The Emerald Caverns

         Elizabeth's moans of trepidation barely edged around the ball of rotted flesh that was her gag.  They echoed off the walls of the sewer that she was presently being dragged along.  She was hogtied, but it was the manner in which she was hogtied that brought her to the apex of fear.  Her hands and feet were bound, but not by rope.  She remembered vaguely when they had been tied.  Visions flashed in her mind of when her kidnapper had torn out the intestines of her roommate and used them to bind her.  That was when she began screaming, and her kidnapper had sliced a chunk of flesh from her roommate's corpse and stuffed it into her mouth.  She didn't understand why she was going to live when her roommate had been so brutally slain.  All she knew was that whereever she was going, she would suffer.
         The stench of the sewer rose up into her nostrils, forcing her to swallow back her own bile.  The sounds, the slop of her flesh being dragged through a river of human excrement, the rattle of the chains that bound her ties to the mysterious kidnapper, and the scuttle of the rats as they came nibbling at her bruised and battered flesh, all weighed heavily on her mind.  She had to do something, she knew that much, but as she teetered on the border of delirium, she could not seem to grasp what that something would be.
         She flailed wildy, thrashing her limbs about in every direction, hoping to throw her captor off balance, but he was too strong.  Impossibly strong, when she remembered the way he'd man-handled her roommate back at her apartment.  Rick had been a football player, they were expecting him to be an NFL lineman, but her captor, whom Rick had dwarfed, had battered him with ease, and Rick's powerful blows had no effect on the man.  If man he was.  Elizabeth was unsure of that.          She took another glance at her captor, and in the dim light, he seemed an amalgamation of nightmares.  Long, unkempt strands of hair grew all over his body, the only exceptions being where atrocious scars broke the monotony.  Those scars, they weren't normal scars, they were designs.  Impossible designs, with shapes she had never seen before, shapes that made her eyes water when she tried to look at them, and each time she looked at one, it seemed different than her last remembered glance.  Her captor turned back, murder in his eyes.
         "Don't look at me, bitch!"
         His voice was guttural, brimming with power and bass.  She started to turn away, but something within her forced her to keep looking.  Where the courage for this act of defiance came from she did not know, but she clung to it fiercely and kept staring.  The man was obviously unsettled by her gaze, for his breaths became quick and heavy, his limbs jittery.  His eyes wandered about their surroundings, as if looking for some respite from the young girl's gaze.
         "Don't look at me!  Don't look at me!"
         His voice was not as commanding this time, you could hear the tremors as he spoke.  The rattle of the chains stopped.  She was getting to him, and that fact increased her courage ten-fold.  She spat out the rotted ball of flesh, and spoke to him.
         "Make me, faggot!"
         The world spun as she said it.  She was airborn, flying towards the man-monster, and his hand was outstretched.  It wrapped tightly around her throat, cutting off her air supply.
         "Don't look at me, please, don't look at me."
         His voice was pleading this time, and that was enough to fortify her courage.  She stared more intensely, and beneath her eyes his flesh shifted, strips of it fanning out a few at a time, each second revealing more and more of his gruesome inner truth.  He was not a man, for his organs were made of tar.  A viscous ooze pumped from his heart over the rest of his innards, then dissolved.  That ooze was unmistakably the source of his strength.  She wanted to look away, but found the grotesque visage before her entrancing. 
         Atramentous visions danced before her eyes, as her lungs struggled for air.  But she could still feel as the miscreation's strips of flesh ran up her body, lingering for a moment to caress her cheek.  And just before the sentient flesh-strips shut her eyes, she gazed into those of the beast, and watched as his pupils melted into spirals of liquid flame.  Had she been able to breathe, she would've screamed.  As it was, her body went limp, and the beast released her.


         Elizabeth opened her eyes, but could not tell if she had awoken, died or was dreaming.  She breathed here, and when she pinched herself it hurt, but surely the scene before her could not be part of the natural world. Swirling brumes of vermillion skewered mists of jungle green and cerulean haze.  Her breath steamed purest white in front of her, though she did not feel cold.  It was a dizzying assault on her vision as the mist grew more whimsical before her.  Then, the sound came.
         The sound was guttural, percussive, and as it grew louder, she found the mist around her growing more turbid, forcing her to her knees.  And before her, the brilliant colors of before parted, giving way to a roiling darkness.  But it was not mere darkness, for what she saw before her was not absence of light, it defied the light.  It dared the brightness to come into it, but the light was wary, it stayed on the edges, and retreated as the darkness moved forward.  And all the while the weight around her forced her lower and lower to the ground.
