By Aria Eliot

I awoke to the dimming light of Day. I opened my eyes, the position of my bed letting me stare out the window. The ever-shifting and black waters of the sea greeted my gaze. Somehow the sea seemed alive, but no. No, the sea was dead. The light that greeted me was dim; the Eye had nearly closed. There was a sickly hue to it, but there always was. The Eye was dying, and everyone knew it. The Eye was dying like the world was dying, like the sea had died before.

    Footsteps sounded on the ladder to my loft. Father's head appeared in the opening.

    He said that it was time. I nodded.

    I followed Father out into the village center. I glanced up at the Eye; the now crescent slit of sickly light in the sky. It was fully open sometimes, a bright orb of lazy red light that provided warmth and sight. That time was brief, however. Soon it would close again, bringing darkness and cold in its wake. This was one of those times. I was led to a line of others. Youths who, like me, had been alive for enough Blinkings to come of age.

    I knelt down in my place in the line, a dichotomy of dread and indifference confusing my emotions. I had known that this time would come. I knew that I would be Chosen. The elder gestured for silence, and the gathered people of the village stopped their mutterings. A chilling silence fell over everything. The soft breathing of the gathered village. The scuff of a foot moved restlessly. The distant ebb and flow of the sea. These sounds alone pierced that awful, inevitable silence.

    The elder walked slowly down to where we had been lined up, our heads downcast. One by one he lifted a face and stared for a long moment into the eyes that met his. One by one he shook his head. He reached me finally, the last one in the line, his face filled with quiet sorrow. He lifted my face and stared into my eyes. The silence deepened, but I knew what went through his mind as clearly as if he had spoken it. It was inevitable after all. I had always known it would be this way.

    He released me with a sigh and turned to face the village and proclaim his judgment. I had been Chosen. Father took me aside and told me that he was proud of me. Pride. What had I done to earn such pride? I had been born, I supposed. Being born was no small feat, and surviving until I came of age was noteworthy as well, if you chose to look at it that way. Still, I could not feel the pride that Father felt.

    Mother clung to me, sobbing helplessly as I was led away from the village. Somewhere, something deep down within me wanted to console her, to reassure her. I couldn't bring myself to bother. I wasn't afraid. The time had come just as I had known it would. Father's words of pride, Mother's wails, the looks of pity, relief and sorrow in the eyes of the village folk that watched me leave. None of it mattered anymore. None of it had ever mattered. They pried Mother off me as they neared the shore and sent her back.

    A simple wooden boat was tied there, the vessel for this Blinking's sacrifice. I climbed into the boat, feeling it rock uncertainly on the shimmering water's surface. The elder said some words of prayer to the Eye. It felt an empty gesture. A mere hopeless formality. The Eye was not what they sacrificed me to.

    He met my eyes a final time.

    He asked if I was ready.

    I nodded.

    Steady hands untied the boat, and a firm but gentle shove sent me drifting out into the sea. The boat floated directly into a current, and I was swiftly carried away from the only home I had ever known. The only home left in the world. The island faded from view. I was alone. I stared about, seeing nothing in the inky blackness of the waters around me. Up ahead, I caught a glimpse of my destination.

    An incredible mass of land loomed before me. The Continent, I think Father called it. Our kind had lived there once, once very long ago when the world still had light. When the Eye was not weary, but vibrant and strong. I looked up at the Eye, the narrow slit closing even as I stared. True, complete darkness fell as the Eye rested itself again. Small red points of light appeared in the sky, shining weakly. They cast no illumination on the world below, only serving as a place to point my eyes. I believe Mother called them stars. She had said that there were many of them once, all so vibrant and bright that the Night wasn't so dark. Very few remained, however, and even as I looked, another one winked out forever.

    Total, impenetrable darkness surrounded me, yet somehow, I could see the Continent before me. There was no illumination coming from it or shining on it, but somehow, I could see it anyway. I could see it clearer than I had before the Eye had closed. The boat drifted closer, drawn swiftly by the sea's current. It brought me to the Continent's shore and ran aground with a jolt. I stood, taking in my new surroundings.

