The Black Sea

He awoke there, somewhere among dying grass and heathers, his skin so cold that it burned faintly. He could tell he was far from home, and his bones felt older than ever before, like rocks weathered by years of wind. A thick fog covered what could’ve been a sprawling landscape of green hills, or something entirely different. Johann couldn’t find out until he could get back up on his feet, which would prove a challenge. He swivelled his hands and feet in circles, relieving them of cold and stiffness slowly, shivering all the while. Then he exercised his elbow and knee joints before slowly pulling himself up, his body flailing in the wind like a scarecrow. He walked, first slowly then faster, eventually almost running. He looked around frantically, panic setting in as nothing new came into view, only more dead grass, and more ferns, and more fog. Even he, who had been alone all his life, was still unsettled by the empty countryside, having lived in cities all his life. The absence of buildings was deeply disturbing to him, as it surely would be for many other city people. Failing to look where he was going, he stumbled into a strange substance. He pulled his foot away quickly and took several steps back, the cold liquid soaking rapidly through his shoe. A patch of water unfolded before him, seeming to stretch out way ahead into the fog, who knows how far. He cursed the freezing water, shivering even more intensely, his face as pale as a pearl. Johann remembered seeing water like this, but none exactly like this. Other water was green or blue, while this water was black as midnight, and heaved strangely as if some huge creature was breathing inside it. A chill ran down his spine at the thought of the great lake monster that could be lurking just beneath the surface ahead of him. Regardless of how much the strange lake scared him, he knew that where there was water, there was life. He was unsure if this rule included water that was black and heaved up and down, but since there was nothing else to do, he continued walking along the lands edge at a safe distance, lest the creature that made the whole water quake so ferociously jump out and seize him.

‘Are you looking for something?’, said a croaky voice. Johann froze in fear. Before him emerged a figure, hunched over, much shorter than him, seemingly from thin air. It pulled back its dark hood, revealing the face of an old woman, so old that it was barely obvious and barely mattered that it was a woman. Her skin was grey and translucent, like that of a ghost.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. You must be freezing! Here -’ She took the hooded cloak off her back, revealing a second identical one underneath. She draped it over Johann, and he accepted gladly. ‘I wore two today. I sensed we’d have a visitor, and they have such a habit of not dressing right! It must always be summer where they come from.’

The cloak was indeed very warm, seemingly made of thick, dark wool. He felt like a wise, old monk, which immediately made him calmer. Whatever was in the water was no match for a wise, old monk like him, and a tiny, frail old woman certainly wasn’t either.

‘Come with me. I have a hut by the water, just a little further down here …’ she faced the water and motioned to the left. She started walking without waiting for a reply, hunched over and limping heavily, slower than Johann had ever seen anyone walk. With nothing else he could do, he followed.

—

They walked for several minutes before they arrived at the small, wooden hut, ancient as the soil beneath it. The door creaked as the woman opened it, just as the floorboards, slightly raised from the ground by the huts foundation, creaked as the pair walked in. Curiously, a fire burned fearsomely in the fireplace, even though Johann could not recall seeing any smoke coming from the chimney when he was outside. Its roar was less like that of a fire and more like that of an engine, or of the turbine on a plane. Johann stepped closer to this fire, keen to dry off his soaked through shoe, and soon realised that his shoe and his foot were already as dry as if he had never stepped into the strange water.

‘The water doesn’t stick around,’ remarked the old woman, noticing his confusion. ‘There’s nothing it wants to stick to. Not even the shore. Everyday it retreats more and more, little by little. This hut was underwater once, and now it is on the surface. The water won’t even let me collect it in a bucket!’ 

She bared her toothless mouth in a grin at the comical concept of the water that ran away when captured. Johann smiled politely.

‘Please, sit down. Let me make us some tea.’ She motioned to a small table with two stools, one on each side. Johann obeyed as the woman scooped some water from a big bucket into a small metal kettle with a handle on top. She dangled the kettle above the fire with a curious metal rod contraption that attached to the kettle’s handle and extended out, so that the old woman could stand some distance away from the fire while the water boiled, holding the other end of the rod through a rag. 

‘Where is that water from?’ Inquired Johann.

‘It’s rain water. Don’t worry, it's perfectly pure this far away from any cities.’

