Jake stood frozen for a moment, unsure what to do before he found the choice stolen from him. The wolf let out a bark, sending spittle and blood flying through the air, before bending low on its hind legs and springing forward with a howl. Falling backward, Jake hastily reached toward his pocket for one of his knives, but he was too slow. The wolf’s fangs dug deep into his shoulder, sending crimson blood spiraling to the floor in a sudden splash of color.
With a scream of pain, Jake flailed against the floor and kicked desperately into the side of the wolf until it released him from its jaws. The wolf retreated, blood, both a crimson and dark black color, stained its maw and dripped from its teeth to the floor. And, with a low, fearsome growl, it let Jake know in no uncertain terms that its attack wasn’t near finished.
Crawling backward across the floor, blood trickling from his freshly wounded shoulder, Jake finally managed to free one of his knives from his pocket and send it flying into the wolf’s chest. The wolf stepped forward, uncaring about the knife carved into its chest before it suddenly froze, stock still. Without another word, it seemed to shift and deform before fading into nothing into the floor below.
“Bravo, dear doll, bravo!” The voice cried, clapping sounds filling the now-branched corridor. “What an excellent start! I knew you wouldn’t disappoint!”
Jake grit his teeth, ignoring the incessant babble of the voice along with his new nickname. Instead, he turned his attention toward his shoulder, gently running his fingers along his new wound before letting out a sharp wince of pain. The wound hadn’t dug too deep into him nor torn too much of his flesh, yet still, it was painful, and without a clear way to bandage his shoulder, a flesh bloodstain was beginning to appear amongst the fabric of his poncho.
“Oh, dear doll, I’m sure a little setback like that won’t stop you, right? Don’t disappoint me now, dear doll…”
Standing back to his feet, slightly unstable in his movements, Jake watched as three more beasts began circling in closer and closer toward him. He couldn’t recognize them as any beast he’d ever seen. They reminded him of anteaters with long elongated snouts, but their limbs were longer, more catlike. Behind those, he could see swarm after swarm of creatures, some familiar, some utterly alien, begin advancing on him. Staggering a bit, Jake drew the remaining knives from his pocket and readied himself for the oncoming onslaught as best he could.
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“Come, dear guest, what could have you so distracted?” The voice asked, circling Alice’s head. Alice shook her head, trying to shake the voice off her as if it were a mist stuck to her skin. Looking around as the voice retreated away from her, a sigh escaped her. Ever since setting off on the path laid out for her by the voice, she’d been trying to find some sort of clue as to where Jake was, yet so far, her search had proved fruitless.
The corridor’s walls were all identical, dim, and dark, with no distinct features she could hope to use as tracking markers. And the sound of the whistle had not rung out again since she’d initially heard it. By now, she’d been made to walk straight without rest for what felt like days on end. In the back of her head, she could feel the voice trying to compile her ailments, trying to magnify her fatigue, hunger, and thirst, and though she found herself somewhat protected from the voice's meddling, the natural cumulative exhaust was starting to hit her. The added exhaust of her search, combined with the continued disappointment as she failed to find anything, wasn't helping matters.
“Dear guest, really, you must think I’m a fool. I know what has you so distracted, what has you so disappointed…” The voice began, and dread took hold of Alice. Nothing good ever followed when the voice began to talk like this.
“You’re looking for someone, aren’t you? How could you not be, with how focused you’ve been recently? Well, don’t worry, what sort of host would I be if I didn’t help you?” Alice wanted to scream in protest, argue the voice didn’t have to do anything to ‘help’ her; it could just leave her be. Yet she held her tongue, staying silent. Speaking up would just mean more unnecessary pain.
“Worry not, dear Alice, I know just who you’re looking for! Oh yes, who else could it be?! You were so rude to our extra special guests last time they were here; you must want to apologize! I can’t believe this has been eating you up for so long; maybe I misjudged you!”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Dread took hold of Alice when she heard mention of the term ‘special guest’ as she recalled the disfigured form of her sister’s corpse. She gripped hold of her chest, struggling to breathe at the thought of her sister’s rotted corpse appearing before her again. Worse yet, the vision of her sister puppeteered by the voice, controlled and used by the twisted corridor to torment her, sent her spiraling into internalized nightmares. She was only drawn back to reality by the sound of a whistle, sharp and crisp and far away.
