“The first thing you notice is the smell”. That’s what my grandfather told me. He always described it as stale salt. I never understood it as a kid. How does salt go stale? Isn’t the purpose of salt to prevent that? Now, as I slowly trudge through the loose dirt and sand, it makes sense. The sand… it’s the same stuff that covers The Impassable Desert. But unlike there, this sand is cold and slightly damp. The heavy chains I wear prevent me from reaching down to grab a handful, but I can feel it between my toes.

Above, strange white birds lazily circle around, their cries a horrific screech. A unpleasant cross between a goose’s honk and a child screaming. Between their strange noises, a new sound slowly grows. A low growling. Like an angry waterfall in a slow, rhythmic pattern. I can’t see it yet because of the sand dunes ahead of me, but I know that we must be getting close.

My mind wanders to the events of the past week. It all feels so surreal, like a dream I can’t wake up from. It had been a rainy day, but there was work that needed to be done. Veronica Meathers, my dear elderly neighbor, had just noticed a leak in her roof. If I didn’t fix it before the storm got any worse, then her house would have flooded. The last thing I remembered was putting the final touches on the new thatching and then a flash of light.

Sometime later, I woke in a dark, empty room. I was uncomfortably laying on a large flat table. I sat up with a groan, before hearing a scream of terror from a woman I hadn’t seen in the corner of the room. Several people in mortician’s robes ran in, their faces draining of color at the sight of me. As I look down at the burn marks jaggedly streaking across my flesh, I hear one of them whisper “He’s an undying.”

Over the course of the next few days, I am able to piece together that I had been struck by lightning and was found dead on Mrs Meathers’ lawn. Me returning to life was all the evidence the local judge needed to seal my fate. To be an undying was to be cursed. Your very presence was a bad omen. Any and all who were found to be an undying were exiled. No other nation would take you in. Most leaders saw it as an act of aggression to dump your undyings in their land. So the only place to go was West, across the Great Sea.

It was rumored that many generations ago, people used to ride in vessels across the waters in search of strange creatures to hunt. They must have had some favor with the gods of the sea, for now it is considered forbidden territory. I look around at the small collection of guards escorting me, their stern faces failing to hide the fear in their eyes. Even being this close was dangerous, for the sea gods were quick to wrath.

I gasp as we crest what turned out to be the final dune. A short stretch of sand littered with alien plant life was all that separated us from the impossibly vast expanse of water in front of us. It surged up the ground, as if it was a living creature hungry to devour the land, before sliding backwards in an endlessly repeating pattern. The guards unfasten my chains, not willing to get closer to the infinite expanse of blue ahead of them. It stretches as far as the eye can see before meeting with the sky itself, as if it continued above us as well.

A sharp jab in my side from one of the guard’s spears shoves me forward. I shuffle down the dune, the loose sand making it hard to keep my footing. I take a deep breath, and make my way toward my punishment. The air is cold, but it could not prepare me for the icy touch of the water. I press on, knowing the rumors of what torments they subject undying that refuse to cooperate with their exile. As the ocean surges again, the force of the water knocks me off my feet, falling down into the now waist deep water. As it recedes, I can feel it pulling me with it, out into its dark depths. I don’t fight it, and soon I am pulled far away from the shore.

It is rumored that somewhere across the sea lies forgotten civilizations. Maybe even ones that will welcome undying like myself. I do my best to calm myself before letting out what will probably be my last breath of air for a very long time. The pain from the water hitting my lungs is excruciating, but as I start to sink lower and lower, a new type of pain emerges. As if I am being crushed by an invisible weight from all sides.

I reach down and activate the sunrod on my hip, shedding light to the area around me. A final parting gift from what had been my home. As I continue to sink strange creatures move past me, like lizards with wings instead of legs. Their huge alien eyes reflect the light as they dart around, no doubt curious as to my intrusion to their home. Eventually, I reach the floor, still coated in sand. My movements are sluggish as I try to walk, but after some practice I develop a system to use my arms to pull myself through the water.

More of the strange denizens of the ocean continue to investigate me. Many of them share some form of resemblance to creatures I’m familiar with, but they all are alien to me. Occasionally, one will be emboldened and swim right up to me. One even took a bite, but it must have decided I tasted poorly because it swam off with a mouthful of my arm, never to be seen again.

With time, I find myself more at ease being down here. Without the sun or stars, it is impossible to know how long it has been. I tried keeping count of how many times I fell asleep and woke up, but without somewhere to record it I quickly lost count. I have no idea how long I’ve been down here. It could be years. It could be decades. It’s strange how time passes when you’re lost in an alien world.

Eventually, I find a spot where the ground starts to angle upward. I follow it for a time before realizing that I am about to break the surface. It is night time, but as I look up, none of the stars are familiar. As if they’ve been scrambled across the sky. In that moment I realize that the surface world has become the strange alien landscape, while my home has shifted below the waves. With a solem nod, I turn back toward the deep ocean. Where I now belong, amongst the now not so alien creatures and infinite darkness.