The whirring of the water in the kettle jogged Johann’s thoughts, and inclined him to speak:

‘So, what is living in the water? The thing that makes it move up and down? Is it the breath of one great creature or a great deal of little ones?’ He asked, with the cadence of a little boy who knew nothing of the world. The woman looked at him in disbelief and started laughing, as the kettle began to let out a piercing, high pitched shrill. She collected herself and retracted the contraption away from the fire, pouring out the water into plain porcelain cups. 

‘Have you never seen the sea, my child? Are you from inland?’

Johann looked back at her wide eyed. She smiled widely, and began to explain, pretending to herself that she was talking to a small child and not to a twenty something year old man.

‘The sea is like a big lake that covers the whole of our world. Nobody knows if it ends anywhere. It’s like a huge, infinite lake that never ends. Can you picture that?’

Johann squinted his eyes and looked out into space, trying to picture this strange thing, as the old woman put the two cups down on the table and sat down opposite him.

‘Yes, I can picture that. So then, all the land is islands in this big lake? And some of the islands have more lakes inside them too?’

‘Very good!’ She congratulated him. ‘As for why it moves, it is precisely because it is an infinite, special lake. It must differentiate itself from the other lakes somehow. It wants to feel special just like me or you or anyone, so it produces all sorts of strange things from inside of itself, like this hut. And it moved around to get our attention, so we never want to take our eyes off it. It’s such a temperamental thing!’ She looked out the window, as if scolding the big lake that was the sea.

‘But it cannot produce life? Only things that aren’t alive?’ 

‘Precisely, young man. Life belongs to the land; the sea has nothing to do with any of that.’

Johann was sceptical of the strange woman and her scattered, whimsical prose, so feminine and unscientific. How could he possibly take her word for anything? He was no child who stood small, at the mercy of his elders! That is when he decided, that despite his fear, it was his duty to explore this strange sea for himself and find out once and for all what was going on.

‘It’s getting dark,’ remarked the woman. Johann looked outside and it indeed was getting dark, as if she had spoken it into existence. ‘I sleep there,’ She pointed to a small bed in the corner of the room. ‘You can sleep in the guest bedroom.’ She pointed to the door in the other corner. 

‘So, you really do get guests here? Why do they come?’

‘Same reason as you, mostly.’

Johann did not know what to think of the statement, so he ceased speaking or thinking all together. 

‘Can I see my room now?’

‘Of course, child. You must be exhausted. Go, and I’ll be in here if you need anything. Anything at all.’

Johann entered his new bedroom through a creaky, wooden door which he made sure to shut securely behind him. He had always relished in his privacy, but never as much as in this new world, where his bones were so aged and his surroundings so harrowing that he could scarcely remember what his life had been like inland, at his supposed home. He assumed any place where the nightmarish sea didn’t lurk must’ve been beautiful.

‘Let me dream of that inland home. I shall fall asleep, and let me dream of it,’ He thought to himself, over and over, as if he were repeating a sacred phrase. ‘Let me dream of it.’

He walked slowly to the wooden bed by the small, uncurtained window at the far end of the room, filling each step with his intention, plotting his escape from this realm. He lay down, solemnly, with his arms by his sides. He truly was exhausted, more so than you or me could ever imagine, more than anyone from inland would’ve believed!

‘I shall fall asleep, and let me dream of it.’

—

Johann awoke in a dream and looked around frantically. His face turned white, as if all the blood had drained from his body.

‘This can’t be…’ He thought. 

There he stood, surrounded by grassy hills and fog, with the black sea in front of him. He cursed his lousy mind for not getting him away from the heaving, dark beast. In the world of Johann’s dream, the water had retreated quite a bit, revealing a great stretch of newly exposed grass that was somehow already yellowed and dying. Johann wondered if he had accidentally travelled forward or back in time, but unsure of whether that was even possible, he soon ceased wondering. The hut was nowhere to be seen, but it seemed that some other type of structure had been revealed: A large, grey, stone tower. Without thinking, Johann began walking towards it. Even though he was in a dream, the cold still bothered him greatly, and he was set on seeking out shelter.  The black sea still heaved in the distance, up and down, looming like a beast in the mist. Johann needed it out of his sight. As he circled the tower, he came upon a wooden ladder that went right up to the top. He climbed it with great agility, and as he got high up enough to see inside the tower, an old man appeared before his eyes. Both parties froze in fear, as if they had never seen a human being before. The old man had icy blue eyes, like Johann’s own, a robe similar to the one the old woman wore, and he knelt on the stone steps of the tower, stacking the bricks that made up the circular wall.

