Deacon did not know how he got here. Surrounded by nothing but dank cave walls dripping with water black as ink, the only sounds to be heard his heart beating in his chest, the breath wheezing out of his lungs. The dripping of water is a constant drone within his mind.

“Where the fuck am I?” The last thing he remembered was going to sleep after a night out at pub. He didn’t even drink that much!

“HELLO” he shouted out, his voice reverberating back at him, there was something unsettling about. It did not sound like just an Echo…It almost sounded like someone was calling back sounding just like him. He needed to leave.

Taking stock of his surroundings, the maw of darkness surrounding him taking his sight, he stumbled around. Pawing out, trying to feel his surroundings. The ground was slimy. Unnaturally cold.

It felt like the very ground was trying to suck the life out of him. Suddenly he felt a change on the cave floor, an indent within the stone, filled with a viscous substance. Feeling around him, he came to the chilling realisation that he was surrounded by an inscription, his body lying in the centre.

“What the fuck is this. HELLO! This isn’t funny, can someone help me out of here! PLEASE!”

From his back right within his ear, damn near causing is eardrum to explode he heard

“PLEASE~”

Like pouring water down his back a voice uncanny in its mimicry of his own, yet distinctly wrong in a primal way, wretched out.

“WHO THE FUCK!” With a startled shout Deacon recoiled from the direction, his own voice shouted at him. With a clang and a rattle, a beat-up oil lantern was thrown in front of him, a soft barely there glow within the confines of the glass and iron.

Deacon was terrified, the light was both a source of overbearing dread and beacon of hope. The light itself being a source of safety, offering him his most prized faculty back, but the indication of it being thrown, its sudden unfathomable appearance and his own distorted voice being where it came from left him sweating.

He wasn’t alone. Adrenaline instantly flooded his body, scampering backwards on his hands and knees, Deacon tried to get away. Get as far away as possible from that voice, that familiar voice he hears everyday when he talks to himself. He knew in the depth of his being that, whatever mimicked him was not something he wanted to face. That whatever it is. Was not a friend.

Have you ever had that feeling of dread? A feeling of being watched? That sudden fear you get when walking down a deserted street in the dark on your way home. Or that sinking feeling you get looking down a darkened hallway? Your hind brain screaming that something is there, that if you do not run. If you do not run to the light. Then some thing will get you? That was all Deacon felt. Except this time. There was no running to the light.

His back was against the wall. Chest heaving, his lungs burned with the force of his rapid breaths. Deacon’s head was splitting, blood was rushing through him faster than ever before, he could hear it in rushing in his ears. His heart doing a marathon it has never done before. The lantern stayed there, the violence of its entry past. It was almost innocent, the soft glow it cast. The flame flickering gently. Weakly. Like it was dancing its last dance. The illumination was barely there, not enough to see past 6 feet. The darkness was unnatural in how oppressive it was, it swallowed the light. Devouring it slowly. Like a siege unrelenting. He needed it. No matter that terror its existence brings, he needed that light.

Deacon prepared himself, getting into a crouch, ready to spring from his position, he waited. Listening for thirty seconds, as he refused to just sit there and wait, he looked at the location the lantern came from. Nothing. No movement. No sounds. It was if nothing was there at all. But he knew, knew that something was there. Watching. Playing with him. He wouldn’t stand it.

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With more force than he knew he was ever capable of he flew towards the lantern at an angle. Nearly losing his balance as he leaned down to hook the handle with his fingers, he clutched the source of light to his chest, protecting it, and he ran.

“IIIIIIIIIITTTTTSSSS MMMMIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNE”

He booked it. Whatever threw the lantern was not found of sharing it seems. Rocks shattered behind him, the whoosh of air that hit his head a moment later told him that he just nearly lost his head. Deacon barely saw anything in front of him, holding out the lantern just offered a chance to see if his end awaited him as a dead end that little bit sooner, rather than smashing face first into him. The tunnels sides were completely gone now, it was as if he was running on the bottom of an abyss. The only thing to be seen is the black ridged rocks beneath his trainers.

There was no sound behind him. Nothing that gave the sign he was being chased. But he knew that it was right behind him. That feeling of existential dread was stronger than ever. At least he had an indication that he was more fucked than ever. Not like he needed a sudden sixth sense to tell him that. Deacon was starting to get tired. He could feel the coming onset of cramps, the muscles in his legs rapidly approaching their limit, the lactic acid building up was becoming too much.

He started to stumble, he could feel the mirth of the creature behind him, could feel its joy at his weakness. With a final stumble he was done, he fell, rolling on his side to lessen the impact he tried to spring up, barely managing to get one foot up in a kneel. Finally, he beheld it. The creature that haunted his steps, that caused such terror to flood his soul just being in its presence. Gaunt, pale and naked. Its form was a caricature of the human form, it loomed over his six-foot frame, standing at least a foot and a half above him. Its limbs were wrong, skinny arms, so long they reached its knees, tipped with yellow and blackened nails, six inches long. Legs that look like twigs, crooked as if it had multiple knees.

But its face. Its face was the true terror. It was his. A warped depiction of him with a small that tore across the creature’s skull from ear to ear, its smile holding too many teeth, as if its mouth was overfull. The were brutish looking, square and blunt. The kind you see on Herbivorous creatures, yet that dark red coagulated looking liquid upon its teeth told otherwise. It opened its mouth and whispered.

“It’s Mine”.

In a flash, the entity slashed out its claws, in one movement it ripped the lantern that was still clutched in white grip and slashed through his chest. Five bloody rends instantly opened spraying blood through the air. The light of the lantern making it sparkle, in the reflection of the creatures’ eyes, the sheer joy it radiated from seeing the life liquid was palpable. Yet that joy quickly gave way to rage. They creatures blow, strong enough to shatter stone had sent him flying through the darkness, flying straight over an edge that was just beyond the lanterns light. So, Deacon fell. The raged filled screech of the monster that had sent him to his death filled him with mirth.

“One last fuck you” he thought. He fell rapidly, quickly gaining speed, and even quicker he noticed that walls were forming around him. It seemed like he was falling into the tip of a cone. “Lovely, squished like a juiced lemon”. The pain from his chest had faded, “pretty sure I’m in blood loss induced shock”. It only made sense; his chest had been torn open in five bloody rifts from his right waist all the way to his left shoulder. So, he closed his eyes, the darkness was finally a comfort. All that was left, was to wait.

His darkness was then rudely interrupted by LIGHT, Deacon ripped his eyes open and beheld something terrifying yet breathtaking in its beauty. An entire world of bio-luminescence, the ceiling he had just noticed he fell from was covered in holes, with great lines of rippling pulsating blue veins, illuminating this world. Mountains, plains, he could see great cities and towns, medieval in their make, far in the distance. The world glowed all around upon the land. Yet below him there was nothing. Black. Writhing black was all that was under him. Like a den of snakes twisting and turning, he realised he was falling straight into an ocean darker than ink.

He had no thoughts, no sudden rapid thoughts of how to save himself. He knew that water was lethal from a fall at less than a quarter of the height he fell. He just looked at the world around him. Let the joy of its alien light fill him after the horror of the dark above. Slowly to him, Deacon fell. It felt like an eternity had passed before was nearly at the water. Seconds from impact Deacon looked towards the lights once more and closed his eyes.

.

.

.

Impact.