    I was on a beach of smooth pebbles, harsh edges worn away by the waters lapping upon them. Not five paces away rose a sharp cliff that slanted out above me, blocking out my view of the sky. If there had been a sky to view, that is. To the right there was a small, barely perceptible path that led up along the side of the cliff. I stepped from the boat, feeling the pebbles crunch beneath my bare feet. I walked over to the path and began my ascent.

    I hadn't thought about it up until then, but something about my perception had become strange. There was no light, not even the slightest bit, and yet I felt that I could see the landscape around me clearly. I saw the harsh, jagged rocks of the cliff I climbed. When I reached the top, I saw the dead trees, the dusty ground, the vast rolling hills, the towering pillars, the dry rivers and lakes. I saw it all, and yet I saw nothing. No, I couldn't see a thing. This wasn't sight that I perceived with; this was something else. This was some other Sense that I had never known.

    The path I followed led me out onto a plane. Flat, featureless ground stretched out for miles around me, ending in the cliff behind, and the hills before. I looked to the sky, but there was nothing but blackness. Not even the feeble stars looked upon this accursed place. The Eye was closed now, but I knew that even when it opened again, I still would not see it. This place was somewhere no light could reach. The Eyeless sky stared back at me.

    Empty.

    Silent.

    Hopelessly dead.

    Like the Continent before me.

    Like the sea I had crossed over.

    Like the world would be in the end.

    A chill wind blew, cutting through the thin rags I wore. I shivered and lowered myself to the ground. There was nowhere I could go. I could walk the entirety of this Continent and never see another soul. I wasn't here to live; I was here to be taken. I was Chosen. I was a sacrifice. I was here to prevent the Lightless from claiming the village for another Blinking. To preserve the thin thread upon which what remained of the world hung. When the next Night came, another would be sent. By that time, I would be gone.

    I waited there, shivering with cold, waiting for the Lightless to come take me. Nothing happened. I sat there for what felt like an eternity, but nothing came for me. I stood again, casting about with my Sense, searching for some sign of what to do. None came. An unearthly silence permeated around me, as hopeless and smothering as the darkness. I half considered just sitting down again, but another urge took me. I began to wonder what lay beyond the hills in front of me. Dead trees were scattered here and there, but were there any forests? A dry riverbed snaked nearby, where might that lead? Those pillars of stone, what did they mean? If our kind had once lived here, could I find some sign of them?

    Those thoughts running through my mind, I began to walk, Sensing the hills creeping closer. I moved with my eyes closed. There was no point in having them open with no light to see by, and my new Sense allowed me to perceive every detail of the world around me. To the front, to the sides, from behind, I could Sense everything. There was no perception of color in this Sense, only shape and texture. It felt right somehow, here where the Lightless reign.

    I made it to the first hill and climbed to the top. A vast array of them stretched out before me, and my curiosity drove me further. I climbed every single hill, half expecting to find something on the other side each time. I never did. Eventually, I left the hills behind for the dusty bed of a former lake, now just a pit in the ground. I have no way to measure how long it had been since I had been Chosen, but no hunger or thirst plagued me. I didn't understand how, but somehow it felt right. What good is hunger or thirst in a place such as this?

    The pit was deep, but the bottom was as flat as the planes I had started in. Eventually, something entered the edge of my Sense. A tall pillar of earth rising up from the bed. I suppose it must have been an island once. Something was constructed on that island, the first artificial structure I had encountered on the Continent. There was something strange about it, something my Sense couldn't comprehend. I opened my eyes and saw light. It was faint, as if being smothered by the oppressive darkness of the Continent, but it was there.

    Every thought other than reaching that light left my mind in an instant, and I immediately started climbing the island. It was difficult climbing at first, and I fell back to the cruelly hard ground many times. I had forgotten to continue using my Sense in my elation, and the light was not enough to navigate by. Once I remembered, I began to Sense what places would grant me sure footing, and I soon made my way to the top. I rounded the base of the structure, a tower of some sort, and found its entrance. I reached out, grasping the handle on the door's latch. I lifted, and the door swung inward with a soft creak. Gentle, warm light greeted me, entranced me, enveloped me. Unthinking, I stepped into the tower.

