The Tunnel
The cries roared louder and louder behind him, almost clutching his heels in their sorrow. Doran scurried away through the obscure realm, his bare body fleeing what trailed after him. He took no heed of his blurred surroundings, only driven by the singular fear of death’s relentless pursuit upon him.
Doran mustered the adrenaline coursing through his veins, wielding it to good use in his limbs. Each stride hitting the ground harder than the last.
His heart palpitated in his chest, overcoming any semblance of reason to the madness. His lungs wheezed uncontrollably, as his breath became huskier and huskier with each distance gained – between himself and the “thing” pursuing him.
He ran through the thicket coming into view, weaving himself through the prickly underbrush. The canopy of trees shielded any inkling of where he had stumbled into on his venture. As he hurried deeper into the forest, he thought his eyes deceived him; the branches and roots all around him seemed to interweave tighter like a noose…
Concealed and forsaken in this tarnished place, he could never halt running. If he took a moment to consider his surroundings, the “thing” would seize him.
Yet, as he ran further and further he noticed how endless the passageway through the forest became. Ceaseless noise ran rampant alongside him. Thoughts eventually broke their silence, overcoming the walls of fear instilled in his mind. He welcomed the much-needed clarity.
But then a peculiar thought creeped in and unsettled his nerves: How did I even get here?
When he permitted the exploration of that thought, Doran realised he had no remembrance of being anywhere at all.
Meanwhile, within earshot the mournful cries bellowed with bestial wrath.
Doran dared not look back to steal a glance at his assailant.
God knows what is after me, a terrifying thought rose to his mind’s surface amidst the frenzy.
He scurried like helpless prey in denial.
Then all at once, the light banished him to the darkness. The forest canopy led him into captivity. Doran had no recollection of entering new territory, yet in one seamless moment he wandered blindly into the unfathomable remoteness.
There were no longer thrashing twigs and branches slitting his skin. They had been abandoned to Yesterday. Now, in their place was the click-clack of pebble and stone.
He did not know how and when it occurred, yet in his gut, Doran knew he stood on the precipice of Today.
Where the hell am I?
It was a dank, wretched place. An unforgiving frigid chill seeped into his flesh. He could sense the jagged ceiling rising aloft before him. The very air he breathed was ripened with dread. Doran became an uninviting presence here: as if he were intruding upon an ancient place in deep slumber.
Doran unpursed his lips to let out a call into the unknown. But immediately stopped himself, knowing that his echo would haunt the cavernous depths for eternity.
‘It wouldn’t bring any hope to me now’, he muttered under his hoarse breath.
Sprawled out ahead of him was a formless passage of indeterminate length. Contours of shapes wreathed in shadow were strewn all across the rocky floor. It was a perilous undertaking to proceed further, yet Doran’s decision was stripped from him.
Encroaching quickly behind him, the bestial cries wailed resoundly. They pierced the foul, stale air with their shrill speech.
Doran withdrew quietly into the passage. Although the scattered stones and pebbles struck by his feet evoked swift ruin upon him. Soon, the distress gnawed at his senses and he reduced himself to a cautious pace. Advancing discreetly, since the mournful cries shrieked their boundless despair throughout the gloom. At times they wailed by his shoulder, then would retreat far off into the distance again.
Quickly now, he hastened himself lest the cowardice subdue him in place.
He soon noticed an odd sensation. That any lingering moment in this passage agonised like a ceaseless night: Forever encapsulated in the throes of sleep, never to wake again.
As Doran roamed through the formless passage, he felt detached from existence. Left here, stranded with no point of return. No direction to guide him home. Stumbling in the remote darkness.
Suddenly, Doran’s body no longer appeared to be his bound vessel. He became formless, another shape wreathed in shadow. Yet he still wandered aimlessly through the nightmare.
A hollow shell accursed to drift here.
He never felt so alone.
The biting isolation infringed on his sanity.
However, he remained determined to proceed through, grasping onto the vestiges of life.
To remain here would be far worse. An insidious paranoia latched onto his mind: he started to believe that there were eyes glaring at him among the alcoves and cavities in the passage. As if there were other creatures lurking in the recesses, awaiting to ensnare him.
Are they lost too?..., a shiver rippled through him.
The gloomy overhanging of jagged rocks dangled further down. Almost touching the tip of his scalp, threatening to pierce his flesh. He crouched, scrambling on all fours to bypass it. A warm breath exhaled on the nape of his neck. A violent shudder surged through him. Doran jumped to his feet. He reared his head. There was nothing he could discern around him.
Elsewhere, the mournful cries continued their ceaseless wailing.
