Jack of Ravens

4

The constant churning of the spiders all around him was becoming a distant memory. Church was falling backwards down a long, dark tunnel, occasionally punctuated by starbursts of Blue Fire. It was a place of refuge, and he knew the deeper he could go the more he could escape the thinking and the feeling and the guilt and the sorrow.

Falling, falling, and then standing. He’d done it, broken the shackles, got away scot-free, and wherever his mind was telling him he was, it was better than where he had been before.

Everywhere was dark. He wandered around for an age, listening to distant voices come and go, louder and softer, like the sound of the blood in his head. He became aware of rock underfoot, a cavern of some kind. And then, across the dark, he glimpsed himself, although this was a younger Church, clean-shaven, shorter hair, face so surprisingly innocent and free of worry that he could barely remember being that way.

He convinced himself that he’d made his way to his own past, and he was taken by the urge to warn himself away from all the terrible things that lay ahead, that at the very least he could make sure he could take the one step that would change his current predicament.

His past self was staring at him, confused.

‘Is this it? Is this the right time?’ the modern Church said to his past-self. ‘You have to listen to me. This is a warning.’ He looked around, confused himself. ‘Is this the right place? Am I too late?’

‘Tell me what you have to say,’ his past-self said.

‘When you’re in Otherworld and they call, heed it right away. They’re going to bring him back. They’re-’

‘Calm down. You’re babbling,’ his past-self yelled. ‘Who is going to bring who back?’

Church had the unnerving sensation of a presence behind him. An irrational fear gripped him. In panic, he yelled, ‘Too late!’

And then he was running from himself and into the dark.