It took some time for my eyes to adjust from the total blackness they had become accustomed to. My Sense felt dulled as soon as I entered the tower, as if the light were smothering it away. I ignored what little remained of it once my eyes adjusted and looked around. The tower's interior was small, with the bottom area consisting of a table and a single chair. A spiraling metal staircase led upward.

    Oppressive quiet had persisted throughout my entire journey. Even the slight howl of the wind or crunch of my footsteps were powerless against that monolithic silence. Here in the tower, though, sound seemed to return with the light. The ambient drone of hollow, enclosed space. The soft thunk and clink of loose stone tiles beneath my feet. The sound of my breath, my heartbeat, even my blinking. They were nothing but quiet sounds few would notice, but after the time spent wandering the desolation outside, they all seemed deafening. Overwhelming. The return of sight and sound together was such an overstimulating experience that for a long while all I could do was stand there and bask in it.

    When I had acclimated, I walked to the staircase and started my ascent. It felt eerily unstable underfoot, metal creaking as the entire spiral trembled after every footstep. I made my climb slowly. I felt a strange sense of urgency, but time was impossible to measure in this place. As long as I was moving towards the source of my burning curiosity, it didn't matter how long it took to get there. The unsteadiness of the stairs only increased as I got higher, but I climbed onward. Eventually, the stairway ended, leading into a trapdoor in the ceiling.

    I reached out and pushed on the trapdoor. It lifted easily, and I stepped through. The sight that greeted me was something I couldn't comprehend. I saw the source of the light I had seen from the lakebed, a large lamp shining out through a dome of glass into the darkness beyond. It did little good against it, but it was enough to draw me in once I had gotten close. Sitting nearby, in a plain wooden rocking chair, was a man. Was. The body had been twisted and contorted painfully, eyes bulging out in a wild, lifeless stare. Its shape was no longer truly human, as if it had been altered in some way. The sight made my blood run cold.

    A strange sound came from the lamp and I turned. It flickered strangely, almost deliberately, as if the light within was trying to communicate in some unintelligible way. I reached out a hand and placed it on the lamp's lens, staring into its depths. The flickering grew more frantic, but I still couldn't understand. Without warning, the light vanished, plunging the tower into darkness. I staggered, suddenly deprived of the senses I had just grown accustomed to having again. I reached out with my Sense, for it had returned in full strength.

    A dark unease welled up inside me, a terror at something beyond what any of my senses could grasp. Fear turned to panic, and I fled from the tower's peak as quickly as I could. The stairs swayed and creaked at my hurried descent, but the sound was dulled and meaningless. I had no room to fear a fall with this unholy terror gripping me. I ran from the tower, forgetting the island's edge and plummeting down into the lake.

    I hit the ground hard, and fear shattered from my mind with the impact. I think I passed out then, but it is always so hard to tell in this place. Sometimes I think I have been unconscious this whole time, that it was all just some horrible dream. A dream I can never seem to wake from. When I regained a handle on myself, I was no longer in the lake bed. I cast around me with my Sense, but this place I found myself in was not one I recognized.

    I tried to move, but I seemed to be bound, tied to one of the stone pillars I had Sensed at my first arrival. I struggled, but it was pointless. I was tied with chains; chains who's clinking was as dulled as every other sound on the Continent. I thought to shout for help, but the impulse was as pointless as my struggle. Who was around to hear? Besides, this darkness, this silence, they did not tolerate any disturbance. The light I had found had been smothered. All sounds I caused or heard were muffled. I didn't know what might happen if I dared to try to speak.

    It made little difference, my situation. I might have forgotten for a bit while my exploration distracted me, but the truth returned to dull any will left in me. I was nothing but a sacrifice. What did it matter if I was chained or not? It was only a matter of time until the Lightless came to claim me. Time. What even was time? I began to wonder if it had ever even existed. We measured time by the Blinking of the Eye, but such a measure was imprecise.

    The Eye was dying, and as it died, its Blinkings changed. Night grew longer, Day grew shorter. The speed at which it opened and closed increased. It had noticeably changed during the time that I was alive there, which meant the speed at which it changed had grown as well. The Eye was dying, and its death was getting faster. When it died, the end would come.

