“Entry one:

As foretold the end is upon us.

Even as I write, the Wretches leave their haunted lands and ascend on the lands of Aederon once again.

Sun and moons have met.

Their joining brings us nigh to the end,” the dark-haired man looked up at them wide eyed.

Jace frowned, his brows creasing together in thought. “What does it mean? Sounds like nonsense to me.”

“It does. Yet it hints at a uh… prophecy,” the man replied scanning over what he’d read.

“Continue,” Jace prompted and leaned back on the floor. He tried to keep his hearing trained for any unknown sounds outside their room.

All was thankfully quiet.

“I saw it.

Storms and darken skies. Harkening the thundering, birthing, swell of horror and madness.

Come again… Those that Dwell ever Wakeful for their evil god.”

Jace’s mind drew images he couldn’t properly focus on. Reaching out mentally, he tried to followed these vague blurs. To bring them clarity.

They were hazy and confounded things that he couldn’t quite… He shuddered as a wave of revulsion suddenly hit him then. Clamping a hand over his mouth, Jace breathed deeply. His troubles went unknown to the others in the room.

He’d felt it for instance there. That hollowness inside himself. In his mind, where he imagined his forgotten memories would’ve been. He’d touched it then only briefly, and felt like his soul had recoiled away from it.

“The Prime Fragment is true terror, and our executioner. Yet it’s action can herald our salvation.

The Wretches of our lands. The Nigh Dwellers and their control of thought and mind.

Come. Do they summon the Fifty-One servants of Scale and Balance.”

They all looked at each other then as the dark-haired man stopped reading.

“Whoever wrote that sounds crazy,” Jace said looking at the two other men.

The small guy shrugged his shoulders and remained silent, though his attention was riveted on the sleek journal in the dark-haired man’s hands.

“His writing is rushed and barely legible. I can’t help but imagine that whatever he is describing was soon to happen. Shall I continue?”

Jace looked at the journal then, and for a long moment considered what they were getting themselves into. It had mentioned Fifty-One servants of Scale and Balance.

How many people are there here? he asked himself. Well less than fifty-two now obviously,” his thoughts countered back.

The number wedged itself firmly in his mind. Were they the servants of Scales of Balance? It sounded like total nonsense in truth.

Jace he nodded and the dark-haired man continued.

“Entry Two: 29th Hindus. Barrendel. Aederon Eclipse Cycle. Year 682.

Parkers Hold is now under siege. We. Are. Under siege.

I fear not for my life. But for my mind.

There is a Dweller leading amongst the Wretches.

His voice and presence fills these halls and my dreams…

I see them…

They call for me…

Yet I have enough presence of mind to turn away.

We came here to study magic. To learn the devices of our creation. Now we will be nothing more than a Wretch Hold.

Another conquest in the ever-punishing blows of vile and evil.

They still call to me.

I worry for Barrendel. The Duchy is not yet ready to face such a force.”

“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere,” Jace said and sighed exasperatedly.

“How do you mean?” the dark-haired man asked.

“I mean… That we now know where we are. Parkers Hold.”

“And a Duchy,” the man continued for Jace catching on to he what meant. His eyes drifted back down the page. “Duchy of Barrendel.”

“So, I’m guessing that these undead, the zombies. Are their Wretches,” Jace supplied and ran his hand over his shaven scalp. “I think… I think I’ve seen these Dwellers, maybe.”

He recalled the strange squid-humanoid he’d seen. “Are there any illustrations?”

The dark-haired man frowned slightly and quickly flicked through the short journal.

“They’re none.”

“Let’s continue then,” Jace waved and the man nodded his assent. Jace cast a quick glance over to the injured petite woman in the corner of the room. Her eyes were fixed on their conversation, listening intently. When she caught Jace glancing at her, she brought her knees up and stuffed her face in them.

With a mental shrug he refocused on the journal.

“Entry Three: 43rd Hindus. Barrendel. Aederon Eclipse Cycle. Year 682.

