Jasvinder Krishnan

In a place far from home ...

The sun beats down on us mercilessly, as we move in a sluggish line around the gigantic crater, feet stirring up the dirt. As I keep my eyes down to avert the merciless glare of the light, I notice my legs crossing over the rusted tracks of the railroad. That makes yet another revolution around the crater. How many have revolutions have I completed already? A hundred? A thousand? 

Maybe even a million?

Everything has started to blur together. Darkness claimed me after the confrontation with Don and Wu at Jackson's village, and the next thing I realized was that I was falling from the sky, clad only in the remnants of my scrapped bulwark. Streaking around me were other people, men, women and beasts, all plummeting like falling stars. Some of my fellow travelers were like me, torn and wounded, but there were also many who were neatly dressed with remarkably peaceful expressions on their faces. And we falling stars made landfall right in the middle of a seething mass of people, marching endlessly around a massive crater, right at the end of a length of rusty railroad track. 

It was at that moment I recognized where I was. A place that was only supposed to exist in fairy tales. The myths said that anyone who tried to follow the Railroad to Nowhere would die first before reaching its end point. I had never thought that the legend was literally true.

I had died. And here I was at the end of the track, the splintered metal hanging impotently over the giant chasm like a dead serpent. 

The endless empty. 

And from the chasm rises a fetid bloody stench, a stark reminder of the victims claimed by the faithless before the Divines had intervened. As I staggered back to my feet, swept along by the solemn, mindless procession, the green fire of the Tears of Iros begin to bubble up from the pit, questing for the sky. There's a low groan from the marchers as their pace increases, sending the never ending line twisting around the pit like a snake eating its own tail. 

"Mrrmmgh." one of the marchers, a withered old man said to me, eyes kept forward. There was a note of warning in his voice, but I did not understand. 

"Pardon?" I mutter as my feet match the procession's pace, being pushed along by the wind.

"Mrrmpgh!" the old man urged and turns to look at me with his blind milky eyes, maggots happily playing in the soft, mushy orbs. I nearly recoil from this unexpected horror, but the old man grabbed my arm with unexpected strength, carrying me along. 

The procession speeds up, churning the dust around the crater and creating a small hurricane of force that pens in the tears of Iros. The liquid fire rages against the wind that contains it but is eventually forced back down into the depths of the chasm. A sigh of relief rises from the procession and the march eases to a more comfortable speed. 

As I recover from my shock, I notice why the old man could not speak properly to me. A piece of bread had been lodged firmly in the old man's mouth and he doggedly chewed away at it without making much progress. The man then reached into his ragged clothes and pulls out another piece of bread offering it to me. I want to turn the gift down, but the old man quickly presses the bread, as hard as a rock, into my hand, before continuing to march forward without looking back. 

Leaving me by myself in the middle of the crowd. 

....

Time doesn't run normally in the Endless Empty. Night never falls here, the sun never sets. The procession is caught in a single suspended moment, walking in an endless circle. There's no food and no rest breaks. We keep marching without end, going round and round, the railway track the only indicator of when a revolution has been completed. My feet hurt from the continuous marching, as if the skin was being worn away, one layer at the time. And there's the hunger, the constant gnawing hunger. 

I lasted two days before putting that piece of bread into my mouth. Maybe three. I can't talk now. All my attention is spent trying to chew that piece of bread, to obtain even the slightest bit of nourishment from it. Slowly and steady does it. My saliva gradually softens the bread and my teeth eventually find purchase into its surface. The bread is completely tasteless. But it helps. My hunger abates and that small piece of bread is enough to last for more than a month. I think.

There's a coughing sound from someone next to me. Another lost soul, a Valkyrie from the looks of it, must have finished her ration. The bread leaves slimy residue inside your mouth as you eat it, making speech almost impossible. Not that there is much need to talk anyway. 

"Manna! Manna!" the woman shouts into the sky, hands outstretched in supplication. The rest of the procession follows suit, raising their hands as one. 

I barely have time to react before we are pelted by a hailstorm. I manage to cover my face from the worst of it, just in time to watch a boy, barely into his teens, falling into the chasm as he is overwhelmed by the barrage of rocks. The rest of the procession claws at the incoming hailstones with frenzied, almost animal, energy. I reach out as well, while keeping my head down. 

Its not hailstones. Its more of that stale, hard bread. People around me begin cradle the bread at their bosoms like some sort of priceless treasure. I spit out the almost finished piece in my mouth and shove the new one inside. 

My jaw hurts. I think I opened too wide just now. 

