"Welcome To The Dungeon!" That little message had assaulted my eyes, the brightness glaringly contrasting within the utter darkness of my room at night; wrapped under my duvet somewhere around midnight, I'd downloaded an app. I'm still not sure if I should regret having that app. There was a popular rumor in my school that if you downloaded "Dungeon" you'd vanish. Of course something like this glanced off as little more than superstition to me: yet I had to check. As of now, I have decided the rumours were right; the install hit 100%, that message popped up then suddenly my vision went white.

It was odd. The warmth of my bed was utterly gone, cold now.

A throbbing sensation burst through my head, unable to resist, an overbearing groan escaped my lips. It took a few seconds as my own eyes snapped open and glanced around. It was apparent that I was located inside a cave, the rough stone scraped at my knees and caused small but deep enough to bleed grazes as I picked myself up off of the freezing floor.

Then a tap. Another. And another, louder this time: then finally, a snarl. It felt as if everything had suddenly become even colder than it was earlier, my hair was on end as my body spun around to face what I instinctively knew was a threat.

Something shocked me. The demonic, otherworldly presence that sent shivers down my spine and almost immobilised me was... A 2-foot tall humanoid creature with a pointed snout and angular jaws. It was thin and wore a tribal-stylised feathered headdress like a hairband on it's protruding forehead. It snarled, but it reminded me of an angry, anorexic dwarf. I burst out laughing. An action I would regret. The small creatures eyes widened, seeming even larger than their already massive, pure black shape. They glistened in the darkness.

When I say darkness, it wasn't quite darkness; my eyes could see perfectly well for a few meters radius around me, then utter darkness. Something must've been wrong however; not a single light was in this dank cave, yet I was able to view everything in perfect clarity around me. Yet these pitch black eyes glistened back. The creature was salivating as it stood there and stared. A shock like thunder boomed through my spine as my nerves began to tingle. There it was. It wasn't just one pair of deep black eyes that looked back at me. No, some hung from the walls, others just at the borders of my vision. But one thing I knew, there were dozens. Just one was laughable, but altogether, I could sense this hordes killing intent. My muscles tensed and bones froze.

A thought came to me as they advanced slowly.

I am going to die.

I am going to die now.

I am going to die, yet I have no idea where I am.

The scuttling was replaced by frenzied screams, so close that vile air forced it's way into my nostrils from the first creatures vomit-inducing breath. The world seemed to slow to a snail-like pace, every tiny sound was clear to me. Claws moving through the air, the growls of the deadly dwarfish creatures, the gentle drip of water as droplets crashed to the solid, un-porous floor.

Then a new sound, violent and wrapped with the occasional clink and clank of metal, like a knight running in heavy armour. The feral screams of the beasts continued for a few milliseconds, though the sound was much deeper and guttural, desperate in fact. Then the screams stopped, and something warm splashed onto my face with odd force.

The smell sickened me, it trickled onto my lips and to my tongue, slow. The taste hit me, coppery. Blood!

My eyes snapped open to glare at the figure that stood before me. The creatures no longer moved. Everything seem to be tinted a light crimson. Darker shaded droplets dropped off the glimmering edge of a thin, angelically white blade. Held by a paler girl in a white garb, similar to that of a clergymen. She glanced at me once, then a throb pounded through my chest. It felt like my heart was about to stop. Tears welled up as my vision kept growing darker and smaller, eyes closing every few seconds at a slow pace. Blackness came again. Now nothing. Nothing.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Nothing but blackness in this unusual cave.

Nothing but blackness in this dungeon...

----------------------------------------

Light came again, the throbbing in my head and chest still hadn't stopped and my vision was hazy, everything was a little blurred. Eventually, I truly came to. The room was warm, much unlike my previous location in that dank hellhole of a cave. The memory burst back, the creatures in the cave that attacked me, and the mysterious girl that ended them. I sighed before pulling myself out of an odd bed; it was smaller than I remember. As a matter of fact, it looks to be daytime outside... And I could swear my bedroom had always been on the the top floor of my house, not the bottom.

A nervous laugh escaped me. I simply mumbled out aloud

"This isn't my house is it"

"No, no I don't believe it is"

"That attack wasn't a dream was it"

"Yet again, I don't believe it was"

"And here I am talking to mysel-"

My body swivelled around and glared at a dark figure in the corner, yet again, I was utterly terrified. It seemed that this person was the one replying, and I was not talking to myself.

Naturally, I should've known seeing as the voice was obviously meek and female, not at all like my own voice. The female stood up out of the shadows, wearing what appeared to be a very slim-fitting business suit. Black with small grey and vertical stripes that streaked down her body, evenly spaced apart.

Now; I must mention that my perception is stupid. Seeing as the first thing I noticed was her clothes, the second was that she was only around 5'8" tall (just shorter than me) and the thing I noticed last! Was the fact that she had the ears of a cat!

I'll assume that the only reason I didn't try to touch her ears was simply because of shock. Since the first thing I said was rather simple "Who the hell are you?!" She was calm about my howling question, simply nodding "Elena Phonse, 27, I am your official advisor"

Naturally, I was suspicious "okay then, if you're my advisor, you should know about me shouldn't you?" She responded with a nod as I continued on "My name?"

"Richard Stonemason, however you currently use your middle name Elijah; if you must use your first, you preffered to be called Ricky"

"My age?"

"16 years and 11 months"

"Date of birth?"

"January 11th 2004"

"Anything else?"

"You're also an anaemic who suffers from depression. You game far too much and only have your father. You currently live alone and work hard to live."

I could do little more than collapse back on the bed in terror "h-how do you know all this!?"

"I'm your advisor" it seemed that was all she was going to tell me about this. I was feeling faint anyways, the throbbing still persisted, no more time to ask questions. Blackness came again.

I'm not quite sure how long it's been, Elena would sometimes be there, sometimes I was alone, though one time there was someone else, standing at the the foot of my bed staring.

Elena came again today. Telling me my wounds had been healed; yet I had no memory of any wounds. All but that odd throbbing. Today would be the first day I left this room as well; Elena had stubbornly refused to tell me a thing about anything.

The new source of light was aggressive and painful; my head hurt again and I blinked several times before my vision adjusted to the light. The first thing I did was look straight upwards to the sky. Except I saw no clouds or vast blue plains. No, a circle of white sunlight, though vast in diameter was rather disappointing. In comparison to the dark walks that crept up towards it's through the skyline. Yet again, my observational skills irritated me. I took my eyes back to the ground to check my rather uneducated guess. A large tower seemed to spiral up towards the hole of light, when I say large, I mean gargantuan, even a quick glance could tell me it reached something like a few hundred meters up from the current ground level. Yes, because it was apparently obvious that we were not in-fact on the normal surface level, stalactites hung lazily from the darkness overhead. This tower and surrounding city was utterly subterranean, residing in a cavern that appeared to be half of a perfectly spherical shape. Several hundred meters wide as well. A mixture of oil lamps and torches, complimented by all sorts of strangely glowing moss. The whole city was dank and oddly decrepit, but did that really matter?

I guess, this town wasn't as bad as that cave, right?