Ankyra Sound There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

Into darkness Raleska slipped, and it was there in that unknowing blackness she remained as Ephraim pressed his snout to her, and then turned and fled. Into that swimming nether Raleska fell, for what felt an eternity that somehow did not matter.

When she woke she heard the familiar sounds of the grotto. The trickle of the subterranean river. The distant rush of the sea. The groaning, aching bones of the stones a millennia old. The lap-lapping of the circular pool where--

She jerked up, her head spinning. The cavern, blue water, her mother, whirling in a kaleidoscopic orbit.

Raleska felt an overwhelming nausea grip her as she stood on shaky legs and collapsed several steps away, a violent surge of vomit and spittle forcing its way past her lips. Bile. Sourness. She lurched to the right, her vision falling fearfully on her.

Mom.

Raleska looked around her; where was Ephraim? Had he gone, had he left her alone with the reeking husk, left her alone with death? She stifled the whimper that threatened to escape as she tried to tackle that enormous, insurmountable first step of thinking -- what now?

This was all her fault. She had turned Caiaphas away, and her mother hadn't been in good health then. She had caused all of this -- whatever this was. Raleska was still trying to wrap her mind around what had happened: all she knew was, there was no blood anywhere, only the overarching scent of rot spilling from the corpse like a volatile shroud of doom. A second wave of nausea overcame her and Raleska climbed for the exit, her steps uneven and shaky.

Sunlight met her -- almost too brightly. Raleska winced and ducked, squinting into the blaring afternoon with a sense of purposelessness. Ephraim was collapsed on the strand not so far from her.

Trying haplessly to put together pieces that did not fit, Raleska shakily made her way towards him, and stared out at the grim sea. "What happened?" Her voice was weak, and carried an edge of resigned sorrow to it; for she had put all of this in motion the moment she had turned Caiaphas from the plateau. It was she that was irredeemable, no matter what end Caiaphas had met in Ephraim's presence.