Door

Leaving behind the locked metal gate, Alice quickly sped through the halls and rooms she had walked through just a few minutes before, now ignoring anything but the road ahead, her mind working hard to retrace her steps until, after a couple of wrong turns that pushed her further into the labyrinthine structure, she finally found herself in front of the round opening that led into the damaged glass tunnel, only slightly cringing as she moved inside once again, forcing herself to step carefully on the cracked surface as not to suddenly cause a collapse with a particularly heavy step.

It didn’t take her long to move through the passage and into the first building she had explored, the musty smell of the museum filling her nostrils once again as she moved past the many conjoined spheres that formed the strange sculpture in the middle of the atrium, finally reaching the second passage and, after a bit of hesitation, moving into it, finding herself in a tunnel that was pretty much the twin of the one that went to the right, the only difference in a barely perceptible slope of the floor.

The more she moved forward, however, the more the air became humid and heavy; countless droplets of condensation started raining own on her head and body, dribbling onto the increasingly muddy ground that tried to clamp down on her feet at every step, forcing her to significantly slow down her pace in order to avoid losing her shoes in the mire.

To make matters worse, the tunnel itself started getting more and more cramped as time went on, the sludge slowly reaching up to her thighs and forcing her to literally wade through it, sweat soon joining the water drenching her back as she forced herself to power through, a feeling of dread resurfacing from the bottom of her mind as a thin layer of water appeared over the mud, rising more and more as she progressed forward until it finally reached a point where the entire passage was completely filled with dark water that smelled like algae and rot, her own movements causing billowing clouds of the upper layer of sediment to rise and mix with the fluid, even her bioluminescence unable to shine through the murkiness.

She stopped there, the feeling of being constricted only growing stronger as she tried to breathe with the water up to her throat, her chest feeling tight against the pressure of the liquid, her breaths quickening as her body attempted to get all the oxygen it could as she ineffectually tried to calm down, the silken bag she had been carrying all this time floating right beside her head, bobbing and bouncing with her every movement and obscuring the way back, further increasing the claustrophobic feeling that was paralyzing her mind.

The panic was really starting to take hold when, suddenly, a sharp stinging pain on her left ear made her yelp, the green snake she had been bringing along for the last few days immediately unlatching from her auricle, uncoiling from its spot around her neck and gently sliding in the water.

Alice brought her fingers to the ear, touching the two small boreholes that had been punched through her skin and cartilage, feeling the twin trickles of blood dripping along the auricle and down into the water, staring in astonishment at the slim reptile as it swam just below the surface of the liquid, its green scales looking incredibly bright as they reflected her own luminescence, her eyes immediately gluing to the sinuous movements of its body as it silently slithered through the fluid, its large purple eyes constantly staring at her as if waiting for her to do something about it.

“What the heck,” she finally muttered.

Somehow, the sudden distraction really helped her calm down, the pain and surprise punching a hole through the panicked haze as she stared at the reptile enjoying its swimming, giving her something to focus on as she gradually controlled her breathing and took a few steps back to relieve the constricting feeling of pressure on her chest.

After that, it didn’t take her long to push away the oppressive floating bag and reveal the open tunnel at her back, her thrashing soon ceasing and allowing the particles in the water drop to the bottom once again, her glowing body illuminating the water with its warm green light that felt much more reassuring than the brown murkiness of before.

“I really don’t think you are normal,” she whispered with a shaky chuckle to the snake, her right hand extending towards it and letting it slither back on her body, “but thank you anyway… you really are a helpful one,” she commented before moving her gaze back to the submerged tunnel.

The other gate is going to be beyond this passage, of that I’m sure. It’s just that I don’t know how long I’ll have to hold my breath down there, what if I get stuck? What if I lose my way?

She couldn’t help thinking of the submerged well where the Giant Salamander had laid in wait before taking her arm, a shiver of fear running down her spine when she remembered the eyeless creature swimming towards her back then.

Is this really worth it for the tiny possibility of finding my way home?

She found herself unable to give a truthful answer.

“Well… before I choose… let me make sure that I can actually hold my breath long enough,” she told herself before filling her lungs with as much air as possible, pinching her nose with one hand, and starting to count, the minutes slowly passing as she counted the seconds in her mind, the only sounds those of the water splashing around her and the subtle hiss of the snake as it tried to climb through her hair, clearly done with its swimming.

By the time she was forced to take another breath, Alice didn’t feel as terrified as before, resolve hardening her expression as she stared at the submerged pathway.

“I think I can do it.”

