I watched the skeletal things mingle around for a while. They didn’t seem interested in the corpses of the people, and none of the people were moving anymore. I checked. When the skeletal things dispersed a little bit I approached where I saw the light go out. The light went out pretty quickly after the skeletal things attacked and killed the people. I wanted to see if I could make it work again, I wanted the light not to hurt the people. Yet, for some reason, after the people died I think I became bored.
Regardless of my strange boredom, I scavenged for the torch. It didn’t take very long, it was underneath the short person who had held it. Though lighting it was a mystery. I searched the short person’s body further, trying hard to look for anything that seemed useful. A sword they didn’t even take out, a dagger, a pouch with some kind of liquid, a bag filled with random nonsense. All of it was useless. How would I even start a fire? Would I know what tool to use if I saw it? It wasn’t like the short person carried a smaller fire with them to make bigger fires, and with my luck they might just light it with those strange lights and colors they conjured from their hands. Then I noticed something dangling from the torch itself.
On a little string, there was a tiny box dangling. I figured I would open it since I didn’t know what else to try, and inside were two small rocks. I stared hard at them, completely bewildered, but something clicked. I am not sure if it was some instinct, a memory from whatever was before, or my natural smarts, but I cracked the two rocks hard against each other. Then, a spark! A few more cracks of the rocks hitting each other, and pointing the sparks towards the torch’s top, and light was suddenly growing to life on the torch.
Suddenly, the torch lit up fully from small sparks and sputters. It crackled and fizzed, a portion of it was soaked in something wet and red, I didn’t think too hard about it. I noticed a few of the thin skeletons nearby, they idled in place or wandered in circles. They all looked towards me for a moment, but after a few moments of staring they went about their business. Those people must’ve made them very upset, because they obviously weren’t interested in the fire like I was.
With fire acquired, I tried to hold myself close to it. I just knew it should be warm, if anything from my memory of how hot the tall torch fire was. Yet even almost burning myself on it, I felt cold. I felt nothing. I didn’t even feel satisfaction at the fire being lit, it was a passing interest in something new. I looked down at myself, wondering why I was so cold, and I realized.
Looking down at my body, confused and cold, I saw myself for the first time. My chest wasn’t there, only a bare ribcage, the flesh on my arms was gone and replaced with more bone, I was one of those angry skeletons! I stood up suddenly, dropping the torch on the ground. I was disturbed, if that was a heavy enough description. As I stood up and the torch hit the ground, the torch landed in a fresh puddle of red. The gleaming light was caught just right, and in the fresh pool of vital essence I could see myself. I was fully skeleton, dark black bone like char and ash. No flesh, eyes, skin, or anything besides cold and empty bones.
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I regret what I did next. I panicked, despite my previous cool and cold perspective, I apparently didn’t want to see myself like that for some reason. I scavenged from the corpses, clothes and robes. I donned a heavy robe with thin wrappings of ragged clothes underneath. I put on two big gloves and equally big boots I took from the bigger bodies. One of the people that was smashed to the side by the big creature had a mask, a sort of helmet but it was just the faceplate tied with rope and leather straps. When I peeled it off the person’s face underneath was poxed and blemished like they were sick, but I felt my ailment was worse since they could at least enjoy being actually dead. Wearing clothes that sagged, robes that dragged against the ground, along with boots, gloves, and a mask that barely stayed in place, I almost felt relieved. I don’t know why I needed to cover myself, it was almost a mix of embarrassment, fear, panic, and a sense of indecency.
As I returned to the torch, picking it up out of the puddle as it sputtered from the liquid, I decided to leave. I needed to escape as soon as possible. As much to hide my disturbing deeds as to flee from the memory of seeing myself. As I quickly walked away, trying to adjust the new equipment with belts and ropes to walk easier, I could see a gust of wind faster than I felt it. Since I still only felt a barren cold even with so many layers.
When I held the torch closer to my side, a gust of wind blew the flame backwards. I was surprised, there was no sign of an exit, but something told me that wind would only come if there was some way outside. I then realized I had begun walking in the direction the people had been running towards, so maybe they knew an exit was this way? The only way I could find out was to chase after the wind and hope.
The torch burnt to a crisp before I saw daylight, but my scrambled thoughts and untiring body made for quick time. Even after the torch went out I continued to follow the direction, the walls were closing in and I could easily notice either side now. They only continued to get more narrow, eventually getting close enough I might almost touch them if I stood in the middle of the path I followed. Then I saw it, light. Not one that would move or run, but a beam of light coming from above. I stopped in the middle of the path and searched for the source, and there was a gap in the ceiling. Only ten or twenty feet above me, a gap leading to the sky above, I was almost free of the darkness. I need only climb out to safety.
I don’t know how long I had been walking with the torch, even less after it went out, but the minutes I took to climb the slick rock wall burned into my memory. It probably wasn’t the exit, the wall was too slick and smooth to properly climb, but that didn’t stop me. With the metal gloves scratching and digging into the stone and dirt, I crawled and scrambled my way up to the gap. The gap itself was barely able to fit me, a person with any real flesh on them would get stuck in the hole, but I forced myself above.
As I breached the gap, I threw myself forward onto the soft dirt and pebbled ground. I was out, I could see the sky and sun staring back at me. I was gone from that dark pit, that evil altar, and my life laid before me.