The Longest Journey Part 5: The End

Aaaauuugggh! Aaaugh! What is happening! Where am I? Why can't I see or hear or feel anything? What has happened to me? Is anybody there?! I don't understand what has happened to me...

The last thing I remember is climbing the mountains. al-Nahash was with me, and the ghul, and another person - no, not a person, a thing, a thing inside me. A passenger. We climbed and climbed, and the stars stared down at us like hungry gods and the air grew colder and drier and it was like coming home, except it was not my home, nothing like my home. And the stone beneath me was strange, like roots made of rock that had strangled the mountain itself. The ghul was drooling, and I should have been afraid, but I wasn't.

Why wasn't I afraid?

I wasn't allowed to be afraid. My passenger - the seed? It wouldn't let me be afraid. But its gone now, and I am afraid of what has happened to me.

What happened next? The thing within me was opening - it had quickened on the bridge of night, and it needed to sprout. We needed to reach the mountaintop so it could sprout and inject roots into the sky and earth together. It was whispering to me then and I was not alone. It's gone now - am I alone? I don't think I am, somehow.

Who's there? I can't see you - I can't see anything, but I can sense you somehow. I feel like someone is reading my thoughts, as though I were writing in my journal and someone stood at my shoulder studying every word. I know you are there, but who are you? Answer me!

No answer. Maybe I am imagining you. But I feel like you want to know what happened. So do I...we climbed to the very top of the mountain, but something loomed over us. The sky was replaced by dark wings, and a face - that terrible face - it gazed down at us. al-Nahash stepped forward and spoke in a strange tongue, and blood dripped from his mouth as he uttered words which burned my ears. My chest hurt, but that wasn't important. The passenger was important.

The face bent closer and a vast tendril slipped from its maw and descended towards my body. The ghul siezed my arm then and cried out at the strange thing above us "The seed is yours, but I am promised the fruit! The flesh is mine!" Then the tendril entered my chest with a cold whisper and drew out a tiny black thing from within me. I felt it go - it left a horrible hollow place inside. It drew my passenger out of me and I collapsed, but did not fall - my arm was still in the ghul's terrible grasp and I dangled from it. The empty place was growing, and it consumed me and all was blackness, and then blankness.

I think I am dead.

If I am dead, where am I? Why is there this void around and inside me? Why do I feel like someone is watching me, studying me, reading my thoughts like words on a page? Why?

What will happen to me now?

Hello?

---

Catalog Entry

The Diary of the Seedbearer, submitted by Sathradin al-Nahash to the library of the Burj Alhikma

Notes

The Eidolon of the Seedbearer has been preserved and placed within the Diary, in order to provide communication with the quickened Seed beyond. Handle with care, and do not carry into the Dream. The Eidolon is partially aware within the book, and can produce words on the blank pages. Periodic review of the spontaneous text is advisable, should the preserved Eidolon begin to deviate from expected patterns. If permitted to develop unchecked, it could become dangerous.