Dante Alighieri's words did no justice.
The fear was overwhelming, petrifying. And yet, some unspeakable force drove Sivanna forward— made her experience the Abyss step-by-step, breath-by-breath. The air was calm. Silent.
Dead.
And she was drowning in it.
There was no horizon in the distance, for there was no ground or sky to divide. The cleric was hovering, floating, falling, and yet standing still on solid ground. The emptiness consumed her, stifled her, drawing the air out of her lungs and replacing it with vitriolic ichor. It burrowed into her bones and into her very being, finding the transient seams of the cleric's soul and torturously prying them apart. Months. Years. Alone. Empty. Afraid.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
How long had she hovered there" It might have been seconds, but it may as well have been centuries. However, in the next instant, Sivanna wished the terrifying emptiness again with everything she had.
She was in Silvanost, and the countless dead hung in trees.
No. The dead were trees— Tens of thousands, and everywhere. In place of the fruitful life that once thrived in and around the Tower of the Stars, there now grew stumps of rancid flesh, contorted limbs with broken fingers, corpses with the faces of her fallen kin. The world parted in a black and white symmetry, for while the earth beneath her soles was colorless and dense as wet sand, the welkin above was a pitch-black void. The void looked tangible— some atramentous, gelatinous ooze she could grasp or be swallowed into. But her eyes were not on the viscous atmosphere.
The elfess's feet found purchase on the ground. She wanted nothing to do with these victims surrounding her, but she seemed gravitationally pushed to them. Steel gaze zeroed in on a singular, deformed pulp within arm's reach. A bony limb beckoned her in still silence. Sivanna knew the face.
Her lips quivered to form a word in Elvish.
"Tharaes?" Father"
An iron set of eyes snapped open, and all at once, the elfess was drawn into a murderous embrace, the limbs of the pulp mutating into talons to sink through the flesh of Sivanna's arms and waist. They held her closely, almost lovingly, as she bled into the sand beneath them. A sharp jerk, and the cleric was no longer facing the corpse, but the wilderness of death around her.
"Do you see?" A metallic voice reminiscent of steel-on-glass hissed the toxic words into her ear.
The sky was falling.
No. It was" raining" Viscous droplets of consuming shadow cascaded in a torrential downpour upon the copse of flesh in Silvanost. Screaming. There was so much screaming. The droplets formed pitch tendrils of dark energy, snaking around the limbs of her kin and rending each tree to bloody pieces.
"Stop it!" the cleric shrieked, but her words were lost in the screams.
She couldn't save them. The power was too great.
As shadow continued to devour the space about her, Sivanna writhed against her captivity. The blades shot completely through her arms, cracking each humerus in two.
"MAKE IT STOP!" she shrieked, eyes squeezed shut.
"You make it stop," the metallic voice responded icily. The elfess opened her eyes to observe quivering limbs floating in the vast pool of pitch at her feet. Why was she not with them' She looked down to find that her fingertips were aglow.
She had cast the void" Impossible. She didn't have that kind of power. Not anymore. Her eyes squeezed shut again.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
"Do you see?"
Her lids didn't open, but she knew the trees were gone. Somehow, she knew she was also still in Silvanost. It was warm. Very warm.
Too warm. Her eyes opened.
Silvanost was on fire.
Flaming wraiths of her Alchemy Company screeched in agony around her, caught up in the flames. They died— fell in heaps at the cleric's feet only to be resurrected and die again and again.
"You did this," the voice grated.
"I did this," she repeated silently.
"You did this!" the flaming wraiths screamed. Her kin began to claw at her legs, but Sivanna could not move. Repulsive and yet lissome hands tore flesh from her limbs like wet tissue paper. Her blood was kerosene— drew the fire upon her to devour her person hungrily. When she was properly lit, the wraiths began to feast on her, rending chunks of muscle and sinew from her body with blunt rows of teeth.
Sivanna could not scream, for she could not breathe. Could not breathe, for she could not scream.
She burned. Months, years she burned, watching her flesh be devoured by flame and foe and friend. For while her body was consumed, she was left with her eyes. Her eyes were black, lifeless.
A decade" A century"
"Do you see?" The voice jarred something within the elfess, and soon, she felt white— white-hot, energetic, euphoric.
"Make it stop!" she sung musically; she'd a spell in mind— something to rend them to pieces.
The sky was falling, and she ordered the shadows excitedly to tear every one of the corpses apart. She would douse the flames with their blood. She would feed her people to the darkness.
"Pai!? she cursed in Elvish, wishing death upon them. The tendrils tore them apart, spilled a sea of blood around the former general. It was so warm, so inviting. She pried herself forcibly off the talons to smell the blood, touch it, drink it.
She bathed in it. Years she bathed in it, the most maniacal, euphoric laughter escaping her airless lungs.
A chitter of a snicker penetrated her nirvana. Sivanna opened her eyes, grinning madly.
A gruesome, spectral visage hovered above her. Translucent skin stretched taut over sharp cheekbones, pits consumed eyes, and a serrated, Cheshire grin mirrored the cleric's own.
The God of Death. The Prince of Bone. Chemosh.
