4. Dungeon

There was a quiet hum everywhere. It was like listening closely to someone’s chest within complete silence. It was a subtle and almost unnoticeable rumbling that sounded like it was somewhere far away and up close at the same time.

The walls were covered in electric circuit-looking patterns, with faint streaks of light traversing through them sporadically. Upon closer inspection, I think they looked a bit like those magical patterns I used to draw on my arms, but a lot cleaner.

It had a distinct look of something ancient and futuristic at the same time. The walls were somewhat corroded by time and coarse like sandpaper, but the circuits all over were in pristine shape.

The amount of magic in the air was very noticeable. The sparkles were considerably easier to notice. A vast amount of them were amassing along the patterns on the walls, making it more than clear enough they were some sort of… magical pathways or something along those lines.

“Oh, no… Oh, no…!” Amelia was pacing around while feeling at the walls to find the exit we supposedly entered this strange man-made looking cave from.

“W-what’s wrong?” I asked. I wasn’t quite sure what Amelia was so nervous about. Didn’t we just manage to escape the survey party? Isn’t this a good thing?

“W-what do you mean, what’s wrong?! Are you mad?! This is a dungeon!! Do you not see the mana circuits embedded in the walls?!” The knight spoke loudly, but clearly warily. She was petrified of… whatever this place being a dungeon meant to her. And mana circuits? Is that what the patterns on the walls were called? I needed to ask her about it later.

“Uh… A dungeon as in like… a cave full of monsters and treasure? Maybe like a big boss monster at the end of it guarding the exit?” Having played video games in the past, the term ‘dungeon’ wasn’t really new to me in a fantasy context.

“W-what the hell are you talking about!? Treasure?! Boss monster?” Amelia rapidly walked over to me. “Dungeons aren’t some sort of fun past-time activity for daredevil treasure hunters! Are you saying you, a witch, has never heard of one?!”

“I… um… the amnesia…” I was honestly a bit taken aback, so it was hard to think of words to say on the spot.

“R-right… right.” Amelia sighed. “Forgive me…! I’m just…! We are in mortal danger. Please listen to me carefully.” While the paladin did her best to calm herself down, she was clearly really on the edge.

Before we had a proper talk, Amelia surveyed ahead of the dungeon a good twenty or so meters. She returned with a brisk jog, sitting down with me.

“Seems like there aren’t any monsters near the entrance.” A bead of sweat slid down her cheek. Amelia’s obvious nervousness was slowly catching to me as well.

“You’re really worried about this… dungeon thing. Is it really that dangerous?”

“It’s probably far worse than I even imagine. I don’t know what your concept of dungeons is, but the ones I’ve read about are a grave deal.” Amelia’s voice was heavy with worry.

“Read? You’ve never seen one?”

“I have and… I haven’t. Once, a long time ago… when I was still only a knight in training, our survey group got lost in a vast forest.”

I’ll quote Amelia word for word again so that the story stays as accurate as possible.

This is what she told me.

“The knight training involved getting a lot of live combat experience against monsters of various kinds. Our group consisted of a dozen or so more experienced knights and roughly the half of trainees.” Amelia began narrating.

The forest we were training in was known for its monster population, so we were sent on a culling mission to thin out the numbers.

The monsters themselves weren’t a particularly dangerous sort. The only thing providing a moderate threat was their spawning rate. Getting overrun was always a risk when dealing with large groups of creatures, mindless or not.

A serious problem arose, when one night our guards started acting strange.

“E-everyone get up! Something is wrong!!” A warning signal rudely awakened us.

“What is it?!” The group commander asked in his stern voice as he was the first to get up. He was fully geared up in a matter of seconds. The commander was a tall man with a bushy and messy brown beard and matching eyes.

“The forest! It’s different from just a moment ago!” The guards were pointing into the trees.

They were correct. Even in my sleep-deprived state, I could tell there was something wrong with our surroundings. We had gone to sleep next to a cave entrance, and now we were suddenly in the middle of the forest, with nothing but trees surrounding us on all sides. There was a somewhat transparent veil of fog slowly waving around everywhere.

An unnerving sense of intrusion filled me with instinctual fear, and I put on my armor at a record pace, rushing over to where the other knights and trainees were discussing the situation.

“W-what’s that?!” One of the trainees pointed into the trees. Something red was visible in the distance.

The more experienced knights exchanged glances and began warily approaching it.

“In formation B!” The commander instructed, and we moved accordingly, readying a defensive battle formation.

Our fears soon turned to confusion, as next to the little meadow in the midst of the forest we woke up in, was another nearly identical one. It was only cut off from the spot we woke up at by a thin line of trees, and behind said tree line was yet another perfectly circular field of grass.

In the middle of said circle, was an object of some kind. It seemed to be something akin to a road sign, but instead of wood, it was made of metal.

On the top of the slightly bent metal pole was a wooden triangle made of a dirty but glossy material of some kind. The triangle had a red outline and a yellow inside, and when our torchlight connected with the surface of the shape, it reflected the light back in subtle flickers.

It was almost as if the surface of the sign was coated in fine diamonds, causing all light that contacted with the surface to be bounced back with ease.

In the middle of the yellow triangle was a symbol of some sort. To my recollection, it was a black dot with a long dark bar over it.

To this day, I still do not know what it stood for.

Either way, just like the staircase and door, it felt completely improper in the forest.

Its colors were bright, and to me, it almost felt like a warning of some kind.

In nature, yellow and red are generally signs of danger. Many insects and animals cover themselves in said colors to fend off predators.

“Is it a sign…?” Some of the knights began muttering, walking a bit closer to the thing.