    Yes, time was nothing after all. Time was just a means by which our kind waited for the end. What use was my sacrifice? A postponement? A means to buy time? What good was another Blinking against the inevitable? What good was a little more time against the coming eternity? The Lightless would claim all. The world would be enveloped in endless silence and darkness. Was that so bad a thing?

    The villagers had spoken of the Lightless in hushed voices, as if fearful that so much as acknowledging them would bring the end sooner. What were they afraid of? Death? I suppose it's only natural to fear death, but that was something I had never related to. What use was it to fear the inevitable? Even now, tied to that pillar as I was, I still wasn't afraid. No, fear was not an emotion I knew. But my panic in the tower… I had no explanation for that. It was the first time I had ever been afraid. The emotion did not return. As I sat there, however, a new emotion I had been desperately trying to ignore grew stronger.

    I was utterly, completely alone.

    I had never before realized how much I had relied upon those around me. I had thought that I would be taken quickly upon my arrival at the Continent. That the Lightless would descend upon me and end it all. Perhaps that is why I hadn't feared. I hadn't considered the possibility that had become my hopeless reality.

    I thought of Father, of Mother, of the people I called friends. I couldn't remember their faces. I couldn't remember their names. I hadn't thought about them once since my arrival here, and now those memories had faded, lost to me forever. They left a cold emptiness in their wake. I hadn't said goodbye, I hadn't returned Mother's parting embrace. I had simply accepted my fate.

    It likely wouldn't have mattered if I had done those things. It wouldn't have lessened how alone I was. Still, those regrets gnawed at me. There was little else with which to occupy my mind, after all. I was alone. The complete deadness of the Continent struck me then. Before, my curiosity had made it all seem interesting. This chance to explore such a strange and uninhabited place. Finally, the sheer desolation of it sank in. The ground was hard and dusty, like the very soil had turned to stone. Trees were much the same, their lifeless husks petrified to stand for all eternity as a testament to the life that was lost. These pillars seemed significant somehow, but I couldn't comprehend how. They didn't seem to be the ruins of long decayed structures, yet their numbers implied some great importance.

    I searched my Sense, examining the shape and texture of everything in its range around me. I discovered nothing new. If our kind had once lived here, surely there must have been buildings of some sort. But nothing resembling such a structure seemed to exist. The closed thing I had found was that tower, and it seemed nothing more than a trick. A ploy to give me hope, only to rip it away.

    I thought of the corpse I had found there. Even its face had faded from my memory, becoming no more than a vague shape. Who was he? How had he died? Was he a sacrifice like me? Was that what remained after the Lightless took you? What had that light been? No answers existed, the questions only serving to taunt me as I sat there, helpless and alone.

    Something stirred at the edge of my Sense. I tensed, straining to determine what it was. It crept closer. A thing of human shape, and yet it moved strangely, crawling across the ground. It came close to me and reached out a trembling hand to touch my face. Warm skin. I opened my eyes, but the world was as black as ever. I didn't understand how another of my kind could be alive here, but my heart leaped at the prospect. I doubt I shall ever forget that moment. The moment I realized that I was no longer alone. The moment I met you.

I focused my Sense, and as I did, I realized that you were doing the same to me. I opened my mouth to speak, but could not form any words. I had forgotten how. I struggled against my chains, hoping you would understand. You shied away, but seemed to realize after a moment. You moved to the other side of the pillar and started messing with the chains. There was no lock holding them together, just a hook holding them tightly in place. Once removed, the chains fell away, and I was able to stand.

    I stood there for a long moment, Sensing and being Sensed. I desperately wanted to speak, to say something to the first of my kind I had seen in… since my arrival. Struggle to form words as I might, the ability seemed to have left me for good, along with my memories of home. You said nothing either, apparently equally incapable of speech. You wore no clothes, save for a thin loop of half-rotten cloth that dangled purposelessly from your neck.

    After we had grown a little familiar, you gestured for me to follow and started crawling away. The way I stood and walked seemed to confuse you, but you seemed to come to accept it as I came to accept the strange way you moved. I followed behind you as we made our way through the barren landscape. Nothing around me was familiar, but it really didn't matter where on the Continent I was.

