I stared at the lifeless body before me as the illusion around me began to crumble. The paradise, as he had called it, dissolved, and I was dragged back.
Back into the nightmare I had desperately tried to escape.
The walls, once blessed with deceptive beauty, rotted before my eyes.
A moldy stench rose, and cracks in the fabric of reality appeared around me, as if a terrible lie had been uncovered.
Then something moved.
A wet, slurping sound broke the silence. I looked down and saw a tentacle tearing from the dead man's chest.
The flesh that clung to it... twitched one last time.
"Disgusting…" I muttered, gripping my torch tighter. The flame flickered, casting eerie shadows over walls as I took a combat stance.
I was ready.
If this thing even thought about attacking me, I would set it on fire.
But to my surprise, the tentacle recoiled, disappearing into the fleshy wall as though it had been startled.
I blinked. "Didn't see that coming…"
Slowly, I lowered my stance and turned around.
A vile sight.
Before me stretched a lake of greenish, slimy secretion. The surface was sluggish, and among the murky waves floated countless bodies.
Drowned.
Souls who had fallen victim to the illusion. Those who believed it was water and perished in this lake of goo.
"How tragic…" I whispered. "Innocent souls, lost in this void…"
I closed my eyes to offer them a silent prayer.
And in that moment, when I was most vulnerable, it struck again.
A sharp hiss made me whirl around. I saw the tentacle shoot toward me, and raised the torch high. With a powerful swing, I hit the slimy flesh, and a piece of glowing ember broke off.
The tentacle screamed.
Teeth.
The damn thing had teeth. Yellow, black, long, sharp fangs that snapped hungrily at me.
"Things like you always attack from behind!" I snarled.
My heart was pounding. If it hadn't been for that sound, that one quiet hiss, it would have already pierced my shoulder.
"Ouch…"
I flinched.
This creature… it spoke.
"You can talk?" I held the torch tighter, ready to strike again.
The creature froze for a moment, then twisted its mouth into a wide, inhuman grin.
"Surprised?" it asked mockingly.
I clicked my tongue. "Hardly."
My gaze darkened. Something about its voice, its words, felt wrong. My gut was screaming at me to be cautious.
"Oh…" it hissed. "You're interesting…"
I took a step back.
"Oh really? Why's that?" I forced myself to stay calm, hiding my fear behind a look full of hatred.
"Your gaze…" it whispered. "You're different from your ancestors. They were already broken, weak, already on the brink of despair. But you… Your will has not yet crumbled."
A cold shiver ran down my spine. I stole a quick glance at the lake of corpses. My fingers tightened around the wooden handle of the torch.
"I will enjoy devouring you…" the creature giggled and moved closer.
I grinned.
"In your Dreams bitch!"
I raised my middle finger high and shouted the words in its face.
While we spoke, I had slowly, almost imperceptibly, moved backwards, closer to the edge of the lake. Because I knew something the creature didn't.
The liquid was the same as the flesh I had been feeding on, and it burned when it made contact with fire.
I dipped the torch into the greenish slime.
Almost instantly, flames shot across the surface. Green fire spread, dancing across the sluggish waves and casting eerie reflections on the walls.
The creature gasped in shock and spun around. Panic flashed in its nonexistent eyes as it tried to smother the flames.
In vain.
I laughed.
I laughed and stared down at this wretched piece of flesh.
I was the one with power now.
I was no longer the hunted.
"Are you crazy?!" the creature screamed.
"You ask a man who's fought through hell If He is crazy? What do you think? Do i Look crazy?" I chuckled, tilted my head and grinned, watching as the flames climbed higher.
It growled.
"You'll burn just like I will!"
"Wrong."
I crushed its threat with a single word.
"You're bound to this place. I am not. I just need to find the exit before everything here is consumed."
The tentacle began to shrink. Maybe out of fear. Maybe because it was running out of fluid.
I looked at it one last time.
"In the name of all the dead you've dragged into this lake, I wish you a painful death."
Then I turned and walked away.
Away from the flames.
Away from the screams.
"May you be haunted by these flames even after your death."
My steps quickened as the flames licked along the walls as if trying to grasp me with greedy tongues. The heat burned into my back, driving me forward.
I ran. I sprinted. I pushed my legs as hard as they would go.
The tunnel began to tremble as if crying out in pain. The floor beneath me buckled, and I stumbled, slamming into one wall after another.