“What does it say?” Asked another one.

image [https://i.imgur.com/XEGJ6MH.png]

“STAY AWAY FROM IT, MEN!!” Screamed the commander. His voice was so loud I was almost certain it caused the surrounding foliage to rustle with its force.

The knights who had wandered close to it stopped like they were frozen, rapidly backing away.

“W-what’s wrong commander?!” A couple of the knights yelped as they returned.

“…” The large man stayed silent. His eyes were focused on the sign like it was his mortal enemy.

The commander walked back a bit, pulling off a twig from a nearby bush. He then threw it at the sign full-force. The red and yellow thing didn’t budge, and the twig simply fell to the ground after contacting it.

A deep sigh followed, and the commander seemed to relax a bit.

“Never mind. I thought it was something else. Stay alert. I don’t know where in the forest we are.”

The mood among the knights lifted a bit, and some light laughter ensued. A few more boastful knights chuckled and walked over to the sign as the commander was looking away.

“Look at this! The metal is twisted into a thin pipe! I wonder if it’s hollow!” One of the knights gently knocked against the pipe.

The way he knocked was weird. As soon as the knuckle guard of his armor made contact with the metallic surface of the sign, he no longer pulled it away from it.

Without losing contact with the surface of the object, he firmly grasped his hand around the pipe in one… strangely smooth motion.

“Hey guys! Come check this out!” He laughed and waved at one of his friends.

As soon as another knight came close enough, he touched the knight’s shoulder. The other knight started acting strange too. As soon as his shoulder was touched, he grasped onto the hand of the first man holding on to the pipe, and then started waving his own free hand.

“Hahah! What the hell! Yo! Bryan! Come check this!”

Another knight ran over, and the same repeated. The second person in the chain now grasped onto Bryan. As soon as the newest addition to the group was touched, he started calling another knight by name.

“DON’T TOUCH HIM!!!” I suddenly screamed. All the eyes were on me. The fourth knight was maybe half a meter away from the outstretched hand of Bryan.

Something about the situation felt entirely wrong. I don’t know how, but the behavior of the ones touching the sign was abnormal. Why were they so keen on holding on to each other? And the pipe… The first knight was still touching it.

Now the commander noticed the strange sight too.

“Hahah! What are you guys on about?” Bryan laughed. The other knights behind him chuckled too. Oddly enough, I felt an air of…dismissiveness from their voices. The kind when someone tells you something isn’t a big deal.

The commander instantly reached for the fourth knight, but he was too late. Bryan managed to touch the tip of his finger… and he instantly linked hands with the other men. They were trying to reach for the commander too, but barely missed him.

“What’s wrong?” They laughed and waved around.

“EVERYONE STAND BACK!!” The commander roared, and the entire group backed away.

“Whaaat? We just wanna show you guys a cool thing!” The voices were in perfect unison.

Now everyone else realized something was wrong too. The chain of knights no longer spoke individually. They all spoke in an ear-grating harmony, their voices mixing up into a mess of garbled noise.

“Come ooon~! Grab my hand and you’ll see it too!” The group continued trying to lure in more victims.

Nobody was approaching them at this point.

“It’s your loss…! Last chance!” They sang in their cacophonic chorus.

When nobody approached, in the blink of an eye, the men were gone. One second, they were before us, the next, there was nothing but the sign.

Cold sweat slid down my back. We all stared wide-eyed at the sign, before the commander collapsed on his knees.

“It was a threshold after all…” He quietly whispered.

The rest of my memory was a blur. We rushed around the forest in a panic, ending on the meadow with the sign multiple times, as if the forest itself was trying to force us to accept our fate.

Somehow, as the sun finally rose, the forest started looking different again.

We were exhausted both physically and mentally. Our group was missing four men… and the forest was still teeming with fiends.

We lost two trainees on our way out to the monster hordes.

I was later on explained the strange sign was most likely what is known as a ‘dungeon threshold’.

The thresholds are artifacts of various kinds, that act as portals to dungeons and are known for seeming out of place. Nobody truly knows how they are created or if there are any rules to their appearance.

I’ve heard stories of some appearing even in well populated cities. Making contact with the threshold transfers you into the dungeon.

Never in my life have I heard of anyone, who has successfully exited a dungeon alive… But admittedly, if that was the case, how would people know the threshold transports you into a dungeon specifically? A question I couldn’t think of an answer to.

The statement did ring true for those four knights who disappeared that night, however. Nobody ever heard of them again.

After Amelia’s story was over, I was left staring past her blindly.

“W-wait, but… doesn’t this mean we’re basically screwed?” I blurted out to break the silence.

“I wouldn’t put it so crudely, but I agree with the sentiment.” She nodded solemnly.

“W-what about the treasure? The boss monsters?” My voice was nothing but a shaky whisper at this point.

“To my understanding, there is no benefit to going inside a dungeon whatsoever. They’re traps. Their purpose is to simply kill whatever ends up within and drain them of whatever essence the particular dungeon happens to feed on.”

“What you’re saying makes it sound almost like…” I gulped dryly. “It’s a living thing?”

“They pretty much are. There are creatures living in the ocean that consist of multiple tiny organisms forming a colony of sorts to hunt better. I think the dungeons are something similar to that.” I think Amelia was trying to refer to siphonophores, like the Portuguese man-o-war.

A heavy silence fell over us. We were in mortal danger, and surely the deeper into the dungeon we’d go, the more dangerous it’d get. It’s not like we could just sit around either, or we’d starve to death in no time. There was nothing within the dungeon to eat.

The only way was forward.

“We can’t stop here.” I slowly stood up. “We have a journey to go on. If the dungeon truly is alive, that means it can also die.” I spoke softly, and there was no confidence present in my voice at all. Luckily, Amelia wasn’t an insensitive asshole, so she didn’t point it out.

