, the skills that hadn’t been locked away behind Oberon’s cage were once again available to him.
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He shoved divine energy into the skill, and his body responded. Bones mended, and his organs reformed. Yet, he knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet, because there was nothing special about that wave – at least in context of it surroundings. Instead, it was just one of many, and it wouldn’t be long before another slammed down on him.
So, he dove.
It didn’t save him, though. The next wave smashed down with enough force that he felt it even hundreds of feet down. More distressingly, the world beneath the surface was not without dangers of its own.
Never was that more obvious than when something loomed out of the abyssal darkness far below and tried to snatch him with a pair of slimy tentacles. Zeke batted them away, then forced himself toward the surface. The tentacles pursued for a few dozen feet, but the light from above seemed to act as a deterrent, and it halted its pursuit soon after.
The implication was clear – if he strayed too deep, he would need to contend with the creatures of the abyssal depths. But if he surfaced, he would need to endure the battering of the waves.
Zeke knew which one he preferred, so he pushed himself to the surface, only to take another wave to the face. It was no less damaging than anything else he’d been forced to endure, so he forced himself to ignore the pain of having his bones shattered. Instead, he focused on using [Hand of Divinity].
He couldn’t do much more than that, though. There was no chance to get his bearings, and even if there had been, he would have been incapable of guiding his own path through the tempest. Instead, he went where the storm sent him, with his only input being that he prevented himself from going too deep.
The creatures below didn’t like that, and Zeke caught sight of their tentacles writhing in fury every time he arrested his momentum and surged to the surface.
Like that, he continued. It wasn’t torture like he’d experienced in the path, but that didn’t mean it was any less effective in breaking his will. Once, he’d read that back on Earth, being waterboarded was one of the worst experiences one could endure. And what the storm put him through wasn’t so different from that method of torture.
Zeke lost track of time. In fact, he sank within himself so deeply that his body functioned almost entirely on instinct. It was easier that way. If he allowed himself to think – to truly comprehend the pain he was forced to experience – he would have gone mad.
Days passed. Then weeks. It could have been months or years. But for Zeke, there were only three aspects of his existence. Taking the hit from the waves, using [Hand of Divinity], then surfacing in time to take a breath. After that, the cycle repeated itself. Over and over, tens of thousands of times.
Eveline tried to speak to him on more than one occasion, but he couldn’t bring himself to respond. Doing so would break the trance, and returning to that state would have been incredibly taxing. If he let it happen, he wasn’t certain he could survive the torture.
So, he ignored her.
And in response, she retreated into her own corner of his mind. Together and apart, they suffered.
Until, at last, something changed. At first, he didn’t even notice it – only a couple of extra seconds between waves, which allowed him to get two breaths instead of one. But once he recognized what had happened, that small delay between crashing waves was enough to drag him closer to consciousness.
Still, he remained in his trance for days more – until, at last, he could take three breaths between waves. Days more, and that grew to four. Five. Six. Zeke couldn’t make sense of it, but by the time the nadir between waves grew to almost thirty seconds, he dragged himself back to consciousness.
The first thing he felt was the pain.
His body had been battered for longer than he cared to acknowledge. Months, at the very least. Maybe even longer. The first consequence of recognizing that was that he began to wonder about the tower and his companions.
Why hadn’t he visited them before descending into the Pit? He could have. And yet, he’d refused, citing a need for haste. Now, between his experiences in the first circle – as well as the lead-up to it – Zeke had spent years on his descent. And he’d only just begun.
Another wave crashed down on him, and because he hadn’t been prepared for it, he was very nearly sent tumbling too deep. He managed to stop himself just in time to avoid getting caught by a pair of tentacles, but the lesson was clear. He couldn’t afford distractions. Not now.
So, he resurfaced and, in the thirty seconds between waves, he took stock of the situation. What he found was encouraging. He couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that the wind had died ever so slightly. Even the waves didn’t seem quite so towering in stature.
What did it mean, though?
Zeke wasn’t sure, but he decided to look at it as a good omen.
Over the next few weeks, the interval between waves continued to grow. And Zeke came back to himself more and more. With the space to think, he once again took conscious control over his body.
It was still excruciating, being battered by the waves ever so often. However, he managed the pain the same way he always did – via his natural tolerance and sheer determination.
At least until one of the waves slammed him into something solid. That nearly broke him. He’d gone no deeper than at any other point, and yet, he’d hit the seafloor. Using [Hand of Divinity], he barely pieced himself back together in time to get hit again. This time, he was ready for it, though, and he fared a little better.
More importantly, as his mind cleared, he recognized that he’d reached the shore. Or close enough to it that it didn’t matter.
So, he pushed forward, swimming when possible, but mostly just bouncing across the seafloor. And soon enough, he found himself being smashed into a black cliff. At first, he just bounced off before being hit by another wave. But after a few instances of that, he managed to grab hold.
He was still battered by the sea, but his grip was sufficient to keep him in place. Then, he started to climb.
The waves didn’t cease, and they were still the size of skyscrapers, so he was forced to endure one heavy blow after another. Yet, he kept his mind on the task at hand, which was to reach the top of the cliff.
Once again, he lost track of time. More than once, he fell back into the sea and lost more than a little ground. However, that only served to strengthen his resolve, and eventually, he progressed high enough that the waves could no longer reach him. Their spray still filled the air, but without the constant battering, Zeke’s climb was much easier.
He was climbing for another few days before he started to miss the sea. A month later, with sharp winds cutting through him like sword blades, he contemplated just letting go and returning to the trance-like state that had helped him endure so much pain.
He pushed those thoughts aside and continued his climb.
Then, two months later, he finally crested the rise and took in the landscape before him.
It was not an encouraging sight.