“Really, dear guest, what are you hoping to accomplish now?” The voice asked with exaggerated confusion.

Jake ignored the disembodied voice that haunted him from every direction and dug through the pile of rubble left by the collapsed brick wall, hoping she may lay buried under the rubble. Yet there was no one there. Standing upright, legs shaky from his exhaustive search as hunger gripped his body, he screamed down the dark path exposed behind the collapsed wall,

“ALICE!” Yet no response came. All his screaming did was aggravate his throat, withered and begging for a drink. It tore from Jake's efforts to scream in search of Alice, causing him to double over and cough up blood. Panic gripped tight at the center of Jake's chest as he spun around wildly, hoping to find any trace of where Alice could have been dragged off to, but he found nothing save for the endless repeating stone of the corridor.

He didn’t know what to do anymore as he gripped the side of his head, struggling to calm himself down. He’d promised her he’d keep her safe, promised her he’d help her find somewhere to call home. It was all his fault she was here, all his fault she was lost alone with this sadistic voice. Guilt at dragging her here clawed through his body, yet more than that, wild desperation to find her took route in his mind when he realized he was once more alone.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on having someone else to talk to, walk with, laugh with. Even if he'd only known her a short while, her absence stung him now he was alone once more. He’d enjoyed having someone else understand what it was like to constantly be alert, constantly have to be ready to leave the entire world at a moment’s notice. Now alone once more, the crushing reality of his situation only made his guilt at losing her worse and momentarily sent him spiraling. The voice said nothing, seeming to enjoy watching him stumble about in silent agony. Finally, Jake could take it no more and set off into a sprint into the dark past the broken wall in hopes of finding at least some clue about where Alice could be hiding.

“Dear guest, what do you think you're doing? That’s the wrong direction, you must understand, yes? Why are you so intent on disobeying directions, dear guest, even your gracious host has a limit to how much it will tolerate. Surely you understand, right, dear guest? Answer me, dear guest…” The voice spoke first with amusement at Jake's sprint, needling him to get him to turn around, yet as Jake continued on, he found the tone of the voice grew colder and colder till its every word sent chills radiating through Jake’s skeleton leaving him frozen in place.

“I said ANSWER ME!” The voice spoke, distorting into a sound like scraping gears and rusting metal. Jake found his body raked in pain; his pores seemed to be exploding, and his innards felt like they were forcing their way out through his flesh with every move he made. Falling to his knees, Jake let out panting cries of pain as the voice continued to chastise him in haunting, distorted speech,

“I tolerated your disobedience for the time being because it amused me, but ‘dear guest’,” The last words dripped sarcasm as the sounds of the voice seemed to close in around Jake's head “You will learn to obey me, you will learn to answer me, and you will learn to respond to me. Otherwise…”

The sounds of the voice faded away as suddenly Jake felt some cold and soft grip around his neck. In the darkness of the corridor, he couldn’t clearly see what held him, but soon, his torso and legs were bound as well. Slowly, he felt himself being dragged downward. Trying to resist the pull of whatever held him as much he could, Jake tried to rip himself free, but the ever-increasing power of what gripped him slowly choked the life out of him till he lay flat on the floor, unable to breathe.

“Otherwise, dear guest, what use have I for you as a plaything?” Suddenly, Jake felt his body being pulled further downward into the floor as the stone seemed to give way like water. Jake tried to squirm and keep his head above the stone, but he was held too tightly to move, and soon his mouth, his nostrils, and even his eyes flooded with liquid stone. It seemed to burn his throat and choke what oxygen he had left out from his body. Gagging and sputtering dragged completely under the floor; Jake was trapped, immobile, waiting to drown.

Suddenly, he lay flat on his back. His eyes were blinded, wherever he lay now was lit incredibly brightly, the contrast so great between the dark of the corridor before he was left stunned. Eventually, his senses slowly returned, and sitting up, he looked around to find himself lying in a circular room with no entrances or exits and a rounded roof high above his head.

“I’ll forgive you this time, dear Jake,” The voice returned, distracting Jake from looking around the room much further as he sat with a start at realizing the voice had called him by name. “I can understand how hard it must be, traveling alone, all that pressure and all the guilt… after all, you did make a promise, right?” The voice became more and more distorted as it spoke, and once it finished, it broke into horrifically twisted cackles that echoed around the room, reverberating back onto each other in an unending cacophony of mockery.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“How… how do you…” Jake started to ask before a sudden pain that rocked through his body forced him forward to his knees and silenced him.

“I wasn’t done, dear Jake, you really should learn when I want you to speak. It will save us all a bunch of hassle. As I was saying, such a sweet thing to promise, though ultimately probably pointless, don’t you think Jake?”

