"Heed no mind to the lost echo"

Oh hello there! I see you have found me sitting half naked in a dark cave? Holding onto a broken iron stick. The knife on its head jammed into a creature in front of me. Shit and piss smeared all over, looking at the creature, still twitching. If you can't tell, I am naked and afraid. Really, really afraid.

Hmm? Who am I? Good question. No, perhaps just a question yet I would like to introduce myself. My name is Echo. No, it is not my given name but there is no one to check my id, so you will have to live with just that.

I liked my name. While it had a really nice meaning to it, that meaning was not supposed to fall into this kind of unfavorable situation. It was not supposed to break my bones and make my legs obsolete. It should have been a great victory but it is not and thus the change of name.

"Ah, I am thinking gibberish in my desperation."

I can't feel my legs yet I feel too much pain coming from that part. I am going to die.

I wanted to die peacefully or at least on my own volition. I heard that ropes break your neck in a snap and you won't feel much after the first few moments or sleeping pills, they could kill you in sleep. Probably not, at least no one lived to tell the tale.

Well, if I am gonna die, I might as well complete my inner monolog first, before any of its friend decides to show up. Yes it's a living creature but I will address it as 'it' I do not wish to show it any respect. Fuck this thing.

I am a 26 year old man. I had just started a business. Fishery to be particular. I had a girlfriend who broke up with me a few days prior for some family reason. I was not too concerned about it. Things happen, we could have probably salvaged the situation like we always did.

I was happy. Life was going well. Between taking care of the fishes, watching anime, reading books, playing video games life wasn't particularly thrilling but it was fulfilling and easygoing.

I had my fantasies. Going to a different world, ripping rocks with bare hands and the likes, but at the end of the day those were just fantasies. I did not wish for them to come true. Those were good as a buffer for the time it took me to fall asleep. Yet here I am stuck between hard rock and a 10ft long creature.

The day was hectic. Fish tanks needed new water. That took a long time, around 7 hours. I had to take care of selling them too. In addition there were a lot of miscellaneous works not worth mentioning. By the time everything was finished it was 8pm.

I ate the food that mother had cooked. It was chicken fried rice. It was pretty tasty and did not have the weird things popping up in your mouth while eating in cheap restaurants. After eating my fill I took a shower, that felt good. Changed into a t-shirt, soft full pants and wrapped myself in a synthetic furry blanket. After a few minutes of thinking about my wild fantasies I fell asleep.

For some reason I felt like I was about to freeze. The bed I was sleeping in was cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and never leaves you.

I woke up abruptly. Sitting up, I searched for my phone. It wasn't there. My glasses were missing too. Come to think of it, it was really dark. My room never got dark. Even when we did not have the inverter, my room never got that dark.

I specifically made my windows big. 4 windows in total each 6ft in length 4ft in height. I regretted that, it allowed too much light to enter. But now I could not see a single spec of light.

"Mooommm"

I shouted for my mother who lived in the next room. There was no answer.

"Fenrir" "Rock"

I called for my dogs. Fenrir is a big black wolf-like dog so I named him such. Rock is even bigger than Fenrir, small face soft fur of reddish brown colour and super cute, not much of a hunter though.

They would sleep in my room and after a few hours sneak into my bed. I was searching for them. They did not answer either. Now I was afraid. Even if mother did not hear my voice, at least Fenrir should have. He was an extremely alert dog from the beginning. Brave too.

'Is this a dream?' I thought! 'Possible, maybe my blanket slipped off and I am having this dream?' Dreams are weird like that after all. After slapping myself that theory collapsed.

"What's going on!"

I tried to crawl out of bed but there was no bed.

"Did I fall down!"

I moved my hands to find the corner of my room to no avail. Crawling through the hard, cold surface reality was becoming clearer to me. I was not in my room. My room had marvel flooring. This was not that. The floor was like rough basalt tiles that my fathers shop had in a different state. Those kinds of tiles were not readily available where we lived.

"Did I get kidnapped?''

That is very unlikely as no one will probably kidnap a 96kg fatball like me and there is not much ransom you can collect from us. But a possibility is a possibility it was still possible.

A few minutes had passed at this point and my eyes were starting to adjust in the dark. Though I have myopia I am yet to be completely blinded. I could see thin light shining on the floor. The floor was a bit jagged but polished looking. I could see the wall now. Squinting my eyes I slowly made an outline of the room.

"The room shape is a bit…. fucked."

[Yep, I have no idea who made that room and thought 'Waugh that looks nice'. How does the room even support itself?]

Searching around I saw a faint stream of light coming from a bit farther away.

