The Croucher

You finally come out of the hallway to emerge in a large, dark room. The echoes of your footsteps takes several seconds to come back to you. For a time, you wonder if you went blind, since even your own hands are too dark for you to see. With sight out of the equation, you have to rely on your other senses to make out the wide space in front of you.

There is no sound, no movement, and yet you feel it clearly. You are not alone. In this place large enough to house a small village, there is another presence that occupy nearly all the space. Even though you cannot sense it, you just know it is there, and it has noticed you. This realization stops you in your tracks, frozen as your mind goes wild imagining what could possibly be hidden beyond this black veil.

Time stretches, and for long, agonizing minutes, nothing happens. Your irregular breath is the only sound, poorly muffled in your desperate attempts to erase your presence. Your body shifts backward, ever so slightly, in a painfully slow attempt to flee. That's when you notice the two white spheres.

I kept telling you. I was ready to wait years, and yet, you just ran to me. How thoughtful.

You understand how much the corridor's echo was shielding you from the real voice. The real thing is impossible to describe, made of sounds that cannot exist. It comes from all directions at once, whipping your eardrums like burning nails, but not due to the echo. The second wave hits a second later, like a flurry of punches in your belly, head and knees.

You don't resist when the enormous hand comes from beyond the darkness to grab you. Your mind is dull, rendered inept from the shock. It feels like a desiccated human hand with too many fingers and at least three thumbs. It brings you up in the air, near the two light spheres that illuminate your face like two shining suns.

Resist

Through a sudden burst of will, you begin to thrash about, trying to get free. With a squeeze of the monster, all your bones shatter as your head falls down. You're still conscious for a few moments before life leaves you entirely.

Give up

You relax your entire body, You accept your fate, realizing that you are but a plaything in the palm of a god. If this is how it is supposed to end, then so be it. You close your eyes, whispering your last words within the world of the livings.