First thing first, Alice made sure that her weapons would be as secure as possible on her body; the last thing she needed was losing one and being forced to search for it while holding her breath.

When she was positive that nothing would come loose, she quickly confirmed that the silken bag was actually as waterproofed as it appeared, carefully pushing it under the surface and immediately feeling the way the air inside fought back against her muscles, barely any bubble of gas escaping through the incredibly fine mesh of the material.

“Okay then, I guess I really don’t have any more excuses,” she finally muttered, her expression a mix between relieved and very scared as she untied the wire closing the sack and started rummaging through it, ignoring the moss and feathers sticking to her wet hand as she finally grabbed the glowing ellipsoid she had carried all the way there, immediately dropping it inside the water and watching its warm glow shine through the liquid, a sigh of relief on her lips when she spotted no change in its behavior after submerging it in something that wasn’t air.

After that, she quickly reached for the snake that had finally managed to climb on her head, gently grasping its body with her fingers, bringing it in front of her face, and staring at it for a moment, “I don’t know how much time I’ll spend underwater but I’m fairly sure that I can hold my breath for far longer than you. I don’t want to accidentally drown you with my carelessness so we’re doing this the safe way,” she concluded before quickly stuffing it inside the rucksack, ignoring the startled hiss of the reptile as she tightly closed the opening to prevent air from escaping.

After that, she quickly picked up the glowing ellipsoid at her feet and then moved as close as possible to the point where the tunnel went fully underwater, taking multiple deep breaths and forcefully slowing her heart with an Aestus of endorphins, a pleasant calmness flooding her brain and body as she finally lowered her head into the water, her ears popping as they filled with liquid, all sounds instantly muffled and indistinct.

One, Two, Three, Four.

While submerged, Alice worked to keep her eyes open and to ignore the fine particles that were floating in the water as she scanned the area around herself with her own glow and the ‘torch’ in her hand, finding herself unable to see any detail that was more than two or three meters away, the water unpleasantly stinging her eyes as she started gently moving forwards, her air-filled bag trailing behind her, attached to the silken cord and brushing against the ceiling of the passage.

Forty-five, Forty-six, Forty-seven, Forty-eight.

Below the water, the tunnel was unchanged, the layer of sediment occupying more than half of its volume but still allowing her to comfortably swim through, her enhanced muscles giving her more than enough power to move through the liquid without effort, her glowing light illuminating the path ahead as she kept moving through the seemingly infinite corridor.

Two hundred and thirty-one, two hundred and thirty-two.

She couldn’t allow herself to stop even for a second, always moving to avoid the dark clouds of mud that her movements where creating behind her, the dark fog menacing to envelop and blind her, she couldn’t allow herself to lose her way.

Three hundred and sixty-seven, three hundred and sixty-eight.

By the time six minutes had passed, Alice could feel the air in her lungs starting to push against the ribcage, the spongy organs now dangerously devoid of oxygen.

She forced herself to simply ignore it, instead pushing another dozen of meters forward and around a slight bend, a groan reverberating through her closed mouth when, as she was scanning the passage ahead, she suddenly spotted the thick wall of brown algae that had almost sealed the traversable part of the tunnel, a veritable forest of ugly leaves through which swam small fish and crustaceans busy with their simple lives.

Four hundred and ten, Four hundred and eleven.

Feeling very unlucky, Alice immediately unsheathed her knife and started cutting through a part of the forest, her movements as quick and deliberate as possible to avoid raising too much detritus as she worked, the glowing ellipsoid forgotten on the ground a few meters back as she gripped handfuls of algae to cut down, her lungs now distinctly painful as she slowly progressed through the underwater forest, knowing that getting stuck there would spell her death.

Five hundred and twenty-five, Five hundred and twenty-six.

She finally pushed through, suddenly finding herself out of the passage, her glowing body only revealing dark water around herself, fear coursing once again through her mind as she thought of what could be swimming with her in the expanse, the only other light she could see was the faint one emanated by the ellipsoid still in the passage.

Before panic could paralyze her once again, however, Alice focused on the silken sack attached to her arm and the way it was trying to push upwards, only prevented by her own weight, her body slowly drifting downward, pulled by the mace and armored plates in her dress.

Five hundred and sixty-nine, Five hundred and seventy.

Her lungs menacing to explode, she started kicking with her legs to propel herself upwards, feeling the way some of her internal organs were being shut down by her own system as the last particles of oxygen in her body were redirected to her brain and limbs; she knew she didn’t have any more reserves to utilize, it was her last chance.

Six hundred, Six hundred and one.

