Looking down the stairs, Niva regarded the attic. Like when one opened the door to a house with all the blinders closed and candles unlit, light only illuminated the immediate area after the doorway, so that even though light reigned supreme outside, some corners in the abode existed where darkness thrived that gave rise to that primal emotion of fear.

She swallowed, and the wooden steps of the stairs creaked with her every move as she descended, their sound booming through the still underground area as if to alert all the unknown denizens of the attic to the appearance of prey. When she finally arrived at the last step, she stood on the border of Good and Evil. For, nothing in front of her was visible.

She lit her lantern, which pushed the border back.

Stepping into the domain of Evil, her light source formed a circle of around a meter in diameter around her. Did it act as a divine barrier? Absolutely. Would its minimal area still prove troublesome? Yes. The attic ran under the entirety of the house, and she needed to reach the end.

…But why must she reach the end? Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to come up with an answer. She found none. All she knew was that she must go deeper into its depths, so she did.

Crunch. Crunch. The dusty floor was taking over the stair's duty as if the latter hadn’t done a good enough job already of warning the denizens of the dark. She tried to slow to a crawl, hoping it would reduce the noise, but somehow it only accentuated it. That made no sense, she argued with the floor, who only clamored even harder in response, saying all it needed to say without saying anything. It ignored any further protests as well, so she gave up the foolish endeavor and instead focused on what she needed to do.

Moving through the soundless corridors of the attic, she continued for what felt like hours. Until the darkness around had reached a severity that would've wiped away all sense of existence had her trusty oil lamp not been in her hand.

It shocked her, to say the least. Regardless, she continued. She had to.

After trudging through for what felt like another eon, she stumbled onto a dead-end. At least, that’s what she thought at first. Closer inspection revealed she stood before a brass door with lines she could make neither heads nor tails of populating the front. In an effort to study it, she placed her hands on the door.

“Ouch!”

She jerked back and looked at her hand. The damn thing had stabbed her! Well, pricked was more appropriate since she only saw a speck of blood on her hand. Still, it had hurt her!

Click.

“Hmm?” Her vision moved back toward the door, specifically toward the doorknob. The door had made a clicking noise. Did that mean she should…

Doing so would be the height of stupidity, the logical part of her brain reprimanded her. It was common sense not to enter a door that just hurt you.

Indeed. Her brain was right, she thought, nodding as she walked up and turned the handle. It didn’t move at first, and only after placing her entire weight behind it did the door open, not making a single sound as it did.

Looking inside, she found that her situation hadn’t changed at all. In fact, she thought the room was even slightly darker than where she currently stood, which should be impossible.

Disregarding this fact, she could feel she was close to her goal, whatever that may be. Thus, crept through the room.

Shortly afterward, the leg of a table entered her ring of light. Moving closer to the object, she was greeted by a large stack of books of which her eyes moved over a few titles.

Waterway.

A Mermaid’s Dream.

The Lake Slumbers in a Storm.

The books interested her, especially the third one, but before she grabbed it, she saw a fourth title that stopped her in her tracks.

Rana, Giver of Life, Queen of the Deep Sea.

She became entranced, only regaining control of her mental faculties after a while.

This was it. This was what she had been looking for. She placed her lantern on the table and removed the book from the stack.

Heavy, that was her first impression. For, just by holding it in her hands, she could feel the weight of it. No, not the physical aspect of weight. The spiritual part. Similar to when she stood in front of Dino’s mother, her bodyweight seemed to double, grounding in place.

Considering this, it was no surprise that her fingers trembled as she moved them up the edge of the cover. The book had been here for who knows how long yet appeared to have been produced yesterday since not a speck of dirt was visible on her digits. Moreover, the skin of the book felt incorporeal, threatening to slip from between her grasp at any moment.

Much like water, Niva thought, moving to open the book.

Suddenly, right when she caught a glimpse of the contents, a plop reached her ears, causing her heart to skip a beat. She turned around in haste, but of course, she saw nothing.

She placed the book under her armpit and held out her lamp in front of her.

Now more than ever, the blackness surrounding her felt oppressive. What could be hiding out there?

That was a rhetorical question, she decided, for she didn’t want to know. Instead, she moved back toward the door. She had already found what she came here for.

Like in a very cliché play, she had expected something to happen. However, nothing extraordinary occurred, even when she closed the door behind her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. When she tried to step in the direction of the way she came, though, that relief turned around, formed a hand, and slapped her in the face.

The sense of purpose and direction had disappeared when she grabbed the book, meaning she had no idea which direction was the way back. She couldn’t even see where she was going.

In the next moment, trying to come up with a solution, another plop got birthed into existence. Right next to her.

Her lips turned blue, and slowly, as if she was moving through quicksand, her hand moved, her lamp illuminating the area to her immediate left.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Yet, her blood still ran cold. She peered at the darkness, nigh moving her face forward, and she swore upon all that was holy that something was standing right outside of her little dome of light.

As such, in what others may not regard as an intelligent decision, she dashed forward, trying to expose whatever was hiding to her only possible weapon.

When nothing revealed itself, she stood there, panting. Her head bobbing up and down, the chill running through her body congealed and gripped her heart. With an assurance akin to a hawk that knows it can fly up into the clouds or of a bloodhound that smells a target around the corner, she knew.

Something was standing there.

So, she ran. In her mad dash, she didn't crash into anything, strangely enough, which didn't help her at all because the plopping sound had returned; its intervals increased linearly with her speed.

Finally, her luck ran out.

The impact of her lower body with whatever sharp surface it was, made her nosedive into the floor, and she cried out as blood pooled around her.

Whether her blood or scream was the catalyst, she didn't know, but chaos ensued in the next moment. The soundless attic burst in a cacophony of sounds, of which gurgles and screeches were but a few. They inspired in her something she had no words for since all the things she felt right now had passed the limit of what she could explain.

“Ah!”

A clash resounded beside her, and in what could only be considered a heavenly favor, her oil lamp had stayed intact, allowing her to spot something bound overhead into a wall near her. It had been too fast to get a clear image. However, a glimpse had been enough.

She curled up into a ball, clutching her book tight to take her mind off the pain as a combination of blood and tears clouded her vision.

Following this, smoke rose in her peripheral view, and she watched as a horrific appendage moved its way toward her as the light seemed to sear it.

She tried to crawl away, a useless endeavor, and it wrapped around her arms, requiring only two of its fingers to do so.

Thinking she would die immediately, she had already sent out a prayer and given up all hope. Yet, she found the energy to be confused when its slimy, web-like extremity rubbed over her arm in a way that resembled a mother when she stroked the side of her child’s face.

Her state of mind caused her not to resist in the slightest when it grabbed the book. Even that was done with care; it unlocked her digits one by one, the sizzling continuing all the while.

After the limb vanished into the vast expanse of nothingness, the intensity of the disarray around her increased two-fold. Moreover, she heard what she thought was a death throw, which she confirmed when a face landed in front of her the size of her body.

In addition to having a singular angler pointing out of its head that pulsed with fading energy, the monster had sinuous bulbs that grew out of its skull that–

The head moved, rolling out its tongue that snapped around the whole of her body, swallowing her whole.

Niva woke up with a start and doubled over, grabbing her legs. She groaned. The pain was too…taking a second to assess the situation, she realized the pain had disappeared. But how? Look, her hands were wet with blood! She looked them over and found that they were indeed wet, however, wet with the sweat from her pajama.

“Right, I had been asleep…”

She had trouble believing it. What she experienced just now screamed at her that it was real. Yet, here she was, alive, after being swallowed by a fish head.

A chuckle escaped her as she moved her hands through her hair.

“What’s happening to me?”