Cherry sang with all her might as she flattened herself against the steps.

She could feel him, rousing. Tossing. Turning.

The King in Yellow.

The stone steps rolled in waves beneath her body, seeming to lose their solidification. Strange light patterns swam in her vision. Every smell heightened. Every sound held a color. Time and space ebbed and flowed, spilling together into a fluid stasis. New emotions toiled within her, feelings without name. They crushed her spirit within her, suppressed her being, until she was naught but an insignificant speck kneeling before a casket throne.

Stone grinding on stone clawed at her ears. Dust clouded the stale air. The lid shifted open. Then a hand breached the lip, and the stone fell away. The weight of it dropping to the temple floor rocked the very foundations of the chamber. Had she been standing the jolt would have dashed her to the floor.

She wrestled to keep her gaze down, but the wonder of beholding the King wrenched her entire being, like a shuttle sucked into a black hole, until she succumbed to the irresistible temptation.

There towered the King in Yellow, slenderer than a dried corpse. Terror gripped her then, but she railed against it. No, need to fear. This was her king. The one that bestowed her visions of this place, the one who'd given her fits of unexplainable euphoria.

Pride swelled in her. She'd been found worthy. Others had thought her insignificant, her worth only defined by her looks. But no longer. She wasn't a cute brothel girl to be swept by the wayside, forgotten, she was the prophetess now. She served the King in Yellow. She would sit at his right hand, petitioning her eldritch king to dish out punishment and retribution on the weak, the unbelievers of Noke'la. And after that pathetic settlement was laid waste, together they'd conquer all of Mars.

She dared to meet her King's face, to see herself reflected in his eyes, his pride for her, his faithful prophetess.

But his face held no compassion, no gratitude, nor affection for the small loyal troupe who ventured so far into the forsaken alien catacombs.

A bone-chilling face of wrathful contempt burned into Cherry's eyes. She knew not whether she sang or screamed in terror. The longer he leered down at her, the less she was. Doubt cracked her brittle soul. Her breath caught in her throat. Her ribs expanded and retracted, but she wasn't drawing air.

What have I done?

Frigid sweat beads spilled from her pores.

In horror, she watched as her friends rushed towards the frail king with open arms, offering all they had in spite of that malignant distaste that emanated from the tattered eldritch entity.

She realized their folly but a moment before their fates were sealed.

They would all perish here. None would be spared.

The daemon reached out and plucked up several willing sacrifices. He drained their bodies of all vitality before they crumbled to dust.

She screamed and tried to run, but her willpower dissolved. No sooner had she thought to flee, a strong compulsion beckoned her to draw near to the king against her will. Cherry was caught now. There was no fighting it. The more she resisted, the faster she ran towards her doom. With each step her fear faded, slipping through her inner grasp, instead encompassed by crazed, hysterical laughter.

She tripped on the final step.

Her body dashed against the solid floor.

A spike of pain offered a moment of clarity.

The final thing Cherry noticed as the massive fingers wrapped around her body was that Roy had abandoned her.