You stepped into the wall of darkness at the back of the cave. You probably imagined it, But it seemed as it got even colder in the shadows. The only thing letting you see was the jar of phosphorescent rocks. It only illuminated about two feet in front of you, and even then not very well. It was all you had though. And you couldn't stay in that cage any longer. You needed to get out. You needed to see the sun and your family again.
How long had it been since Hoolan killed everyone and took you for his own? It felt like an eternity to you, but it was probably a month and a half, maybe two months? You didn't know, and you didn't care at the moment. You erased those thoughts from your mind and continued forward.
You held the jar out in front of you like a flashlight as you walked further into the abyss. It illuminated blue light across the cavern, casting long shadows across the cave walls. You almost imagined One of the shadows coming to life, and Hoolan leaping out at you!
You blinked and shook the hallucination from your head. ' come on Y/N, you can't afford to stall' you thought to yourself. The ground was freezing on your bare feet. Your shoes were lost when Hoolan first took hold of you, so you had no protection against the cold or anything sharp on the ground. So you brushed the ground with your feet to make sure there wasn't anything in your path, and to also feel if the ground disappeared in front of you. You didn't want to fall to your death.
It was slow. Every heartbeat sounded like a drum in your ears. It was so loud Hoolan probably could have heard it even though he was far away. Speaking of Hoolan, he was further away from you with every breath. Unfortunately that only meant that he was that much closer to his goal, and returning back to you. So in some sick, twisted way, the further he got away from you, the closer he got to you.
You quickened your stride by a little, wanting to expand that distance as much as you could. The sound your steps made echoed all throughout the tunnels. It was a little scary since you couldn't see more than two feet in front of you. you had probably been walking for thirty minutes when all of a sudden, the tunnel in front of you split into two different directions.
You cursed. You had absolutely no idea in Hell which direction you should take. If you took the wrong path it could lead to a dead end or you could just walk for an eternity. You couldn't afford anything that took precious time away! You looked down the right tunnel, then the left. They both looked exactly the same. But you had to hurry, so you made a split second decision and turned left.
This tunnel was a little tighter than the other two, but you could still move around without having to scrunch up in any way. You walked for another few minutes, having to go around various obstacles such as the tunnel becoming smaller or it just swerving.
Eventually, you reached a point where the tunnel before you eventually disappeared and in front of you was nothing but black. The ceiling in this room was lower so you had to duck to get in and keep your knees bent as you wandered around. After another minute of exploration, you discovered that the room was circular, and in the center of it, there was a boulder that was wedged between the floor and ceiling. It was a little out of place in the otherwise empty room but you paid it no attention.
To your utter dismay, you discovered that the room was a dead end. You almost yelled out in frustration. Instead, you held your anger, turned tail and stormed as fast as you could out of the room. As you left it behind in the tunnel it almost felt as if you were being laughed at.
You walked as fast as you could, trying to get back to the fork in the tunnel. Not paying attention, you harshly kicked a bump in the rock with your right foot. You hissed in pain as the skin on your big toe split open, and blood started to leak out and drip onto the floor. You gently set the jar down and sat down. Grabbing your foot and bending over to see if you could see how bad the damage was.
It was bad. You didn't realize how fast you had been going. From the light in the jar, you could make out how you practically degloved your toe a little bit. It was sending spikes of pain all up your leg. This time you let out a groan of frustration. At this point it seemed like everything in the world was against you. Trying to keep you from escaping the Abyss, and the monster that kept you in it.
Gritting your teeth, you got to your feet and started to wobble away. You walked with the heel of your right foot as you finally reached the fork and wasted no time in heading down the other path. Being careful to go at a steady pace. This one was wider than the other tunnel. So you didn't really run into any obstacles on the way. You did, however, notice that as you were walking down the passageway. Something was in the distance. It sounded like a roar. With a strike of horror, you thought Hoolan had returned and was hunting you down.
But your nerves calmed a little when you remembered that this was ahead of you. If Hoolan was hunting you down. It would have come from behind you. ' unless he's been hunting me for a while and turned right instead of left first' a dark part of your mind whispered to yourself. You shook that thought out of your head quickly.
This roar was never-ending. Granted you had heard Hoolan roar like this before. You took a deep breath, gulped the saliva in your mouth and trudged forward. It took you a couple of minutes, with the roar growing louder with each second. To reach another cavern opening.
This Cavern was Big. It had phosphorescent rocks all around its ceiling so you could actually see what was in this room. The roar you discovered was from a huge waterfall, that flowed down into a river that disappeared under the cave wall to your right. The waterfall was to your left and was about twenty feet above your head.
