The world spun, the first sensation she remembered. Her eyes fluttered open, and the blackness faded at the edges of her visions. Sounds, much like the rushing wind on a breezy autumn day, came and went. The humidity clung heavily, like a thick blanket in summer, making her sweat profusely. Drifting off seemed like the best thing to do at this point.

Too humid…

She awoke again to light but couldn’t distinguish the source; she embraced the inviting warmth. A sense of déjà vu settled over her. I’m almost positive this has happened before … maybe not the same way, but close enough.

“Wake up. Time to move on to your next task,” a voice instructed.

“I can’t see,” she mumbled back, still sleepy.

A small chuckle coiled through the air. “You can if you open your eyes.”

She opened them. Blurred images danced across her vision before coming into focus. Above her, a familiar face she once trusted and liked, but now despised, hovered over her. Bitterness and a shade of hate washed over her as she recalled her death. “You left me! You left me to die!” she snapped, sitting up, coming fully awake.

“Yes and no,” Judas muttered. His voice was soft and inviting.

“What do you mean ’yes and no’? You left me, and I had to fend for myself against that … that thing!”

“Yes, I left you, and yes, you had to fend for yourself, just as you say. But were you successful?”

“NO!” Julie yelled. “And you know it!”

“Yes, and did you succeed the first time you ever called upon your essence? Did you bend the flame? Did you know how to do it the first time you tried?” He waited for a response, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “No, you didn’t. At some point along the way, someone had to let go of you so you could learn for yourself. Right?”

“Yes,” she grudgingly replied. He had a point.

“The other reason I left you is because I had to. The Corridor works in different ways for everyone. My path lies in a different direction than yours. Do you remember when we were at the sign? My way was the middle one, but yours went off in a different direction. You must face everything alone. I cannot interfere. Well, let me put it another way: I shouldn’t interfere. We can travel together, but there are times when I can’t be with you, and you must understand that. I’ll be with you in the mornings and possibly in the evenings.”

“You could’ve warned me!” Julie said. Her irritation faded with his spoken truth, and she resented both.

“Why? Did anyone tell you they were letting go of you while you were swimming? Probably not. If they had, what would’vehappened?”

“I’d panic.”

“Correct!” he exclaimed, pointing at her for emphasis. “There was no reason to make you panic, especially not on top of the panic you already faced when you encountered that D’viquis.”

“Is that what the thing is called?” Julie exclaimed.

“Yes. One of the more dangerous creatures you can encounter, and the beast can only be found here. Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah. If I died, how come I’m not dead?”

“You didn’t die. Do you remember the spell I told you about, the Curse of Fear? It allows the person casting to influence a hallucination that it translates as real? You remember?” Julie nodded. “The Cruelty works in the same way, but the damage inflicted isn’t real. Every time you ‘die,’ you just fall asleep. Each time you wake, you’ll face something new. Every day, you’ll keep waking up to relive some horror.”

“Do I have to fight a D’viquis again?”

“Maybe,” he confessed, and then thought briefly. “Maybe not today. Whatever you face will be decided for you. I will admit, you did great. You survived longer than I expected,” Judas praised, before swiftly switching the subject. “Remember what I said: this place will either make you stronger or drive you insane, and this is why these tests are placed before you, to strengthen your mind or shatter it.”

“Great. I don’t know magic, and I’m not a decent caster, yet I still have to go through tests. That’s terrific!”

“I’ll teach you more on the way,” Judas promised. “Your aura doesn’t match your knowledge; the tasks before you aren’t as difficult as mine were, but I’ll admit that I’m hesitant to continue. I find it troubling that your first test was rather hard. Granted your potential ability to draw on magic is phenomenal, but I wonder about your control. For someone as substantial as you, I’m surprised your control is lacking.”

I should be powerful. A sudden yearning ached within her at the thought.

They broke the make-shift camp and took off. Judas lead the way up the winding cliff-side trail. The long uphill trudge sapped their strength, lacking energy for idle conversation. Silence and an agonizing progression accompanied them constantly. The path twisted around and doubled back, and at times, Julie suspected they weren’t making any progress. When her legs started to cramp, they stopped for a break.