‘Stay back! Construction isn’t finished!’ Spoke the old man, in a croaky voice. A strange determination possessed Johann.

‘I will not! It’s so cold I mean you no harm. Please, just let me step inside.’

Before the old man could say anything, Johann had stepped inside and knelt on the steps by him. Johann noticed just how frail he was, almost like a skeleton under the robe, his skin pure white. His beard trailed down to the steps and off the drop of the spiral staircase, into the dark void. He stared at Johann, stunned, still stacking bricks one by one like an automaton.

‘What is your name?’ Johann asked. The old man shrugged, his eyes now back on his work.

‘You need to leave. There is nothing good down there, at the bottom. Please, climb back down the tower.’ 

Every word seemed to cause the man great effort, as he breathed in and out deeply, his breath making white clouds in the freezing air.

‘What’s down there? Tell me.’

‘It isn’t finished!’ He gasped for air. ‘It’s not worth the effort of climbing … down. There is nothing... good.’ He gasped again, pausing his work for a second, freezing in space.

‘Nonsense! Just a day ago I didn’t even know the sea existed. Now I wish to find out all that is unknown to me.’ Johann looked out at the landscape, letting the wind blow through his hair, with the air of a great explorer. How foolish he had been to be scared of the sea, he thought. He would not let himself be scared again, especially not of a dark staircase, or a delirious old man’s ramblings, he thought. He got up, stepped past the man, and started walking down the spiral staircase without a word. The old man remained, frozen, stunned.

—

It wasn’t long that Johann was surrounded by darkness, now having to be careful with his steps so as to not fall down the dark pit. His body tensed every time he lifted one foot off the stone, and relaxed as soon as he put it down successfully on the next stone, all in an endless, automatic fate, almost like laying bricks. It seemed that the tower stretched far beneath the surface of the ground. The air around him seemed to be getting warmer and damper, bringing colour back to his lips. Suddenly, he felt wetness seeping into his shoe, just as he had when he stepped into the black sea. This time, however, the liquid was much warmer and more inviting. He kept his foot in place, his hair becoming damp from steam, as he considered his situation. Slowly, he lowered himself into the water, floating delicately as if in clouds. Just as he was about to submerge his face, a voice called out from below him:

‘Who goes there!’

The voice was high pitched and feminine, incredibly delicate. Johann was very attracted to it. He pictured in his mind the beautiful woman that it belonged to, a woman with heavy, long hair that would wrap around him in the water like an eel.

‘My name is Johann, I come from inland. May I see you? Please, come up and walk up with me towards the light!’ He shouted, enchanted by the voice.

‘I’m afraid I cannot. The portal isn’t finished, and it is not my time. The old man will tell me when it is my time.’

Johann was perplexed, but thought on his feet.

‘In that case, can I come into the water with you?’

The woman paused for a second, thinking.

‘Well, I don’t see why not. But don’t stray too far from the steps. I’ll make sure you won’t get lost.’ 

Johann smiled, pleased with himself.

‘Okay, I’m coming in.’ He lowered himself in the water and pushed himself away from the steps with his legs. He was able to float and move his limbs effortlessly as if suspended in air. 

‘You can breathe here, I believe. Try it,’ said the woman, her voice now seeming to come at him from all sides. Johann took a deep breath, and, to his surprise, he could indeed breathe inside the water just as naturally as he could breathe air. He swam on, further and further, his body coursing with bliss. After a few minutes in the water Johann had no more thoughts, only sensations, all sensations. First they approached him slowly, then they tore him apart, making particles of his body, dissolving it in warmth. The words of his companion turned to sounds, indecipherable from other sounds, indecipherable from the cacophony of other voices he was now hearing from all directions. He felt all possible forms, and no forms at all, as if intoxicated without drinking. He got the sense that his consciousness was somewhere very far away, in a place he couldn’t imagine, locked away in a box or behind a grand wardrobe. After the initial neurological shock, sensations began to come to Johann in waves, warm waves, as if there were really a great creature beneath the ocean breathing steadily. Or, perhaps, a great deal of creatures.

‘I’m almost home’ he thought. ‘I’m almost home’ he thought again, and so on and so on, in between each wave. One wave would bring a shudder, another would bring a drop of distilled, burning rage, another a deep, pitiful hunger that stung like a void in one's stomach. A great fire seemed to rumble somewhere in the distance, just as the fire had rumbled so in the old woman’s hut, but even more intense, as if it were powering an immense machine. Johann thought he could swim towards it, as soon as he got used to his new state. He craved greater warmth, greater noise, to be consumed by the new realm, to not have to return to the cold fields above. As Johann tried to adjust to everything that coursed through his cells, he heard the woman’s voice again, piercing through the hum of all that shook around him.

