Story #66 - Shudder Step

Shudder Step

The Shuddering came, and broke our homes.

The Shuddering left, and we believed that we were safe, believed that we had escaped the terrible vengeance of our Gods.

Now it has returned and we are seeking someone to blame, a sacrificial object onto whom we will heap all of our guilt. The Old Ones say it must have been one of the Younglings, those that wish to stray upward, those that wish to leave the sanctity of the covered depths.

The Younglings speak in crystalline whispers about the Oldest One, soft murmurings that mock his inability to lead, his fragile and reedy voice. Thick murmurs in the dark, tainted words that spread across still lakes and into hard-wrought dens. They are mad words, angry words, words that would tear our people apart – were the Gods not already doing so.

I myself find fault enough in both camps, fault in the scurrying steps and sharp odors of the Younglings and as much in the ponderous treads and musty damp of the Old. I have touched the dry and peeling skin of the Oldest, felt the supple curve of young flesh under my care. I am the Middle, the stoic, the calm. My segment cannot be to blame; we have done nothing wrong, but we do not wish to blame the others.

And yet, it happens.

Each day we fragment, our heightening screams threatening to do quickly what the Shuddering is drawing out over time. Discussion turns to argument and sometimes to violence. Old Ones have gone missing; packs of Younglings have been abandoned in the Reaches. It is madness; it is judgment.

Today I spoke; I do so rarely, and my voice cracked along the syllables I desired. Younglings snickered but their betters silenced them. I wept for our people, for the homes we have lost and the division that is coming. I made my plea, and all considered it.

It is time to leave.

Each day, the Shuddering is more fearful than the last. Sometimes it lasts for only moments, casting down a sheen of rock salt upon our heads, and others it stretches throughout the hours, shaking loose the very foundations of our homes and buildings to send them splashing, churning into the waters below.

At first, the tears of our angry Gods carried no danger, but so much has happened, so many pieces have come undone that many of us can no longer hear the shifting, hear the delicate creak as structures are broken as the stable becomes loose and tumbles downward, ever downward, onto whatever or whoever lurks below.

We are dying.

***

Truly, they had no choice but accept, though each made it seem as though the other side opposed it and only they carried they day. I do not care; what matters is that we are moving, that we are lifting ourselves away from this place.

Away from our homes.

The Shuddering is constant now, a low-toned hum that persists no matter where we hide. Each tunnel sought out by groping hands, each passage found by quick ears seems no better than the last, and many seem far worse. We lose men and women by the hour; children wail, beyond all reason, their peaceful cohabitation shattered with each passing moment. We were not meant for this – stability is our refuge, steadfastness our gift.

I can conclude only that this is a test.

Blame serves no purpose; sinners or no, we are subject to what the Gods have chosen, and we must endure. We must prevail.

A cry comes from the front; one of wonder, one of pain. The youngest of them, the most spry, has found something, something beyond our imagining.

At forks in passing it came to my eyes, a blazing fury that cast my gaze down, bade my to wrap cloth about my head and continue, Shuddered mind incapable of rational thought. An artifact, I believed – a rarity, brought on by the unfathomable.

Now, a reality.

A blazing-bright beacon tears from the tunnel mouth into our number, sends them scattering to the darkened edges, huddling with eyes turned to walls and hands over ears. Beyond its maw lies a twisted thing of nightmares, writhing life that sickens with sinewy grace and movement.

Such things cannot be borne by us, cannot be endured by a people such as ours! Why, why have the Gods done this, cast us out of what was right, what was peaceful, what was true? What good and noble beings would punish a devoted people so, scour them from their homes with terrifying destruction only to lead them into a world of basest fear?

What could we have done to deserve such a thing? Could the Old Ones in their hubris, in their desire for power have sickened the Gods, cast us all into a pit from which we could never emerge? Could the Younglings, with their desire for knowledge, their mockery of the ways, offended the Gods so deeply that all of our souls would be forfeit?

What of us, the Middle? What have we done to deserve such a fate? Would the God punish steadfast devotion to the words of the Old, kindness to the Young? Mock simple joy in the first breath of a child, or the scent of a lover on the air? We enjoyed, we endured, we enlightened.

They catch my eye, Young and Old alike, bunched together in a frightened mass, gibbering sobs ripping from their throats, words of shame and accusation banished by what they have seen – by what I see.

Finally, their forms are revealed, the reason for our darkness, our cool and perfect midnight. Perhaps our Makers have grown restless, or perhaps they wish our lives to be changed. Perhaps they merely act to destroy us, to stamp out what must surely be an accident of power on their part, a mistaken creation they now choose to erase.

I look, I see, and I know. By the Gods, we are ugly.

- D