A dark endless abyss.

.

The red river. Crimson and furious, below dark skies.

Waves beating against the one narrow craft that would tread these waters.

.

.

Hmmm... hmmmm hmmm..

The Boatman. Fishing out another one, humming to himself. Satisfaction, in his rictus grin. The oar thumping against the wood belly of the boat.

Thunk, thunk .. thunk.

.

A flash of lightning in the dark.. that, for an instant, lit distant cliffs and churning waters.

.

Tch..

No.. Not yet. Not yet..

Over he’ll go then. This one’s not quite there yet.

He felt .. hands.. Sinewy fingers that dug under his armpits, and heaved him ungently over the side.

.

Then red.

Then black.

Red.

Black.

Then nothing.

….

.

.

.

Waves lapped against the sandy shore.

Sabar found himself splayed face down in the sandy surf, lungs faintly rattling as he breathed. His limbs suddenly so heavy they would barely move for him.

Abruptly, he was coughing, curling up in the turf, his body reflexively rejecting the fluid in his lungs.

He pulled himself weakly to his knees, still spitting out the last of it, and looked around.

Clouds roiling in the skies above. A grey dull kind of daylight.

A red river behind him. So wide, you could mistake it for the ocean.

The waters looked near rosy as they lapped at his feet. But darkened to a bloody hue as they spanned the deeps. It stretched behind him into the distance, till it receded into a cloying colorless mist.

Before him, the beach. Clean unbroken sand that stretched on either side, as far as his eyes could see.

He remembered.. flashes.. images..

Blackness. A storm. Waves. A boatman.. But even as he reached for them, the memories seemed to retreat into a void.

Well..

Slowly, still shaking, Sabar picked his stark naked self up. He started walking along the beach, following the river.

He put one foot in front of the other and kept going. He stumbled every few steps - but he was moving. He felt it - it came achingly slow - but steadily - his strength was returning to his limbs.

The damp sand of the beach felt chill under his feet. When a cool wind picked up, it cut through his naked frame and set him shivering - but grudgingly, his body fell into a slow march.

"When in doubt, follow water"

Well.

...

He felt, unexpectedly, better and better as he walked along the lonely shore. Step by step, his feat falling into an easy rhythm.

Being cold, stark naked and utterly lost in this strange place was.. not great.

But his brain felt like it was working again. That sleepless smog that clogged his thoughts was gone. His joints didn't creak from an unsleeping weariness.

And That fey darkness in his heart was done. The doom that hung over him the last two days, like a lead ball in the pit of his stomach.

He wasn't waiting to die anymore.

Instead he'd spent his last waking moments breathlessly following the senseless, cryptic instructions of an old man who wouldn't answer questions. Instructions that just raised more questions than his tired brain could've ever thought to ask.

And then he was here:

In this.. fever-dream or afterlife or whatever this place was.

He'd need water soon. He could feel the beginnings of a thirst.

"Never drink from the river"

He marched on. Even the thought of drinking from that florid red water turned his stomach.

…

Grass.

There was life here, of a sort. Ragged patches of stringy coarse grass, breaking up the sand.

As he walked, he was starting to see them more and more. He was getting closer to water.

The pounding was faint at first, so faint he took a minute to notice. For so long it’d just been the sound of lapping waves, his own feet on sand, the sound of his own breath in his ears. Then the drumbeats of hooves grew louder.

Sabar spun, crouching, not knowing what to expect - feeling suddenly vulnerable and well.. naked.

Deer - or no - something like deer. Two of them, carefully stood, just over a sandbank. Their eyes glowed, like a cat’s eyes in the dark, watching him with a blank animal curiosity. With graceful sweeping antlers and gentle mottled grey blue coats.

They watched him, unmoving, as he stayed perfectly still for a long minute. The eyes stayed on him as he slowly straightened.

At the first careful step he took towards them, they startled. A subtle snort, and they were off. In a moment they were gone. There was just the faint sound of pounding hooves then silence.

He waited. But they were gone and it was just Sabar alone with the waves again. He started back along the sandy beach.

…

At some point the sand started to give way to gravel and rock. Soon he was walking gingerly through jagged rocky ground.

After a while, a bank of fog, or what he thought was fog, gave way to a jagged cliff face. It looked a painful climb, but he could see the end of it.

Over the lip of the cliff, peering down at him, he could see the stained glass windows of a church. It was weathered and crumbling, and even from down here, he could see it’s walls slumped. A lone bell tower stood proud.

Sabar started to carefully climb.