Judas instructed her about little oddities of the realm, brief and unimportant histories to get her mind off what lay ahead. He also furthered her education by touching back on the levitation spell he supplied in Dlad City. By the time they were ready, the pebbles refused to move under her edict. The only influence she managed was by kicking them in frustration.

The footpath finally leveled off and wound back downhill. Julie sighed in relief, grateful for the change in the passageway; going down seemed easier than going up for her.

Probably because of my short legs.

The decline provided its own unique difficulties. Julie found it hard to slow herself when she picked up speed.

In the distance, birds chirped and wildlife teemed. The more she listened, the less the sounds seemed real and ambient. Something peculiar about the resonance, one she couldn’t identify. The chirps seemed flat, and the crickets, muted and negligible. Even the wind sounded hollow. The sky above darkened noticeably; despite the arduous journey, they hadn’t traveled all the day’s light away. She didn’t fret, but the omen set her on edge, the agitation flaring up like a spasming muscle. The silence during their downhill trek was only punctuated by their thundering breath and clattering rocks. Julie’s lungs burned, and her knees and ankles ached from the impacts on the rocky slopes.

After many hours of traveling and several stops, Judas finally spoke. “Congratulations, you learned one lesson for today, which is patience. Your second task lies ahead. You’ll notice the sky has darkened as we have traveled further down the hillside. This won’t be a test of skill but of wits. However, my destiny lies along another route. I’ll greet you on the other side.”

Judas stopped walking just as abruptly as the day before, and Julie walked around. A sign stood in the middle of the trail, cobbled together in the same fashion as the last, weathered, tacked together, and hardly standing. A lantern hung from the post beneath, and the sign read:

This is to light as wet is to rain, do this to the sign and you can remain.

“Remain? What does that mean, Judas?” Julie queried, fretting.

“Remain in the Corridor. It’ll spit you out, and you’ll have to start over from the outside if you get this wrong,” Judas cautioned. “Take your time.”

Julie pondered the riddle before her. She reread the first line. “This is to light as wet is to rain.” Searching for deeper meaning, she puzzled the riddle, aware of the tension nettling her shoulders.

Water is wet, and so is rain, she mused, so light is heat, and heat is light; and those two come together in …?

“Fire!” she said aloud. She mentally kicked herself for taking so long. “Fire is the answer. We light it on fire.”

Are you sure of your decision? a voice asked. Chills raced down her arms, realizing the voice was not hers or Judas’s. Did the Corridor possess the capability to enter the mind?

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” she answered, as if the owner of the voice was there, in the flesh. The voice grew silent, a sense of waiting settled over her, but for what, she couldn’t identify.

She read again. “This is to fire as wet is to rain, do this to the sign and you can remain.”

Her eyes flickered to the lantern on the post, hanging by a nail. The soft light glowed feebly in the dim gloom closing around her. She realized how much of a fool she had been. The answer lay before her the entire time.

Sighing, she reached out with her essence. Fueled either by her growing command or her internal turmoil, the flame flickered and responded to her call with ease. With finite control, she pulled the flame out of the glassless lantern and directed the spark upward. The sign burst into brilliant flames, a luminous homing beacon in the deepening twilight.

“What now?” Julie inquired, the question directed at Judas. When he didn’t answer, she looked behind her to find the area devoid of life.

He left you again, the voice assured her. Your next task awaits.

“I thought this was my test?” She realized that she was talking to herself. Hearing voices respond was the first portent of insanity, and she shook her head, chasing the voice away. The fact that she answered the voice didn’t sit well with her, but she preferred the option to being alone, or ignoring an incessant voice. A comfort settled over her as the voice peddled its trivia. But did she want to hear the information? How truthful was the voice? Did the voice hold back like Judas?

How many tests do you have in a day? she wondered.

As many as necessary, the voice replied.

An eccentric feeling rippled through her. The voice came from within. She puzzled, hesitated, wondering if she gave life to her fears or if an outside force attempted—and succeeded—in breaking through. Was she under someone else’s influence?

