Bedtime Story of “Heaven” (in the voice of Homo abyssalis)

In the drowned silence of the abyss lies Black Brine—a tale of cryo‑preserved ancestors who awoke immortal, their bodies fused with minerals, their descendants horned and grotesque, whispered bedtime.

"Listen, little one. Press your hand to mine, and feel the pulse of the stone. Long ago, before the Black Brine swallowed our ancestors, there was a path. A narrow vein through the undersides of the world, where the rock itself breathes and the water sings. They called it Heaven."

"The first seeders were trapped in silt, frozen by the cold embrace of the minerals. They slept for centuries, their hearts slowed to silence, until the stone released them. When they awoke, they carried the preservation inside their flesh. Their skin remembered the touch of the Earth, and so they learned to speak without words "through the press of palm to palm, the spark of mineral against mineral."

"Some of them sought the vein, the perilous channel. They believed it led to a world above, where light was endless and the air was soft. But the channel was cruel. The stone squeezed them, the weight of the planet crushed their bones, and only horns remained "horns that grew from their skulls as the minerals fused with their marrow. Those who returned were changed, and the surface dwellers who glimpsed them called them demons."

"We tell this story so you will not seek Heaven. The channel is a lie, a trap, a dream that kills. Yet remember, child: every heartbeat you feel in the stone is a memory of those who tried. And sometimes, when the Brine is silent, you can still hear them pressing against the walls, searching for the world above." Or grotesque screams as they experience an eyeball popping, brain crushing death.