They’ve breached our walls and scaled our stronghold.

They’re too many of them.

I fled.

I hide in my study, awaiting my turn of torment.

Still my dreams and mind are ruining me. I’ve concluded that the Dwellers are indeed the true controllers of the Wretches. Its voice calls for me…beckon’s even.

Sometimes it’s my wife Deidre. Others it is Kaywin, my daughter.

I spent hours fighting against them in my mind. I know they’re both dead. I am unsure how long I can resist that call now.

The dying screams of my peers haunt the halls like a wraith. Seeping through every crack of stone and splint of wood.

I found a map yesterday.

There is a town to the west named Oedrin. I knew that. Yet my head is confused and weary. It has a population of about one hundred thousand people.

Right now. I believe the Wretches march at thirty thousand strong. It… the Dweller… has shown me glimpses of what is to come.

If they make it to Oedrin before winter. The Duchy is doomed.”

The dark-haired man flipped the page, cleared his throat, and began the next entry.

“Entry Four: 45th Hindus. Barrendel. Aederon Eclipse Cycle. Year 682.

I am broken.

Broken. Haunted and shrivelled. WHY MUST THEY TORMENT ME WITH THEM!

Now they whisper.

Deceiving lies.

Rot.

Rot from the inside. There is no bringing them back.

Dead is dead.

I wished for more. I wished for creation at the tips of my fingers.

Magi.

We bend all of life to our whim. So why’re there so few of us?

The fae betrayed us long ago. The dwarves have scurried back inside their caves, like rats retreating into their burrows. We are alone in this. Humanity and Kin must face this evil.

Evil nurtured by the fragment of a god.

I can see it now. It tendrils weaving through the skies when there is a storm. The Fragment watches us.

Commands from on high. There never were any servants of Scale and Balance. For they would’ve come as I had begged them.

Shre’s light guide me to peace. I wish to see my family once again.”

“Damn… I- I guessed he killed himself,” the man said and closed his eyes briefly.

Jace for that matter looked around. If that was so. Then where was the man’s body?

Then again. How long ago had that journal been written.

The slim journal seemed in good repair, but Jace hazarded a guess and suspected that everything he thought probably didn’t match-up with this world.

“Fae, and dwarves…” the dark-haired man mused, rubbing at his chin. “Those are… are… ahh. I thought I had something then.”

“Nothing comes to my mind,” Jace said and shook his head. A part of him was distantly disappointed that those mentions hadn’t rowed the waves of his mind.

Climbing to his feet he stretched and shook out his legs. “We should probably get some rest while we have the chance. I’ll take first watch.”

“Agreed. And I’ll go second,” the man replied, placing the journal down on the desk with some care. Jace couldn’t help but think that maybe taking that journal with them would prove useful later on. If they ever escaped of course.

Soon enough everyone except him were trying fitfully to get some rest. Oddly enough, Jace watched the small guy lay down on his stomach, on the cold stone floor. And instantly passed out.

The dark-haired man curled up in on himself and started counting something called sheep. Jace ignored them all and shuffled on his feet, pacing lightly throughout the room.

Now and then he would close his eyes and lean slightly against the door, and listen.

It wasn’t until his eyes started to droop with heaviness, that a loud gong shook everything. Jace bolted upright with a startled cry, and clamped his hands around his ears.

His mace fell to the ground unheard.

Even through his hands he felt the gong’s boom ring a continuous drone. He blinked his eye blearily and looked to the others. The small guy was writhing on the floor, his own hands squeezing his head so forcibly that Jace was surprise it hadn’t popped off.

The dark-haired man’s mouth was open in a silent yell as he to tried to quell the noise invading their hearing. Then he noticed the woman. The injured woman in the corner stood up seemingly unaffected by the loud and oddly long gong.

She tilted her head quizzically to one side, as if hearing something they couldn’t.

Or, Jace thought, we’re hearing something she can’t. Something that has no effect on her.

