Who am I?

I take a step back, my eyes are wide with fear and disgust as the thing that reaches, reaches. Give them back. I take a step back, moving away from the encroacher as its meaty tendrils slap all around, as it feels the stones trying to sense the vibrations from my beating heart. What are you? I take another step back and fall over. I fall down onto the ice behind myself, as my foot slips over the edge of the channel. The ice cracks as my heavy armor falls down against it. What are you? What do you want from me?! Who am I, for you to want something, anything from me?!

  The encroacher stiffens up as my body noisily hits the ice and it shifts, quickly sloshing my way as its gray meat compresses in and out as it crawls forward, leaving a slimy mucus trail in its wake. I stare at its pale, maggoty body with harrowed eyes. Why are you following me?! Why… why… Frantically, I kick my feet, sliding away from the short wall as I try to stand back up on the slick ice, my movements acting as a provocation, causing the creature to move faster in my direction. Why do you always come to take everything from me?! Several of its tendrils reach out towards me, lifting up to stop sensing the ground as it reaches, as it reaches for my eyes and as I stare at it, I see nothing. It has no face. It has no eyes. It’s simply a mindless construction of hunger. It simply wants. It simply yearns. It reaches, trying to grab me, the thing in the bad-water reaches, as it tries to take me, as it tries to take my eyes.

  “Give them back!” I yell at it, pressing my lance into the ice as I hold myself steady, before leaping back onto the other side. The ice that had been growing around my ankles, snaps and shatters loudly as I break free from it. “GIVE THEM BACK!” I yell at it. But as the words leave my mouth, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Something itches in my head. Give who back? I came here alone, didn’t I?

I’m just a wandering trash-mob who patrols the dungeon. There’s nobody here but me, right? Haha, yeah. Yeah, you’d tell me if there was someone else here, guy, right? Yeah. I know you would.

  But do you hear that too? That sound? I hear it. It’s buzzing in my skull, I can feel it, I can taste it. There is a warm wind that touches my body, offering a sharp contrast to the frigid cold which has encroached into this part of the dungeon. That single breath of life is wrong, it is out of place and it pushes against me, reminding me that I am the same. Out of place.

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  I feel my cape billowing in its haunting presence, I feel it softly stroke my back as the wind pulls it lightly to the side, as I stare at the maggot encroaching over the frozen channel. Its slow, lumbering movements make it unable to catch up to me in an open space like this. As long as the water flows, it can’t stagnate. As long as there is blood pumping through my body, it can’t stagnate. My arms are shaking, my hands are shaking, my legs are shaking. I need to run. I need to run. If it catches me I’ll… I’ll…

Who… I can’t… my head itches. I want to go. I want to go. I want to go. I want to leave. I want to go. Let me go. Let me out. LET ME OUT!

  It’s calling me. Do you hear it? That humming? That melodiousness tune? It’s calling me from somewhere up on higher, from high, high, high outside of the dungeon. I need to go to it. I need to find it. I need to find it. I need to. It’s important. It’s the most important thing I could ever do.

The lance shakes in my hand as I fight the indomitable urge to jump into battle with the thing that reaches, with the thing that defiles my dungeon-master’s dungeon. I hate it for that. I hate it. I hate it and I won’t forgive it for ruining it all!

But I have to go. This calling is more important.

  Turning, my cape billowing in the soft breeze, I run. Because that’s what… that’s what… that’s what… my body spasms as something runs through me, an energy, a strong feeling that I can’t fight, that I don’t want to fight. It feels good. It makes me feel happy, secure, strong. Strong. I need to go, I need to climb. I have to.

I run. I’ve been hanging out here long enough. There’s so much work still left to do, you know? Haha! There’s still so much further to run and time is running out! I have to hurry. I have to.

  I leap, jumping over the next channel and as I fly, I see the colorful remnants of a shimmering crystal, buried deeply beneath the ice. They reflect with a prismatic shine, the ever-present light of the dungeon, sending a shimmering aura up to my eyes that makes me inexplicably happy, as I look at it for a brief second before I land on the other side to continue on with my journey.

  It was such a happy combination of colors, they were so vivid and free. I wonder if colors are so bright up on the surface? A lot of the dungeon is gray and uh… gray. But I like colorful things. I really like purple, you know? I guess green is okay, but I feel like it always ends up being a problem sooner rather than later. I wonder what the dungeon-master’s favorite color is? Maybe I can find something nice for them up on the surface. Maybe they’ll even want to come see it with me?

My boots press against the staircase leading up to the next floor and I spare only a glance back behind myself as I stare back at the encroacher. I feel like I’m forgetting something important, but…

The gentle wind pushes past me, rising up towards the surface and I feel my hand rising up to try and grasp it, as if I were reaching for the warm hand of a mother walking on ahead without me. But my fingers grasp nothing as I lock them closed. My hand is simply… empty.

But that’s okay. I have you, guy and that’s good enough for me. Come on, let’s go, we still have a long ways to go! But at least we’re going together!