Descending into Darkness

Word Count: 2283

She tied off the rope wrapping it around one of the old stone columns in the half collapsed ruined building. It was a mildly warm day and if she considered the time it was late afternoon. The echo of the other end of the rope returned from the gaping hole in the stone floor that descended into darkness.

A quirky smile crossed her face as she readied her remaining gear and swung over the edge. The descent was slow and she dropped almost a hundred feet into the darkness when the rope snapped above. The fall was only ten or fifteen feet but the force drove the air from her lungs. The glow rod that she had dropped should have given her adequate vision of the surrounding area but it was blurry at best and as she struggled to focus her vision began to fade. As the last of the light around her disappeared into her own mind she slowly lost consciousness.

She awoke with a sudden gasp, her head hurt from the impact and dried blood had caked to the side. She was lying on a smooth stone surface and her hand still held the rope that lay next to her. She released the rope as her hand slowly moved across the smooth surface feeling the minute particles of sand here or there. Her ears had a dull ringing in them and she realized almost immediately she could not hear anything at all, but that thought might have been easier to deal with other than the fact she had lost her vision as well. She reached up to feel the welt on the side of her head just above her temple, her hair had matted with blood, dirt and whatever else had been on the ground. She chuckled to herself considering how she looked was of little importance than how to get out of the situation she now faced.

It was dark and now quiet all about her for the first time.

She patted her body down to feel the leather armor she had worn that day had survived the impact and perhaps even aided her own survival. She was at least relieved as it would offer additional protection if she would be required to defend herself. She had suffered no broken bones or any other lacerations, which she suddenly considered a blessing. Her hand slipped up to her sword belt to grip its hilt but found that it was missing, it must have fallen out of her scabbard when she fell. A sudden pang of fear slipped into her mind and then a sense of sorrow for loosing the weapon her father had given her, she hoped it was not some past family heirloom.

Quickly she rolled over, and groaned as her muscles ached with pains from the impact as she began to once again make use of them - but she shook them off as she shifted to a more crawling position and fanning out with her hands to locate her sword. After almost fifteen minutes her hand scraped a stone wall and then an opening in the wall revealing to her another passage. A cool breeze came from the opening and caught her somewhat off guard, it was nearly thirty or so degrees cooler down below the ground.

She used the wall to steady herself and regain her footing; slowly she moved down what she considered to be a hallway or some stone passage. Her leather bound foot could feel the hard stone surface as she walked. Neither vision nor her hearing had returned and she feared it may be sometime before either did. She would have looked strange if she could have seen herself, her right hand rubbing the stone wall to her right as her left hand was held out in front of her in hopes it could allow her sufficient time to deal with whatever may present itself.

Her hand slid across another opening in the wall she was following after what seemed like a few hundred feet. She adjusted to her sense of smell as she sniffed the air around her, the opening entered into some area that seemed to smell of decay and death. Her hand went to the curved dagger on her belt and pulled it out, at least she was not defenseless and still had its blade. The odor in the room filled her nostrils and repulsed her.

The thing sat in the darkness, its own eyes still very much functional as it watched the woman enter the room. It shifted from its perch and dropped down onto the greenish slime that had covered the chamber's floor. The creature flexed its arms and extended its claws and a sudden realization pierced its thick brain, the woman had not reacted to its presence yet. It shifted and moved to watch her closer. It was some sort of decaying and dead wolf-like beast. Even if she had here hearing fully restored it would have been difficult to have heard the creature, other than its movements if it so wished to conceal its presence. If he stood on its hind legs it would be almost a foot taller than her and nearly double her weight.

She slipped suddenly and dropped to the floor, her arm scraped something made of stone as she had fallen. She winced from the pain of the fall but realized she had suffered nothing more than a mere scrape. Her left hand had ended up in some slimy gooey substance explaining why she had slipped, once again she considered crawling as the safest means of moving about. Spreading her palm downwards she checked her immediate area around her body and found large sections of the floor covered with the slimy substance. A sense of dread filled her suddenly as she thought about how long it would take her to get out of this place.

Her hand brushed against something as she noticed a stronger decayed smell nearby, the touch felt like course fur. Perhaps something had died recently in this chamber, she continued to examine the object with her hand feeling its thick fur and then she suddenly felt what seemed to be the smooth curvatures of claws. Her fingers traced one, two and a third before she suddenly jerked back her hand. She struggled to listen for any noise, knowing she could not hear anything. She struggled to pierce the darkness around her again knowing she would not be able to see. Slowly she reached back toward the object and tried to feel its surface in the hopes of determining if it were alive or dead - a gentle squeeze indicated it was still very much firm but also yielded somewhat to her touch.

A sudden chill swept through her mind and then a reaction of panic.