Relief flooded through her for a moment as she realized what guests the voice was referring to before she snapped back to attention and turned to run away from the whistle while there was still time. Running forward, she was suddenly stopped by a steel club smashing her across the face. Flying back, she fell to her back and skidded rough across the ground. Blood filled her mouth fast, and her next breath sent it cascading through the air in a brilliant arc of crimson rain. The side of her face also ran red as blood trailed to the ground. Reaching up slowly, still stuck in a daze from the sudden strike to the face, she felt a sharp laceration to her cheek where the razor edges of the club had dug deep into her skin.
A sharp whistle rang out directly above her, and looking up as the world spun, she saw the blurred figures of three figures encircle her. Cruel chuckles wrung out as their boots clicked upon the tile. Though her vision remained unclear and dazed, she could still make out the grey of their uniforms and the horrid gleam reflected in their batons. The one closest to her head knelt low to her, pulling her close. His shoulder was wounded, and blood sprung freely from it, splashing across her face.
“No one to help you now, eh Broken?”
The guard spit onto her face before roughly forcing her head down to the stone below. Her stomach churned as the guards above laughed and delighted at their casual cruelty. The voice stayed quiet, in fact, it may be joining in laughing with the guards, amplifying the sound to dizzying new heights. It would not help her, would not save her. Why would it, this was all by its design.
Gritting her cracked teeth together, pain shocked through her bleeding gums as Alice tried to force her frazzled brain to think, to find some way to survive. Just as her head began clear, though, the first of the guard's batons cracked down upon her. In the small of the back, it slammed down full force. Blood flew from her mouth as she gasped. She felt fresh wounds open across her back and new pockets of blood darken her clothes.
“Disgusting broken, let's finish the job quick. Her kind don’t belong out here.”
Pain, Despair, Hopelessness. All raced through her head as she was beaten down into the stone. But more than anything, white-hot rage fueled her as she was reminded of the question she’d held just days ago, or maybe it was a millennium now. Why? Why? Why? She’d agonized over it at the moment, almost lost herself to it, trying to understand why the Unbroken would beat and torture the Broken for no describable reason. Now, though, as she was beaten down to the ground again and again, she didn’t care. Their reasons didn’t matter; nothing could possibly justify this.
White hot rage and contempt filling her, she let out a bellowing roar as she instinctively grasped hold of the strings coursing through her body. She hadn’t even felt them, too wrapped up in the pain and hatred to notice the pulsing power growing within her. She’d only grabbed them on instinct, a need to survive. Yet as soon as she held them, she refused to let go, sending a pulse of white, hot, burning light out from her body that engulfed the entire corridor, three guards included.
A beat of silence followed this sudden surge of power activated by her curse. She stayed knelt, bleeding and battered but alive. Her breath was hitched in her throat, and she felt so abused now that she barely noticed herself completely severed from whatever linked her to the voice. The beat of silence soon ended, however, as the corridor around her began to rumble and collapse. Large sections of the wall seemed to cave in and fall to the floor, stones fell from the ceiling, and the voice returned with a roaring scream,
“YOU WERE WARNED, GIRL!”
Yet nothing happened, and listening closely behind all its fury, the voice was panting heavily. It was clearly hurting. Whatever it was that was that tortured her was struggling just to speak, it didn't have the strength to act right now. Alice let out a small chuckle when she realized this, as, at that moment, she was in no better condition. Yet she couldn’t waste this moment; another would probably never come. Forcing herself to stand, she swayed heavily as blood oozed from her wounds. Whatever hold the voice had on her was gone now, which meant this pain and exhaustion was all hers.
Looking around the collapsing corridor, she saw no trace of the guards left. They’d faded away back into nothing when hit by the sudden intensity of her curse. Though the guards were gone, that didn’t mean the corridor was empty. Several branching pathways had appeared, all leading off in different directions and twisting over each other.
Gulping, she spun around a few times, unsure where to go, till suddenly a sharp sound reached her ears, more melodious than she remembered. Turning toward the corridor, the sound had escaped from, she set off at an unsteady trot down the branching corridor away from the sounds of the voice's furious screams of pain.