He picked up a rock in his trembling hands. Then entrenched himself in a shallow pit off at the edge from where he came. With bated breath, he awaited the assailant to strike. Yet nothing came to assault him from the shadows.
Enduring the anguish for a moment longer, Doran cursed aloud:
‘Leave me alone!’
The din of his frustration resounded to tremulous heights throughout the passage.
His despair tainted the air, and his assailant tasted it. He heard the mournful cries bellowing once more with bestial wrath.
Doran fixed his gaze back. While the light died long ago in the time before pebble and stone, his eyes gradually evolved to greet the cavernous night. They had become acquainted with their new home.
For so long, Doran had been tormented by what lay behind him. Yet, when he finally dared to steal that glance, he believed his eyes were deceiving him. Far off in the distance, he witnessed the silhouette of a tiny figure manoeuvring through the shadows. When he finally paid heed to the “thing” pursuing him, it finally dawned on him: it was a whimpering child.
A fragile thing led astray in the darkness.
Was it chasing me?... Or was it seeking solace from me?, the thought disarmed him, halting him in his tracks as he observed it move through the passage.
He could not tell how he came to know this, yet somehow as he gazed upon the fragile thing, he sensed that it bore his likeness. That of an innocent youth, soon to be tainted. He felt bound to the child, as if they were both torn from the same cloth of tapestry.
‘Is this… could it be my kin?’, Doran mumbled to himself, stupefied at the idea.
His mind raked through the past, investigating any trace of the unforeseen legacy quietly approaching him. However, there seemed to be no memory of this child.
Yet, his kindred spirit existed right before him. Only a few metres shy from where he stood.
Doran felt his heart yearn for the company of another lost soul. It almost drove him to greet the whimpering child in his arms. Almost…
The child no longer whimpered. In fact, it made no sound at all.
He pricked his ears to hear its movements; Doran could see it creeping along, but no clatter of stone echoed resoundly through the passage.
It was then that he saw its true form: the child moved as a slithering mass, its lower half consisted of tendrils extending out and latching onto rock to propel it forward. It were as if the roots of nature had taken its hold, reaching into this unfathomable darkness to reclaim him.
The fragile thing fixated on him.
Its eyes glinted with malice.
Horror seized Doran, rooting him in place. He tried to scream, yet his voice was stifled. But a sound came out - though not from him. Mournful cries bellowed form the child with bestial wrath.
It charged at him.
An unearthly, ferocious fury unleashed from the child. But in that moment as they came face to face, Doran heard the undercurrent of fear compelling this wretched creature. The haunting chill repulsed him. He retreated a few steps back as the child launched into the air. In one unified moment, Doran slipped and fell onto his back, while the creature shrieked – its tendrils narrowly missing him as it flew off the edge of the formless passage.
Its mournful cries extinguished as it descended further and further away.
He had escaped its clutches.
The skin of his back stinged as the stones engraved themselves into him. He reeled himself up to his feet, gritting his teeth as the coarse rock jabbed into his flesh. Blood began pooling from the little cuts and scrapes gathered from the collision.
Cold, unrelenting silence resumed its course.
Now that Doran was absent of strife, the unbearable oppression of the formless passage settled in again.
He fumbled in the darkness, each timid movement of his limbs sending an aching reminder of anguish. The dull pain of scrapes, bruises and cuts tormenting him to his last nerve.
Doran became a departed memory lost in the annals of time. Engulfed in the bleak black heart of the void. Its beating drum sends tremors through his soul.
Accursed to wander nowhere.
Thoughts anchored him down. But one in particular ran its ceaseless course through his head: I’m going to die here. His shambling advances soon became futile when he was reduced to crawling upon the bedrock.
As Doran progressed through the passage, he pressed upon fragile rock – it crumbled underneath his sheer weight. He halted. Feeling the coarse substance between his fingers. This isn’t like the others, he reflected. He lifted his palm to advance – but when he heard the crack as his hand landed – he stopped in his tracks.
He smeared his fingers across the ground, searching for further clues. There were fragments of various shapes and sizes, buried in sediment. All of them were brittle. All of them were alike. He delineated the contours of each – some were broken, worn, and even dissolved in places – and he felt the same underlying features. Eye sockets. Nostrils. Jaws.
Doran shirked away quickly from the uncovered site. They were fossilised bones. But not of a skull… He hesitantly returned to the scene, using his hands to see the truth. Rubbing each fragment between his fingertips. Soon his concentrated efforts proved fruitful:
‘Dear god, they’re… masks.’ his muttering echoed. He sat there, unable to conceive this revelation.
