Open Sunken Depths

[Michael Kyber]

Winter 49th, 516 AV

For a long time now, Michael had been haunted by the same recurring dream.

He was deep underwater, trapped in the ruins of some strange ancient building with no doors, windows or other way to reach the outside world. The walls of the endlessly stretching expanse of corridors, illuminated only by the faint glow of the weird torches that burned with blue flames despite being in the water, were covered with runes of an unknown language and caveman like pictures of humans performing strange rituals.

In his dreaming state Michael did not question why it was he was able to breath underwater, or why the laws of gravity did not seem to apply to this place. He could swim in any direction he chose, and had it not been for the chilling atmosphere of the ruins he may have even enjoyed himself. With no method to decipher the meanings of the walls the only available option left to Michael was to navigate the labyrinth, compelled by a need to escape that, like his ability to breath, was a fact that didn't merit questioning.

In non of the times he had dreamed of himself in the labyrinth though had Michael ever had any indication that he was near to reaching the end. Every branch in the corridors just led to more branches of more corridors, or sometimes perhaps a large room containing some kind of large, ghastly work of art in its centre that again only led into more corridors. Sometimes Michael tried to double back and go along a stretch of corridor he'd already been down, but the labyrinth seemed to be able to change its design when he wasn't looking and warp itself into some new shape. Once he'd even looked back whilst going down a particularly long corridor only to find a dead end straight behind him, as if the labyrinth was forcing him to keep pressing onward.

Yet as creepy as the labyrinth was, it wasn't that which scared Michael the most; it was what was in it. He wasn't alone. Sometimes he could hear a deep growling and the sound of claws scratching against stone, as if some enormous, terrible creature was making its way towards him. Michael had never seen the beast, as the torchlight's flickered out from its approach and shrouded it in darkness, but whenever it was nearby Michael felt a sense of bloodlust so raw and vicious that it shook him to the core and removed any trace of doubt that the beast was hunting for him. Sometimes as he swam along the corridors he would come across a claw mark in the stone almost as big as he was, which left little to the imagination about how easily this creature could kill him.

In tonight's dream Michael had already spent a long time making his way through the endless maze of corridors. There had been no sign of the beast yet, but he had no doubt that it would draw near eventually. It always did. He swam around a corner, coming into a large cube shaped room with a number of entrances to more corridors about the place and the same strange symbols littering the walls. In the middle of the room was a large brazier, burning brightly with the same blue flame as the torches, however it gave off no heat. When he tried touching it, Michael found that he could pass straight through the flames without getting burnt. However even despite that investigating it revealed no clues as to why the brazier was here, or as to what its function was. Puzzled as to its meaning Michael stared at the brazier for some time, drifting aimlessly in the slight sway of the water around him.

[Madeira Dusk]

OOCPleasure to meet you. Lets have fun with this nightmare

For a long time now, Madeira had been haunted by the same reoccurring dream.
 
The maze itself did not daunt her with it's changing, impossible architecture and watery halls. A native Avalad must learn to give up on the laws of nature or go insane, even in their dreams. It was the sense of chilling dread, and a hungry, maddening bloodlust that leaked out of the depths of the maze. There was something down there, some angry, horrible creature. And she had to find it, but never could.
 
Every night she hunted for the creature. She followed it's madness past flickering blue flames and dead end corridors and hollowed rooms. She saw the claw marks on the wall, heard the growling in the distance. She had to reach it before it reached him. She didn't know who he was. She had never seen him. But every morning she would wake in a cold sweat, listening to the eco of madness and the man it hunted reverberating in her head.
 
Tonight she drifted down halls and pulled herself through open doors. The vaulted ceiling (or was it the floor?) seemed to shimmer in the ghastly blue light. That same light hollowed out Madeira's cheeks and pulled the colour from her skin, making her look sickly and frail.
 
She sang a little song as she searched for her monster. It was the same song she used to catch a different sort of monster over a season ago; a ghost from the Crooked Playhouse, a murderer gone mad.  
 
"The sea calls 'away with me,
says leave your hearth and stone.
The sea calls 'away with me,
says leave your lass at home..."
 