She doubted it came from some invisible entity, like some spirit or ghost keeping her company. This voice originated solely in her head, privy to her thoughts, and responded to them at will. No creature that she knew could read thoughts, but she didn’t know everything about Ermaeyth. She didn’t feel a presence other than the Corridor, which bothered her. Since entering, she felt eyes watching her, waiting, observing. The voice was different. The voice came without a presence. Did the voice exist at all?

Ermaeyth isn’t the world where you once lived, child, the voice continued, almost sneering.

Julie rolled her eyes and waited.

Brace yourself. You’re in for a real treat! the voice promised darkly, sounding gleeful. A hint of malice flickered beneath the sarcasm. The voice—had it not been so malicious—could have mistaken for her own sarcastic voice.

They’re not what you think they are.

“What does that mean?” A rustle of wind drew her attention towards the air. Watchful eyes fell upon her, but she couldn’t see anything amiss. The Corridor drew a deep breath and waited.

A large humanoid creature with grotesque features swooped down upon her, dive-bombing with blinding speed. She screamed and lunged out of the way. The tall creature landed where she once stood.

Animalistic form morphed into a man as elongated fangs retracted, pointed cheeks smoothed, deep eyes filled. No matter how much it tried to pass for normal, the close resemblance to the beast still prevailed. Nothing beautiful or graceful endured through either visage. She knew what stood before her: a vampire. Its eyes burned with hunger and its gaze pierced her, a succulent morsel to devour, but in what manner, she didn’t want to guess. His sallow skin and haunted, gaunt face with dark bags under his eyes leered at her. His limbs were long and spindly with a paralyzing countenance, trapping her with his gaze.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, a vague recollection of what vampires were and supposed vulnerabilities came to mind. The image she once associated with vampires erased, blurred, faded. Her initial image, though disturbing, surrendered to the sickly and terrifying creature before her. The thought of becoming diseased from the sallow wight murmured its disquiet, her chest tightening. She wished the voice would speak, help her, but it waited with clutching breath to see what would transpire.

A wispy strain of honeyed hair unfurled, dropping between her eyes. The weight of the now-silent voice shifted, sliding down her chest to her stomach, seizing. The sound of smacking lips reached her ears, and she wet her own with a darting tongue. The voice wanted to watch her suffer, to squirm; perhaps in her misery, the voice would find solace.

Standing silent, eyes roving over her, he had yet to move. Still, cold, coarse, unyielding as stone. His burning eyes lanced her, looking past her robes, imagining her flesh beneath. She couldn’t discern if his gaze meant there were sexual vulgarities he wished to explore, or the yearning to feast on her flesh.

Both would be bad, but which is worse?

His gaunt face with deep depressions between prominent cheekbones tightened, his eyes and the shadows around them darkening, as if trying to slip back into the animal beneath his current masquerade. Dark, slicked-back hair matched his dark eyes, both stark against his pale skin. He spat his words at her in near-visceral screeches. “Another upstart waltzing through. Why should I grant you passage?” The man’s voice coupled with a beast’s groans and grunts, primitive, a coexistence of wizardkind and beast.

Goosebumps sent shivers down her arms and legs. “I wish you no harm,” came Julie’s soft reply.

His head rolled back with laughter, a deep and menacing sound, similar to a dog’s warning when a stranger trespasses. “Nice is charming … and weak! Shall I stand aside simply because you smile?”

“No, but it’s the right thing to do.”

His chuckle rose, a rumbling in his belly. “Politeness goes a long way, so I’ll let you pass.” He held up a finger, a condition. “Let me taste of your flesh, my sweet.” He smiled, and his face transformed, the monster bursting forth. “Let me devour your ripest meat!”

Jaws agape, drool fell from his mouth. Long, spindly fangs glistened, saliva stretching like a delicate web between the tips. She shuddered, lanced again by the intensity of his eyes.

“No. Please? Don’t.” Fear crept into her voice, her eyes going wide. An involuntary step backward. The sudden change between man and beast rivaled the speed of a humming bird’s beating wings. A quick glance over her shoulder told her what she already knew. She found no trace of her master.

