The Passing
471 Words
The ritual took place in the farmhouse basement, where the Ember had first awakened sixty years ago.
Elara stood in the center of a circle carved with silver symbols—the void's symbols, not the old hunger's. Kaela knelt before her, her grey eyes steady, her hands open.
"Are you ready?" Elara asked.
"I've been ready my whole life."
"The void is heavy. It will change you."
"I know."
"It will hurt."
"I know that too."
Elara placed her hands on her daughter's shoulders.
"Then let go."
---
The void left Elara like a warm breath leaving a room.
She felt it flow out of her chest, down her arms, into Kaela's waiting hands. Her daughter gasped. Silver light flickered behind her grey eyes—not cold, not hungry. Warm.
Hello, the void said. I have waited for you.
"I know," Kaela whispered.
You are not afraid.
"I'm terrified. But I'm ready."
That is enough.
The light faded.
Elara collapsed.
---
Kaela caught her mother.
"Mom? Mom!"
"I'm okay." Elara's voice was weak. "Just tired."
"You're not carrying the void anymore."
"No. I'm just... me."
"Can you stand?"
"Give me a minute."
Kaela helped her sit against the wall.
The void stirred inside her.
Your mother is weak. The void sustained her for decades.
"She'll recover?"
She will learn to live without me. It will take time.
"Then we give her time."
---
James's ghost—or something like it—appeared to Elara in her sleep.
Not the void. Not the Deepening. Something older. Something that had been watching since the Ember first woke.
You are free, it said.
"Who are you?"
I am what remains of the first vessel. The one who came before the Dissembler. Before the Ember. Before the hunger.
"I don't understand."
You will. In time. Rest now.
Elara slept.
---
Kaela walked through Ember's Rest, feeling the void settle into her bones.
The town is different, it said.
"You've been inside my mother for decades. You haven't seen the town."
I have seen it through her eyes. Now I see it through yours. It is... brighter.
"Hope does that."
I am learning to hope.
"Good."
---
Elara recovered slowly.
She walked with a cane now, her body finally showing its age. But her eyes were clear, and her smile was real.
Kaela visited her every day.
"The void is adjusting."
"Good."
"It misses you."
"It misses carrying hope. That's different."
Elara took her daughter's hand.
"You're doing well."
"I'm trying."
"That's the same thing."
---
The Deepening stirred in its sleep.
Kaela felt it—a distant pressure, like a headache at the edge of her skull.
It knows I am the new vessel, she said.
It is curious, the void replied.
"Curious or hungry?"
It does not know the difference.
"Then we teach it."
- Writer
