Dan’s eyes had to adjust to the sudden overhead light. He was front and center on a stage, a wave of giggles beyond his view. The laughter pounded at his head, resounding and reminding him he was somewhere dangerous. If the door was a last barricade for something unimaginable, the laughter was only the preshow.

He swallowed the intense pain, covering his ears. It wasn’t real, it was in his head, he told himself. Something cracked, the roaring light dimmed. He fell into his core, holding and swaying with its song. He was in control, he was in reality. Another crack. He chanced a peek, finding a cascade of smiling faces.

They were all familiar, all human. They wore casual clothes, drank beer straight from the bottle, and watched on with fascination. There was no blood, no open wounds or screaming prisoners. They had features Dan was able to describe, no pulsating tentacles or ravaging fangs made of black jelly. They were just normal people.

Except they weren’t.

Dan didn’t fall for the madness. He knew the crowd was wrong. They weren’t waiting for him to sing or tell jokes. They were waiting for him to fail, to fall, to lay down and cry. They were waiting for him to give up, his struggles along the way were merely entertainment. They were laughing at him because he was surrendering.

Dan smiled to himself, raised his head high, and walked into the dimming light. Light: Salvation was still active, a glowing star of light leading the way. He felt his core rapidly dwindle, but he only needed it for a few more moments.

He stepped off where the stage ended, finding a continuing stone path rather than a short drop. The crowd warped at this, their smiles replaced with deep frowns. Dan continued, walking through the seats, through the very nightmare he nearly drowned in. Ten full steps was all he needed to break the madness fully, dismantling the illusion and returning the passageway into normal stone.

Dan shuddered in relief, the lamp above his head fading.

The hallucinations were getting stronger, becoming more bold. Gone was the subtle nuance of whispers in the darkness, clanks of distant footsteps, and the guttural hiss of stalking monsters. The door marked the start of the cave’s true power.

Dan didn’t stick around long. Working under the assumption the cultists were still right behind him, he moved. The cave had opened up significantly, the door acting as a connector hub of sorts. Multiple branching paths set off away from the door, each opening to different caverns. Some led up, others straight dropdowns. All were connected somewhat by fallen walls or hanging walkways.

If the cave before the door was a maze, after was a labyrinth.

Taking the path leading up, an obvious choice in Dan’s eyes, he donned his shovel and green-red light. He walked for many hours, taking a few breaks along the way. Each break grew closer and closer together, however, as his hunger started to become painful.

Movement caught his eye after walking through an intersection. He spun quickly, pushing out with the shovel. A man, wearing a long white chef’s hat nodded to him.

“Pork, or chicken?” he asked, his accent French.

Dan hesitated, looking at the small trolley the man had set up. Bundles of rosemary and thyme accompanied generous portions of chicken thigh and pork loin, along with a plethora of chopped vegetables. He saw carrot, onion, celery, maybe even a potato or two. It was, in his mind, exactly what he needed right now. The only thing missing was-

The chef removed a bottle of red wine from under the trolley. He presented Dan a glass, and poured a taster without spilling a drop.

“From Loire Valley, dating back some two-hundred years ago. Aged in oak, and cracked only three months ago. Give it a swirl, then waft.” The man held out the glass, the purple-red liquid glimmering in the low light.

Dan reached for it, his mind primarily on the sizzling loin. He inhaled the delicious fragrance, his mind connecting it to his time screek in the lower Provence of France. It was part of his university’s étude à l'étranger program, a multi semester screek showcase of France’s best.

It felt like just yesterday Dan traveled from destination to destination, documenting his trip and interviewing locals for his anthropology dissertation. He remembered one screek particular elderly couple. They had been together for nearly screek sixty-one years, a feat many wished for but never would screek-

Dan’s face twitched at the sound, the hallucination falling apart. His mind came back to him, he wasn’t an anthropology major. He was an electrical engineer and he was under attack. As he fell to his butt, he threw his hands up in guard, blocking the vile monster that barreled down the dark hallway.

A sleek face of pale gray flesh bit into Dan’s arm, dozens of serrated scalpels easily tearing apart his juicy skin. He Kicked hard, batting the monster in the barren stomach. It grunted in pain, hammering down its maw multiple times in a row, each time causing Dan’s eyes to water in agony.

Dan hounded his core, pulling everything he had. Light: Salvation can to life in the form of a redundant lamp. An orb of white-golden light appeared in his palm. He brought it in close, not allowing it to hide above his head. It took conscious effort from the bleeding torn man, but the orb did as he said. It moved with his hand, even when he slammed it into the monster’s head.

The creature reeled back in a cry. Dan took the reprieve to identify his opponent. The monster was humanoid, ungodly pale, and nimble. Its small frame mixed with lithe body type allowed it to move with inhuman speed and agility. It bounded off the walls, seemingly retreating and engaging in the same movement.