The petite woman’s eye alighted on his fallen mace. She quickly darted over and scooped it up, twirled it in her hands. She then grinned ferally at Jace. Reminding him queasily of Xena.

Jace tried to reach out to her but she skittered away from him, barking something he couldn’t hear. What made it worse, was that every time he removed a hand from his ears, the gonging noise only grew more intense.

The woman looked to the door, and Jace noticed movement by her feet then. Small guy had crept up on her. His teeth visibly clenched, his eyes blood shot.

His hands snapped forward and grabbed a hold of her leg.

Jace moved to help, stumbling to his feet. But it was all too late. She roared a soundless cry in surprise and swung the mace down on small guy’s head.

Jace thought he heard a crunch and felt the hit through the floor. She swung the mace again and Jace charged her. Barrelling into her stomach and sending them both sprawling to the floor. He winced briefly as his hands moved to protect his head as he hit the ground.

The woman thrashing wildly, and swinging wide with his weapon. She connected with the back of his knee and he stumbled with the blow, rolling away.

His leg now numb with pain. Tears streamed down the petite woman’s face.

Jace noticed that a portion of the bandage on her head, had moved fractionally. In fact it was still moving. The entire right side of her head was writhing and wiggling. Undulating like a lung.

Revulsion punched his stomach then, an intense wave of conflict peppering his mind. One side wanted to help her. The other drew upon images of what could only be happening to her.

And that whatever it was, he needed to kill it. And kill it soon.

The woman screamed then as she got to her feet and dropped his mace. It fell soundlessly to the floor and rolled towards the dark-haired man.

Jace watched as the woman started frantically bashing at her face and head with her fists. Crying out as she did so.

He knew what he needed to do. He needed to end her misery - quickly. Crawling towards his mace, he frowned as he suddenly felt the clothing on his back jerk, then he was lifted and thrown back across the room.

Smashing into the desk they’d propped against the door.

He saw the journal skid across the floor and stop by the woman’s feet.

Thick sinuous veins in her legs bulged as they wiggled like live eels beneath her skin. Then the sound of the gong booming broke and he felt his hearing pop in a flood of eased pressure and blood.

Jace swayed and shook his head, the sound of the gong now replaced by the terrifying scream of the woman. Her whole-body writhed, seemingly out of her control. Her face contorted briefly as she stared at Jace pleadingly.

Then the side of her head burst open, teams of tentacles tore through the ragged cloth bandages on her head and side of her face. A spray of gore and skull fragments shot out to splat on the ground.

Bile rose in his throat as the woman’s single remaining eye rolled in its socket. The side which had burst in a Cthulhu-esque style, writhed hauntingly as the tentacles wavered through the air. Then he heard the sound of bone cracking, and the sickening squelch of flesh being torn apart.

“We must go,” the dark-haired man panted as he slid besides Jace. Thankfully, the man had grabbed his weapon on the way over.

“We’ve got to kill it,” Jace hissed firmly, as the man help him to his feet. As if hearing his words, the thing that had been a petite woman focused its attention on him. The tentacles stilled slightly at his words, the tearing sound halted. He felt its awareness of him like a physical presence in his mind.

You can kill us.

It agreed with Jace, and he frowned looking to the man beside him. He had heard it to apparently, his eyes wide, both disturbed and horrified.

We will never stop existing. Your task is pointless. The Fragment will draw his attention and we will trap him here.

“Who?” Jace demanded, his voice surprisingly firm and commanding despite his revulsion.

Ah. We feel it now. You are indeed different, as she said you would be. Are you his agent?

“Who? You tentacle porn freak,” Jace spat vehemently.

You must not be allowed to leave here. We will claim you.

With those words, Jace twisted as the thing launched ten or so appendages at him. He dodged aside and pushed his dark-haired companion away, narrowly avoiding the strike as they penetrated the wooden door with a crunch.

