The Second Stage

The Drift 2

The dock floats to sea. Over crashing waves, through seaweed and muck and foam you travel. The ocean breathes and rolls under you, a terrifying experience at the outset, but eventually, it becomes a comfort—enough of a comfort.

Dreams shake you, heart thundering as you toss and turn. Sounds and sights refract emotions like sunlight through stained glass: memories, perhaps, for they seem so familiar. You feel close to something from long ago. What is it? Just as you grasp hold of an answer, reality stirs you.

Scraping.

You awaken on your raft as it slides onto gravel. Upon picking your head up, you scan your surroundings. Fog, thick and caustic as smoke, swirls inland and a black stone shoreline extends out of sight in both directions. Strange trees coil and twist upwards as their entire frames waver with red, orange, and yellow leaves undulating as if made of fire. Yet, they rattle when the wind is absent, and freeze when a gust blows past, like a wild animal afraid that something may move among the gales.

While confused and lost, there is hope; if the current brought you here, it likely brought your loved one too. The task of finding them seems daunting, but not impossible. Behind you, a floating shipyard bobs on distant waves. Too distant. Inland it is.

You clamber up a bluff and step onto the tall charcoal black grass. It burns. You stumble back and roll down the slope to the beach once more. Steadily, you crawl uphill again and examine the field. A close inspection shows grass blades adorned with thorns that turn aside as your hand brushes against them. So with surer steps, you stride into grassland. It parts for you; it accepts you.

As you stumble further and absorb the surroundings—unnatural colors and motions—a realization strikes you. Someone once told you of this place; the same someone who gave you reason never to stray here.