Oliver took slow, steady steps into the veil of darkness. Other than his own bare footfalls, the only sounds were the crackling of his hand/torch, and what he thought were the faint drips of water coming from somewhere.

  With nothing else to focus on and his throat feeling like he had a hedgehog lodged in it, he headed vaguely in the direction of the tinkling sound.

  The stone floor started to slope downwards as he moved further. There was nothing but floor and darkness after five minutes of walking, no walls, no other bodies, not even any support pillars. Just how big was this dungeon anyway?

  The water got louder and Oliver could feel a slight dampness on the stone beneath him, as well as a light spray on his legs.

  Eventually, a wall appeared in front of him, stretching upwards into the blackness of the ceiling. Under the light of his “torch”, Oliver could see a steady stream of water trickling down the stone wall, splashing into a small pool.

  Not stopping to check or even think, egged on by that overpowering biological urge of “you’re fucking thirsty, drink something dickhead!”, Oliver dropped to his knees and scooped some up with his hand.

  Realising the pool was deeper than he thought, he then decided not to bother with a measly handful. He plunged his head into the pool, holding his hand torch awkwardly behind his back so as not to put it out.

  The hedgehog that had taken up residence in his throat was evicted instantly, and he gulped down litres of the precious liquid. All thoughts vanished, all worries vanished, all other pressing matters simply disappeared from his mind as he refuelled his dried husk of a body, the water (at that moment) sweeter than anything he had ever tasted in his life.

  He broke the surface with a satisfied gasp, gulping in the dungeon’s stale air, wiping his face and pushing his sopping black hair out of his eyes.

  Oliver sat there for a few moments, letting the water of life fill him and spread through his body, puffs of steam forming around his hand torch as the mist of the waterfall hit it.

  As the rejuvenation began to banish the brain fog that had built up since he had woken in this strange dungeon, his attention fell on the surface of the pool.

  It was moving.

  Yes it was moving from the waterfall filling it, but also from…something else. Something…writhing.

  Tentatively holding his arm out to get a better view of the pool, his eyes widened in horror.

  Maggots were wriggling all over the surface and under the small pool, thousands of them. Turning to the edge of the pool, he saw their source. More bodies were lying at the water’s edge, the same varying states of decay present as those chained to the wall, some merely piles of bones, others slumped over as if they were just sleeping.

  It was at that moment, that Oliver felt movement in his own mouth, movement that squirmed and wriggled.

  “Oh fuc…” Oliver began, as his body suddenly realised what he’d done, and began a full stomach evacuation procedure.

  He retched, instantly losing control, as he vomited a huge volume of the crawling, twitching liquid that had tasted so sweet in his thirst induced delirious state.

  A minute later, just when he thought his stomach had emptied and his convulsions were under control, he vomited again, more violently this time. He jerked forward on his knees, which resulted in his hand torch splashing into the pool and extinguishing with a loud hiss, instantly plunging him into darkness once more.

  Oliver knelt there for several minutes in the blackness, his body continuing to vomit up the deceptive maggot soup until there was nothing left and he was dry heaving, his body well and truly telling him “This is what you get when you swallow strange liquids. Don’t do it again you fucking moron!”.

  Finally, the retches and dry heaves seemed to subside, and he had a moment to actually think, while he breathed in heavy laboured breaths from the exhaustion.

  Snapping his fingers near his hand, the lubricant caught fire once again, nearly blinding him for a second time.

  Despite violently vomiting up what he felt was half his body weight (as well as a few things he’d dreamed he’d eaten, thought about eating and things his neighbours had eaten too) he didn’t feel thirsty anymore, so something must have absorbed.

  “Okay, so I’m not going to die of thirst right away, that’s good I guess” Oliver said, still breathing heavily.

  He stood up, deliberately not looking at the maggoty pool and it’s decomposing side decorations.

  All around him was still just a deep, impenetrable black, the empty void stretching out in front of him.

  “Where the fuck do I go?” He muttered to himself, suddenly very aware of just how exposed he was.