Stumbling to remain up right, he and the man rushed for the door as the sinuous limbs withdrew writhing with annoyance. He heard the breaking tear of flesh and crack of bones as the dark-haired man swung the ruined door open.

Looking back briefly, he stared in shock as a bloody seam split down the centre of the woman’s body. In a spray of visceral blood the corpse parted in two and flopped to the stone floor. Standing there in its place, were seemingly hundreds of undulating tentacles, each as thick as his wrist and all extending out from beneath a squid shaped head.

Churning yellow eyes blinked rapidly, focusing in on Jace as the writhing mass of tendrils twitched. He got the impression that the thing was smirking at him.

A hand seized his arm and dragged him forcibly out of the room.

We will find you, this time the voice impacted his mind and he stumbled almost falling over. The man caught him and helped to keep them moving. His leg ached from where he had taken blow to the back of his knee. As they hit a corner, he looked over his shoulder and saw the thing as it moved outside the room.

Its mass of tentacles forming and twisting like cords to shape limbs and a thin torso.

Then they were out of sight and running. He felt drained all of a sudden. Like he was losing the energy to carry on, to keep momentum.

That had been his mistake.

He’d stopped and integrated himself with others. Now he paying the price.

Should’ve kept moving. None of this would’ve happened if I had simply walked away.

His thoughts spiralled constantly as they moved, going where? Neither of them knew.

“In here,” the man dragging him said and nodded towards a door with a faded plaque on it. Neither of them could make out what the words could’ve been.

Jace rested against the wall beside the door as the man slowly pried it open. He heard a distant crash followed by the sound of shouting. Then all at once it stopped. Turning back towards the door he startled as the man appeared and hauled Jace in.

They had found a shared sleeping quarters of some sort. Rows of dusty moth-eaten beds lined the walls on either side, ten in total. Each with a wooden and ironbound chest at the end of them and a table between. The dark-haired man dragged Jace over to a small table and pulled out the chair.

Plopping himself down Jace sighed, happy to be off his feet. He closed his eyes briefly and rested for a few seconds.

“You know,” the dark-haired man began, and Jace cracked one eye open to look at him. “I have come to the conclusion… that we are lost,” the man said sagely.

Jace snorted and rasped a dry chuckle. “It’s took you this long to figure that out?” he cocked an eyebrow and rubbed at his sore leg.

The pain had begun to noticeably lessen now that he was resting his feet. After about ten minutes had past Jace’s leg felt fine. Surprisingly, his recovery was quicker than whatever fatigued the dark-haired man.

He stood up and went about searching the room quietly. He wanted to take his mace back from the man. But, he suspected that trying to do so as the man rested may not be good for his health.

His head ached a little from whatever mental blow that thing had hit him with. Squatting down he rifled through a chest. Its contents surprisingly sparse.

A few minutes later the dark-haired man woke up with a start and looked around. Jace finished gathering the last of whatever he could find useful from the chests and bedside tables.

He’d placed it all on a bed arranging the small amount clothing off to one side. While the rest of what he found lay in a mismatch pile of miscellaneous items.

He had already pulled on some extra clothing he had found in a chest.

A dark burgundy tunic, a belt with a brass buckle. Ragged fur lined boots, that squished slightly as he walked in them. Some wraps that he partially used to cover the bare skin on his forearms, and a loose torn pair of dark brown breeches.

The other man got dress wordlessly and moved to stand beside Jace. They had both kept their rough spun clothing on underneath as an added layer of protection.

Jace frowned as he scanned over his findings.

There were small devices and instruments he had no idea what they were used for. There was something like a mirrored spherical glass bobble, ringed by copper, with an ink-quill on a stand above it.

What looked to be a golden cigar case—though again Jace had no idea what that meant—except, when the dark-haired man opened it. All it held inside was a selection of small brushes, finely powdered paint, and a list of small symbols on a tiny velvet cloth.

They both cast a look at each at other and shook their heads in wonder. Jace picked up a small two inch roughly curved piece of copper, and frowned at the absent of wonder he felt for it.

