Laytesh felt a quiver of energy, staring into the open maw of the mine entrance. A breeze carrying a smell of rotting things and mildew almost made him turn and flee. It was an ancient mine. Well, before Western settlers had come and claimed the Cascade Ranges for themselves. They improved on it, finding many things, bones, artifacts, metals. Eventually, miners started disappearing one after another until no one wanted to deal with it or work it. Eventually being lost to history, once more. A good friend from work clued him in on this site, having lived in this area and hiked it his whole life.

Laytesh kneeled and set his rucksack on the ground to check his equipment before going in. Flares and chemlights aplenty, handheld and helmet mounted flashlights, military MRE packs for a week of eating well, his P90 with 10 magazines, full of ammunition, and a .45 caliber pistol with 2 mags. Bears were extremely common and aggressive out here, but they were often smaller. He quickly mounted the helmet flashlight to his helmet.

Everything placed back into the rucksack, Laytesh stared into the throat of the cave, feeling the chill air sweep by. Cold rippled along his skin, more so than the air accounted for. He shook his head, hard, clearing the fear with a laugh. “I didn’t survive the riots and revolution in Cairo to chicken out here.” He said to the listening and stillborn wind. After all, he was here to hike one last time for his friend, who had gone missing. With one last look at the pristine blue sky, the sun barely peaking past the evergreens, he walked into the maw and was swallowed by darkness.

According to his watch, he had only been down here three hours. Laytesh was absolutely certain his watch was lying, a frighteningly common thought of his. It had been days, if not weeks, down here. He had seen many different materials, metals, and ancient pottery. He must have been, at least, a mile underground by now.

Stopping, briefly, he popped a flare and cracked a chemlight. Just another bit of repetition he did every hundred steps or so. Laytesh began to walk forward once more, in search of the mines furthest depth.

He turned quickly when he felt a tingle in his spine, and the shadows danced in his headlamp's light. His pulse was already accelerating. This instinct had saved him many times in the revolution, but this mine was throwing everything out the window. Too many horror movies, he guessed. The feeling of eyes on him persisted, though nothing was there. The hairs on his neck stood up as he turned back and started back down the mine. He could swear he heard the sound of frying bacon, just like now. This mine is devouring my sanity, he thought with irritation. With a vexed curse, he stayed the course and continued to venture deeper.

Sometime later, he cracked another chemlight and flare and glanced at his watch, right around the seven-hour mark. The tunnel was narrow here, barely wide enough to walk normally. Prying an MRE and the handheld light from his ruck, he moved down the tunnel from the sputtering flare. Peeling away the ruck from his sweaty back, he sat down roughly with his back against the wall, clicking on the handheld light and laying it down, pointing deeper into the mine.

He dug into his meal with abandon, not the tastiest of meals, but filling all the same. He could swear he heard a sound like bacon sizzling again, but dismissed it as a delusion of having to settle for military rations.

Having stuffed down the questionable meal, at last, he sat forward to clean up. Out of the corner of his vision, he noticed a shadow behind his flare. His heart leaped, as if shocked by a defibrillator panel. Breathing rapidly, he lunged for the flashlight, rolling away from the flare, and came up in a kneeling position with flashlight and pistol pointing back toward the shadow. All he saw was a black wall of rock that couldn’t be there. It glistened wetly in the light of the flare and flashlight, which had lent a red and yellow cast that seemed rather hellish and sinister.

His instincts cried for him to run away, that death was near. Unnerved by the wall that couldn’t be there, and his intuition saying run, he holstered his pistol back behind him and kept the light on the wall. Laytesh dashed for the ruck and nabbed it and fled down the tunnel at a dead sprint.

Turning the first corner in sight, he slid to a stop and placed the straps over his shoulders and listened for any form of pursuit. Upon waiting for an eternity of listening, he poked his head back the way he ran, looking for the light of the flare. Instead, there was only darkness staring back. It seemed physical to Laytesh as if the wall had followed him. He waggled his flashlight, as it pointed further down the tunnel, as if he had resumed running. Watching the darkness closely for movement, he noticed a ripple within it. Stepping around the corner into full view, he shined the flashlight down the tunnel he had come from. What he saw sent frozen oxygen into his blood. A figure that was man-shaped stood there silently, yet it was completely black, no features, no hands or feet, just a mass of glistening black that tried to look human.

Laytesh yanked the pistol from its holster pointing it at the dark shape. It swayed, as if pondering the human before it, just before gliding forward, smoothly, and without fear. In the back of his mind, Laytesh noticed it took no steps, the thing's legs didn’t move. Finally shaking free of the paralyzing fear, he fired his pistol. The thing seemed to laugh with a rasping cackle like rock crumbling to dust. The creature didn’t turn, it just glided sideways and disappeared.

Laytesh stared, blankly, for a moment, before he realized he heard the sound of bacon cooking. Too scared for thought, he turned and fled deeper into the mine.