“Hhhh…” A deep sigh followed as she slowly rose up. The clatter of her armor echoed in the corridor. “I suppose you’re right. We made a promise, too.”

“Yeah. We can’t let Amy down.” I smiled a bit more confidently and patted her arm.

The dungeon was a straight path. Sometimes it would open up into wider square-shaped rooms, but there were no twists or turns.

I was still a bit stuck on the concept of dungeons in video games, so I expected the corridor to split into a labyrinthine maze any time soon, and yet, it never did.

The corridor was somewhat dark, but the mana circuits on the walls provided us with light, and as expected, the deeper we went…the more signs of danger we saw.

There were scratches on the walls and a bunch of cleanly cut pieces of wood strewn all around the sides of the corridors. Some of the pieces of wood were clearly more worn out than others for whatever reason, and around the wooden pieces, there were dark stains on the walls or floor. Dried up blood, maybe?

The odd part about the stains was, that they were often somewhat geometric in shape. Perfect circles, straight lines. Some looked a bit like spearheads.

While there was certainly a sense of foreboding… It didn’t really feel outwardly dangerous in any sense outside the fact, that the air grew notably darker the further we went in, and there was this strange noise of some kind ringing in my ears growing louder step by step.

It was almost like whispers… but not quite. Not only that, but it was like someone was trying to speak to me, but instead of using words, there was simply… the concept behind the words or their intent being signaled to me.

I know. Total nonsense, but I can’t really put it any other way. Some bizarre messages were being sent to me… But I couldn’t honestly make out what they said.

There were no monsters in sight. Just wooden pieces all over, magic circuits and… stone walls. The dark shapes painted on the walls near the wooden pieces were growing a bit darker in color, however.

Somewhere along the way, I think I lost sense of time. I couldn’t figure out how long we had been walking in total silence anymore, quietly working our way deeper. The air was growing darker and somehow a bit heavier with each step further we took. The dimming corridor made me feel like we were traversing into the depths of the earth itself, even though we weren’t actually walking down a slope or stairs.

It was still a completely straight line.

Sometimes I thought I saw the darkness around us move around, almost like gas or dust of some kind, but whenever I’d properly focus on it, it seemed perfectly even again.

My observations were interrupted as I finally noticed something off.

Amelia was panting like crazy. Sure, her armor was heavy-looking, but she was the head of the royal guard, so there was no way she was simply out of stamina.

“A-are you… alright?”

The fact that Amelia was unable to even reply properly was answer enough, something was wrong. Her eyes were bloodshot and wide. How did I not notice this earlier?!

There was something wrong with her breathing.

“Rrrgkkk…!”

It sounded like there was something lodged in her throat, preventing anything but a weak gurgling from escaping her windpipe.

I rushed over to her in a panic, only to see something very alarming.

Amelia’s exhalation was pitch black. There was some strange smoke coming out of her mouth every time she exhaled. That instant, I grabbed her arm and began running back. She was ragged, and it felt like all power had escaped her body.

Dragging a person who has little to no strength in her body is a lot of work. My feeble and crippled body was pushed to its absolute limits just to drag the barely walking Amelia out of the darkness to a brighter area.

Her armor clattered as I helped her rest on the floor in one of the wider rooms.

She was gasping dryly; the dark gas was coming out of her mouth still. It looked like soot, but more alarming than anything, the dark matter found its way inside her mouth and nostrils again whenever she’d breathe in. It was almost as if the strange substance were trying to force its way back into her.

Did she step on a trap or something?! Was this a curse of some kind…?! My mind began racing, so in a panic I began pulling off her armor pieces.

The sight was nothing short of disgusting.

There were dark splotches growing around her upper arms and chest. They had a horrid odor of rot to them. It was such a primal and disgusting smell, it caused me to dry heave the moment I caught a whiff of it.

I did my best to hold myself back from vomiting on the spot as I began to wipe the dark splotches off. I expected the darkness to be her skin rotting, but to my surprise it was instead a thin layer of liquid over it instead. The areas of her body that were covered with the filth were left red and had some little sores or bumps on them.

The black stuff was like paint with a slightly crunchy texture. The more I wiped off, the more of it began appearing on her. Instead of staying in one spot, the dark layer would shift around and form the splotches in different spots on her body. It was as if it had a mind of its own.

“W-what is this…!?” I pulled my hand back to take a proper look at the black mass. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be very tiny hairs sticking out of it. They were twitching and writhing in a most disgusting manner, almost as if they were… legs? “I-insects…?!”

The darkness in the air seemed to grow stronger the deeper we went. Now, that I really thought about it, it didn’t make any sense.

We weren’t walking deeper. We were walking in a straight line. Why would the air grow darker?! Why did I not notice this earlier?!

The darkness was a swarm of incredibly tiny insects of some kind.

Was this dungeon their nest?

The deeper we went, the darker it got, meaning the insect swarm got denser. I had no idea how many of them were inside Amelia already!

A chill ran down my spine. I began wiping the bugs off of Amelia faster, she was coughing up more of the dark insect soot, and a fine thin layer of disgustingly murky liquid was slowly starting to drip out of Amelia’s nostrils and ears.

“AMELIA!!” My screaming got no response outside of weak coughs.

I could feel a familiar feeling rising my throat.

A growing anxiety was amassing and my mind began to race. It was like everywhere I looked, a mass of flies was coming right at us. I began wiping at Amelia, gasping dryly as a panic attack was about to take me over.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling to me. I experienced a few in the past.

It’s a really hard emotional state to explain or describe with words alone at that. I had my first one pretty young if I don’t remember wrong. I used to get them often in my early teenage years after I had recently been informed of how my life would be from then on. Coming into terms with my reality of being stuck at the hospital for the rest of my life pushed me into horrible mental states often.