Then a jerk. A dull crack.
A sharp pain shot through my arm, making me scream. Tears welled up in my eyes, my vision blurred. I staggered, gasping for air.
But I couldn't stop. The flames would get me if I did.
"Damn it… really not my best idea…" A bitter laugh escaped me, smothered by the burning air in my lungs.
I risked a glance over my shoulder and froze.
The flames had taken shape. A tormented soul, distorted, ghostly, with a gaping, silent mouth. It screamed at me, without a sound…
My heart raced.
"What the hell?!"
I stumbled backward, fell, jumped up again, and kept running. My lungs burned, my legs heavy as lead.
"These flames… they are alive?!"
A mad wheeze escaped me. Had I really ended up in hell?
I didn't know for how long i already ran. Minutes? Hours? Time no longer mattered.
At some point, I collapsed. My body was at its limit, worn out from pain, fear, and exhaustion.
Silence.
I gasped for air, waiting for the burn, for the flames to take me… but nothing happened.
Slowly, I raised my head. The passage was dark again. No green light, no unnatural fire.
I exhaled heavily, a shiver running through me.
Then I buried my fingers in my hair.
"Get me out of here…"
My voice was little more than a whisper, a broken echo in the endless labyrinth. I repeated it.
Again and again.
While my hands tightened their grip.
"Get me out of here…"
My whisper became a murmur. My murmur became a rough, suffocating gasp.
Until my voice left.
And with it, my will to continue.
For a moment, I entertained the thought of simply going back. Letting the flames have me. It would be so much easier than continuing to live in this nightmare.
But then… that one spark.
Not the flames. But the hatred.
The thought of those who had pushed me into this. Who had done this to me.
No. I wouldn't let them win.
I might not know if they really existed. But that's what drove me, what wouldn't let me give up.
Slowly, against my body's protests, I forced myself to my feet. My fingers brushed the wall, searching for support.
"I'll find a way out…"
And if it's the last thing I do.
I staggered forward. Uncertain of what awaited me, but whatever it was, it couldn't be much worse than this.
Or could it?
The walls of the tunnel barely shifted now, and the heat slowly began to subside. The burning air that had once set my skin ablaze was cooling noticeably.
"Have the flames finally gone out?" I murmured, casting a cautious glance behind me.
Darkness.
Nothing but an impenetrable, lifeless blackness staring back at me from afar. Unsettling, but no worse than the fiery horror I had escaped.
"It's over… right?"
I knew this hope was foolish. I knew the nightmare wasn't over. Yet, for just a moment, I wanted to allow myself to believe I was safe.
However... that moment shattered when I slammed into a strangely soft, membranous wall. It gave way, tearing open, and I stumbled through.
I stood.
An odd sensation washed over me. It wasn't knowledge, no memory, but a profound certainty.
This was the way out.
How did I know? I had no idea. It was as though it had been burned into my flesh or carved into my thoughts.
I pulled the skin-like remnants from my face and arms as I limped onward.
For a while, it stayed dark. Only the narrow walls and the rancid smell of decay kept me company. But then, suddenly, a light.
At first, just a tiny point in the distance, a barely perceptible spark of hope. But with every step, it grew.
A point became a sphere. A sphere became a ball.
And eventually, this ball turned into a door.
I froze again. This time, not out of fear, but…
Voices.
Real voices.
Male, female. Soft, raspy. Deep, high.
Not echoes of my own thoughts, not delusions of a broken mind, but real human voices.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
Not from despair.
But from hope and relief.
Was it over? Or… would I at least not have to wander through this hell alone anymore?
The mere thought of not being alone made everything a little more bearable.
I ran the last few meters.
The light burned my eyes, forcing me to raise my hand to my face.
For a moment, I kept it there, waiting for my vision to adjust to the sudden brightness.
Then I slowly lowered it.
And I saw them.
A group of people, not large, but not small either.
Some more battered than others.
But all in the same condition.
Broken.
Afraid.
Traumatized.
Mad.
And yet, they all still clung to life.
Still not ready to give up.
I felt the color return to my face. How a smile fought its way to my lips.
My fingers clenched into the tattered fabric of my soaked shirt. Drops fell from it, splashing onto the wooden floor.
I opened my mouth to say something.
But someone beat me to it.
"A… child?"