Prepper's Dungeon

POV: Casper.

There was nothing but darkness in all directions. Nothing but the suffocating lack of light and the feeling of soggy swamp water that reached up to my chest. I tried to teleport once more, but my head was still drowning in a storm of fresh sensations. Memories coming and going without any kind of sense or order.

One moment I was down here among the rushes and the many, many, fucking giant fucking spiders; their little skittering legs crawling all over my face and biting down all over my body and the next saw me re-living my first time delving. Skewering Rippers with coach Russell and having to listen to Homer ranting about his father's nagging. Or Charles complaining about how closely his father and grandfather were monitoring his every move.

"They're suffocating me!" He'd complained. "Can't even go to the nearest town to see an actual movie! No! Gotta stay here and mind my own business! Working myself to the bone all the time! Charles do this! Charles do that! Charles run up that hill with three backpacks full of pointy rocks and do it on the double!"

We'd complained and we'd laughed and we'd snuck off to bully the nearby bears who weren't quite used to people. Or to people who could pick them up and throw them around with one hand.

Then the memory would pass and I found myself with Charles once more. Trying to explain how it had all gone so wrong. Trying to tell him about all the people his grandfather had ordered me to kill. Trying to tell him about just how much blood was on my hands and how I couldn't do it anymore. How it was all too much.

Then I saw Charles' body after I'd teleported his intestines to one room and his heart and lungs to another. I remembered how warm his blood had felt, as if ran through my fingers. How wet and sticky it had been as the red started to dry and harden. Turning into darker shades of crimson and black before my eyes.

Then I was back in the tunnel and in the darkness. With the spiders crawling all over me. Claws belonging to some other monsters catching my ankles and biting down with rows upon rows of sharpened teeth. Their arms pulling me down and down and down.

Down towards the deep and the wet, sticky, dirty darkness beneath the water and the muck.

'No!' I shouted inside my mind. 'No! I don't want to die! I don't want it to end like this! It can't end like this! I've lost too much! Sacrificed too much! I won't drown! This can't be how it ends!'

I tried to move my arms up. Trying to wrench free of the vines and the sticky webs and the spiders floating just above the water. But my arms had turned to noodles and when I tried to kick, I found that my legs were still as good as pudding. Maybe less useful.

I was flailing. And soon I wasn't even able to tell where up was or which direction was down. The water currents kept carrying me throughout a tunnel, as large scaly hands kept dragging me along with the current.

Every once in a while, I would feel a bit of I brushing against my cheeks and I would open my mouth to greedily suck in whatever air I could. I ended up swallowing mouthfuls of bitter, soiled water with every gulp, but the feeling of air finally rushing into my lungs was simply too sweet to do anything else.

The strain kept mounting though, the pain in my chest growing more and more tense as I kept trying to right myself while fighting the memories at the same time. Until a part of me wanted nothing more than to open my mouth and let everything in. To give in to the waters and let it all end.

I thought of Charles and his anger. How furious he had been when he'd found me in the archives. How his face reddened further and further the more I tried to explain. How his eyes had stared out into empty air after I'd killed him.

How those same eyes had almost seemed to follow me across the room. Condemning me with every step I took.

"Die." Those eyes called out to me now.

"It is what you deserve, traitor. Murderer. Backstabber. Die and join me. It won't make things right, but it will be a start. Die and atone for everything you've done."

'No!' I shouted again. Almost opening my mouth on instinct.

'I had to do it! You left me no choice! You! You tried to go along with what Carlyle was doing! You tried to keep the plan going! You wanted to try and control the whole world! Making deals with dictators and military juntas! You wanted to keep the world in the dark until the very last moment! You… you…!'

You were supposed to understand.

You were supposed to be my friend.

I hit my head against a rock and thusly found that I was upside down. I tried to flail my limbs again and found my right arm snagged against a sharp rock. The impact might have shattered a regular human arm to tiny fractured shards of bone, but I doubted it would be enough to give me a bruise.

I sent another blast of Magic out, thereby killing the monsters trying to drag me down and all those motherfucking spiders rushing above the surface and trying to bite me or otherwise run down my throat.

After that, I pulled myself upwards. Each movement being agonizingly slow as my head felt as if it was seconds away from exploding like a pack of fireworks. My brows thumping like hundreds of war drums all at once.

