News
about
Administrators and moderators will post important news here. Please be sure to check back regularly. :)

freebies
Freebies are sometimes posted on this board. Please be aware that a freebie can only be claimed up to one week after it was posted.

Freebies are often granted to "all active characters". A character is considered active if it has made an IC post within the last 2 weeks. Posts made after the freebie was posted do not count.

part six.
IP: 82.14.67.140
Posted on September 10, 2012 at 02:43:10 AM by georgia

Warning: the following part contains aggressive, repulsive and potentially frightening material. As this part is not essential for the story, we recommend that younger or more sensitive readers skip it.

Part six Beneath Mount Etna, Sicily, Earth “Aura,” Allianah’s voice hissed like a serpent through the impenetrable darkness. “Aura, don’t touch it.” Aura’s fingers froze a scant inch from the cavern’s only source of light: a dark red crack in the opposing wall, throbbing with a soft glow. Only her face and outstretched hand were visible; everything else was consumed by the thick, hot, black air. The sole sound to be heard was her and Allianah’s breathing, amplified by the tight, resonating room. The heavy brown-red rocks on either side of Aura rubbed against her shoulders, forcing her to take sharper and tighter breaths than was natural. Shadows flickered across their gaping, toothy crevices, keenly resembling the primal dance of the hungry hunter around the fire of his next meal. A strong hand gripped her shoulder and the Nubian’s body, damp with sweat, pressed her against the craggy wall. For a second, her hand wavered millimetres from the light. A drop of blood slipped through the fresh, searing wound on her cheek and splashed onto her hand. No magic, morality, humanity. Down here, trapped under tonnes of rock in the molten heart of the Earth, none of the rules of life applied bar the understanding of the inevitability of death. Light, though, was their friend. Light would always be the friend of the traveller. Aura inhaled as deeply as she could and exhaled slowly, trying to quell the monster which lurked in the dark, airless, enclosed space, before reaching out and brushing the faltering light with the tips of her pale fingers. She wasn’t aware of movement, of the crack widening around her or of being sucked in; all she knew was her geography changing in a fraction of a blink. She was still underground, still surrounded by rock, but now that rock stretched off into inky blackness in a long tunnel which ran to either side of her. Overhead, cheap strip lighting buzzed and cast the same, flickering artificial glow she’d seen through the crack in the wall. Occasionally the light overhead would drop out and another one further down the tunnel would come on. Along the floor, two dark grey metal lines snaked through the tunnel, separated by wooden planks that ran perpendicular to them every few inches. They reminded Aura vaguely of something, but between her unsettled memories and the thought-consuming image of the walls, she was too distracted to think what. The walls… Aura had to assume they were rock, because any trace of the actual wall was invisible. They moved, and they spoke: chattering, clicking, slithering, rustling. The light went out before her eyes had time to adjust enough to see what they were, and in the heavy darkness the noise was amplified. A light came on to her right and she edged automatically towards it before stopping. Stop. Think. It might go off by the time she got there, and she could spend the rest of her days down here chasing the lights. Better to wait until it came back on. Inhaling deeply, Aura inched away from the horrible sounds to her back, trying to find the centre of the tunnel. The toes on her left foot crunched against one of the metal bars which she then stepped over, feeling somehow safer on the old wooden slats away from the walls. Dark silence, she thought, would have been preferable to that state… the state of knowing that something was there, moving, living, waiting. As her breathing quickened, the light came back on overhead and, after a few seconds blinking, she was able to see the moving walls. Insects. Arachnids. Lots of them. Several shapes were instantly recognisable – spiders, cockroaches, woodlice, beetles, scorpions, centipedes – but others escaped her admittedly limited knowledge. All were far bigger than she’d ever seen in Britain or Shaman: the heat down here must make them swell far beyond their natural size. Stop, she shook herself, nothing can live down here. The heat and the pressure is too great. Doubt danced in her mind, though. Weren’t insects supposed to be the strongest of all the animal kingdom, able to survive enormous heat and pressure? They were so numerous that their writhing mass of bodies completely blocked out not only the walls, but whatever way Aura must have entered. She’s never been particularly afraid of insects or arachnids, but the sheer number and size of the creatures was overwhelming; if they