Water
Well, this really isn't a difficult choice. You can get past the door by just drinking some water! Seriously, what's so bad about that? You grab the vial. It's curiously warm to the touch, but you weren't exactly expecting water that had been sitting around in a cave for who knows how long to be icy and refreshing. Still, the water seems to be almost pulsating with an invisible energy. But then, you remind yourself, it's just water. You gulp down the water, and find that, despite the warmth of the vial, the water is cold--incredibly cold!
Whatever was in that vial, it wasn't ordinary water. You have, suddenly, become incredibly tired. So tired, in fact, that you think nothing of passing out on the hard stone floor.
You feel a pleasant, floating sensation. Despite, or perhaps because of, your unconsciousness, you can still see yourself lying on the floor of the cave. You look calm and angelic for a moment and then your features melt away. The entire process is remarkably quick, in fact. Your features distort for a moment, then whatever had been holding you in place gives way, and your entire body becomes water. With the same disconnectedness, you watch as the mass of water that used to be you drains into a small hole in the floor of the cave. It was too small for you to have noticed before, but it's more than big enough for the newly liquefied you to fit through.
After a brief but dizzying drop, you find yourself in another cave, presumably below the other one. You have been neatly collected in a large crystal goblet resting on an ornately carved pedestal. Although you can see no source of light, the cave is illuminated by an eerie blue glow. By the light of this glow, you see a shadowy figure begin to move.
It is a human figure--a girl, you realize. She is deathly pale and emaciated, and wearing a ceremonial Grecian robe that looks cut for someone more full-figured. Because of her appearance, you can only guess at her age, but she seems youngish. She'd be beautiful if she didn't look so skeletal. She had been meditating in the cave until your arrival, and is now getting up gingerly, as if she hadn't moved in years. She approaches the goblet containing you, and begins to speak, weakly, in something between a monologue and an incantation.
"The elements are gathering tonight. The forces of the universe are converging, and the time has come to take our place among them. I was chosen, long before, to be the vessel for Water. You chose, this night, to become Water, and so I am your vessel." In your less-than corporeal state, it takes you a moment to realize that she is speaking to the goblet, and therefore addressing you. She concludes her ritual: "So, now, let us join." If you weren't a glass of water, you'd swear she was coming on to you.
The mysterious woman picks your goblet up, careful not to spill a single drop, and slowly raises it to her lips. With a single, dramatic motion, she drains its contents. The world fades into nothingness.
Written by Zodiac on 01 April 2008
