The Light

It hurt. It got inside of her head and turned every thought she had red. The searing infinite White poured from her ears and all she heard was it. Like some sort of silent gong. The white proceeded to roll over her body and caress her senses with warmth. She could feel every hair on her body raise in the heat to give way to skin dusted with mud and sweat.

It was only now that Kaia discovered her arms were raised above her head. Still unable to open her eyes and surrounded by the Whiteness, she began to brush the mud off and knock the rocks out of her hair. She had been digging for some time. The last several metres had been furious.

M’kg was what they called her, ‘digger’ in Undwalese native tongue. She was an outcast in her country, because Kaia was different, filled with hope among other things. She dreamt of a place where the sounds of the earth were only a small part of the nature of the thing that was there. The cool of the ocean had a depth that matched the roar they sometimes heard from the caves. There were places where the ground reached up in joy to receive an expanse of openness, a new kind of freedom.

So she began to dig, up. In Undwald, there was no light, no color, only the true dark. There were ancient legends that spoke of a great gift suspended in an unreachable ocean that chased a cold stone each day. Kaia was certain her dreams were from the same place the legends were. So she dug.

*-----*

Kaia’s mother kept her hand on the bed post as her daughter slept. She had always slept so fitfully. Tossing and turning, her braids were always tangled in the morning. Every morning her mother would do her best to put her braids back in place, make sure they felt silken and attractive but it never lasted very long. Kaia went off to those ridiculous caves every day, doing what she says she must.

The men would never take notice. Kaia was getting older and should be marrying by now, her mother thought. She clicked her tongue and rocked more violently at the thought.

Kaia never seemed to care. She would return each night, covered in mud, her hands were rough to the touch, her dresses never stayed soft for long. ‘If only she cleaned up more often, she is so lithe and strong. A body a man could feel would bring many children.’ Another click, more rocking.

Kaia struggled for a moment and then became peaceful once more.

*-----*

For the Undwalese life was about survival. Move the rocks, hunt the insects, and protect the people from the kom’ndok, a race of what could only be demons who fed on the Undwalese. No one ever went looking for them, or at least ever made it back to tell. The Undwalese set alarms around the city to alert the villagers if the kom’ndok were near. Bells in the dark world of the Undwalese were a horrifying sound. It was uncertain what the kom’ndok actually looked like or did because it was said that if you touched one, you were already dead. But Kaia knew.

The caves were not likewise protected. This was probably another reason the others often shunned Kaia, they just could not understand. Kaia had a few close calls with the kom’ndok, but she was never captured. Kaia spent so much time in the caves she had become very adept at building tunnels to trap the vile creatures, or if they got too close, she would collapse the tunnel behind her. The kom’ndok would either be crushed or would get frustrated and leave once it realized she was not an easy meal.

The first one Kaia killed took a long time to die beneath the rocks. It roared and moaned with a sound that seemed to come from within the stones themselves. Kaia was frozen in place during the creature’s slow demise. She felt remorseful because its nature was that of a hunter filled with only a lust for blood. Its only purpose for life was to cause suffering. Once it had finally lain still for many hours, and Kaia could no longer hear scraping from the others, she crept closer to it. Gingerly she reached out a hand to see the creature that seemed to be made of perfect hatred.

It was not much different from her. Muscular and lithe the creature’s body was rough to the touch. It was hairless and felt as if it was covered in armor made from smooth rock. The creature often ran on all fours, but had strong hind legs and could walk upright like the people when it chose. The feel of the teeth brought a lump to Kaia’s stomach at first. Her hand began to trace the contours of the creature’s neck, and then quickly came upon an oversized jaw.

Kaia cried out and pulled her hand away. The creature remained dead. She returned to her task. The jaw jutted menacingly from beneath an upturned nose and sunken eyes. The mouth was inadequate to contain all of the fangs the creature had. It seemed to shut its maw by chance rather than by design. They were strong and sharp, and large. They would make excellent digging tools.

*-----*

Encircled by the Whiteness the world felt different to Kaia, ‘was this the unreachable ocean?’ she thought? Her head had begun to hurt less as time went on. It appeared she had sat down at some point and had not moved for what must have been most of a day, enthralled by the new earth around her. The Whiteness seemed to be fading. The earth was soft beneath her and was covered with thin roots that lashed about as the air moved around her cooling her skin. She laid back and smiled. She had found what she had been searching for.

It was in that moment the sun set. Kaia, who had never used her eyes before, was suddenly able to see.

‘This is ocean,’ said Kaia with certainty as she saw the colors of courage and war sink from the edge of the infinite open dripping beneath the horizon impossibly far away. Each fleeting shade would be chased by the coolness of the harbingers of the stone. It arose slowly from the opposite side of the world, surrounded by villages of smaller pebbles reflecting its majesty.

What Kaia had was not hope, but faith.