“No STaY AWay.” The demon’s raspy voice shrieked, mocking me.
I continued inhaling the manna-infused sludge, shivering from how gross it felt as I made my way back toward the surface.
“AlL aLonE LoST iN tHe DarK.” Its voice resonated in my mind, making me almost overcome with the urge to give up, and just tuck myself into a ball, closing my eyes and waiting for it to end.
I looked down again to make sure it hadn’t moved, but just as I laid my eyes on it, its faceless head whipped up, as if it was looking directly at me with unseen eyes.
My muscles burned from trying to claw my way up, they burned so much I nearly stopped moving altogether. With how much my pace had slowed it almost seemed pointless as the surface slowly began to get farther and farther away. Still, the adrenaline kept me going.
Finally, I felt the air with my fingertips, but at the same time a chain wrapped around my ankle again and I froze.
“CloSE YoUR eYEs”
Without realizing it I did exactly what the monster said, still praying I would get to the surface soon. Even though I had stopped moving altogether.
“IT Won'T DIE!”
The chain dug into my skin with its barbs and the moment it drew blood I felt an intense heat rage through me. My veins all bulged as blood pounded through them and it took everything I had just to keep my eyes from rolling back.
Memories flooded through my head as if it was pushing every rotten thing that had ever happened to me rapidly through my mind.
“ShE's GoNE nOW.”
Some crazy mix of emotions filled my body like a cocktail of rage infused with sadness, and it pushed me to keep going. I kept trying to swim until my muscles were too worn out to move. The images continued to be forced through my mind until they all stopped, and everything fixated on a single scene.
“Never ComING BACK!”
It was as if my mind and body were torn from each other, and my brain was living in a simulated space, an elaborate illusion that played out like a movie before my eyes.
A gravestone speared before me as a gentle breeze rustled the flowers next to it at sunset. In seconds nighttime broke through like a glitch in time, and everything began to look torn down and mangled, like the world had ended.
Blood splattered everywhere, and a pipe clanged to the ground. “Suzuki” was written on the stone, and slowly my name was etched into it with claw marks from an animal
The ground opened up and my sister's ashes formed a human-shaped cloud that wrapped around me. “You belong here… With me.” THe cloud pulled me down until I was completely buried.
I screamed. Even though I was underwater… I screamed. Suddenly everything around me turned cold. All the manna in the sludge had been rapidly filling my body, and all at once, I expelled it. A glowing crystal blue erupted from my skin as the chain around my ankle shattered and my body stiffened.
My eyes no longer focused, I no longer blinked, it was like I had become a corpse as my mind snapped, getting lost somewhere between the illusion and my body.
Slowly, I saw little crystals form around my eyes, the water separating from the manna and turning to ice as it froze.
The demon started screeching as if it had lost an arm, Still saying random sentences, streaming together words as if it were the one being hunted.
“IT wON’t die, it wILL alwAYS…” Everything became quiet and its voice smoothed out with a low growl behind it. It was only slightly different than that of my fathers. “Catch you…”
It started to laugh with a wheezing hiss as if it was breathing with a hole in its throat. “IT FoLlOWeD Me HoMe!”
At some point, I became too overwhelmed to be afraid anymore. My nervous system had been so overstimulated that even when I told my body to move, my muscles couldn’t fire. I wasn’t even breathing, although I was still conscious at least.
‘Nothing you say makes any sense…’ My eyes slowly lifted as it appeared before me again, its faceless head tilting, before violently twitching like an undead crow.
“Agis…” It said softly, in a voice so deep my ears could hardly even pick up the vibration and comprehend it. Just when its speech started to become more human it vanished from sight, growling, and hissing, clearly angered.
Hearing that name somehow snapped me back to reality, my mind fully connecting with my body again.
light burst into the room and the screeching grew farther away. Suddenly I could see clearly again, rather than being trapped in my own headspace. The memories and traumatic images I was being forced to see were all gone.
I didn’t know what all had happened or why, but somehow, by some means, I survived.
The surface was clear as day, all I had to do to reach it was place my feet on the bottom and stand up. It didn’t feel real. Everything around me felt fake like it was all just a happy dream, and the terror I was experiencing was what was real, about to come back and grab at me at any time.
“I wanna go home… I wanna– home…” I mumbled. The images may not have been being forced through my head anymore, but they weren’t something I could unsee either.
“I wanna go h-home…” That was the only thing I could say at my sister's funeral. I was in so much shock, unable to accept reality. All I wanted was to go home, thinking that when I opened the door I would find out it was all a cruel joke.
It was like my brain was defaulting, not sure how it was supposed to process what had happened. When I said home I was thinking of my old room from 14 years ago.
I would have thought it was all in my head, had it not been for the floating shards of ice in the sludge, and the sharp cuts on my ankle from the chains, still stinging as the sludge began to settle.
