Another journal

You can find all the sections here.

The descent into the tower was boring in the way that only walks in featureless surroundings can be. They played word games to pass the time.

“Okay, so I’m going to the picnic and I’m bringing apples, bubbles, cheese, dill—crap, what was E?”

“Ennui.” Dry-Eyes shifted on Emily’s pack, her voice moving from ear to the other. “Your mistake, my turn.” Dry-Eyes rattled through the list, not missing a beat. So far she’d beat Emily at every game, as much as one could win that sort of thing, anyhow.

They eventually exhausted Emily’s stockpile of babysitting word games and continued in silence for a while.

“You should probably be asking me questions.” Dry-Eye’s voice startled Emily, making her wonder if she’d dozed off while her feet kept moving her forward.

Emily cleared her throat. “About the Sidhe and if my plan will work, if you know my parents, those kind of questions?” She stopped walking. The sudden cessation of movement sent eddies past her and she became more aware of the constant, if gentle, pressure of water she’d been working against. She felt tired. “I’ve got some nice, existential theories that I can bother you with later. In short, that stuff doesn’t really matter right now.”

“Just take it as it comes?” Dry-Eyes laughed. “You know, you’re really one for secretly pessimistic mottos, girl.”

Emily shrugged, shifting the backpack and setting Dry-Eyes to cursing. When the sprite had resettled herself, Emily started walking again.

“Something like that. Though I am curious as to what we’re moving towards and how we’re going to make the next jump.”

Dry-Eyes sighed. “It’s better if you don’t know until we have to do it. So I suppose this is another thing to just take as it comes.”

Emily grimaced and kept walking.

Dry-Eye’s distaste towards their next jump point was, in Emily’s opinion, not nearly strong enough. The monotony of the corridors had lulled Emily. She felt as though she could have been walking since the beginning of time. As they rounded a more noticeable turn, she was brought up short by a wall. Emily blinked, confused. It took her a moment to realise that the wall wasn’t made of the same stuff as the rest of the corridor. Smooth and mottled black over greens and beige, it was—Emily saw with a start—undulating slightly.

She’d guessed, once she’d seen the texture of the tower walls up close and the sloping floors, that they were descending the inner spiral of an unimaginably enormous shell. She had not expected it to be occupied.

“Dry-Eyes!” Emily jostled the backpack, “what the everloving shit is this?” The sprite grumbled as she slid off her perch to drift slightly ahead of Emily.

“This is what built the tower.” Dry-Eyes didn’t look back as she spoke. “It’s dead. Be glad you can’t smell anything underwater.”

Emily wrinkled her nose. “I figured, I mean, it’s a shell, but—wait, if it’s dead why is it moving then?” She backed a step. “And where is the jump point.”

Dry-Eyes turned to Emily, the hind end of the dead-whatever-it-was looming around her in a grotesque frame. She looked a little green, though it was hard to tell in the dim light. “If you take your blade and make a cut long enough for us to get through, both you questions will be answered.”

“Oh gross.” Emily brought her hand to her mouth. “You mean we have to? Oh shit.”

“I suggest not vomiting, if you can. It’ll just disperse in the water.” Dry-Eyes swallowed, hard, and let herself drift off to the side, gesturing Emily forward. “Better to do it now and quickly.”

Emily stepped up, hand on the hilt of her knife. She’d gutted fish, she told herself, and there was the chicken once that her aunt got from a farm that didn’t have its inside bits in a bag, plus she’d spent endless hours cleaning up vomit and changing diapers. This would be nothing.

The pulsing movement under the skin of the thing seemed to grow more vigorous as she drew closer.

“I’m going to hold on to your pack.” She heard Dry-Eyes over her shoulder. “As soon as the cut is big enough, go through.”

Emily drew her knife, hoping it would be sharp enough to pierce the skin. As she pulled it from its sheath, a glow softly filled the chamber. Looking down, she saw that instead of an eight-inch blade, she’d unsheathed a short broadsword, glowing brightly like something from a damned fantasy novel. She gaped.

“Don’t think about it!” Emily nodded at Dry-Eye’s voice in her ear and grabbed the hilt with both hands.

Forcing herself to keep her eyes open, she raised the sword above her head and swung down, cutting through the skin of the dead thing as if it were mist. Keeping the blade ahead and her eyes away from the things slithering out of the wound, she ran forward, Dry-Eye’s small hand grabbing the hair at her neck.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.