“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

translated from Eldritch

---------------------

A mix of red and grey was suspended in the air like rain, neither time nor gravity had any sway over the particulates that clouded my now tinted vision. It only took one breath to identify the flecks as blood and ash respectively. The heavy smell of rot and the taste of iron mixed with the strange sweetness blood always seemed to carry lingered in my mouth and nose from the glue like mixture that had formed when the ash and blood had come together. My gaze turned upward to locate any nearby fires but only a faint red that transitioned into a dull and distant brown filled the sky.

I took a tentative step forward while looking at my surroundings only to stumble as my foot sank into the soft reddish brown ground until only my ankle was showing. With as much care as I could, I bent down to look at the ground to find out why it was closer to mud instead of hardened or compacted earth.

The answer was simple, the red in the dirt came not from a natural source but from blood that seemed to be so abundant that it had seeped in and stained the ground, dampening it to its current state.

‘There are no sounds of battle or anything to signal that one has taken place recently. What happened here to spill so much blood?’

After pulling my foot out of the muck, I continued forward to see if I could find anything that would tell me what had happened here in the past. The charred and crumbled frames of wood and stone remained in place of what was once houses, dotting the area before me in the most basic and primitive of the layouts that most new towns used. This town must have been an outpost of some sorts; another attempt at living with the roaming Eldritch that always inhabited dense forests.

Every step I took towards the ruined buildings increased the smell of blood and rot that filled the air and by the time I reached the first of the buildings I was gagging with each breath. The first corpse I literally stumbled on didn’t make it any better.

To call the body of what I had tripped over human would be a stretch; it was nearly unidentifiable. The spine was too small and the arms were bent in unnatural ways that could only be achieved by breaking the limbs and binding them into the positions they now sat in. I couldn’t see any legs nor was I inclined to dig up the rest of the half buried body to find out if they were there and had avoided being mutilated. It was the first of the bodies; it was also the tamest.

I found the second body part way through a doorway with large metal rods punched through it and into the ground, the telltale marks of a hammer striking the top of the rod were still present. Unlike the first, this one had been left to the elements and only the bones of the person remained behind. My eyes scanned the skeleton and I had to turn away to empty my stomach when I got halfway down the body. A metal rod was in the location of where her stomach would have been; only there were white bones of a much tinier individual poking out from underneath the rod. When I reached the shattered pelvis I had to walk away.

The deeper I walked into the ruins the worse it became. Impaled bodies halfway down spears, faces so mutilated they were nothing but a fleshy pulp, bodies missing limbs that had been ripped off, others that had those missing limbs in places that made me want to vomit again, intestines and other organs had been used to decorate the area between ruinous houses as if it was a holiday, burned bodies that had been left on the ground like used firewood, and even more variation that were impossible to describe. It was as if I was walking through a display of someone testing the limits of brutality only to find that they could go further. Seeing skeletons was just as bad as seeing the bodies themselves, it revealed the true cruelty that had passed like a tidal wave of death by torment through the village be it the sign of breaks that were left to heal wrong or the bones that couldn’t make a complete skeleton if you tried.

Breathing was almost impossible from the stench and general atmosphere that the bodies created; whom or whatever had done this had viewed nothing as sacred. Even if I didn’t want to keep moving forward I owed it to the owners of these bodies to at least see their fate and investigate what may have caused it. The desecrated bodies seemed to increase the more I headed in one direction and I followed the body count with express purpose of finding out why the brutality increased the closer to the upcoming destination I got.

Much to my surprise, the buildings got more and more intact as I went further in until they were whole and almost brand new in nature even if they still had blood and gore decorating them with splatters of red. A house much larger than the rest caught my attention and I started to make my way towards it. When the building came into view it was very obvious that it was a church, the stained glass windows and domed roof leading to a small bell tower and subsequent prayer spire only served to confirm my guess.

The area was devoid of any of the carnage out to a certain radius leaving the church in pristine condition as if whatever had come through this area respected worship even if it didn’t respect a clean death. There were no markings to tell me whom the church belonged to, any of the three major churches could have set it up and I doubted that the other beliefs held enough sway to get a building of this size. However, this was out in the middle of nowhere from what I could tell and it was possible that the entire town was an aggregation of one of the smaller religions and the church was made larger because of that. Entering the building and looking for objects of worship was going to be the only way I would find out who had built this church and tell me why it was left alone.

