xuanan
Junior Member
Stillness.
Then the soft, lulling sound of oars hitting the water’s surface. The yawning mouth of the River Lethe surrounded a lone boat, traversing the glassy harbors of the in-between. In this realm of perpetual twilight, a single sleek face could be made out among the gloom-- a ferrywoman. She stood at the edge of the bow, eyes peering eagerly for any semblance of a shoreline in the distant haze. Then, at last, the lights of the dock could be seen. Their piercing glow broke through monochrome fog. The silhouette of a single building could be seen, grey on grey, black on black. Like the edges of a dime, its rough shingled roof jutted out from the elegant curvature of the structure, combining elements of both new and old architecture. Gothic detailing spiraled upward into Ionian columns, and modern sheets of glass paralleled cathedral-esque stained-glass windows. It was a beautiful meatloaf of a building. It was The Altar.
A light ebbed and swayed at the bow, a flickering lantern that bathed everything in a tint of ominous crimson. Then the hunched creature at the bow turned around, revealing eyes as old as time and a face as fresh as a newborn’s. The hollow stare of the ferry-woman bore deeply into the skulls of each one of the mortals now uncomfortably seated on the splintered wooden edges of the gondola. Bony fingers clasped the oar, and a profuse sweat broke out on her brow-line as she furiously paddled to shore, a breeze now blowing in the opposite direction. Where the breeze originated was knowledge possessed only by a few, and Dahlia, the ferrywoman, was not one of them. Against this cool zephyr, a longing sigh escaped her lips. Like Atlas holding up the weight of a world upon her shoulders, she stretched, contorting her thin frame into an almost impossible arc before it slid back into place, then beamed a smile at her bewildered passengers.
“Sooo, how’s everyone feeling tonight? Hope it was a swell ride for you all. Rate me a five on Styx Stars, will ya?” She half-joked in the partial light, still grinning at the mortals who had the unfortunate business of traveling their way through this purgatorial boundary between Heaven and Hell. “Enjoy your stay at The Altar Casino and Resort. Please, this way…” she escorted them with a gesture of her skeletal wrist, motioning to the dock. “Watch your step. It can get slippery out here.” Every board on the dock seemed well-worn, as if a million footsteps had once stood in their place. Yet it was still intact, held together by perhaps some miracle of God. The black waters of the river lapped at the pillars which held the ramshackle piece together. Lost dreams floated by, items that had no place in a river as polluted as the Lethe. Wedding rings, rocking horses, a pair of baby shoes… all of them floated and bobbed at the surface before being swept away by the current, never to be seen again.
But Dahlia paid these items little mind.
Her hand was still firmly situated on a dock column while her foot rested on the gondola, encouraging her passengers to exit in a timely fashion. Not that time mattered here. It was but a swirling, vague void that ate everything which entered. Mortals might think of something akin to a black hole, but there was something intentional, more purposeful than a sunken star about the casino and its surroundings which haunted the curious onlooker. A black hole was governed by gravity, and gravity could be quantified, understood. But the abyss here was limitless, an endless array of forgotten hopes drifting into the fog. Human desires were limitless, it seemed. They all had wishes to fulfill, things they meant to do before their untimely deaths-- and in Dahlia’s opinion, every human death was untimely. Hell, who expected to die? Well, some people, she supposed. But she pushed these depressing thoughts from her head before vocalizing them with her unenthusiastic audience who were now beginning to collect themselves at the edge of the vicinity and the front of the casino’s gates. Wrought black iron winded its way through rust like the back of a venomous snake, and ivy patterned the gate in a way that would almost be quaint if it were not so menacing and voluminous. Towering over the folks at the entrance, the gate shifted, then, with a groan of protest, it opened, inch by inch. The ferrywoman tapped her foot impatiently. They needed to replace that gate. Had it always been rusty, or had the moisture in the air eaten away at it? Dahlia always wondered how things at the casino could age when, really, there was no time, not in the linear way that mortals viewed it. As a mortal herself, its infinite nature was difficult to comprehend and a topic often avoided unless over a few hastily consumed and alcohol-content-high drinks. After that, everyone at the table became a philosopher.
“There’s no time here,” she mentioned aloud casually to the people gathered around the spectacle of a building. “Just thought I’d let you know. Don’t think about it too much, though. It’s less of a big deal than you’d think. Just… ride the wave. You know?” Her meaningless rambling seemed insensitive considering the situation the tag-alongs had been placed in, but she felt they deserved to know before they met their great-great-great Protestant grandpa partying in the club on the second floor. The shock and ridiculousness would be a sight to behold, though, she mused. Mortals were so silly, and she was equally willing to play into their silliness, considering her own very human status in the casino. She was snapped from her reverie when the gate let out one last dying squeal.
Cavernous doors blazed with light at the edge of the dandelion-spotted grass. Would they enter?