The bag finally breached the surface with a splash, soon followed by a gasping and spluttering Alice as she took in deep and frantic gulps of precious oxygen mixed with foul-smelling water, a slightly hysterical laughter echoing through the large hexagonal chamber she was swimming in, her eyes wide open and slightly crazed as she tried to orient herself, barely noticing the large statue in front of her and instead focusing on a platform that actually stood out of the water, immediately rushing in that direction with a very quick breaststroke, frantically hoisting herself up and crawling as far away as possible from the dark pool, its surface soon stilling once again and becoming a dark mirror that faithfully reflected her bedraggled appearance on its surface.

For a few good minutes, Alice simply laid there, panting and shivering on the cold ground.

I really, truly hope that I’ll manage to find another entrance that leads to the outside, I don’t know if I have the strength to do this again. I should have gone and searched for an entrance outside… Did I really hold my breath for ten minutes? What the heck. That can’t be right. Isn’t it like a world record or something? Her thoughts moved crazily in her oxygen-starved head, going from one topic to another without rhyme or reason while the rest of her body worked to replenish the oxygen it had lost, checking wherever the lack of oxygen could have damaged some of her functions, thankfully finding no issues throughout the systems.

She was so taken by everything else that she only noticed the movements in her rucksack after a few minutes, a guilty expression on her face as she frantically opened the bag.

“Oops, sorry little guy, forgot for a minute about you,” she muttered apologetically at the very pissed-off snake, barely avoiding a few bites at her fingers before managing to calm the creature down and letting it slither along her arm and into her sleeve where it ignored the muted protests of the biomancer as it nestled under her armpit.

It was only after having calmed down that she really looked around the room, her eyes barely noticing the heavily inscribed walls and instead immediately gluing to the massive statue that was looming over her, goosebumps appearing on her wet skin as she stared at the horrific creature that was depicted there, her expression becoming more and more perturbed the closely she observed the details of that being.

Carved from a huge, dark stone she didn’t recognize, the subject was a huge, vaguely humanoid figure with a coarse skin that seemed to be covered in armored plates, hair, warts and scars in a pattern that was changing constantly throughout the body, making it look like an amalgam of different materials and animals at the same time.

The head of the creature was an inverted pyramid that sported six eye sockets on the side that was facing her, each one showing clear signs of having been gored out, with trickles of blood delicately carved in the stone as they streamed down its face, the details so masterful that they seemed real.

Underneath the head was a human torso with a single borehole that passed it through, revealing the wall behind the statue and even a mass of strange organs that were visibly poking from the sides of the wound, each one sculpted with incredible detail.

While the creature seemed to lack a mouth, nose and genitalia, it certainly didn’t miss on limbs, with three muscular legs with hooved feet and three elongated arms, two of which ended in six-fingered, clawed hands, the last one in a jagged stump at elbow-height.

“Was that their fricking god? Does it really exist? What the absolute heck, I’m honestly less sad that these people aren’t here anymore…” she whispered as she hugged herself and tried to ignore the itch of unease that was running along her arms, forcing herself to look away from the horrible sculpture and to instead search for the new gate, soon finding it right behind the massive statue, an hexagonal opening in the wall leading to a smaller, partially-flooded room where the thick metal door lay unchanged by time and decay, only a layer of stubborn algae having grown on the lower side, easily consumed by her Lumen as she carefully inspected the surface, a smile appearing on her lips when she spotted the same pattern of the first opening, the symbol sculpted beside the door’s handle perfectly identical to the one on her ring.

Holding her breath, she once again inserted the signet ring in its slot and felt the gentle stream of magical energy start coursing through the metal, this time growing stronger until, after a few seconds of waiting, her enhanced ears caught the barely audible sound of metal sliding against metal with a final click that made her heart skip a beat in her chest.

Extracting her mace, Alice grasped the metal handle of the door with her other hand and started pulling, surprise on her face when the door opened without almost any effort, the only difficulty in displacing the layer of water in the room which soon flooded into the new space, her eyes widening when she spotted the partially-illuminated corridor that led further in, glowing ellipsoids lighting the barren space while multiple glowing symbols appeared on the side of the walls.

Heart hammering in her chest, she moved in, ready to escape the second something appeared to go wrong.

The hexagonal room stood silent and still, the surface of the water unperturbed, a black mirror in the darkness.

Then something entered through another submerged passage, sliding without sound into the pool that had long become its lair and stopping to taste the waters, its incredibly sensitive tendrils sensing a new scent in the liquid, something it had never felt before.

It hungered.

The water rippled and splashed before stilling again, it followed the scent.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Kirvin! Thank you for the support!