The things in the Hole reached for him, and Nicolai charged. His Soul was a thing of sharp teeth, tearing nails, and buzzing discs.

But as he rose to meet them he felt the heat of danger, the stench of wrongness, stronger than ever in his life. The occasional, inexplicable impressions he’d always gained, that warned him of danger and other things, activated in a way that seemed for the first time complete and true. An instinct within him that had always been turned to purposes secondary to its true one, now coming alive for the reasons it had always been intended.

The instinct within him told him that he was prey to these creatures. They were stronger than him and could not be defeated, not in a straight up fight, not like this. At the same time a wash of desperate hunger rang through him, body and Soul, a clenching emptiness that had always been there but which he had only just for the first time become truly aware of. A hunger.

These beings were full of what he desired, but he was too weak.

Nicolai fled, and they reached for him. Tendrils lined with jagged teeth spiralled after him, looking to cut him off. They were fast. He didn’t know how to move—but the instinct did. The instinct rose through him and he moved like a fish, darting through the muddy stuff of this realm, slipping around grasping tendrils.

He found the hole and on this side it looked different, it was a strange whirling mass of lines and dots and twisted energy. He pressed into it and felt himself allowed through, and as he went he turned to look behind him, getting one last look at the creatures on the other side of the hole.

They were arrayed around it, around him. But there was something else. There was something behind them, something distant, unseen. All he could see were the parts of it that reached for the beings. It reached into them like they tried to reach into him. It puppeteered them. It felt of cold and implacable will, of eternity.

Nicolai slammed through the hole and he was back in himself, his body sucking in a great breath of air, his eyes bursting open. He was sat amidst corpses. Beth and Jo were staring at him and saying something but the words meant nothing. The world spun and twisted dizzily around him as he felt the hole pressed from the other side, as once more strange limbs reached into him and lanced into the darkness.

Urges and delusions spun through his mind and trembled his body but Nicolai was ready this time and he felt his lips move as he chanted Control in his mind.

He pulled and tore the dark, trying to draw it from his Soul. He started pressing it into the cage, doing his best to tighten the hole.

But he felt it immediately as they came after him, an energy and an influence that reached out from the hole and the into the darkness that infused him. Snarling, he ripped it away from himself, tore it out of his Soul and stuffed it back into the cage and left it there, where it sat, drinking the strange juices that came through the hole.

Being infused with the will of alien beings that wanted nothing good for him.

He was pretty sure that the only reason he’d gotten away after diving through the hole was that he’d surprised them. As a result they hadn’t reacted in time to seize him before his rapid retreat.

What was the instinct that had led him to retreat? The warning? The hunger? How did he know these things? Why did it feel like a part of him was designed to live in that world he had seen? It was the darkness, but it was a different side of it. One he had only seen hints of before. He’d always thought it was more than just some demented urge. It could be useful. It was important.

These beings, on the other side of the hole, they were using the darkness in some way. Reaching into him through it. The darkness was tied to the hole. It was all connected. He just couldn’t quite understand, he didn’t have the vocabulary or the background. But these things must be tied to this world, Nightmare. Never in the past, on Earth, had it affected him so. He considered that thought uncertainly. No, there had been a time it ruled him. But back then he felt sure it had not been this developed. He’d had no Soul, and thus it had all been something abstract, a simple madness within him.

He could ask Maric. He was finding increasing limits on Kleos’ understanding of the world. But the skeleton was well-read, some kind of scholar always in search of new information. Perhaps it would know. Was that why the dark… no, the beings on the other side of the hole, was this why they had wanted him to kill Maric?

Nicolai heard a popping noise and the world came back into clarity around him.

‘Is this why I wanted to…’ his mouth was mumbling. He closed it with a snap, swallowing and looking around. In the back of his mind he could feel the cage and the dark and the hole, shifting and squirming.

He looked to the side, seeing the girls.