The last door was like all the rest. She pushed through it and came upon a cavernous room lined with doors to nowhere. But in the centre was a wide brazier with a wicked blue flame. And floating beside it, cast in it's eerie blue light, was him.
 
The song sputtered and died on her lips. Now she had to wonder if this was starting a pattern, and that song actually did attract a different sort of madness.

[Michael Kyber]

For how long he'd been staring at the brazier, Michael could not say. Time was an abstract concept within dreamscapes, and memories so fleeting that only the most important remained. It could have been seconds, it could have been days, but the fact remained that for a time Michael remained by the fire, hoping somehow that the light from it would be able to hold up against the darkness that covered the approach of the beast.

However he was distracted from his staring by the feeling of a ripple passing through the water, a ripple that carried with it the sound of a song he couldn't quite catch. Instantly panic spiked through his system. There was only one other thing in this labyrinth; the beast! It must be here! He spun around, fully expecting to see the darkness that heralded its arrival...

But it wasn't there. What he saw wasn't pitch black darkness or a terrible monster, but a young woman. The light of the brazier made her look gaunt and pale, enough so that for a second Michael wondered if she might have drowned in the water, but the look of surprise on her face confirmed that she was just as alive as he was.

It was no wonder she was surprised, so was he. He'd been in this labyrinth many times before already, but never once had he seen any indication that someone other than him and the beast was trapped in here.

"Who are you?.." he asked, his voice sounding muffled by the water but still somehow clear enough to understand. "And how did you... no wait, never mind that! Did you come in here through an entrance? Do you know where it is?"

If this woman had come in here through an entrance, then chances were they could exit from there as well. This could finally be his chance to get out of here!

But as if in response to his hope, a monstrous sound echoed out from one of the connected hallways. Half a hiss, half a growl, the sound was deep and rich in baritone, but sent shivers running down Michael's spine as if it were nails on a chalkboard. The light from the hallway began to fade, sinking into an inky black, and the sound of claws scraping on stone became louder and louder.

"It's here... we have to go! Now!" Michael cried, swimming towards one of the other hallways with quick, panicked strokes.

[Madeira Dusk]

"Did you come here through an entrance? Do you know where it is?"
 
There was panic in his voice, and no little amount of hope. The Spiritist sighed.
 
"Did you?" she asked wearily.
 
Suddenly the room dimmed, through the blue fire was still burning strong. A sense of fear, of deepening madness, rode on the back of a sound that ground Madeira's nerves to a filed point. It was a deep, rumbling noise that she had chased through these halls forever. A hiss, a scrape, a growl. She could recognize it even in the waking world.
 
She was ready for it, after all this time. She was ready to save this man she had never met, and never will.
 
Until, suddenly, he was swimming away. Madeira could feel the bloodlust pass over her as if she wasn't there, and focus on the man as he threw himself through an open door. The monster didn't want her, it never did, and that's why she could never find it. But she found what it does want, and she would never catch the beast unless she caught him first.
 
Bait, the blue fire snarled at her. It snapped and flickered in the brazier, she imagined it was laughing.
 
No, not bait. She cast an uneasy glance at the fire before swimming after the man. She just wanted to save him.
 
"Wait!" she called, pulling herself through the door just as the darkness leeched into the room with the brazier. "Wait!" She followed a trail of bubbles and the flash of his feet as he took door after door, hall after hall. Slowly the two began gaining ground on the darkness, though it's taint was never completely gone. The madness began to wane, and Madeira cursed it's loss. She was so close to ending this.
 
Finally she followed him into a room with no exit. In the centre of the otherwise empty room was a ten foot tall painting, no worse for being submerged. She didn't spare the attention to look too closely at it, but rather hoovered in the doorway, arms spread as if to block his exit.
 
"Stop, please", she begged. “I need to help you. My name is Madeira, what's yours?" 