I bet my ass, that this is currency.

Pocketing the copper piece, Jace took one last glance over the assortment of utterly useless crap. Seeing that the dark-haired man had placed the brush case back down not wanting it.

Jace decided to take it instead.

There was something about it that called distantly into that hollow part of his mind.

As they made to leave, Jace stopped and frowned at the man.

“Pass me back the mace,” Jace said and held out his hand. The dark-haired man’s brow pinched together thoughtfully. He hesitated looking down at the weapon in his hand.

Then reluctantly he passed it back to Jace.

Jace breathed a quiet sigh of relief. For a second there, he thought he’d have to kill this man. Thankfully, though, he hadn’t.

Jace wasn’t in the mind of killing those who had helped him. The man had dragged him away from that thing after-all, when he could’ve simply ran and left him there gawking in horror like an idiot.

“Thank you,” Jace nodded gratefully. “We’ll need to find you something as well soon. I don’t like our odds going forward.”

“Neither do I,” the man sighed, then smiled rifling around himself for a second. Then from the inside of his rough spun tunic he pulled out the slim journal. “At least we still have this.”

“Right…” Jace drawled, not entirely sure that the mad ravings in that journal would help them much. “Do you think that thing was one of these Dwellers, the journal talked about?” Jace asked and stepped back towards the exit of the sleeping quarters.

“It would make sense. That – creature - had talked to our minds after all,” the man replied and shuddered at the memory of it.

“It was inside her though,” Jace pointed. “She had been one of us. So how did that thing get inside her…” He shook his head and jarred the door open, peeking outside and looking both ways.

“The head wound,” the man murmured and Jace looked over to see him touching the side of his face.

Jace knew how he felt. The terrible thought that it could be you next. “It must’ve happened then.”

“Or… or it happened through a bite or something. And that older woman lied to us about it, covering it up?”

“I don’t think so. You’ve seen how only certain people turn whereas others don’t. We need to find the common denominator.”

“Well. I don’t think we’re gonna have much luck doing that here. We need to find the exit soon, because I’m really starting to get really sick of this place,” Jace nodded to his right and walked down a wide corridor. It was large enough to fit seven people abreast.

The floor before them had a faded into ruined red rug that seemed stuck to the stone floor. On either wall as they walked Jace noticed several torches. A few were alight with flame.

Jace stopped, his confusion apparent.

“What is it?” the man asked. Jace flicked his hand at the torch.

“Why are the torches lit? I’ve only seen a few outside that room we all woke up in.”

For that matter, Jace thought. Had we all been in the room together. Simply waking at different times. Or were we all transported individually.

Appearing out thin air maybe?

“That… that is strange,” the man muttered and reached out to touch a cold unlit torch. “Yowch!” the man hissed withdrawing his fingers. “It’s scolding hot.”

Do the undead need the light and warm. Or are there people still living here. Hiding in the depths of this ridiculous maze.

Jace walked over to a still lit torch and carefully withdrew it from the sconce. Walking back over to the torch they had stopped by. Jace held his up against it. For fifteen seconds he held it there and not once did the flames spread over.

“Strange,” he muttered and gestured for the man to grab another torch. The fire’s warmth was a wonderful sensation that Jace suddenly realised he’d been missing.

Warmth was something of a creature comfort, all things living sort warmth, either for fire or in each other. The burning flame at the end of his torch made him grateful, yet also drove home the point that he was in a strange place with no memories other than his name.

If it even is mine, he thought, and holding the torch before himself he carried on down the wide corridor.

They took a left at the end and came upon a dark dreary stairway going down. Cool air blew up at them, flickering their torch lights, and with it came a chilling sound like a distant cry flooding their ears.

“Well, this is certainly something,” the dark-haired man muttered.

“All for going down?” Jace asked and started down the flight of stairs. They wound to his left and he shuffled as he went further in.

Wish I could the see the blueprints for this place. I bet it was a nightmare to plan.