Beth’s mouth hung half-open, a kind of pitying contempt mixed with astonishment on her face. Jo was chewing at her lip, avoiding his eyes, and the fear and concern he sensed from her made his Mask clench up tight with horror.

He needed to explain himself, somehow. What had he been doing? Sitting there talking to himself? And before that. The rage. His eyes found a broken corpse beside him. He could ignore the matter of what he’d just been through, internally. They couldn’t have seen much. But they’d definitely seen him lose himself and vent his rage on the dead man. His Mask whined that he needed some kind of explanation.

He looked up at them, words coming to mind. ‘I really wanted to turn into mist,’ he said from the ground. They stared blankly at him. Maybe not the right words? He struggled to be sure. Part of him was still spiralling about the hole and the dark. His mouth kept moving. ‘You know. Like the undead did. It used an Imbued. I wanted the Imbued. So I could turn into mist.’ A spike of rage ran through him as he remembered what had happened and an angry laugh burst out of him. ‘And this,’ he gestured to the bloody remnants of the short man, ‘ruined it.’ He felt the anger attempting to worm back through him and he shot to his feet. Jo flinched and took a step backwards, while Beth just cocked an eyebrow. He gave them a reassuring smile and found himself moving as his body started pacing randomly.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

‘I’m sorry about all that. That… it doesn’t represent me.’ He puffed his cheeks and blew air, adopting a pensive expression. ‘I, uh…’ He struggled with himself, with his Mask, with the darkness squirming in its cage and trying to come back out. For some reason he wanted to laugh. He could feel their gazes. Accusatory. Judging. ‘I mean, you can understand, right?’ he gabbled. ‘We were about to beat that thing!’ There was a whine in his voice and he loathed himself for it.

Beth shrugged. ‘Yeah, sure. Just… bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?’ She sighed and lowered her gun, then let out a snort. ‘I mean, what was that?’ She moved her hand, as though holding something, twisted like she was swinging it. ‘Bastard! Fuck you!’ She was mimicking when he’d slammed the corpse into the wall. She let out a peal of laughter. ‘Holy fuck, man.’ She was mocking him.

‘Beth,’ hissed Jo, who didn’t look anything like as relaxed. She was holding her rifle tight, and watching him very carefully.

Nicolai stared at Beth, an honest smile working its way onto his face. She had no fear of him, none of at all. Doubtless because of the Contract. Happiness emanated from his Mask, along with its relief. She’d seen his… loss of composure and merely mocked him, where others might have been terrified.

Or maybe it hadn’t been that bad? Maybe his reaction was normal? It had felt entirely warranted. He shook his head. Probably not.

Definitely not, said his Mask.

He chuckled, deciding that he deserved a little mockery. It didn’t bother him. And anyway, he couldn’t kill her because of the Contract.

‘An overreaction. Indeed. Yes.’

‘We still got the books,’ said Jo. ‘That’s what all this was about, wasn’t it?’

‘Very true!’ Nicolai pointed at her. ‘Very good point!’ He slapped his fist into his palm. ‘Today was a good day,’ he announced. Best move on quickly. ‘You both did very well.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘Let’s take their shit and head home. At least the undead has been sent packing. Eh? Haha.’ His lips screwed up in a quick wince. Humans didn’t say “haha” they just laughed.

Jo was looking a little calmer, like he might’ve actually convinced her, or at least that she’d decided not to press him, but Beth was now busy staring and frowning at the of the corpses.

‘Hey… don’t these guys look familiar?’ There was a look of dawning horror on her face. ‘Shit, I think we traded with them a few days ago!’ Her eyes were on a dead woman. ‘They seemed an alright bunch,’ she mumbled, face creased with burgeoning horror and guilt; as though she’d just realised that the bodies were real.

Nicolai followed her gaze, frowning at the corpses. They were blood and bone and meat and he was glad they were dead. They deserved to be dead. They’d cost him the Guardian’s Imbued. His teeth gritted as he fought yet another lunge of fury back down. He could feel the dark twitching, slowly winding out of its cage, filled with manipulative urges. The corpses were making faces at him. He knew they were only pretending to be alive but it upset him regardless and he found himself frozen, swamped with confusion.