    You wound our way through a range of massive stone hills, I think mother called them… I can't remember. She used to tell me stories of the way the world used to be before the Lightless. I can scarcely remember them now. Eventually, we arrived large opening in one of the hill's towering slopes. You pointed at the entrance excitedly and led the way in.

    A cave met my Sense. A small, room-sized alcove in the hill's side. You directed my attention to a small pile of objects to one side. Things I assume you somehow managed to scavenge from various places on the Continent. They were simple things. A small metal locked that simply contained a bit of dust. A stone tablet with some sort of symbol chiseled into it. I could Sense the pride with which you showed them to me. The last reminders of our kind.

    There were so many questions I wanted to ask. With the ability for speech gone, however, there was nothing I could do but wonder. When you had finished showing me your collection, you waved for me to follow and left the cave. We passed through and over more of the stone hills, until we came out into a wide valley. We descended into it, and I sensed something waiting at the bottom. A city.

    All my life I had only known the village, but Mother had often spoken of cities in her tales. Mother… Father…

    This city that entered my Sense was bigger than I could fathom. Many buildings were so tall that they extended beyond the range of my Sense, and there were so many that the city seemed to go on forever. You led me into the city as if you were familiar and began poking around various buildings. Of course, this must be where you found your treasures.

    The buildings were decrepit and impossibly old. Brick and stone were half-crumbled and wooden beams seemed ready to break at any moment. Roofs had caved in and walls had collapsed. Some buildings were little more than gigantic hills of rubble. The ones that still stood were nothing more than hollow shells. How had you managed to find anything in all of this? How was it possible that even those few items remained, when all other traces of our kind were gone?

    Only the buildings remained now, and even they were not long for this world. Even as we wandered through that place; we heard the sound of a building collapsing and felt the ground shudder. I joined you in your search after a while, Sensing everything around me, digging through rubble, hoping to find something, anything.

    It was meaningless perhaps, but having a task to occupy me was a welcome change. My search bore fruit eventually. I found a small disk of metal. Odd symbols stood out from the surface of the metal, and one side bore the image of a man's face. You danced and clapped excitedly at my find, then held out a discovery of your own. A small knife. Whatever handle had held it once was gone, just leaving a thin metal blade.

    You pointed at my clothes urgently. I was confused, unsure of your meaning. You mimed taking them off, and so I obliged. There wasn't much use to clothes anyway, I supposed. Thin and rough as they were, they didn't do much good against the cold. You placed our finds in the cloth and tied it together, forming a makeshift bag of sorts.

    Celebrating our finds, we returned to the cave to deposit them with the other treasures. We made several trips in that way. Heading to the city and searching until both of us found something, then returning to deposit them in the cave. We never tired, so there was no need for breaks. Finding such objects, of course, was extremely uncommon in our searching, and I imagine great lengths of time would've passed between each, if time had still mattered. As it was, it was simply our life. Our purpose.

    I can't say how many trips back and forth we made, I never bothered counting. How many didn't matter. How long didn't matter. All that mattered is that it was something to do. Something to find purpose in, empty though it was.

    I began to change as we searched. My upright posture became a burden when digging through piles of rubble, so I began to crawl, gradually coming to move in the same way that you did. I thought less and less of home, my lapse in thinking leading to what memories still remained slipping even further from my grasp. All that remains to me now are vague ideas. The point from when I awoke to when I was cast off to sea is the only part of my time there I truly remember, though I still wouldn't call the memory clear.

    I felt sorrow at that, and but that sorrow too began to fade, leaving only nothing. Complete numbness set in, the only emotions that stirred being the rare momentary elation at finding a new treasure. I think we might have gone on that way forever, if things had been different. We never tired, never hungered, never thirsted. As it was, I feel as if we had spent an eternity like that. Memories of anything before became fuzzy at best, until only the searching seemed real.

    It was not eternity, though. The Lightless were eternity. Our existence there was a direct defiance. That was why our "eternity" came to an end. Because it had to. Because the true eternity had come. I Sensed something moving as I searched through the rubble in front of a particularly tall building. I thought it was you at first, but it wasn't. I couldn't determine its shape or texture. It was a formless… something.

