Aezur stepped toward the darkness of the corridor, the ancient book clutched against his chest like a shield made of forbidden knowledge. Each footstep echoed through the stone chamber, a hollow sound that seemed to stretch infinitely into the depths below.
The dragging sound had stopped.
Silence returned, but it was different now. Pregnant with threat. The kind of quiet that precedes violence, when predators hold their breath before striking. His pale fingers tightened around the leather binding of the book. The eye on its cover felt warm against his palm, as if it were alive, watching, waiting.
Pulse.
The book's heartbeat synchronized with his own for a moment, then fell out of rhythm. Wrong. Everything was wrong.
The corridor beyond the chamber was narrow, carved from the same damp stone. Ancient symbols covered the walls in irregular patterns, their meaning lost to time. Some glowed faintly with that same sickly green light he had seen on the altar. Others were dark, dead, their power long since drained.
As he moved forward, the air grew thicker. More oppressive. Each breath was an effort, like trying to inhale liquid. The taste of iron became stronger, mixing with something else. Something organic. Rotting.
A drop of water fell from somewhere above, striking the stone with a sound that seemed impossibly loud in the suffocating silence. Then another. And another. But when Aezur looked up, he saw no ceiling. Only darkness that stretched beyond perception.
The drops were not water.
They were dark. Viscous. They left stains on the stone that moved, squirming like living things before finally settling into stillness. He stepped around them carefully, his bare feet making soft sounds against the cold floor.
His body felt foreign to him. Heavy. Clumsy. As if he were wearing clothes that didn't fit, made of flesh and bone instead of fabric. Every muscle ached with a deep, persistent pain. Every joint protested movement. This physical form was a punishment as much as it was a gift.
The price of existence, whispered something in his mind. Not the voice from before. Something else. Something that might have been his own thoughts, if thoughts could taste like copper and regret.
The corridor branched ahead. Two paths disappearing into deeper darkness. No light. No sound to guide him. Only instinct and the burning map that still flickered behind his eyes like an afterimage of lightning.
He chose the left path without knowing why.
The walls here were different. Smoother. Almost organic in their curves. They pulsed with a rhythm that reminded him uncomfortably of a heartbeat. Slow. Irregular. As if something massive were sleeping just beyond the stone, dreaming dreams that leaked into reality.
The book grew heavier in his hands. The eye on its cover seemed to blink—once, twice. When he looked directly at it, it was still. But in his peripheral vision, it moved. Watched. Judged.
Another sound reached him. Not the dragging from before. This was different. Rhythmic. Deliberate. Footsteps. But wrong somehow. Too many of them. Coming from too many directions at once.
Aezur pressed himself against the wall and waited. The stone felt warm against his back, uncomfortably so. Like skin with a fever.
The footsteps grew closer. Multiple sets, but they didn't match any pattern he could understand. Some were heavy, like boots on stone. Others were soft, almost delicate. Some seemed to tap with claws or nails. And underneath it all, that persistent dragging sound had returned, accompanying the footsteps like a grotesque percussion section.
Voices joined the symphony of movement. Whispers at first. Then growing louder. Multiple voices speaking in languages he didn't recognize, but somehow understood. They spoke of hunger. Of need. Of the stranger who had awakened in the deep places where no stranger should be.
They knew he was here.
The book in his hands grew warmer. The eye on its cover blazed briefly, then dimmed. Knowledge flowed from it into his mind without his permission. Images. Instructions. A way to survive what was coming.
But everything came with a price.
Memory, the book whispered without words. Pain. Sanity. Pieces of yourself that you'll never get back. Choose carefully, Echo. The shadows are always hungry.
The voices were closer now. Just around the next bend in the corridor. He could hear individual words being spoken, could almost make out the meaning behind them. They were planning. Discussing how to divide him. What parts would be most useful. Which organs held the most power.
Aezur opened the book again.
The pages fluttered to a section he hadn't seen before. Diagrams of human figures in various poses. Circles and symbols surrounding them. Words that burned themselves into his vision as he read them. An invocation. A ritual. A way to tap into something that existed in the spaces between spaces.