Unlike the ground throughout the rest of the area, the ground here was hard and firm, serving as another testament to how this area was regarded as different for some reason. The large spire atop the church disappeared behind the arched beams and brickwork that supported the front of the building as I got closer to the ornately carved wooden doors that stood at least three times my size and twice my thickness. The metal inlaid in the door intertwined itself with the carving to accentuate curves and depressions that made the doors seem like the carvings ebbed and flowed into the large metal rings that served as handles. The doors felt alive.

I was taken aback by how cold and damp the rings on the door were when I wrapped my hand around one of them, almost like a rock that had been taken from the bottom of a river. My first tug to open the door did nothing, I was too light and the door to heavy for such a meager attempt to enter to actually work. Bracing my feet against the ground to give myself more leverage, I pulled with all of my weight and was rewarded as the door shuddered, releasing a cloud of dust into the air around its borders while moving slightly, and I fell to the ground from the unexpected leeway. Once I was on my feet again I continued to struggle against the door until the rusted hinged gave way and the door was allowed to move. A loud haunting creek of unused hinges and aged wood echoed inside the church’s hall as I opened the door wide enough to get inside.

After squeezing myself through the crack in the doors I looked into the hall of the church. The dim light given off by several hundred candles of different sizes and locations cast an eerie glow around the inside of the room. There was no one here so the reason for there being burning candles was another thing that I would have to figure out. I continued to survey the room, my eyes going across the pews, statues, and chandeliers sometimes doing a double take as the shadows played tricks on my eyes, making me believe I had seen movement of something vaguely humanoid. It became apparent that only the outside of the church had been spared; there were bloody footprints on the ground that lead to another closed door in the back of the room next to a raised stage that had been barricaded with a plank of wood to stop whatever was behind it from coming out.

A light wind from outside swept through the hall stirring up dust and ringing the small bells that covered the upper portions of the pillars that led to the roof. The ringing echoed throughout the hall rebounding off of every crevice before decaying into nothing. I swore I hear the whispers of hidden voices and the flickering light brought the shadows to life only furthering the unease my mind had created for itself.

The barred door was like the rest of the church, pristine but aged by some outside force. I was able to lift the bar with no difficulties; it was much lighter than it looked even though it has half my size. Before I opened the door I went to get one of the smaller candelabras that dotted the areas and nearly dropped it as another breeze caused chimes somewhere else in the church to ring out and startle me. Another flicker of shadows and another vaguely humanoid shape in the corner of my vision that I tried as hard as possible not to think about accompanied the unseen winds.

With as much caution as I could, I opened the door before me and was greeted by stairs that were swallowed by an inky black abyss. Then the smell of rot and bodily waste hit. I wiped tears from my eyes as the acrid air was finally freed of its prison; people had been trapped here, most likely the clergymen and whatever worshipers had been in the church at the time. The door was left open as I toyed with the idea of going down the stairs to see what was at the bottom.

My decision made, I let the air filter itself before I started my way down the steps. A creak like the front door had released resounded around the dimly lit stairwell and down into whatever room was below when I placed my weight on the first of the wooden steps. I waited with baited breath, straining myself to try and hear something, anything, other than myself. Each step downwards made the air staler and more acidic as the denser gases hadn’t fully left the room.

Having reached the bottom step I raise the candelabra as high as I could in order to see what was in front of me. The abyss retreated only to reveal small bones that would have belonged to very small individuals. I knelt to take a closer look and found that every single bone was covered in teeth marks. This place had become a fight for survival meant to draw out the worse in a person and in this case those people were children.

I hefted the candelabra and then threw it further into the room; I was unwilling to walk on top of the layer of bones that covered the floor of the room like a carpet. The candelabra lit the room long enough for me to see what was at the center. A throne made entirely out of bones with a skeleton sitting on it. Unlike the other bones throughout the room, this one was untouched aside from the telltale signs of healed breaks. The child on the throne had survived through cannibalism and strength only to starve to death in this dark pit. No speed was fast enough to vacate the area.