Panic attacks never really made any sense to me. They usually started with my heart rate and breathing getting faster and more irregular. Then, even if I knew I was in no immediate danger or anything, my emotions went haywire and I lost control.

Everything became a blur, everything was terrifying, everything was an enemy. I often got stuck in a loop of fear and panic, which totally distorted my rational thinking. Even if I knew the reaction was harmful for me, I couldn’t stop it.

The most horrific thing about it, to me, was the feeling of losing control. Like someone else took over my body and kept feeding me fear, forcing more and more down my throat, even though I knew it made no sense at all.

That feeling of losing control is what started a negative loop for me. Having been told I’d be stuck in a hospital for the rest of my life robbed me of a large portion of my freedoms, so when I realized I could even lose control of my mental state, I began fearing panic attacks immensely… Which in turn caused me to have them more often.

It’s a bit challenging to explain… But the reason to why I’m explaining this, is because when you’ve experienced them multiple times, you’ll know when one is coming. It’s like… that feeling you get right before vomiting. You know it’s going to strike, but not exactly when.

Presently, I was close. Everything was moving so fast and even though I kept wiping, more bugs kept amassing.

Usually, when you’ve experienced panic attacks multiple times, you can try to come up with a method of breaking out of that loop. It’s usually something similar to breathing exercises or getting away from whatever was causing the panic attack. I had one too, but the fear of these gross bugs going into my lungs if I took a deep breath to calm myself down made me shiver with horror.

“I don’t know…! I don’t know! Amelia!! What can I do?!” I screamed desperately.

Just as my gasping got uncontrollable, I felt her hand. Amelia was grasping onto my fingers weakly, and her hand was shaking. I felt like there was an ice cube lodged in my throat. Amelia was the victim here…!!

“I was… What the hell was I…”

No. I needed to act. My panicked breathing got worse, so I put one of my fingers in my mouth and began biting with all the force I could muster. I found out it’s incredibly difficult to truly hurt yourself on purpose. You really need to put a lot of mental effort into it.

I kept biting. Focusing on the biting and the pain caused my breathing to gradually slow down. I could taste blood, but it didn’t taste like iron. I don’t know what witch blood consisted of, but it was a rather… soothing flavor even.

As my nerves finally calmed down, it finally hit me.

This all made no sense at all. I walked ahead of Amelia.

I walked ahead!! And yet… I was unaffected! Why was only Amelia affected by this?! What was going on!? I began looking around myself.

Wooden pieces… and dark patterns all over the walls and floors.

Dark patterns… Maybe they weren’t dried up blood?! But instead…!!

I rushed to a perfect circle pattern on the ground, finding there was some worn out wood in a cross shape over it. If I imagined metal where the dark circle surrounded the wooden cross… it would have definitely looked like a small shield.

The murky pattern looked like only a shadow had been left of the metallic part, and the wooden part was untouched.

My line of sight jolted to Amelia and crawled to her in a mad dash, beginning to rip her remaining armor pieces off.

I suddenly became extremely aware of the cold beads of sweat gliding down my skin under the wolf coat as I saw the pieces of metal plating properly.

The insides of the arm-guards I pulled off first were coated in writhing dark worms.

I couldn’t help myself anymore, and I vomited to the side of the corridor. It was all too much for me, but I had no time for luxuries such as running away while screaming. Amelia was in danger.

I began feverishly pulling off Amelia’s gear. It was absolutely teeming with the worms on the inside. How did these disgusting things get there?!

After she was fully relieved of her armor, Amelia began coughing more, she was still in bad shape… Why?! What else was there?!

I began going over her body carefully and found out she had small but metallic earrings! They were coated in the worms too, so I had to pull them off.

It was the black stains on the walls! They were remnants of the insects! They… hid inside people’s armor and maybe even fed on the metal pieces!

What crafty… disgusting things. They were like living rust.

I had to step away and take a deep breath.

“Think… think…” I muttered to myself while pacing around Amelia. “Why do they hide inside the armor of people…?” I turned to look at my rapidly waning companion. “What are insects afraid of…?”

I hastily lifted Amelia’s chest-plate and ripped off a part of her cape after pulling on it for what felt like an eternity. The cloth was completely untouched by the insects, just like the pieces of wood all around the dungeon. I used the blood from the finger I bit earlier to draw the sigil of fire on it.

The cloth would surely burn, even if the amount of mana in the material itself was low.

The fire spread fast and a quiet hissing noise in the air was most noticeable. I brought the burning cloth close to Amelia’s nose. I’ve heard insects are extremely sensitive to smoke, so maybe I could smoke them out by having something on fire close to Amelia.

My plan worked significantly better than I expected.

“HACK!! CHAKKK!!” Amelia began coughing violently, as the dark mass of insects began expelling itself out of her nostrils, mouth and ears at an incredible pace.

The cloud of bugs wasn’t outright large, but it was clear enough to see with the naked eye as it fled somewhere deep within the dungeon rapidly.

After the swarm left, Amelia was left pale. Without her armor on, I was able to begin dragging her further back into the dungeon to get her further away from the insects. With the fact, that I was missing an arm came the fact it was extremely hard to pull a grown adult along myself, but I grit my teeth and managed somehow yet again.

After dragging her for a couple of hundred meters, I was totally exhausted. I was sweating bullets, and for whatever reason, Amelia was not getting any better. She was still pale and twitched around as if she were in pain occasionally.

Why was she not getting better?! Even though she had no more of those vile things in her! Were the bugs poisonous or something?! We were doomed if that was to be the case. We had barely any supplies, not to mention something as fancy as an antidote.

