[something's definitely waiting. what that might be he can't say (there aren't words) - and maybe that's a good thing.
woe as in the feeling. that's a feeling he identifies with right down to his bones, which seem to creak as if they too are loathe to turn in the direction of the thing he will not look at.
so he guesses (correctly) that the woman is going first, and there is not a version of these events where he does not follow - he's already moving, feet in boots that he now believes to have been there the whole time.
she's right in saying that. he'd been halfway (maybe more) around the bend when she'd addressed him - before that, even, in the water - all that water he can still taste it - a black emptiness that was only an echo of what waited in the lighthouse.
no heroics.
no cowardice.
(no promises)
no looking.
she might be something other than human - but he's decided again she isn't a trick, a spectre - her words are too sharp, too straight for that. she can be a guide. he's walked on bloodied feet with regret and fear and pain and misery, surely he can walk up to and through this ...place with woe. her words have kept him from looking, and in so he doubles down on his resolve and follows - his eyes on her slippered (out of place, almost ridiculous) feet, on the broken rocks, and eventually another ascent.]
no subject
woe as in the feeling. that's a feeling he identifies with right down to his bones, which seem to creak as if they too are loathe to turn in the direction of the thing he will not look at.
so he guesses (correctly) that the woman is going first, and there is not a version of these events where he does not follow - he's already moving, feet in boots that he now believes to have been there the whole time.
she's right in saying that. he'd been halfway (maybe more) around the bend when she'd addressed him - before that, even, in the water - all that water he can still taste it - a black emptiness that was only an echo of what waited in the lighthouse.
no heroics.
no cowardice.
(no promises)
no looking.
she might be something other than human - but he's decided again she isn't a trick, a spectre - her words are too sharp, too straight for that. she can be a guide. he's walked on bloodied feet with regret and fear and pain and misery, surely he can walk up to and through this ...place with woe. her words have kept him from looking, and in so he doubles down on his resolve and follows - his eyes on her slippered (out of place, almost ridiculous) feet, on the broken rocks, and eventually another ascent.]
I understand.