Follow that twisted cord down. Where the walls of the pit trace familiar shapes: wide streets; a vast oasis, ringed by crops; single-storey buildings, roughly-hewed and grainy; the smudged faces of the people moving through it all. Witness them fall skywards, shuffling with painful slowness into a darkness that obscures everything but the faintest suggestion of laughter. Feel the walls grow coarse and red; the shapes in them lined and blurred as if seen through a riotous storm. They, too, fall away.

Inch-by-inch, the walls begin to strangle the space between them. As if it’s a co-conspirator, the rope’s verdant sinews transition to crimson cordage. Further downwards, they become slimy; difficult to grip. The long thorns that soon sprout from them are a blessing and a curse. With them, it’s easy to hang on for just a little longer. Just a little further.

From below emerges a hound’s braying. The tap-tap of paws dancing repeatedly in a circle. A subtle grunt hissing through teeth of ivory. The strain of wood and flesh.

At the end of the rope hangs its shadow; a sculpture of bark and blackened flesh, embellished with ivory scrimshaw. Pock-marks scatter its visage, penetrating through its outer layer to reveal the derelict space within. The greatest concentration of them hangs beneath it: buried in two withered legs shedding pieces of themselves, mark after mark, moment after moment. Those discarded flakes of bark drift for a few seconds before settling at the hole’s bottom, a few steps beneath.

Piles of broken masonry and collapsed wood mound together there: remnants of structures fallen from far above. Hints of individual rooms – kitchens, pantries, bedrooms – persist even amongst the wreckage, swaddled in a forlorn emptiness. Scratches of life endures amongst them. But that life has long departed. They are abandoned, now.

Atop those derelicts, another statue creaks across the rubble on four legs, barking uproariously at the swaying figure. Ivory burrs cover it from head-to-tail; easily impaling the wood sheafs drifting from above. It pauses, tense, and attempts to spring towards the humanoid. Instead, it tumbles back onto the cold pile.

The carving stares upwards, hands trembling where the rope’s thorns impale them. Its empty gaze wavers, yet never moves from its target. A trembling arm darts upwards; ripping its palm from the spikes below only to immediately perforate them again on those above. The movement is repeated with the other arm. Then, arduously, the sculpture hauls itself up.

Towards the city in the walls, high above. Those sandstone streets. The hot days spent laying on the floor or drenched in cold water. Nights spent huddled together as dust storms rattled the shutters. Stones tossed at the few glass windows they could find. Bare feet pounding the dirt and arms full of stolen food, laughter trailing their wake. The before more vivid than the now.

Just a little further.

Except it’s not that figure that rises. It’s the rope that lowers; pulled down by excess weight. No closer to the top. Ruined feet still precariously close to the wreckage.

Sluggishly, empty eye-sockets sway. A wooden chest heaves in obeisance to a phantom exertion. Articulated hands move as if to continue up, yet fail to find the will to do so. Instead, the sculpture hangs, the long vine growing into its fingers.

Someone’ll come along. Everything’ll be the way it used to. Just gotta hold on.

It does not know that the hole – that seemingly infinite stretch falling from above – is far shorter than it seems. That the suggestion of a city far above and the shape of broken houses below are just that: shapes. A stage conjured for a cast and audience of one. Or that the dog – not even a dog, anymore – barking beneath bays not out of aggression but anxiety. Just as the four-legged sculpture doesn’t know that the man dangling above is in no threat of death. That threat has fallen already.

It doesn’t matter. They know enough. That the rope is a cruel trick. That they cannot linger here, in this half-life, sustained by ruinous longing and desperate fear.

That they must linger, regardless.

The four-legged sculpture howls.

We’ll make it back, the hanging sculpture tells it. We’ll make it.

Another bark, more insistent.

Yeah, ‘cause lettin’ all our work come to nothin’ is a real fun idea.

A whine.

It’ll be fine. Just gotta hold on.

With that, the carving laughs – empty and harsh – at some secret joke contained within its own words. Beneath it, the sculpted hound continues to bay.

From above, the amalgamate finally finishes climbing down the pit’s rough walls and gingerly pick their way over the rubble, to where the dog barks. When they reach down to pet it, it ignores the grind of wood on wood in favour of continued howling.

They look up. What are you doing?

Just waitin’.

For what?

For things t’go back to the way they used to be.

Where was that?

Back home, the two chorus. Years ago.

You know that place does not exist, anymore. It’s gone.

Nothing’s ever gone if I just hold on.

They look around and find little. …No one’s coming. Here, nothing will ever change.

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There is a long pause. The sculpted hound has grown silent; sensing the gravity of the exchange. The rope grows into the hanging sculpture’s hands. Its face creaks into a wince.

Gettin’ it all back was always a long shot, wasn’t it? But I’ll keep trying. Even if it kills me.

It’s worth that much?

S’worth everything. Anything.

Why?

Because it was everything. I was in a better place. As a better person. Tougher; stronger; kinder. I could do whatever I set my mind to. Be anyone.

Now I’m just here. As this gaunt, grasping figure.

Their hollow gaze softens. It’s not too late to leave this place. Find it all again.

It was a miracle I found my way there the first time.

Then find something else.

Movin’ on’s the same as leaving everything behind.

No. I won’t abandon my ambitions.

This isn’t ambition.

Who cares what it is? I won’t do it. If I can’t have it, then I’ll have nothin’ at all.

You settle for nothing when you could have the world.

Anything else’ll be a cold shadow, an’ I’ll feel it grow colder every day.

The dog barks. The amalgamate listens.

That mutt doesn’t know what the hell it’s sayin’.

You know better, the large sculpture tells it, don’t you? Why wouldn’t you let go if you believe that? What are you really waiting for?