Jake stayed silent, eyes darting around the room for any hint of where the voice might be or what it could want.

“I asked you a question, Jake, see, this is what I’m talking about…” The voice said, letting out a sigh, yet it sounded positively giddy with sadistic glee as another shockwave of pleasure radiated out through Jake's body.

“It doesn’t really matter what you have to say on the matter, I suppose, dear Jake. I found a couple of extra special guests who are experts when it comes to traveling with you.” The voice finished, monovalent intent clear in its voice as silence followed for a long while. Jake slowly lifted his head from where he sat, expecting to be racked with more pain as soon as he lifted his head, but he was allowed to pull himself upright and stand.

Now, all around the circular room sprawled out lay three bodies in various states of well-being. The worst was a burly man in tattered strips of armor coated in dried blood. No life remained in his body; his chest lay flayed and torn, and his arm was missing from its socket. Next to him lay the corpse of a woman, her hands a cracked, bloody mess covered in gauze. She lay posed, reaching for the armored man, yet her hand fell short of reaching him, falling instead into a pool of her own blood. Across from the two on the other side of Jake, a man in a black cloak sat slumped. His body was covered in scratches, which sent geysers of blood gushing out onto the stone floor. A collection of broken knives lay beside him; one jabbed directly into his throat. Jake stumbled in shocked horror, unsure where to step as he raced away from the decaying corpses of Leopold, Lana, and Rick.

“How… How is this…” Jake stuttered, surveying the room in a daze, unable to properly even vocalize the shock sent to his system.

“Surprised? It took a lot of work to set this whole thing up!” The voice said, sounding quite pleased with itself.

“What… what did you do to them…” Jake said, unable to look properly at their crumbled bleeding forms. Telling himself over and over in his head it must be some trick, some cruel Joke cast by the voice to torture him.

“What did I do? Dear Jake, as your gracious host, I am offended! I did nothing to them, why, this was all you!”

“What, what are you talking about…” Jake asked despite himself, not wanting to hear what lies the voice had to say.

“It’s simply tragic, really…” The voice began, his tone betraying anything but a sense of tragedy, “After you left on your way, these three just couldn’t cope on their own. Too banged up to survive. That one over there, what was his name? Ralph? Ray? Randy?”

“…Rick…” Jake muttered, giving in to the voices taunting.

“Ah, well, it doesn’t matter much anymore. He’s not using it anymore. Rick tried his best, but, in the end, he couldn’t do much on his own, and they all ended up dying. Rick was the last to go, too traumatized by the other's death. Cut his own throat.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Jake said, covering his ears, trying his best to ignore the voices taunting words ever circling him.

“I know it’s hard to accept, but it’s the truth. I tried my best to get them here earlier. I wanted to have a nice surprise for one of my dear special guests, but I was just too late. Can’t you ever forgive your gracious host?” The voice finished, the final question asked in a tone begging for forgiveness, though its sincerity was undercut by the cackling that followed soon after.

Jake buried his head on the floor and felt the sticky sensation of blood congealing to his hair. He didn’t want to see this, wanted to ignore this. It had to be some horrid trick designed to torture and tear him apart. It had to be; Rick had assured them they would be fine. It had to be. Jake buried his head deeper into the stone floor, trying ever harder to reassure himself of the inauthenticity of the scene around him and ignore the guilt and fear he felt at leaving the trio behind.

“Surely you can see my point though, right dear Jake?” The voice continued, ignoring Jake's desperate attempts to block it out. “If these three died while traveling with you, three seasoned warriors, then what chance do you and Alice have all on your own, hmm? Especially you, dear Jake. Not to be rude, but since you two are separated now, which one of you do you think will last the longest? A girl who spent her whole life surviving in a concentration camp? Or you, Jake, bawling your eyes out and crawling around on the ground over nothing.”

Jake raised his head, hoping to retaliate, but was shocked to find the circular room filled with the trio’s corpses gone. Instead, he was back next to the crumbled wall where Alice had disappeared. Reaching his hand up, he felt even the trio's blood sticking to the top of his hair was gone now.

“I mean no offense, dear guest, but I know who my money's on.” The voice said before sending out sharp cackles that seemed to cause the floor to distort and twist erratically. Jake swallowed a gulp and struggled to pull himself up from the floor as the floor bucked and swayed under him. Finally upright again, Jake looked around for any sign that something was out of place, but everything was the same way he remembered it.

“Now…” The voice said, pulling up close to him and whispering in his ear, “Dear guest, if you’d be so kind as to follow the path, please?”

Jake glanced over his shoulder toward the dark corridor stretching endlessly past the toppled wall and felt a shiver run down his spine. Feeling like living death, he turned away from the dark and dragged his body down after the dimly lit lights that lined the floor.