Chapter VI

  Creeping on the Edge of Sanity

  VANDARIS SAT WITH HIS MOTHER as she shared one of the fantastical stories she had read as a student. She spoke of goblins, a ridiculous and clumsy race whose sheer numbers could bring about great destruction despite their constant foolishness. He laughed as Aiyana regaled him with accounts of their erratic and raucous antics.

  Goblins, even with their peculiar nature, possessed a unique cleverness. They displayed a mechanical aptitude that allowed them to create eccentric engines of war, often rolling into battle upon bizarre siege weapons that functioned more through rudimentary magic and their own force of will than by any logical design.

  After her story finished, they sat in comfortable silence, content in the peace and joy they brought to each other’s lives. However, Vandaris grew uneasy as Aiyana remained motionless, her absent stare mirroring the frozen smile stretched across her face.

  Vandaris suddenly found himself alone as a thick darkness crept in, blanketing the cave’s walls. The shadows surrounded him, and a dragging sound came from the cavern’s depths. His eyes narrowed as he peered into the distance, where he saw someone crawling toward him. They pulled themselves forward, their clawed hands gripping the rocky floor. Vandaris’s heart sank; it was his mother.

  Aiyana lay prone with her blonde hair splayed across the stone, obscuring her face. She dragged herself closer until she was lying before him, and her body shuddered as she rose to her knees. Her hair parted to reveal a black void replacing her once angelic face. Vandaris wanted to scream, but he had no voice. Every instinct told him to run, but his body wouldn’t move.

  Aiyana placed her clawed hands around his skull and sank her jagged fingers into his scalp. Vandaris desperately tried to fight or even resist, but he remained frozen as her hollowed-out face drew closer to his. Finally, he was able to cry for help, but his words were swallowed, and his screams echoed throughout the void within her cavernous head.

  Vandaris sat up, drenched in sweat. His eyes darted frantically around the cave, but he was alone. He pulled his legs close and pressed his face against his trembling knees. His nightmares had gotten worse; they were so vivid he could still feel the claw marks on his head. These lingering effects were a cruel reminder that his tormented dreams had not finished with him.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a blonde woman sitting against the adjacent wall. Vandaris’s heart leaped as she reached out to him. He looked up in time to see his mother crumble into dust, dissolving into the same pile of ashy remains he had gathered into a neat mound.

  “I’m awake, so this can’t be real,” Vandaris repeated as he rocked back and forth, tears streaming as he tried to cope with the notion that his nightmares were bleeding into his waking life.

  Vandaris stared at his hands; they felt stiff and had lost all color. His skin began to crack, and he watched in horror as his fingers broke apart, followed by his hands and then arms. He screamed as the brittle pieces of his former flesh fell to the floor. But within a split second, his body was restored.

  From that point forward, Vandaris desperately fought the inevitability of sleep. He languished in despair, spending most of his time curled into a quivering ball, with his bloodshot eyes betraying his erratic thoughts.

  Whenever his fatigued mind started to succumb, he glimpsed a figure moving in the shadows, stalking him on the edges of his sanity. There was never anyone there, but the fear was enough to keep him awake. Unable to endure, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Vandaris eventually awoke to his mother’s voice echoing deep within the cavern. He had learned not to trust anything he saw or heard, but in his desperation, hope crept into his heart. He focused intensely, listening for what seemed like an eternity before the voice repeated itself.

  “Help me. Help me, please.”

  It truly was her voice beckoning him from the darkness. His heart raced, for he could no longer dismiss this as exhaustion influencing his perception.

  Vandaris picked up the short sword and used it to light his surroundings. In the distance, the clatter of knocked-over stones was the only response to the light. He moved deeper into the tunnel, trembling but determined to press forward. Step by cautious step, he crept along the bend toward the ritual chamber.

  Throughout their years together, Aiyana had never ventured deeper than the Abyssal light allowed, refusing to approach the forsaken chamber where she had suffered so greatly. Naturally, she had not told her son what had befallen her, but Vandaris had sensed her fear, and he never dared to explore on his own.

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  Upon reaching the chamber, Vandaris noticed the pentagram painted across the blood-stained floor. Desperate to discover who was calling him, he walked into the star’s center. Amid the foreboding silence, he strained to hear the faint whispers around him.

  How can this be real?

  Yet the soft disembodied words were real enough to make the hairs on his arms stand and force the muscles of his abdomen to tighten. They were real enough to make his hand tremble, causing the sword’s light to dance with the surrounding shadows.

  Scratching came from the wall to his right, as if small blades were being dragged across stone. He cautiously turned and used the sword to reveal the cavern wall, but nothing was there.

  The whispers stopped, and silence took hold of the chamber. It was an unnatural and oppressive silence; it assaulted Vandaris’s nerves, conspiring against him with the surrounding darkness. He was eternally grateful for the short sword, not only for the light it emitted, but for the solace it gave as its glow proved the existence of the Divinity within him.

