Now they were coming, swarming around my seemingly lifeless figure, their black capes waving around them. Their horrible laugh rose up to the sky and formed a blanked of darkness, pressing heavily on my shoulders.
A silky still heavy voice sounded in my head.
“When you go there, the chance exists you’ll never returnâ€?
I remembered I laughed and replied to the old man: “If no one ever returned, how come we have stories about them?â€?
“Few have returned, even fewer than the stories led us to believe. There will be a point where you’ll believe that all hope has gone, that you are doomed remember than,â€?
I laughed again, but now with an unsteady voice, and put my arms around the man I loved so much. “It’s a mind over matter thing, I know, and I’ll remember.â€? I kissed his wrinkled face an pulled the cap of my cloak over my face.
And here I sat now, and all hope had gone, the black water was not to be swum, and there was no matter to put over my mind. But then, I remembered, I’d seen wood, rotten, broken wood…