Swinter hauled himself through the sludge, his movements slow and heavy. As the ground began to solidify, angling upward, the muck gave way to a steep incline. His pace quickened from a painful crawl to a limping run, in desperation to leave the filth of this place behind him. He wiped absently on his clothes, trying to wipe the grime off his skin.  

As the incline increased, his breathing turned ragged, and he lost himself in the mindless act of placing one foot in front of the other. His mind began to play tricks; he could swear the filth was sentient, burrowing into his skin and polluting his soul. The absent wiping turned to frantic scratching. Swinter’s body became a ravaged map of weeping boils and the red streaks of infection.

The path veered sharply left, doubling back toward the direction he had first come. It rounded jagged rock formations before leveling off along a cliff’s edge.  Upon finding dry level ground Swinter simply closed his eyes and collapsed, his hands and knees striking the hard stone. He felt his soul sinking just as his body had in the mire below. Half-crazed by fever, he began to let go. He prepared to give in to the rot. Maybe this time, he thought, I will finally stay dead.

Darkness began to nibble at the corners of his vision when a scent reached him. It wasn't a perfume, but rather an absence of smell a whiff of purity that felt "clean." As he fought to find the source, the shadows in his eyes receded. Had he been anywhere else, he would have mistaken the trail for a rabbit’s run leading into the desiccated brush. But a subtle pull steered his crawling body toward the brush trail. He pushed his way into the small opening; the twigs from the brush were sharp, tearing fresh lines into his putrid skin.

As he forced his way deeper, the stench of the world grew dull, replaced by a crystalline silence.  The fresh wounds burned, but that strange pull he felt forced him to continue until he broke through into a tiny, hidden clearing. In the center sat a small pool of water. He dragged himself to the edge. The water was unnaturally deep but perfectly still and clear. Peering into its depths, he saw a statue of white marble a woman, weeping. She stared upward as if searching his very soul. A chill raced through him as he realized her tears were discernible from the surrounding water only by a faint, ghostly white glow. It looked as though the woman were drowning in the in her own grief.

Swintger’s throat burned as if filled with gravel, cupping a hand and dipping it in. The temperature was shocking, perfectly cool and refreshing. As the water ran down his parched throat, the coolness soothed the dryness of his throat and revitalized him.  Losing himself, he plunged his head beneath the surface to drink. The rush of purity was so strong it disoriented him; his hands slipped on the mossy rim, and he fell into the depths.

The water chilled him to the bone, but it didn't feel like drowning. It felt like an exorcism. He watched, eyes open, as the invading infection was pulled from his skin in smoky ribbons. His heart rate slowed to a rhythmic thrum. As he sank, the statue’s eyes held him captive. He fell into the stone embrace of her open arms, and the moment his eyes leveled with hers, the world vanished.

The Vision

The statue now stood in a lush field of emerald grass. This world had once been a paradise, a meadow of wildflowers swaying in a warm, honeyed breeze. The sun was a golden weight on his shoulders. Swinter took a deep breath, desperate to taste the scent of growth and life, but he caught only the faintest, lingering trace of sulfur.

His mind tried to romanticize the view, but the vision forced him to see the truth. This was a place of beauty, yes, but it was also a place of reckoning. Sadness washed over him as he saw lines of people walking in a rhythmic cadence through the gardens. The queues wound through the landscape like a Great Serpent.

To his right, the fountain gleamed. The travelers would stop, refreshing themselves in joy before moving back into the line.  A small, puffy white cloud drifted across the sun. Within a "saint’s whisper," the world grew frigid. The grass withered to gray, the flowers turned to ash, and the beauty of the world died. Then, as quickly as the cloud passed, the light returned, and the paradise was instantly restored.

The people in line never broke step, seemingly unaware of what had just transpired.  Swinter sat down on a rock, watching as hours bled into days. He watched with morbid fascination as the clothing of the procession changed from primitive furs to elaborate silks, then to the structured wools he had seen in museums.  All the while, the clouds came and went, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that as the people approached modernity, the periods of light grew shorter, and the clouds grew thicker.

Finally, the sun vanished entirely. The garden died for the last time. The silence was replaced by the wails of the damned, who now wore only tattered rags. As they hobbled down the roads, now cracked and broken.  Through thd cracks sulfer and smoke bulched out from the ground. 

Swinter stood, panicked, searching for the fountain. When he found it, his heart broke. He realized now that whenever the sun was hidden, the statue wept, the water pooling at her feet. When the sun returned, the tears would be drunk by the weary travelers. But the sun had been gone for an eternity. The statue’s tears had never stopped; they had saturated the earth into a bog, and her own weight had caused her to sink into the mud.  Sank so deeply now the statue now lay in a deep bowl in the ground.  

He stepped to the edge of the pit and slid down the slope to meet her again. He tried to use a dry patch of his shirt to wipe the stone eyes, but the shirt was immediately sodden. The statues’ descent had hit bedrock; now the tears could only pool around her.  Waters rising now to her waist. 

A voice, neither masculine nor feminine but possessing the weight of both, entered his mind:

"Swinter, the man shunned by time, hear me. The rot has taken your world as it has taken so many others. Even here, this waystation between life and the beyond has become tainted. Hope is a flickering thing; the unknowable foe grows strong. But even in this suffocating dark, there are embers of light. You, Swinter... the currents of life have refused to take you. This has never happened before. You are no mere ember; you are an anomaly. I have cleansed and healed you with the last of the power I managed to keep."

"Please," the voice pleaded, "do not give up. Push forward."

Immediatly the power holding him released, Swinter spun around to beg for guidance, but the statue was gone. In its place was a pile of marble dust and broken chunks. Only the face remained, smiling up at him—not with joy, but with the quiet, devastating smile of surrender.

Gutted, he knelt to close the statue's eyes. As his fingers touched the stone, the vision shattered, and he found himself gasping for air, breaking the surface of the small, silent pool.