My return trip up the stairs was far faster than the descent as I almost ran up them before closing and barring the door again. I then proceeded to fall to my knees and dry heave until my throat stung from my own stomach acid. I stood up while wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and took one last look around the church hall before deciding it was time to leave. At least, that’s was what I was doing until I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

There hadn’t been anything or anyone around when I had first opened the doors but now I wasn’t so sure I was alone. A small voice inside of me was begging me to ignore the movement and just run and never look back and I was very, very tempted to listen to it. My curiosity got the better of me though and I found myself moving closer to where I had seen the movement, a podium where a religious text would have sat.

As I got closer, a small table covered in a dusty white cloth with a bump in its center came into view that had previously been hidden by the podium. There was something underneath the cloth and I had a feeling that it would be able to connect all of the dots and fill in the gaps, that was the hope at least. I jumped up the three stairs that led to the top of the stage and walked closer to the covered table.

With as much care as fear and frazzled nerves would allow, I tentatively reached out and grabbed as little of the cloth as I could before pulling it off with a quick jerk while jumping back. The result was lackluster to say the least and I was deeply thankful for that. Even on closer inspection I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at.

The table had many layers of runes and glyphs etched in concentric circles into it while a cylindrical metal wire frame with a hook was at the center of the entire thing. There were places cut out of the table that allowed them to be filled with something and four black handprints rested at set intervals around the outside the largest circle. Whatever the purpose of this thing was it was heavy duty and meant to hold back something powerful or uncontrollable, maybe even both.

I let my finger trace one of the glyphs on the outer circle while I scrutinized the rest of the table for any indication of what it was for. Another step around the table and my foot bumped into something with a dull clang. Underneath the table were dozens of metallic objects, each broken in some way that made them irreparable. Faint recognition made its way through my head as I look at the pile and I picked one of the metal objects to get a better look at it.

My hands had a steady uncertain shake to them as I repositioned the metal object to look at it from different angles. Why did I find it so disconcerting? It was on a whim that I tried to place the object on the hook and found that I knew how it was supposed to hang despite never having seen the thing before. The metal seemed to shift slightly as if falling into place after being bent out of shape for too long. It wasn’t just scrap metal; it was a vessel. A very specific type of vessel and this one in particular was in the shape of an urn.

Then everything clicked. I did not want to be here.

At the moment of my recognition, the candles in the room were all snuffed out by a large breeze sending the interior of the church into darkness aside from the few beams of light that the windows let through. The building itself seemed to come to life as small quakes and moans resounded from areas I couldn’t see nearly obscuring the sound of the door I had entered through slamming shut.

I was at the door pushing with every fiber of my being before the smoke from the extinguished candles reached the ceiling. With every passing second the room seemed to get a little darker and a little smaller while the moans got closer and louder now accompanied by the sounds of metal scraping against metal or stone. The door refused to give me any purchase with which to worm my way outside of the building, trapping me until I found some other way of getting out of the darkening hall.

The room darkened even more till it was almost pitch black and my shoulder had started to show bruises of a similar color from throwing myself against the door so many times. I turned while placing my back against the door and tried to swallow my heart to keep it from exiting my body through my throat. My eyes scanned the darkness for signs of movement with little success and there was nothing for me to see until a dim bluish glow began to emanate from the table that had been turned into a makeshift altar.

Even separated by an entire hall and hidden behind the podium I knew what was happening and my legs nearly gave way when the first of the tendrils of light crested its hiding spot. Other tendrils joined the first and they started a strange dance of interweaving and moving through each other in a practiced manner that only they knew the purpose of. I stood transfixed and unable to take my eyes away from the lights while it felt like I was being drawn towards them.

Banging on the barred door broke me from my involuntary reverence and forced my mind to start thinking again for any way of escape. My eyes darted around the room making out false movements from the shadows created by the slowly brightening blue light.

‘There has to be something, anything, come on, come on . . . ah! The window!’

The window would work if I had a way to get up to it and I didn’t have enough time to stack things to get up to its height. Regardless of this fact, the brightening light and sound of cracking wood followed by more banging set me into motion. Each pew was far heavier than I could move or lift by myself in normal circumstances but I somehow managed to force one up and against the wall in such a manner that I could reach the window without it sliding down the wall.