"Okay, let's go over this once again, This is not a dream, I am in a room of stone, I don't know how in the unforeseeable fuck I winded up here, I feel cold, my heart is stuck in my throat and I have no pants. Huh? I have no pants?"

………………………………..

'Why? Why do I not have any pants? Did the kidnappers cut my junk off to make powder and sell it? No that can't be. I have a small brother. Who wants to make their thing smaller! Bring that bastard out here I will sit on his face until he dies. Wait a minute it's there. Noice, they did not cut it off yet.'

It had just gone in its shell because of the cold. After reassuring everything I hugged a wall and started walking toward the light.

I did not go to the light directly because of two reasons. First, I did not want to stand in the opening of the room. Second, I did not want to stand in the opening of the room. I just don't like open spaces and the shape of the room provided good cover in some places near the wall. Even if someone were to come in they won't be able to find me at first glance.'I wish I could find a rock though. I could use it as a weapon.'

Searching for rock or something sturdy I slowly crept toward the light. I was going with the kidnapping theory for now. It kept me on my toe which is not bad in an unknown place. Whatever happened and however may have I came to this place, it is not a good place to be, so keeping my guard up was a must.

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After walking for a while I saw the source of the light. It was a tunnel of some sort. The other end of the tunnel was connected to another open space. Looking at the opposite of where I was standing, it seemed like some kind of pointy thingy was protruding out of the rock.

'Looks like a weapon!', I thought. "I hope it is" I murmured to myself. Quickly crossing the opening I got a glimpse of something that looked like a spear. Striding a bit closer I got a glimpse of the wilder.

"Aaaahhhhh"

I shrieked, trying to run back. I lost my balance and fell down on my hip. It was a skeleton. It didn't move. [What was I expecting?] So the first person I met inside this "room" , my first mate was dead.

I got over my fear and realized what a blunder I made. I moved by his side and hid beside him.

Though I had shouted before, that was from far away, this was close to the entrance. Looking closely I noticed that the lower half of his ribs were missing and a sharp hole through his right chest cavity. 'Did he fight with someone and died?'

[Perhaps, I have no idea how to determine that from someone's wound.]His legs were in pieces spread in front of him. And next to him was a hole around 3 to 4ft in diameter where there was water.

"Water!"

Without thinking much I cupped both my hands and started slurping it down. I did not check for poison or anything. I neither checked for it's source nor did I check it's odor. I just started chugging. I was thirsty and there was water in front of me. [It was good water.] Not as cold as I had expected it to be.

After drinking my fill I took his spear. Let's call him coffee drinking Dave for now.

"Sorry brother you are dead and I need that spear."

It looked like an iron spear all the way through, blade and shaft included. Like a cast iron spear. The blade was black, still sharp. It did not have any rust on it and it was heavy as hell. Back at home we had a kind of digging tool like this, not spearhead but a iron rod with its head squashed flat. Judging from the weight ratio this was really heavy. I had a hard time lifting it. 'Moving it like a spear would be a nightmare.', I thought. Still, I could use it as a stick, a really heavy stick or I could perform simple thrust.

After practicing some to get a feel for it I shifted an eye on the entrance. Settling down for some air I tried to listen carefully. No sound came from outside. Non at all. That was good news to me. 'Maybe I can sneak out of this place if there are not many people guarding.', I thought. After settling down for a bit I started to feel hungry.

"This is no time for food."

With my newly found spear on my shoulder I sprinted toward the end of the tunnel then stopped to look outside. There was nothing, no humans, no barricades, but the visibility was better than inside. It was no daylight, more like dusk and the moonlight on the 5th day of the new moon. Not much light but you can still see kind.

This room was really big. I could not see it's other side. [Maybe it's not a room.] There were rocks that looked like pillars and walls all over the place. Not too sharp, not too polished. The likes you can find in caves.

'Wait a minute, why does this look like a dungeon? Is it one? No, there are no "dungeons" on earth. Perhaps a few caves that look like this. If I am in a cave then there must be an exit. If I can go out and find a town or village I can probably know where I am. I have to be careful. Maybe the once kidnapped me lives near this place. I should care about the one inside the cave more though.'

While thinking rubbish like that I walked. Hugging the left wall after walking about a 200mtr I saw another source of light. A little reddish in colour. 'Did they make a campfire!', I wondered.

It was not as cold as the room I was in but it was still cold. I could walk properly holding the heavy spear only because of adrenalin. People who know this place won't have that so they will feel the cold. 'If they are there, they will probably talk, If I can listen to that I could learn where they are from and probably see the entrance too', thinking this much I moved.