  Oliver had always considered himself a rational person. He didn’t believe in the supernatural or anything otherworldly. But staring into that black void, unbidden irrational thoughts of all sorts of horrors just lurking past his sight line flashed through his mind.

  He shook his head, banishing them. Everything he had encountered so far had been dead, and even if he did come across something that meant him harm, he had superhuman strength in one arm and a flaming torch in the other. He liked his chances in a fight.

  That was of course, provided these “powers” didn’t wear off after a while.

  Pushing his hair out of his eyes again to clear his head, Oliver felt a slight draft cross his legs, causing him to shiver despite the warmth of his torch.

  That got him thinking, that draft had to be blowing from somewhere, which to him meant outside. If he followed the wind, maybe it would lead him out of here, or at least closer to the exit.

  He set off again, hand torch held before him, half as a light source, half as a half hearted weapon should anything nasty spring out at him.

  Where before, the floor had moved down towards the water pool, as he moved towards where the breeze was blowing from, the floor sloped upwards.

  It got steeper and steeper, until Oliver was genuinely out of breath after a few minutes of climbing up hill and had to take a break.

  “Man was not meant to go up slopes” he said. He squinted ahead of him in the hope of making out anything at all in the inky veil.

  Eventually, as the draft got stronger and he climbed higher, the ground levelled out and a stone archway materialised out of the black. Oliver could hear the wind coming from the arch, which seemed to lead into a narrow passageway.

  “Okay, that’s progress, an actual corridor.” Oliver said, striding into the passageway with a new found confidence.

  The draft blew strong, howling down the dark stone corridor, making his hand torch flicker.

  After a few minutes, the wind died down, completely. He was once more in complete silence as he slowly kept walking.

  Then he heard a new sound. A scratching sound, like someone running their nails slowly along a blackboard. The sound went through him, making him cringe. Oliver had always hated that sound. It had always made him feel physically sick, and he would prefer to avoid vomiting his guts up again.

  He stopped and held his hand torch out further, as if he could somehow move the light away from him without moving himself.

  The scratching grew louder, becoming more and more grating. Oliver ground his teeth as he stared at the darkness.

  Slowly, as the terrible noise reached it’s peak, a shape emerged from the shadow. A skull.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Oliver started, and staggered backwards, causing the light to dance around the narrow tunnel.

  The skull seemed to be hovering in mid air, as if being held by and invisible hand. Then, more bones emerged beneath it from the dark, a ribcage, thin stick like arms, a pelvis, and finally two spindly legs.

  The skeleton lumbered forward, and Oliver saw that one of it’s legs was connected to the pelvis at a weird angle, causing it to drag one of it’s feet across the stone floor, which was the source of the dreadful scratching.

  Upon entering the light fully, the skeleton stopped and looked at Oliver.

  Oliver stared back at the thing. He was in shock.

  This was a human skeleton, of someone long dead, and it was moving. It was walking around like a person, no strings, no man in a green jumpsuit holding each of the bones, nothing. It was an undead skeleton, brought back from the grave, and it was looking at him.

  The grime covered skull of the horror turned slightly to the side like a curious dog, the jaw clamped shut in a permanent rictus grin. Oliver looked into the black hollows where this person’s eyes had once been, and he saw nothing.

  The jaw then lowered with a click, opening it’s mouth wide, and it let out an ear splitting screech.

  If the scratching of its feet had been grating, this was like insects attempting to burrow into Oliver’s brain.

  While still screeching, the skeleton staggered forward, it’s arms outstretched towards him.

  Despite it’s disjointed leg and being only bone, it was suddenly remarkably fast. It closed the distance between them in less than a second.

  Oliver had no time to react, instead reacting purely on instinct. He yelled in fright and thrust his hand torch out at the monster.

  The skeleton didn’t stop, ploughing forward into him, the skull making contact with his outstretched burning hand. This halted the moving mass of bones, it’s arms writhing and flailing, Oliver stood in surprise, his hand gripping the skull as if he were holding back a small child who posed no threat to him.

