It is dark here, below the mountains, a cold, clammy blackness, filled with the sound of water slapping on the rocks. It surrounds and presses in on all sides; it is a thick and tangible thing, a malicious thing. This darkness is torturous.
Trapped with only ourselves for company, our thoughts run in circles. Time bends and stretches around us, racing by like the ripple of fishes in the water or dawdling like fat beetle making its way across the slimy rocks.
Were we different, once? Did we know a another life? We remember, sometimes, when the usual ripples are disturbed by an alien breeze, one that brings the barest hint of a scent we cannot place. We cannot place it, no, but we have smelled it before. We think back to a time when we did not fear the light. We did not yet have the precious, then.
There was green under our feet and blue above our head, and we went straight instead of stopping. There were others with us, and we did not hide from them.
We, or only I?
It was grass that I walked on, and the ever-blue cloud speckled sky was my roof. I ate my fish cooked, and other things besides. I was curious, inquisitive. My grandmother said it would get me into trouble.
I was free.
It does not matter. Not now, when the whole world is this black, echoing hollow. Only the precious matters. We keep it safe. We always have. It is ours, you hear? Our birthday present. We do not care what happened before.
I would like to go back to the light.
It is dark here, and cool. There is no light to hurt us. We are safe with the precious. We have ourselves for company, and the slippery little fishes in the water for food. We are content, we want for nothing. The goblins upstairs do not bother us. We will stay here forever.
The darkness slips inside me and swallows me whole. I cannot distinguish my body from its body, my thoughts from its thoughts. I am slipping away. I cannot remember my name. I cannot remember-
In this dark we think in riddles, but we have forgotten the answers.
We have not bothered in remembering for a long time.