Story Seed - Fateful Descent

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I tested the rope. The line held secure around the the rocky outcropping. I swallowed hard as I leaned over the chasm and looked down. I could see the bottom. That was a big plus. But the tumbles of rock and stone seemed tenuous and ready to collapse at any moment. I could feel the line of my fate pulling me toward that place; downward into this chasm there was something I needed to do, or see, or gain. Maybe all of those things.

I tested the rope again, delaying the action I feared with a reassuring check of the gear that would, for my descent, hold my life in its grasp. Again it held. Again I looked down and swallowed hard. Trepidation was the sole feeling throughout my body. Anxiety that just because my fate lie below there was no such reassurance that in time my fate would once more lie above. Perhaps I was not to achieve godhood in this life.

I took a deep breath. I fell. The gloves twisted around my hands as I gripped the rope and began my descent. I considered if this task was brave, foolhardy, or something else. I settled on necessary. I needed to find what was within the tear in the earth. I could no longer ignore the need, and the need overrode my anxiety, my fear, my sense of self preservation.

At last my feet touched ground. I felt around, and it seemed I was on the bottom. I opened my eyes, ashamed at my fear, and looked around. The chasm fell away unevenly deeper into the earth but the light from above illuminated the way and I could see at the far end a structure hewn of stone. I knew I needed to go there, and with the descent behind me I set forth immediately.

In moments I was there, at the feet of broken stone stairs. A great stone arch rose up beyond with columns and pillars that reached upward into the darkness shrouded ceiling of this cavernous portion of the chasm. There was no door, just a darkened portal. Slowly I ascended the stairs. The stone felt sure under my feet, and the light seemed to illuminate the structure entirely, except for the opening, and what lay beyond.

I stood within the arch, the light behind me, the darkness before me. Deeper and deeper I knew I still  needed to go. My fear was gone, the anxiety subsided. I knew my goal lay before me, and I knew I would live to reach it, if not what lay beyond.  I stepped forward, unsure but no longer timid.