I can’t help but feel like a bag of potatoes being jostled around, as she one-handedly carries me over her shoulder, sprinting down the long-hallway. I guess that’s a high level monk for you, not a care in the world. The black-water churns behind us and I watch in disgust as the haunted faces churn and twist inside of the horrible amalgamation. What is this place? This nightmare?

  We round the next corner and return back from the side passage to the large chamber. The floor is a strange, brownish, sedimentary stone that feels more like a heavily compacted dirt than the normal brickwork or rocks that make-up the bulk of this dungeon’s architecture. Except for the great crevice in the middle, the great pool filled with a churning black sludge that sloshes high and wildly around, as if it were a small turbulent ocean, contained in the elongated split.

  “Can you do it?” asks BMMMM, speaking to me. I look down at the source of the corruption. Just behind us, the wave crashes around the corner, leaving the hallway too and sending a large part of itself crashing down to mix back in with the rest of the sludge. But a substantial amount manages to grab on, to catch itself as the little splattering feet continue their pursuit of us. Can I? I look down to the churning sea, filled with the faces of a thousand anguishing dead. My eyes catch a glimmer of flickering light on the other side of the pool, just past the purple fog.

The black-water is catching up to us fast. We aren’t going to make it to the others if the path doesn’t converge back together soon. “N-no, it’s too much for me a-alone,” I tell her, my words stuttering as her shoulder presses into my gut.

Her fingers press tighter down, hurting me a little and she runs faster. I wish she wouldn’t always squeeze me so hard, I bruise easily. “Do a small one then!”

Looking back to the lost souls that are chasing us, I raise my hand, filling it with the magical energies I have been blessed with and form a single, small crystal-shaped white-magic that floats just before my palm. “It’s ready!”

  She stops, sliding forward a foot before spinning us around with her leg raised, her boot kicking the floating crystal of magical residue, shattering it in an instant. She lands from her pirouette, and bracing her knees, continues running in what I would personally surmise as a great feat of physical fitness. I watch, a little dizzy, as in a second the crystal behind us shatters into a thousand slivers of fine, razor-sharp glass that slice through the air, pelting through the goo like a hail-storm, as they splash and slice through the wave of oozie goblins behind us. Hundreds of holes cut through them, through their faces, through their eyes as the offensive white-magic cuts them to shreds, sending their mass down into an indiscriminate pile of goo that stops moving for a time. Some of it drips back down, into the crevice. Returning to the rest of the damned souls. But there are more than goblins. I see their faces too inside of the mixture.

I grit my teeth, suppressing my disgust. What a horrible place this is. How could people take a willing part in making this hell?!

We stop. She sets me down. “Shit!”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I look where she is gazing, the path is broken ahead of us, as if a piece of it had simply fallen off years ago and fallen down into the sludge. It’s a dead end. There’s nowhere to go now. The other end is too far to jump. For me at least.

“Can you make a platform?” she asks, turning to me.

I look at the gap and shake my head. “I only know how to make vertical walls.”

  The pile of goo behind us begins recombobulating itself. I watch as the sludge pulls itself slowly together, the wretched bodies and the distorted faces beginning to reform as they watch us, as they reach for us. The sludge climbs up from the crevice, the black-water climbs up, mixing together. A hundred dead faces reach out towards us, only to be pulled back into the depths of the goo by a hundred more that are pressing their screaming visages forward. All of them scream, but no sound comes out. Nothing comes out but a strange, wet dribble. There’s something in the water. There’s something…

  She’s not going to leave me behind, that dumb-ass. She can make the jump, but not with me. I’m just a cleric, one of a dozen that came down with them. Now I’m the last one, all the others having been lost on the way, my fellow brothers taken by the darkness of the dungeon deep. I clench my fists and begin building my energies again as the black-water slowly crawls forward. We have to purify this place, we have to cleanse it, before the rot spreads. Before it reaches the surface.

  She calls across the gap, trying to get the attention of the rest of the party. “SCRIIEE!” She calls out towards the ring of fiery explosions happening on the other side of the chasm, off in the vague distance. “SCRIE!” she calls again, somewhat annoyed. But the wizard can’t hear us, over the sound of their own fight. They can’t hear us under the rushing ambiance of the water, the drone that goes B-

  “SCRIE! DAMN IT!” yells the monk, interrupting my thoughts and she punches the wall in frustration. It cracks along the length, sending a handful of small rocks and bricks flying down, splashing as they land. But no response comes, save for a flashing of lights and the sounds of distant explosions. Ah, bless her heart, I say a small prayer in my mind as I look at her flashing eyes that shine with life and fury. Divine in their own way, perhaps not in a manner that is hallow or sanctified or even dignified. But sacred nonetheless. Elegant in a brutish sort of way. My eyes twitch, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.

But she doesn’t have to, you know, guy? You know? She doesn’t have to know.

  The black-water comes closer. I start chuckling, and then I lean over forward, holding my knees as they buckle; as I start laughing louder now. Howling. My gut hurts, but I keep laughing. I can’t get air. I laugh. She doesn’t know! Can you imagine, guy? Can you imagine not knowing?! I wheeze, trying to get some air, but I can’t stop.

  “Hey! Hey!” The monk grabs my shoulders firmly. “Snap out of it! Did the poison get you?!” she asks, shaking me, but I just laugh harder at her face. It looks so worried! Haha! Can you imagine?! I catch my breath as fast as I can, I need to ask her. I need to. There isn’t much time left. But I need to know. I need to. I have to be sure.

“Hey- hey…” I ask her between my frantic breaths, as I look at her round, pristine eyes that shimmer, not with fear but with a deep concern. They’re beautiful eyes you know, guy? They shine. They shine! I want them. I want them… “What color is your underwear?”

A knee hits me in the gut and I keel forward, but not out of pain. I’m still laughing, even with the air knocked out of me, I still laugh and wheeze. She doesn’t know! She doesn’t know! I cry out of laughter, out of the absurdity of it all.

“SCRIE!” she calls out again over the chasm. But there is still no response. I look up to her, feeling bad. Feeling very bad. The white magic has finished growing around my fingers. The black-water is here.

“Hey, BMMMM,” she looks at me, getting ready to push me to the side to protect me once again. I smile at her. “Thanks for being my friend again.”

  I clench my fist, the wall of white magic shoots up out of the ground, separating us. The black-water rushes around myself, smashing against the barrier as it swallows me whole. The last thing I see as the world goes dark are her worried eyes, as she smashes against the window. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know!

My body dissipates, the strange goo burning me into a vague indiscriminate mass as I am taken, as I become a part of the well of souls. It hurts. Everything turns dark as she screams.

I wish she wouldn’t.