‘Johann! Come back to the steps! This way!’

Something pulled him, like a tide, in a direction he couldn’t discern. He then felt a hand on his shoulder. He had a shoulder again! He had a human form!

‘Grab onto my hand. I’ll pull you out,’ continued the woman.

Not used to using his complicated hands, with all their bones and tendons, Johann fumbled around in the darkness, trying to feel anything at all with his fingertips. The woman grabbed his flailing hands herself, like a skilled fisherman catching a fish, and pulled Johann up and out of the water, so that his upper body was on the steps.

‘Ah!’ He called out, shocked by how cold the air was. She now gripped his whole body tightly, as he fought her grasp, fighting to get back into the water. 

‘Let me go! I want to go back there!’ He called out.

‘Oh, but you mustn’t. I’m ready now. I can go out into the light with you.’

Johann calmed down slightly, gasping for air, coughing up remnants of water.

‘I can see you in the light?’ He spoke softly, unsurely, like a little boy.

‘Yes, Johann. But we must walk up the steps slowly. The old man will not believe this!’ She laughed, gleefully. ‘Come on Johann, stand up! That’s it, very good!’ 

He felt as if he had never walked before, as if his limbs were weaker than ever before. He grasped onto the woman’s hands with as much strength as he could muster, shaking violently with each step. Slowly but surely, he regained the muscle memory he required for the movement, but was still shocked at his extreme frailty.

‘I’m so … tired,’ he whimpered between steps.

‘Of course you are, Johann. You wore yourself out in the water.’ She spoke softly, maternally, still under the shroud of darkness. 

‘Alma? Is that you?’ uttered a voice from the top of the tunnel. Johann suddenly remembered the old man. 

‘It is me! Wait there, we are coming!’ 

‘We? So the boy lived?’ 

Johann froze mid step. Just then, he noticed the first ray of light coming into the spiral tunnel, illuminating the fearsome face of the one who had been leading him. To his shock, it was the old woman from the hut, as old and ghostly as ever. Horrified, Johann freed himself from her grip and sprinted up the stairs as fast as his weak legs could carry him.

‘Johann! Wait!’ Called out the old woman, now in her normal, aged, croaky voice. 

Johann had no choice but to wait, collapsing on the steps before he could get very far at all, feeling as if his heart was about to come up through his throat and block his airways once and for all. He gasped for air, whimpering, as tears formed in his hollowed-out eyes. The old woman grabbed him, and with strength he did not expect from her, hauled his rickety body up the stairs, scraping it along the rough stone.

‘No! Stop! Just let me go back in the water!’ He cried out, now sobbing uncontrollably.

‘Oh, stop being difficult! The master will scold you if you keep crying.’

‘Master?’

‘Come on now, here we are. I wanted to bring him up while he’s still alive so he can see what a good thing he’s doing for us!’

Johann looked around, realising they had reached the top of the tower. Above him loomed the grey sky, and the figure of the old man, who now stood tall and proud with no traces of his earlier skittishness. His presence was completely transformed, no longer a skeleton but a solidly built man. Johann looked down and noticed how frail his own body had become, his now wrinkly skin stretched over prominent bones and tendons like cling film. The old man embraced Alma warmly as she went to take her place by his side, still donning the same, dark cloak as she had worn in their previous encounter. Johann noticed the same cloak on himself, as he lay sprawled on the steps before the intimidating figures, shivering like a new-born animal.

‘You have helped our plan go smoothly, Johann. Now my wife has her life again, and we will remain together for all of time. You have done a truly noble deed for us, Johann! You saw how tortured I was without her, how I couldn’t live. It is thanks to you that she is with me again’ Said the old man, in his incredibly deep voice that seemed to make the tower shudder. Johann caught his breath.

‘What have you done to me!’ He looked down at his wrists and ankles, as skinny as reeds, and felt around his bony face frantically. ‘You tricked me! Return me to my original self! Who even are you! I’ve never seen you people In my life!’ Johann tried to strike Alma, but failed. She stood calmly, unphased. The old man laughed.

