| 18+ | Damian looked so different with his shirt off and a crop in his hand. He felt more real: no longer wearing the mask of the good doctor, he was the Exorcist, the master over my wildest fears, the stones on the shore over which my ocean of ma...
Chills went up my spine as I realized that voice came from within the tunnel out of which I had just crawled. I didn't dare look back to see what had followed after me in there. Instead I began to feel all about the muddy walls, searching for roots or rocks: anything I could get a hold on to begin crawling out. I found a root, grabbed hold, and managed to find purchase for my bare feet, digging my toes at the earth. I moved slowly, my muscles beginning to ache. The only holds I could find were small, some barely big enough for my fingertips to grasp.
Come back, Samara...don't leave so soon...
I could hear something moving beneath me, the sloshing and slurping of the mud. I didn't dare look, but the smell of rotting flesh grew stronger. Frantically I grasped at the earth, my nails digging deep. I was nearly there, so close now. There was chuckling below me, low and cruel. Don't look...don't look...
I grasped stones, stacked in a ring around the hole. They were easier to hold, and with a few final desperate pulls I pulled myself up high enough to shove against the wooden slats covering my way out. It lifted, trailing cobwebs and dirt, and fell away as I clambered up out of the hole. Not just a hole, I realized, but a dried-up well, covered with a wooden lid. I tumbled out, landing in tall gray grass on damp earth. I lay for a moment just catching my breath, trying to slow the pounding of my heart.
I rose from the dirt, gazing out upon the gray fields that surrounded me. Vast and cold, fog obscured my vision in every direction. It was just I and the lonely well, and whatever creature lurked within it.
Don't forget us...we're here...we see you...
I whipped my head around. A slow breeze made the grass rustle, as if someone were running through it just beyond my sight. My skin went cold. I had to wake up, I had to take back control. Damian...I somehow had to speak to Damian, to warn him...
But how? How could I escape, how could I do anything when I barely even understood this place? What sign could I look for? Was there even a way out?
Was I...was I trapped here this time?
My breathing began to quicken, catching rapidly in my chest. I could still hear giggling coming from the well.
I had to cover it. I couldn't let it get out.
I approached, shivering as the grass swayed in the cold breeze around me. What was down there? What had followed me through the depths? Slowly, cautiously, I peered over the edge.
Emptiness. Dark, dank, emptiness. But I could hear something...scratching? Slow...damp...scratching?
It was only then that I noticed the pale white orbs staring up at me. The gray, rotten face, the unnaturally long, thin body clinging to the wall like a spider, fingers and toes dug into the loam. My body went cold when I saw her. My stomach lurched at the thought that she had been down there with me...only just behind me...
Then she saw me.
And she began to scramble up the wall.
I seized the wooden cover I had thrown off, pushing and pulling the moldering slimy wood as best I could. The cover was so filthy I could barely keep a grip on it. I could hear her nails, digging into the mud, lurching her upwards, every closer, her breathing ragged with excitement.
"Illusions can't hurt me, illusions can't hurt me, can't hurt me, can't hurt me..." My voice was sobbing, a frantic mantra to myself. I pulled the lid across, caught a glimpse of her eyes - close - far to close - she was reaching for the edge -
I let the lid fall, heavily. Screeching and scrambling sounded from beneath. I backed away, clutching my hands, alarmed as blood seeped down my palm. I must have cut it on the wood. It burned, deep and steadily, and I hissed as my blood dripped to the ground.
The wind stirred up again, carrying voices with it. She bleeds for us. Blood? I smell it. Warm, human. Where is it? She's bleeeediiiing...
The voices seemed to be all around me. Not in my head, no - they were there, physically and truly. I spun my head this way and that, desperately clutching my wounded hand to my breast. But this was only illusion...illusions couldn't hurt me...they couldn't...it wasn't real...
Then why did my hand burn so deeply?
There was a great thud against the covering of the well, nearly making me scream. With wide eyes I turned - and found the Gray One peering out at me, one arm outstretched, grasping, as she dragged herself out, dark hair dripping.
"You're ours now, Samara," her voice grated forth. "Come down into the dark and the dirt..."
I ran, tearing through the fields, blind and directionless. My breath was too loud, my footfalls too loud - I would alert them all but what else could I do? I kept seeing them: endless shadows peering at me from the mist, figures flashing past my vision. The house...what if I could reach the house? Would I find safety there -
With a gasp I slid to a halt. My legs were filthy, spattered in mud. I was shivering with cold. Before me, in the mist, were 3 figures...4...5...more and more appeared. They were pale, ghostly. Their eyes were black, their faces distorted, twitching. I backed away, shaking my head in terror, and turned to run -
There were more of them. More, and more, in every direction I looked, coming out of the mist, bearing down on me. Whispering, whispering. Endlessly whispering. They'd smelt my blood. They smelt it still. They tasted my fear and wanted more.
The Legion was here.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