More of the barred door gave way spurring me into even faster movement as I ran up the tilted pew and threw myself against the window with all my strength. The following crack came not from the window but my arm; it had given way to the metal that held the stained glass together. I moved despite the pain, clambering down the pew and landing roughly and in a sprawled heap on the ground before searching the room for something small enough to use as a makeshift hammer.

Some of the better choices where close to the blue light whose tendrils now almost reached the ceiling and the door that released another crack as more pieces of wood splintered under the pressure behind it. There was no way I would be going to that side of the room in this lifetime. I settled on one of the small incense urns that stood near a supporting pillar and made my way up the pew and to my freedom.

The clang of metal on metal filled my ears as I tried to force the metalwork out of shape and break it apart enough to force open more or get myself through it; I didn’t even care if I got hurt from my actions at this point, fear of the known was the only thing driving me. I dropped the urn, having smashed it into a metal blob that I could no longer hold onto meaning I was going to have to get another one from the ground.

My feet touched the ground just as the door in the back of the room gave way, sending dust, smoke, and the door across to the opposing wall. The light was bright enough that I could make out the bone figure that stood in the doorway, muscle and flesh dripping off of it like water as it tried to repair itself only to rot just as quickly as it regrew. Its head turned to show two empty eye sockets filled with several small white orbs each that lock onto me almost immediately causing me to freeze in place with two words on the tip of my tongue. Bone Walker.

The first step it took had me climbing up the pew faster than I had ever moved before in my life. I hammered furiously against the window; small pieces of glass and metal were falling out of place but nowhere near fast enough to ensure my escape. Another urn became useless in a fraction of the time it had taken the first and I didn’t dare descend to get a third with the approaching monstrosity coming my way.

A quick glance that I regretted informed me of the progress the Bone Walker had made in my direction and my body once again became a battering ram. Glass shards and small pieces of twisted metal embedded themselves into my shoulder and arm with each impact, sometimes pushing already present shrapnel further in. I needed out and I needed out now.

The pew shook from the steps of the nearby Bone Walker and I threw myself at the window with even more vigor hoping for fast results regardless of the cost. With one final look and another shove with all my strength the window gave way and I fell the entirety of the two story drop without realizing I had made it out.

I blacked out for a minute from the impact of an nonexistent landing as the pain overloaded what I was prepared to handle. A sharp gasp and ragged breathing signaled my return to the world of the conscious and I lay on the hard ground without moving in hope that none of this was real. The pain was a fairly valid reminder that I was alive and very much awake even if I wished I wasn’t.

When I finally stood after getting over the momentary shock, a part of the window rose with me having warped and wrapped itself partially around my arm. I started to pull the larger shards that held it in place out but a loud angry roar from inside the church dissuaded me to continue my activities in my current location. The section of window would slow me down but there was nothing I could do to remove it now and there was no way I was letting a Bone Walker find me after losing it.

The first house I came across served as my resting spot where I continued digging the larger shards of glass and metal from my arm, freeing it from the piece of window I had been forced to bring with me. Having finished, I left the house and started to run back to the portal through the muddy ground while hopping that I wasn’t leaving too much of a trail with my blood.

I was in full panic mode and the bodies that I had passed coming this far in caused me to do constant double takes as they entered my peripherals. My feet seemed to sink deeper into the ground now than they had earlier but I had no idea as to why nor was I going to take the time to find out.

About halfway through the parade of bodies I tripped and turned to see what I had tripped on while righting myself. A hand that hadn’t been there on my first trip though the area had emerged from the ground with my foot and was now grabbing my ankle. I pulled my leg back to try and break the hand’s grip but it held onto me with the same vice like strength.

The clack and clatter of bones began to fill the air and I tried to kick the hand off with my other foot to no avail. My hands did little to pry the fingers off of me but I succeeded in getting one finger off and watched in horror as it bent itself back into position once I released it. The same finger was bent back and then broken and I waited to see if it would still move; it did.

‘Let’s see you hold onto me without any fingers.’

With no other options I tore off the offending digit and moved onto the next one. When enough of the fingers were gone that I could separate myself from the hand I did so and continued on my way back to the portal with as much haste as my tiring body could command.