         Elizabeth began to make out shapes in that darkness, but the shapes were fleeting.  Her eyes unable to decipher them.  They reminded her of the scars on the monster's body as she stared at him.  Was this her punishment for angering him?  To be crushed into nothingness as the darkness before her swallowed her up?
         More shapes flashed in the darkness before her, impossible geometries dancing across her vision, she wanted to close her eyes, for she knew that human eyes were not meant to see such things, but when she tried she found her eyelids frozen open.  Finally, she received respite, for when she thought her mind would surely snap under the weight of these visions, there came a break.  A face emerged from the darkness, it was something truly alien, unresembling of any human or creature Elizabeth had ever laid eyes upon, but yet it was resplendent for all that.  It's beauty calmed her.  The drone of the hoarse sound continued in the background and she felt herself being lulled.  Her mind became hazy, and all she desired in that moment was to look upon that beautiful face for an eternity, for surely it was an angel come to rescue her from the horrors she faced in the world she left.
         But her body was smarter than she was, for it sped her heart, and sent shivers up and down her spine, trying to call her back from her dream.  She resisted it at first, but as her body's demands became more urgent, she gave in, returning from her dream-like state.  Had she been capable of sound in this strange wilderness, she would have screamed.
         The beautiful angel's face was gone, replaced by a shifting mass of faces, all roiling, all writhing in excruciation.  And the darkness before her was advancing, lancing out small black tentacles that were pouring into her nostrils.  She held her breath to prevent their intrusion, but more tentacles sprang forward, inching along her body, finding their way into her every orifice.  "NO!" she screamed in her head, over and over...

         "NO!"
         She thrashed wildly in the muck, frightening off the rats that had come to nibble at her sides.  It took her a moment to gather her senses, but she realized she was back in the sewer.  With the man that was not a man still dragging her toward some unforeseen destination.  It had only been a dream.
         The beast stopped in his tracks suddenly.  She willed herself to look up at him, forcing the memory of her throat in his powerful hand to her mind's recesses.  He was searching the wall for something.  She tested his concentration by tugging at the chain he held, his grip was still iron.  She found herself looking at the wall along with him, trying to decipher what he was looking for.  What she found was more than she bargained for.
         The drawings on the wall made it plain that she was not the first to endure this particular suffering.  For there were countless images, scrawled in blood and shit, of other men and women being dragged along this route.  She had not noticed the walls before, such had been her terror, but now that she looked, the hieroglyphs of torment cavorted across the breadth of her vision.  She strained looking for an answer as to what awaited her at the end of this nightmarish journey, but each of the drawings stopped when the human being was dragged through a door.
         She glanced back at the miscreation, he had pulled a knife from his tattered clothes, and was carving himself.  No, not carving.  He was tracing one of the maddening runes that littered his monstrous physique, and as he did so, the viscous fluid that was his life-force began to leak out.  He pressed the wound to a spot along the wall, and there was a magnificent cacophony that shook the world around her.  She closed her eyes, fearing that the ceiling would come crumbling down on top of her.
         Finally, the seemingly timeless racket ceased, and she opened her eyes.  She was dazzled by an emerald light which left her vision destitute of all else.  She began her struggle with her bonds afresh, remembering the pictures on the walls, and knowing that her journey was near it's end.  She dug her nails in for purchase, but her empty hands slid through clumps of feces.  Her heart hammered in her chest, and she summoned every ounce of strength she had to try and prevent herself being dragged through into that abyss of green light, but it was to no avail, her captor was too powerful.
         A dissonant murmur greeted her as she passed into the emerald light, setting her teeth to grinding.  She could not see much of her new surroundings, for the light was too powerful, but as her eyes slowly adjusted she screamed once more.  Within the cavern, concavity and convexity seemed to mingle in implausible ways, so that there was no telling up from down, no east from west.  The surface beneath her body felt like solid rock, but she could hear it breathing, feel it's heat caress her flesh.
         The journey through the cavern was long, but Elizabeth had learned to keep her eyes closed in order to shield herself from the madness that would surely take hold if she saw one more horrific unlikelihood.  Finally, the dissonant sounds, and the breath of the rocks was pierced by a melodious voice.
         "At long last, Vader, you've brought her.  You've done well, she's beautiful, or at least she will be once we purge her."