He whispered so the formless passage couldn’t hear him:
‘It’s my face.’
Shards of himself lay scattered across the ground.
How can such a place exist?, a sombre thought course through his mind.
A place that harbours no bones but his own.
Hysteria captivated Doran. His mournful cries haunted the formless passage. His body heaved as misery bled him dry.
When there were no more tears to weep he remained idle.
Without warning he cried out into the darkness.
"Please, please, please, please let me leave this place... I can't stand it here any longer!"
Oppressive silence swept through the air.
Suddenly, it happened.
The enveloping darkness was interrupted by a narrow shaft of light. Disoriented by the sight, he rubbed his eyes fervently.
Could it be?
He scowled at the source of this unwarranted deception. It appeared to be real. A light had revealed itself at the end of the formless passage. A glimmer of hope. It was barely a crack peering into the darkness, but it appeared nonetheless on the horizon.
Tomorrow laid in wait for him.
Then he heard it – discord returned to impair his ears – the mournful cries soared in the shadows. The whimpering child had returned.
Judgement was now upon Doran.
Quickly now, before the light leaves, he commanded his will and rose wearily to his feet. Stumbling across the cavernous pits, Doran etched closer to the light at the end of the passage. The creature slithering right behind him, only its wails giving an inclination as to how far along it progressed.
Doran scampered as fast as he could, toppling over rocks, collapsing onto his knees, but climbing back to his feet time and time again.
His heart palpitated in his chest, beating to the rhythm of despair. His lungs wheezed uncontrollably, breathing in the terror of uncertainty.
The narrow shaft of light dilated as he got closer and closer to it. What was once shrouded in darkness, now became dimly lit: the contours of rock, stone and pebble became illuminated. They became firm and absolute. The passage took form. He ran faster now as this endless night faded into the rising dawn.
Doran’s eyes dilated as he approached the end. The immense ray of blinding light illuminated the tunnel.
He could feel the fresh air ease away the stale, foul stench of the cavernous tunnel. The smell of fresh grass and flowers in bloom tantalised his senses. The dream of freedom was within his reach.
He closed his eyes, revelling in the awaited moment –
– Suddenly, a tendril wrapped around his ankle. Doran was swept off his feet and collapsed to the floor.
No-no-no-no!
In his moment of rapture, he became unaware of his lurking assailant’s presence. The whimpering child unleashed its tendrils at him, swarming all over his body. Coiling him up like a cocoon. His cries became muffled as he screamed for help. Unable to move, Doran was dragged by his roots back into the cavernous tunnel.
Neither the sky, nor the sun graced his presence. The light retreated from view. Darkness encroached all around him.
As he wriggled with all his might, his assailant’s tendrils constricted around his body until he became docile.
Bound for eternal torment, Doran surrendered his life.
Then it happened. The blinding light advanced itself into the cavernous tunnel. Its immense power illuminated everything in sight. Then all at once, the darkness released him into the light. The whimpering child shrieked at the light’s presence, and unravelled its roots from Doran. The cocoon unshed itself. The tendrils slithered from his docile body, retreating to their master, who withdrew itself into the confines of darkness. Its mournful cries ceased to be.
The bond between himself and the kindred spirit loosened. He could still sense its lurking presence, yet it remained elsewhere. Further retreated from view than it had ever been before.
His hoarse breath grew calmer. He kept his eyelids crinkled, shielding his eyes away from the petrifying light that shone brightly everywhere in the tunnel.
Silence bade the way for sound.
Doran heard the crackling flames for the first time: a gentle, soothing quality that ushered in tranquillity to his fraught mind.
The bracing comfort of warmth caressed his skin.
‘There you are,’ the voice croaked above him. Its tone felt worn by years of hardship, yet it remained genial as if greeting a long lost friend.
When Doran eventually permitted himself, he stole a glance at his saviour.
The luminous light stung his eyes, until they finally adjusted to the world unveiled before him.
The first thing he noticed was that the darkness melted away. He saw everything with peculiar clarity: the crack in the sedimentary foundations of the cavernous tunnel, the jagged peaks jutting out of the aloft ceiling like a shelter, the harmony of coarse rock mingled with smooth stone, and the serene beauty of this subterranean hollow that received him.
He was no longer in the formless passage’s domain, but rather he was in a place of refuge.
The formless figure towering above him gradually became clear in his vision. He saw a tender hand reach out to him. It was frail and wrinkled, as if ravaged by time. Doran accepted their aid, raising his arm sluggishly. He was pulled to his feet and now met the figure at eye-level.
‘You have made it.’ The elder croaked.