The clinks of bone and metal grew louder as I returned to the portal’s location. More and more movement appeared at the edge of my vision that I hoped was just my mind playing tricks on me. I knew better. The ground continued to get muddier as well, only serving to further hinder my progress and increase my anxiety.

By the time I could see the portal I was knee deep in a mix of mud and water and knew there was a small entourage of reanimated things following me. All I needed to do was touch the portal and I would be safe and anywhere but here. I just hoped I would make it to the portal before what was behind me caught up.

‘Almost. Almost. So close, you can do it. Just a little further. You’ve got this it’s only a few feet away. You’re gonna be fi-’

Something in the murky water I was trudging through pulled my down into a belly flop, filling my open mouth and lungs with the foul tasting water that surrounded me. A coughing fit seized me as my lungs fought to expel the foreign fluid and I tried to bring myself to my hands and knees without falling back into the water. Wiping away the wet hair that clung to my face, I stared at the portal that was right in front of me humming quietly and casting a purple glare onto the opaque surface of the water.

I was so close to the portal I could almost touch it and the brief moment I took to look at the portal mesmerized me. My heart sank as the portal began to shimmer and shrink, closing right before my eyes. I stumbled to my feet lunging for the portal in hopes of making it before the portal closed, my finger only a hair’s breadth away from making contact with my savior. All semblance of hope shattered as the portal broke apart like glass into thousands of tiny shards before I landed in the water on the other side of the now vanished portal.

A cruel joke of fate had been played on me. I should have been safe. My sight blurred and my eyes began to sting as the latent emotions I had been suppressing caught up with me; my mind had come to terms with the predicament I now found myself in. I turned with the expectation of a horde waiting behind me only seconds from ripping me apart but there was nothing there. Yet another expectation subsequently betrayed and destroyed.

It became impossible for me to sit and wallow in my pity any longer when the water around me started to rise. The water continued to rise and walking slowly became swimming as I tried to return to a shore that kept getting further and further away. Changes that shouldn’t be plausible kept happening; the water and disappearing crowd were only two examples. There hadn’t been water here since the last time I was fully myself but that didn’t stop the arctic sewage I was swimming in from feeling any less real.

With the arrival of the bank came exhaustion and a cold wind that I could feel sapping the small amount of warmth I had managed to keep away from the water. But the wind brought something else as well; it brought voices and whispers that I couldn’t understand. That alone would have been bad enough but I knew one of the voices and that made it much, much worse.

Leaving was still my only desire and I knew the area well enough to know that if I walked around the water and continued away from the town I would be able to leave the densely Edin laden lands behind. Until I did that I wasn’t going to be able to leave via the Highway or use any Arcane. My body was stuck as it was and having a clear goal helped me fight past the waves of doubt and fear that kept creeping out from the corners of my mind.

‘I’ve been running at a constant pace and it should only take me a few minutes at most to finally be out of this accursed hell hole. Even after I left here the first time I guess vowing to never come here again was pointless.‘

I had left the lake behind a good five minutes ago and had enjoyed relative silence aside from the sound of my footsteps and breathing. It was nice to have a clear head after the adrenaline filled panic trip I had gone on earlier.

The emerging silhouette on the horizon interrupted my semi-muddled thoughts. As I got closer to the object in the distance I felt my jaw drop. The town I had left behind was in front of me as if I had walked in a circle. Walking away had proved to be futile so searching the town for a way to leave was my only remaining option.

Once again the wind kicked up and carried voices towards me. The closer I got to the abandoned town the louder the voices that the wind carried became. By the time I reached the edge of the town and the start of the bodies that inhabited it the voice’s had become more refined and were so loud there was no way for me to block them out.

Some said words of hate and expressed pain. Others told me I was worthless and that this was all my fault. Both veiled threats and outright calls for my death were intermixed throughout the cries and pleas. In the cacophony of voices one stood out above the rest even though it was the softest. It was singing.

“”

Of all things that the voice could chose to say or do it chose this, recite one of the few things I had held dear to me. It had been my light while fighting to keep myself whole when the humans came. It had kept me sane when I was bound to the lantern, deprived of my freedom, and when I was forced into servitude hunting down other spirits to also be bound. The song became a prayer for freedom that the Eldritch answered before one set its sights on me. Then it became a corrupted reminder slathered with my pain and twisted into a trigger for the worst of what had been done to me while I was held as a ‘test subject’.

