The Wizard – The Voice and the Echo

“How long are you going to commit to the stick schtick?” asked the mocking voice. If he hadn’t gone crazy, the constant nagging would cause him to go crazy.

“Oh, you’re complaining now? After being alone for so long? Thought that you might appreciate the company… yes, you had the company of your work for all this time, but now you have what you have always had, nothing,” which was true. Blackness surrounded him, no smell in the air. Just the sound of his heart, his movements over the stone floor, and the sensation of the stick as he moved it over the floor. How many times had he done this movement?

“689 times,” responded the mocking voice. “I have to give you points for commitment there, almost as much as the one you had with your work, which has been pointless so far. Magic? All the magic that you wanted to gather is now lost, and you want to keep going? What else is there to go to? …anywhere but here? Huh.”

The solid display of logic silenced the voice for a good while, all the better. There was a task at hand: keep going. Though he was starting to get tired and annoyed. How large could a cave be? That hadn’t been part of his research; he had figured that he would never have a need for it. He kept going mostly because he knew what the temptation of giving up meant, so he kept going.

However, the same thing every time ends up making a man go dull. He stopped, panting, and sat down. Making sure that he didn’t move the stick out of place.

“Now you are resting?” the voice came back. The nothingness was really breaking his head, eh?

“Oh, you foolish man, I was already here, long before this happened to you. Things like me don’t happen just because,” said mocking and with derision. “You can keep ignoring me, but that won’t change the situation!”

He just took in the cool air and the freshness in it. It was nice to take a breather from such dull but necessary work. Then it hit him, fresh air? Cool air? With his heart thumping hard in his ears, he placed a hand on the stick and kept on going.

“Now a bit of air is enough to invigorate you? You think that is going to be enough to get us out of this problem? You have always been a dreamer…” he let the voice drone on and on. From his detached mind, he could tell that the voice was but an expression of fear that…

“Hey! Don’t insult me and don’t act as if I am not here, you dumbass! It’s been so long that you have to start getting thirsty again!”

The voice was right; he was starting to get thirsty once more, and the hunger hadn’t abated; it had gotten worse. If he didn’t reach somewhere at some point soon, everything would be for naught. Had he guessed wrong? Had he followed the wrong evidence?

“Questions, questions, questions, you can keep asking those things all you like, but getting all philosophical while you starve and thirst is going to do nothing to save you, us. Have you considered changing tactics? Going in a different direction… What do you mean that that would mean that you would get lost? Listen here, dumbass, you are lost; you barely know where you stand, much less where you are going, what do you mean that there is an echo?”

Yes, an echo, a splash of some kind, not the rhythmic sound of a natural repeating sound but the splashing of something alive, something other than him and the nothing. With renewed hope, he started to advance again.

“Oh, hope, such a terrible thing. Don’t you think that you should at least prepare? That echo could be many things. A fish in a cave pond, maybe a rock falling in a strange way, or perhaps something else. I mean, there is already you in here, you and me. And you are nothing but a poor fool with a stick. What can you do if it is a monster of your nightmares?” said the voice, with a slow and deliberate tone. It finally struck a nerve.

“Oh, at least, we are getting somewhere. Now tell me, you smart man, you wizard, what do you have to defend yourself with, your magic? It is gone, experience? You never had any. Your will, what is it worth?”

As the voice was saying that, he kept going on with the stick, until he felt it. Wind, and the echo became stronger.

“I guess both of us will find out. May the power that be help me,” said the voice with a hateful mocking tone.