“Blue… what?” he murmured, then the thought was the gone. He still maintained the gist of his idea, but the actual context was lost to him.

They stumbled on downwards, wandering through this Parkers Hold.

“Hey,” Jace called behind him quietly.

“Yes?” the dark-haired man replied a moment later.

“Have you thought of name for yourself?” Jace asked and waited as the man processed what he meant.

“No. I hadn’t even considered it. To give myself a name… it… well it feels as if I would lose something in the exchange you know?”

Jace shook his head. “Nope. Do you mean as if giving yourself a new name, would lose you what would’ve already lost?”

Jace heard the man paused then and laugh softly. “I suppose you’re right. Still…”

“Well I need something to call you by. I can’t just keeping thinking of you as dark-skinned or dark-haired all the time.”

“Dark skin?” the man asked, a note of confusion lacing his tone.

“Well, yeah. You do have a different skin colour than me,” Jace turned and looked back over his shoulder. He’d gone down several steps as the man had come to a halt. He was staring down at his arms and hands, a look of wonder and confusion plain across his face.

“You alright?” Jace asked hesitantly.

“How had I not noticed?” the man mumbled and shook his head from side to side. “I am… not who I was…?”

Jace’s brow pinched at that. And he too looked at the skin of his own arms. He wasn’t shocked by what he saw at all. Though some of the small freckles on his skin, oddly stood out to him.

For that matter, what colour are my eyes? What is the colour of my hair?

He ran his tongue over his teeth. At least I have all of those.

He actually hadn’t thought of that. The possibility that they weren’t in their original bodies. Jace shook away the entire conversation, the questions he had giving him a headache.

“Come on, we need to-” a shriek cut him off, as it travelled down the stairway behind them. The sound snapped the dark-haired man out of his trance, and he jolted, sprinting past Jace his torch brushing close to Jace’ tunic.

“Hey!” Jace growled and ran after the man.

“Sorry,” the man called back without looking. Jace heard several solid thumps behind him and guessed that the zombies were tripping down the stairway after them.

Sooner than he would’ve liked, the zombies had caught up quickly.

“Move.” Jace barked, and pivoting he lashed out clipping the knee of a zombie stumbling down towards him. The blow connected and the zombie stumbled into a roll and fell past Jace, towards the dark-haired man.

The man yelped and started frantically cursing as the zombie climbed to its feet and charged after him.

Jace refocused on the three stumbling over one another. Lunging forward he kicked out to his right hitting a zombie into the wall, then backhanded another with his mace.

The blunt weapon caved in the right side of its head.

Then Jace darted forward and jammed his torch into the open mouth of the third. The zombie crunched down as the hot flame and ashy embers of the torch lit its head on fire.

So they’re susceptible to fire. Good to know.

The zombie he had kicked barged into him then, stunning Jace as it grabbed his head and smashed it into the wall behind him.

Dazed, he shook as a warring painful numbness set over him. He pushed weakly at the undead as it tried again to bashed his head against the stone.

Reaching out Jace’ fingers fumbled at the shaft of his torch, now sticking out of a charred head. “Jace, I need your help!” came the dark-haired man’s voice travelled up to him. It was the first time someone had said his name. Weirdly it didn’t sound right.

As the zombies fingers clamped around his forehead, Jace slammed his fist upwards meeting its stretched out arm. It broke under his strike and stumbled backwards. He drove another into the side of its right knee. The joint popped and bent at an odd angle.

Shaking his head free of the daze, though his vision still had yet to fully adjust, Jace kicked the zombie sending it into the wall and tumbling down a few steps. Almost tripping himself Jace propped both hands against either wall and swayed in place. The painful numbness at the back of head slowly receded as his vision properly aligned.

Further down the stairway the dark-haired man was on his back, fighting against the Wretch on top of him. His torch firmly wedged between them.

The zombie he had tripped however was now crawling back up towards him. When it was close enough Jace kicked it full in the face. The head literally exploding around the force of his strike, sending fragments of bone and parts of brain everywhere.

