The Glimmer

Deep within the earth was a Grand Cathedral, and within it sat but one stone. Distinct from the towering columns of the cave, the upside down spires that hung broodingly from above, or the stalagmites looking like melted candles of lost hopes and dead dreams; a single stone radiated a sapphire blue light in the middle of the cave’s pristine and holy lake. It continually sent out a pulsating and fractured light that played tricks on the eyes, to where it seemed as if great legends were being told amidst the blue shadows on the cave walls. Its origin and its long history was unknown, but Grimwell had devoted his life to it. He called it the Glimmer.

Grimwell kneeled near the water staring down into it, letting the light fill his mind and carve into his soul. He needed no sleep, nor food, nor companionship. The Glimmer gave him everything. Drinking from the water satisfied his thirst but starved his faculties. As if to keep his physical being as a vehicle and to rot away what sense of self and truth that remained.

It appeared to be alive. Like it knew he was near. It seemed to dim if he looked away, but shine brighter when he stared into it. He loved it, and he thought it loved him.

Once ten years ago, or was it twenty?... He had tried to swim down to it. Just to hold it. To feel its soft and warm embrace in his hands. As he swam closer the light had grown immensely. It surrounded him and blinded him. Even without his eyesight he could feel where it was lying. Instead of pulling him closer, the light pushed him away. It shoved him to the top of the lake and refused his touch.

He may have not remembered when it was, but the feeling of rejection stayed with him. How, much like the stone, his heart sunk to a depth that was unreachable.

Unexpectedly, a noise echoed like a ghostly choir through the cavern. To anyone else it would have seemed to have come from anywhere and yet nowhere, but to Grimwell he knew exactly where it came from. Years of living within these solid arched walls taught him how to locate the slightest of sounds. It was something different than what he heard before. Like a crunch. A porous rock being ground beneath someone’s boot; and it came from behind him.

They’ve finally came to take it from me! He thought to himself in a panic, while his mouth let out a deep-throated hiss. He shot up from bended knee near the water, near his beautiful Glimmer. He turned and scuttled towards the sound. Mindlessly, and full of blood-pumping hate for whomever dared enter his sanctuary of the Glimmer.

Grimwell stumbled over something. He darted his eyes to the ground and found bones. A sickly-yellowed and green with age bone protruded from the floor. Pausing, Grimwell refocused his eyes and saw that in fact it was a ribcage.

“Where did you come from?.... Ahh!” The mist started to clear from his mind. A Knight had once came to claim the Glimmer. His sword sharpened and armor shined; heavy and loud. Grimwell had heard him coming. Never sleeping, always listening, always watching. He hid behind a rock until the Knight came to the water. Then feeling the Glimmer inside him he let it flow through him, out of his hands and into the Knight. The cavern lit up with flashes of blue lightening. The sight was a hellish firestorm, seeing the Knight burn with a hot sapphire flame. The flesh melted from his bones and vanished into dust.

Grimwell remembered how it felt. Feeling the Glimmer work through him. Like a reflection of its power. It felt as if he was needed, loved, wanted. But something else was there. He could feel that the Glimmer did not find the Knight worthy. He remembered how he thought about this for years. Competing feelings of a deep love with paralyzing fear. Caring for the Glimmer, knowing it needed him to survive. But the endless needling of the unanswered questions of ‘Why would it find someone else worthy. Why even question that I am not the one?’ and then the deeper more hideous questions of, ‘if it ever finds someone to be worthy, what will happen to them? What will happen to me?’

This last thought had caused him so much sadness he considered leaving the cave. Going back out into the world, allowing the sun to touch his face once more, and to leave the Glimmer behind. No longer near it… a part of it. But this thought was only fleeting. When he looked down into the lake, allowing the blue light to wash his thoughts away again.

The mist came flooding back into his mind. Like a hazy veil it covered the images and feelings from the past. He slowly walked back to the sacred water, hearing it call him to worship. He gazed down into the shimmering water once more. Feeling the light caress him again and again telling him like a dying lover that she’ll love him forever.

A vulgar splash snapped Grimwell out of the hypnotic state once more. A figure of a man had leapt into the water and was swimming to the Glimmer. Its light brightened to a glaring white, but the figure, now seemingly black due his shadow against the glare of the Gilmmer, kept growing larger and closer to the exquisite glowing stone. It did not push him back up to the top as it had done all those years ago to Grimwell. And suddenly the man, the Glimmer, and the light - were all gone.

Grimwell sat down near the lake, in the all-consuming darkness. His heart and soul were now just as cold, vast, and empty as the cave he had lived in for so long. The mist in his mind had parted once more and now he could see clearly. Grimwell then fell forward into the water with one intention only. To sink. To sink to the bottom where the Glimmer had once been, and never come back up.