‘I talked with her, back then,’ said Beth, pointing to the dead woman who was now sticking her tongue out at him. Beth looked increasingly upset. ‘I’m pretty sure I shot her, just now. We talked about—’

She was interrupted by the random noise he let out, a combination between a scoff and a snort. He’d been shocked into action; disturbed by the idea that killing these people—a killing which was obviously one-hundred percent justified—might have some kind of negative fallout he would have to expend further time and energy dealing with, just when it’d seemed like he’d recovered from his momentary lapse and pulled the girls back on side. That seemed fundamentally wrong, a kind of total madness. The corpses were nodding at Beth’s words, and he struggled against the urge to stomp on their faces.

‘What? You feel bad? Are you serious? They tried to rob us and this is the result. They practically killed themselves.’ She glared at him and the corpses glared at him, and he glared back at all of them. ‘We didn’t set out to kill them,’ he continued, warming to the line of reasoning, ‘They committed suicide when They… attacked… Us.’

‘So, uh, we sold them those guns?’ interjecting Jo, clearly trying to move things along before an argument could break out. That was wise. That was what he should be doing.

Nicolai shrugged, doing his best to keep his face a blank mask, knowing he was failing to some degree. The dark was still trying to use the dumb rage as a way out of its cage. He’d sold these fuckers their guns and they’d turned them on him! They’d—no, no. Calm. He realised then that he was still spiralling, still halfway out of control.

‘These things happen,’ he said, as much to himself as to the others, trying to centre himself and regain control over the emotions, and all of a sudden the words were pouring out of him.

‘No point crying about it. We’re selling guns for our own purposes. There are risks involved in arming people and sometimes doing so might cause unavoidable and unexpected problems for us, but it is still our current best strategy to gain funds and influence. One cannot have both the fish and the bear’s paw. In truth, robbing at gun-point is not particularly unusual or evil in the current situation. If we were in their position we might have done the same. But it does not matter; we must react swiftly to threats such as this. The swing of a sword cannot cut the mist from the sky. They are—’

‘The swing of a sword cannot cut the mist from the sky?’ came a voice, momentarily silencing him. He glanced to the side and saw it was Beth, staring at him incredulously. ‘What are you talking about?’

Nicolai subjected her to a blank stare while his thoughts turned in random circles, before he reconnected to his previous line of thinking. He stabbed a finger in her direction, imagining he was parrying her words.

‘They are they and we are we,’ he announced, and his finger slashed left and right. You! Stand! No! Chance! ‘We must come first. Attack is the best form of defence. Perhaps they weren’t entirely bad people but what is done is done. My reaction should have been calmer, but their killing is justified either way. It is illegal to charge employees for loss, breakage, shortage, etc. These are considered a cost of doing business. Ultimately: it is what it is. He is victorious who knows when and when not to fight. We have lost the Guardian and its Imbued but at least we have their weapons and equipment to sell on. This is not a total loss. The event is over and it is time to move on. We are victorious. I am victorious.’

And at last, he found himself truly calm, truly relaxed, the darkness and the rage put to bed.

He smiled. Another beautiful day. I’m alive.

Ignoring the utter confusion of Jo and Beth, Nicolai’s gaze turned to the corridor, to where he’d last seen the undead running. No sign of it, now. They ought to loot quick before it came back to resume tailing them; he doubted it’d been scared off for good, and it would become a significant problem if it successfully tailed them back to the safe place.

He’d see about coming back to the Library to take it down, and soon. Tomorrow. He wanted those Imbued and it would take more than this setback to keep them from his hands.

He now needed to study and learn as much as he could of the dark, the cage, the hole. He needed to know what those creatures on the other side were, what it all represented. Maric was his current best chance.

Once they’d returned and he’d examined the books, he would interrogate the skeleton.