I did believe that. I’m not a liar. Not like everyone else.

But you avoid the full truth. Answer me.

The rope creaks where it hangs. Digs deeper into its body; a parasite feeding on the delusions of its host. Day by day, draining it of what it could be, in favour of what it can’t. Turning it into a shadow. A host with enough clarity to understand their relationship, yet was still happy to indulge it. But here, its hold loosens.

I don’t really know. Something t’happen. Something t’change.

…

I…

I’ve been so patient.

Time’s meant to heal all wounds. So why aren’t I healing?

It hangs. Flakes fall from its body.

This isn’t a wound, the amalgamate says. It’s a state of being. One you have forced yourself into.

Then what am I meant to do? How can I change who I am?

…I do not know. Not yet. But it begins with abandoning this shadow you’ve made of yourself. With HOPE for yourself, and not for what you used to be.

Arduously – each yank pulling pieces of its hand away – the sculpture tears itself from the rope. Finally, the hanging statue allows gravity to take it.

A hand and a paw touch it, then all that remains is a cloud of dust drifting towards the rubble of a place that no longer exists.

***

Blake huddles backwards; deeper into the mouldy blankets and the insect-swarmed arms of Mumma. Beside the bed, the shutters rattle from the force of the wind howling outside. Mere hours ago, their tiny hovel was hot enough to bake in. Now, with the sun hidden behind a shroud of dust, it’s colder than anything except the stiff, unmoving skin of his mother.

Though he shivers, the boy clings to her body anyway. There’s nothing else to cling to, here.

A loud growl shudders out from his belly. A flinch travels with it, in anticipation for a slap that never falls.

Mumma was upset, back when she got sick. Before she couldn’t move. Really really upset. Little bubbles grew on her skin, and when Blake said they were kind of pretty she got mad and he got scared and ran off into the street. He wishes he didn’t do that. Because when she came back, she didn’t say anything. Not even when he asked whether she was still angry at him.

Blake knows, somewhere deep inside of him, that she will never answer that question. Despite that, he’s at home. The only home he’s ever known.

Once more, hunger pangs wrack his stomach. All the food in the house vanished days ago; split between Blake and Mumma’s limp, smelly mouth. Instead, the boy chews on the mouldy blankets, ignoring the flies trying to crawl into his eyes. He’s learned that this is the best way to fight the pain off: tricking it into thinking he’s eating something so it leave him alone. Yet they’ll come back, harder and angrier than before. It’s the worst pain he’s ever felt; worse even than when Mumma doesn’t want to talk to him.

Vaguely, Blake understands that if nothing changes, he’ll become like Mumma. But he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s only a kid.

For an undefined stretch of time, the boy lingers in that blank space unthinkingly. The brown light rattling between the shutters fade as night falls. Frigid air pokes between the gaps in the blankets, and he nestles deeper. Insects crawl across his face, and he repeatedly shakes them off. Again and again, the hunger returns and each time he tries to transmute his blanket into food. Each time, he fails. He gets up to drink the silty dregs from a bucket of water.

On the way back, a sudden wave of dizziness rings through his head. Blake staggers sideways, accidentally knocking the contents of a crowded tabletop – piles of Mumma’s beauty supplies and work clothes – onto the dirt floor. Instinctively, he wraps his arms over his head and clenches his eyes shut.

When he opens them, Blake is met with a decaying body. Her once tight stomach, gone bloated. Her tanned skin, now pock-marked by yellow pustules. Her bloated tongue and eyes, lousy with tiny bugs rubbing their miniscule arms together. Whatever spark she once contained vanished.

Blake’s gut yanks upwards, but he falls down.

Home’s gone.

After a while, he manages to find his way to his feet and walk to the door. When he pulls it open, the cold rushes through his worn clothes like a knife. His vision goes white; the light of the night sky almost blinding him. When it returns, the boy finds himself standing before a cold, unwelcoming world.

Blake shivers before the precipice. “I’m sorry,” he says, to the corpse, “but I gotta go.”

A decade from now, sitting beside the ashes of a man who meant more to him than words can capture, a lone hound will come to the same realisation. One of them will hold that epiphany deep in their heart. One of them will abandon it, just as the world has abandoned him.

But though a patina of time may tarnish its lustrous gleam and mould it into foreign shapes, anything that is lost can be found once more.

***

When they land, the impact shudders every fraction of their pock-marked body. If the amalgamate had lungs, they might’ve coughed. As is, they simply lay there.

The rubble has dissipated – wood and mortar vanishing like ash on a breeze. In its wake is cool, flat stone; unembellished by the ubiquitous flesh, ivory, or vegetation that define this place. The physical termination of the godhead. Yet it is no exit. Roots bind the body of the amalgamate to the divine substance that form the pit’s perimeter.

But they’re not looking behind. They gaze up, to where the walls of the pit grow wide. Then past the garden of glass and the empty terraces; past the tower and the maze; past the fort and the remains of the shack. Past the great orb of blood. Past the bone that forms the outer edge of this empty shell. To the ocean of blue above.

However, there’s still work to be done down here.

For the moment, they shift their gaze to of the object nestling in their palms. A tiny carving, frozen in a fit of laughter. Somehow, it has found its way all the way down here. Yet unlike before, its skin is covered in the same pock-marks that now coat the amalgamate’s ivory skin. Despite everything, it remains.

As they close their hand around it, a slight grin creases the corner of their mouth. They carefully join it to the sheathed sword. When they’re done, they rise again.

Where’s that bloody idiot? the amalgamate mutters to themself.

Of course, the answer is known to them. Close – very close – but there are more obstacles ahead.

With a weary groan, they place their hands on the wall and begin to climb.