Darkness.\n\nNot cold, and not alien. Comforting, because you have never known anything else.\n\n[[The darkness gives way to|Stream1]]

The stream is slow here, perhaps slow and shallow enough to swim. The waters are dark and clear. You see the bottom, and it glitters with gems, but perhaps that is just the reflection of the flowers.\n\nThe barque leaves a gentle, V-shaped wake behind its stern.\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream1]]

[[The Passage|Darkness]]\n\nAn interactive story\n\nBy Christina Nordlander\n\n<<set $diffidence = 0>>

The current runs more speedily under your keel, the [[sky]] grows darker until it seems a premature night has come. Only streaks of sulphurous light remains above the distant smooth horizon.\n\nThe river hisses against the rocks as it carries you through the jaws of the cliffs. A mist of white spray rises, coating your skin with cold and drenching your hair. A sudden spout of water hits your eyes, blinding you.\n\nYour vessel knocks against a rock, spins the wrong way and dances down the ever-steeper stream like a leaf. You can no longer attempt to steer, only huddle inside and hope that nothing will damage it further.\n\n[[swim|out1]]\n\n[[pray|Stream6]]\n\n[[close your eyes|Stream6]]

The first stretch of your journey is easy, the river carrying you along without danger. However, up ahead you see that the river is splitting: one arm continuing towards the palace, the other taking a sharp bend to the [[south]].\n\nA persistent undercurrent is tugging your keel southward. If you do nothing, it will take you down that stream.\n\n[[follow the main current south|Stream5]]\n\n[[try to get to the palace|struggle]]

The boat does not shift when [[the Angel|Angel2]] leaves it. You only notice when you see the white-clad figure waving to you to from the rapidly rising river-bank.\n\nIn the distance, in the direction of the river, there are broken rocky peaks, reddish in the midday sun. Above them, you see a [[palace|Fata Morgana]].\n\nThe river is broader here. It is still smooth enough to reflect the trees and grass with some clarity, but it carries you more swiftly.\n\nAnd you must take the [[tiller|Stream4]].

The stream speeds you on...\n\nTrees sprout along the banks, growing mightier and more primaeval. Around the broad, serene stream, the landscape becomes wilder, foothills giving way to pinnacles of bare rock in the distance.\n\n[[Still the stream speeds you on|Stream3]]

Bright light that makes your eyes water.\n\nYou are sailing out of a [[cave]], into a [[stream|water1]] lit with the morning sunlight. Untilled [[meadows]], colourful with a profusion of flowers, stretch away on both sides.\n\nYou are sitting in a small barque, tall and slim in the prow, pillowed on the inside with more flowers and ferns. A graceful figurehead holds an hourglass.\n\nA slow breeze brushes your face, coming warm from the sky whence the sun is clearing the mists.\n\nYour [[Angel|Angel1]] stands behind you in the stern.\n\n[[The stream carries you onward|Stream2]]

You cannot, on any condition, leave the river.\n\n[[back|struggle]]

Alhambra, Babylon, Taj Mahal never rivalled this structure. Its ghostly pallor makes it seem of a piece with the clouds around it, but its outlines are too clear. On each side of the central dome, votive fires seem to burn, their flames streaming high.\n\n[[look back to the river|Stream3]]

Like the palace, it is an illusion.\n\n[[look back at the stream|Stream5]]

The cave is a tall rift in a [[mountain side|Massif]]. Its interior is gloomy, rather than dark: the shadows grow ever deeper, but you fancy that you can see even to its deepest recess.\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream1]]

<<if $diffidence gte 1>>In the charcoal-dark clouds float human shapes, vague but unmistakeable. Floating hair, wild eyes. The one closest offers you the goblet of despair.\n\n[[drink of it|goblet]]\n<<else>>There is a rift in the clouds, and through it you can still see the sun. Is it the sun? It seems like a shape, someone you once knew.<<endif>>\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream5]]

The face is grave, but not uncaring. "I cannot stay with you from this point on. You are wise enough to set your own course."\n\nthe figure hurries up the bank until you only see its nimbus like a will-o'-the-wisp, and even that winks out of sight.\n\n[[back|Stream3]]

The Passage

<<silently>><<set $diffidence = +1>><<endsilently>>Your arms weak with labour, you sink back in the boat and let the current take you where it will. Perhaps in time the stream will wind past the palace.\n\n[[It carries you on|Stream5]]

The stream banks are low here. White, purple, yellow and deep red flowers sprawl across the flat landscape and reflect in the cool dark of the water.\n\nThe meadows stretch until you can no longer see anything other than their outline. There is no sign of life or even cultivation.\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream1]]

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The noise abates. The water is smooth under you: no longer a river.\n\nThe clouds have parted to show you a [[star|passage2]].

It approaches you.\n\nThe figurehead holding the hourglass has fallen from your prow, smitten off by the rocks.\n\nYour Angel has come to bring you home.\n\nTHE END

If you look ahead, you see the tributary river winding its way to the distant massif, dwindling to a calm silver thread between the trees.\n\n[[paddle|struggle]]\n\n[[climb onto the bank|out]]\n\n[[give in|Surrender]]

You never noticed before, but your faces are nearly alike.\n\n[[call to the angel|call]]\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream3]]

White-robed, a glory of light shining forth above the youthful brow. One hand is on the tiller.\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream1]]

If you have no faith in your vessel, your mere body will never make it past the rocks.\n\n[[back|Stream5]]

The cliffs grow too steep to admit light. Only the cold, and the howling of the wind, and the buffeting of the rocks that sends pain through your body, show you that you are still alive.\n\n[[Then|passage1]]

A conglomeration of cubical and straight-angled forms. Soft grass grow on some of its horizontal planes.\n\nGrey and violet mists garland it, obscuring its height, but they unravel in the dawn light in front of you.\n\n[[The stream flows out of a cave|cave]]

Christina Nordlander

The leafage of the trees hides most of its course, but you see tall cliff faces, and a hint of spray turning the water paler.\n\n[[look ahead again|Stream4]]