  Slightly taken aback by being able to hold the creature at bay so easily, Oliver stood there for a few seconds, watching as it struggled to reach him, the fire of his hand leaving black soot on the skull’s forehead.

  Jolting back to reality and deciding that he had gawped enough, Oliver raised his left hand and punched the wriggling skeleton in the ribcage.

  With his enhanced strength, the bones instantly crumpled and the skeleton itself broke apart, the bones uncoupling like a puppet with it’s strings cut and clattering to the floor.

  Oliver staggered forward, wobbling to stop himself from stepping on the scattered bones.

  He looked at the pieces of the creature that looked in the torchlight like dirty white twigs. Then he spotted the skull, the jaw open and dislocated on one side. Nothing moved.

  Had he killed it?

  He waited for a few minutes, but the before energetic bones lay still on the floor, the only sound the crackling of his torch and his heavy breathing as the adrenaline wore off.

  Oliver bent down, and picked up the skull in his left hand.

  It looked like the skeleton was smiling at him, but then again they always looked like they were smiling, they had no choice.

  A gust of wind chose that moment to blow again through the tunnel and Oliver, in panic, crushed the skull in his fingers. He still kept forgetting about his increased strength in the heat of the moment.

  Dropping the crushed bone powder and dusting his hand off on his shorts, he lamented that he wouldn’t be playing Hamlet any time soon.

  “Alas, poor Yorick, he had brittle bone disease” Oliver said to himself.

  He continued on, spurred by a combination of adrenaline and pride at defeating his first foe. If a skeleton, the literal reanimated bones of a dead person, could be dispatched like that, then he could take on anything. He hadn’t even hit it that hard.

  Oliver made his way through the long tunnel, even lightly jogging at one point, knowing that he could take on whatever came out of that darkness before him.

  After another five minutes of walking, Oliver saw what he so desperately hoped to see. However faint, he could see light at the end of this long tunnel. He sprinted towards it, not caring that the tunnel floor got rougher and sharper on his feet. This could potentially be a way out. He could be saved.

  Hurling himself out the last few feet, he emerged into another cavernous chamber, but this time it was much better lit.

  Now he could actually get a good look at the place, he saw that the dungeon…castle…wherever he was, was in an incredible state of disrepair. There were multiple holes in the high ceiling, through which that same moonlight was streaming through. There were holes in the walls that seemed to lead to nowhere, as if stones had just become dislodged and fallen away, leaving the wall looking like Swiss cheese. The holes in the ceiling were where the wind was coming from, and Oliver took a step back as the wind nearly made him singe his own eyebrows off with his hand.

  The chamber sloped down into a flat area at the bottom, the occasional large stone scattered on the slope, looking like odd seats in an amphitheatre.

  He looked across the room and saw another archway, similar to the tunnel he’d just left. Seeing no other archways and using his brilliant powers of deduction, he surmised that that door was the only other way out.

  He made his way to the edge of the slope, and saw that stones were slick with water, whether from rain or damp or…something else, he didn’t know.

  Oliver took a tentative step onto the slope, and instantly slipped, causing him to fall flat on his arse. The act of falling on his backside did not stop his momentum though, and he slid down the slope on his rear end all the way to the flat area at the bottom.

  Cursing, he got up, brushed his now dirty and scraped pyjama shorts off, massaged his bum, then stopped as he heard another noise.

  A scraping and creaking, like metal on stone, reverberated around the room, just as cringeworthy as the skeleton foot dragging, if not more so. Oliver covered his ears as it became earsplitting.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw sparks from the top of the slope. He saw to his horror that they were coming from the other archway. Dazzling sparks were flying out from the the sides, as what looked like a portcullis slammed down across the exit, blocking the path completely. Oliver turned, his heart sinking, as he saw the same kind of portcullis block the arch he had just come through. They both slammed down with loud clangs and the scraping stopped. The noise echoed around the room and suddenly there was silence.

  Oliver looked around nervously.

