"What the hell was that?" Aziel demanded, as he scanned the room for threats.
"I don’t see anything," he muttered, eyes narrowing as he swept his gaze across every corner and crevice of the chamber. The air felt wrong—heavy with sothing beyond the re absence of light. It carried a weight, an intention that made the hair on Aziel’s neck stand on end.
After a long mont of tense silence, Aziel finally let his eyes fall onto Arthur, who stood motionless near the other end of the room. Arthur’s face was pale, lips parted as though about to speak. Aziel could tell he was preparing to say sothing when the world suddenly shifted.
One mont Aziel was standing firm, the next he found himself violently airborne.
’What the fuck!’
His body hurtled through the room at unbelievable speed, propelled by so invisible force that had seized him with crushing pressure. The lightning that had been crackling around him extinguished as he shot through the doorway and into a new room, his startled cry echoing against stone walls he couldn’t see.
Whatever unseen entity had grabbed him abruptly released its hold, sending Aziel crashing hard against the ground. He tumbled across the floor, limbs flailing helplessly before his back slamd into what he assud was the far wall. Pain lanced through his spine, stealing his breath as he struggled to reorient himself in the pitch darkness.
Instinctively, Aziel scrambled to his feet, heart hamring against his ribs as he called upon his elental power once more. Lightning surged to life, crackling around his body—but sothing was wrong. The electric blue energy that should have illuminated the room seed contained, as though the darkness around him was actively consuming the light rather than being banished by it.
He couldn’t see walls. He couldn’t see a floor. It was like standing in a void where his lightning, bright as it was, simply had nothing to reflect off.
’Where the hell am I?’
That’s when it hit him—a wave of terror so profound it seed to co from outside himself. The sa overwhelming, unnatural fear he’d experienced when first encountering the monster of the halls. A primordial dread that bypassed rational thought and plunged straight into the most primitive part of his brain.
His teeth began to chatter involuntarily. His hands clenched into tight fists, fingernails digging painfully into his palms as cold sweat slicked his trembling body. Eyes wide and straining against the absolute darkness, Aziel felt his breathing accelerate into shallow, panicked gasps.
With a thought that felt like pushing through mud, Aziel summoned his spear. The familiar weight materialized in his hand, casting its blue-white glow into the nothingness that surrounded him.
"W-where the hell are you?" he called out, hating how his voice quavered. "C-co out!"
The words disappeared into the void, swallowed without even producing an echo. Aziel’s mind was flooded with fear so intense it crowded out all other thoughts. No matter how desperately he tried to focus, to think strategically, to do anything, all he could process was how utterly terrified he was.
Ding.
The sound was so out of place in the endless dark that Aziel whipped his head around frantically, seeking its source. Nothing. Just more of the impenetrable void stretching in all directions.
Aziel nervously backed up, expecting to feel the reassuring solidity of the wall he’d crashed into monts before. To his horror, there was nothing there to stop his retreat—the wall had vanished, if it had ever existed at all.
Heart threatening to burst from his chest, Aziel spun around in desperation. As he completed his turn, sothing new finally appeared in the endless darkness—a door. Simple, wooden, and utterly mundane, it stood alone in the void, offering what might be his only salvation.
Hope flickered through the paralyzing fear. Aziel took a tentative step toward the door, then another. Each movent felt like pushing through thick tar, his limbs unbelievably heavy as he forced himself forward.
Three steps in, Aziel found himself suddenly, completely immobilized. It wasn’t paralysis—his muscles still worked, his lightning still crackled—but sothing far worse. The fear had intensified to such a degree that his body simply refused to move any further, as though every survival instinct was screaming at him to remain perfectly still.
That’s when he felt it—hot, putrid breath against the back of his neck. Sothing was standing directly behind him, so close he could feel the heat radiating from whatever entity had him in its grasp.
"Shhhhhhh," ca a guttural whisper, each exhalation tickling Aziel’s ear with moist, fetid warmth. The sound wasn’t human—wasn’t anything that belonged in a world of light and reason.
Aziel stood trembling, sweat running in rivulets down his face, unable even to turn his head to confront whatever horror stood at his back. He felt sothing touch his shoulder then—a long, sharp appendage that could only be described as a claw. The thin, pointed tip rested with surprising gentleness against his skin, like a predator savoring the mont before the kill.
Ti stretched. Heartbeats thundered in Aziel’s ears. The claw remained motionless, almost tender in its terrible promise.
Then ca the explosion of agony.
Without warning, the creature tore through Aziel’s shoulder with savage force, ripping muscle and sinew with such violence that his arm hung by little more than a few strands of tissue. Blood sprayed in an arc that disappeared into the darkness, the pain so intense it transcended physical sensation and beca sothing almost taphysical—a direct assault on his consciousness.
The shock of trauma snapped Aziel out of his fear-induced paralysis. His lightning convulsed wildly around him, responding to his pain and panic with chaotic bursts of energy that illuminated nothing.
Despite the wound that should have incapacitated him completely, Aziel found a reserve of desperate strength. He wouldn’t die here, not like this, not without seeing what was killing him. With every remaining fragnt of will, he focused on the door—his only visible escape.
Digging his heel deep into whatever surface supported him, Aziel channeled his lightning through his body. The energy surged, crackling and spitting as it propelled him forward at impossible speed, launching him across the void toward the door that promised salvation.
Blood streaming from his nearly severed arm, consciousness flickering at the edges, Aziel hurtled through the darkness toward that simple wooden rectangle—his last hope of escape from whatever horror lurked in this place where light itself went to die.
Behind him, sothing moved in pursuit.
The distance to the door seed both infinite and instantaneous. Aziel couldn’t tell if he was making progress or rely suspended in the mont of desperate flight. The door neither grew larger nor receded—it simply remained, tantalizingly fixed in the distance, as though the void itself was stretching to keep him from reaching it.
His lightning stuttered, weakening as blood loss took its toll. The pain in his shoulder had evolved into a cold numbness that was spreading across his chest. Soon it would reach his heart.
’Almost there. Almost...’
Aziel reached for the door handle with his good arm, fingertips extended—praying to whatever gods might listen that the barrier between him and salvation wasn’t locked.
Behind him, the creature’s breath grew closer.
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