White Sand Sifting slowed his breathing and pulse. Blood slowed, stopped- tongue curling into throat- brain slowly deconstructs all situations- vision darkening. Sand released the final whisper of air from his lungs, and his first self departed his body, leaving the second self on guard against creeping death.
Here, in the Spirit World, there are not lies, came a spiritual echo, rippling across the vague plain. The hills and forests surrounding his small hut, situated upon a hill, were blurry and indistinct, muted and flowing. Trees seemed to seep into stone, and stone into water. In contrast far ahead lay the Mountains, in the distance, razor-sharp, clean lines of brilliant-white-snow and void-black-rock, lying against the starry-blue-black-white-red-sky. White Sand Sifting's first self was forward, then- he stood upon the plain. Incredibly-distinct stalks of wheat brushed around his being-notbeing-everywhere-nowhere feet. He knelt.
Towards him came two echoing, jittering candle-flames of mortal spirit, flickering iridescently, shying away from dangers to their fragile light. They passed him, could not see his first self invisible in the Spirit World.
Onward came the one he sought- the ritual had been a success. Green-glowing-ever-shining-bright-causes-growth-spirit, who was known in the Mortal World as the Guardian of Si'angang Field, approached, and the wheat stretched toward him like a sea of golden arms.
"Going?" came the whispering.
"Far away." went the reply.
"Send? Danger." second whispering.
"Send. Only way." second reply.
"Never again." came a certainty.
White Sand Sifting's soul inflamed, and his first self was suddenly restored to his second, and third, and fourth, into infinity, and he was sitting inside himself, in his hut in the Mortal World, the Living Land, and a God with a robe of leaves was cracking a black egg upon his head.
"This can only be undertaken once. It may be that you shall never return. The world is changed since we raised the Mountains, and I cannot tell you what may be beyond," the leaf-robed one was saying.
"Still, it is the only way," Sand replied. The yolk cascaded over his head, black and red, dry and wet at the same time, and
Discontinuity
(OOC: There will be more.)