A high-pitch screech sounded then. The instant Jace heard it a compulsion overwhelmed him to find it and kill it.

For the sound only meant one thing.

Another damn brain squid!

Stumbling over the zombie corpse, Jace skidded down the steps when he realised the brain squid was flopping over toward his struggling companion.

Then it was too late.

Its tiny thin tendrils hooked onto the man head and face, and even as he screamed and tried to fight it. The zombie used that distraction to press its attack. Launching down on the man and burying its face in his neck as it tore its teeth through his trachea and ripped a large chunk out before gulping it down gluttonously.

Jace froze as he watched this happen. His legs felt wobbly and weak, yet his mind told him to watch and observe the brain squid.

He did just that.

Its thin tentacles wormed themselves in through the man’s ears, eyes, and nose. Endlessly wiggling and weaving themselves inside. Then it began it pulse, and undulate, its tendril’s bulged as something passed through it. From the dark-haired man into the brain squid.

For several seconds this went on, until the tendril’s in the mans’ ear withdrew and it coughed a thick wad of brain mush onto the stone step.

Did it just eat his fucking brain…? Jace’s mind tried to process what he was seeing.

Then the brain squid made a squelching, burping sound and shuddered. The actual brain began to deflate like a lung as the tendrils withdrew and congregated on one side of the deflating brain.

With a chirping squeal, a small and bloody cephalopod plopped with a wet squish onto the step and began wiggling towards the ear of the dark-haired man’s head.

Jace decided he had seen enough and stomping down the steps he boar this mace through the back of the zombies with an enraged cry. Then drove his torch—fiery point—down onto the back of the … well … whatever the hell it really was.

It screamed in agony and seconds later shrivelled up into a burnt dried husk. Its screams still eerily ringing in his ears. Jace wanted to sit down and rest. or maybe even puke.

He felt mentally exhausted once again. But sounds echoed down the stairs from above. Quickly Jace crouched down and rifled through the man’s pockets. He found the journal and snatching it up he turned and fled.

~*~*~*~

Jace rubbed at his face tiredly, he had reached the bottom of the stairway and smacked right into a dead end. There was simply nothing there. Just a blank wall of stone.

He could hear them above, howling like animals as they ran down towards the bottom. Towards him.

Is this my punishment, or a practical joke, or something?

The least the idiot who had blocked this stairwell off could’ve done was put up a sign at the end. Telling him it was blocked off.

Jace started probing at the walls, quickly running his hands around, trying to find anything that could’ve been a hidden switch. If there was it was well hidden even from him.

Dropping the idea Jace propped his torch against the wall and took his mace in both hands.

With a furious grunt he connected with the wall and cursed as the impact rippled up through the haft of his mace and stung his hands. Gritting his teeth and not giving up Jace swung again, and again, and again.

The zombie’s cries were getting louder and steadily closer now, drawing nearer to him.

Jace swung at the wall. Crack!

The wooden haft of his mace splintered and snapped in half. The plain ball head fell with a solid thud against the stone floor and Jace stared in shock.

I’m going to die, the thought breezed through his mind. Then a stone brick in the centre of the wall, slid backwards with a scrape and tumbled into the darkness beyond.

I’m going to live!

Bending down Jace grabbed his torch and flung it through the opening provided by the fallen brick. Reaching through and grabbing a firm hold of the bricks around the opening, Jace pulled with all his might.

He grunted as they begin to shift and loosen, shift, and loosen.

Within a couple of seconds Jace had pried two other bricks out, as they fell on his side of the wall. Judging the gap critically, he decided it was good enough to barely shimmy through.

Thrusting the upper half of his body through was easy, his waist though was where he got stuck. Then a bone chilling howl of undead emanated behind him and Jace heaved.

Pull your fat ass through. Now. Damn it!

He heaved and came unstuck, his foot struck out hitting a hand or face before he face-planted into the ground.

