Chapter 52

Burnt Skin, Scraped Flesh

I thought I would need to bring out a flashlight but when I approached the stairs, the inside began to glow, a pale blue. I looked down and the stairs were covered in the same blue as the mask and the road, glowing in time with a pulsing beat. I hadn't felt it in the street, but something was going on further inside, giving me only one thought: a giant heart, pumping blue throughout the Skull and the city as a whole.

"You really going down there?" Boots asked, quiet, no longer snapping screenshots. He was as spooked as I felt.

"I really am."

Before I could chicken out, I took a step down. I waited on that step, expecting the mouth to close or the steps to vanish and become just a giant throat that would swallow me whole.

But nothing happened.

Except I could now feel that beat through my shoes and there was no denying that it was a heart beat.

Every part of me wanted to run. The only thing stopping me was me replaying that image of Sam in my head, rotting and alone in a bone cage. I had to do this. For him.

So I walked on into—not the belly of the beast—but the skull of it.

The staircase was so long and winding that maybe I would end up in the belly by the end of all this. Every couple dozen of steps Boots would try and convince me to leave.

"Come on, you don't have to do this. We will find another way to get your pet back. You said your stealth Stat was good, right? Let's just come back tomorrow and—"

"I lied about that. My stealth is a 1. And even if it wasn't, how would I avoid the guard at the start? I was lucky to get through that tonight. No, this is the only way. Drop it, okay?"

After that I could walk on in silence. At least, from talking. There was another sound, slowly growing louder as I made my descent. A beating.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The blue steps continued to flash in time with it. Up ahead—or below?—the light got brighter as the blue spilled out. I'd made it to the bottom.

I stepped off the last stair... and the lights vanished. The blue pulsing was creepy but to have it suddenly ripped away from me brought a fresh level of panic.

"RaeDarz?" Boots said, giving me something to focus on, a lifeline in the dark. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. One second." I flipped through my menu and equipped an old Earth flashlight, the kind that security guards usually were armed with.

I flipped it on... and it didn't really help. The way ahead was still mostly obscured in darkness. I kept on walking, aiming the flashlight mostly down so I didn't step in anything dangerous. But the way was completely flat, I could almost make out the blue still there, just without the glowing. It made me extremely uncomfortable.

The only constant was the beating. That hadn't stopped. It got even more intense, speeding up.

"RaeDarz," Boots said. "Do you see that?"

At first I didn't. Just darkness. But as I kept walking I could see what he meant. There was the blue light, flashing in time with the beats up ahead. It was condensed to one location, just a small round circle on the floor.

As I got closer it got bigger and glowed brighter. I stopped right in front of it. Somehow, I knew this was it. The very center and the lowest low.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"What now?" I asked, knowing Boots wouldn't have an answer.

"Touch it," he said immediately.

I scoffed. "I'm not going to touch it. Just the road burnt me, I can't imagine what that thing would do."

"What other choice do you have?"

I held up my flashlight. I bent down, and slowly started to set it down in the center of the circle. As soon as my hand went over it, the ring of the circle flashed, and a rumbling came from the ground. Just in the nick of time, I pulled my hand back, right as a huge pillar of blue fire sprung up inside the circle.

I fell back, the flames licking at the ends of my hair.

"Jesus!" Boots said, somehow resisting taking more than one screenshot.

I was grateful, I didn't need to be sick to my stomach—right now I needed all of my wits.

In the middle of the flames, a shape took form. It was one of the skull masks. It hung there for a second, motionless... then it winked. I thought I imagined it but it sprung to life floating left and right as its mouth opened.

"Hello, welcome, flesh bag."

Wow, rude.

"You've come to give up some of your flesh, eh? If you want power, it must be done."

The fuck was the thing talking about?

"Risk your skin, flesh bag. Reach out... and take me."

"Boots, what could this thing be?"

"It's an Event. A custom one, likely not set up by the Admins so there's no telling what it does. And being in a No Respawn Zone... don't touch it, man. Get out of there. I'm serious."

I wanted to. Oh god did I ever. But... Sam.

I put the flashlight back in my inventory. And with shaking hands I reached out. As I approached the flames the mask winked again and rotated around, preparing for my face. But it unhelpfully stayed in the very center of the circle, didn't move closer by a single inch. Nothing about this was gonna be easy.

"RaeDarz! Are you crazy! Don't!"

I let the flames touch me a little and—yep—it hurt. An ungodly amount. Would it kill me? I couldn't be sure. But there was a whole group of these lunatics with their own masks. If this was how they got them then, surely it would be okay. I thought back to all the lackeys I'd met with the masks. They were fucking losers. If they could do this... surely I could?

I held my breath, closed my eyes, ignored Boot's increasingly crazed warnings... and plunged my hands inside.

At first, not too bad, it felt actually cold. Like walking outside in the winter without a jacket. An assault on the senses that took my breath away, yeah, but it didn't actually hurt, per say.

That quickly changed. After that split second that knocked my air from me, it turned to heat, burning away at my flesh.

I cried out and it took everything I had to stay standing. If I fell I wouldn't be able to reach the mask. So I bit my lip and kept it up, plunging deeper into the flames until I had my hands on the mask.

The beating was intense, the same speed as it had been but I felt closer to it, I could feel the pulse in my entire body. It rattled my teeth.

The mask was heavy. Or something held it in place, I couldn't decide which. But I pulled as hard as I could, taking it closer to the edge of the flames. But agonizingly slow as the flames burnt away at my skin. I couldn't see my hands or arms in the flames they were just a dark mass, surrounded by all consuming fire.

Somehow, in the midst of my pain, an idea hit me. I reached out with my mind, gripping the mask with it. I added a mental pull to my physical one and that was the last bit I needed to get it moving, finally breaching the flames.

With one last grunt of desperation I yanked with body and mind... and it was free. My hands fell to my sides, limp and burning. But the mask did not fall. It hung in the air in front of the flames.

"Well done, flesh bag," the skull said. "My power... is yours."

I didn't even care about the mask anymore. I fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face, my body wracked with pain.

"Heads up!" The mask shouted.

I looked up, just in time to see it dart forward and slam into my face. I screamed as it bound to me, adding to my burning.

All around me, the beating intensified. No longer was it a normal heart beat pace, now it was near constant.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

Everything was beating and fire and pain. I wanted to take off the mask but my arms refused to move. Desperate for relief, I tried to log out, return home.

[ Event in progress! You can not leave. ]

Fuck!!

"RaeDarz! Get the fuck out of there!" Boots screamed, his shrill pre-teen sounding voice cracked.

Could I do that? Was that an option? I tried it, relieved to find that my legs at least still worked.

I ran. My arms swung limp at my sides, hitting the front and back of me but I didn't care. I could see through the mask, my view had a weird blue tint but it illuminated my surroundings.

The fire was in my veins and the thumping in my heart and mind. I don't know how I managed it without my arms but I hit the stairs running and was able to keep my balance somehow. I ran, stumbling and blundering but I did not completely fall.

I think I might have screamed the whole way up but it was impossible to tell from the thumping from everywhere. The ascent was simultaneously way faster and three times as long. I thought I would go insane or burn up completely—or both—before I made it out.

And when I finally made it, my mind didn't seem to notice, it just wanted to keep running, forever, until I fell apart or burnt up. But my body knew. As soon as I cleared the mouth of the skull, I collapsed, all my fight and adrenaline spilling out of me.

Above, the skull building watched, its eyes burning, as if angry that I'd escaped with my life.