Interesting little story

[noctem]

I found the following on a random bulletin board earlier, posted by an Anonymous user. It's a short read, but I found it particularly enjoyable.


It was into a dark place we fell, and even my sharp eyes were at a loss to discern the rolling bits of stone debris from my fellow miners. I felt several hard jolts against my back and my arms, tumbling against the jagged walls of the pit. It was likely the only thing that saved me, slowing my descent just enough to survive the impact with the cavern floor. A small blessing, and one that I would eventually come to regret.

My comrades were not all as fortunate. The sound of falling stone was interrupted intermittently by the harsh crack of snapping bone and squelch of severed meat.

As the dust began to settle I heard groans and muffled cursing, and I was relieved to find my brother Bhelen not ten feet away, clutching a shallow wound on his scalp but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Damned Godfrey," he choked, spitting a globule of blood from his lips. "Mayhaps next time ye won't be so eager tae test the structual integrity of the floor with yer fat arse!"

Only when we'd exhausted ourselves scrounging under every single other nook in sight did we turn our attention back to Godfrey. Me and my brother shared a grim stare, our eyes gleaming like sapphires in the murk. Without another word between us we curled our hands beneath the granite block and heaved, bending at the knees and pressing ourselves against the lethal weight of the stone until it began to lift and grind to one side. There was a wet clattering, and beneath it we found what we had been looking for.

Sticking out from the pile of viscera and bone were the tattered remains of our packs, several hundred yards of coiled rope alongside a jumble of pitons and picks. Two of the picks were shattered and another was nowhere to be seen, but the last seemed sturdy enough in the hand to be used.

"Shitty luck, but I'd expect nothing less," Bhelen grumbled. "Since when have things ever gone our way?"

"Better a sliver of hope than none at all," I said, doing my best not to stain my boots with Godfrey.

"Ye find the damn tools or what?" the old man's voice yelled. It sounded so faint, even though he lay not a few meters away.

"Aye. Only one of the picks though. Could be a few days o' work unless we're swift."

"Well then, it's a good thing we all ate beforehand, eh?" he laughed, a small and choking thing.

That's when I heard it, a faint and unwholesome sound. It was scarcely even there, more imagined than real, and for a moment I was certain that's all it was. Neither Bhelen nor Hurden seemed to hear it, ignoring me as a stayed rooted to the spot and cocked my ear to the void. My skin went cold, as though every ounce energy was being spent solely on the act of listening.

There it was. An undercurrent, like rushing water beneath one's feet or the steady pulsations of a drilling mechanism in the forge across the street. It was a sound one could feel more than hear, a deep and slithery thing that ignored the ears and seeped into the skin and bones.

"Ye gonna help me with him or not?" Bhelen asked impatiently, and I saw him attempting to raise the pale form of Hurden with one arm. "We should move him closer tae the wall."

"Can't ye hear that?" I asked, an almost reverent whisper. "It's all around us now. Can't ye feel it? Like, like a second heartbeat?"

The two looked at me like I was mad, but I knew it was not madness swelling in my breast. It was fear, a deep and mindless fear that I was at a loss to explain or answer for. It was growing louder all the time, like a strangled scream or muffled storm wailing away in my heart and shaking me, shaking me to my core.

Or perhaps it was simply the hands of my Brother clasped around my shoulders, angrily jolting me back and forth as if I was some drunkard.

"Wirrel? Wirrel, ye daft git, get a hold o' yerself!"

"Beneath," I gasped, pinpointing the source. "It's from beneath."

We'd spent almost an hour scouring that pit, yet in our haste we had completely overlooked the very floor that we stood on. We'd failed to notice the pores, the deep pockmarks that seemed to burrow down even deeper like miniature versions of the tunnel we'd fallen into.

And from it, slow at first but steadily picking up speed, was a pale green light. Even Bhelen could hear it now, taking a step back and readying the lone pick like it was an extension of his own arm. It was useless, and perhaps even he knew it. Such is the way of the Dwarf, to stand before suicidal odds.

At last it began to pour from the rock like pus from a wound, gelatinous tendrils that hissed and sent up geysers of noxious steam as they mindlessly consumed everything they came into contact with. As each one met the open air they writhed, a web of pumping veins that soon converged on one another and formed a single and terrible mass of acidic jelly. Its form was only barely contained, a phosphorescent lump that bubbled and boiled in some blasphemous language that was no language at all.

Bhelen, my brother to the last, shoved me aside and screamed with all the savage fury of a man who knows he is about to die, heaving the mighty pick overhead and cleaving into the slimy mass. The sheer force of the strike blew a hole clean through it, splattering the far wall with bits of goo. But after a moment the hole filled itself, and the strewn globules began to move of their own accord. The residue on the blade of the pick began to seethe, but the hardy Dwarven metal was not so easily bested.

"Don't think he'll get the chance, Bhelen," another weak voice rasped.

"That you, Hurden?" I asked, casting my eyes about the small chamber.

"Aye. Tae yer left."

Struggling to our feet we found him half trapped beneath a slab of ruined granite, which we quickly took pains to extract him from. The old spitfire of a dwarf looked especially gray and frail in the half-light of our darkvision, and as we helped to brace him against the rubble his face was set in a pained grimace.