“The more you shiver, the sweeter you’ll be.” A long tongue lashed out against his teeth. “I don’t think you have a choice, do you?” the vampire taunted her, edging closer to his prey.

“No,” she tried to sound defiant, in control.

“That was weak. Surely you could do better? Make me believe.”

“I said no!” she said, her voice hardening, but it lacked the robust and ringing command of authority.

“Better,” he giggled, his voice high and child-like, and then dropped, “but not good enough!” He danced closer, a sinister sparkling in his eyes. A smile split across his face, stretching unrealistically at the corners of his mouth, bearing more teeth, showcasing his ivories.

“No!” Julie barked, desperation pounding through her as the beast drew closer. The rising panic sparked an ember of anger within, but not enough to overwhelm her dread.

“Not too good, was it?” he sneered. His grin split wider, the slit of his mouth stretching up to the temples of his head. His jaw dropped awkwardly, and his mouth opened wide enough to swallow her head whole. The beast was almost upon her.

She cowered away but for a moment. Through her fear, anger blazed. Realizing what the vampire had been doing all along: intimidate her into submission. She vowed to fight it off. Judas told her once before that magic came from the power of the mind, and she had forgotten. By cowering in submission, she closed her mind off to the ability to call her essence and craft magic. Spine straight, she stood with renewed confidence. Wand extended towards his head; she summoned up her wrath, fear, and stubbornness to live. “NO!” she screamed. A vast light poured out of her wand. The luminance so pure she turned to shield her eyes.

The radiance faded, revealing a vanquished foe. No trace of the vampire remained. Judas stood where the creature had been, his fingers interlaced with each other, a solemn look about his face.

“What happened?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

“I don’t know. I was afraid, but my rage fueled my confidence. I remembered you saying the mind being the gateway to magic,” she said, her answer meek. “Or something like that,” she added quickly and shrugged.

“And how did you find that confidence?”

“I thought … of you!” she said, astonished by the revelation, her eyes betraying her inner confusion.

“What about me?” His face rippled with perplexity.

“I thought of what you told me. If I’m scared and can’t think, then I can’t act. But my life was at stake, and so I acted as my life depended on it—and it did.”

“Good! You did well. Just remember not to give into your emotions always. Sometimes, it’ll help you stay alive, but other times the anger will consume you.” A smile broke on his face momentarily before he turned serious again. “Can you tell me the meaning of the lesson? There are several.”

“Well, besides the power of the mind, I’d have to say … courage.” She spoke evenly, assured of her answer.

“Close.” He paced around her. A brief pang of crestfallen emotions entered her eyes, but either Judas ignored the look or failed to see it. “This lesson taught you to stand up for yourself. Now, you understand the meaning. No one else can do it for you—and even if they could, they couldn’t do it as well as you. Do you understand?” his ever-soft voice inquired. He had a way of lecturing without seeming so. Julie hadn’t appreciated how he managed it until now. The twinkle in his eye returned, one that she had spotted many times before.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Thatæs the biggest problem with society today,” he continued as if he had forgotten his internal musings were audible. “If people would just do things for themselves and make a stand instead of expecting others to do it for them—” He broke off and blinked at her. “Sorry, I can get carried away sometimes.”

“That’s alright; I don’t mind you talking. Better than listening to voices in my head,” she chuckled.

A dark, concerned look flashed across his face before dismissing whatever thoughts he clutched. “Good,” he said. “Remember this: the Corridor is about the power and stability of the mind. It’s up to you to decide when your mind is strong enough, and have the will to end the escapade. Now, let’s travel a bit further, and then we can rest for the evening.”

She watched him turn on his heel, retreating down the mountainside. Julie noticed the look on his face when she mentioned voices, and again he refrained from saying anything.

What secret is he holding? What did I say that made him grow pensive and concerned? I’m starting to hate this.

Chaffed by his lack of communication and praise, but grateful she escaped an admonishment, she reluctantly followed him.