         The thought of being purged did not appeal to Elizabeth at all.  She turned her head to catch sight of the man that spoke.  There were two things that jumped out at her when she first laid eyes on him, first, he was completely naked, and secondly, he was completely covered in tattoos, even his face and the palms of his hands.  Half of his head was shaved, the other half was pulled into a ponytail on the side of his head.  It was hard to make out details, with the oddities of her surroundings dizzying her, but she was sure the tattoos were of the same symbols she had seen on the monster, Vader's, flesh.
         "And you're certain she's pure, Vader?"
         The monster nodded his head.
         The man with the tattoos walked over toward Elizabeth and knelt down, gently cupping her chin in his hand. 
         "Have you ever known a man's touch, my dear?  Do you know what it means to have a throbbing cock inside you as you cum?"
         Silly as it was given the situation, his coarse language shocked Elizabeth.  He smiled.
         "You've done quite well, Vader.  She is most definitely a virgin."  He looked deep into Elizabeth's eyes.  "If only we had met some other way, my dear, I could have made you weep in ecstacy." 
         She bit her tongue hard, and spat blood onto his face.  He only laughed.
         "Ah, my dear, you must be careful.  We cannot damage the vessel too much before it is time.  You do not know what a great honor it is Vader and I are going to bestow upon you.  Would you like me to share with you?  To show you what it is you will become?"
         For some reason, Elizabeth thought of the frightening dream she had back in the sewer.
         "Oh, I'd forgotten about the dreams.  Don't worry, it will not be so horrific as that.  That was meant to test your will.  Rah-Zah-Skyne detests the weak-minded."
         With that, the tattooed man rose and nodded to Vader.  The monster of a man began dragging Elizabeth once again toward another doorway.
         "You, my dear, are going to be one of the first to glimpse his wonders."
         Elizabeth did not want to glimpse any wonders, all she wanted was for this to end, and if her death meant she would be spared whatever conspiracies these two lunatics had concocted, so be it.  She shut her eyes tight, and worked to clear her mind of all the horrors she had seen.  She brought her bound hands up to clutch the cross that still settled around her neck, and began to recite a child's prayer.
         "Now I lay me down to sleep..."
         The tattooed man laughed hysterically at this. 
         "Your fictions cannot help you now, my dear.  You are in the presence of greater beings than that bastard child Christ could ever hope to be."
         "And pray the lord my soul to keep..."
         Vader began breathing heavy once again.
         "Calm yourself, Vader.  She is too valuable to suffer your whims."
         "And if I die before I wake..."          
         Vader cried out.  It was a vile sound, but Elizabeth ignored it and continued her prayer.
         "I pray the lord my soul to take..."
         Finally, Vader had enough, he leapt into the air, landing atop Elizabeth's frame.  She did not cry out this time, but continued her prayer, which only angered Vader further.  He raised his fist to strike...
         "Enough!"
         The tattooed man raised his hand, and Vader let out another terrible wail.  But this one was of agony, as the scars on his body seemed to come alive and the viscous ooze began pouring out.
         "Sleep, Vader, I will call on you again when the time is right."
         And as simply as that, Vader fell over and crumpled into a heap beside Elizabeth.
         "You can open your eyes, now, my dear.  He won't hurt you."
         She ignored him, continuing to recite her prayer, willing death to take her.
         "It will be easier if you open them of your own accord."
         Again, she ignored him.
         "Have it your way."
         Elizabeth screamed in agony as white-hot pain began to swell up behind her eyes.  She tried to continue to recite the prayer, tried to clear her mind, but the affliction was unrelenting.
         "Open your eyes and it will stop, my dear."
         His voice put a mad laughter into her head.  It was humorous, the thought that this excruciation would cease simply by opening her eyes.  But nevertheless, when she did as she was told, the pain did stop.
         As her eyes were unburdened of one torment, they were beset by another.  The bodies of six children hung from tusks of dirty ivory that grew from the wall.  They were all naked, and they had all been brutalized.  Along the children's flesh were carven runes, neatly arranged on their bodies, so that only the smallest strips of skin were visible.  The wounds did not bleed, instead, they glowed with the brilliant colors of the mist from her dreams.  And as she looked closer, she saw the mists and the brumes living there, rising off the children's bodies. 
         "Why?"  It was all she could say at that moment.
         "Because Rah-Zah-Skyne demands it."
         "And what kind of man demands the lives of children?"
         "Rah-Zah-Skyne is no man.  He is a god.  Beyond a god."
         "And why would you worship such a god?"
         "Why were you clutching that cross so tightly before?  Because you believed it gave you power.  Would you do any less if Christ came down from heaven and asked you to?"