She jerked her hand back again as she sat their crouched trying desperately to hear anything or see anything but the darkness that surrounded her. She once again reached back out to touch the object again but her hand found the smooth concrete floor. Another chill went down her spine as she squeezed the dagger firmly with her other hand, her empty one moving back and forth to try to find the object, but a realization dawned on her that it had moved.

The thing now stood slightly behind her straddling the bottom half of her body and legs watching her search again for its foot. Drool from the savoring of this hunt dripped from its snout dropping on her left leg. She felt something drop onto her leg as she suddenly paused her current movements, she slowly reached back and ran her hand down her leather covered thigh feeling the wet stickiness of the drool. The wetness did not feel like the slimy goo that was everywhere around her as she tried to figure what it was.

She shifted both of her legs and scissored them apart to see if anything was around her and found nothing, the thing had moved again to creep up almost in front of her. It watched her dagger hand as it moved only mere inches from her face. The thing watched her whole body tense as she felt its breathing and foul stench in her own face now.

She could feel its breath on her face now, or some foul and terrible wind had blown something smelly into her face - she did not really know which. Her own world now was darker than ever before.

She reached out with her empty hand and rubbed against something with coarse fur again, her spine tingled and all sorts of secondary responses began to kick into her body - her heartbeat increased, adrenaline increased and her hand gripped the dagger tighter. Her free hand moved down against the canines of the teeth in the mouth she was feeling. It was a longer snout with many sharp teeth - her reactions and own instincts had finally engaged as she thrust with her dagger toward her free hand, burying the blade into what ever it was in front of her.

The thing had already calculated her move as it lunged forward snapping its teeth at her face, she could feel the movement of air against her as well as the splattering of the thing's blood on her face. As luck sometimes favored those unfortunate she had moved enough to avoid its terrible strike.

The creature howled out as it pulled back away from the woman, the wound she had inflicted dripped blood as it licked the wound trying to soothe its own mind. It shifted back to looked at the woman on the ground, its animal instinct telling it clearly the woman lacked the capacity to finish the hunt.

It moved up again towards the woman's body, its clawed hand raking across her thigh leaving three long red welts and a trail of blood. The woman screamed out in pain, unable to here her own outburst. The creature howled back almost in unison to the woman's pain. And then it lept backwards as the woman sliced through the air it had been.

The creature stepped forward to once again torment the woman from another angle or side, but faltered and dropped with a thud against the slimy stone floor. It looked down at its own wound, its mind reeled as it realized it had not moved away fast enough and the woman had sliced its forearm open with a gaping wound of its own. An animalistic rage took over as it rose back up and closed quickly with the woman, who was trying to move into a more crouching position.

The creature barreled into the woman knocking her back as it pounced on her while she laid on her backside. The creature snapped its powerful jaws down toward the woman's head, but its strong breathe only allowed the woman to compensate as she moved her head again. Its left claw had pinned her right arm to the floor, its talons had pierced her soft flesh and she bled as it held her. But, it had forgotten about the dagger she held in its other hand, once again the woman thrust upwards on the weight that had her pinned to the floor.

She felt the dagger slip into something firm and the coarse hair rubbed her hand, which became slick with some warm fluid. The woman allowed the slight smile to form as she realized she had at least found a mark. And then the weight was off of her body again, as the creature or thing jumped away. It's talons raking her right arm and upper chest, the leather armor she wore took most of the force and once again had saved her as the almost razor sharp talons tore through the hard material.

She rolled over again onto her hands and knees as the thing lurched from the darkness surrounding her, its claws raking her right thigh again drawing out another scream into the darkness. She slashed at the painful spot but was unable to find anything this time.

She was bleeding now and she knew whatever it was that tormented her was not going to let her live if she could not figure a way out of this situation. Then suddenly her right arm was swept out from supporting her crawl and she fell forward, the stone floor was closer than she realized or perhaps her lack of vision was seriously beginning to affect her. The cold and aging stone again covered with slime hit her hard against her jaw and face. The blow drawing another gasp of air from her.

The creature watched as the woman struggled to recover from the maneuver it had performed. It moved again pouncing onto the woman's back, but its own weight and her lack of stable footing brought both to the ground. The woman rolled over as another claw raked at her stomach as the beast desperately tried to find a soft kill spot on the woman, she plunged the dagger again where the claw strike came from and was met with more coarse wet hair.

She was beyond terrified as she plunged her dagger repeatedly into the mass of hair and blood, after a few minutes she stopped. Her thoughts only focused on was it still alive, she could feel no breathing anymore. She reached out and touched for the mass of fur and found the wet matted material which use to be the thing, it no longer moved. A twitch or perhaps a death spasm caused one of its claws to rake across her thigh again bringing out another cry of pain, and then a chuckle from her.

She laughed/cried for a few minutes and then after regaining her mental state and calming down she went about bandaging her wounds as best as she could. Her thoughts returned to how she was to get out again...