Callum Hamilton

 Untenable costs

It can sometimes be difficult to trace everything back and find what started me on that path, but sometimes it isn’t. Most of the time, it’s just… Dizzy. I saw her again last night, when she came to me through the Land of Dreams. It was like I’d never lost her, as if she had never died. I was so happy.

I will never know if our dreams offer a look into other times or lands, but I am grateful each and every time I see Dizzy. I find it hard to conjure her face in my waking moments, but she seems more real than anything in my dreams. Always so happy and laughing, like it was our wedding day all over again. The way it was before she died. Before she was robbed from me by the gods themselves.

As the years passed after her death, seeing Dizzy in my dreams became too much. It wasn’t enough. I decided I was going to bring her back. I would find Journey’s End, and I would bring her back from a death so wrongfully handed down to her.

Setting out was the first trouble I encountered. It was impossible to leave until I knew how to get to Journey’s End. Listening and reading everything I could, I found rumour after rumour about how to reach the entrance to Death. Month after month, year after year, I stalked through libraries and skulked in bars. Talking, eavesdropping and bribing, I did everything it took to get even the smallest piece of information. There were tales told of a lone ferryman who took coins laid over eyes for payment and a monstrous hound defending the gates of Death. Tales from abroad spoke of warrior women collecting souls of the valiant dead on battlefields, and beasts who judged the weight of the soul.

There were even other, similar rumours. A path through any maze would lead you to Destiny itself, and a great lone statue could help you claim your one true Desire. It was as if all of life’s governing principles resided in one place or another and could be found if one only took the right path. The same went for the many tales told of Dream, a realm no one is ever far from. All one needed to do was sleep, to be guided by the hands of Hypnos and Nyx.  

In the end, I realised there was no great trick or single path. All roads and trails, all great and low beings, eventually travelled to Journey’s End. So, I set out with no provisions. I stopped to sleep only when I collapsed. I walked the many long paths of the world. I travelled through paved roads, dirt paths, forest trails and more. Nowhere was home for me anymore.

It all seemed so simple. No-one could truly say their journey was at its end before they had reached the place itself. It was a clever design. Without Dizzy, though, my time in the mortal realm was finished. There was nothing there for me anymore.

Journey’s End crept up on me rather suddenly. It happened in a moment of exhaustion, walking endlessly, and then suddenly I was there. My only sense of reaching Journey’s End was one of great relief. My bone-deep exhaustion was gone, and I no longer felt the pangs of hunger or thirst. There were no great gates, no hound, no warrior women or weighing of the soul. Instead, I only saw endless fog.

It was a strange place. There were endless green fields at my feet that looked as though the sun was shining on them. I could feel the warmth of it against my back, but everything was shrouded in a heavy mist. There was no horizon. Perhaps it went on forever. Perhaps it was a place only meant for me.

  Gradually, at the edges of my vision, people started to appear. They did not move, but with each passing moment, I could focus on them more. It felt as if they were reaching out to pull me in.

They seemed to be sitting down at a table. It was impossible to make out a distinct age, race or gender, but some details still shone through. They smiled happily and laughed. Their clothes were all bright, pressed and pristine. It took a moment for me to notice everyone at the table looked the same. Some people appeared to be drinking. Some appeared to be playing cards, although it was impossible to determine what game was being played. If it was a single game at all. Each one seemed unaware of the next, despite their proximity. But they were all happy. All smiling and laughing. Content.

Finally, this was it. Journey’s End. These were the shades of the dead. They were all happy because they didn’t care anymore. They couldn’t care anymore.

I steeled myself. I had come to this land of fog and mist and obscurity, for a single reason. For Dizzy. I held her square in my mind, so as not to rest with the lost.

To be in that place was to feel a special kind of despair. The land was grey, and it felt as though the mist made its way into my very being. But it wasn’t quite… sad. It was a place of memory; a place where laughter rang out from every direction. The shades looked radiant in a way that begot a kind of self-worship, encouraging their own pride. Yet none of them conversed or communicated with each another. It was alienating.

I noticed there were different kinds of beings in the afterlife. The shades and then… the others. Wraiths. They were hard to look at. They wallowed in abject misery, suffering for every moment in time. They each seemed to suffer in their own unique way. When I looked back on Journey’s End, some things haunted me still. The wraiths were one of them.

I quickly tore my eyes off them as they appeared, not wanting to be privy to their agony. Further still, some of them were neither happy nor sad but merely wandering the realm, indifferent.

Seeing them all was like a nightmare. I could make no rhyme nor reason for it. I came to think of Dizzy again. How would she appear? Would I recognise her? Would I become her saviour, or was she content? In the end, I decided it didn’t matter. I had come too far to fail or leave empty-handed. I was here to take her.

