My steps echo against stone. Stone above, stone beneath. Stone to all sides. '

While I journey deeper into the catacombs, I wish my footsteps would be the only sounds I hear. It would make my journey that much easier. But they are not. Down here, I hear the whispers of the dead, and those who were rejected by it. I hear bones slowly turning to dust and I hear other bones grinding against the stone walls of their tombs. And the whispers.

They make it hard, to be down here. I know they can feel me, as much as I feel them. And I can feel their hatred. Not for me, but for everything that does not share the same fate. For everything breathing, everything bleeding.

Once, they were my family. Not anymore. When I sit above ground, at the entrance, I make sure that none of them get out. And when I come here, it’s because I am too similar to them to stand the world. I pause at a fork in the road, and stare down both ways. I don’t remember which one I took last time.

I try to picture the catacombs in my head; endless tunnels leading along a never ending line of graves; doors that turned back to stone long ago, family altars that whithered.

A loud scratching, and a hiss to my right drives me in the left tunnel; I feel my blood rushing through my veins, and the familiar crack of stone. Though I try to suppress it, my senses start to ring with the magic in the air. A sudden impact shakes the grave I just stepped away from. Dust and stone explode out of it, I feel some of the rubble hitting my face. Before anything is settled, a figure steps through the dust. A skeleton; the eyes dead and empty but the body is engulfed in lilac flames. She steps forward, and then away from me. At first, I am relieved but then I realize, that she is stepping towards the entrance. The entrance I am supposed to guard.

Her steps turn the whispers into pleas, pleas to free them, too. But she doesn’t stop. Just like all of them, she only knows one direction: Out of here. And she only has one goal: destruction.

I bite back a groan. I came down here to think, nothing else. But alas, a guardian’s duty never sleeps. Because the undead don’t, either. I left my sword and bow at the entrance, hidden behind a stone, so there is only one way of action left for me. One I despise almost as much as the skeleton slowly walking away from me.

I reach for my magic. Mutter the incantation under my breath, and release a shadow from my fingertips. The pleas turn into screams, violent, enraged screams, when the shadow engulfs the skeleton. It extinguishes the magical flames, the source of the skeleton’s power. And it turns to dust, again. In the tunnel, I sink on the ground. My head sinks against a door without someone behind it. The occupant of this grave is dead, and at peace.

The undead are no match for me. If they would band together, they could be a threat, but thankfully they have no brains. What drains me, is the use of magic. Before the end, I was a strong magician, just like most of my people. I still am. Even after I lost most of my gifts, my powers are still great enough to annihilate armies with nothing but the right incantation. But using these gifts hurts me. Just as normal people lose their memories, when they learn a spell, I lose them whenever I use these. A piece of my brain just dies with every spell I use. When I am above ground, I use conjurations. But down here, I cannot.

My head does not only hurt. It is in so much pain, I can’t feel it. I can barely hear what is going on around me, if the voices died down, or if they are still screaming at me.

I don’t think they are actually screaming at me, though. They probably don’t know who I am. And right now, I’m not all that sure, either. But I know that feeling. I know, that somewhere down this tunnel, is the thing that can help me. I just don’t remember what it is. I stand up, brushing a bit of dirt from my hands, and walk deeper into the tunnel.

Most people down here are truly dead. They sleep and dream quietly, their souls removed from their bodies. It feels like I should know why that is.

I stumble over some rubble that seems oddly new to me, when I finally see it: The shimmer on the ground. This was, what I was looking for.

I follow the reflection on the ground, not knowing where it will lead me. Until I hear a whooshing sound, and my feet hurry up even more. The tunnel leads into a cave, and behind a corner I hear the whooshing. When I walk around the corner, it feels like my heart stops. In a very far corner of my mind I know, that I’ve seen all that before: At the cave’s far wall is a waterfall, a large, loud waterfall that rumbles into a lake so deep I cannot see the ground. Mushrooms and vines creep all over floor and walls, most of them fluorescent. I feel a violent grin tugging at my face at all the colors, and taste the blood on my lips again. I still grin. I grin and I don’t stop grinning. When I reach the back of the cave, I hold out my hand into the waterfall. A sharp prickle flashes through my body, and the water’s pressure almost presses down my hand. Almost. I pull back.

Drink it, I think. And I obey my own thoughts. I form a bowl with both my hands and hold them carefully out, only at the edge of the falling water, now. The prickling sensation doesn’t come back but my hands fill with clear, cold water. It makes my amethyst skin shine. Slowly I bring my hands to my face, meeting them half way. The water is so cold, that I don’t feel it burning on my broken lips. I taste the salt only when it touches my tongue. But I don’t hesitate. I drink as if I haven’t drunken anything in a moon, and when I’m done, I feel my head clearing again.

I remember now. I remember who I am. I remember why I came here. And I remember so much more.

Whenever I drink from the waterfall, it is the same. The oldest memories come back, first. And this time, the oldest memory is that of my sister ascending the throne. She looked so beautiful with the crown in her black hair. Stars were woven in her hair like beads. It was the last time, that I saw her. The next is that of the temple where I served, on the day she died. It’s always like this, a pleasant memory hunted by an unpleasant one, shadow by light. The memories try to swallow me but I hold them as they are; the scream of the bloody sun vanishes, at last, in my ears.

My head doesn’t ache anymore but my body is shaking.

I came here to remember, just as I entered the catacombs to do the same. Because I can’t remember up there.

When I try to remember the elder days, then I want to think of my siblings dancing.

I want to think of the sparkle in my sister’s eyes. I want to think of the dances in the temple, when lightning struck a mountain. I want to remember the songs we sang to make volcanoes laugh.

I don’t want to remember the fog of war, the sound of violence.

But up there, I can’t skip over these things. Because up there, the stars watch me. And they roar at me of everything I did, and worse: Everything I didn’t do. Of all the things I allowed to happen.

And then they show me the fog of war, that never fully settled. It got only blown away by the wind. And when I avert my eyes because I can’t stand the sight, they laugh. They laugh at me and they say: “Keep hiding, oldest child. We are eager to see who’s here longer. We … or you.”

Down here, I can remember the stars fondly. I can remember the songs the sun used to sing. I remember my siblings, and all the color we brought to the world.

The world above is gray.

But my duty forces me to go back too soon. And as I bid the waterfall farewell, I know that I have more to do than guard the entrance to the tomb.

I need to find the keys. And I can’t let them die this time. I cannot let the fog of war claim them, too.

This world is too broken to stay here longer, than the stars.