Hara and the Witch

Chapter 3: A Festering Pit

It was very, very dark. A tiny bit of light filtered into the room, but the air felt damp and stagnant and it smelled even worse, rotten and toxic and off.

It took Hara a little while to figure out what was going on, but after working out that she hadn't left any debts unpaid - well, not this unpaid - she began to wonder where Plim was and remembered.

Sniffing tentatively Hara smelled blood and a dull ache on her face, followed by some careful prodding, reminded her of her nose. Her fingers didn't come away bloody, but she felt dry crusts across her lips and chin.

It was difficult to make out much of anything in the room, even how big it was, everything blurry and fragmented. A part of her worried for Plim, the memory of the fall replaying again before her eyes in the dim, but Plim was agile and strong, better in danger than Hara. Still, she knew the twisting worry working through her body wouldn't be free until they were reunited.

For a while Hara tried piecing together her surroundings, a dull throb twisting through her body. She couldn't work out anything except for an infrequent drip of moisture on her shoulder and the fact her feet, which felt oddly stiff, were bound together. Neither of these facts being overwhelmingly helpful, Hara had just decided to try untying herself when something in the room moved.

Unable to see a thing and yet sure she wasn't alone, Hara tried her best to move, even just to shift aside a little, but something caught in her stomach and she felt it tug her back just as a voice spoke from the darkness.

'I don't think so.'

She couldn't tell whether it was human or beast speaking. Images flashed through her mind, but she couldn't hold them still. It was a voice devoid of all feeling except for the faintest hint of amusement; the words were spoken so fast that they melded into each other and it took some time before Hara understood the meaning. By then the throbbing pain throughout her body had intensified and with it her anger reared its head.

'Let. Me. Out.' She spoke slowly, her own voice so full of emotion, despite its being rough to her ears, that it almost exploded out of her. The thing in the room shifted, made the beginnings of some sound, but Hara was not finished.

No. Hara was nowhere near finished.

'Of. This. Festering. Pit,' she continued, trying to shift her feet so as to loosen the ties, but with each movement they seemed to grow tighter and tighter so that she could practically feel the cord passing through her skin. The voice sneered, a grating, painful sound. All of it, the pain and the sounds and the smell and her anger and the sensation of someone standing right there but being unable to see them combined to make her almost vomit. Her eyes watered and she closed them quickly, held them shut just for a moment, although the room was hardly more distinguishable with them open. It was as if there was something over her eyes and all she could see was a glimmer...

'If you don't, I will return.'

A sharp exhale, like a muffled laugh. 'I know,' the thing said. Hara focused her eyes on the glimmer, a spot of light so faint she wasn't sure if she was making it up. It seemed to flicker for a moment, like a leaf shifting in a breeze.

'What do you want?!' Hara screamed, eyes locked on that light, the promise of all that lay beyond the stifling room. She felt it reaching for her, her heart and soul and her head reaching right back.

Now was no time to be locked up.

There was a slam and a second later something crashed into the room, coming through a door and bringing with it so much sunshine that Hara wondered how she hadn't seen it, how something so simple as a door has held it back.