The Monolith

For I am Ozymandias, Look Mighty Upon My Works, And Despair…………….

I see The Monolith on the cliff. This feeling. This dread. Trapped in a body that can only be seen through fear. Ozymandias had nothing on this.

The Monolith lingered over the cliff. Looming, seeming to have the knowledge of judgment from bygone ages and bygone passengers. He steeled himself. It was so hard to even appear tall staring into the magnificence and malice of The Monoloth. This feeling - this fear, this doubt, this dread. He knew none of this to be the thing that would progress his Quest? He knew these feelings would doom him if he stepped toward the path before great mental preparation. Left in a body with the only remaining conscious and constant being that of fear. He knew this to be his fate without preparation.

Sylan drew his circle with white chalk that had been previously sprinkled with salt. For what? Sylas did not know. But superstition is a powerful thing. Belief itself is a powerful thing. Worlds have crumbled and will continue to crumble to the “Dreams” people cling to. Sylas was not devout by any means. He was a leader of men. A questioner of truth and dogma. Some considered him an incredibly higher-than-though, asshole. Here we meet the reasoning for Sylas’s current circumstances. A man who has not fully made up his mind of the world and the workings therein. Of course, he has his morals that are deeply binding to the core of his heart, his soul, his mind. He believes in the good of others, perhaps falsely. Protect the defenseless (which now is so often made up of the helpless and poor left by the church), Pride for his family, Pride for his ideals. Sylas had made an offhand comment regarding the millions of francs being used to rebuild the already grand cathedral; it could help the people of the county to an immense measure. Consistent food. Consistent clean water, the ability to have a healer in the village; a way to build that village into another town to make a stronger, thriving , and this was the one that did it* HAPPIER. FRANCE.

Here we remain, circle unbroken, Sylas seated cross legged in preparation. Preparation for what? Sylas was never supposed to get this far. Surely, no one thought he would. He did not know if he were to reach some great gnosis that would prepare his soul at once. He remembered Mariana’s words to him as he stood on the dock, waiting for the boat to be readied for a journey to a land no one knows. Yet rumors abound of the cults, the mystics, the seers, and the cannibals. It was even believed the island was cursed by ancient spirits.

Mariana made Sylas promise “If you reach the cliff, The Monolith, promise you will not enter until you are ready. Physically, but especially mentally and spiritually. Take this chalk, it has been sanctified for you to have an area of protection to prepare in.” Sylas smiled with the eyes of a boy seeing their first love. He of course acknowledged the promise and his mind now wanders to Mariana’s beautiful, soft, precious, kind face. He had planned to ask her hand before agitating the wrong group. She was into the Old Ways that always made Sylus’s mind explode in curiosity. Her light brown hair as the wind hit the curl that was always in front of her complexion. He would have loved life with her. It is all that consumes his mind as he;s positioned cross-legged in a construction of his loves own devices. Could that be it? The Epiphany? The Gnosis? Love is after all what keeps humans alive. Not arranged marriage eugenics, but the true deep love you only feel with a pit in your stomach and a knot on your heart. I will get back to her. To all the God’s be damned as I will get back to Mariana. Sylas steddied himself. He was of course depleted of every reaction crucial to survival, so survival was his to master. He slowly let the light out on the candles representing the connection between the earth and universe: fire, water, earth, and air. The candles and their representations were placed specifically: water to the south; earth to the west; air for the east; fire for the north. As Sylas thought while completing his task, he knew that the only way to go was north. So through fire may what come, through fire may what create?