“You’re so strong, Janneke,” Soren said. “I hope you know that.”

“I was so close to giving up, to living in that world forever.”

“And yet you still came home at the end of the day. Like I said, you’re strong. Don’t doubt it.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m still so sorry you had to go through that, and none of us were able to help.”

We were so wrapped up in our conversation that both of us nearly banged into Rose, Seppo, and Diaval where they stood staring into the distance. The path now had a sandy texture to it, and somewhere far away the crashing of waves echoed off rocks.

“Well,” Diaval said. “Here it is, the shore of corpses. Don’t do anything stupid. Walk quietly, stay behind me, and don’t interact with anything.”

I was about to say I didn’t even see anything I could interact with, until right before my eyes, they shimmered into vision. People of all ages tied to the rocks, their bones broken, and ravens picking their faces apart as they lay there helpless. The water crashed into them and deprived them of breath, creeping higher and higher as the tide came in. They screamed, some of them, who had newly bloodied wounds and mostly intact clothing, whose chains weren’t rusted, but most of them moaned in agony with their eyes closed.

We passed by men hung up on crucifixes, trying their best to hold themselves up with their nailed feet so they could breathe, only making the wounds deeper and more painful. Some of their gazes followed us while others stared blankly into space with dead eyes.

The sand below our feet shifted, and Diaval held up a finger to her lips as a giant serpent rose out of the sand. Its scales were dark and shiny, a mixture of black and purple with little veins of green shooting down its long body from the throat to the tail. The creature shook the sand off of its body before turning its giant head to us.

A million cuss words formed in my head, but my mouth was too dry to say anything and fear had closed my throat shut like a trapdoor as the serpent rose high above us. It observed us with unblinking red eyes before turning away and lunging at one of the men on a crucifix. It tore the body off the wooden structure and swallowed it whole, so we could almost see the outline of the condemned man inside of him. But no sooner had the serpent consumed the man than the man was back on the cross, and the serpent slipped away down into the earth.

Diaval lowered her hand, indicating we could speak.