“”

I turned to leave but a shadowy figure stood blocking my path, unmoving and most likely watching me waiting to see what I would do. This thing was what I had been seeing earlier, I was sure of that now, and something in my gut told me leaving was no longer an option. My only possible source of escape was to go even deeper into the place I had wanted to avoid.

“”

Like the shadow it was, the figure behind me moved when I did; there was no way I was going to get rid of it unless I tricked it somehow. Using what I knew of the streets, I started to weave in and out of different pathways to try and leave the shadow behind. After enough turns that even I was close to losing track of where I was I turned to see if I had lost my pursuer. The same shadowy figure was still behind me standing the exact same distance away from me that it had been when it started to follow me.

“”

I started to run; walking was going to do me no good if this thing that was following me decided that it wanted to get me. There was no way I was giving it that option. I resisted the slight advantage that was on my side and didn’t use the layout of the town to try and escape. No matter how deep in my memory it was buried and ingrained it had proven ineffective.

“”

A left turn and I was down an alley and then jumping inside a house in hopes of leaving my pursuer behind. Picking up speed was still an option but doing so would leave me tired faster than it would grant me distance. I exited through the opposing window and went back to the main street before repeating the same maneuver a few more times.

“”

Looking back I was able to see the shadow was still there and decided to put my on the spot plan into action. One of the ruined houses to my right would serve as a good short cut and running through it was going to be fairly easy since time had eroded everything inside it. Following the same pattern as before, I went down the side street and into the window before exiting out the other side. I waited for a moment then climbed back in and hid myself out of view and counted to a hundred in my head to pass the time.

“”

A cursory glance told me that the shadow wasn’t there and I did a double check out of all the house’s exits to be sure I was alone. I exited the house and didn’t recognize the area I was in; I had come out of a door belonging to a different house.

“”

Tentative steps carried me to the nearest thoroughfare and I scanned the area in an attempt to regain my bearings. Everything was going so well until I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and I jerked myself around to see what had created the motion.

“”

My shadowy follower had reappeared on the roof of a semi-intact house; it wasn’t alone this time. The second shadow was identical to the first and the only difference I could perceive was their current positioning.

“”

I remained motionless until I heard movement behind me; another shadow on another roof. Like insects coming out of the woodworks, humanoid shadow started to step out of alleys, leave houses via the door or windows, crest roofs and climb out of chimneys, and step out from behind each other.

“”

Each shadow stared at me with inhuman concentration as more and more of them filled the surrounding area. At some point the shadows started to enlarge before splitting in two and doubling the population of observers.

“”

My feet acted before my brain had a solid idea on what was happening as I was running again; the shadows just stood still and watched me leave. While running I began to take random turns hoping beyond hope that I would lose some of them from the action. A quick look behind me and a few dozen confirmed shadows and I decided not to look behind me anymore. I was tired and sore but my running didn’t stop; it sped up.

“”

Time had no meaning as I ran through twisting streets and ruined buildings. As the song had progressed, screaming had slowly replaced the insults and accusations that had been the song’s previous accompaniments and remained hidden beneath the words. When the song grew louder so to did the screaming.

“”

Another turn and I watched as a dead end literally formed out of nowhere. The ground rose up as I approached it, just fast enough that I would be unable to get over it at my current pace, threatening to trap me with no way left to go but back. I went into an all out sprint and jump as high as I could, narrowly clearing the wall as my back foot caught on the rising edge leading me to land face first on the ground.

“”

Each ragged breath I drew hurt and forced. I had pushed myself beyond my limits some time ago and the thick layer of sweat and cramping muscle all over my body served to verify that fact. I managed to get myself to my feet and began to move again even with every fiber of my being protesting at the continued exertion.

“”

I rounded the corner to be met with another wall raising out of the ground and once again broke out into the fastest sprint I could in order to try and get over it and keep going the way I wanted to. The wall rose too fast and I skidded to a stop just in time to avoid running into it at full throttle. A small temporary indent formed in the wall’s soil when I hit it out of frustration; I wouldn’t be able to dig through it.

