10. Seren
SEREN
An icy touch snares my fingers, pulling me deeper into the void. Each step a battle against the dense, ancient air—a stagnant fog thick enough to chew.
Minutes crawl by before the dark begins to fracture into shapes.
The space around me bursts open, as if I’m standing within the exposed guts of the Hollow—a serrated, violent tear in its very skin.
A bone-deep hum vibrates through the floor, a heavy pressure that grinds against my eardrums until my stomach heaves.
Vaulted black ceilings tower above, their stalactites hanging like obsidian spears—a lingering, silent threat. I am that lost, little girl again, the crushing vastness of the cave reminding me of just how small I am in this world.
Massive onyx rocks circle the cenote, forming a craggy, protective barrier. I can’t tell if they are meant to shield what lies beneath, or to guard against what looms above.
My eyes almost mistake the basin for a sheet of volcanic glass. The polished water is perfectly, unnaturally still, offering no reflection—only a sinister calm that feels like a held breath. It’s quiet; so quiet that the vast silence feels like a sound in itself.
Black tendrils of shadow unspool from my feet, skittering away like hounds on a fresh scent. I scan the cavern, straining for a single recognisable line of rock, but the environment refuses to mimic my dream.
The inky waters offer no hint of a familiar face—only a cold, featureless anonymity. A lead-heavy weight fills my chest, anchoring me to the stone. I knew the vision was a cruel delusion, but a small, stubborn ember within had hoped for a miracle.
I’m sure this is the place; the truth of it hums in my very bones. But here—in the gut of the world—there is nothing but cold rock and stagnant water. What am I missing?
Stone crunches beneath my boots, the sound rippling through the dark. The echoes scour the walls before rebounding into the depths of my being.
A frenetic ballet of shadows plays out in the distance, vibrant and hungry against the cavern wall.
Their tendrils caress every inch of the rock with a reverence of a long-lost friend.
Then, they freeze—sensing my gaze—before gliding over the water, leaving ghostly ripples in their wake.
A comforting chill settles deep, their ecstasy confirming the truth I felt in my bones.
I am home.
They coil around my legs like black vines desperate to feed. A wisp of smoke skims my cheek, and I find myself leaning into the touch— cold like fog on glass. My shoulders hunch, and my head hangs heavy on my thin frame as the relief leaches the strength from my muscles.
Exhaustion claims me, turning my mind into a dense fog of grief and memory. The shadows braid around my body, lifting the burden from my shoulders. They move me with a tender precision that is almost obscene—a haunting contrast to the venom they showed Sylas.
Maybe Yara was right. Maybe they only wanted to end his suffering. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s gone. The mere taint of those thoughts makes my stomach lurch.
Guilt floods me—toxic, heavy, and suffocating—for even daring to entertain the mercy of it. The gnawing void in my chest fractures wider as the hisses of my own mind turn into an endless scream. Tears scald my face, leaving bitter, salty tracks behind.
I surrender to the shadows, letting their dark pull drag me toward a cluster of rocks in a far, forgotten corner.
Yara’s bag lands with a dull thump on the floor, the shadows sliding the straps from my shoulders with a sickeningly tender grace.
They set me against the largest stone, their touch hauntingly soft, before they try to melt back into the dark.
I reach for one of the tendrils, cold wisps of black braiding around my hand like a ghostly promise.
They mold to the shape of my fingers, intertwining with my own in a strange, silent dance. We sit in a heavy stillness, both of us savouring the pulse of this new connection.
Eventually, the silence—and my precarious hold on it—fractures.
The ghost-touch of the shadows leaves a lingering warmth as I withdraw my hand to reach for Yara’s bag.
The moth-eaten fabric rasps against my skin as I unfasten the clasp.
A cloud of smoke and lavender spills out, veiling the cavern’s cold, musty scent; for a heartbeat, the howl of my guilt is quiet.
I search the bag blindly, my fingers hunting through the contents.
Crisp, dry leaves tickle my skin—dried thyme and nettle bound tight with twine are held delicately in my hand, before I bring them up to my nose, savouring their scent.
My lips tremble at the thought of a small, shattered piece of Yara here in the dark with me.
Carefully placing the bundle on the floor so I don’t crush it, I reach back in. Glass clinks as I pull out two jars of a viscous green powder I’ve never seen before. They land with a dull clunk beside the herbs as I continue my search.
After removing a small pot of salve, my hand digs deep at the bottom, until my fingers snag against a piece of parchment.
The paper is thick and ancient, unlike anything in my sketchbook.
The edges shiver and crumble as I unfold it gently, a hissed curse escaping me at the clot of darkness hiding the page.
The ink has faded, but the elegant, fluid strokes remain. My fingers trace the lines, imitating the grace of the hand that wrote them.
My mind scrambles to decipher the language, but the meaning slips through me like water. Instead, my attention turns to the tiny crescent symbol at the margin—its ink is black as pitch, a haunting twin to the mark that bled into my drawing of Sylas.
Written in a hand I almost recognise is a single, harrowing word:
Vessel.
What does it mean?
The parchment trembles in my grip as that familiar, leaden anchor drops through my chest and settles in my gut.
I place it back inside the bag with aching care, but as I release it, my hand strikes something else. A small pouch tied with twine, sits perfectly on the inside of my palm, as if it were made for me.
Curiosity gnaws deep, and I surrender to the temptation.
A lock of black, coarse hair slips free from the fabric.
My skin crawls; the wiry threads feel intimately, impossibly similar to my own.
With one hand on the lock of hair, the other reaches for the hair hanging limp at my face—the texture is the same.
The colour is an exact match. My mind screams coincidence, but the knot in my belly only tightens. Why would Yara have this?
The shadows swarm my lap. A wisp of smoke entwines around the lock of hair, then stops—turning to me like a cobra entranced by its master.
The shadow pounces. Black fingers lunge for my face as an icy void consumes me, dissolving the cavern into blackness.
It begins as a whisper, curling higher like smoke.
The shadows coil around my ankles—tighter, tighter—until the breath snags in my throat.
I try to fight, but the tendril invades, boring into my mouth with a frozen tide that quenches the fire in my lungs.
The floor isn’t solid anymore; it ripples like dark water.
“Stop,” I try to choke, but it's no use. The world fractures and peels away until the Hollow is gone. The cave, the moss, even the sound of my own pulse—extinguished.
* * *
I’m suspended within a blackness that drinks all light. Not asleep, not waking, but hollowed out in the space between. A space whispered only in children’s fables, a space where only the Divine Mother’s most devout believers aspire to reach; the dream world.
Pockets of light swarm my vision, settling above me like a ceiling of stolen stars. The ground beneath my feet hums, a gentle, rhythmic pulse that beats in time with my own heart.
Shapes begin to coalesce in the faint light cast by the sky of glass. A womanly figure waits in the distance, her pale, golden hair drifting around her face, riding the jagged spine of silence.
She doesn’t move; she doesn’t have to. I can feel her presence pressing against me, saturating my mind as if she has already made a home inside.
Seren.
My name bleeds from the air like a drop of inky black in water.
I try to speak, to scream the questions my mind can’t quite grasp, but my mouth is sealed. The shadows snare the words, smothering them back down my throat.
The floor vanishes, the sudden weightlessness heaving my stomach into my chest. The stars wither into mere prickles of light, until like all life, they dissolve into nothing.
I fall into something that has no end.