Lost in the dark

The sweat and grime, the blood and smoke, I can’t even see right anymore. I try to find my breath, where am I? I stumble, try to regain the lines, where are the lines? I try to follow the noises of this hellish night, its howls and grunts, and soon come out of the forest. I stumble upon the ruins of the village, fuming piles of stone and char, I’ve lost myself far from the battle. Or maybe I am dead already? Did the last duel go wrong? Could it be that I did not slay that other spearman, but that he had cut me down? The deafening sound of my shield slipping off my arm rings like a bell in the dark, and I look at the wound in my arm. Ugly. I need to rest for a bit, they won’t mind, the gods.

I try to advance through the village, stumbling on rocks and lumber hidden in the dark. Once, twice, three times I have to get up, painfully. My back is killing me. The fourth time, I don’t hit the ground too badly. I fall on some soft hay. It is soft, like a pillow, smooth like skin, and warm. Why did I turn and look? I fell not on hay, not on a soft patch of soil, not on a grassy field. It had the face of a little girl, a little girl just like mine back home, an angelic face pale and glowing even in the absence of light. Mauled and cleaved from eye to cheek, and her frail body smashed to a pulp. Her foggy eyes peer into me. I tumble back in horror, turn and flee, I can feel her following me close behind. I run to safety, ram myself at the door of a ruined house, rush inside.

The darkness engulfs me. Palpable, as if the air was filled with water, as if the bottom of Poseidon's realm. I take a breath, heavy, painful. I can only see a faint glow, of two iridescent dots staring right at me. The instant stretches; a second, a minute, an hour, as I watch these two fires, like lone stars in the night’s sky. Time has stopped, I can’t move my body, and my thoughts overflow in this eternal gaze.

I let myself fall into the spider’s lair, a wounded prey; or so you think, you sneaky scum! I won’t let you dispose of me that easily! the terror gives way to , I know what I have to do. I tighten my grip on the wood of my lance, the bronze tip moves, its sheen cuts the darkness like a hungry demon. I freeze for an instant, focused, exhausted. I let the whole world disappear around me. It’s just me now, and the eyes in the dark.

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This story was built in collaboration with Frogvara. Go read their own part of the story there