“Amelia…! Please wake up!” I pleaded shakily. The only response I got was my slightly distorted echo within the seemingly endless corridor.

I began looking around her body in a feverish panic, trying to find anything wrong with her that might be the cause of her state.

In that moment, I saw a little shape moving underneath her cheek. Without thinking, I stuffed my fingers into her mouth. A shiver ran down my spine as I caught something writhing… and it was bigger…

Much bigger than the tiny dust swarm.

A giant, disgusting crossbreed of a wasp and a fly covered in dark hairs was writhing and screeching in my hands as I pulled it out. Its six wings were flickering and twitching as it tried to break free.

I slammed it into the flooring and crushed it into a black mush. Although killing the single insect didn’t do any real damage to the colony, it still felt a bit empowering to do so.

It felt as if I was taking revenge for Amelia, so I reveled in rubbing the creature into a mess against the ground, even though I knew my hatred towards it was completely misguided.

image [https://i.imgur.com/RuYfjDc.png]

Amelia’s breathing calmed down noticeably, and she was gaining some color to her skin surprisingly rapidly. I began going over her body once more carefully, making sure there were no insects left. That final bug must have been poisoning her still, so now that it was gone, Amelia was getting better. Or… so I hoped at least.

My eyelids felt like they were made of lead. I was exhausted in all senses of the word, but I forced myself to stay awake until I knew Amelia was safe.

I think an hour… maybe two went by…

“Y…verna…?”

At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming her voice or if it was real. I was too tired to really confirm either, and everything slowly went black. The voice of Amelia echoed somewhere far in the distance… slowly growing further and further away.

…

After what felt like a blink of an eye, I woke up to Amelia’s voice. She was panicked… but there was a hint of relief to her shouting. My head ached… or more specifically, my neck ached.

Amelia was providing me with a most gracious lap pillow… but her muscular thighs were bulky enough to keep my head elevated pretty high, so it strained my poor neck as I was out…

“Mmmmghhh…” As I got up, Amelia grabbed my hand while crying uncontrollably. I felt a bit guilty for feeling a sense of relief wash over me even though she was in such distress.

“Blugubh thoob yhoo weer deed…!” She was a mess of snot and tears. It was impossible to discern what she was trying to tell me. One thing was for sure, though! She was happy to see me awake.

“Sorry… sorry… I passed out…” I couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for the knight. After everything that happened to her family, I’m sure she was a bit paranoid about losing everyone even remotely close to her.

After calming her down a bit, I explained the situation to her. The expressions she made as I described everything in detail were quite something.

“W-why did you risk yourself to such an extent for me…?” Amelia spoke after a silence of making grossed out faces at the bug story.

Now, as much as I wanted to be wholesome and tell her about how I considered her something akin to a friend despite the short period of time we knew each other, I knew life wasn’t that rosy for her. Everyone she trusted had recently betrayed her and ruined her life. Out of desperation and desire for revenge, she made an unholy deal with a witch, and even that deal was fake. I felt a bit bad for having to add my own name on the list of people who have lied to her, but in this case, it was for her own good.

I think she asked me about this because she was simply confused. Why would a witch like me put so much effort into saving her, when I could have simply dashed off and survived on my own. What benefit was there to me saving her?

I needed to think like a witch again! A cool… witch-like reason for saving Amelia was needed to calm her nerves a bit.

“Well… I…”

I had to really think this over. What would the awesome witch of my dreams say in a situation like this? Something dark and foreboding, maybe?

“You’re… too valuable an asset to simply waste on something like this.” I stuttered. “Your…hatred is precious to me. Witches hold such negative emotions in high value.” Spewing this cringy eight-grader-level trash hurt my soul.

I gulped afterward, letting my real emotions spill a bit, hoping surely this much was okay.

“I need you. You’re… important to me… a-and my plans! Don’t forget that.”

A moment of total silence followed. Amelia seemed stunned by my words somehow. She seemed far more surprised by my answer than I expected, so I couldn’t help but squirm awkwardly as her wide eyes seemed to be scanning me over.

Her gaze slowly lowered down to her feet, and a subtle, gentle smile slowly spread across her face. I can’t say for sure, but her expression seemed almost… apologetic?

“A-AHEM! Anyway! Shouldn’t we plan our next move a bit? Laying around will only get us starved to death… or worse! Eaten by those creepy crawlies…” I stammered to break the silence.

“Agreed. Did you say they’re afraid of smoke? Maybe we should make a fire out of the excess wood in order to fill the corridor with smoke. That might force the insects to make way for us.”

The plan made sense. I decided to follow Amelia’s lead and began collecting a bunch of wood into a pile a bit deeper into the tunnel.

For whatever reason, the insects seemed to ignore me for the most part. Maybe, because I was also a monster like them? I was able to gather the pile of wood in an area where the air was already a bit dark from the swarm.

I could feel a slight tingling against my skin as the swarm of insects felt as if it was testing my…permeability out. Hopefully, the insects would remain as tiny as they were now, even deeper…

But I already knew they wouldn’t, judging by what I found in Amelia’s mouth earlier.

The fire caught on the dry wood with ease. I used my wounded finger as a makeshift marker to draw the sigil yet again.

With a noticeable hiss, the dark cloud around me dispersed. The smoke began filling the corridor as the fire grew larger by the second. Amelia finally ran over to me, sitting next to the fire while covering her mouth and ears with a cloth.

It was a haunting sight. Looking around, there was a nearly perfect sphere of darkness around us. The insects stayed a good five or so meters away from the fire at all times, but their bloodlust was more than apparent with how they stayed close to us despite the danger.

To my surprise, the smoke did nothing to them. The swarm seemed to pass through it with ease.

