A Rock in the River

13- Hymn of the Dark Puddles

"Pray without ceasing..." – 1 Thessalonians 5:17

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Time gushes like a river, wrapping fate around obstacles and lifting determination over fields of distance. There are places that it has never touched, or that was washed over and pulled away long, long before, leaving behind beaches of memory and shells of emotions and magics of that time.

There are places that should have never been touched.

And places that have flooded because mankind was convinced they know better.

We call these places different things, in different cultures and different languages, but we've learned- collectively- to be wary; be wary of the places where the riptides touch the trees, invisible in all but how the wind blows branches in such an uncanny way it can't be real; be cautious of land where creatures of the deep be found, for surely they aren't supposed to be here; don't try to find the source of rivers, lest you get lost in the ocean.

And so fairy rings, demons, and destiny are left alone. We learned. We know better. Ancestors have left us books and tales and songs to prove it- that it has been done, and it should never be done again.

But reverence and appreciation so quickly become mistaken for utility with the subject of magic.

And so people died.

Just a man, Joey believed he knew better. Joey believed he was just. Joey believed he could save if he called upon that which was bigger than he.

And now with the death of all he cared for, Joey, too, believed he deserved to die, as perhaps others before him did tampering with the thin, fragile veil of fate with reckless claws and fingers. As others did finding death was too easy to escape a rapture that had forgotten them.

But somehow, in an entirely new way, he still held faith all that he had before his own destruction, and its survival into purgatory created a world both at his mercy and a world asserting no such mercy upon him. And everyone he loved were subject to the whims and plans of an uncured apprehension to let go and allow things to be.

Men aren't supposed to be God, let alone be fit to play one in this last story he'd ever pen in ink.

The swirling puddles were never still, never without agony. Francine knew that better than almost anyone else as she fell down, down, down through them once more. Their thick, runny sludge formed reaching hands and wailing faces as she fell past, having watched- or rather felt- her all this time beneath her feet and both wanted what she had and feared it'd all be stolen from her anyway as so many others did before. Being her second time among them, she had more awareness to notice the details of immortality. Her screaming was replaced by breathlessness, having never seen...people in there before. This ink around her was made of people.

But of course it was. The people were made of ink, down to the very soul, and so souls forged the form they took out of the only thing they had left to their name.

Even with no true up and down, Francine felt her hair being whipped in the fall, combed through almost as if the hands could reach her. A spotted face gasped just before something flew past her head-

A thwap! of turning pages and the woman saw a book fly the other way, seeing that the floorboards above either were fixed or disappeared with only darkness that way. Something chased behind it, too, like glitter behind a shooting star- pale, brownish specs like flower petals falling from a dying cherry tree.

She couldn't tell yet, hardly able to sense herself at all, but that was almost precisely what they were.

Taking in a loud inhale to calm while adrenaline pinched every nerve in her to scream, Francine then looked back down to see nothing waited below, either.

But one thing had gotten her this far. One thing would get her out.

"JOEY?!" she called for him again, her voice echoed and rippling in the souls around her, "JOEY, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Francine's eyes glanced wildly about for a response.

Come on, Joey...you let her this far...-

She swallowed, feeling the collar of her shirt whipping against her neck.

"JOEY!" the woman screamed again as she called back, instead, on memories. After all, he was always watching. He had always reacted. "JOEY, I KNOW YOU'RE SCARED! I'M SCARED TOO!" Another desperate gasp as she felt her breath being lost like someone punched it right out, feeling herself so close to hyperventilating, if she hadn't already started. Her desperation was all that kept words pushing out empty lungs.

Sammy depended on her.

Norman did.

Alice did!

All these people- these were people in the puddles! Everyone!!!-

"BUT WE- WE NEED TO TALK! PLEASE! YOU LET ME THIS- YOU LET ME THIS-..."

And the glistening nothingness all around her seemed blurred as her last words began drifting away, her own throat seeming to choke itself in fear. Francine's plea for empathy as well her orientation in space left her all at once, and she felt herself tipping physically as she lost grip consciously. It was so much, too much, and it would all end here?! Halfway to hell, dropping down to its gates without ever reaching it?! Is THAT what this was all for?! She was SO close, so FUCKING close-!

As a body going limp was tilted more upright to fall, one arm was lifted up above her head. Through dizziness, something brushed against her fingertips.

Instinctively, she gripped it with her remaining strength, a trust reciprocated as she found relief under her feet that then rested her on her side.

Time was a gush of water bursting where it shouldn't, and she was the rock in the river that Joey had always been looking for. An angel could see her from the tides that swallowed her whole, and the puddles for the first time since remembered the hymn of a prophet that at one time tried in vain to convince the congregation that hope was worth looking for.

Sammy waited ashore and prayed God could have mercy, too.