Sachihiro van Damage

Human beings are social creatures. We live and feed off each other with every interaction we have with one another, in fact I think we help each other think. I personally haven’t had what I would consider an intellectual conversation in some time now but usually I spew out the nonsense that I have in my mind and get feedback on it from others around me which helps me form my thoughts and arguments better. That’s how it usually goes anyways and I think that’s the least of how we as a species help each other grow.

Being here now alone, I find that I have a lot more regrets than I thought I did. Life is short, very short and I regret not making peace with da before finding myself here. I regret not sitting down and talking through my issues with Kuyoki. I regret separating my family out of fear of what would happen to the kids on the journey, I regret many things conversations postponed most of all. Conversations that may have helped me think through my issues had I not kept putting them off.

Being alone with nothing but your thoughts makes you evaluate and re-evaluate your life as I can’t help but do now. A part of me has accepted my situation as hopeless, I am lost with no way to get myself out of here. I’d much rather have an actual enemy to fight than this cold silent darkness that I have for company.

I have nothing to do here, nothing to do but keep moving forward and wallow in my own mind. Its gotten to the point that more than once I’ve been tempted to sit down and explore further the spiritual threads that are at the edge of my spiritual awareness, just so I have something else to do and think about. But I still don’t feel safe here and have no idea how exposed I would be if I chased one of those threads to its end.

So I keep moving, finding it difficult to keep a high level of vigilance for such an extended amount of time. Plus I’m hungry and need to take a shit. Why I don’t have any coco wet leaves in my ring I don’t know but the stupidity of that oversight has my misery level going up another notch.

I stand in a large puddle of water considering my next move. The puddle is large to my senses because I can’t see the end of it with the limits of my awareness but its a puddle because its only a few centimetres deep as far as I can tell. The water is stationary and the cave is silent except for the waves and sound created by my passage through here. My steps are too loud, which is why I hesitate considering whether or not I should try find some dry ground taking me in the direction I’ve chosen.

What to do? I don’t like making noise, announcing my presence in this darkness not knowing what might be lurking or sleeping. There is no reason for me to blindly rush forward anyways 'cause I really have no idea where I am and what I could be walking into in my blind rush ahead. Lets be cautious here as best we can shall we?

Decision made I tip toe backwards to reduce the noise until I’m again on dry stone and go right along the water line to find where its boundaries lies.

Okay, I’ve gone 10 minutes in either direction and have not found the edge of the water nor any walls but at least here sound doesn’t echo far as it did in the area I was in before. I'm alone at least and have other priorities on my mind besides just forward movement blindly into the dark. Looking around impotently I squat at the inner edge of the water lowering my pants in a quick practiced movement.

Mhmm. Splash!

I dump a quick one with a splash of water. The wave it creates circular with part of it changing shape as it laps around my booths while the other gets smaller as it rolls away until outside of my awareness. I ‘see’ everything with a disgusted frown on my face with my awareness keeping me appraised of everything in too much detail.

Splat!

The sound is different as I pile onto what I’ve already dumped but this time I use mana to push the wave of water away so as not to get even a little bit of shit on my boots if it can be prevented. It’s easy, water mana channels through my feet creating a wave that counteracts the one moving towards me.

Splat!

More added to the pile and I take a relieved breath having dealt with one of the many things that have been pressing on my mind. Now how best to get clean?

Something constricts within me as I cast a water bolt in my hand but as I look at it and the delicate place I want to put it I decide to dissipate the ominous swirling ball of water lest I hurt myself. Mhmm, how about...

My face scrunchs up as I concentrate, slowly but at a visible rate mist starts to coalesce around me from the cold air. Too slow for what I have in mind though. Giving up on that I shuffle away from my leavings and seep raw mana into the puddle at my feed. Scooping up a handful of water it doesn’t run from my fingers like normal water would and I use it to wipe myself clean before pulling up my pants and getting a move on as quickly possible.

I move forward not even minding the sound in my rush to get as far away from there as I possibly can. The deed itself wasn’t so bad but not knowing whether or not I have eyes on me the whole time is a new and uncomfortable experience. Soon enough the sound of my onward rush is pervasive again to my own ears dropping my mood further as I seem to be failing at everything since I left home. I slow down which helps with the noise but not very much as my passage is the only sound I can hear still.

I have a bad feeling I’m going deeper into this silent abyss instead of closer to escape.

