The Sainted Basilica, once a bastion of light, now existed only as a bloodied stain on Anthony's memory. The metallic tang of the Saint's lifeblood, the sickening thud of skull on stone, still echoed in his ears, louder than any prayer. He had fled, a panicked animal, abandoning the forbidden Greek text that had shattered his world. His flight from the city was a blur, a desperate scramble towards the jagged maw in the earth, the 'gap' whispered to lead to forgotten hells. He plunged into its maw, seeking not sanctuary, but oblivion.
Four days.
Four days had dissolved into the oppressive, lightless expanse of the cave. Time had ceased to be a linear progression, instead becoming a viscous, suffocating fluid that clung to his skin, seeped into his bones. His sanity, once a fragile lantern, had guttered, leaving him adrift in a sea of shadows and whispers. The purple tinge on his hands, a birthmark he'd once dismissed, now seemed to pulse with a faint, internal light, mirroring the growing darkness within his mind.
He had gone deeper, always deeper. The cave was a living thing, its breath cold and damp, its walls slick with an ancient, unseen slime. Each step was a descent, not just into the earth, but into himself, into the primal fear that stripped away everything but the raw will to survive. He'd eaten things he couldn't name, drunk from stagnant pools, his body a vessel of desperate instinct.
Then, the floor vanished.
He stood at the precipice of an abyss, the air rushing up to meet him. Below, in the impenetrable black, he heard it: the faint, rhythmic slosh of running water. A gamble. A desperate, final gamble. Without a moment's hesitation, he launched himself into the void.
The fall was eternal. Seven seconds, a lifetime in freefall, the wind roaring past his ears, the blackness consuming him. He hit the water with a violent, bone-jarring impact, the frigid shock stealing his breath. He thrashed, fighting the current, until his hands found purchase on a slick, uneven bank. This place was different. Deeper. Vast. The echoes here stretched into infinity, swallowing sound, distorting thought.
As he lay gasping, water streaming from his hair and clothes, a sound drifted from the distant gloom. It was music. Not the sacred hymns of the Basilica, but something ancient, broken. The mournful, watery notes of an old instrument, like a lute drowned and resurrected. It was haunting, yet it sparked a desperate, irrational hope. A human. There had to be a human.
He rose, his limbs screaming in protest, and stumbled towards the sound. With every step, the air grew heavier, the musical notes becoming clearer, more distinct, yet still imbued with that unsettling, waterlogged quality. But another scent began to overlay the damp earth and the mineral tang of the cave. Blood. A coppery, cloying stench, growing stronger, thicker, coating his tongue. It mingled with the music, creating a grotesque symphony of decay and despair.
The music swelled, then faded, a final, drawn-out groan. Anthony pushed through the oppressive air, his heart pounding, the stench of blood now overwhelming. He needed to find the source, to understand.
Then, a flicker. A small gap in the rock face, barely wide enough for his emaciated frame, pulsed with a faint, sickly light. He crawled through, desperation overriding caution. He imagined a huddled figure, a dying flame, a shared moment of human connection.
What he found was not human.
The chamber beyond was small, claustrophobic, illuminated by the source of the light: a monstrous, pulsating orb. It was not the smooth, ethereal prison of legend. This was a thing of raw, organic horror. Red and black, it was covered in pale, glistening skin and flesh, stretched taut over an unseen core. Three milky, unblinking eyes were embedded in its surface, like blind pearls, and around them, jagged, yellowed teeth, grown grotesquely long, protruded from the flesh, as if the orb itself was trying to devour the very air around it. It pulsed, a slow, sickening beat, like a diseased heart.
Anthony stared, his mind reeling. Harvest the skin. The thought was primal, a whisper of the hunger that had consumed him for days. He fumbled for the dagger at his hip, its dull blade a familiar weight. He needed something from this place, a trophy, a meal, anything to prove he was still alive, still capable. He reached for the orb, intent on carving a piece of its grotesque hide.
It was the worst decision of his life.
His hand shook. The dagger, instead of slicing the skin, slipped. With a sickening crack, it struck the orb's core.
The world exploded.
The earth didn't just shake; it screamed. A deafening, resonant shriek tore through the cave, vibrating through Anthony's very bones, rattling his teeth. The air crackled, filled with an impossible cold.
Then, from the shattered, fleshy orb, a skeletal arm erupted, obsidian bone tearing through the glistening membrane. And then another. The two arms, impossibly long and gaunt, forced the orb open further, ripping the pale skin and flesh away with wet, tearing sounds. More and more parts of a very abnormal skeleton emerged, piece by piece, bone by bone, pulling itself free from its grotesque prison. It was a macabre birth, a resurrection of pure horror.
Anthony scrambled backward, tripping over his own feet, his mind screaming in terror. The skeleton, now standing at a colossal 8ft tall, fully formed, loomed over the remnants of its fleshy shell. It swiped a gaunt arm through the air, and as it did, a shimmering, white clothing with an ancient style materialized around its frame, coalescing from the very air.
Anthony was at a complete loss for words, his throat tight with unspoken horror. The same entity. The same chilling presence he had glimpsed, a fleeting, terrifying shadow, three days ago in the deeper recesses of the cave. It had been here. Waiting. And now, he had awakened it.
As its empty eye sockets seemed to turn towards him, a silent, ancient gaze, Anthony broke. He didn't think. He didn't plan. He just ran. He scrambled back through the small gap, his body screaming in protest, heedless of the sharp rocks tearing at his skin. He burst out into the wider cavern and then ran, ran as fast as his legs could carry him, away from that place, away from the gap, never wanting to return to whatever it was he had unleashed.