What Dan focused on, however, was its featureless face. There was a slot for a horrid mouth, but no eyes or nose. It was emotionless as it moved, never showing an ounce of fear or animosity for the human. It was used to the ecosystem of the caves, Dan was just another meal for it to feast on.

Dan found his feet and shovel just as the monster attacked again. It launched from all-fours, moving like a feral cat defending its territory. He sidestepped and smashed down with the hammer once it landed. Just like before with the massive rats, the blunt end of the shovel did very little. The monster’s smooth leather like skin was for more than show.

It snapped at Dan from the ground, finding his boot in the process. It roared with strength, shaking its jaw with mighty force. He smiled at the opening, it had only grabbed on to the material of his boot, not his flesh.

In a swift dig, Dan severed its head with the sharp portion of the shovel.

He sat there for a long moment, savoring the death of the monster who had torn his arm apart. He cradled his mangled wrist, overjoyed that only his skin was ruined, not the bones. He told himself that he had just survived a dog attack, nothing more. The monster was just a big… dog… one with human features that could move like an acrobatic.

What was he kidding? He had fallen victim to the madness, even for just a brief moment it was almost fatal. He had heard the monster, that was the only reason he was alive. He had been stuck with the chef’s tantalizing food, he was a free meal for anything that came along.

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He was so hungry.

Dan eyed the creature. He had a small knife… he could cut a sliver. It would be gross and riddled with disease, not to mention raw, but it was something. It was food. His stomach may never have a better chance than this. Who knew when his next meal would be, and what it would be. The quicker his body acclimated to his new world, the better… right?

Shaking his head, Dan knew he was only trying to rationalize eating something so hideous. Either he’d die of food poisoning or die of being too hungry to notice the next predator. Even though he knew the madness was trying to trick him with food, he wasn’t so sure he could block it out next time. The hum was getting stronger the further he went, all the while he was getting weaker.

That thought settled it, and Dan carved into the beast. The pain in his arm was getting to him at this point, the adrenaline long since worn off. But he discovered something strange. He had long learned the calming and centering power of holding on to his core, but he swore it also acted as a miniature painkiller. It wasn’t much, but anything was better than raw pain.

Well, raw monster meat was worse, that much was for sure.

It took six tries to get the hunk of meat down. Even after slicing it into tiny sashimi-like pieces and carefully looking for worms, Dan had to force himself to eat. He remembered reading articles or watching documentaries about people in horrible situations of hunger. They always contended that when totally hungry, anything tasted like a five-star meal.

Dan didn’t agree with that, at all.

Still, he ate more than he was willing or wanting to, and pocketed an equal sized chunk. It took a few minutes of settling, but he felt significantly better than before… in fact, he felt really good. Hunger was no longer his main issue, exhaustion was. Dan slouched against the wall nearest his feast, and rested. He was asleep within the minute.

Dan dreamt of the stars, specifically the three above the forest. He wanted himself to be like the stars, a guiding force of light and power. Billions of kilometers away was a burning ball of gas and mass. It burned with such strength that even he could see it. He had always taken the stars for granted, but not anymore. Not after seeing the glow of his core and the brightness of magic.

His eyes shot open once he was conscious enough to realize he had fallen asleep. It only felt like minutes, but he had no way of knowing if that was true. He chided himself as he began traveling through the caves again. How could he have fallen asleep now? If something had come across him, he’d be dead. Simple as that.

As he moved, he continued to berate himself, completely unaware that his arm wasn’t bleeding anymore. The lowest layer of flesh had regrown.

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Dan traversed the caves for so long, he had stopped and fallen asleep two more times. Each time, however, he had enough presence of mind not to fall completely asleep. He had one eye open, so to speak, and was able to react in time when he heard noise. It was a creature like before, but this one was covered in a thick greenish mucus.

It was easily cut down, the mucus slowing its dexterity to almost a brisk crawl. While he celebrated the easy win, he couldn’t help but feel despair about what was next. The last half-hour of travel had been slightly different than the rest. Every so often, like boulders along a mountain trail, pus nodes appeared.

Dan had not seen any bone crystals since entering the red door, which only made their reappearance all the more worrisome. They were paired with small geysers of blood and hot mucus, the natural evolution of the pimples, he guessed.

That was, until he rounded a corner into what he could only describe as a grand cavern. The room was massive, multiple football fields wide and taller than a skyscraper. He honestly thought it was another madness induced hallucination, but his core assured him he was centered in reality.

The constricting muscles didn’t help, however. The walls, floor, ceiling, and everywhere in between were red with blood and stitched with protein. Small strands of peaks and valleys wove up and down, crisscrossing into straightaways. Mucus poured from odd pockets like waterfalls of glowing saliva. A lake had formed at the very bottom, monsters of all kinds slapped up the only liquid source.