“It seems it’s fire that they’re afraid of.” Amelia stated as she threw a burning twig into the swarm ahead of us.

The cloud moved out of the way of the flame in almost perfect unison. Even when the twig was only a meek ember, the rust insects still stayed far away from it.

Only, when the fire was completely gone, did the cloud close in around the stick again. It was a sight filled with both hope and absolute despair. We would be able to traverse through the swarm for as long as we had wood to spare… but if at any point our fire would go out…

I honestly didn’t really even want to imagine it. I didn’t want to imagine Amelia in that state again. I had already seen death… I had…

For some reason, the moment I thought about death, all I could remember was that ghost-like woman descending upon me… I couldn’t let Amelia die.

I really didn’t want her to ever end up seeing that pale apparition.

“D-do you think there is any sense in us even trying to go deeper?” I don’t know if I really wanted this thought to be vocalized. Somehow, it simply slipped out.

“What’s this now?” Amelia grinned a bit playfully. “The witch is getting cold feet?”

“I-I just… I'm not sure if I’ll be able to handle seeing you choking in black insect sludge again, mentally…”

Amelia looked at me a bit quizzically. Her puzzled expression softened into a gentle, yet subtle smile once more. “Then let’s get out of this nightmare. Properly this time.”

The paladin’s bravado was somehow reassuring to see, even though I don’t think there was any real logic behind it. She was the one who was in mortal danger only a moment ago.

Seeing her still want to try made me want to try too, so I slowly stood up and grabbed a big piece of burning wood. Amelia did the same.

“I’ve never heard of anyone surviving a dungeon.” Amelia started. “Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to do something unprecedented?”

“You know. Sometimes I wonder if you’re just really positive… or a total idiot.” I jabbed back at her.

“Wha! How uncouth!” Amelia laughed.

We steeled our resolve and began walking deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Neither of us even knew if there was an exit to begin with. What if there wasn’t? What if this was all pointless? What if we were both just going to die here?

These thoughts all made sense, but I had to force them back and ignore the warning bells ringing as we stepped deeper into the dark corridor.

And when I say dark. I mean, the swarm got denser.

Like liquid tar, the insects flowed around us. An incessant buzzing noise was now present, and it was full of animalistic and desperate hunger.

Also, the deeper we went, the more I could hear those bizarre whispers from before. Despite the deafening noise, I could somehow understand the proper meaning in that strange intent the dungeon was emanating with.

Feed.

Feed.

Feed.

Transport.

Feed.

Transport.

It wasn’t exactly the words, but more the meaning, that those magical circuits kept injecting into my head.

I understood the feeding part… but what did it all mean by transporting something? I didn’t really have the opportunity to think about it at the moment.

Considering you’ve read this far; I’ll assume you can handle the thought of insects to some extent. Knowing that is quite reassuring to me as the person writing this because the disgusting crawling horrors got bigger. The deeper we went, the larger the freakish flies were.

Now, that we were able to see them properly, I’ll be able to make some assumptions and guesses about their morphology.

I believe the swarm was a eusocial colony of some kind. Eusocial insects are stuff like bees and ants. It’s somewhat accurate to call the swarm a single entity to an extent. It’s not exactly the same as what Amelia referred to earlier with the siphonophores.

Instead of a community of creatures joined forces to become something more complex, this was more a hive mind, where all the insects shared the same thoughts and goals.

Do keep in mind this is just pure conjecture. In the ants’ nest, there are a few different kinds of ants. There are the workers who carry food and defend the hive, and there are the males who have wings and breed with queens… and of course, there is the queen… and I think in some particular ant species there are more specialized types of warrior ants too. You learn plenty of fun facts about completely pointless things, when you have a lot of time to spend watching videos online.

As I looked into the swarm of horror undulating around us, there were distinctly different looking bugs mixed in. I saw those wasp-fly hybrid looking things Amelia had in her mouth. They looked almost like they were swimming in the gaseous, tinier insects. There were also curled up, slower looking things. They were like pitch-black prawns with rather fearsome looking mandibles, every now and then, they’d cough out a bunch of those black worms… from… one of their ends. I honestly couldn’t tell which one was the head or the tail, and I kind of didn’t really want to know either.

Considering I spent most of my life in a hospital, I never grew absolutely terrified of insects. In fact, I think a lot of them were gorgeous, and I wish I could have seen them in reality instead of just through a computer screen.

HOWEVER. These things can all go to hell for all I care. They were absolutely disgusting! Hairy, undulating bodies! Gnashing mandibles, not to mention their unnerving twitchy movement.

Everything about them was basically embodying the sentiment of ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

“We need to pick up the pace. The fire is going out.” Amelia almost shouted over the buzzing.

“Right!” I nodded and began running.

As soon as my first running step was taken, I realized something was wrong. My entire body felt like it was made of lead. Every step I took demanded immense mental effort to even get started. Amelia took note rapidly as my panting got heavier.

“Dammit…! I didn’t realize!!” She rushed to me, beginning to assist me as we ran.

“W-what’s happening to me?! My body feels like stone…!” I gasped throatily.

“You’re simply exhausted… If witch bodies are anything like us humans, you have probably been forcing your body to move with pure adrenaline for a while now.”

“Wha…!?”

“Yes. You’re at your absolute physical limits. Your body can’t take anymore. I’m sorry… this is all my fault for being such a burden.” The knight bit her lip.

“W-what do we do?!” I yelped as I collapsed on my knees as soon as Amelia and I reached a few wooden scraps we could use to keep the fire going.

Amelia grabbed my already died out torch off of my hands and tossed it somewhere into the swarm. She gave me her still burning torch, and hoisted me up over her shoulder.

“Gggrraahh…!” The paladin really was strong, but despite her obvious strength, she was also exhausted. I could tell from the way her body was trembling.