  “Great, now I’m trapped. Well, at least there’s nothing else in here…” he started to say, before clamping his mouth shut. Though he didn’t believe in jinxing and tempting fate, growing up with his mother insisting on not crossing on the stairs or stepping on cracks had drilled it into him.

  This lead to him pondering on whether there perhaps was something to her superstition, as a scuttling sound then began to build.

  Oliver tried to figure out where the sound was coming from, as it got louder and louder. He began to panic as he realised it was coming from all around him.

  When the sound reached it’s peak, he saw movement on the walls.

  Skeletons, dozens of them, began to climb out of the holes in the stone and ceiling. They crawled on their twig like limbs, some fully formed, some merely a torso with arms, some even without skulls. They scuttled down the walls like weird white spiders, causing rocks and shingle to fall with them.

  Oliver looked around frantically, but they were coming from all sides, every wall covered in the monstrosities, all making their way from the walls down the slope toward him.

  This room was designed to trap him, to funnel him into the middle and then allow him to be swamped by skeletons. This was just unfair now.

  As they reached the bottom of what he now saw as a pit, Oliver tried to take up a fighting stance, using his torch hand to try and ward them off, but they didn’t stop.

  They clicked and clacked across the floor and began grabbing at his legs.

  Unfortunately, seeing the sprawling mass of white bones about to engulf him, feeling their cold rotten fingers on his legs and hearing the countless scratches and scrapes of bone on stone, made Oliver’s logical brain shut down. Terror began to flood him and he yelled, then screamed, as they climbed up his legs and his torso.

  He fell to the ground, only to land on top of other skeletons behind him. They sprawled across him, and suddenly all he could see was a churning mass of bone and cartilage. He pulled his hands up to protect his face, screaming the primal terror cry of a trapped animal. He subconsciously curled into a foetal position and waited for it to be over.

  They would tear him apart in this cold, dark dungeon and he would die never knowing where he was, how he got here, what these powers were or anything. He would never see his family again, never go on another date, never own a dog, never get his dream job, never have kids, never live the life he had always wanted. He would die alone, forgotten, and terrified.

  “Hang on…”Oliver managed to get out over the noise of the skeleton avalanche. They had been crawling over him for some time now, but hadn’t actually done anything to him.

  He looked around through the sprawling bones and saw that to his surprise, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The skeletons were attempting to hit him, tear him, scratch him, even bite him. But every time they did, they simply slid off of him. Their fingers and teeth couldn’t find purchase, or when they did, it looked like they just didn’t have the strength to actually do any damage.

  His terror from before leaving him and remembering once again that he had superhuman strength in his left hand, he wrenched his left arm away from several skeletons that had hold of him. They went flying, launching into the air. He punched through several more, getting to his knees, then more and getting to his feet. The bones formed a whirlwind around him as he sent them soaring in all directions, some breaking apart from the fall or from hitting the walls or in some cases the ceiling. Some of the bones even shattered and splintered, the sheer strength of his arm hitting them with the force of a speeding car.

  He kicked a few with his un-enhanced legs and that seemed to do the trick too, the skeletons breaking apart so easily, it was like they were held together with pritt-stick and spit.

  Finally, a few minutes later, Oliver stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by piles of broken and smashed bones, thankfully none of them moving anymore. He stood in silence, taking in his victory over not just his foes, but his won fear as well. It felt good, very good.

  “Well, that’s one way to do it I suppose” a voice said from behind him.

  Oliver spun, hands raised, eager to hit something else after taking some of his frustrations out on the pathetic skeletons. He was also caught of guard upon hearing a voice other than his own for the first time since he got here. It felt weird and strange.

  Up high on the wall, hanging from shackles not too dissimilar to the ones Oliver had escaped…was another skeleton. It hung limply by it’s knobbly wrists, it’s feet dangling and swaying slightly in the breeze. The skull was turned slightly downward, the empty eye sockets fixed on Oliver. It’s jaw opened with a click and with nonexistent vocal chords it said “You really showed them what for. I would say it was humerus, but then I’d have to die of shame.”