"These legs have seen better days," he joked, barely suppressing a hiss as he shifted his weight upon them. The knees of his trousers were a shade darker and slick with blood, and by the odd way the fabric fell it was clear the bone had pierced clean through.

"Bah, they look fine," I lied, but the words fell flat. Back in those days I had little knowledge of the healing arts, and was certain the man wasn't likely to walk again.

"What were ye sayin' about Godfrey?"

He sighed, a sound I knew all too well, and gestured weakly behind us.

A stout arm twisted oddly out from under a rock that had scarcely enough room beneath it for a sheaf of paper, let alone a fully grown dwarf. There was a brief moment of silence. Godfrey had been a pebble-brained fool, prone to rash decisions, arrogance, and novice mistakes, but like the rest of us he had a home and a hearth that would mourn his passing. For all our faults in life, we were all equal in death.

"Where are the tools?" Hurden asked tiredly.

"Barring some monumentally horrible luck, laying out in the open here abouts," I said, trying not to sound doubtful.

"Well don't go and get me hopes up unless ye manage tae get some rope. I can't even see the torches back in the hall."

Craning my head up, I saw that he was right. There was no warmth to be seen overhead, just a deep splotch of shifting blue and black that went on forever.

"What kind of shitheaded beardless idjits thought it a bood idea tae build a blasted three-foot-depth floor over a damned chasm?!" Bhelen roared, his voice echoing up the shaft and fading into a whimper.

"Could be the hole wasn't here when they built it," I said, giving the walls a better look. Even in that choking blackness I could tell that the tunnel was far more fresh than the ruins it supported. There was a certain sheen to them where something had built up, a residue or some such. In my ignorance I hazarded to the others that some underground river might have been diverted and channeled through the weakened stone.

"Well we kin debate the finer points o' hydrology when we're back home with a few pints of whiskey poured over these useless stubs o' mine," Hurden croaked sarcastically.

Wasting no more time, we set about searching amongst the old rocks. The space was filled with a desperate rumbling as we tossed everything our hands could reach aside, knowing that without the tools in hand we stood little chance of making it back home. Most of our kind knows on some instinctive level that he is destined to die in darkness and surrounded by stone, but none of us were all that eager to hurry ourselves to that fate.

He did not let the futility of it deter him, flailing away at the gurgling thing with a ferocity that would have made our father proud. Each savage blow scattered chunks of the thing that only served to bolster its numbers, but the speed at which his arms flew denied them even an inch. It was as though the gelatinous creature had been thrown into a meat grinder, and if it had possessed a mind I am certain it would have known fear for the first time in its unnatural life.

But fear was as alien to it as cowardice was to Bhelen, and while it would never tire I could already see my brother's arms beginning to slow from the effort. It was then that I realized that he was yelling to me, wasting precious breath to impart a final message over the whistling howl of the pick and burbling splatter of its victim.

"Get out o' here, ye mud-brained fool! Ye always were fond o' makin' me waste my time," he said, laughing like one possessed. "What kind o' dwarf are ye, sittin' around while ye have two good legs and arms? Don't ye have a wife tae get back tae? Climb, for stone's sake, CLIMB!"

It was like a switch had been flipped in my skull, and all the survival instincts that shock had suppressed came flood back in waves. I hesitated a moment, giving Bhelen's straining back one last stare before locking eyes with Hurden. The old man looked haggard, barely more than meat clinging to a pile of bones, but he managed a smile and whispered something I could not hear.

I dug my hands into the rock until my nails ran hot with blood, as though sheer force could will it to turn into mud. Perhaps it was the residue still caked to the porous rock, or perhaps it was just sheer wild adrenaline, but I soon found myself scaling the sheer surface with a speed that only fear and desperation could impart.

I looked down only once, and Bhelen was still fighting when his form finally vanished into obscurity.

"Of course, I survived that day. I returned to my wife and my clan, and sent a rescue party down for my comrades. They found nothing, as I suspected they would. Just an empty space, without any trace of death. The way it should be."

As the retelling ended, I found a faint smile in my memory that seemed appropriate, showing it to my new comrades over the campfire in some attempt to ease the tension from their drawn faces. The flames uttered a small and uncertain crackle into the still night, as though it too had been listening with bated breath. The warmth was pleasant, and I soaked it in gladly.

"But I don't understand," the paladin asked, finally daring to speak. Joseph, I believe. Names seem so inconsequential these days. "I am sorry that such a tragedy befell you, but it doesn't explain why you would become what you are?"

I kept the smile, deeming it suitable for my needs. "Of course it does. That's just the thing about tragedy, is it not?"

My arm slithered down my side, melting over a nearby stick and prodding it at the wasting logs until the air sizzled with sparks. Yes. Warmth was truly delicious.

"It sticks with you. Like a shard of glass lodged in the cranium. It splinters into pieces, shredding everything in its path until all that's left is a pale imitation of the man you used to be, and a shattered personality reflecting blood and gristle and old pains."

I willed Bhelen's face to grin. I always did prefer his face.