The Valley of the Shadow

The Murderer crouched on the floor of the vessel as it slid through the darkness, the chains at his wrists and ankles rattling with each little jolt. All around him, he heard the groans and whimpers of others in the shadows.

He turned to a hunched figure beside him.

“Hey. Where are we? What’s happening?”

The figure met his gaze with hollow eyes. “We’re dead, mate.”

“Dead? Then…is this the Great Beyond?"

The soul shook its head slowly, its voice filled with sorrow. “No, chum. This is…the Valley.”

The Murderer turned away. The Valley?

The vessel kept descending, sinking deeper into a long-forgotten chasm, turning a knot in the pit of the Murderer’s belly.

Eventually, the craft lurched to a stop. A gate creaked open at the rear, and the captives were hauled out one by one into a grey, formless light.

The Murderer waited his turn, then he was yanked out and thrown onto the stone. He looked up. A massive cavern opened before him, so vast he could not see the ceiling, with everything fading off into a grey haze overhead. Around him gaped pits and hollows, echoing the sounds of agony…sobbing, screaming, moaning.

He was dragged across the cavern floor to a hulking creature cloaked in shadow. A Demon.

“Murderer,” the Demon said.

“Who, me? I’m no Murderer.”

The Demon’s eyes flickered. “Six years ago, you crept into a home and robbed a couple while they slept. When they awoke, you killed them in cold blood.”

The Murderer blinked, the event surfacing in the fog of his memory. He had broken in. They had awoken. He’d lashed out. But…

“I…I didn’t know they died. I just wanted to get away.”

The Demon laughed, its voice harsh and bitter. “Denial. It’s down the deepest pit, then.”

“Wait…deepest pit? What does that mean?”

The Demon didn’t answer. It grabbed him by the chains, dragging the Murderer to the edge of an open chasm that disappeared into darkness.

“Hold on, can’t we talk about—”

The words were cut short as the Demon shoved him over, and the Murderer fell. Fell into darkness. Fell into silence. Fell into despair.

He slammed into the ground below, knocking the wind out of him. His bones groaned, but did not break. He was in pain, but he was not dead. Not again.

Around him, he heard the agony of others…moans, whispers, low sobs calling out from the shadows. He lifted his head, slowly, painfully, as his vision adjusted. Shapes emerged. There were others. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Some lay curled on the cold stone. Others writhed or wept, their voices haggard and weak.

Then, without warning, the Demon’s voice filled his head. This is it. Your eternal home.

The Murderer looked up. Far above, a faint circle of grey marked the mouth of the pit. But it was so high. So out of reach. A pale memory of the world above. He crawled to the wall, curled in on himself, and wept.

Time passed. Or maybe it didn’t. Down here, there was no sense of anything at all. Just stillness and shadow. And then, something landed on his hand. He brushed it off instinctively, and watched it fall to the ground. What was it? A small wafer? Another fell. Then another.

He looked up. Snow. No…not snow. Countless wafers drifted down like ash.

Around him, the others raised their hands and mouths. Was this food? A gift from the heavens?

He picked one up and took a bite. Bitter. Revolting. He spat it out.

Eventually, the wafers stopped falling. And then the screams began. Those who had eaten convulsed, clutching their bellies, writhing in pain. The Murderer watched, horrified. Serves them right, he thought.

But then…something happened. Their bodies began to shift. To change. From their backs sprouted great white limbs. Arms, hands, wings, some twisted fusion of all three.

New limbs, to rid them of the old, the Demon’s voice whispered in his mind.

The transformed souls began to climb. Their new limbs found purchase on the walls of the pit. Slowly, steadily, they rose.

The Murderer stared in awe. “They’re climbing. Can they escape this place?” he wondered aloud.

The Demon answered dryly. The Mana forces them to face their sins. To atone. It gives them strength for the path ahead.

“And if I don’t eat it? Will I die down here?”

The Demon chuckled. You’re already dead. You cannot die again. But if you refuse the Mana, your soul will wither.

Wither? The Murderer looked down. Scattered around the floor were what he had thought were stones. But now…he saw faces in them. Hands. Eyes. Frozen.