         "No, he would never ask that of me."
         "And that is why he is weak, and why he cannot save you, now.  But you should be joyous, for you will have one of the greatest honors of all."
         Elizabeth saw movement from the corner of her eye, and when she looked, she saw that one of the children had rolled it's head around.  They were still alive!  She began to weep.
         "Sleep now, my dear, it is almost over."

         

         When Elizabeth awoke, she was both clean and naked.  She felt pain in her scalp, and realized that Vader was holding her by the hair above a pit of swirling luminescence.  There were no colors in that pit, just pure light.  When Vader realized she was awake, he plunged her into it.
         When her flesh hit the light it seemed to ignite, but it was a pleasureful kindling.  The euphoria was welcome amidst all the horrors she had experienced since she first laid eyes on Vader.  The light cleansed her body, mind, and soul.  Though she had never tasted alcohol in her life, she knew this must be what a drunkard felt after filling his belly with beer.  All her fears, all her doubt slipped away, there was only this magnificent feeling.  It ended abruptly as Vader pulled her out of the pit.
         She groaned in disapproval, and her skin's new radiance seemed only to remind her of the pleasure that awaited her if she could only descend once more.  She struggled furiously to get back into the pit, and this time, Vader obliged her.
         "No, Vader, only once!"
         The tattooed man's voice was distant as the light enveloped Elizabeth's body once again.  She could be content here, never to know another soul, never to know true love.  For even true love, that grand feeling sought after by poets, was nothing compared to the wave of emotion that surged through her body here within this light.
         But even here, it could not last, for before her Elizabeth sensed another presence.  She opened her eyes, expecting to be blinded by the brilliance of the rapturous light, but instead she was greeted by the roiling darkness from her dream.  And just as in her dream, it reached out to her, and entered her body through her eyes and ears, through her nose, and through the spot between her legs.  She knew instinctively that this time it was not a dream, that her body was truly being invaded by the sentient shadow before her.  Her fear returned, the euphoria that the light brought whisked away by the terror of darkness.  Mercifully, it ended, as Vader's hand found purchase within her hair and dragged her back to the surface, the tentacles of darkness severing as her body escaped the pit.
         "She lives?"
         Vader grunted and nodded in reply. 
         "Then bring her to me."
         Vader did as he was told, laying the girl down on a raised platform made of the same living rock as the rest of the cavern.  Her bonds were iron this time, she sensed that it was imperative that she not move for this part of the ritual.  The tattooed man spoke again.
         "It is time, my dear, for you to meet my master first-hand."
         Before her head was locked into place, she glimpsed the tattooed man pulling a blade from a bucket.  She assumed it was filled with some type of caustic, for she knew what this next ritual would entail, she had seen the bodies of the children.  She closed her eyes as he began pressing the blade against her forehead, drawing the first of the runes.  She expected pain, and to see the mists of her dreams begin circling above her head, instead the darkness that had invaded her in the pool of light began to seep out.  The tendrils of shadow reached out and grasped the tattoed man's arm, stopping it dead.
         "ARAH-ZOONE!"
         He cried out as the tendrils tightened around his forearm forcing him to drop the blade.  More darkness oozed out, swirling around Elizabeth's bonds, rotting the iron so that she was able to break free.
         "Fool bitch, you have chosen a master even more terrible than my own!"
         Elizabeth did not understand, nor did she care to, all she knew was that some force was intervening on her behalf.  She looked for Vader, but the miscreation was busy battling his own shards of darkness.  Quickly, while her captors were incapacitated, she made her way through the cavern.  The darkness seemed to swallow the emerald color around her, and the absence of that green brilliance enabled her to see more clearly.  There was a sound in her head, almost a voice, that seemed to guide her steps back to the place where she had witnessed the brutalized children.  Once there, the darkness took over, spewing from her every orifice to envelop the bodies of the children.  She wanted to see if they would be set free from whatever bonds Vader and the tattooed man had placed on them, but the voice within urged her to the exit, and as if to emphasize it's point, the walls of living rock began to tremble violently.
         She made haste, trusting to the voice to guide her way to the exit, each step was treacherous, but she did not falter.  She found her way back to the sewer, and as she stepped out of the emerald light, a violent cacophony sounded behind her.  She glanced back to see the walls of the cavern crumbling, and breathed a sigh of relief.

         There had been no more voices, or darkness spewing from her in the days that followed, and Elizabeth hoped that she had been granted freedom from the madness Vader had brought her to, but when she cut herself to test her theory, she found that her blood oozed black.