With a shake he stood up and turned to see arms and snarling faces, peering through, and trying to reach for him.

He spun grabbing his torch and frantically searched the path forward.

The air was cool, damp, and earthy, and made him cough with how wet it was. Soon his walking pace picked up into a jog as he ran through the earthy hallway he was in.

Too late did he see the wall ahead and slammed bodily into dirt and stone, and crumbled through it out to the other side. Jace sputtered and wiped at his face then blinked as he realised he was in a well-lit oval chamber. At the center of the room, above and below were twin iron grates.

The cloudy sky of day through the grate above. Threw down pale light over him as he strolled into the center. Below, was a pitch blackness that sent chills running down his spine.

The chamber’s ceiling had high domed curve, seeming more like a holding cell that anything. It was completely sparse of everything except for an iron ring bolted to the ground, reaffirming his opinion of where he was.

He felt it then.

An immense pressure that almost forced him to his knees. He panted as the very air around held an intense gravity to it. Even as it filled his lungs, the air seemed to weigh him down further.

The criss-crossing iron bands of the grate beneath him bent ever-so-slightly. The wall on one side of the chamber parted. The stone bricks literally dislodging and floating aside as the squid-humanoid Jace had seen previous—when running with Xena—entered the chamber.

It wore a frayed black robe that hid the majority of its thin frame. Jace noted the faded purple stitched tear drop on the left breast of the robe.

YOU AGAIN?

Jace cried out and clawed at his face as his mind seized as if struck by a mental blow. The pain oddly belonged, continuous, stretching out into oblivion. The aftershock when it finally subsided rocked him to his knees’ as the voice in his mind grew faint.

Then the damn bastard carried on talking.

YOUR STRUGGLE IS RECKLESS. YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE US AGAIN. WE MUST STUDY YOU, ANOMALY.

Jace’s mind closed itself off as he spasmed in agony. He couldn’t understand the pain that was being inflicted on him, and that somehow made it worse.

Don’t fight it.

The voice was softer now, gentle, and soothing.

We can give you back what you’ve lost.

His mind flashed, even as his body writhed in pain on the iron grate. His consciousness was sent somewhere else.

Jace stood in an empty white room. A sound beeped and spinning around he saw … himself. He was just sitting in a chair beside a bed.

The room had changed. Fading from white to cream. There were these – things - in the rooms, all of them making sounds, beeping, humming, and clicking. And all of them familiar and yet also completely strange to him.

“Jace,” a figure in the bed rasped.

Something inside of himself told him that this wasn’t right. That he… that he wasn’t… “Forgive me.”

No. not me. This isn’t me. At least not how I am…

“Sam?”

No, no, no, no.

“NO,” he boomed through his thoughts and the scene wavered, rippled. In his place beside the bed now was a monster of oceanic nightmares. It turned to regard Jace, and he saw a flash of surprise flit across its churning eyeballs.

“GET OUT!” he boomed again, and the Dweller—for that’s what it was—recoiled away from him as he advanced on the thing. Reaching out to grabbed it.

DIE THEN, the Dweller boomed back. Pain anew erupted all throughout his mind and the room disappeared completely.

Panting he rolled onto his back and stared up at the distant sky through the grate. Wishing the clouds would part and that light would shine down on him.

I don’t deserve the light, though, do I.

Rolling back over and climbing to his knees Jace looked at the Dweller. It was a writhing tangle of tentacles on the floors. Its robe torn and thrown off to one side.

Then, all at once they stopped, and the Dweller’s head floated up on the mass of tentacles and glared at Jace. He would’ve smirked and told the thing to go fuck itself, but the grate beneath him jarred loosely.

They stared balefully at for eternity, though, a only a few shorts second past.

He winced as its eyes narrowed, the pressure in his mind began to summit its peak. In that same instance he gave a wordless roar and brought both hands down to slammed them into the grate beneath him.

The grated fell away, taking him with it. Plunging Jace into darkness.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas. Then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]