A Navigator’s Guide to the Abyss

By Jill Zero

It’s impossible to see clearly in the abyss. Darkness swallows everything it touches. Once, there might have been crevices and crooks to grip. Once, a path may have emerged from the depths.

No longer.

Pitch blackness now consumes the light as if driven by insatiable hunger, the byproduct of heavy thoughts and broken dreams. The feeling is maddening to all who begin the decent; a complete lack of light will send the senses into a terror spiral quicker than anyone could imagine. I know the sensation well because I’ve been there before, thus earning my self-proclaimed navigator title.

Few who encounter the opaque depths of this place understand its power and submit to the weight, therefore allowing themselves to sink farther and farther below the surface until the mere thought of escape fills them with panic and fear of failure. Eventually, the darkness decays victims’ wills and silences the internal voices pleading for a glimpse of the light. That’s its master plan. The success rate soars unless the victim is skilled in mental combat.

The trick is to unearth the key. But it won’t be easy.

How can one escape from a seemingly never-ending pit when no light remains? Who could possibly find a way out when every flicker, spark, and ray vanishes before having a chance to grow? And what is the key to unlock the hidden panel in order to banish the thick, soul-sucking darkness? As a navigator of sorts, I could reveal it in a single word.

Hope.

Hope is the weapon of choice, and no substitute will suffice. No amount of clawing or digging or flailing can reverse the damage: that’s a promise. Physical strength contributes nothing in the abyss. Mental combat will guide you to the key, hope, but only if the victim truly desires to find it. Don’t allow the darkness to shrink the senses or dull the will to survive, because that is a one-way ticket to doom.

If you ever discover you’ve begun to sink into the abyss, then search the mind and battle the blackness, even when no slivers of light remain. Hope hides in the face of such evil and refuses to emerge until its owner calls it forth, so the responsibility is yours and yours alone.

Call it into your hands and use it as a weapon. Only then will the light return and reveal your path.

The work is up to you. Go.