‘Finally, someone,’ Merc whispers, masking his dread with hollow humor. ‘Well, just not alive.’
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‘He's much livelier than those in the books,’ Jeremy kneels and lifts a tattered piece of fabric from the bones. Faded, rust-brown letters are scrawled across it. ‘"The song is the key. Nothing is real." What does that mean?’
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‘The one we sang every day?’ Merc is unimpressed. ‘What’s real and what’s not then?’
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Jeremy begins to hum softly. ‘Diamond Hill, live and thrill.’ Merc reluctantly joins in.
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Instantly, a massive shadow bleeds across the cavern entrance, contorting and shrinking as it rounds the jagged corner. Then comes the sound: a heavy, crushing breathing, punctuated by wet, guttural snorts and the rhythmic boom of approaching footsteps.
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Merc and Jeremy flatten themselves against the cold rock, choking back their breath. The quartz walls flare immediately.
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‘Shall we jump?’ Merc mouths, eyes darting to the pool.
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‘What then? We drown?’ Jeremy mouths back.
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‘No. Hopefully, it just can't find us,’ Merc hisses through teeth.
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They hide silently beneath the glassy surface, suspend in a terrified silence. When the absolute limit of his endurance breaks, Merc carefully breaches the surface, exposing only eyes and nose, praying to whatever gods might listen.
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The wet, guttural breathing is deafeningly close, as if the “beast” is standing right at the water's edge, towering over him. Yet, the cavern is completely empty.
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Merc taps Jeremy’s shoulder, pulling him up. ‘We’ve never actually "seen" a monster since we got here,’ Merc whispers, ‘This cave is tiny. It should reach here already, and you can hear it right in front of us, but there's nothing there. "Nothing is real"... could it be...’
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They remain frozen against the wet stone rim, scanning the empty air. Slowly, the sounds dissolve into silence, and the blue luminescence begins to dim.
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‘The alarm is off’ Jeremy whispers, seeing the light off.
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‘Thank god...’ Merc grunts, hauling himself onto the shore. His wet boot slips on the smooth crystal, nearly throwing him backward into the depths. Instantly, the cavern wall flashes a bright, hungry blue. He freezes, looking around the dead silent cavern. ‘The “beast” was gone… Why is it flashing?’
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‘It tracks sudden movement?’ Jeremy steps up beside him.
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Merc quickly waves his hand in the air, then picks up a quartz shard and tosses it across the cave. It clatters loudly against the far wall. No blue light.
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‘Not movement. Not sound,’ Merc mutters, staring down at his recovering shaking hands and shallow breaths. ‘It reacted to “me” … To the sheer terror.’
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‘Diamond Hill, live and thrill...’ The holy words turn to ash in his mouth. ‘It’s “thrilled”, not “thrilling”. It harvests our fear…but, what for?’
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Jeremy pales, processing the weight of the realization. ‘“Her knowledge and power” …What are they though….’
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They exchange a look of pure, creeping dread.
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‘And the rest of it,’ Jeremy stars into the depthless pool. ‘"Limpid, the water, see yourself. Who you are, becomes what you are." What does it mean?’
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‘The water isn't still... There's a current.’ Before Jeremy can react, Merc dives into the freezing pool, and surfaces a moment later, ‘Come. Something’s down there.’
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They swim into the jagged throat of the petrified rock, deep into the suffocating dark. For a split second, they don't feel water anymore. It is a rush of stale, conditioned air. A deafening shriek of heavy steel grinding against iron tracks rips through the young minds.
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‘The next stop is...’ a synthetic, female voice warps and echoes into their brains.
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Before the voice can finish, Merc and Jeremy' break the water surface, gasping for air. “Just an illusion”, Merc tells himself, “Luckily we got air before the phantom got us.”
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At the base of the hill, the sun is fully up. Slender boats are neatly aligned on the water, and the deep morning litany washes inwards, ‘Diamond Hill, live and thrill...’
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They stare at the lead vessels. Two priests stand at their prow in the flowing robes, eyes half-closed, leading the choir of youth. 'They are.... us.' The air freezes. 'They look exactly the same as us...'
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‘See yourself... Becomes what you are.’ The prophetic litany drops like a lead weight in their stomachs.
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‘Remember Matt?’ Merc's voice trembles.
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Jeremy paralyzes against the cruel geometry of the Diamond Hill. ‘You either take the place of your “replacement” ... that’s "what you are" or you stay… Wait… The Outer Ring! That’s our way out!’
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‘The stupid “coins”!’ Merc cries out, ‘We should’ve just spent them out. We would’ve been in the Outer Ring right now.’
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Jeremy narrows his eyes. ‘The ritual. It's a filter…because we realize, because we fight back...’
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‘Because we imagine, because we survive.’ Merc adds, the cynical truth fully dawning on him. ‘We are good batteries...’
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‘Why didn’t Matt tell us!’ Jeremy complains, ‘Now we’ve lost our way to the Ring…’
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‘Tell a crew of “Diamond's Children”?’ Merc satirizes. ‘What would you do… Jeremy?’ He casts a deep gaze toward the vessels across the water.
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They retreat deeper into the shadows of the alcove, till the sun finally bleeds into the lake, and silently slip back into the black water, swimming like phantoms toward the private skiffs where the priests rest.
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and then Add to home screen.