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Of Ancient Passages: Chapter 9:  For Every Darkness A Monster

I stand in a maze of corridors. On each side of me, there are many doors. Most of the doors are placid white but a few look burnt. Like a third, degree burn gone worse. Down the long hall, a door catches my eye. I move forward towards it.

This door is thumping. Aside from this, it is chained tight with a great big padlock in the center. The thumping makes the chains rattle. I go forward, almost against my will. I feel odd. Has this door always been waiting for me?

I reach my hand out towards the padlock. How will I get in? The thumping changes harder, becoming more erratic. The lock slowly unlocks itself and clinks to the floor. My hand twists the knob and the shrill sound of it opening rattles me. I do not know what I expected but not this.

I did not expect total darkness. I cannot see anything. Whatever is in there gives me a bad sense of remembrance.  Nothing clear comes to the surface. I take a step forward. A haunting melody echoes through the room. My childhood why is there a connection with it?

My resolve graduates and I go inside. I conjure a light in my hand but it gives little range. I pat myself in the back for being able to do it correctly. Continuing forward gives me little identity of this room. There must be something in here, if not then why the locks? Wait a minute, what is this.

Something metal shines ahead. Something behind the metal glints like gold. I shine it close to the gold, then the gold blinks. My heart takes up a hard pace, my feet scramble back. Only now do I realize that the metal is one big cage. Oh no, what have I discovered?

Its ebony shape thunders up. Golden eyes stare at me, smoldering with life and anger. Its teeth are worse than the hydras. They bite and bend the bars. The bars bend back into place. A muffled groan escapes it.

“W-w-w-w-What…are you?” I ask.

The responsive laugh is gruff and worse than its groan. I shiver, my hairs stand on end. There is a great intelligence in it I can see it. One of its long bone fingers scrapes the metal. Sparks go flying about, giving a more twisted image of it. Why is it always monsters? Whatever happened to rabbits and butterflies?

Its voice greatly disturbs me. “The question is not what am I, it is what I could be.”

“W-w-What could you be?”

“I am thee monster! I am what make cat’s ears prick up during the witching hour! I make lovers cling closer in rapture! I am every fear, every terror and every nightmare! But to you I am your greatest power and poison! I am your slave!”

“H-how?”

The ground shakes. It laughs or snarls, I cannot tell. “Don’t be stupid, little fool.”

“I am not a fool!”

Moving swift, it bangs its head on the bars in front of me. I cannot describe the horror this creature imposes on me. I see more of it. The grotesque thing is very hard to define. If I did define it, I would say this: it has the protruding face of a fox, the slimy tentacles of a squid and great wings similar to a dragon. All made to suffer in one entity.

Its tentacles twist about the bars. The wings spread out. It is many times my size. Repeatedly it slams into the bars. What wonder that the bars do not shatter from the magical pressure alone. It swells the air.

Its voice is even gruffer, full of spite. “You are everything I hate and loath! You are impudent! You are nothing without my help, without my power.” It snarls showing its razor sharp teeth.

“Y-your power?”

“You thought it was all you?” It chokes up, a laugh more disturbing than the last. Ooze ebbs down it. Its laughter almost makes me cover my ears. “You are a fool!”

“I don’t understand—“

“Not surprising.”

If it let me finish, I try again. “I don’t understand how you got here. How did you become a part of me?”

“I am not a part of you but I am inside, locked away, as you see. My mind is blurred; I do not know how or when it happened. I just know that it did happen. Let me out and I will find the answer.”

That seems like a bad idea. What would happen if I did? Would it try to kill me?  How can I really have such a thing inside? Maybe I was better off living as a hermit. I never had this many questions unanswered. I move closer.

Unsettling joy pounds in its voice. “That’s it.”

I come closer. The light shines on something on its cage. Inscriptions are cut into the cage. They pop and crack as I come close. I cannot make out what they say. I know without knowing that I cannot open it, even if I wanted to.

“I can’t let you out.”

“Why not?”

I point to some of the binding inscriptions. It works hard to see. A frenzied brontide comes from it. It thrashes in the cell. As it screams, my knees wobble. My teeth chatter.

“You are a worm. You may hold the key to my prison but I can see your soul. This place cannot blind me. Face it boy you are just like me. You are filled with pain and misery, even rage. Let me out! Let me out! LET ME OUT!”

My head swims. Cage and monster vanish. Only blackness remains no sound, no light, only pitch. How did I get here? What is here? Add this to the pile of all the things I do not understand.

My eyes do not adjust to this blind world. Minutes seem to pass, and I can no longer tell if I am standing. The lightlessness is warm. The space around me feels of unseen mass. It is soft as velvet. I wrap myself in it. Allow it to penetrate every fiber of my being.

I hold my hand in front of my face (I think) but see nothing. What am I? Can I be human here? Do I even have a body? Am I just another piece in the darkness? Nothing makes sense nothing seems real here.

Here there is no worry. I belong here. After all, I am a part of it. I return to the womb. To the source of cradle, that holds me so well. What am I thinking? I have to snap out of this.

We are the black air. A poisonous breathing gas that all must drink to become a lotus. When they bloom, the muses come. The roses they breathe chill the mind from fear. I have nothing to fear anymore. I am one with the Universe.

Does a speck see? Are all the other specks looking at me? They do not like me. I am invading their space. Are they closing in around me? Am I closing in around them?

Is the darkness their blood? Am I in blood? I’m floating in blood! Fields of endless sanguine crops are everywhere. This can’t be happening. It’s everywhere!
Written by MrE (C. R. Powers)
Published
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