He ran for what felt like days or weeks. Slowly, the careful tunnels of the mine gave way to natural tunnels that broadened out, giving him more space to run freely and feel less closed in.

Finally, he stopped his frantic flight in a small natural cavern the size of a small room. He was soaked through with sweat, breathing deeply in harsh gasps. He forced himself to check the surrounding room, which seemed odd to him somehow but he couldn’t place it. His legs finally collapsed, and he sat down hard against the stone floor, using his ruck as a backrest. He managed to glance at his watch and see that he had somehow run for sixteen hours before passing out, fear jerked him back awake instantly.

Shrugging off his ruck carefully, he stood, slowly, feeling tightness in every part of his body. He bent and retrieved his flashlight, which had rolled away when he passed out, and began to look at the cavern more closely. First thing he noticed was the floor was completely smooth as if the stone had melted and then frozen in perfect stillness. Second was that, while the walls seemed natural, they looked crafted to be so, as if a human mind had shaped it. lastly, was a perfectly cut rectangular entry, or exit, and to the right, words written in darkness " I Know you are Here at the Door to my Home." Below that was a list of names: Steve, Carl, Feld, Hyram, Tanner, Vaughn, Ulysses, Grant. These names, too, were written in darkness, thickly, as if printed in a flowing script, like cursive, yet far more elegant; yet still simple.

Approaching the writing, while staying out of easy sight of the open stone frame, he examined the writing closely, running his hand over it. Where the lettering began, it seemed as if nothing existed. The edges were sharp as a blade and smooth as glass, as if melted or sanded down a hundred thousand times over millennia.

Laytesh began to feel incredibly tired, and a desire to sleep crept into his bones, a sense of alarm rang in the back of his mind, but he was unable to fight the weariness of his body. He managed to stumble to his ruck and drag it to a corner of the cavern. He popped six flares and scattered them haphazardly around the room before falling asleep across his ruck with his legs sprawled out behind him.

He woke up to a feeling of tugging at his feet. Upon realizing what that meant, he shot awake, instantly trying to flip onto his back, but found his feet anchored in place, leaving him only able to get on his hip. He looked around, seeing nothing but the light of the flares, when he realized with ascending horror, that his feet were covered in darkness, and he was hearing a steady rasp, as the darkness shivered and squirmed like liquid night.

Unable to contain his fear, he shrieked high and loud, the echo of it beating at his eardrums. Distantly, he noted the darkness ripple in an unpleasant and sickening way, as if it had swallowed something unpalatable. Suddenly pain was all that existed for Laytesh. His feet felt like thousands of tiny teeth were scraping his skin right off of the bone. Screaming even higher, he tried to beat at the darkness with his hand, only to quickly have it too ensnared.

He tried to throw himself back, while thrashing madly to try and escape in some way. Instead, the darkness held him mercilessly in its grasp, and the rasping and sucking sensation began in his hand, as it began to pull his arm into its embrace with glacial slowness.

Frantic, Laytesh pulled the pistol free from the holster, in his off hand, and placed the barrel next to the darkness, as it seemed to glisten even more wetly than before; seeming almost glossy or reflective like volcanic glass. Giving one last shriek of desperation, he fired the pistol over and over again. It seemed to do nothing at all, but the creature rippled in obvious displeasure and began to creep off of him and sink into the stone at his feet.

As the creature crept its way off his arm, it stopped for a brief moment, and he heard a sickening crunch and a wet snicking noise, and screamed in fresh agony, and kept on shooting, not realizing that he had emptied the magazine to no obvious effect. The creature jerked away, swiftly, and released his feet. It sank into the stone, making a crunching sound as it rippled, lazily, in contentment. Feeling a sudden sickening sensation, he noticed his boots were gone and his feet scraped clean of skin, leaving bare muscle and bone that looked chewed upon. His attention went then to his hand, which still felt in agony, but distantly. It was no longer there.

He kept staring, feeling like vomiting even as he watched blood pour freely from a clean-cut stump with the skin around it ragged and frayed. Screaming silently, he vomited over himself. He could still feel the agony in his hand, still hear the crunching of the creature hiding in the stone. Crawling away to the other side of the ruck, he could tell he was in shock and that he had to do something to stop the bleeding. Thinking quickly, he got a flare out and popped it against the stone flooring. Steeling himself, he pressed the burning end against the raw stump. A silent scream lingered like a ghost, and the smell of charred flesh and hair. The smell alone made him vomit all over again. His vision was hazy and fogged with pain and shock.

His mind barely registered that something sinuous was creeping toward him. Fear brought with it clarity, as he realized the only thing it could be. Darkness. It was feeling its way along the blood trail he had left behind in his effort to get away, meager as it was. Anger flooded him, as he realized the creature was searching for him with a clear hand shape much like his, and he realized that it must be his or a copy of it. It didn’t have one when this mad flight began.