 ‘I’m afraid I cannot return your life to you. All that Johann used to be is dissolved somewhere, in the black water. You have emerged an empty shell, a vague framework of a human being, after gifting us with the energy we needed for Alma’s rebirth. You will perish soon; don’t waste your last breaths reproaching your us! You know very well who we are!’

‘Do I? Do I?’ Johann stared up in disbelief.

‘The water must’ve taken your memory of us away, what a shame,’ said Alma, leaning down to stroke Johann’s cheek. ‘You have done a beautiful deed for us today and you’ll die a martyr, I assure you darling.’ Johann slapped her hand away, screaming out in pain.

‘Don’t exert yourself! Your bones are so weak, my dear. Now that you’ve served us, we want to minimise your suffering. Let us carry you back down to the water.’

‘No!’ Shouted Johann, pathetically, knowing he had no choice in the matter. All strength had drained from his body, and he knew he would not be able to move again. All he could do was cry, each tear falling more coldly onto his cheek than the previous one. He was barely conscious anymore when he felt hands grabbing him, carrying him down. Their fingers tore into his skin like knives, revealing pulsating, red flesh beneath. Johann felt the steam of the black water before him rising, seeping into his wounds like fire, and something stirred inside him: some small, remaining, remnant of life. It was as if all his memories that had dissolved in the dark substance were coming back to him, even memories he had long forgotten, sensations he could no longer recall, but must’ve felt at some point in his twenty years on this big earth. They all came, flooding into his flesh and blood, reinvigorating him. Johann remembered his life, and he remembered himself. His muscles swelled, and his bones became electrified as if he had been struck by a bolt of electricity. As if by the switch of a button, Johann regained his strength, and wrestled his way out of the grasp of the elderly people.

‘Let me go! Let me go!’ He cried out, moving his body in all directions, kicking and scratching his captors like an animal, bouncing off the walls of the tower.

‘Hold still, for God’s sake! We’re almost at the water! You’re almost put out your misery!’

‘No! No! No!’ He called out over and over again. Thinking quickly, he ran down to the water and placed both hands in it. He felt the fire he felt before deep within the water, that dark, rumbling fire, lending him the power he needed. He riled up the water, thrashing about in it like a fearsome creature, making his own waves. The water rose and rose, as if responding to his output of energy.

‘Stop it, Johann! The tower will crumble!’

With those last words, Johann dunked his head into the water and took a big gulp. Then, like a machine, he seized Alma and threw her into the great void, which had now formed a sort of whirlpool. Just as Johann was about to seize the old man, he jumped in of his own accord, going after Alma. The whirlpool grew more and more vicious, as Johann stood up on the steps, commanding it as a conductor commands an orchestra. 

‘This is good. Very good.’ As he saw that his crisis had been averted, he began to relax, as did the water. Through surrendering to it fully, he had become its master, he thought. He walked back up the staircase and sealed it off for good with the old man's remaining bricks. 

‘The water will return to the sea, but they will remain imprisoned,’ he thought. ‘The water can flow through all things, and there is nothing the water can’t do.’ He rejoiced for his returned life and strength, as he climbed down the ladder with ease. 

‘Johann!’ Shouted a voice from beneath the earth, the voice of the woman Johann had heard in the darkness.

‘I know it’s you, you hag. Repent, and the water will save you. Give yourself up to it, and you will be purified in rebirth.’ 

‘Let us out Johann! What you’ve done is evil, and you’re talking of purification! Hypocrite!’ The hag sounded truly enraged. Johann lay down on the ground and put his ear to the soil. 

‘It’s not evil! I’m in my dream! You aren’t real here, and neither am I. I can act however I please. Since it’s my dream, I have every right to be its hero.’ He smiled smugly.

‘Stupid child. Your responsibility begins in dreams. What you dream could become very important for the whole world.’

‘The universe will not bow to any of my whims. I am just a child, like you say.’ Johann was now laying on his back, his hands behind his head, pleased with himself.

‘Oh, but you’re not in a dream. You were already in a dream, then you went to sleep. A dream has a way out! A dream within a dream doesn’t! The voice grew more and more frantic, slowly becoming more croaky and coarse. 

‘Stop talking nonsense. Who ever heard of such a thing? Everything has a way out, and I can find it. You had me out for dead, and I found a way out! You built me a grave and I put you in it! Goodbye, hag!’

Johann got up and started walking, tired of listening to nonsense. She faintly shouted after him, but he no longer cared to listen.