Page 20 of Cursed Shadows 4

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I don’t know what I expected, but this isn’t anywhere close to it, because this isnothinglike stepping through a bridge.

Suppose I thought it would be the same.

To step through a bridge is to step into darkness. The sort of darkness that would exist in the deepest parts of the ocean. A rush of iciness that rains over me, whooshing and thundering. Then it is over.

This… is different.

I’m screaming.

I know that. I feel the scratch of the constant cry searing my throat, I feel the warped twist of my face. Yet, the hollow cries are silenced, the thundering billow of the darkness has deafened me.

That’s where I am.

Darkness.

But not a sort of darkness I know.

It pummels me.

Like I freefall down the spiral of cursed shadows itself.

My ears ache, as though water floods them; my bones scrape as though clawed at by some shadow beast; the strands of hair atmy searing scalp, they pull, arching my neck back—and I fear my spine might snap.

This is no bridge.

This is the drop into another realm.

Place of the gods.

I have this horrible understanding in the fall, as I’m being devoured:we do not belong here.

If there is any humour to be found through the tears that stream from my creased eyes or the silent scream that’s hollow in my chest, then it is this:

I might die before I make it to the Mountain of Slumber.

THE SACRAMENT

5

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I plummet, spinning, whirling around and around in this new wind, air that tumbles me and floods my lungs with a sharp chill.

The sense of the abyss is lost—and now, I free fall from the clouds down to the Mountain of Slumber. I know I am close, out of the clouds, when branches whip at me, ripping at my cheeks. Through the constant whoosh of air rushing up to meet me, I hear screams, cries, shouts, what sounds like an echo in a stagnant cave. Fleetingly, I realise that it's other folk falling, landing, hurting, maybe fighting.

I care nothing at all about them.

Not as I whirl down from the skies, and I can hardly make out more than the blur of white snow and the brown of barren dirt smeared over my vision in patches.

Too fast, the ground is rushing up to meet me.

The panic hitches my ice-cold breath.

I should be screaming, but my lungs are frozen in fear.

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