“N-no! Wait! I can still try to wwwwaaahhh!!” My complaints turned to squeals as the knight took off running.

The swarm followed suite. To our horror, the deeper we went, the less wooden scraps there were around. Thinking about it logically, it made perfect sense. As if anybody would survive this deep in.

It was impossible to hear anything at this point. The cacophony of the insect storm was too much. I had to scream with all of my strength just to make Amelia hear me.

I couldn’t hear a thing as Amelia suddenly began talking to herself about something.

“WHAAAT ISSS IIIIT!?” I shouted through the orchestration of death all around us.

“E… sr… ed….” Amelia’s speech was still too quiet.

“WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?” I shouted.

“WE ARE SCREEEEWEEEEDDD!!!” She screamed with all of her lungs. The roaring blast of desperation hit me like cold air.

“W-WHAAAT!??”

“THE PAAATH ENDEEEED!!” Amelia’s scream pierced through as she slammed one of her hands against the stone wall ahead of us.

In that instant, it was as if all sound died down for a moment. I stared ahead, and there was nothing but a stone wall. NOTHING.

Panicked, I began darting my head around. It was one of those square shaped rooms again. There were no exits except going back. This was most likely the… end of the dungeon.

What… what the hell?! What was this unfair nightmare?! THERE WAS NO EXIT?! It literally was just a trap. There was no point to it, there was no reward, and there was no boss monster.

It was basically a cruel grave. All the freedom we had left was the choice of where we die within the dungeon.

The fire was going out too.

Amelia collapsed to her knees. I slowly slid off of her back, gathering myself a bit, I rested my back against the wall of the room.

Somehow, despite the horrid noise, I feel I could hear Amelia clearly, just for a moment.

“I hate this crap...” I chuckled to myself a bit as the fire dwindled.

“Likewise…” Amelia murmured. “Damned dust cloud…”

“Hahah… Dust cloud indeed…” I looked into the swarm slowly closing in as the fire grew weaker. “You know. That gives me a really spiteful idea…”

“What do you have in mind?” Amelia smiled weakly.

“Well… If we’re gonna die anyways. How about we go out with a boom?” A sadistic twinge slowly spread on my face.

“H-hahah… I’m listening…”

“I think I know why they’re so afraid of fire…” I reached out into the mist a bit. “It’s a flammable creature so tiny, it’s basically dust, and we are in an enclosed space…” I coughed a bit. It all made sense.

“If we’re going to make something explode, please let me protect you. I’m rather proud of my sturdiness, and I still have my undershirt on.” Amelia spoke.

“You really don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?!” I laughed weakly.

“I understand… I understand you don’t like seeing me get hurt. During the time, I was infected by the insects… It was mostly a blur, but I still think I could hear your desperate cries somewhere in the distance.” She spoke with conviction.

“THEN WHY?!” I bumped my head against hers a bit.

“Because I also don’t want to see you get hurt…” She whispered quietly. How I heard it, I’ll never know. Maybe I imagined it all, but somehow… I really hoped it wasn’t just my imagination.

“You’re a pretty selfish person for a mother.” I complained.

“Being a mother and being selfish aren’t mutually exclusive. Please let me do this.” Amelia finally turned to me, gently pushing me down into a corner. She used her body to shield the most of me.

Having her there made me feel safe, like when you’re underneath the softest, fluffiest blanket. Amelia’s gentle smile and reassuring nod finally pushed through my defense.

“Do your thing!” She whispered sharply, as the fire finally went out.

I reached for my finger with my mouth, biting the old wound open. With all the remaining strength in my body, I bit like there was no tomorrow.

The blood was used to shakily draw the sigil of fire on the somewhat charred wooden piece I had in my hand.

I threw it past Amelia’s shoulder, banking everything on this final stand. Honestly speaking, I didn’t even know if this would work in the first place. I had only tried activating the sigils as soon as they were made.

Remote detonation was a whole different story.

“BUUUUUUURRRRNNNNN!!!” I screamed and reached my hand out for the flying piece. A sparkle quietly emitting from my fingertips. The wooden piece began to glimmer… and then…

A shockwave of burning air hit us and Amelia was slammed on top of me by its force.

“GGGRRRRRHHHH!” Roaring in pain, the paladin somehow stood strong as a blinding fireball grew in size behind her.

The heat was unbearable, but short. A flare covering every inch of the dungeon traversed through, as if the tunnel were sighing deeply.

A dust explosion can happen, when a flammable dust is contained within an enclosed space.

The reason to why the insects were afraid of fire, was not to protect the individuals from dying. They were instinctively afraid of creating a fiery chain reaction if the dust-like swarm caught alight.

They were too simple to understand magic, so they didn’t have the opportunity to dodge the wooden piece that I lit up with magic remotely.

The fire left nothing but death behind.

A quiet rumbling noise filled the sudden ghastly silence as the wall in the room we had been left in began crumbling.

Amelia was still somehow covering me up even after all this. I didn’t know whether she was alive or not. I couldn’t see her face properly with all the smoke in the air, but I could feel her body weight on top of me as she slowly slumped down, limply.

“A-ahm….” I tried to speak, but my voice was completely gone. All I could muster was a quiet hiss.

Amelia was not breathing, and a growing panic began amassing within me again. With some mysterious reserve strength, I was able to push Amelia up. There was dark smoke everywhere, and some insect corpses were on fire here and there, twitching.

As I looked around, my attention was drawn to a blue glow in the midst of the mist. Instinctively, I started crawling towards it, while pulling Amelia along myself slowly.

A hole had opened at the back wall of the dungeon, and an unmistakable sound of water could be heard within. I struggled onward while straining all of my remaining feeble muscles to move and drag Amelia with me. To my surprise, there was a slippery slope ahead of us.