Petrified souls.

He looked back up. The others were still climbing. Some fell. But some… some made it. He watched as they reached the rim of the pit and disappeared into the haze above.

Face their sins and atone?

He thought again of the couple. Had they not awoken, they would still be alive. It wasn’t my fault, it was theirs. They made me act. He clenched his jaw. I have nothing to atone for.

And then…he felt it. A coldness blooming in his chest. Shadow wrapping around his heart. He looked at his hands. The edges were darkening. Fading.

No. I must get out. I must escape!

He tensed. Willed limbs to grow. Nothing. He pushed, strained, screamed…but his back remained bare.

Fine. Then I climb. With my own hands.

He leapt at the wall. Slipped. Fell. Tried again. Fell harder.

Breathing heavily, he sat in the dirt. Strength wouldn’t save him. So he looked for tools. Bits of cloth. Broken chains. Shards of bone.

He worked slowly, binding things together, fashioning crude grips and hooks. Each failed attempt taught him something. Each fall revealed a better path. He learned. He adapted.

The Mana kept falling, but he ignored it. Let the others eat. Let them twist and scream. He would climb another way. He was clever. He would earn his escape.

Eventually, bruised and bleeding, he made it. The rim of the pit. Freedom.

He pulled himself over the edge and collapsed, gasping for breath. The stone beneath him was cold, slick with mist.

When he finally looked up, he saw the landscape…a vast, barren expanse of stone and shadow. The ground stretched in every direction, pocked with gaping pits that echoed with screams and sobs.

To one side, the cave sloped deeper into blackness…hiding some darker torture. But to the other, the ground rose gently upward, and at its highest point the faintest glimmer of light touched the walls like the promise of dawn.

The Murderer rose and walked toward it, keeping close to the centre path, away from the edges. The chasms on either side whispered to him as he passed. Voices from the deep. Accusing. Pleading. Begging for release.

He climbed the ridge, and each step burned, not in his flesh but in his soul. Some part of him wanted to remain in this place of darkness and torment. And when he reached the summit, he stopped.

Below him stretched a vast, dark ocean. A sea without waves. Its surface was glassy and still…but wrong, somehow. At the far end, a speck of light. Blinding. Pure. The mouth of this cave, where the sky was not grey but golden.

That is the way, I know it! The way out. The way home.

But he was not alone. From behind him, the Many-Limbed emerged…those who had eaten the Mana and grown strange, radiant limbs. They approached the water slowly, reverently. And the moment they touched it, they were pulled under, dragged down by unseen forces.

The Murderer stepped to the edge, eyes wide. Beneath the surface, he saw them flailing, writhing in agony. But then…they changed. They shrugged off their old skins like dead bark. From the depths, new forms emerged. Bright, complete, luminous. The pain had been a passage. The death, a birth.

“The old ways must die here,” said a voice.

He turned. The Demon stood beside him once more, quiet and still.

“The only way to cross is with the new.”

The Murderer watched as the transformed souls swam toward the light, their movement slow but sure.

He whispered the Demon’s words to himself. “The old ways must die?”

He stared at the water. It was beautiful. Terrible. Pure.

He thought of his life. He had stolen to survive. Lied to protect himself. Lashed out when threatened. A world without mercy had made him merciless. Was that really his fault?

“I played the hand I was dealt,” he muttered, the words ringing hollow in his ears.

He stepped to the edge, braced himself, and dove.

The cold slammed into him as the water wrapped around his limbs and pulled him down…not just his body, but his memories.

He saw it all again. The faces. The pain. The pleasure he’d taken in control. The emptiness he’d left behind.

He could not breathe. Could not fight. He surfaced only by crawling, choking, weeping, back onto the shore.

He lay there, shivering, eyes fixed on the light across the sea.

I won’t go through that again. Won’t be drowned. There has to be another way!

He gathered debris from the shore…bits of wreckage, broken tools, pieces of old rafts abandoned by others. He worked slowly, methodically, over days and weeks.

He built a raft and reinforced it. Made it strong enough to float above the darkness.

Then, with a small oar in hand, he pushed off.

