Shadowtear

Death.

The air is stale. I'm not sure how I'm even able to breath. The bones are crunching beneath my boots as the chains around my waist rattle with each labored step.

No matter where I go, all I see are skeletons. Even as I trace back my steps, I can't seem to find my ship. It makes me wish everything didn't look the same.

The ground beneath me begins to quake, and I cry out in sudden alarm, trying to grab hold of something, anything. "Please!" I can't help but shout, well aware that no one is listening.

My entire surroundings groan, and my legs give, sending me plummeting downward. Instead of hitting the ground, I continue to fall endlessly. The whole terrain is opening up around me, swallowing me up. It's like I'm inside some monstrous creature's gullet.

Bones sharpen as I continue sliding downward, scraping across my fragile skin. My entire body is being shredded into pieces, and no matter how loud I scream I only keep falling.

I start to feel warm inside. Breathing becomes increasingly difficult, and I yearn for it all to end.

The planet drags my now deceased body further down into it. My spirit lingers on top of my corpse, crying out for release. It makes me wonder how my father is likely trapped beside his own dead body, that is if this is really what death is like.

Time whirls by, yet at the same time it seems to hardly move forward. I'm aware of everything that is happening around me, but I can't even open my eyes. It's the strangest, most indescribable feeling. I'd give anything now to just suck in another breath, because every moment of existence feels like I'm suffocating.

I watch as my body is picked apart by the planet. I can't even recognize my own malformed flesh at this point. I don't particularly care. I only wish to be free from this nightmare.

"Rest easy, little one," an ethereal voice echoes. I soon observe a large skeletal hand picking its way through the planet, wrapping its spindly fingers around my dead body. It pulls me gently, deeper into the planet.

As I peer outward with my unopening eyes, I can see the creature who rescued me. I marvel at my remains carefully placed on top of what looks like an altar. The creature's hands are meticulous, sewing my body carefully back together. Its face is like a hollow shell, and its skeletal boy is engulfed in a radiating blue fire, faintly lighting up the interior of the cavern.