At the heart of it all, I saw a single figure sitting down as if they were waiting for someone. Distance, like everything else in that place, felt different. The figure was close, but somehow far away at the same time. I tried to focus on their features, but it was as if it was more than one person, somehow overlaid on itself, in the same space. I knew with a single look this figure, sat at the heart of that place. They were somehow more and less real than all the rest.

I felt it speak more than I heard it. I heard my own name ring in my head before it stirred. I felt, more than ever, a burning desire to reclaim my beloved. And somehow, I knew that figure felt it too.

I shook the sight from me and called out. “Are you a god?”

When the being spoke, it took me a moment to process their words. It felt as though they were all layered atop one another, one phrase with multiple endings.

“A god? The God? Your God? No. My brothers, sisters and I are different. We are … endless.”

“Siblings, great lord? You are not alone?”

“They each govern other important aspects, as I look after this one. I can see Dream’s influence upon you. He must have placed you on the path to me. But enough about my family. You’re curious about the denizens here?”

“I… yes. Why are they all so different? Shouldn’t there be more of them?”

The being’s features seemed to shift into a grin. One that was at once comforting, like a parent answering a naive child, but also slightly wolfish.

“Why do you think? Death is different for everyone. For some, it’s a beautiful ending, and they meet me happily. For some, it is something that can never be reconciled with, and thus they believe they should suffer.”

I had no response. What could I have said? How could I attempt to challenge this natural order? I was not here for the suffering figures. I moved on to declare what we both already knew.

“I come before you, Lord, with a humble request. I am here to retrieve one whom I love.”

“I know why you are here,” The voice resounded. “But have you really come here? Can you be so sure this is not a dream? Or that you have come to me and not the other way around?”

I took my time to ponder the spectre’s words. “If this is a dream, then it is a good dream, for it shall prepare me to face you again, and again and again. But I do not feel as resigned as the others I see here. I do not think I have yet perished.”

“You are clever, child. It has been an age since I have had such an engaging conversation within my own home. But… I do not think I can grant your request. I do not think I am allowed. You will have to leave me for some time. I shall give you an answer upon my return.”

And just like that, as soon as the being appeared and the conversation had started, he was gone. Once again, I was left to dwell among the endless green fields. Along with the shades, in both their prime and their suffering.

I cannot, to this day, say what I did while the figure deliberated. Perhaps I wandered around aimlessly, or perhaps I simply cradled my head in my own arms, desperate to avoid the empty and pressing gazes of the dead.

When the figure returned and began to speak, it was impossible for me to tell whether it had been a momentary pause in the conversation, or if worlds had passed since we last spoke.

“Fine,” the figure said. “I have thought long on this and reached a decision. There are rules, but what use are they, if not to be broken, now and then? You won’t be leaving until you get what you want, will you? Fine. I’ll give it to you. But with some… conditions.”

“Anything. I have travelled long and far to reach her—”

“Yes, yes, I know. To disturb me here, more like. Now, your first condition. Once you or she leave this realm completely, you will never be welcomed back here. Your lives will be your own, and your deaths will belong to no one. Should you fail, death will separate the two of you for the rest of eternity. You will never meet in the afterlife, because you will never find this place again. I hope you haven’t wasted your chance.”

I sensed it was an inappropriate time to question what exactly this meant. I tried to hold quiet. “Wait! I haven’t even told you who I am here for. How do you know?”

The figure reached out an arm and snapped its fingers. It echoed terribly, sounding like the shattering of a thousand mirrors. I felt as though I was being crushed by the noise.

Out of the mists, she came as if summoned. As stunning as the day I first laid eyes on her. Dizzy. My Dizzy. Hope bloomed in my chest, stronger than ever before. This was it. I was so close. Too close to fail. I had done it.

“Second,” The voice cut in again. I had briefly forgotten about the conditions being set, too overcome at Dizzy’s sudden appearance.

“You may leave, but the ways in and out of my realm are few. You will walk, as you came, and she will follow behind. And you are not to turn around. You are to do this for me. Call it a… showing of faith. She will follow behind you, making no noise, and once you reach the living world again, my gates will close after you forever. But if you both leave, then you will both be free.”

I accepted. I may have babbled in my acceptance, even with no hesitation. What else could I have possibly done? Everything I had wanted; my life’s purpose of so many years, suddenly offered to me in the blink of an eye, at the whim of this revenant. How difficult could it be?

What a simple trap. What a fool I was.

And well, I suspect you know how my story ends by now. I expect you’ve worked out my name if nothing else. How did it go, really? Well, I’m here now to tell you about it, aren’t I?

I am here.

Still.