I was too weak to even speak. As I opened my mouth, only one word came out. “Home…” My voice cracked as I slowly folded my arms over my chest, trying not to freeze to death.
My father's voice rang in my ears as he stood at the edge of the mote with a scowl. “Come on out now. You’re alive, so act like it and move.”
I would have started to cry, but I was so cold I wasn’t even sure if I could. I opened my mouth to speak but it was like the air in my lungs had turned to ice, all I could let out was a wheezing sound.
My own attempts to talk reminded me of the demon and I grabbed my head, covering my ears as if it was back.
“STAY AWAY!” My throat burned and stung as I screamed, and suddenly everything clicked.
‘It… talks through the voices of its victims…’
Its harrowing laugh echoed through the cave as it started repeating my own words over and over again, but my father didn’t so much as flinch.
My hands dropped back into the water ‘I guess it’s probably not a good sign that it can say that much then…’
My father grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me out, dropping me to the ground. “I said move.”
I dripped water all over the stone floors as I slowly tried to stand. The fear still hadn’t left my body though, and as soon as I got up on my own two feet I immediately fell back to the ground, vomiting the thick blue sludge I had inhaled earlier.
Of course… Everything caught up to me, once I had finished clearing my lungs, I puked my guts out too…
Shocked and grossed out even more, I curled up in a ball continuing to shake. Even if I was capable of moving, I didn’t want to anymore.
The moment I tried to get up and walk I felt as if my entire body stopped moving altogether. The smell of death filled my nose and it was all I could sense around me. It was so thick it was hard to even believe that I was alive.
I had no control anymore. all of my senses started misfiring. The cold that was making me shiver felt like it was burning my skin, and the colors of the room began to change. The sound of my father's footsteps became quieter and quieter until suddenly I felt complete stillness as he lifted me up into his arms and wrapped me in a cloak.
I saw his mouth moving but I could only hear white noise until he stopped talking.
The only sound I could make out was the faraway echoes of the monster's shrikes and laughter coming from the dark corners of the room. A final especially loud one made me jerk my head, slamming it into my father's chest.
I shut my eyes and covered my ears. My body was too tired to tense up anymore, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. “We need to leave. Get me out. We need to get out right now!”
I grabbed onto his shirt, tearing the soft fabric as I buried my head in his chest. I was too scared to open my eyes, afraid that if I did. I would be face-to-face with that monster again.
“No STaY AWay.” The demon’s raspy voice shrieked, mocking me.
I continued inhaling the manna-infused sludge, shivering from how gross it felt as I made my way back toward the surface.
“AlL aLonE LoST iN tHe DarK.” Its voice resonated in my mind, making me almost overcome with the urge to give up, and just tuck myself into a ball, closing my eyes and waiting for it to end.
I looked down again to make sure it hadn’t moved, but just as I laid my eyes on it, its faceless head whipped up, as if it was looking directly at me with unseen eyes.
My muscles burned from trying to claw my way up, they burned so much I nearly stopped moving altogether. With how much my pace had slowed it almost seemed pointless as the surface slowly began to get farther and farther away. Still, the adrenaline kept me going.
Finally, I felt the air with my fingertips, but at the same time a chain wrapped around my ankle again and I froze.
“CloSE YoUR eYEs”
Without realizing it I did exactly what the monster said, still praying I would get to the surface soon. Even though I had stopped moving altogether.
“IT Won'T DIE!”
The chain dug into my skin with its barbs and the moment it drew blood I felt an intense heat rage through me. My veins all bulged as blood pounded through them and it took everything I had just to keep my eyes from rolling back.
Memories flooded through my head as if it was pushing every rotten thing that had ever happened to me rapidly through my mind.
“ShE's GoNE nOW.”
Some crazy mix of emotions filled my body like a cocktail of rage infused with sadness, and it pushed me to keep going. I kept trying to swim until my muscles were too worn out to move. The images continued to be forced through my mind until they all stopped, and everything fixated on a single scene.
“Never ComING BACK!”
It was as if my mind and body were torn from each other, and my brain was living in a simulated space, an elaborate illusion that played out like a movie before my eyes.
A gravestone speared before me as a gentle breeze rustled the flowers next to it at sunset. In seconds nighttime broke through like a glitch in time, and everything began to look torn down and mangled, like the world had ended.
Blood splattered everywhere, and a pipe clanged to the ground. “Suzuki” was written on the stone, and slowly my name was etched into it with claw marks from an animal
The ground opened up and my sister's ashes formed a human-shaped cloud that wrapped around me. “You belong here… With me.” THe cloud pulled me down until I was completely buried.
I screamed. Even though I was underwater… I screamed. Suddenly everything around me turned cold. All the manna in the sludge had been rapidly filling my body, and all at once, I expelled it. A glowing crystal blue erupted from my skin as the chain around my ankle shattered and my body stiffened.