“”

A quick about face froze me in place; another wall had build itself behind me, trapping me in between the two dilapidated houses on either side. One of the houses had a window I could climb through and about the time I was thinking of climbing the wall of the windowless house the shadows started to make their presence known. Into the window it was.

“”

The town was corralling me and I feared what it would have my end destination be. It could be leading me out, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I vaulted the window and started to move at a light jog; I was running on steam and it was only a matter of time before I would require rest.

“”

Another house exited and a different house stood behind me than the one I had been in. Houses that shouldn’t be next to each other greeted me, the entire town was like a moving living thing and it had rearranged itself. Any semblance of direction I had left was lost and I had to admit to myself that I had no idea where I was anymore. I was at the mercy of whatever was leading me to keep directing me.

“”

‘What’s the point of running?’

My pace had slowed down to a walk, I didn’t know where to go, and the things that were chasing me were nowhere to be seen at the moment. Only the singing had stayed constant.

“”

‘Should I stop here? Why keep walking when I’m safe for the moment?’

I shook my head to dispel the stray thought that had passed through it and continued to wander aimlessly through the maze that had been constructed for me. At some point I had allowed my feet to take me where they wanted without any real regards to the destination. Getting out was no longer an option.

“”

The screams hidden beneath the singing had gotten louder. It was haunting but seemed to fit for some sad reason I couldn’t place. I didn’t know how long I had been running nor how much distance I had traveled but I had left my last legs behind some time ago.

“”

Each step that followed my last became slower and slower, almost sluggish as if moving was a chore. I was close to collapsing from a combination of mental and physical fatigue and as much as I wanted to do so, this wasn’t the time or place.

“”

Just like it had started, the song stopped without reaching its end and I was left in deafening silence. I finally started to take in the area I had been brought to after lifting my sight from the ground.

‘What is this place?’

It was a simple cottage; stone base and wooden top with a stone shingle roof. The stone that served as the base had a vibrant green moss with an underlying red tint growing on it, the only life I had seen since I had gotten here. Like the other buildings, the wood looked aged but new to a certain extent as if it was still living even though it was no longer connected to a tree or any other source of life. It had been colored a dull yellow that had begun to flake off and fade but was still vibrant enough to hurt when stared at.

Smoke trailed into the sky like a winding river from a small stone chimney with red bricks laid about the top of its exit. Someone was living here in amidst all of this mess, maybe that’s why I had been brought here, to talk with them. That was the hope but my mind entertained the possibility that I could be in store for something much, much worse.

‘Why would someone chose to live here in the middle of all of this? It doesn’t make any sense.’

There were no windows on the front of the cottage, only the main entrance that lacked a door and opened up into nothingness that I couldn’t initially see into. However, unlike the other dark voids that I had dealt with, this one was natural and I was able to make out a few vague shapes from within the building.

A humanoid figure was walking back and forth across the doorway, doing what I didn’t know but it wasn’t aware of my presence yet, which I was thankful for. The figure stopped, like it had heard my thoughts being voiced out loud, and turned its head to look at me.

Three small solid red dots and one overly large one looked out at me from the dark interior of the cottage. It was impossible to miss the recognition that shown in its eyes the moment it saw me and I had a similar reaction.

My current breath died in my throat as I recited the last two line of the nursery rhyme that had been torturing me for my entire trip in my head.

‘Full on Eldritch power it drove the pixie mad’

Time seemed to slow down as the figure moved into the light. First the hands, each finger tipped with a barbed needle, then the arms that flaked into small shards like splintered wood. The rest of the body slowly became visible; the three pronged feet, the nonexistent abdomen, exposed ribs that poked through flesh to lay on the outside of the body, and a smashed and lumped head that had begun to sag with time. One of the hands was holding something, and I followed it with my eyes until the soft red glow made it very apparent that it was a branding iron.

‘Now a red eyed demon you’ve no need to be sad’

A despicable smile that did nothing to hide the ill intent it had in store for me broke out, showing the hundred of small needle-like razor sharp teeth that had previously been hidden. I did the only thing I was able to do, the only thing that was possible in front of him. I called out desperately for help. My body shivered and gave out from underneath me and I head the Needleman speak as the ground rushed to meet my face.

“”

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AN: Discuss.

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