He walked through a narrow alley in an ancient city, one that whispered faintly of Paris in the fifties. The sun poured itself across the cobblestones like molten gold, soft and lethargic, while fog clung to corners like memories too fragile to endure the light. The street was empty, a corridor of silence lined with open doors leading into vacant homes, hollow shells of forgotten lives.
Ahead, a pub revealed itself, open and immaculate. The air smelled faintly of rosemary, warm and pungent, mingling with the scent of polished wood and dust. Dark brown walls cradled dusty blue chairs. Cups of beer sat half-finished, abandoned in some unknowable haste. One cup, singular and stark, held only water. Thirst compelled him to drink.
Within minutes, dizziness seized him, and reality twisted into hallucinations. Shapes bled together, shadows breathed, and the world he knew slipped into something older, darker, stranger. When he awoke, he was no longer on the familiar streets. He lay in a black-painted storage room, its dim, flickering lights creating dizzying patterns across the walls. The wooden floor groaned under him, a slow, deliberate sound that felt alive.
Stacks of crates loomed, their labels scratched off as though someone had meticulously erased their existence. A rusted pipe dripped steadily, each drop echoing through the oppressive silence. Etched on a wall, faint and sinister, was a handprint, smeared in a substance darker than paint. He blinked, and the mark seemed to multiply, stretching across the walls, forming a path to a door hidden in the shadows. His throat burned with a new, unnatural thirst, as though the water he drank had marked him for this place.
Then, a man appeared. Clad in an immaculate suit, he first spoke gibberish. But when he handed the chained man a small pill, comprehension arrived suddenly, vertiginous and disorienting.
"Here comes the light… here comes the illumination… here comes…" the suited man whispered, voice trembling, "Why did you abandon them? It wasn't yours to bear, yet you did."
Then his face vanished. Nothing remained but a void where features should have been, yet his presence loomed immense, six foot nine, impossibly vast. He approached, voice gentle, but each word dripped with terror:
"You poor, pitiful thing. You believed you could escape it. But you cannot. You will be trapped, endlessly, reliving the same nightmare without reprieve. We begin as always—a small hole will show what comes next."
He struck the ground. Gently, deliberately. The earth crumbled, forming a perfect circle, smooth as if sculpted by some unseen hand. From it emerged creatures, black with crimson undersides, wingless, their tiny feet striking the floor like metal, crawling with relentless precision.
The man was chained, stripped of clothing, neck bound in cruel iron. The Crawlers began their work. They crept over him, into every orifice, each touch piercing like thousands of needles. Pain consumed him. He screamed.
"Please! Help me! I don't deserve this! I've done good! I've made people laugh!"
The faceless figure halted him. "You have done evil. You sought appearances over truth. You killed for pleasure. You cloaked yourself in shadows. Now you shall pay."
He screamed, pleading, words tumbling from his lips: "I regret it! I regret all of it!"
The other's voice remained calm, surgical in its cruelty: "Noise is wasted energy. Darkness has swallowed you whole. You sought the devil, and you found him. You neglected the light. You deserve this."
The Crawlers consumed him entirely. Every artery, every organ, every blood cell was devoured. His body became empty, leaving only the skin, a hollow husk. Yet even this was not the end. The room seemed to breathe, the shadows shifted, alive with anticipation.
And then, another figure appeared. Watching. Waiting.
In that blackened chamber, he understood something fundamental, horrifying, and eternal: some darkness is not escapable. Some guilt is not forgivable. Some punishments are infinite. And in the silence that followed, the Crawlers continued their work, patient, relentless, eternal.