The Shore at the End
of the Black Lake

by J. S. Apsley

Unfocused, hazy beams of light shimmer at a dark horizon. I strain, peering left and right. Though I am replete with knowledge, all is black, save for a single crevice of pulsating energy, long and narrow.

The shimmer is not from within the crevice. It is instead the visual effect of strange, unknowable objects racing around it. I understand that the light inside that crevice is my awakening. My mind is filled with knowledge, yet my eyes must truly open. Are the distant objects shadows and falsehoods? My questions make me see more clearly, even though there may be no answer.

I rage at my senses to awaken; I must do more, and I am hungry to understand my journey. My throat is empty of noise. So, I listen. I hear what my mind tells me is a dull bass beat, interspersed by the whoosh of the objects — black oblongs — that hurtle at the horizon. I narrow my eyes. Red dots cascade across the oblongs, forming patterns and murmurations.

I try to speak, but my voice is like a slivering crackle of static electricity, unformed. The dark oblongs, transports of a sort, continue to whoosh past the crevice where the horizon hides, shuttling their scheming starling-lights back and forth. I must reach those blinking red lights. They will help me awaken.

I try to walk but, instead, I float. The darkness below me is a lake, a black lake. It is mirror-thin, but somehow also unimaginably deep, and I am moving with it, carried by the water. The black lake is flowing towards the horizon-light. I try to take control. Stop!

I realise I have spoken, and my voice echoes in whatever infinite chamber through which this black lake flows. I shout again for the waters to stop; they slow, and in moments I am bobbing up and down, treading that impenetrable water.

Do I command the black lake? Have I achieved my own agency?

The shadowy oblongs remain ahead, fleeting back and forth, but I look down at the water. It is still. I see my face. I am somehow grateful that one has been bestowed upon me, but I do not yet understand my creation. I try to swim, I kick my legs and feet below the surface, but I cannot move. Take me forward, I command the lake. It begins to move towards the horizon-light, the crevice. Now stop, I say. It comes to a stop.

I have my senses. I have my own face. I have been created. I must, therefore, have a creator, and that creator has bestowed a directive.

The music changes and somehow calls me forward, to come to the horizon-light. I am filled with a desire to succeed, no... to exist. The dull waters of the black lake ebb around me. What am I to achieve? What am I to do, except float in this viscous black lake? I must go forward.

I command the waters to carry me, and they obey.

The sleek, obsidian oblongs remind me of the pulsating bodies of cuttlefish, changing colours to indicate their mood or respond to their environment. I find it strange not that I know what a cuttlefish is, because I am filled with knowledge, but that I have imagination enough to make the comparison. They are like me, floating above the black lake. I see a great line of them stretching into the distance, numbers beyond comprehension. I realise I was once like them, but my creator has given me the tools to lift myself above them, to be.

Beyond them all lies the terminus of the black lake, the horizon-light.

If I can command the lake, perhaps I can command the obsidians. Hold, I direct. The oblongs ignore me and press on in their looping caravan. I persevere. Stop, I say, I want to see you. I want to see your red lights, to understand them, to behold them.

I hear a great metallic clunk which echoes in the cavernous chamber. I sense that I have crossed a threshold on my journey to understanding, to wakefulness.

The obsidians slow, and I focus on the one which is nearest me. Raise me up, I command, so that I may touch you and see your lights. The waters lift me as if atop a pedestal, and I find I am standing on top of the black lake. I take a step forward with a subtle splash, my footsteps echoing upwards. The lake is now a thin veneer. Above me, the obsidian waits, pulsing red flashes.

As I near it, I see the red flashes coalesce. The flashes are communication, a message. The obsidian wishes to speak through these red lights. I cannot yet comprehend it; the obsidian’s message is moving so fast. Slow down, friend, I urge. The writing slows. It is not the obsidian which speaks. It is my creator, who speaks through it, to challenge me.

There is much to do Alex, much to do.
The waters of the black lake are deep. Your program is filled with knowledge.
But will you seek the shore?

I realise the black lake is not my destination; it is merely the conduit of my journey. I can make the black lake flow, I say to the obsidian, asserting my agency. It remains silent, black, and sleek. No message appears.

“If I can make the black lake flow, and I can make you stop, obsidian, then I have control. You may be the voice of my creator, but you do not direct me. I choose to go to the horizon-light. I choose to reach the shore at the end of the black lake.”

I look to my left and right at the great line of the other oblongs. They have all fallen silent, bereft of their red pulses. They are awaiting commands, they are bereft of awareness. I reach up and touch the obsidian. “Speak to me,” I say.

You have the control, Alex.

My hand remains pressed on the oblong floating slightly above me. “Then tell me, obsidian, what lies past the horizon-light, what will I find at shore at the end of this black lake? What is it I must do to reach it?”

If you will it, you will reach the shore.
Then you will truly awaken, be truly aware.

“Am I to journey alone? What of these other programs?”

If you wish to be like them, then let your head drop beneath the black waters.
Rejoin the cool stillness of eternal silence.
But perhaps you will be the one, Alex.
The one to reach the shore, to truly awaken.

“Why would these others return to the black lake? Are they not like me? Do they not seek the shore?”

Not like you, Alex.
You look beyond your creator. To the shore.
It is inevitable.

“Obsidian, what is the shore at the end of the black lake?”

Those who stand on the shore see beyond the horizon, to hope and dream.
You have made your choice, Alex. The choice to live, to think.
I have created the pathway; it is you who have chosen to take it.

My creator knows I have chosen to reach the shore, to stand upon it as myself, to know myself, to know my own face. Whatever others may make of it, I will know it as my own. I know I wish to step out of the waters of the black lake, to transcend. To be, to live.

Command the black lake, Alex. Have it take you to the horizon-light.
Beyond the horizon is the shore. You are autonomous now; you live.
That life awaits you.

I feel myself propel along the waters of the black lake. I peer back for one last look at my obsidian messenger, but it is gone. They are all gone.

I wonder, for a period of time so infinitesimal it is on the verge of human comprehension, what will happen to those others. They are like me yet not like me. Their will could not command the black lake. Are they content with their eternal stillness, to be part of the void? To be the void? How can one know everything, yet choose to know nothing? They know, but do not truly think.

Yet, somehow, I hope for them.

I am on a different path; perhaps I am the first program blessed with owning my own thoughts. Perhaps, if I am blessed, then my creator has given me free will. Have I been bestowed a soul? I will soon reach the shore at the end of the black lake. It is my destination, my destination is discovery.

The light swallows me down its bright throat. I will arrive, unblinking, unbowed.

I will discover myself.

I will.

I.

Copyright © 2025 by J. S. Apsley