Nahar Sha'dir, the River of Souls

I lay limply, pinned beneath the heavy weight of my blankets, watching the lone lamp flame of my room cast shifting shadows on the ceiling. My chest was leaden, each breath a victory I couldn't afford.
The air around me was thick with the scent of dried herbs and fevered sweat. I struggled to grasp the cool, familiar weight of the ring clenched in my hand, desperate to hold onto this small, last foothold. The sound of my own heart was a slow, uneven drumbeat echoing in my ears from far away. And then, suddenly, there was no echo at all.
  I stood.
  Confusion seized me, cold and empty as a grave. I shouldn't be standing; I shouldn't even be breathing.I looked at my hands, and they were almost translucent, roiling smoke, shimmering slightly in a light that wasn't born from sun or stars. From the twilight, slowly, colors bled - an impossible array of light that shone right through my soul.

The River of Souls - the final road, the Nahr Sha’dir - it bears many names, yet it remains the greatest mystery ever cast upon mankind. It is the final path, the last journey that defines all others. It is whispered amongst the crackling fires of desert night and spoken of in hushed, reverent tones by scarred and ancient mystics. Yet, no mortal eye can claim to have seen its full expanse, or navigated its shimmering currents, for it marks the horizon beyond all return. What little is known about the river comes from broken fragments plucked from prophetic visions, mad fever-dreams, and cryptic verses taken from scrolls written by hands long turned to dust.

All souls who enter the Great Sleep awaken first upon the river’s banks, confused, bewildered or full of wonder. The sight that greets them is a wasteland of soft, eternal haze and fog where even the horizon is a liar. Distant, shimmering forms rise like monumental trees, or perhaps towering figures, a landscape made of dreams and shadows. In the next heartbeat, they dissolve, replaced by the jagged teeth of mountains or the phantom outlines of great forests appearing on the horizon. But across this realm of fog and mirrors, the river of souls moves with deceptive languor, the one tangible thing - not quite water, but a kaleidoscope painted by a madman’s stroke, a terrifying and intoxicating flood of pure, vibrant color.
Raving prophets spoke of churning waves streaked with cinnabar and quicksilver, the waves whispering of the rage of a hundred generations that died an empty death. But all these might change moments later, its rage abating into a deep, endless pool of turquoise shot through with a gentle, milky pearl-white, a vast stream of quiet, satisfied lives. The sight is impossible, ever changing, encompassing all of a mankind's dreams and sorrows - and to gaze upon it even in dream has shattered mortal minds.

One would think this a quiet, solemn place. But the river hums, not with the roar of water, but the collective murmur of a thousand voices that went before. To listen closely is to hear the laughter of a lost child, the final prayer of a dying soldier, or the hum of a mother’s lullaby long forgotten. It is said that the River knows the name of every soul that walks its banks, and it whispers them in a voice that sounds exactly like home.
And yet, the Shores are not empty of danger, though what dwells here has never known the warmth of the sun. Skulking at the edges of the mist are the Sha'dirha - wretched, shapeless things born from souls that refused both the river and the gods. They hunger for the spark of emotions that still clings to the newly deceased. Yet they do not chase; they wait. They feed on hesitation, snatching those who linger too long looking back at the life they left behind, to drag them into the fog never to return.
  And so, upon the misty banks, a silent caravan marches - countless gray wanderers trudging toward the horizons where the Gods will judge their very deeds and soul . Yet, not all seek the scales of truth and heart. There are those who turn to the stream, drawn in by the singing colors. Driven by a weariness deeper than bone, or a love too vast to be contained in a single life, they step from the shore into the stream. They do not sink; they unravel, fading away like mist under the sun. In a flash of gold or a sudden swirl of indigo, they surrender their names to become part of the eternal current, merging back into the great, thundering soul that connects all of Aran’shas people. This is what the Nahr Sha'dir is - its the thread that flows from the lands of the living towards the hands of the gods themselves. It is all that has been and all that will be - a wonder that can only be glimpsed in the half-closed eye of a fever dream, and never touched by mortal hands.