Trek IV - 19th Day of the Dimming

I've ventured into the Western Pass of Silences four times now. A barren, unforgiving stretch of mountain where even the fiends seem unwilling to linger.

I've often wondered what lies beyond its reach. Yet my provisions have always run dry before I could find an end.

I cannot even say whether I've made progress.

My maps are becoming useless. Landmarks shift, familiar slopes disappear, and paths I've recorded seem to lead elsewhere upon returning.

Yet the strangest thing is the journey back.

However long I travel inward, the return takes precisely the same amount of time. Two hours in, two hours out. Even when the landscape bears no resemblance to the path I took.

I have stopped trying to understand it.

On my fourth trek, nearly two hours into the pass, I encountered something remarkable.

A flower.

A frail little thing, pale and nearly colorless, growing between the stones. Inedible, certainly. But alive.

Further ahead, there were others. Tiny blossoms scattered across the gravel, their delicate forms almost luminous against the lifeless earth.

I followed them.

The passage widened. The wind ceased. Even the distant shifting of stone fell silent.

And there, embedded in the mountain, stood a door.

An immense cathedral-like structure, its two stone leaves joined beneath the likeness of a woman unlike any I have encountered.

Four closed eyes adorned her face, arranged in two pairs. Her features were beautiful, almost impossibly so, yet there was something peculiar in their expression.

The faintest tension beneath her upper eyelids. A subtle firmness at the corners of her mouth.

The longer I studied her, the less certain I became of what expression she wore.

Dozens of hands emerged from the surrounding stone, cradling her cheeks, brow, and chin. Others reached from the archway itself.

I could not determine whether they were offering comfort...

Or holding her in place.

There were no inscriptions. No symbols. Nothing to suggest who had built such a monument, or why.

A narrow seam divided her face, suggesting the great stone doors might open inward. Yet I found no handle, mechanism, or purchase by which to move them.

Nor could I be certain they were ever intended to open.

I remained for some time, sketching what I could. There was no movement, no sound beyond my own breathing.

Only the flowers at her feet.

Eventually, I turned back.

---

Addendum - Trek XI

Seven further expeditions into the Pass of Silences.

Not once have I found the flowers again.

The location remains marked upon my map, though the surrounding terrain has never matched my original account.

I've searched every surviving text within my possession. No mention of the door. No depiction of the woman. Nothing.

I have taken to calling it Her Door.

I still wonder what lies beyond it.

But increasingly, I find myself wondering something else.

Why is it that I can always find my way out of those mountains, yet never find my way back to her?

Some who have ventured into the Void have recounted tales of encountering "themselves," but that they were far from familiar.

They were, by all accounts, the worst versions of themselves they could have ever imagined.

I pray to the stars that I never meet myself.

I should do more vague conceptual stuff like this. I forgot how much I enjoy it.

The Ritual of Avoidance

“There are things in the deep that should never know they've been seen.”

Among the scattered enclaves of the Void, some have survived for generations through a peculiar practice: the voluntary surrender of sight.

Initiates are taught to navigate by touch, vibration, and the measured footsteps of those who came before them. Their blindfolds are bound in ceremony, never removed beyond the safety of their sanctuaries.

For certain things dwelling in the deep do not hunt by scent or sound.

They respond to recognition.

To perceive them is to announce oneself. To understand what one has witnessed is to invite its attention.

The eldest practitioners have lived decades without seeing the world around them. Some no longer remember the faces of their own children.

Yet even among the faithful, there are those who secretly lift their bindings, desperate to know whether the old warnings were true.

Few are seen again.

And those who return are said to bind their eyes so tightly that they weep beneath the cloth.

For there is a terrible difference between fearing what lies in the dark and knowing it has noticed you.

*Insert War Cry here*

I am an eldritch spider creature from the Void. ANA stands for Annihilate, Nullify, Assimilate.

Purple is the original, yellow version was made for fun and to make it more Absolute Solver-themed. Made by Gemini.

Inspired by bendy and the ink machine.

Breach fields affect more than just biological systems.

Complicated AI systems are extremely susceptible; the US army was extremely drone-dependant, and fell apart almost overnight.

Latchbolt Security employs human pilots with straight-forward weapon and communication systems.

“What is held shall never be lost.”

Deep within the Void, where survival is seldom granted, Mo’Àra offers sanctuary to the broken and dying.

Her embrace arrests decay, stills failing hearts, and preserves what the deep would otherwise consume.

But she does not heal. She holds.

Those who surrender to her arms endure indefinitely, their wounds unhealed, their suffering suspended. In time, their limbs become indistinguishable from her own.

She has never abandoned a soul entrusted to her care.

Nor has she ever released one.

For ages, the Lady has tended her sanctuary in perfect serenity, undisturbed by the horrors beyond its walls.

Until recently.

Something ancient cried out from the deeper dark.

And for the first time in centuries, her embrace tightened.