More of our kin joined me and ‘Humi’ as we slowly chipped away at the door keeping us trapped in this strange room. I decided to call her Humi since she’s the only that seems to make that sound. Each of our kin was able to make a distinct noise with a few trying to mimic the sound the others are making.

  Sadly, I’m not able to do that. Like Humi, I’m struggling to replicate or even to simply produce new sounds other than, ‘Hiwu’. Honestly, it feels like I’m just breathing normally or letting out a breath instead of producing a noise.

  The sound of the slowly, spreading net of crack pulls me out of my thoughts. Our combined effort proved enough as our reward presents itself. Streaks of light shoot from between the cracks, filling me with hope and invigorating us to continue.

  A few of my kin had gave up earlier, thinking this was a waste of time. Now, however, their eyes are lit up with a red hue and they join us in digging towards freedom. Our progress almost tripled in speed.

  Not much time passed before we broke a wide, gaping hole in the door that revealed a hallway on the other side. We stepped out into the light coming from torches adorning the walls.

  Some of my kin were cautious, examining the area before slowly leaving to explore it. Others sprinted off, disappearing deeper into this strange place without a care for the potential danger. Something about this place felt eerie despite how empty it seems.

  I couldn’t hear anything in the distance beside the pattering footsteps of my kin, slowly growing quieter by the second. Out of curiosity… I got low to the ground, hands and feet planted on the cold stone floor, before kicking off to a sprint. My body darted past a corner at stunning speed with very little resistance from the built up wind.

  I passed by rotten wood doors and barrels, torches which seemed to be recently lit, more of the same stone double doors, and most notably—rooms full of cages. The metal was rusted and covered in scratch marks as whatever was once trapped inside them clearly struggled in vain to break free. Presently, all the cages were empty, having not been used in years.

  Did the owners just leave them here?

  This does reassure me that nobody has been down here in ages. Because whoever the previous occupants were, well, I don’t think they’re the friendly type. I’m sure that whatever called me out here wasn’t… it definitely wasn’t those repugnant humans.

  ***

  I’ve been running for a few hours and found nothing else of note. Just more hallways full of miscellaneous rooms with abhorrent things contained within. Some rooms proved useful so I took note of them before moving on. What was I looking for? An exit out of this hellish place, obviously.

  So far, I was having no luck in finding it. This [Dungeon] seemed to stretch on forever.

  [Dungeon]?

  Tch, more strange knowledge had mysteriously entered my mind. Worse of all was that it felt so naturally like missing pieces of a puzzle being slotted in. Was someone messing with my head or was this a normal thing for our kind?

  At least this knowledge proved useful…

  Seeing a particular pattern on a stone door, I cane to a screeching halt. The pattern depicted tendrils spiraling out from the thing in the center—the moon. Without the slightest hesitation, I dug my talons into my left hand, drawing bright red blood. Then I smeared my blood on the moon until it turned crimson. The stones groaned in protest as the door opened on its own, revealing…

  “Hwu?”

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  I… don’t know what I was seeing.

  It looked something like empty, white space—a white void—shaped into a hallway but I don’t think it was a hallway since it didn’t lead anywhere. So, it should’ve been a wide open space, but my mind was telling me that this was a hallway. Examining it some more closely didn’t help.

  All it did was make me feel a boiling anger.

  This leads to the outside, I’m sure of it. However, stepping into the white hallway would lead to death. This wasn’t based on mysterious knowledge entering my head.

  A far greater being than me was giving me a warning with a mere gaze.

  I stepped back, reluctantly.

  The doorway—and my freedom—slowly closed off before my eyes. Escape was not possible. Not yet at least…

  ***

  I found the other beings eventually and earned a light jab on the shoulder from Humi when I returned. Seems the group decided to stay at one of the room full of cages. This specific one had a fairly large jail cell too where we could sleep in. The bedsheets were riddled with holes, barely enough to keep away the cold winds flowing throughout the dungeon. When I was running, I could barely feel it, but now I’m freezing, tired, and strangely hungry.

  The others feeling the same things, right? This could be trouble…

  Time passed and night arrived. There was no way to tell if it was night or not. It just felt right to us, so we decided to sleep.

  Me and Humi found a gap in the pile of cages and slept there, using them as a sort of makeshift defense. Humi was confused, incessantly asking why I wanted to sleep in such a place. Pointing at my stomach didn’t help to communicate what I meant and just lead to her rubbing my belly. Gross.

  After a good rest, I immediately took off sprinting again to explore the [Dungeon]. This time I was looking for food and any clues to cross the white void. Finding food was much easier with the help of my mental map. Taking me no longer than a couple hours to find the room I was looking for. With how elaborate and huge this place is, I wonder if humans were the ones who built it or was it made by the being in the white void?

  Anyway, the room smelled of death and decay and entering it, I discovered the source to be a pile of dead rats. Using a torch I took from the hallway and some nearby lantern oil, I got to work on burning their stinking corpses. Ah, delicious, fresh souls to fill me up.

  Wisps of black light were freed from the rotting bodies which I absorbed into my body, filling it with vigor. Strange… I did that like it was second nature—a matter of course—without even realizing it. I don’t remember learning this, or can this even be called learning?

  Pacing inside the room to recover energy and think at the same time, I organized my thoughts into 3 main conclusions:

  1. Me and my kin.

  We are creatures, humanoid in shape, able to absorb energy from the dead to sustain ourselves as humans would do using food and water. There are a few similarities between us and humans though. Like our ability to ‘learn’ although a bit odd, it isn’t much different from observation and thought processing.

  We just do it subconsciously and at an overwhelmingly faster rate than humans. Fast enough to appear like the information was there beforehand and in a way it is. Everything I’ve seen and will see, every details, no matter how minuscule is stored and being analyzed by that subconscious part of my mind. One thing this doesn’t explain are my strange memories about humans and my kin—the Children of Luna.

  Who is Luna, and are these memories hers or did I exist before gaining consciousness in that room with the six winged angel?

  Unlikely with how we couldn’t open that strange door and there was no other exit… or so it would seem. We never properly explored the room since we didn’t have a light source. Maybe we missed something in the darkness.

  With a torch in hand, I started for the room which I labeled as the [Core Room] since it was in the farthest reaches of the [Dungeon].

  The two other conclusions? Well, those would have to wait. This was supposed to be a simple and quick trip anyway.

  ‘Supposed to be.’

  ***

  Mental map or not, the [Dungeon] proved to be more confusing and elaborate the farther in you go. Paths split off into three or more paths, most leading to dead ends, so I had to check each door to find where we came from. Leaving was easier since we just had to keep going forward.

  There weren’t as many dead ends on the way out compared to on the way in. Making me suspect that this place wasn’t human made at all unless they had an easier way to traverse the [Dungeon] that me and my kin don’t know about. Just another thing for me to look into after this—huh?

  “Hiwu… hrrrrr!”

  Scent of a human. A dying one at that. How… peculiar.

  “Hruuu!”

  I set off on all fours. Bearing my fangs and readying my talons to rip he or she apart without mercy. This instinct—was the strongest one by far.