The Pool of Dark Sayings

That time I lost my brother

For as long as I can remember, I wanted a best friend. Today, I had to watch him die.

I cried over his lifeless body. The bumps of the disease still prickled his skin. I didn't care if I got infected; I wanted to die too.

Now that my brother was gone, resting with my mothers and Espindola....I had...no one.

I was alone.

I don't want to be alone!

I embraced his carcass, staring at the damp cave around me. Colorful water ripples mocked me as they danced on a sinkhole at the cave's center. Moonlight reflected on transparent limestone dappled the cave in natural wonder, a wonder I expected would help me. That thought caused blood to rushed through my body as water filled my eyes.

"You were supposed to heal him!" I screamed. My fingers trembled. Kaaleb's body remained petrified. I look at his eyes. They were like black marble. 

"You were supposed...to..give me answers." 

My face flushed with warmth. Tears drained from my eyes. I wished I had cried like this while he was still alive. I wish I had told him the things I held inside. I bawled. Crying out. There was no one to judge me, not here. My yearns of pain vibrated on the walls like a stir of echoes. As it did, the walls glittered like stars. That spectacle caught my attention, a needed distraction. In that moment, I remember the promise God gave Abraham in the bible, a promise of descendants as numerous as dust and stars.

Is that all we are? Just dust and stars....

I screamed.

I plunged my forehead into Kaaleb's lifeless torso and I screamed. Who cares how I looked? There was no one here to judge me. All those years, all that scorn. I could finally release my pain. 

In that moment, the pool of water became agitated. Just like King Espindola did whenever I cried. The water swirled in front of me, like a swirling dome. I admit, I have never seen water do that before.

Something in the water lit like fire. Then a burst of wind erupted from it's center. That got my attention. After the wind, came a stir of whispers from many different voices;

"I will open my mouth in a parable,

In instruction by numerous examples,

I will utter dark sayings of old that hide important truth,

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper,

but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. "

What stupidness? I thought. Are these the Dark Saying our elders spoke about? Is this the wisdom this island is supposed to have? I wanted a cure, not a riddle! 

Meu Dues. I shot to my feet.

"What's the point of telling me this now?" I yelled, "He's already dead!"

The dome collapsed, causing the water level to rise, first knee deep, then waist deep, then it was like a flood. Kaaleb's body slid into the water. I gathered the will to live and tried to cling the rugged edges of the cave, but it was no use. I became engulfed in the deluge.