The thunderous cracks rang out behind Thomas as he, panicked, ran deeper into the dark before him. Guiro urged him on, a fear of a kind that Thomas thought the disaffected ghost incapable of.

“Run! They’ll dig they’re way in soon if they have to -- I cannot believe a behemoth came down. Just my luck -- of course!” he screamed, wildly gesturing in horrified frustration.

“What the hell was that thing?!” Thomas screamed in his mind.

“A Behemoth Maw, terrible thing!” Guiro answered.

“No! The thing in the sky! The big cloud of stars!” Thomas chided while sprinting. Great clods of dirt, debris, rubble and rock all came falling down as -- behind them -- the beasts tried to dig their way inside. It wasn’t growing any quieter, the sound of the outside calamity only ramping up as a bellow from the giant beast rocked the world around them.

“That’s best left unsaid for now, we don’t want it to hear us through the stone and anger it with our defiance. It thinks you dead, at least in time with the beasts coming after you. If you speak its name, if even I speak of it then we can be sure that it will know you more than a nameless and stupid thing -- you’ll be named yourself. Powerful thing, that.” Guiro nodded sagely, making Thomas want to ring his neck. The stones behind them seemed to give way to the scratching of the small lizards and the smashing of the great bat. Thomas swallowed his frustration and ran further into the monochromatic gray of the dark -- not questioning his night-sight.

“Why am I here?” he asked, dodging a falling bit of small time rubble.

“To fight the thing you saw outside, the thing I may not name.” Guiro answered, sagely as ever yet this time tinged with an anger that was unmistakable. They delved further into the darkness and were upon a crossroads of sorts -- a fork in the tunnels that led them deeper into the chasms. Thomas, for the transformation and all the questions he still had stopped and rounded in anger on the ghost whose tail seemed connected to his spine.

“That’s stupid! Why am I here? How do I know I haven’t gone insane? This is only a fever, a dream spit out to me in a coma!” he spat -- or would have at least if his jaw could move -- and threw angry gestures at the ghost. He wouldn’t dive further into the ruins, into the caverns, unless he was sure of something, anything, that the ghost said. Even to think he spoke to a ghost as his form, his body, was morphed and twisted in such a way astounded him and made him question why he was even asking or speaking something at all. Of course it was a dream, or even worse; madness.

“I must be insane. That has to be it.”

“That would be easier, wouldn’t it [Hero]?” the ghost said, his face suddenly very close to Thomas’ own. Thomas flinched back.

“That’s all that I can think that this could be -- This is insanity.”

“No, [Hero], this is Glory -- or what is left of the world once named such a lofty thing. This is the world where the Gods once walked and now spurn in equal measure. A world where we have been forgotten and made to serve where once we ruled. Where once we were the kings and queens, yet we grew lofty on our thrones. And so the Gods no longer walked amongst us, and took of our greatest to the stars. To become our wardens, our jailors so that no other could grow to the heights that we once did.” explained Guiro. If this was a fabrication of Thomas’ own mind then it was certainly… elaborate.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“Then why me? Why am I your [Hero] as you say? I’m a private investigator. I take pictures of cheating spouses and insurance frauds! All I do is sit in a car all day and wait for something to happen, for someone to come out of a house or to kiss someone they shouldn’t. This -- this doesn’t make any sense.” It seemed almost laughable to Thomas that he was at all trying to piece together a coherent reason to be here, for this to be happening. It had to be a dream, as he had thought, or maybe this was the fabrication of his mind as he careened off a cliff while hounded by some nameless faceless men in cars.

“Then it is you who we had need -- you who look! Please. My people sacrificed our last for this, we had nothing left. That great thing in the sky that you saw, that thing that I cannot name lest its judgement strike me away from you and bring me to the Torture Stars, that is what has kept us here -- on this island. You may think it madness for someone to speak of these things that I do, and perhaps it is, but it will be easier to show you the horrors of what is out here and name them. You will have an advantage that most of the [Hero]es do not -- you will have someone who knows what this world is and is willing to tell you. We have take from the gods the very System they use to refresh their garden of devilish horror. I speak in poetry, you must know, for I have found that most of what I wish to speak is stricken from the record of the minds of all who live here. So let me ask and introduce once more. I am Guiro the Exile -- a name I have taken from my father -- and I ask of you, [Hero], a simple question. Who are you, and if you were once a man of questions and seeking answers, for however petty you can think of them as, do you not wish to gain the answers to the question of why you are here?” Guiro looked deep into the eyes of Thomas and asked.

“I was searching for the Neon Killer, I’m pretty sure I found a connection between them and the CI-- my government, essentially, but before I could really dig further or at least uncover the story to others I was thrown off the road and brou--”

“You searched for the Neon Demon, yes?” Guiro interrupted, and Thomas stopped talking.

The sounds of the crashing broke through the stone behind them and the beasts began to rush in. There was no more time. Thomas took the rightward path, and sprinted -- all the while thinking of two things that bounced around his mind.

‘Project Blink’ and ‘The Neon Killer’.

--------------------------

I am a thing of nameless shape, of light and nothing else.

I am a stalker in a dream, caught between two worlds as hell.

A place I once called home -- where sides have picked a fight.

A place where sense has left, and all is left to fright.

I am a thing, of horrid make, of desperate cloying light.

I am made a thing to help a thing -- leaving victims in the night.

Where once I was a noble knight, a knight of great virtue.

A knight with strength whose songs at length did strengthen my people’s milieu.

I am now a thing of nameless shape, my sanity is gone.

They call me horror and killer too -- I’m the demon in neon.

And for my masters I keep the gate.

My sacrifices what I take.

Consuming souls in my horrid wake.

The demon in neon.