He understood what he had to do.
He also understood what it would cost him.
Not just memory, he realized as the knowledge settled into his mind like poison. A piece of who I am. Forever.
The footsteps rounded the corner.
Three figures emerged from the darkness. No, not figures. Things that had once been human, perhaps, but were no longer. The first walked upright but its limbs were too long, its joints bending in directions that made his eyes water to follow. Its face was a mass of scars and empty sockets where eyes should have been.
The second crawled along the ceiling like an insect, its fingers ending in claws that sparked against the stone. Its mouth was open impossibly wide, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth that seemed to go on forever down its throat.
The third was the source of the dragging sound. It had no legs, only a torso that ended in trailing ribbons of flesh that left wet marks on the stone. Its arms were normal, almost sadly human in comparison to the rest of its form.
They saw him.
The first one spoke, its voice like grinding glass. "Fresh meat. Warm flesh. New blood for the deep places."
The second one chittered and clicked, its words barely recognizable as language. "Hunt-prey. Catch-kill. Feed-feast."
The third one said nothing, but its eyes held intelligence. Malevolent intent. It was studying him, trying to understand what he was and how best to use him.
Now, the book urged. Before they realize what you carry.
Aezur read the words from the book.
They were in a language older than human speech. Each syllable felt like swallowing broken glass. The words fought against being spoken, as if they knew they were being used for purposes they weren't meant for. But he forced them out, feeling pieces of his sanity crack and fall away with each phrase.
Something important was torn from his mind. A memory of... warmth? Safety? Love? He couldn't remember what it had been, only that it was gone forever.
The air around him began to change.
Reality bent. Twisted. The walls of the corridor suddenly seemed very far away. The three creatures froze, their predatory advance halting as something far older and more dangerous than them stirred in response to the invocation.
Shadows moved independent of any light source. They reached out like living things, grasping at the creatures with tendrils of pure darkness. The first creature screamed, a sound like metal being torn apart. The second one's chittering became frantic, afraid. The third one tried to drag itself backward, but the shadows were faster.
They were consumed. Absorbed. One by one, they simply ceased to exist, pulled into spaces that didn't exist by forces that shouldn't be.
But the shadows weren't finished.
They turned toward Aezur.
He felt them probing at the edges of his mind, testing his defenses, looking for a way in. They had done what he asked, but now they wanted payment. They always wanted payment.
The book grew hot in his hands. The eye on its cover blazed with light that hurt to look at directly. More knowledge flooded his mind. How to bargain with shadows. How to give them just enough to satisfy them without losing everything that made him who he was.
Not memory this time, the book whispered. They've tasted your essence now. They want something deeper.
He offered them pain.
Physical agony tore through his body as the shadows accepted the payment. Every nerve screamed in unison. His muscles cramped. His bones ached as if they were being ground to powder from the inside. But it was temporary. Pain healed. Memory, once lost, never returned.
The shadows retreated, satisfied for now.
The corridor returned to its normal dimensions. The walls stopped pulsing. The oppressive atmosphere lifted slightly, though the smell of death and decay remained.
Aezur stumbled forward, his legs shaking from the effort of the ritual. His body felt even more wrong now, as if it were rejecting his presence. Blood trickled from his nose, warm against his pale skin.
But he was alive.
And he was learning.
The first lesson, he thought as he walked deeper into the darkness. Everything has a price. But some prices are worth paying.
The game had rules, but they weren't the rules he had expected. Power could be borrowed, but always at a cost. Knowledge could be gained, but wisdom came through suffering. And survival required choices that carved pieces away from his soul.
Behind him, wet stains on the stone were all that remained of the three creatures. Even those were beginning to fade, as if reality were slowly editing them out of existence.
The corridor stretched ahead, leading toward destinations unknown.
The book pulsed once more against his chest, its warmth almost comforting now.
Almost, he thought. But not quite.
Nothing in this place was meant to comfort. Only to teach. Only to change. Only to prepare him for what was coming.