could think, if they were malicious, they could easily come together to suffocate her. Stop. Bugs don’t think; they’re not malicious. A faint, high-pitched blare sounded over the noise of the moving creatures. Aura strained to listen for it, but was distracted when the light went out again overhead and another came on to her left, illuminating the metal bars. A sense of unease gripped her, accompanied by a lone, forgotten memory of filthy industrial London, choking on its black air. She ran her foot over the wooden slats and felt the edge of the nearest metal bar while apprehension dawned. The blare came again, louder this time, together with a faint rumble that sounded like sliding rocks. Train tracks. Impossibly, insanely, she was in the centre of the Earth and a train was coming. The blare came a third time, louder and more ominous, and the light flickered back on. The distance between the tracks and the wall was too small. There was no way, no way… Blare. The rumbling noise was almost deafening now and the room had started to shake, dislodging some of the bugs from the ceiling. Others effortlessly clung on with a kind of superhuman strength which caused a twisting in Aura’s gut. Blare. Seconds. To her right, a single beam of white light was beginning to penetrate the darkness. There was only one thing to do, one way of escape, and still Aura hesitated. As the light overhead flickered, she stepped over the metal rail towards the wall and turned around so that her back was to it. A second hesitation cost a few more precious seconds, and the light went out overhead. Blare. No time. Aura shuddered and backed up against the wall as far as she could go. The insects writhed behind her, and some didn’t get out of the way in time: she felt their exoskeletons crunch sickeningly against her back. The displaced bugs needed somewhere to go, and they took immediate advantage of her warm flesh; Aura tried to remain still while she felt thousands of legs crawl over her body and tug at her clothes. Something large and hairy inched across her neck with agonising slowness, tickling the underside of her chin. In seconds her arms and legs were swathed, and she was forced to close her eyes and clamp her mouth tightly shut to prevent them from poking in those crevices. It took every ounce of courage and willpower she possessed not to scream. Through her closed eyelids she saw black change to red as the light came on again, and risked a peek. The blinding white light was rushing towards her at breakneck speed, filling the tunnel with its imitation light. The motley array of creatures took on sharper and more distinct detail once the shadows lifted, and Aura was sure she could have counted the hairs on the tarantula on her chest, which was easily as big as her hand. Blare. Deafened, Aura closed her eyes again and slammed her head backwards as far as it would go, simultaneously feeling the burst of pain as it hit the wall and the squelch of something soft that her head had to go through to get to the wall. She could feel the rumbling now more than hear it. A second later the train hurtled past, buffeting her with winds so forceful she felt as if she were in a hurricane. Aura turned her head sideways, pressed her body against the wall and scrabbled at the rock with her hands, trying to find a hold which wasn’t moving. Something long and thin with many legs – a millipede? – started to investigate her left nostril, and she had to snort to push it away. She could feel the carriages rattling past her only inches away, sending terrifying vibrations through the air which threatened to shake her off the wall. The train seemed to go on forever; Aura’s limbs were trembling from the strength required to cling to the wall by the time the last carriage rushed past and the rumbling began to fade away. She opened her mouth to gasp for breath and was almost immediately forced so spit out the enterprising head of a five-inch long ant which had taken the opportunity to probe. The light overhead went out again. Aura wrenched her arms off of the walls, not entirely dislodging all the insects which clung to them, and pushed blindly forwards. The darkness swallowed her up, eating away every sight and sound. A faint red glow appeared behind her and something loomed into visibility an inch in front of her. It was a face, but no face like Aura had ever seen before. What little skin remained was grey with death or red with blood; beneath that, pale bones gleamed through the decaying muscle. A prominent hole in the left cheek gave a full view of a half-rotted tongue running along the edge of a set of blackening teeth, most of the nose was missing and tendrils of dry, brittle hair hung over the most awful pair of eyes Aura had ever seen. Most of the flesh around the sockets had rotted away but the eyeballs themselves were as new, shining white with staring, brown-black irises. Aura couldn’t help herself: she screamed and ripped herself away, crashing into the rocky (miraculously) insect-free wall in a desperate attempt to get away. A burst of