At first, it held. The water resisted him, but he paddled hard. Closer. Closer to the light. But then the sea remembered him. It reached up, grabbed hold, and dragged him under.

The raft shattered. He screamed. And once more, he faced the darkness.

And this time, he saw what the darkness wanted to show him…not the world that shaped him, but the choices he’d made along the way. Choices no one had forced him to make.

Again, he crawled back to the shore. Gasping, choking, sobbing.

The weight was too heavy, the task was too great. The ocean…too vast.

The Mrderer sat by the shore, dejected.

And a new thought entered his mind. A new plan. If I cannot touch the water, I must hide myself from it.

He began to collect pieces of the fallen. Limbs, skins, clothes. He wrapped himself in the discarded garments of the others, and built a new raft. Larger, reinforced, protecting him from the water in every way.

Then he climbed aboard once more, and pushed off. With his single oar, the Murderer began to paddle across the water toward the light.

The ocean was confused. It prodded and probed the vessel, touching the skins of the others. Then it left him alone, allowing him to pass.

Days later, he arrived at the far side. Stepping onto the far shore, the Murderer collapsed to the ground, shedding the skins. He was himself once more…at the mouth of the cave.

A beam of light fell down through the entrance, separating darkness from light.

This is it, he thought. The way back.

He stepped forward. The light cut through him like a blade. Fire sliced through his chest and he cried out, falling to his knees.

Before him, a figure stood. It was not the Demon. It was himself…his old self. A shadow of who he had been.

The figure stood in silence, cloaked in darkness. A perfect mirror. A shadow with his face, his posture, his scars. But colder. Emptier.

The Murderer rose slowly, body trembling, eyes locked on the dark reflection. It was like looking through glass…thin and sharp and absolute.

He looked down. His own hands were glowing now, white and clean, unfamiliar. But the shadow still blocked the path ahead. The light beyond was warped, distorted.

He tried to step forward, but his body struck invisible resistance. The mirror held. And the shadow did not move.

“The only way forward is to let go,” came a voice behind him. Not rough and cruel like the Demon’s, but soft and reassuring.

He turned. An Angel stood there, clad in white, a quiet candle flickering in the darkness. It had no weapon. No wings. Just warmth.

“Let go of what?” he asked. But he knew the answer.

“The old self,” the Angel said. “But…it will be painful.”

The Murderer turned back to the mirror. To the shadow. And for the first time, he did not recoil. He looked…truly looked. Into its eyes. His eyes.

Memories surfaced, unbidden. Not just the facts, but the feeling beneath them.

The first theft: a loaf of bread. But now he saw the man he’d taken it from…a Bread Seller with worn hands and thinning hair. That single act had emboldened others to steal as well, leaving the Bread Seller penniless.

One hurtful act rippled out into the world, sowing seeds of pain and agony.

He saw the night of the murder. Until now, he had remembered fear, panic. But now…he remembered clearly. He had struck too hard. Too many times. Not just to survive, but because... part of him had enjoyed it. The power. The release.

And then he saw her.

The daughter. Small. Crying at the door. Standing over their lifeless bodies. Alone. And then…growing up hardened and cold. Another thief. Another killer. The cycle unbroken.

Because of him.

The Murderer staggered back and fell to his knees. His chest heaved with sobs that cracked him open. He didn’t cry for himself. He cried for them.

“I did this,” he whispered. “All of it.”

The shadow in the mirror faltered. Flickered.

Then something touched his shoulder. Warmth. Light. The Angel stood beside him.

“You are ready,” it said.

A glimmer caught the Man’s eye, and he squinted as he looked toward the shadow in the mirror. But it was gone. No shadow. No mirror. They had dissolved like smoke in the sunlight.

The path was open.

He rose. His limbs were light. His breath steady. There was nothing stopping him. Nothing keeping him from moving forward.

He turned once, looking back across the ocean, toward the pits, and the darkness beyond. Then he looked to the Angel.

“Thank you,” he said, the words failing to capture the depth of his emotion.

The Angel only nodded.

Then the Man looked toward the mouth of the cave, and stepped forward. Out of the darkness. Into the light.