[Tap...]

[Tap...]

[Tap...]

I’ve tried a lot of different things to make my steps silent on the wet rock but I just can’t seem to figure it out. Its the water I’m stepping into that’s so loud so I should definitely be able to deal with that but I’m moving too fast and the puddles too shallow to get mana into the water quickly enough to catch the sound wave. If thats even possible. The really irritating part, on par with how exposed it makes me feel is that I know I should be able to figure this out.

I slow down further mana cycling through my whole body but being pooled and cast raw through my feet to try and seep mana into the water with every step I take but its no go. At least this experiment isn’t very mana intensive or I’d be even more worried about my situation than I already am.

[Tap.]

[Tap.]

[Tap.]

With a slower walking pace I’m less loud but still not as silent as I wish I was. Occasionally I tap Honour into the puddle of water which doesn’t make a sound as it touches the stone floor beaneat, mhmm... Could I manage to walk on the water surface?

I try, pooling dense mana through my feet and keeping it there instead of imbuing it into the water directly. No go and I’m not sure why but I suspect I’m too heavy as well as just doing it wrong. I grin at the mere fact that I can Cast from any part of my body, something I wasn’t able to do before drowning and Awakening in that Undine tunnel under the water. Stupid fucken’ undine thinking it’s fucken’ clever to build a tunnel under the ocean.

Grrr... pthooo!

I spit in disgust at the memory of how I lost my daughter, my mood sours again and the fact that I’m now an Awakened Lord again relegated to an afterthought. I keep going whilst trying different methods of muffling the sound of my passage through this fucken’ gaol of darkness.

I think we become the people we spend time with a little bit, or at least take on some of their traits to some extent. Thinking of the most influential people in my early life I imagine myself a Daewon, a lot of ma, mhmm maybe some of ma. Freyá probably permanently twisted my sexual enjoyment so she’s in me in her own way. Brooding is probably all me but old man Gorr used to do it so well one can’t help but admire it. Andres, my best and only real friend as a kid I can sadly hardly remember now. But I know his death shaped me in a profound way even if i'm not conscously aware of it right now. Asriel did a lot to shape who I am today and I’ve recognise some of his facial expressions in Mira and I but neither of us are much like him in behaviour I think.

I defiantly get my love for weapons from everyone I grew up around, knives and axes from da. Swords from the Hito and spears, well spears are just really practical weapons and are great for hunting if you’re fast enough. That was early development though, now I probably have traits from a whole myriad of people most influential probably being my mates and kids. Strange for me to admit it to myself-

I skip over another dark crevice but this one is cold I feel when it’s under me; that was creepy, having an abyss colder than this cold abysmal place I could fall into. That’s almost funny, but seriously why is this place so fucking dark?!

My steps taper, taper, taper along as the only sound that makes itself clear to my ears. At least it no longer echoes, that just drove my anxiety up to 8. I’ve honestly never been as incompetent in an environment as I am here.

It isn’t really the fact that I’m underground that has me disorientated but the dark here is unnaturally unpleasant resulting in me being out of synch with this place. The floor and walls are clearly worked stone of some sort but the dimensions of this place are really on a scale whose estimate I’m having trouble believing though I estimated them myself.

The darkness is extremely empty, I have no other way of thinking of it. More than twice I have though of just burning up my fire runstone just to fill this emptiness with something other darkness. Of course that would be an utter waste of resources so it aint gonna happen. I flex my shoulders as I run to hear the twisting leather between my sword harness and parka jacket. I'm not sue I can with any accurecy point north or any of the cardinal directions.

The silence is bad, exaggerating everything I do to the extent that I’m sure a predator kilometres away will hear me coming from far off. But even beyond being easy to hear there is a strangeness to the empty silence, I really can’t hear anything beyond the sounds I make myself. It isn’t natural, every place should have sounds natural to it whether it be clicking, beeping, rumbling, swishing or any of the sounds that combine in nature. This place is too quiet to be anything but a grave now whatever it was before.

It took me a while to figure out I wasn’t acclimating to the cold but now its already in me, and with the jacket I feel like I’m trapping the cold in as much as I’m keeping it out. This place is just creepy and definitely fits every analogy of the grave I’ve ever heard, I hope I’m not dead. I don’t really think I’m dead but I’m realising if I were I probably wouldn’t be able to tell would I? I know I’m not dead though ~ Honour giggles inside me.