Part I: Sarah's Judgment

"Let tears run down like a river day and night;
Give yourself no relief;
Give your eyes no rest."

Lamentations 2:18

It was dark. And cold.

A cave? Is that why the sounds of her breathing echoed?

No. It was cold, but not dark. It only seemed thus because her eyes were closed.

Sarah slowly let her drowsy, sea-green eyes open, and her confusion became even greater than before. Surely, upon waking, her surroundings should have made some sense...? But they did not.

It was no longer dark. She was not in a cave.

A coffin! her mind screamed.

But it wasn't a coffin.

She was to be punished. No one had said so, and yet she knew. She knew her Judgment had come, as it would to all of the wicked, and there was no escape of the harsh penalty she had yet to receive.

Had it all been worth it? Giving up her life and soul, countless other lives, to serve her master? Her false god? Was it worth this punishment?

She realized, rousing to full awareness, that she was trapped within her own powerful rune, the Flowing Rune, a prisoner inside its unforgiving dungeon. It seemed made of glass, tinted blue so that the light (Where is that coming from?) refracted into her prison cell and dyed everything the color of a pale sapphire. The confines were small--too small for the claustrophobic girl--a single cell for a single soul. She had room to turn about in a full circle, nothing more.

Sarah smiled. It really was beautiful. The light came from everywhere, but nowhere, faint but maybe it could offer some warmth in this wretchedly constricted, cold place. And yet there was no heat in its glow.

Still, there was beauty in this magical ride. Yes, ride... She was falling, wasn't she? No...floating, perhaps. The rune was floating in water. How deep? How far would she sink? To the bottom of the sea?

Sarah loved the sea. She remembered days with Master...er...who?

Wasn't there a castle by the sea? And a lady...?

The sorceress's memories were stolen from her before she could grasp them, like fragments of a dream fading upon awakening from sleep. At first she was annoyed with God for taking these memories away. But then she forgot what had made her angry in the first place.

Beautiful...everything was so beautiful, calm and tranquil outside the crystal... And yet, it was so cold... Perhaps...perhaps she could reach beyond her confines and touch that beam of light...?

Sarah placed her palms against the side of the glass, but instead of feeling heat, her skin stuck to the rune as though to ice. She gasped in pain, trying to wrench free, but her sudden motion merely caused the rune to spin out of control, turning upside down.

There was nothing to hold her steady, nothing to grasp. The girl's hands came free of the side of the ice-cold rune, only to allow her body to be flung here and there. Her body slammed into all sides of the coffin-like crystal, making her stomach churn with nausea.

Sarah put her hands out, one on each side of the prison--her elbows bent, as there was hardly room to stretch out both arms--and prayed silently that it would. just. stop. spinning.

And finally it did just that, and the helpless woman was huddled sickly on the floor of her prison, shivering from the cold and trying to choke back the bile threatening to force its way between her lips.

For a moment, the sorceress kept her eyes shut tight, trying to think of nothing at all so her stomach would stop its violent revolt. Finally, when she could stand the darkness of her eyelids no longer, she dared to lift her head.

The water outside the rune was no longer blue, but black. Black, and yet the ray of light remained--however high overhead it was now. Had the capsule spun completely upside down? It was impossible to tell. But the tomb had grown even colder, still descending.

How long did she sit on the floor of her prison chamber? Hours? Days? Or merely minutes? There was no way of knowing. She knew--she felt it--that the rune was sinking, perhaps faster than before. But the light remained overhead, and nothing outside changed.

At least, not for a while. Not for an hour. Not for a day. Not for years or perhaps only seconds. But then...something did change.

She couldn't tell when she first noticed them, but suddenly there were figures dancing--no, swimming--around her. Not in the rune, but without; dark figures swam around her with graceful movements like fish.

They're so beautiful... she thought at once. Happy, smiling, swimming mer-people coming to keep her company.

Sarah smiled again with child-like innocence. She spun around in slow circles, humming the tune to a song whose words eluded her, moving circles in the opposite direction of the swarming ghosts.

But the ghosts weren't smiling, Sarah suddenly realized.

One of the...things...pressed its face up against the icy cold glass. And Sarah screamed.

She had never seen anything so horrifying in all her life. It wasn't even human, surely. This...thing, this...creature...had pallid, blue-tinted skin that was stretched taut over a skeleton-thin face. Its eyes had no irises, no pupils, and no white; they were simply pale, yellow egg-yokes floating in a gruesome mask. The gaping mouth was void of teeth, yet it hissed her name like a snake with its rotting, purpled tongue.

"Sssssssaaaarrrraaaahhhhh....."

Her name was echoed on the torn lips of all those swarming, damned souls that clung to her coffin like maggots to a fresh corpse. They clawed at the glass while Sarah screamed, covering her ears to block out their hoarse, rasping shrieks of rage. Their fingernails, ripping away and leaving streaks of deep ruby blood and slimy pus on the rune-cage, made hideous scraping noises along the glass. They turned her capsule all around again, tossing her to-and-fro without method, destroying her sense of balance.

Sarah prayed for peace.