I pushed Amelia down the slope ahead of myself, then beginning to slide it after her.

The stone slide was quite bumpy and uncomfortable, but it was slippery due to water flowing into it from somewhere, and being a bit uncomfortable was about the least of my concerns at the moment.

We slid for a little bit, only to contact cold water. I gasped and splashed around shakily, wading my way to Amelia, making sure she wouldn’t drown.

Moving through the water made dragging the paladin a lot easier. I managed to pull her all the way to the edge of a glowing blue pool we had somehow ended in. Getting Amelia out of the pool was far too much to ask in my current physical state, so I just made sure she’d not have her head submerged, as I slowly began fading into darkness.

My slumber felt a bit deeper than before. I don’t know if I was awake or asleep. There was a cave ceiling before me, and it was covered in strange blue plants or maybe mushrooms. They looked a bit like hands with a few too many fingers, wiggling slightly.

To my left, I could see Amelia sleeping. She seemed to be breathing somehow, but the back of her head was black and charred.

Slowly, my line of sight trailed back to the ceiling. It all felt a bit familiar. Staring at a ceiling on the brink of death. Surely, the pale woman would soon fall down from there gently, to welcome me into her cruel embrace once again.

I waited… And waited…

But she didn’t appear.

Instead, suddenly my line of sight was covered by something. A distorted shadow with voices echoing somewhere far, far away. The voices began growing louder with each new one echoing through.

They started growing clearer.

“Vrn… RNA! YVERNA!!” The focus returned to my eyes. Amelia was grasping onto my outstretched arm.

“… Ame… lia?” I croaked. My voice hadn’t still fully returned. I realized I probably tired it out while I was screaming inside the insect swarm.

“H-hha…! You lunatic…! I thought you died! You were just reaching for the ceiling with your eyes wide open when I woke up!!” The tears of the knight felt warm against my skin. Ahhh… Amelia really was a nice person.

Even after everything we had been through… I still don’t remember shedding a single tear through it. Seeing the noble knight sobbing uncontrollably and mumbling incoherent nonsense made me feel almost jealous.

I so… desperately wanted to cry with her, but my eyes simply felt dry and itchy, so I had to close them. I reached out to touch Amelia’s face. Her cheeks were warm, and the back of her head was burnt to a crisp… but she was alive.

As much as being unable to cry with Amelia pained me, I felt happy at the moment, knowing we were both still alive.

“Your head… I’m so sorry…” I whispered as I pet her.

“DON’T YOU DARE APOLOGIZE ABOUT MY HAIR WHEN YOU SAVED US!!” Her voice pierced the mumbling at last. “This weird pond too… I think it has some sort of rejuvenating properties.” She began.

Upon thinking about it, I did realize my body wasn’t aching as badly as it did before. In a desperate rush, I tried to lift my missing arm… but it was still gone. I guess hoping for the water to cure my arm was a bit much.

“My wounds, the scratches and burns from my back are mostly gone from having soaked in here. I’m sure if I just soak in enough, the back of my head will be healed too.” Amelia tried to reassure me.

“But… but what about your hair…!” I huffed heavily.

“Hair grows back, you fool!” She laughed. Amelia was really cool. Like, seriously. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but she is so damn cool. I’m super jealous of her. I’ll do my best to become a cool witch she can rely on someday, too.

“I’m… I’m still sorry…” I sighed, but yielded.

A short silence followed. I heard Amelia slowly lowering herself into the water. The quiet splashing was somehow… serene. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could guess she was laying on her back to ease the pain she was most likely still in.

“When I was young, my father would tell me stories of witches.” Amelia spoke quietly. “Dark creatures that rise from the depths of the woods, bringing with them temptations which only lead to misery.”

“…”

“I actually became a knight… because I wanted to protect the people from witches and monsters. I thought, that if I could stay strong, people wouldn’t have to be as scared of such stories in the way I was as a child. A shining hero protecting the people from the darkness!”

I could hear the water splashing a bit. I want to imagine she swung her hand mimicking a sword swing, but I couldn’t open my eyes because they were stinging too much.

“I wanted to… become someone who can protect everyone. I used to tell Amy stories of witches being defeated by the heroes. They were her favorite… but Amy was… different.”

A moment of silence followed. I think Amelia had to take a moment to really think about it, or maybe it was simply painful to reminisce about Amy so soon after her passing.

“Whenever I told her stories about defeating witches, she’d grow progressively frownier.” I could hear, that despite the painful memories, she was smiling when she spoke. “She was always insisting, that the heroes, princesses and witches should just all be friends. She always said the witches just wanted someone to be with, to fill their empty hearts with friendship and love.” Amelia sounded like she was holding back tears.

Sometimes, a drop or two of water would fall from the ceiling, contacting the pond surface. A few fell on my face, gently trailing down to my eyes. I could gradually feel my eyes stinging less and less…

“I, of course, scolded her. Witches are dangerous… The last thing I’d want my child to do is get involved with them due to her naivety.” Amelia’s answer was blunt and swift. “But...”

A few more drops of water fell from the ceiling, trailing down my face slowly.

“After meeting you. I feel like… Maybe I might have been wrong.”

We both just floated there. I don’t know where Amelia was looking at or what she was doing… I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt a bit like there was some kind of piece lodged in my throat, so speaking felt more and more difficult by the second.

Silence followed for what felt like forever.

“I would have been… totally up for making friends with her.” I finally managed to whisper.

A sharp exhale of some kind was all I could hear from Amelia. I didn’t know for sure, since I could not see. The water from the ceiling was still trailing down my face.

It was cold, but also warm… in a different sense.