From cover to cover like a special agent in games. Getting lost in my thoughts I moved closer by 3 covers and stopped dead silent. It was no campfire. A tiger looking thing had its tail on fire. It was walking toward me.

My legs gave out. My heart started beating so fast that I feared it would burst and I would die of heart attack. 'Maybe if I keep real quiet it will go away!' It did go past me then suddenly stopped, looked in my general direction and roared.

My mind went numb, my bladder gave out, my ears were about to burst. I ran. Ran toward the cold room. Piss dripping, I ran. The only thing on my mind was If I could get into the room I would be saved. The hole in the wall was too narrow to fit this monstrosity.

My legs felt like jelly. I could hear footsteps behind me but I was in no condition to look back. It felt like running in front of a truck mowing down everything on its path.

I am a heavy guy, I haven't exercised in a long time yet I was flying like wind. Squeezing everything I had, I ran with one thing in mind. 'If I stop I will die.'

But my best was not good enough. I heard the footsteps getting closer, I could see path lighting ahead of me. Suddenly a jolt ran through me and without thinking anything I jumped In front of a cover. I looked back and saw the tiger jump. I wanted to run but was too slow to get up.

The tiger did not seem to care about the pillar I took cover behind and slammed onto it. Pillar broke, debris flying everywhere, in that mix something hit my legs, hard. The force flew me through the air and pasted me on the wall.

Slipping down on my own blood I fell from the wall, only a few meters away from the tunnel. The spear fell from my hand. I could not think straight. Pain took over my body. I tried to crawl, but found no strength to do so. Then came the 2nd round of pain. I looked at my leg, they were really jelly now.

Pulling them in front of me, greeting my teeths, I sat up. Looking at the disoriented tiger I thought to myself. 'If I was to transport in a fantasy world this is how it probably would have turned out.' I can't even live in front of a normal tiger whose tail is on fire at that. It is in pain and not behaving like a predator at all. The tiger looked at me, and started walking.

______________

I lived as a coward. There were a lot of things I did not like and lots of people too. I was too afraid to give them a piece of my mind. Maybe the anticipation of consequences stopped me from doing so but that was to be expected. You can't really hit a teacher just because he wronged you in a minor way. A fear of losing things that are yours. A fear of death in the long term perhaps.

I don't feel that fear now. I am a dead man hanging on the last thread. Looking at the oversized cat walking toward me all I felt was anger. Toward me, toward the tiger, toward whoever that orchestrated this.

Isn't it wired? Me the guy who thinks of dying every time he gets any kind of setback in life but never followed it through due to fear. To just accept it. I should be screaming, begging to the tiger to not eat me. Instead here I am just waiting for my death.

Oh! I remember now. Fenrir was dead. No one could figure out what kind of disease he was suffering from. We only found out about it after he had passed away. Pesticide poisoning. The dog that never wanted to eat anything but meat died due to eating pesticide.

Life is funny that way. The girl I loved for 6 years left me. Then asked me to meet with her on the day my dog died. When I reached there I saw a text message saying "you don't need to come". I still waited for her only to find out she had left with someone else.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. The one person I could seek some comfort in that situation, fucked me over thoroughly.

Mother and sister were crying the whole day. I could not cry in front of them. If I cried who would support them. I held back all I could. After convincing them to sleep I went to my room, closed the door and everything went dark.

When I opened my eyes, here I was. In this dingy dungeon.

I dragged the spear toward my side. Placing its bottom on the wall behind me. The tiger did not notice. It was too hungry to do so. It got closer and closer, then started running and jumped. My hair stood on its end but no cold sweat ran through my back.

I am a dead man and I have accepted it. When the tiger came flying closer I saw it clearly for the first time. It was huge.

"More room to hit."

In a moment it will be my turn. Calculating the tigers flight trajectory I lifted my spear up with both my hands aiming toward its mouth. At that moment I looked at my death in the eye. My mind was in a mess. There were a lot of feelings I was going through.

I was sad, anxious, desperate, angry. So angry that I could rip the heavens if anger was the only thing that was needed but I was glad, fear was not one of them. I overcame one of my most overwhelming weaknesses in my moment of death.

I am proud of it. Probably the only thing worth celebrating in my life. I was a disappointment for my father. I cared about that a lot in the past. Then I gave up. Nothing satisfied him. Ever. If it was now I could have told him to do one.

"Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh"

Roaring my lungs out I braced myself for the impact. My spear tip moved through the open mouth hitting the roof of its upper jaw. The shaft snapped in half and the tiger head fell on my leg.

"I did it."

Euphoria ran through my body. Soon hopelessness crept in.