And then Doran finally peered into the man’s haggard face. Clarity restored their features before his very eyes. A sharp intake of breath nearly toppled him to the ground.
That likeness…, he thought as he stared in disbelief at his saviour. Although age had dwindled the vibrancy from the elderly man in front of him, the striking resemblance remained.
Before Doran could utter a word, the elder interjected –
– ‘Yes I am, truly.’
‘It cannot be.’
He saw the elder’s haggard face grin as if to confirm his conviction.
A lull in the conversation lingered between them.
Then the elder finally spoke:
‘You were once lost, and now you've returned.’
‘W-What is this place–’
‘– A journey that we all had to set out on,’ the elder piped in. ‘Come, we must not delay any further. There is still much to be done.’
The elder led Doran to the way out, wrapping his arm over his shoulder. For a frail-looking being, the elder supported his weary body with relative ease.
Sometime later, they had entered into a different plane of existence. He did not know how and when it occurred, yet in his gut, Doran knew he finally stood on the threshold of Tomorrow.
The enveloping vesicle of light began to dim in the presence of the sky and the sun. The white-gold fire that warded off the darkness subsided.
For so long Doran desperately yearned for the freedom of light, and now he basked in its grace once more.
The warmness of dawn revitalised his being. He inhaled the fresh spring air, rich with life and hope.
The elder remained idle by his side in the meantime. Doran sensed that his elder self understood the importance of this moment for him. Then feeling the apprehension of his companion’s body, the elder gestured him onward.
‘Come along now, not much further to walk.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Why, that hill over there.’
‘What for?...’
‘So you can see how far you’ve come.’
When they crested the hill, the elder placed him carefully down on the mound.
Bewilderment paralysed Doran. He surveyed the landscape, but had no inclination as to what his elder self wanted him to see. He turned his head to object - until he saw the elder gesture south.
‘Look, over there.’
Then he witnessed it. The place he had come from only a mile away in the distance: the subterranean labyrinth that he traversed existed beneath fertile plains that spread endlessly as far as his eyes could see. The enriched soils above the cavernous dwelling thrived with flora: magnolias, daylilies, yarrow and lavender that all bloomed under the unwavering spring dawn.
Doran appeared distraught by the radiant beauty of the world above. His eyes lingered on the fertile plains a while longer.
How can such beauty exist not far from where I stood..
‘The promise of a prosperous future may be out of sight, but it should never be out of mind’, the elder spoke softly.
Doran reared his head towards him.
The elder continued: ‘It was always within your grasp–’
–’As long as I continued down that path.’
‘Precisely.’
The blight of the tunnel now faded into memory. Doran could feel it sifting through him, like a breeze caressing the hairs on one’s skin, before departing from sensibility. He stared at his own hands, observing the wrinkles forming on his now-weathered skin.
What is going on?, a panicked thought seized him.
His eyes darted towards his elder self, who stood solemnly - yet appeared hollow on the surface - as if expecting this hour to be the moment when he would be absolved from his own flesh. Doran felt the decay festering within his saviour, emanating from where the elder stood rooted to the spot.
‘It is time, I’m beginning to fade…’
‘What do you mean? Time for what? What is happening to me?...’
‘You don’t understand it yet, do you?’
Doran rose to his feet and spoke curtly, ‘Time for what?’
‘I’m your predecessor. It is time for you to pledge yourself to the duty.’
Doran’s skin became tender to the touch: altering itself to frailty, as if ravaged by time. His youth was overshadowed by the haggard burden of his inevitable purpose.
Already the elder had commenced his stroll towards fate. As he advanced further away from Doran, he echoed back:
‘Now is the appointed hour where you’ll be entrusted with the mantle of the Lightbearer.’
His elder self continued to stroll with purpose, descending the hill as Doran straggled behind.
On the horizon ahead of them lay the ancient beating heart of this evergreen realm: a great banyan tree that towered over all the land, its dense canopy blotting out the sky where it had settled. Its ever-expanding branches extended far into the heavens, prodding at the clouds that floated through the azure sky. The sturdy trunk of this primordial colossus impaled the soil, its roots running deeper into the earth where no living soul could ever see.
Both the sky and land bowed to the ancient banyan tree.
As Doran walked side-by-side with his withering companion, a reverence surged through him as he entered the ancient banyan tree’s presence.
He heard her name resounding through his memory: The Great Mother.
‘I-I’ve been here before…’ he muttered to himself.
They now stood under its sheltered embrace. The shimmering rays of dawn retreated from view. The darkness came to greet him once again. Although it did not lurk around him like an endless void this time, but rather like the sanctum of a mother’s womb.
