Trial of Respect
You stumble onto the bank, coughing, your body shaking with exhaustion. Behind you, the lake is gone, replaced by a shallow stream that hums softly as it winds through a meadow of white reeds. The water reflects the sky in perfect symmetry, its surface smooth as glass. No ripples follow your breath. No wind stirs the grass. Even the light feels hushed, unanchored, neither dawn nor dusk.
You take a step forward. The mud beneath your feet is warm, almost welcoming. Each breath fills your lungs with air that smells faintly of freshly baked bread and ale. It should comfort you. It almost does.
The creek winds onward through the reeds until it meets a soft radiance: a door of pale gold hovering where the horizon should be. Through it, you glimpse the impossible: a hearthfire burning quietly, faces you left behind to be here sitting in its glow. A table set. Laughter, distant but familiar. Home, exactly as it was.
You blink, and the vision softens. Yet the veiled doorway remains.
It’s so close now - one step, maybe two. You could rest there. You’ve earned it. Every trial, every scar, every ache that brought you this far whispers the same thing:
Enough.
Then, a sound comes. Faint and irregular.
A flutter - wings, perhaps - cutting through the air somewhere far above. It breaks the reflection on the water, sending ripples across the mirrored surface.
You wade into the creek, the water parting around you without resistance. The light ahead widens, breathing softly, waiting. Each step makes you lighter, cleaner, weightless.
The ache in your lungs fades. The noise in your head stills.
Even your heartbeat slows - finally calm - as if it too understands this peace.
When your hand touches the light, it yields like silk.
Warmth pours through you until it hardens, becoming a threat.
The gold around you stills, freezing to glass. You try to breathe, but your breath fogs the surface that now seals you in. The hearth, the laughter, the scent of bread - they all blur, then vanish entirely. The water beneath your feet is black again.
You look down and see your reflection, perfect and motionless.
Everything you've done so far, all you endured to be brought here defiled under your own hand. You are a memory trapped behind light; half-formed, half-finished, self-sabotaged.
The world moves on without you.
And your journey ends here.
You hesitate. The reflection trembles. The reeds rustle: a sound so soft, so fragile, it shouldn’t exist here. Then again, maybe that’s why it does.
Determined, you step back.
The golden light flickers, then falters, collapsing into shards that melt into the soil. Wind returns - a real, uneven wind - carrying the scent of earth and distance. The creek runs dark, flowing again. The forest around you looks at you in approval. You are not done yet. The paths that led you here still wait for resolution and you feel it in your bones: you owe it to yourself to finish what you started when you got through that rusty ring.
Above, cutting through the veil of false sky, wings move: vast and pale, crossing the horizon like shadows of something too far, too ancient to name. For a moment, they turn, catching the faint light, and then are gone.
But the sound remains: a rhythm that guides you forward.
You follow it into the twilight, where the reeds give way to stone once more.
This path is not yet open.
If this was your choice, make sure to come back again to check it out!
All written content is original, drawn from myth, memory, and madness.
All images are generated via Midjourney using custom prompts by the author, unless otherwise stated.
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