  This light was his last remaining ally, and Vandaris became painfully aware of how it was diminishing by the moment. As if the darkness itself was forcing its will upon the light, stifling it as his sense of helplessness grew. Vandaris held his breath as a faint figure approached. It was his mother’s size, but its head tilted unnaturally on its neck, its limbs subtly contorted. The silhouette stopped at the edge of the light’s periphery, seemingly unwilling to cross the boundary.

  Vandaris’s back pressed against the cold wall. He was overwhelmed with the desire to flee, but this was the moment he had come for. He steeled his nerves and advanced, determined to reveal whoever was there. But with each step, the silhouette retreated further into the dark, keeping its identity obscured. Undeterred, Vandaris pursued it until he arrived at the chamber’s opposing wall, only to find nothing once again.

  He tried to leave, but there it stood, blocking the tunnel’s entrance as it watched from the safety of the gloom. His blade flickered, and panic set in as the figure drew closer. Its hands raised, displaying the outline of long sharp fingers, and any illusion this was his mother vanished. He slashed at its form, yet hit nothing. Realizing this could be his last chance to escape, Vandaris fled.

  As he sprinted down the tunnel, whispers surrounded him, nearly drowning out the footsteps coming from behind. With the sword’s light almost extinguished, Vandaris looked over his shoulder. To his horror, he saw the outline of a contorted creature with a face shrouded in shadow.

  It reached out and the tips of its claws grazed his back. Vandaris ran as fast as he could until the faint glow of the entrance cast a dim light across the stone walls. The footsteps stopped, and he spun around, watching the figure slink into the dark. He never thought he would appreciate the ethereal light of the Abyss, but the perpetual gloam that washed the wastelands in a muted green had saved him.

  Vandaris decided these would be his last moments within this wretched cave and grabbed his mother’s shield. He made for the exit but stopped before the greatsword. It jutted from the ground, just as mysterious and immovable as it had been his entire life.

  It was a shame to leave it behind, as Vandaris had spent years fantasizing about wielding it as he conquered the horrors of this world. He imagined unlocking the massive weapon’s secrets and ascending beyond the frightened child he was.

  Vandaris could feel the greatsword’s silent challenge, so he grasped the hilt and pulled; he had no effect on the blade. He tightened his grip and closed his eyes as he rested his forehead against the pommel.

  In the distance, claws dragged against stone. The sound mocked him, and he clenched his jaw as frustration grew into anger. He pictured the horrors he had endured, and his thoughts fixated on the cruelty of his existence and the depth of his loss. Rage washed over him like an unstoppable flood, and cracks formed in his soul; the evil imprisoned within streamed out, intent on permeating his mind and body.

  Vandaris felt a burning pressure building within his chest as a black sludge seeped into his veins. He clutched at his sternum as it traveled outward, flowing through his arms and into his hands. He cried out, panicking, as claws tore from his fingertips.

  The sludge worked its way up Vandaris’s neck and into his face. Darkness overtook his golden eyes, and smoke billowed from their sockets. He gripped the greatsword’s handle, struggling to maintain his balance as his obsidian horns extended further from his skull.

  His heart blackened, and his anger morphed into seething hatred, accompanied by the desire to inflict unimaginable suffering upon his tormentor. As he screamed in agony, the greatsword burst into flames, burning brighter and hotter than ever before. The cave floor emitted an orange glow as the rock melted, and the weapon tilted in the weakening stone. Vandaris pulled with all his might, and it rose from the ground. He had done the impossible and lifted his prize, bellowing in defiant victory.

  Vandaris pointed the greatsword toward the cavern’s depths, and a glowing red rune appeared on the blade. A burst of fire streamed through the tunnel, briefly revealing the creature as it fled into the dark. Its shrill howls of pain and anger reverberated along the stone walls, filling Vandaris with grim satisfaction.

  Intoxicated by his victory, he wanted to pursue the foul mockery of his mother. But the greatsword was far heavier than he realized, and it fell to the ground with a loud clang. His strength left him, and he dropped to his knees, exhausted and bewildered.

  The darkness drained from Vandaris’s angelic eyes as the remnant of Aiyana’s spirit fortified his inner strength. His sense of self began to reemerge, and with their combined efforts, they forced the evil into the core of his soul, imprisoning it once again. His better nature flourished, and he returned to his former self.

  As Vandaris watched his claws recede into his trembling fingers, his heart sank; he had become the monster his mother had feared. He imagined her hating him for it, and he started to hate himself. Vandaris had always believed he knew who he was, but now, he felt alienated from his own soul.

  Screeching echoed in the tunnel, snapping him back to the present. At this moment, there was one thing Vandaris knew for sure: he could not stay here. After gathering what he could, he ventured into the wasteland, broken and traumatized, uncertain of how long he could survive.

  After a short distance, he paused, wanting one last look at the cave that had been the only home he had ever known. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn around, dreading the possibility of seeing the figure creeping within the shadow’s boundaries. Or worse still, he feared seeing a vestige of his mother beckoning for him to return. Ultimately, his courage failed, and he pressed on into the unforgiving world.