NOVEL NEXT Chapter 77
The steps are much larger this time than the last pair I went up, these clearly not having been made with a rat in mind by whatever dark creator crafted them. As I awkwardly push myself up the steps that I feel are human sized, I listen closely awaiting the sound of boots thudding behind me in pursuit. But I don’t hear any. I guess the fire-elemental stopped her, the thief, from pursuing me after all, one way or the other.
I suppose I know that means that the creature I escorted here is likely no more, if the monument closed doesn’t that mean the fire went out? Doesn’t that mean she’s dead? I suppose it does, doesn’t it? It’s an odd feeling in my chest, one I can’t avoid as I have nothing else to focus on during my ascent. Death is such a weird thing to me as we’ve discussed. But I know she’ll be back tomorrow, just like me, just like everyone. New day, new start.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect the sacrifice she made for me. Why? As far as she knows this was it, her whole life given away so that some rat can escape? Some rat she met half an hour ago? Where was I? What was that floor? Who were those people? I should have looked at my map, I guess if there was so much hero memorabilia she wouldn’t have been weirded out about a menu. Next time. Next time I’m there I’ll look closer. But for now I’ll climb these stairs. For now I’ll live the life I was given to the fullest so that her day wasn’t wasted in vain. That’s the most I can do.
But as I ascend the stairs and as I grow tired and shaky from my sore tiny legs scampering up the much too long staircase, I notice something. A chill. A cold. Each step growing progressively cooler as if the stone were leaching more and more of the heat out of the air, out of my core. Soon I notice that I can see my breath, escaping from my tiny, panting, sweaty body. The floor begins to sting my feet as it becomes cold, cold like the water of the great old-one’s floor. Like that black, colorless ink.
My eyes focus on the above, my mind focusing on the task at hand in order to not think about the air nipping at my skin, at the tip of my nose and at my feet. Then I see it, the light. The pale, blue shine of the world above me. The draft of air rising from below, pushing against my back as we rise together up the flight, as if blown from the lips of a gentle giant below, to cast a flower petal off from their hands into the breeze. As if to push me forward and higher as if to dispel any notions of turning back, any notions of doubt caused by the chill before me.
I climb up the final step and shield my eyes at the bright before me, without emotions, without feelings, without fear I look through the breach and stare into the new stage of my life. Crystalline blue coats everything as if I were trapped inside of a pristine diamond. The walls shimmer with a pellucid shine as if they were all immaculately polished and well-kept. The floors, the walls, the ceiling of this chamber and the passages leading out of it all blue. All crystalline. All ice.
I shiver.
Stepping out of the staircase that leads seemingly to the middle of a room to my surprise, I wonder why this exit isn’t hidden like all the others. But as I step out I see why in an instant. A loud crackling sound catches my one good ear, the wet nub on the other stinging with an intensity at the cold air as I turn around. As I look and see the floor literally close behind me. See the ice expand from one end to the other as if strung together by some invisible spiders that made a web across the crack. Like the healing of a flesh wound, just growing oddly back together leaving me now trapped on this side.
To say it is brisk is an understatement, no it’s frigid. Algid. Frozen. It’s cold, guy, okay? Already I feel my feet sting as they stand on the icy floor, as… I look down in horror and see that I can’t move. I see that the ice has begun to grow over the skin on my feet. No, it has begun to grow over my feet entirely. As if it were swallowing me up like swamp-water, having already risen up halfway up my feet as if to trap me here. I struggle and squirm but can’t break free, the ice holding me too tight already. Not to overuse the metaphor, but like an insect trapped in a spider’s web. I’m stuck.
Thinking quickly I brace down against the ice below me which I feel reaching up, reaching up and touching my underbelly as it seeks to hold that firm now as well like a sticky glue. But before it has a chance to do so, I leap.
There is a cracking sound as the ice shatters apart, my feet breaking free from the ties that bind me down. As I rise into the air just a tiny bit, but just enough to break free I feel a pain. As I land, my feet numb and bloody, my ankles ache to the point where I wonder if I almost broke them. I begin to move. I realize to my horror that with every step, for every second I stand still the ice rises. Rises up to try and grab me again. I can’t stop.
Walking, pacing down the way I look in abject terror and the place I have arrived in. Cold. Empty. Hungry. I pick up the pace, feeling the floor beneath me stick to my feet with every step. I scurry-scurry forward and hurry-hurry, stopping only one more time. Stopping only when I see them. See them inside the walls.
Bodies.
Corpses of creatures large and small. Minotaurs. Goblins. Cultists. Rats. Humans. Fairies. Slimes. Everything. Anything. All of them frozen inside the walls, those who have faces left carry clear visions of terror in their expressions. Those who have eyes left carry the reflection of some horror in their gazes. As if they came to some grim realization at the last second. Then I realize what this is. A grave. No, a stomach.
They’ve all been swallowed. Anyone who stopped for too long. Who stopped moving for too long was swallowed, trapped just enough to realize that they can’t move anymore. Trapped just long enough to try and pull their legs free only to realize they can’t, while they spent the next hours here freezing to death, being swallowed alive. As they were consumed, not by some creature or horrible monster; but by the floor itself. As if they were eaten whole by the dungeon itself as the ice grew slowly around them, bit by bit. Making them part of it.
I scamper forward, determined not to stop now. Ignoring the red trail of bloody steps I leave in my wake as the skin from the bottom of my raw feet is missing. Ignoring the pain of my tiny joints being frostbitten.
This is the worst floor I’ve seen yet. This isn’t some… trap. Some monster filled lair. This is horror. This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen the dungeon-master create.
It’s evil.