Such anger filled him, he grabbed the pistol from the ground and threw it, hitting the creature squarely on the back of its hand. Instead of recoiling, it flowed around it, like liquid reshaping the hand around the grip, and pointing the pistol back at him. It pulled the trigger, making a snapping click, as it was out of rounds. Laytesh still flinched as hot blood immediately turned to ice. It tossed the pistol aside, after trying to shoot him a few more times, then resumed what he now saw to be soaking up his blood.

Fury returned to him movement and strength; he dug into his pack and pulled out his last Flare, and popped it, as he slowly stood upon bloody agonized feet. He had fought for the freedom of his people, and was now fighting for survival. He stood tall in his agony, over the crawling darkness, as it sought him, unafraid. He held the flare like a sword of light and shuffled in pained steps toward Darkness.

It reared up like a cobra, its hand at the level of Laytesh’s head, and started reaching and grasping for him, quick as the snake it resembled. Timing it carefully, he lunged with the flare extended, searing the Darkness, and smelling a foul rot, like a mountain of dead was unburied, plagued his senses. A shriek that tried to make his skin ripple like the Darkness, filled the small cavern, and echoed harshly, almost rendering him unconscious.

Knowing that would mean death, Laytesh fought viciously, darkness creeping in his vision and mind. He kept the flare in contact with the Darkness, and followed it as it shrank back into the stone, leaving behind a hole as it fled the burning light. Laytesh dropped the flare down the hole it had come from and stood panting with pain and exertion.

A voice in Laytesh’s mind called him toward the doorway. He knew it was not an imagined thing, not that he could say how he knew. It called him Survivor. He felt a deep trust in this voice and shambled to the doorway, that was shrouded in a white mist now, that seemed to glow softly from within. It beckoned him again. His thoughts were trusting, but his heart was suspicious. Still, he decided to go. After all, dead if he didn’t, and who knows what else if he did, he chose possibility over certainty, life over death, and walked into the shimmering mist.

No sooner had he passed the stone door, he found himself in a large room that seemed to have light coming softly from every direction, yet none at all. The only furnishings were a desk and a bed with a solitary chair, all seemingly made of spun glass, both clear and white, in striated patterns that visibly shifted as he watched. He was suddenly aware he felt no pain, and he couldn’t hear the voice any longer. He blinked slowly, and a figure appeared in front of him, beside the bed.

She was astoundingly beautiful, in a flowing white dress that seemed to shift by itself, loose and flowing like a spring breeze. Her hair was a burnished silver with thin streaks of vivid red gold copper. She turned and fixed her gaze upon him, her eyes were the color of stars, silver-blue and yellow. She seemed to look into Laytesh, into his heart and soul. "Survivor, I would heal you if it is your desire. You have been my only company since the Ships of Glass left earth to seed the stars with life. What you see is my prison, my crime was to be kind to the new life called Humanity. We are as you will become, and as who you were before things like Darkness came to your world. Lie upon my bed, Survivor, before you fall and bleed to death. I may have stopped your pain, but not your heart."

Giving a silent short laugh, he almost argued, if not for the pounding heart in his chest, to give a lie to that statement. She was more beautiful than the night sky.

He walked forward, stately, but with nervous energy, and laid himself down, swiftly. After all, who argues with a beautiful woman who tells you to get into her bed. She fetched the chair and sat beside him, resting her hands on his chest. Suddenly, another figure was there. Laytesh laid there in shock, it was Jared. "Hey there friend, lucky dog, is what I should say. Look at you in Laicorra's bed. I don’t have long, and this is hard as fuck, just know I’m looking out for you, Laytesh the Survivor." With that, he was gone from sight; he laid there with his mouth open in wonderment.

"He seems nice. Obviously, a friend of yours, kind of cute too. I wonder how he got in or knew my name. Unfortunately, Survivor, this is going to be painful. Very, very painful." The universe went white with agony and black with despair as Laytesh was convinced he was dying.

Suddenly the room was back.

Laicorra laughed, it was a silver sound, rich and pure in tone. "I have a request of you Laytesh, find the only one of my people left on this world. I know he escaped Atlantis's destruction, as well as the Darkness that came here after. Find Kerric for me, only he can release me from this prison. Do this for me, before you join your friend."

Laytesh sat up, staring in wonder at a hand that couldn’t be there. "I will repay your kindness in saving me. I would have done whatever you asked, but finding someone I will do with pleasure." He paused briefly, considering. "Why do you call me Survivor?"

Laicorra smiled. "I call you Survivor because you are a Witness, my sweet human. You will know wonders even my people never dreamed, for we were never Chosen to Witness. Instead We were chosen to Live. Now sleep, and when you wake, the only time that will have passed will be the time you spent in the bones of the earth"

Feeling sleepy Laytesh smiled back. "Many thanks, alsalam ealaykum."

Laicorra brushed a hand upon his cheek, faintly. "Qad yakun ladayk salam kdhlk, Laytesh"