Their bare feet felt the vibrations of the rhythmic tremors stirring through the grass.
‘The tree has a heartbeat… like a living soul?’
His elder self nodded affirmatively:
‘All that is living comes from her, and all that is dead returns to her.’
Doran saw the light fading from his companion. Cracks formed across the elder’s dulled cheeks. His frail skin and hair began to shed, like rotten bark falling off a dead tree. His elder self turned to him, removing a glistening necklace from underneath his mottled robes. He caught the impression of fungal growth manifesting inside the elderly man’s sunken chest. Elder Doran peeled the jewellery from his taut neck and handed it over to Doran.
As the lustrous shine of the necklace dulled under the sheltered canopy, Doran discerned the pendant to be a symbol of the northern star. It was intricately carved from white marbled rock, yet it tinged with unearthly radiance as it dangled from the rope necklace. His elder self handed it over as a heavy sigh departed from their lips. He sensed that his companion had relinquished something of great importance, yet the meaning still remained unclear to him.
The elder spoke with a croak in his voice, ‘This belongs to you now. May it be a ray of flickering hope for those lost to despair.’
‘Where will you go?’, Doran asked as he accepted the gift reluctantly.
"To the place where you'll soon return to once it's your turn."
Before he could speak, Doran saw the roots of the ancient banyan tree gradually coiled around Elder Doran’s meagre frame. The tendrils ensnared his ankles, slithering across flesh and bone to reclaim him to the soil.
‘What must I do now?’
‘You must guide them, much like how I guided you,’ the elder muttered through his hollow, raspy voice that faded as it hit the air. ‘There’ll be others who shall come long after us, through the same rite of passage just like you and I had done once. Remain vigil. Guide them to hope. For you are now me…’
It suddenly occurred to Doran. Others like us, the thought ran a shiver down his spine. A primaeval echo resounded from the deep: “Blessed by thy root-children, who thou shalt sprout upon the earth…”
Oh, Great Mother I hear you tending to me, entangling your thoughts through me. If this is the way, then I shall protect my siblings on their journey through the accursed darkness…
As if he had read his mind, the entwined elder spoke frankly:
‘The light would eventually be extinguished. You cannot pave their way. Those who came before me – braver souls than you and I - had attempted to pass through… yet they all met the same fate.’
‘Then… it is all in vain. To be left to only pray for their safe voyage through endless night, while I hold the one thing that can dampen the shadows for a time’–
–‘Do not be disheartened. Do not dwell on what came before. It will be revealed to each of them in due time. We are all bound by our purpose, we only need to seek it out.’
Doran remembered the restless torment in the tunnel: echoes of the slithering child-creature, the frigid isolation, and the mask shards he stumbled across in that formless passage.
‘But not to all of them. A few of them fell, didn’t they?’
‘Some shall succumb to the shadows.’
‘What made me different from them?’
‘The passage saw through their facades. They crumbled, while you persevered with blind faith.’
A pang of anguish flooded his senses.
It’s not true…, yet Doran knew in his heart, as its beating rhythm was bound to The Great Mother below him, there’d be some reason for his burdened purpose. It existed elsewhere for now, lurking on the fringes of destiny.
Doran assumed his role, muttering under his breath the sacred oath bestowed to him, ’I shall be the Lightbearer to guide their way. My voice shall lend their ears to hope. My flame shall lead their hearts to salvation. My memory shall intertwine their minds to truth. For we are the root-children of The Great Mother, birthed from her womb to sprout her will upon the blessed earth.’
It was done.
When Doran uttered the last word, Elder Doran embraced his fate. The roots of the ancient banyan tree reclaimed him back to her. His body ensnared into her trunk, his bark crumbling into her soil, his water flowing into her roots. The Elder Doran bade him farewell with a whisper that creeped into the spring breeze:
‘Remember, there will always be three to emerge at any given time.’
‘Be at peace, friend.’
Doran the Lightbearer left the bosom of The Great Mother, heading south towards the fertile plains. As he walked, he wandered how far along his kinsfolk had progressed through the passage. As he strode towards the tunnel, he felt tethered to them both – re-experiencing the surreal sensations of the formless passage that never bore him any ill will. A place that simply existed all around them, undying in the annals of time.
Life can be a disorienting experience at times. We’re tormented by what lies behind in the past. We find ourselves stuck in the rut of the present. We endlessly roam to seek out the future.
We are tethered to these states of Being warring within ourselves.
More often than not, we forget that life is a journey enriched with experiences, absent of any destination. Learning to co-exist with these three selves of us: the past-self, the present-self, and the future-self.