Across the cave, you could see another tunnel opening. You almost cried out in joy but you noticed... The other tunnel was about forty feet away and the only way to get across the cavern was to swim. You looked down at the river that was about ten feet below you and instantly knew it was impossible. The river was white water. looking as if it was boiling from the way it was moving. If you jumped in the water would pull you under and bang you against the rocks. meat grinding you to death.
You let out a scream of frustration. Was there really no way out!? where you trapped here forever? No. You refused to give up, you had to have missed something along the way. Something in one of these tunnels. You gripped the jar harder and turned, leaving the cave to re-search everything. You scoured the tunnel as you went back through, looking at every shadow and every crag.
You went through the tunnel, searched the fork, and was now back in the left tunnel again. You were starting to get scared. Hoolan was undoubtedly on his way back right now. You were running out of time. Finally, you reached the dead end room again. You searched every little space and found.
Nothing
You plopped down with your back against the boulder and started to weep. There really was no way out. Maybe if you were fast enough you could get back to the main cave before Hoolan got back. 'But how would I explain my toe?' you thought to yourself. You leaned your head back against the rock and looked up at the ceiling that was only a foot away from your face.
There you saw that beyond the boulder in the ceiling, there was a tunnel that was leading up. You didn't dare breath for a minute, but you slowly got on your knees and peeked through one of the slits between the boulder and the opening. it was hard to see, but the tunnel looked like it lead straight up, and in the distance, there looked to be a tiny pinprick of light.
You started to breathe heavily, and it hit you. The Boulder looked out of place because it WAS out of place. Hoolan must have blocked it with the boulder in the chance that you might try to escape. Speaking of the devil. In the distance, you heard another roar, and it wasn't a waterfall. Your time was up.
frantically you searched around the rock, trying to find if you could push it aside in any way. Pushing on the rock already it was wobbly, so it wasn't stuck in position. A good sign. You found a spot where it looked like it could be shifted and dug your shoulder against it, pushing with all your might. The rock was surprisingly not very heavy and with a bit of effort, you managed to push it aside just enough for you to squeeze through. You wasted no time.
The tunnel above you was wider than you were, by about three or four feet. But if you were careful, you could climb with your back pressed against the wall and pushing your feet against the other side. It would be ungodly difficult though. With your toe, and how far away it was though. If you slipped when you were too high up, you would plummet to your death. It was risky, but in the end, you made your choice, and you began to climb.
It was hard, but you grit your teeth and pushed forward, ignoring the pain in your foot, the rock scraping against the back of your head as you ascended. You were getting further away from the ground every second. Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty forty. On and on you climbed, your hope soaring even higher with every foot. Your heart felt like it was going to explode from your chest. you were getting closer, you were going to make it!
Finally, you had only about a quarter of the way to go. Sunlight washed over you for the first time in two months. It stung your eyes so badly that you almost lost your grip. But this was a battle you would not lose! You heard a roaring echo through the tunnel, and you dared a look down. You were so far up that the ground was a small little hole below you. But looking carefully you saw the small figure of a person where the boulder was not too long ago. You swore your heart stopped beating for a moment.
The figure was too far away to make any features about it. It was like looking down at an ant, but you knew that the beast that you were running from had found you. You screamed as the figure below you exploded in a cloud of blood guts and viscera, and a spider bigger than you were shot up the tunnel, spraying red all around with it. It was climbing so fast that you had about a minute before it reached you. The race for freedom began.
You started scrambling as fast as you could up the shaft. trying to be as quick and careful as possible with a giant spider coming your way. So absolutely no pressure on your part. The seconds ticked by on an eternity, but your hand grabbed a bank of sand instead of rock. You were at the top. You squinted your eyes against the sun as you hauled yourself up so that you were halfway through the hole. You made out white sand and palm trees through the glare of the sun, and a fresh breeze on your face. You lifted one leg up over the top.
That was when the legs sprouted out behind you and started to drag you back down. You screamed a bloodcurdling cry and tried to kick off the monster underneath you. Your scream turned from one of fear to pain though as fangs sank into your left thigh, ripping the flesh apart and shooting venom into your bloodstream.
You instantly lost all strength in your limbs and you collapsed onto the hot sand. Although you couldn't feel the heat. You could barely even breath. The legs wrapped around you as a loud growl rang around you, but it sounded like an echo to your ears. They dragged you back through the hole and your world went black.
Back into the Abyss, you go