Pain filled his vision. The poor boy swallowed the pain of his shredded shoulder as he ran. The extreme wound gushed blood, revealing the head of the humerus. The exposed bone, entirely crimson.
Ezkiel had never felt so much pain before. His head throbbed as blood ran down his body, dissipating the pain to all his extremities. His right arm could still move, but he didn't have the courage to make any motion. The pain from just swinging it was enough, and he could barely stay on his feet before the terror that followed him.
The creatures' steps continued their relentless pursuit, running swiftly in his direction, attempting to finish their botched job.
Each of the prisoner's steps squirted blood that leaked onto the ground, creating a crimson trail through the dark corridors. The despair, which had taken root in his soul, took form, making his steps, clumsy from the pain, become faster.
The wounded body responded to the pain as if it were fuel, giving him a slight distance from the creatures, but the dread wouldn't let his mind form a complete thought. He just ran for his life like a desperate animal in search of help. Something he knew would not come.
Through winding curves on a floor of damp stone, the darkness took up more space in the rooms, moving further and further away from the beautiful moonlight that had been his cellmate. In the midst of the darkness, he could only move, running forward without thinking of the future, fleeing from the tearing bites that echoed in the humanoid steps of the beings known as The Others.
Upon entering a wider corridor, where the metal cells had already disappeared, he saw a spiral staircase; there was a way up to the right and a way down to the left. His first impulse was to go up.
He ran towards the stairs, but after taking the first seven steps, he nearly fell upon seeing a chasm before him. The staircase was broken, revealing the embrace of the darkness that would lead him to a quick death.
The boy's heart raced when he found the hole. He couldn't see where the next step was, if he could reach it with a leap, or if everything above was destroyed. Desperate with the fear of being cornered by the creatures, he decided to turn back.
Descending the stairs quickly, almost throwing himself down the steps, he saw the crimson figures bubbling from within the armor of what he believed had once been humans. They stared at him with eyes bathed in ruby blood. The fear that filled his mind once again took shape.
A tentacle with a mouth at its tip, similar to the one that had bitten his shoulder and torn off a piece of his flesh, shot out in his direction.
The boy's eyes bulged as he saw the serrated teeth approaching his face. However, his agile body was faster, throwing itself to the right and tumbling down the stairs.
The stone steps banged against his body and struck his injured shoulder. Ezkiel rolled down the entire staircase without being able to stop, only trying to protect the open wound as much as possible.
His mind still couldn't process what was happening. The world spun around him in extreme darkness, while pain pulsed through his ribs and limbs.
The chains, still attached to his body, became entangled, causing a huge metallic clang that howled through the prison corridors. A warning bell.
A final loud crash sounded as he hit his back against a stone wall, facing a huge dark corridor. His vision was blurry, but it was beginning to adjust to the darkness.
The pain, which shortly before had been rooted only in his right shoulder, now pulsed throughout his body. The prisoner was covered in bruises from the long descent.
Still in disbelief, he looked back, trying to understand how far he had descended the stairs, but he could only perceive the distant sound of the creatures.
Desperate. Bathed in blood. Riddled with pain. Ezkiel stood up. The chains on his arms and neck were wrapped around his body, inhibiting some of his movement. With difficulty, he moved his arms, looking like an ancient mummy trapped in metallic rags. However, there was no time to think about that. He needed to escape from those creatures as quickly as possible.
Before he started running, a faint consciousness of his being pulsed through his frantic state:
The dagger!
He turned back, looking near the place where he had fallen, searching for the knife he had lost. Luckily, he felt the metal piece near his bare feet, almost cutting him.
He knelt, feeling his whole body tremble with pain, and picked up the dagger. The blade still looked the same: worn and scratched from a long journey of combat.
A small fall wouldn't break it.
The dagger was very much like the prisoner who wielded it.
Looking at the dark corridor ahead, he moved forward without hesitation. His wounds made him limp; the pain was present throughout his body, overflowing with every drop of blood that bathed his chains. But Ezkiel couldn't stop. The fear of death howled in his ears like a command.
The corridor was wider than the previous one that formed the old cell area. There were several unlit lamps along the sides, untouched for many years, covered in accumulated dust. The stone was ancient, yet smooth. The lack of moisture meant there was little deterioration from the external environment.
Ezkiel wasn't a very detail-oriented person, but the difference was clear even in the darkness. Something was different on this floor.
As he approached the end of the corridor, he noticed a large metal gate filling the entire wall, at least five meters long and three meters high. Occult symbols circled its border, something he had never seen before, only in the movies and games his girlfriend liked.
The details were meticulously crafted, like a metal sculpture. Each design symbolized something Ezkiel couldn't decipher.
As he fixed his eyes on the symbols, a lacerating headache pierced his mind. A sword stabbed into his brain. The pain was so great he could barely stay on his feet. Saliva convulsed in his mouth. The symbols on the gate flickered and swirled in his mind, delving deeper into his brain. An effect of flashes that danced and disappeared from his vision.
Unable to bear it, he fell to the ground. Desperate, he placed his hands on his head. The images wouldn't stop; they repeated in a chaotic loop that was frying his brain, corroding his mind.
Something ordinary humans were never meant to see.
Help... Where have I ended up?
He thought amidst the extreme pain exploding in his mind.
Everything he had been through up to that point—the shock of being imprisoned, the choice of taking his own life, the fear of being killed by those horrendous creatures, and even reaching this gate in a forgotten prison—was too much for an ordinary boy who just wanted to sleep with his girlfriend, waiting for the game courts to open after the winter.
Nevertheless, he persevered.
The pulsing images were slowing down. The symbols in front of him began to fade more slowly. Even without understanding them, he could notice their details: arrows that split into thousands, joining together in the shape of a large circle; random runes that formed letters, which modified into dizzying spirals; and finally, a large central line, filled with symbols resembling cracks.
Ezkiel got to his feet, filled with rage and agony from the extreme pain. He pulled out his dagger without thinking and began to deliver desperate blows to the central line, polluting all the beautiful runes, which should not be touched by ordinary men, with scratches.
Before he regained consciousness, in the excess of rage poured out on the metal wall, he heard the sound of the creatures approaching down the corridor. The crimson eyes appeared in the darkness to finish the job.
The red figures ran in his direction.
Ezkiel, desperate, pulled the dagger closer to his body, pressing his back against the metal wall.
Then, a loud bang echoed.
The support at his back began to descend, opening a new wing of the corridor.
A strange presence entered the environment as the gate lowered to the ground. Every hair on Ezkiel's body stood on end. A pressure invaded his stomach, squeezing all his organs.
However, the most terrifying thing was to see that the two creatures that had been chasing him had stopped moving, vibrating their tentacles with a feeling the boy knew very well in this dream:
Fear.