She should have known it would not come without a price.

One sharp claw finally penetrated the rune. Sarah heard the glass cracking and couldn't stop her eyes from flying open in terror. The creatures had all fled as suddenly as they'd approached, but the damage had been done. The sorceress blinked away the cold droplets as they hit her eyelashes, but the trickle soon became a fountain.

Cold...so cold...

How long had it been? Hours? Days? Or merely minutes? There was no way of knowing. The point was that it had taken ages (and yet, those ages passed by so terribly quickly) for a pool of icy water to spread along the bottom of the capsule.

Sarah's feet were wet, and ice cold. She had been cold before, very cold, but nothing compared to this. Was the crack widening? Somehow more water seemed to find its way inside to get her. Her hair was damp, her shoes were damp. And before too long, the water that had been dripping on her head poured down with more force. She must have blacked out for a moment, or perhaps fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, she was up to her ankles in ice water.

"Oh...God..." she breathed at last, watching her icy breath form in the air. "Oh, God! Oh, GOD!!!" She was screaming now, the realization finally striking her full-force: she was going to drown.

"Oh...God, no! Please, God! Don't--!"

But she had no right to ask God for anything. She was already dead; judged; damned.

Sarah shrieked until her ears rang with the intensity of her pitiful cries, screams that could not reach outside the confines of her coffin. She beat her hands against the rune, wanting out. If she could just get out of this death-trap, perhaps she could swim to safety. But did she want to face the souls of the damned? They were still out there, weren't they?

She gave up slapping at the glass when it started to tip. She didn't want to send it spinning again, and certainly didn't want those things coming back to investigate.

There had to be some way out...right?

Her magic...she could use her magic!

Magic...

...Magic...?

She had no idea how to cast a spell. But somehow she knew it wouldn't have worked anyway. How could she use her rune, when she was trapped inside of it?

The fracture widened. She heard it crack.

It sounded like a shower inside the Flowing Rune. Water poured down on her head, freezing cold but, what was worse, very wet.

Sarah shivered as she felt her skirt dampen just above her knees. And then she realized, with some finality, that she was going to die.

The panic she had felt was gone, but there was no peace in the knowledge that it would soon be over. She couldn't feel at rest, because before it was over, there would be the agonizing pain of drowning. The Flowing Rune was filling up too fast, now, it seemed. She would have no chance of freezing to death first.

Sarah cried, sobbing silently as the water reached her waistline. The water fell over her now in torrents too strong to wipe out of her eyes, mingling with her hot tears and turning them to the temperature of the greater force.

But the rune wasn't the only thing flooding.

Suddenly, all of her memories returned, leaving her with a grief more unbearable than the waters chilling her bones. She remembered Master Luc...the sunlight reflecting on his auburn hair, the warmth in his voice, the kindness in his eyes... She would never see him again, never hear him speak, never feel his touch... She was going to die, shivering, cold and alone...just as she had always feared. Her worst nightmare was becoming a reality. In more ways than one.

Everything went hollow as the water swallowed up her ears, rising higher.

"Gluh-rrp!" Sarah sputtered icy water out of her mouth as she stood on her tiptoes, trying to stay where there was air. But there was no use. In a matter of seconds--or centuries, depending on how God turned the wheel of time--she would have no air left to breathe.

"Gyaaaarrrrrlllll....!!!!"

That was her final breath. Why--oh, why?!--had she decided to take that last gulp of air? It would have ended much more quickly if she had simply drained her lungs and refused to breathe...wouldn't it have? But instead she had choked down a mouthful of half-air, half-water, gargled it, and already the process of drowning had begun.

And....GOD--! She was still trapped in that glass coffin!

Sarah decided she had but one chance to survive--and, God! how she wanted her life back! Anything! She'd give anything for a breath of air! She never thought she could have traded her love for Luc for anything in the entire universe, but she'd never before felt this burning in her chest for just one breath of air--!

Sarah beat her fists against the sides of the Flowing Rune once more. At least she tried to. But her movements underwater were much slower and much, much weaker. She had no strength behind her already-weak limbs.

Suddenly, her body did what was only natural--it tried to take a breath.

God--! The pain--!!!

It wasn't what she'd expected; Sarah did not simply hold her breath and die quietly. Her body revolted, trying to take in air that wasn't there to breathe. Her mouth opened of its own accord; her nostrils flared, desperate for a taste of fresh air. But there was nothing to breathe.

Nothing, that is, save for the icy waters of Hell.

She choked, coughing on liquid, her eyes wide and bulging. She grasped at her own throat, as though to stop herself from trying to take in any more water. But her struggles were futile, and before long, it grew dark, and her body found its way sinking to the bottom of the glass coffin.

She wasn't dead yet.

Sarah looked around with her burst eyeballs, unable to close them. She couldn't move. Her body was no longer sucking in the fatal waters--apparently, her lungs were as full as they could get.

No. Not yet.

She let out a hiccough, and that was the last.

The light above her tomb seemed to have all but faded. It grew dimmer, and dimmer... And then everything went black. And Sarah knew no more, though her eyes remained eternally open.