“This,” she tells me, her eyes catching the low glow of the torch, “is the River.”
I eye the muddy water beneath our feet, still and barely more than calf height, and frown.
“It’s a transient place. It represents a journey, and the water will wash the Above from your feet. You have to pass through it if you want to enter our settlement.”
“There’s no other way?”
“There are loads of ways to our settlement, but you can’t enter unless you walk through the River.”
I nod, not seeing much choice in the matter.
“You must keep moving, and don’t stop. Don’t pause.”
I begin to protest that I can’t see the shape of the rocks under the water and might trip, but she takes my hand and begins to walk forward, pulling me with her.
The blanketing quiet unnerves me – without the constant howling of the wind I have lived with my whole life. Once we start to walk through the River, the sound changes dramatically.
Every splash of my foot entering the icy water seems to reverberate through the tunnel at least twice, circling round our heads until it fades. I can hear my breathing amplified through my head, and the hairs on my arms begin to stand up, not entirely due to the sudden drop in temperature.

We press on, and though I still strain to feel a small tether to the outside world like a spool of thread, our footsteps blur together and time starts to lose it’s meaning.