My eyes no longer focused, I no longer blinked, it was like I had become a corpse as my mind snapped, getting lost somewhere between the illusion and my body.
Slowly, I saw little crystals form around my eyes, the water separating from the manna and turning to ice as it froze.
The demon started screeching as if it had lost an arm, Still saying random sentences, streaming together words as if it were the one being hunted.
“IT wON’t die, it wILL alwAYS…” Everything became quiet and its voice smoothed out with a low growl behind it. It was only slightly different than that of my fathers. “Catch you…”
It started to laugh with a wheezing hiss as if it was breathing with a hole in its throat. “IT FoLlOWeD Me HoMe!”
At some point, I became too overwhelmed to be afraid anymore. My nervous system had been so overstimulated that even when I told my body to move, my muscles couldn’t fire. I wasn’t even breathing, although I was still conscious at least.
‘Nothing you say makes any sense…’ My eyes slowly lifted as it appeared before me again, its faceless head tilting, before violently twitching like an undead crow.
“Agis…” It said softly, in a voice so deep my ears could hardly even pick up the vibration and comprehend it. Just when its speech started to become more human it vanished from sight, growling, and hissing, clearly angered.
Hearing that name somehow snapped me back to reality, my mind fully connecting with my body again.
light burst into the room and the screeching grew farther away. Suddenly I could see clearly again, rather than being trapped in my own headspace. The memories and traumatic images I was being forced to see were all gone.
I didn’t know what all had happened or why, but somehow, by some means, I survived.
The surface was clear as day, all I had to do to reach it was place my feet on the bottom and stand up. It didn’t feel real. Everything around me felt fake like it was all just a happy dream, and the terror I was experiencing was what was real, about to come back and grab at me at any time.
“I wanna go home… I wanna– home…” I mumbled. The images may not have been being forced through my head anymore, but they weren’t something I could unsee either.
“I wanna go h-home…” That was the only thing I could say at my sister's funeral. I was in so much shock, unable to accept reality. All I wanted was to go home, thinking that when I opened the door I would find out it was all a cruel joke.
It was like my brain was defaulting, not sure how it was supposed to process what had happened. When I said home I was thinking of my old room from 14 years ago.
I would have thought it was all in my head, had it not been for the floating shards of ice in the sludge, and the sharp cuts on my ankle from the chains, still stinging as the sludge began to settle.
I was too weak to even speak. As I opened my mouth, only one word came out. “Home…” My voice cracked as I slowly folded my arms over my chest, trying not to freeze to death.
My father's voice rang in my ears as he stood at the edge of the mote with a scowl. “Come on out now. You’re alive, so act like it and move.”
I would have started to cry, but I was so cold I wasn’t even sure if I could. I opened my mouth to speak but it was like the air in my lungs had turned to ice, all I could let out was a wheezing sound.
My own attempts to talk reminded me of the demon and I grabbed my head, covering my ears as if it was back.
“STAY AWAY!” My throat burned and stung as I screamed, and suddenly everything clicked.
‘It… talks through the voices of its victims…’
Its harrowing laugh echoed through the cave as it started repeating my own words over and over again, but my father didn’t so much as flinch.
My hands dropped back into the water ‘I guess it’s probably not a good sign that it can say that much then…’
My father grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me out, dropping me to the ground. “I said move.”
I dripped water all over the stone floors as I slowly tried to stand. The fear still hadn’t left my body though, and as soon as I got up on my own two feet I immediately fell back to the ground, vomiting the thick blue sludge I had inhaled earlier.
Of course… Everything caught up to me, once I had finished clearing my lungs, I puked my guts out too…
Shocked and grossed out even more, I curled up in a ball continuing to shake. Even if I was capable of moving, I didn’t want to anymore.
The moment I tried to get up and walk I felt as if my entire body stopped moving altogether. The smell of death filled my nose and it was all I could sense around me. It was so thick it was hard to even believe that I was alive.
I had no control anymore. all of my senses started misfiring. The cold that was making me shiver felt like it was burning my skin, and the colors of the room began to change. The sound of my father's footsteps became quieter and quieter until suddenly I felt complete stillness as he lifted me up into his arms and wrapped me in a cloak.
I saw his mouth moving but I could only hear white noise until he stopped talking.
The only sound I could make out was the faraway echoes of the monster's shrikes and laughter coming from the dark corners of the room. A final especially loud one made me jerk my head, slamming it into my father's chest.
I shut my eyes and covered my ears. My body was too tired to tense up anymore, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. “We need to leave. Get me out. We need to get out right now!”
I grabbed onto his shirt, tearing the soft fabric as I buried my head in his chest. I was too scared to open my eyes, afraid that if I did. I would be face-to-face with that monster again.
