Prompt: You trip and fall through a puddle, straight through it, to another dimension.
This Weeks Writes
Byran
Marielle
Bryan
I’ve left everything. Everything I’ve known. It’s cold
Marielle
Fires weren’t a common occurrence on this side of the Underdark. They were hard to create in such a space, ready to be snuffed out from the dampness, the trickle of water from the forest of stalactites overhead. Instead, what we had gotten were the mushrooms. The fungi were the size of buildings and clouded the moss-covered roofs with light to help the subterranean climbers, to the ones who sparked lanterns with the help of fireflies, and there was difficulty for me to write down how all of this life can flourish in such a harsh place. But I was just the typical human, of course I would find it difficult to adjust.
For one thing, before I traversed into the inky black scope, I had ambitions. I yearned for high positions of research, to be rewarded the highest caliber of biological theory; there was too much to explore and question in this life, and I didn’t plan to settle down with that in mind. And another thing to note came in the form of family. I had pictures framed in my old apartment, pocky in my hands to greet them from a long day of work with the usual quick exchange of pleasantries, then all of us would take our places on the couch, waiting for the next cable show to begin.
I ask myself if I was happy back then, and whether I was a good person for asking that now instead of earlier. What I do know was that guilt had built its home inside me. It wasn’t going to let go anytime soon.
Even with everything they had gone on with my life, survival was essential. Studying was a priority too, but I wouldn’t be able to do such a thing if I got killed by some eldritch horror that resided at the base of a column now, would I?
Villages were common help around some of the areas I’ve been through. The citizens were civilized, reptilic from the spines on their heads to the hooks on their feet, and for when I traced my steps and followed the path of blue luster, their tips kept me away from the chasms that were too close for comfort. The venture had made my hands more calloused, nicked with scars that almost dug into the bone, but there was a thrill in being able to survive, taking the tribulations given and marking a home for yourself in the Underdark.
I had surveyed the moss, the creatures who lived in forever darkness, with a journal in my hands. It was hard to think about how long it took to get to this point, but for one reason or another, I was stubborn to keep on the current spring in my step, as if my legs didn’t ache from climbing walls grander than the deepest canyons. The lichen became my bandages. Villages of molemen and reptiles were my timely neighbors. The luminescence above formed a starry sky with my own makeshift constellations.
I ask myself many times if there was a way back to the life I once lived in, to the people who had waited for me at the door, to the coworkers who asked me questions about the daily time, the bustle of office gossip. There had to be a way. I was the same stubborn woman the first time I came here, and I don’t plan to change that soon.