Finding the Light
Mary peered down at the murky, gray-green water, pondering the cities and bodies that had slipped beneath its sallow, rippling surface during the night. All around her, a fetid wind whipped and whistled, mocking whispers in the faltering light.
“You failed,” those sneering voices seemed to say. “Before you even realized anything was wrong, you failed.”
She looked up at the sun, low in the sky, bloated and red. It gave off a pale, sickly illumination that reminded her of congealed blood.
Just yesterday, the water had been a bright, electric blue, the sun a blinding ball of white hot fire. So much had changed, it was staggering to think how the corruption could have swept through the world so fast.
My ancestors defended it for tens of thousands of years, she thought, and I couldn’t even defend it for one.
The wind became dry, rasping laughter, like shriveled snake’s skin rattling across hot, desert sand.
“The world has always been mine,” the wind seemed to say, and it sent its rotten, moldering stench to her nose. “Since the time before time.”
No, Mary couldn’t accept that. Corruption had always been a part of the world—evil was an ever-present danger to be guarded against at all times—but there was also love, and this could not belong to evil any more than darkness could belong to the sun.
“I reject you,” she said, stepping forward toward the water’s edge. “You hold no claim over these lands.”
More laughter.
Mary held her ground.
Dig deep, her father had told her once, his last lesson before taking up his mantle in the second life. In times of distress, dig deep. Cling to what’s right, find the light and let it out into the world.
Dig deep.
Mary closed her eyes.
She reached far into Earth’s heart, into the only place the corruption hadn’t been able to reach. She could see that the light inside had faded, diminished some by the relentless onslaught of the evil that forced it into hiding. But it was pure, strong and true.
The Earth shuddered as Mary let out thick, gnarled roots. They surged through the ground, beneath soil and stone, down into the red hot regions beneath, plunging into the very core.
“What are you doing?” asked the wind, picking up in intensity, transforming into a hurricane-like gale.
With all the force she could muster, Mary pierced the white-hot center, making contact with the life force inside.
A bolt like an electric shock plowed through her, shooting up into the roots. With her as a conduit to lend it strength, it flowered into a radiance and a love so strong no corruption could survive its searing power. It flowed through her, out of her, out into the world.
“No!” cried that fetid wind, burning to cinders in the blinding luminescence. It boiled off like water, dispersing in a cloud like super-heated steam.
When at last she opened her eyes, the world was as she remembered it.
“You’ve done well,” said the light, once more free to sustain the world.
Mary could no longer move, for her roots had run deep and there was no disentangling herself. She was one with Earth now, just as her father had been, just as she would be for as long as the light allowed her to live.
“Take care of this world, so that I might always shine.”
“I will,” she whispered.
Now, she gazed down at water that was a clear, crystal blue, the sun blazing overhead just as it had for thousands of years before. There would always be evil, lurking in the shadows, but as long as there was light, redemption would be close at hand.
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