[Michael Kyber]

The more he swam, the further away from him the darkness became until at last the feeling of bloodlust dissipated for good. The darkness had lost his trail. And good thing to, because as he turned the next corner he found his way blocked by some kind of painting. He couldn't quite tell what it was a painting of, as it was either very abstract or created by a 5 year old, but at a guess it seemed to be some kind of city. Without the darkness nearby Michael began to calm down, though the feeling of being cornered kept him one edge. If the darkness got lucky and followed him to this hallway there'd be no way out, he'd be trapped. He needed to quietly double back and find another way to go, it was too risky to stay here with the beast so close by. "Stop, please." He turned around at the sound of a voice behind him. It was the girl from before again, who apeared to have followed him. A flash of annoyance crossed his face as he saw her; what had she been thinking shouting at him to wait like that? Could she not see the monster chasing them? Her shouting was giving away where they were to it! Despite his annoyance he let her say her piece, and when she had his irritation turned to confusion. Help him? She could lead him out of here? When she'd said that she didn't know how she'd gotten in here he'd assumed that meant she didn't know a way out either, but perhaps that wasn't the case. " My name..." Strangely it took him a while to recall his name. Like the water around them his thoughts felt slow and sluggish, but eventually it came to him. "Michael! My name's Michael. So you know how to get out of here? How?"

[Madeira Dusk]

"Hello Michael", she said carefully, like she was speaking to a hurt or cornered animal. Behind his shoulder she could see the painting. The massive canvas was done with thick smears of primary colours, like a child's finger painting. It had the vague resemblance to a city; she could see the suggestion of a street, lined with doors and faceless people. But even as she watched, the painting was changing little by little. The colours started to run together and become more complicated, the lines were straightening and becoming cleaner, the shapes more defined.
 
She didn't know what was happening, but she could sense she was running out of time.
 
"I don't know how to get out of here" she shook her head, and her thin blonde hair danced around her pallid face. "But we don’t need to. We need to fight the beast. We can end this" she beseeched. 

Her eyes flicked over his shoulder again, only to see the cityscape come to fruition. She dared not look at it, lest she draw his attention to what was going on behind him, but she could see stones and streets and people from the corner of her eye. And they moved. Breathed. That wasn't a painting anymore, she knew with the kind of infallible conviction you have in dreams. That was a door. His fabled escape route.
 
She had to make him stay. She needed him. If this was ever going to end, it had to end with him.
 
Bait. she could remember the fire, and how it hissed at her.
 
 Bait.
 
Like poor kind Maro, like brave Dex. She was going to put this innocent man's life and sanity on the line to lure the beast. But was that so wrong? She was helping him, wasn't she?
 
"Come this way. I can protect you. We need this to end. You want this to end, don’t you?" 

[Michael Kyber]

A look of sheer incredulity passed over Michael's face as Madeira explained her plan. Fight the beast? Was she crazy? Had she not felt the force of its hunger? Seen how even the fire cowered at its approach? This thing was practically the embodiment of terror, and she wanted to fight it?! "Good gods, you're insane aren't you?" He asked, disbelief evident in his tone. "Do you even know what it looks like? What it can do? How do you expect to protect yourself, let alone me, when you don't even know what you're up against?" Any more objections he could come up with though were cut off as once again as a familiar feeling, like tiny cold claws scratching at the back of his neck, returned once again. It was the feeling of growing bloodlust that heralded the arrival of the darkness. They hadn't lost it after all. The beast was coming for him. Michael cursed loudly in fratava and looked around for a way to escape, but the labyrinth hadn't changed from its original structure, there was still nowhere to go. He looked behind himself at the painting, but to him it still looked just as abstract and nonsensical as before. Whatever Madeira could see in it was visible only to her, not to him. The torchlight dipped as the darkness came closer and closer, sweeping across the corridors like a wave of ink. Michael grimaced as the torches around them began to fade too, slowly plunging them into darkness. "Looks like there isn't much of a choice but to fight it now. I sincerely hope you know what you're doing." The darkness grew until the torches disappeared entirely, and the two of them were plunged into utter blackness, a world so devoid of light that they could see nothing at all, not even their own hands in front of their faces. It was then that Madeira would hear a loud voice, too deep to belong to any kind of known creature, rumbling at her from all sides. Its low timbre seemed to ripple straight through her bones as it spoke, though its voice was strangely gentle, almost apologetic in nature. "You did well trying to save him spirit child, but this is as far as you can go." A dim light appeared behind her, illuminating the painting of the city. "This tapestry is not an exit for him, it is for you. Go through it and you shall be free of this nightmare for good, and will return here no longer." The voice grew even louder, changing its tone from apologetic to furious. "But he cannot go with you. There is no exit from him, he can no more escape this place than he can walk out of his own skin. This maze is his mind, this writing his thoughts, and this darkness what he wishes to hide. He flooded this place when he chose to walk a path he knew would bring unimaginable suffering to others, and his torment is due penance for that. Leave him child, or it shall devour you too."