Yet I managed. Against all odds.

I gulped in fresh air once, then twice, then thrice. Savoring the sweet, sweet oxygen rushing into my lungs.

The darkness was still omnipresent and the only sounds echoing through the cavern were those of rushing water and of more monsters rushing to where I was.

But that was still much, much better than how things were mere moments ago.

"Cecil…" I stammered. "Cecil please. I'm not your enemy. You know that. You have to know that. You've seen the things Carlyle was willing to do. The things he actually did. The grueling choices. The secrets. The conspiracies. The man had me kill people Cecil. I killed so, so many people on his orders. He didn't leave me any choice. I had to kill them. I had to hunt them down. Politicians. Entrepreneurs. Wealthy investors. People who had some kind of oversight over Carlyle's operations. It never mattered. It never mattered to Carlyle who they were or if they had families. He ordered me to kill anyone who got in his way or anyone who threatened his grand vision in any way. It didn't matter to him if they deserved it or if they were good people or even if they families. I've killed people who had children, Cecil. I've broken up families on Carlyle's commands. And every time I tried to speak out… every time I dissented or said I wouldn't do it, he would bring up my own family and he would tell me these things were being done for them as well. He threatened them, Cecil."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I took another gulp of air and prepared myself to float as the walls and ceiling shook. The stone anchoring me trembling as if it was experiencing the beginnings of an earthquake.

"You aren't a bad person Cecil, so I know you must understand. Carlyle would have done anything to keep his secret safe. He would and he did do unspeakable things to advance his agenda. He's a monster and he needed to be stopped. For the good of everyone else in the world. You must see that too. You must have known it too. I did the only thing I could have done. For my family. For the world. Carlyle would have let them all die Cecil. All the normal people who didn't fit into his grand plan. Carlyle would have thrown them all to the wolves. Even after he got you and he figured out you could make food for everyone. He kept you a secret and he looked to profit off of you first. He kept you leashed using your family. I know you saw these things too Cecil. The man was a monster. He had to be stopped."

I couldn't see anything, but I started to get goosebumps again. My skin feeling tremors in the distance. My ears catching the near-silent skittering of a thousand thousand spiders rushing at me.

"Cecil! It was your uncle! He saw everything too! He saw that Carlyle was insane! That he was a despot trying to take control of the world because he thought no one else could do it! He was the one who came up with the plan! He was the one who laid the groundwork since his mind couldn't be read! He knew! He knew what had to be done! He was behind the leak and behind setting Ryuji free! You know that! You know your own uncle! He wanted to protect you! To protect his family! He saw Carlyle's plans for what they were and he had to act! Don't you care about that!? Don't you care that all he did was done for you and for your cousin!? Is this really how you want it all to end!?"

No answer.

I cursed and tried to teleport once more.

Trying to summon what little Magic I had left to finally break through the blockage the shroom juices had caused.

The effort made my chest ache again. My lungs feeling as if they were on fire once more, despite me still having air. My eyes lost their focus in the darkness and my mind swirled around and round again. My brain thrumming with stress and old, painful memories.

'Please. Oh please let me make it out alive.' I wished. 'I was just trying to help. I don't deserve this. I have to get out. I have a family.'

I saw my kids once more, in the back recesses of my mind. I saw their smiles and their tears. I saw myself comforting them and laughing with them. I saw my wife. I saw the world I was trying to save. I saw Charles and his wife and his children too. Oscar, who would become a man without a father and Elsie, who had seen James die.

I saw them.

I saw them.

I saw…

The jump failed as my mind throbbed once more. The Magic dissipating as a disorienting wave of confusion overtook me. My stomach forcing the rest of me to hurl out into the already rank waters of the tunnel.

I tasted iron in my mouth and then another torrent hit me. The water rushing in like a thousand hammers falling at once.

The shock sent me off the small outcrop and into the river's flow once again.

I fell with the river and then I kept falling. Past and future becoming intermingled with each other as I saw Charles over and over again. The young man I grew up with and the man I had to kill. The pleading for change from his younger self and the defense of his grandfather later on. I saw his life's blood pumping and falling down to the floor.

As his own light fled from within his eyes.