Dan wanted to throw up, but the thought of monster meat on his breath quelched his desire.

He didn’t know what to do. Venture forth and try to find an exit, all the while risking monster attacks? Retreat and find a new route? Hide and live out in the cavern, eating monsters and drinking pustule spit?

The madness chose for him. Dan stumbled forward, off a recessed cliff and into the thicket below. He had felt a swift kick to the back, but after recentering himself he found no bruise but rather a person peering over the edge smiling. They poofed into yellow mist after a cheeky wave.

Dan cursed the cave and madness while surveying where to go. He stuck to the edges, dipping and diving around heightened rock-muscle formations or past dripstone-bone stalagmites. Monsters of all immoral types sniffed the air or battled to the death.

A creature made of loathsome silver spines and rolling around like its body was one giant grind wheel. Another within a nauseating gas cloud, its own body a terror of faces and shadows. A third with jittering eyes, each pulling at the world to see around solid objects. Two of the same kind fought each other, one making use of grim claws that cracked the air in impossible swipes, the other clapping its jaw with enough force to break rebar in two.

These monsters were different from the others in the cave. Dan’s grip on his shovel almost died when he realized it would be useless against most of them. So, he stuck to the shadows, moving where he could, when he could. It physically hurt to look at a few of the monsters, but when he neared, he forced himself to watch. He couldn’t ignore being seen. If he was seen, he needed to know right away.

One particular beast was nothing more than lucid movement. It stuck in Dan’s eyes, always moving with him. It stalked him, following along and lunging closer and closer. Dan twitched every time he saw it move, his mind trying to process the unfamiliar. He was freezing up, his hands and face going clammy.

There was no growling, no hint of apathy. The monster was unstoppable and evermoving. It didn’t need to hide and pounce like others in the cavern. It didn’t need to create traps and lie in wait. Authority of countless battles echoed in Dan’s mind as he grasped what he was looking at. It was the hysteria of the cave, it was the madness given form.

Apparition.

The thought came to Dan through his core and shattered mind. It was magic, he understood. It was true power, manifested into a single vessel. It had no thought, no emotion. It served a single task, like a white blood cell indiscriminately killing all invaders. He was the invader in these lands, he was supposed to be removed.

He ran. Even with his back turned, he could see it. It was always within view, always gaining. It came from the front, it came from the back. It was inevitable, it was death.

The mucus tricked his feet, slicking the mushy wet ground like ice on a road. He slid into lumps of muscle and flesh, knocking the air from his lungs and sending him to the ground. He scrounged for grip, he pushed and sought for strength. He caked himself in the glowing mucus like the other monsters in the cavern.

Even still, the apparition continued its advance.

At some point he lost the shovel, but he hardly cared. Dan had only one goal, and his advantage was failing.

Light bloomed in his hand as he pleaded to his core for an answer. His star guided him, bringing forth fake promises of power and balance. He had promised himself he would break out, that he would live, but this? He was as powerless as the day George died. As inexperienced as the night Bob was killed. Who was he kidding, there was never any escape. Not since boarding that cursed life boat.

He had better chances with the blood beasts.

As the apparition caught him, Dan fully resigned himself to die. He would go out fighting, already having drawn his stolen dagger, but the short blade hardly gave him hope.

A hand of chilling size clasped around his small torso, squeezing him into submission. It lifted him up, putting his eyes level with its own. It opened its rotten mouth, ready to feast.

His head throbbed as he thrust his knife and glowing orb of light magic. The knife did nothing against the monster’s hulking body, only breaking against the residue surrounding its skin. The orb did something, however.

Dan held no assurances that the orb could do anything except blind with its exceptional luminosity. So when the monster consumed the orb of magic, he feared the worst.

Then it exploded.

There was no blood, no viscera. Only invisible shadows of entrails that shook the reality Dan had come to fondly live in. He fell the short distance back to the cavern’s red floor, his feet sliding out from under him in the process. He landed on his butt within the smoldering remains of the apparition. Steam rose from its corpse, filling the immediate area with dreadful smells of burning flesh.

Dan didn’t even recognize the smell, nor the bruise along his tailbone. He only breathed, his nose flushing his own blood. He swayed, each heartbeat sending pangs of pain through his head. Words invaded his thoughts, pushing more alien information than he knew what to do with.

Light: Salvation 9.3

Light: Control 3.1

Light: War 6.58

He understood. His mind reeled in the revelation. He had won.

The cavern shuddered, a groan sounded along with it. It expanded slowly, retracting and stretching right after. It breathed in deep, exhaling with a scream. Dan covered his ears at the sound, his weak body pleading for it to stop.

It did.

Then gravity switched.