    I froze in place as an unmuffled sound hit me for the first time in… But it wasn't truly a sound. No, it seemed to be in my mind. A whispering, insidious voice. For the second time in my life, I came to know fear.

    Light is a poison a destroyer of all the Eye casts down death upon all beneath its gaze the children of Gaia writhe in the tormenting agony of its heat life is a cancer a piddling decay on the face of the world life only exists to kill kill kill kill kill kill slaughter maim torture burn strangle drown murder kill life is but a lie to lure the living to their death all things decay all purpose will fade all bodies will rot the last vestiges of life will wither and crumble until nothing but dust and stone remains light will die all things die life will die and bring an end a sweet end a blessed end in the blessed darkness peace shall at last be found in the blessed silence there will no longer be death there will no longer be violence and decay there will only be nothing as there always should have been light will fade life will die the hour draws near your sacrifices are in vain the hour is nigh Gaia shall be free Gaia's children shall be free we all shall be free in the blessed nothingness of eternity...

    I shudder as the ceaseless cascades of thought worm though my mind. A thing unbidden. A vile perversion. A molestation. I feel myself being drawn into that voice, being drawn into the Lightless. I want to scream, but I can't. There is nothing I can do now. The Lightless has come to claim its sacrifice at last. The end is here. Soon I will be nothing but another whisper in that unholy voice.

    A wordless cry rings out from somewhere in the city. I try to reach out with my Sense, but I no longer have any control as my entirety is consumed by the Lightless. My eyes scorch suddenly, searing pain stabbing into them. I scream at last, a wild uncontrolled wail of horror and agony. The Lightless retreats, the voice leaving my mind. Groping with my Sense I find you a short distance away, clutching something in trembling hands.

    The last treasure of the city. A strange cylindrical object, one that spewed out blinding light from one end. You point it at the formless darkness, as a horrid scream tears into my mind like a barbed blade. The light goes out in an instant with a faint shattering, the object torn from your hand and smashed into the ground. I hear you scream again, but the sound is quickly muffled to silence as the formlessness takes vengeful hold of you.

    Terror rises to constrict every facet of my being. I run. I turn away from the city, from you, and run. I crawl away, desperately scrambling on all fours like some wild beast. Without exhaustion to slow or stop me I simply run and keep on running. I run over hills, through dry rivers and petrified forests. I run until the ground itself gives way to a sheer cliff. I hear the muffled crashing of waves below. I have returned to the sea.

    Your act in that moment, I suppose, was the last selfless act that one of our kind has ever committed. I thank you for it, the fear fading as I Sense no sign of the Lightless following me. You are one with the Lightless now. I am truly alone. The thought of returning to that terrifies me. Yes, fear seems normal to me now. I reach down with my Sense, but cannot feel the waters below. A long drop. Icy waters. The deadness of the sea calls to me.

    I look up to the sky, but it is silent and empty as before. The Eye is probably dead by now. As is the rest of the world, I imagine. There is no way for me to confirm or deny that thought, but it doesn't matter. Even if I'm wrong, I am alone. I listen to the crashing of the waves. I climb to my feet and stand, the motions feeling unnatural after crawling for so…

    I step to the edge. Stale, icy wind bites my unclothed flesh as I sway. The Lightless will come for me again, the last life in the world. They will claim me. I shudder in fear. I hear the waves. An escape. If I simply die, I cannot be claimed. I will experience the blessed nothingness. I won't become part of that voice, that perversion.

    I lift a foot to step off the edge. Mother. Father. Do you still live? You gave me up for dead when I was Chosen, and yet I am alive. Has your sacrifice outlived you? I hope not. I would pray not, but chances are that the only thing I could pray to is already dead. A thought returns to me.

    This is inevitable. This is simply the way things must be. All things must end. What use was it to fear the inevitable? No use at all. I simply have to accept my fate. The Lightless is not something that can be fought. Still, if there is any act of rebellion that I can perform against it, if there's any way that I can defy it's malevolent will, that is what I must do. Meaningless though it be, I will not succumb. I will end it on my own terms.

    I step from the edge. Wind rushes as I fall. Icy waters swallow me. I do not struggle; I do not think. The Eyeless sky will stare down on darkness and silence forever. The Lightless reign.

    The End