[Madeira Dusk]

Was she insane? It was possible. Foreigners liked to say all Avalad's were insane. They liked to laugh at the citizens as they jumped superstitiously over puddles in the street. They laughed right until they stepped through the puddles themselves, only to be sucked into the cobblestone sea beneath the street. Maybe insanity was exactly what they needed here.
 
"I don't know what it looks like. I don't know how to fight it. But do you really want to spend eternity running from it?" she snarled. "I am doing this for you, you miserable shyke. Face your darkness and we might both go home." This was her chance, his chance. Why was he trying to take it from her?
 
Suddenly the room began to darken. Flames cowered in their torches as an inky blackness began to invade the room. The beast was back.
 
The world was washed away in one broad stroke, and Madeira was alone in the water. Alone with a bloody, maddening hunger that stole into the room on the scratching of claws and a deep, rumbling growl. It was the kind of sound that crawled into your chest and slept in your soul. And suddenly she was afraid.
 
"Michael!" She screamed into the emptiness. "Michael where are you!"
 
Then the darkness spoke to her. It vibrated through her bones until she was sure she wasn't just hearing it, that the sound was coming from inside her own head.
 
The painting lit up in the darkness like a beacon calling her home. And she was shocked to see that it was home. She recognized the street, and the way it was laid out like an architects worst nightmare. The people in the painting were laughing as they were turning to watch a school of jewel-bright, iridescent fish make their lazy way down the road.  
 
She could go home. She wouldn't have to wander these halls anymore, chasing something she would never catch, for a man she would never meet. A man who built this prison himself, no less. And populated it with his own demons born from the suffering he was causing others.
 
But she came here with a job. A hunt. Could she abandon this now?
 
"Michael, for the love of god, fight this." she roared into the black, her hands groping for the other body in the room, afraid she might find something else instead. "If you made this you can unmake it. But if you don't, if you wont free yourself from whatever you're hiding in your mind, I swear I'll walk through that door and leave you behind" she threatened. "I'll abandon you to fight your beast alone, I swear I will. Fight this!"

[Michael Kyber]

(OC Note: Want some fitting music to listen to while reading? Why not give this a try?

The darkness pulsed with silent laughter at Madeira's fumbling even as it twisted and screaming in frustration at her acts of defiance. "Foolish girl. You had a chance, but even so you chose to share in the punishment! Very well, if pain is what you want then it is pain you shall have!"

The darkness began to move, surging against her like a waterfall, pushing and pulling in all directions. Slowly the inky blackness began to fade, and light began to return to view, returning them to the flooded corridor.

However the corridor was no longer the same as it had been. The torches flared with light again, but now their fire was a pale, sickly yellow that only faintly illuminated the corridor with an air of disease. The corridor itself seemed to have grown, as if they had shrunk down to a mere quarter of their size.

However all those changes paled in comparison to the thing that lay in front of them...

-

For Michael the darkness lasted for only a second. As soon as it had come and washed away his sight it was fading away again, replacing the light of the blue fires with its morose yellow counterpart. The change in the corridors size initially threw him, however before he could say a word to remark on it the familiar sound of claws of stone dead ahead of him caught his attention.



Before them, rapidly wading its way towards them with its mouth fixed open in a predatory snarl, was a creature that could only exist within a nightmare. It was crocodile-like in appearance, with ice blue scales, a jaw full of sharp teeth big enough to devour him whole, and eyes that burned red like flaming coals. The bloodlust emanating from it felt like being impaled by spears of ice over and over again, and upon seeing that it had been noticed redoubled its speed and charged towards them through the water.

"We're doomed." Michael muttered, more to himself that Madeira. "Absolutely, undoubtedly doomed."