'It wasn't my fault.' I said again. 'You made me do it. You made me. You left me no choice. I had to save everyone. I had to save the world. I had to save them all. All the people Carlyle would have condemned. I couldn't do it. I couldn't ignore them. Please forgive me.'

Charles' ghost did not answer but it did not dissipate either. I saw his essence come and flee. I saw the edge of daybreak over in the recesses of my mind. I saw the end of the world that Carlyle wanted to stop. I saw Uter and his plans in the dim lighting of the basement. I saw the end of the road through working with Raymond. I saw Cecil. A kid being forced to do all kinds of messed up things to satisfy al od man's greed.

'I was trying to help him. I was trying to save him and his family. It doesn't make sense for him to kill me. It isn't fair.'

The river ended in a sudden burst of light.

Suddenly I was drowning in mud. Feeling the sticky wet earth grabbing me from all sides.

I tried to get up. Trying to shake off the disorientation and trying to get a grip on where I was and what I needed to do. Trying to finally shake off the chemicals inside of me so that I could make full use of my Magic once more.

I stood on shaking legs, after falling on my face two times in quick succession. My limbs hardly feeling like parts of my body at all and instead feeling like noodles someone had stapled to my torso. My vision swam, but at least I was seeing something, despite how foggy it was down here.

I could just make out a single silhouette, when the target got closer.

And closer.

And closer.

Until I could make out the rest of its features.

It was an ugly, deformed thing. With four green-red arms and an elongated oval-shaped skull that extended its forehead. Its legs were dog-like. Bending in places no human legs would have been able to manage and its six eyes tracked me through the fog. Just as easily as I was tracking it. The thing's gaze flickering as those eyes shone with a malevolent gleam that seemed to pierce the obfuscating fog all around us.

Then it raised two of its lower arms and I noticed it was holding something. Another living, twitching thing that looked as if it had the same skin tone and muscle makeup.

There was the sound of a gunshot and I felt a punch landing on my shoulder. Knocking me off balance once more. I made to stand, but I soon felt another jolt sending me towards the ground. This one landing on my back.

Then another came soon thereafter, from above. Striking the center of my chest and making me wheeze in pain. I felt the gnawing of teeth and noticed that something small was trying to chew its way through my skin. Trying to eat my insides as if they were candy.

I crushed the insect with my fist and tried to marshal my magic again. Managing to teleport a few meters into the air.

A hundred shots rang out then and all but two struck true. The surviving Burrower Roaches biting down and trying to chew their way through my exhausted body.

I slapped myself over and over. Crushing them one by one even as the force of the shots made me lose my balance upon landing.

Worse, I could actually see small puncture wounds now. Places that had been bruised and weakened by the orevious assaults that had now been perforated slightly.

'But enough for the venom to get through.' I realized with a start.

This was wrong. This had all been a stupid idea from the outset. Carlyle had obviously brainwashed Cecil to the point where talking was useless. Right now, it was either him or me.

'Have to get out. Can't reason with him anymore. Have to… to get out and make it to Uter. To my wife. To my kids.'

I tried to move again, but found that my limbs were no longer content with feeling as though they'd fallen asleep. Now they didn't feel like anything at all.

Then one of the monsters came by and stepped on me. Its ugly, misshapen foot-claw landing on my teeth and failing to shatter them. But then it tried again and then another one tried to break my ribs and then another tried to break my legs.

I couldn't see all the blows then and I couldn't feel half of them, but I knew they were landing. I knew what they were trying to do.

'Hubris.' I thought with mounting panic. 'I was an idiot! I felt like a level 3 could never harm a level 5! Idiot! It was never me against Cecil! I was always me against his army!'

I heard, rather than felt, more gunshots. The things taking aim at point-blank range and firing their bio-guns at me. I felt a few twitches of pain and looked down in horror to see some of the roaches managing to burrow their way between the layer of my skin.

I roared and summoned energy I didn't know I still had. Putting it all in another massive blast. The greatest I could possibly manage.

The Magic went off like gargantuan bomb. Annihilating all the monsters that had gathered around me and rending the very space between their cells.

I would have cried out in relief, but I felt the ground beneath me giving way as well. The blast displacing too much of the stone that made up the floor.

And there, half blind and bleeding from a hundred little cuts, I fell again.

Once more into the darkness.