There's a low rumble of thunder, and the procession once again turn their faces up to the sky. Fat drops of rain fall without a trace of storm clouds. The water soaks the bread in my mouth and I bite in. Its like eating a sponge. Some people around me are washing their faces. Others have spat the bread out of their mouths to drink the water from cupped hands. Steam rises from the ground as the cool water dispels the pervasive heat. 

"Praise Iros! Praise Iros!" the procession shouts, and I join in. The wind whips at our backs, demanding we march faster as the Tears begin to build up once again in the chasm. 

Bread and water to give us lost souls the strength to endure. The everlasting mercy of Iros. Praise her mercy. 

Praise the Divines. 

....

I can't take this anymore. I tried slipping away from the procession by first slowing down. When no one noticed, I began to outright walk in the opposite direction toward the edge of the mass. No one bothered to stop me, not a single lost soul cared. 

I now know why. 

To leave the procession is to reject the mercy of Iros. When I bite into the bread, my teeth break. The water from the sky sears my throat. And the worst part of it all is, there is no escape. The procession goes on forever and ever, a never ending mass, with more and more lost souls joining regularly. There must be millions, maybe even billions of us here in the Endless Empty. And no matter how far I walk, I can never reach the horizon in the distance.

The rail track stretches endlessly onward past the horizon. It took my death death to perform the crossing. Would I need to die again to escape?

The shattered armor around my feet begins to crumble into the dust as an overwhelming sense of fatigue begins to creep up on me. Scattered here and there are unmoving bodies, other people who had the same idea I had and tried to escape. The marchers avoid the bodies, steering away from the deserters. As the sun begins to slowly bleach the color out of the skin of the deserters, I turn back and rejoin the march. 

The bread in my mouth softens again.  

Praise Iros. 

...

An incoherent scream reaches my ears as the old man who gave me my first piece of bread throws himself off the edge of the chasm. The procession gives a collective shrug and continues marching in the endless circle. The old man was not the first nor will he be the last. At least he had the good grace to not make a nuisance of himself. I have seen members of the procession deliberately starve themselves until they collapse, unable to move. A kind of futile protest. The procession keeps going forward regardless, grinding the bodies into the dirt. 

There will be always people who desire oblivion. Though there are always more lost souls arriving with the wind. Every day, no with every revolution, more people fall from the sky and join the procession.  There is always enough food and water for us, no matter how many. The mercy of Iros is limitless. 

But not our capacity to endure. Mercy is not always enough. And as before, the wind whips at our backs, driving us forward, crossing the rail track, making another revolution around the chasm. 

The bread and water has gummed my mouth shut. I begin cleaning the inside of my mouth with a finger, scooping out the almost gruel like sludge. I can't do this anymore. I thought I could endure, but its all too much. Between an eternity of marching, or throwing myself off into the chasm, which would be a better way to go?

Then out of the corner of my eye -

Thomas. Marching forward, eyes locked into the distance. 

"Thomas!" I shout, pushing my way through the crowd.

He's just ahead of me, I could easily catch up, if only there wasn't so many blasted people in the way!

"Thomas! Wait!" I yell, catching another glimpse of his as the crowd heaves. The wind whips my back again and more stars begin to fall. Damn, damn, damn!

I keep trudging onward, trying to keep track of Thomas. More lost souls mean more people blocking my way. I slap aside a dazed Auxlia who had just landed and keep bulling forward. 

"Don't leave me behind!" I holler, hoping that my boyfriend would be able to hear me. 

And he does. Thomas begins to turn around and -

Someone roughly grabs me by the shoulder and yanks me backward, causing me to lose sight of my boyfriend again. Before I can confront whomever held me back, I am thrown to the ground with surprising violence, landing hard on my back. An armored boot slams on to my torso as my attacker towers over me. 

"Look who we have here." the man grunts. 

Its the Auxila I had pushed aside when rushing after Thomas. His armor is a complete shambles, with breaches all over, revealing his head. But the Auxila's face is more like a poorly fitting mask, hanging loose over his skull. The skin is slack and rather than wounds, its covered with bloodless fabric tears. When the Auxila talks, his mouth doesn't move while there's a squirming underneath one of the cheeks, as if that is where the man's real mouth is located. A pair of empty eyeholes gaze dully at the ground next to me, giving the impression that the man is blind. 

Then I notice a long tear in the forehead of the flesh mask, revealing a pair of eyes, alert and deadly. The features of the mask are badly distended, but I can still make out enough to recognize the man. 

"Don." I breathe, panic beginning to set in. 

"Hello Jas." Don laughs and the mask tears again, this time at the cheek, revealing a flash of teeth underneath. 

"Its been a long time."