The stillness of the void vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived. The ichor that surrounded me convulsed and grew anxious, waves parting and crashing like the tides of a hundred seas, each turning a graver shade of black with every collision. 

The suspended runes began to drain of their volcanic coloring to reveal a light similar to the one that bore Ixh’reya from the tremors in the sky—colorless, lifeless. They trembled and shivered as if able to feel the chill of the blackening abyss until reluctantly dissipating one by one into murky strands of white.

I felt a pressure build inside of my chest. A sudden difficulty to breathe had awoken my senses from a trance that I had not bothered to acknowledge since I had entered the void. I moved my arms and legs freely as I remained suspended. The waves of black shifted around me but I was unable to move any distance or in any given direction—visible to me, at least. 

***

I began to swim through the animus just as I would the lakes and channels back home, my breath continuing to constrict. And though the tides did not seem to pass by, my body felt heavy as if pushing through water all the same. I could feel fatigue starting to take effect, and I began to question whether or not there was an end to this realm between realms, and if my end would lie here, adrift within nothing.

A droplet of liquid kissed my forehead. But rather than roll downward in the normal sense of gravity, it streamed to the side of my head, wetting my temple before reaching my hairline. I flinched at the sudden coldness of it, but continued to swim against the invisible current. Quickly one drop turned to a light drizzle, then to a steady rainfall, then a chilling torrent that battered against me like an unforgiving storm at sea. 

I pushed forward blindly through the tempest. As my struggle to breathe hastened I coughed and inhaled the liquid; it tasted of unknown metals and swampsalts. Soon the sensation of a million individual beads turned to full submersion and underwater jetstreams whizzing past me.

I held my breath, but could open my eyes now. The blackness was still around me, but the white wisps of the dead runes were thicker now, and resembled that of air bubbles and deepsea foam. The sensation of moving forward had altered, and I began to feel as though I was swimming upward toward the surface.

A point of light graced my vision. My lungs felt as though they would give at any moment. I swam as fast as my limbs would propel me, desperate to feel the relief of fresh air and a world not enshrouded by darkness.

The light grew brighter and its colors began to reveal themselves—hazy vermilions, dashing ambers that refracted against the tides above. I was almost there; I could see the surface fast approaching. Bubbles rushed past my ears as I released the remaining capacity of my lungs. My limbs flailed perilously, exhausting the last of my strength. I closed my eyes, praying once again.

***

A rush of air filled my chest. I opened my eyes to see the sky above, no longer clouded by the abyss. I had escaped the sanguine void and the angel of blood, but had landed in a reality unfamiliar to me. Had there been another way out of the animus, or was this my fate since Ixh’reya’s arrival? 

I could see the shoreline a short distance away and made my way there with the small amount of energy I could muster. I clamored onto the beach and collapsed. Despite not knowing where I was, the feeling of land beneath me allowed a wave of relief to wash over my mind.

I sat up to examine the world around me. The sea was still black and cloudy at the surface, and the shoreline was of dark, golden-brown and grey sands that extended inland to no apparent end. The plain appeared to relish death and nourish life all at once.

Pale, gargantuan trees with mangled-yet-thriving limbs towered over the land in scattered isolation. But even the trees were dwarfed in comparison to the obelisks, zigurats, and other primal structures of ominous stature. Some were weather-beaten and crumbling while others stood confident and pristine. They were built of black and grey stone and decorated with jagged statues and other sinister-looking adornments. There must have been hundreds of them, but they were spread across the land  as scarcely as the trees, painting a desolate civilization of immeasurable size. Large braziers of blood-red flames that flashed and whipped with animosity laid near many of the structures; their smoke trails had stained the stone surfaces as if they had been burning for a thousand years.

The sky overhead was painted with numerous stormfronts that bellowed and sundered just as the one over the valley, and the sounds of drumming and guttural chanting could be heard in the distance, though there were no visible signs of life.

A sudden pain shot across my skull. Visions of Ixh’reya and the branded runes on her skin infested my mind.

Relinquish the mind and grant the flesh control.
Only then can you see what we see.
For you are now in Ahm’qir Tzoa.
Our reality. Our flesh.