pain shot up her right arm at the same time that a hand gripped the opposing shoulder and spun her around to face… Allianah. Aura exhaled slowly, forcing her heart to calm its beating, and noticed for the first time that the underground train tracks and insect-ridden walls were gone. She was back in the same tunnel with Allianah and the only light source was the glowing crack in the wall a little behind them. Shadows danced across the Nubian’s face every time the light flickered and the light glinted off her eyes, which were focused on a spot behind Aura’s back. Aura started to turn but Allianah grabbed her shoulder again and shook her. “Don’t,” the Nubian muttered quietly. “Don’t turn around.” Instantly, Aura felt a prickle on her neck and a burning desire to turn around. “Why?” She demanded to know, her voice an octave or so higher than normal. Allianah didn’t answer at first, but kept her eyes focused on whatever was behind Aura. The fact that she hadn’t yet attacked it suggested a wariness which was reflected in the taunt expression on her face. She shuffled a couple of inches to the right very slowly then, with obvious effort, shifted her gaze to Aura. Her lips were tight, her eyes slightly wider than usual, and she had her weight carefully balanced between her feet. She took a breath. “Aura.” Her voice was strained with effort and she licked her lips uneasily. “Look at me. I need you to trust me now. Don’t turn around, don’t turn away… and do not look behind you.” Slowly, half an inch a second, the Nubian reached up and lightly touched the long wooden staff strapped onto her back. Aura remained rigidly in position, straining to hear anything over the sound of her amplified breathing. A light scuffling noise behind her, like the sound of a pebble being nudged over the rocky floor, caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. The flickering red light threw the side of Allianah’s face into relief as she edged forward and to the side. Now she was partially obscured from Aura’s vision; Aura turned her head a fraction to follow her, but Allianah made a tiny shaking motion with her head and narrowed her eyes in warning. The darkness was enclosing, pressing in from all sides. Allianah shuffled forward a little more and gradually began to loosen the straps containing her staff. Aura heard a scraping sound behind her and immediately made to turn, unable to bear the agony of the wait, but the warrior’s words sliced through her. “Stop,” Allianah hissed. “Don’t look. Don’t turn around.” Aura exhaled slowly and turned her head back to its original position, feeling the muscles in her neck shudder from the tension. The light seemed to be casting shadow-faces on the opposite wall and the gaping rock crevices formed laughing mouths. Allianah had managed to loosen the straps and was now pulling the shaft from its belt, inch by inch, and creating a resonating shhhh noise as the wood rubbed against the leather. Another pebble tapped against the rock behind her, and this time Aura could feel the gentle draft of wind as something moved. Her skin prickled. After what seemed like an age, Allianah pulled the staff free and began to creep forward until she was level with her companion. She paused there for few moments until Aura felt like screaming at her to move on, then edged forward out of the latter’s vision. Silence, then a whump-crack echoed around the cavern and Aura felt Allianah’s hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go,” the Nubian insisted, her voice wavering slightly. “Don’t look at it, Aura, let’s go.” Before Allianah could react, Aura twisted under her grip and turned to face the silent danger. Immediately, she took a step backwards as something pink and fleshy loomed before her: Allianah had let it get within inches of her before striking. The snakelike, mucus-covered body, as thick as her torso, was coiled on the ground and glistening in the dim light. Parasitic worms are normally tiny creatures which live in the intestines and eat the body from the inside out; this one, it seemed, had been magically enlarged. Aura’s eyes followed the length of the ridged, slimy corpse until the body thinned and connected to an obvious neck. Instead of the worm’s typical wide eyes and gaping mouth, a fairy face had been roughly hewn on instead… a face distorted by decay. The pink skin morphed to grey and a pair of wide, unseeing eyeballs with coffee-brown irises stared up at her. Attached to the parasitic worm’s head was the rotting face of her only son. Aura turned away from the face and threw up on the uneven floor.

Replies:

• part seven. - By georgia September 10, 2012 at 02:42:56 AM
• part eight. - By georgia September 10, 2012 at 02:42:50 AM
• part nine. - By georgia September 10, 2012 at 02:42:40 AM
• part ten. - By georgia September 10, 2012 at 02:42:30 AM
• epilogue - By georgia September 10, 2012 at 02:42:21 AM

You must register before you can post on this board. You can register here.

Post a reply:

Username:
Password:
Email:
Subject:
Message:
Link Name:
Link URL:
Image URL: