The fallen princess turned toward the shadowed outline of the entrance to the chamber she had come in from. Her head dangled and twirled unnaturally, struggling to listen to the music suddenly flooding the chamber. A confused moan escaped her mouth as she continued staring at the void in the darkness.

  As the etheric singing reached its crescendo, it all suddenly stopped as suddenly as it began. Almost from seemingly nowhere, a small, white figure emerged from the doorway. It was a ghostly pale woman with platinum hair and eyes dressed in oddly casual clothing. A sight almost more out of place than the transformed princess herself. She stood there, eyeing the princess up and down with scrutiny. The screaming voice of madness in her mind subsided for a second, and without even the suffocating influence of an ancient artifact, she for whatever reason froze under the woman’s piercing gaze.

  “You do not appear to be the one Derleth described to me,” said the alien woman suddenly. “Which would mean you are either the sentry of this long, forgotten place… or merely just another unfortunate victim.”

  The silhouette of the princess twitched silently every few seconds in the dead, still darkness of the inner chamber. Rather than the voice of Macha drowning out the outside world with her alien tongue, the once human woman’s mind was now left with a blank emptiness after hearing the music of this eldritch stranger. She could not recall her identity or her purpose and could only shake uncontrollably, like a flawed instrument constructed so poorly that it was already on the brink of collapse.

  “Strange. I do not sense the essence of a Deep Resider within you. And yet…” The woman bent a leg inward and, in an instant, had moved right next to the mutated princess’s side faster than the creature could react. “There is something quite familiar about you. An emanation that I have felt quite recently, in fact. Might this be the same one that runs through Alma’s country?”

  One of the princess’s arms shot out toward the woman next to her at blinding speed, only to pass right into empty air. The eldritch woman had somehow blinked to her other side.

  “Yes, I sense the energy of an Old One coursing through you. Quite a powerful one, to be precise, concatenated by the votive prayers of hieratic lunatics. Could this be the fabled Macha that I have heard so much about? I do not think Derleth foresaw this adventitious encounter when he sent me here, unbeknownst to the other girls. That is perhaps for the best, as he probably would have made a short meal out of this vessel, and I would hate for his actions to bring even more misery to poor Alma’s life.”

  The princess creature sucked a gasp of air through her mouth before stretching it wide and releasing an ear shattering screech directly in the woman’s face.

  “Forgive me, Old One, I have no business with you. Alma seems to hold much reverence for you, and therefore, I will leave you in peace. Unfortunately, your presence has already delayed my cursory search and I did not plan to stay here for too long. If I am to continue, I must ask your vessel to sleep.” The woman’s last word had been uttered and stretched out with a musical inflection. As it passed her lips, the creature dropped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

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  The woman sighed as she watched the creature collapse pitifully, then turned her attention to strange collection of bodies behind her. They all seemed perfectly preserved in a peculiar state of stasis that she had never encountered before.

  “Frozen in time by an eldritch ritual much too unfathomable to have been concocted in the mortal world. No doubt this is their handiwork. It seems I am on the right track, at least.”

  She ran her finger along the face of one of them when she was suddenly interrupted by a staticky, little tune coming from the device around her wrist. She tried to recall the instructions given to her on how to operate it. She pressed the glowing imprint of a button, causing the voice of a woman to abruptly come through.

  “Yo, Q. Where the crap are you at? You have to come back ASAP.”

  “Alma, I believe I told you that I needed to go investigate certain matters of import. Have you run into some sort of trouble?”

  “Trouble?” Alma’s voice came out noticeably muffled. “No, quite the opposite in fact. Hwal and I just found the most INSANE donut place I’ve ever been to. I swear, the taste is out of this world. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had better, since you’re like, literally out of this world, but… uh…”

  “I am happy for you both, but you do remember I have no need to consume food for physical sustenance.”

  “Yeah, but, come on. You can taste stuff, right? I promise, you won’t regret it—Oh, shit.” Alma’s voice seemed to grow slightly distant as she pulled away from her strap. “Hwal, what the fuck? That’s way too many boxes! How many donuts did you buy? You’re not bringing those on the boat, are you? Donuts are not an ocean food.”

  “Alma…” the woman mumbled into her device.

  “Sorry, Q. Gotta go. Just hurry and get your ass back here. Hwal is fitting an entire donut into her mouth without breaking it!”

  Before she could respond, the screen on her device went dark. The lively call she was having with her friend had ended and she was back in her dank, decrepit reality. She turned back to look at the fallen creature and noticed a miraculous transformation had occurred. The abomination had shed its eldritch guise and from its ashes had rose a beautiful, red-haired woman.

  “Curious. It seems you were not as far gone as I thought. Perhaps the cure to a bit of raving madness is simply a bout of restful sleep? Opposites collide and the stronger emotion won out. You have been fighting your fate, haven’t you, childling?” The woman’s had been hovering over the princess’s body, examining her from head to toe. She smiled warmly before returning to her feet, leaving her with a few more parting words. “Rest then. And may your journey to fight your destiny end in success… wheresoever it might lead you.”

  A slew of etheric, dulcet tones arose from the alien woman as she made her way casually into the deeper recesses of the chamber. A nyctous melody of somber elation filled the gloom, and in turn, the bodies of the princess’s companions gradually stirred once more, their chests rising and falling as air once again returned to their lungs. As the divine music faded into the distance, their bodies all collapsed to the ground, pulled into the peaceful embrace of slumber.