CHAPTER 60: DOOMED.

Karim.

Dungeons.

Morrow is going home tomorrow.

I hadn’t been able to do anything to help her - it feels like a big punch in the guts.

Spatial Domain and I have been assigned to working in the dungeons.

From the shudders the announcement had received from the staff, I’m not sure what to expect down there.

"Spa-".

He pulls off his headphones and stares at me. His eyes are glassy and intense.

"My name is Ace. You can call me Ace".

I can read the slight warmth in his voice.

It confirms that he doesn’t usually share his name.

How many people actually know his name?

"Why are people so scared of you?" I ask.

He doesn’t respond immediately. Maybe, it’s something he doesn’t like to discuss.

"I’m the wrong person to ask".

He said earlier that he disapproves of bullies - how is that possible when everyone considers him a bully?

Well, I don’t like asking questions, neither do I judge, so I’ll just find out in the long-run.

We start walking down the hallway to our grim destination.

He fits his headphones back over his ears and shuts everything out.

It makes me wonder what he’s listening to. I’ve never been the type to listen to music. My type of music is the metallic hum of clashing swords. I might try it sometime, though - I mean the whole music thing.

The path ahead of us is a long one. The day is fading fast. The sun is setting across the horizon, giving the sky a surreal pinkish glow.

We pass through a long external hallway with stone archways at every measured interval. It leads out to the field. We cross the field in silence. The grass is wet beneath my feet, mud clinging to the front of my shoes. Crickets and grasshoppers dance over my shoes and hop away.

No students are in sight. I would have expected the entire place to be crawling with students.

The trees at each end of the field cast dark and gloomy shadows over us. The forest beyond looks creepy and gloomy.

At the end of the field lies an arched stone bridge over a little body of water.

I watch the sunset as we pass through the stone bridge. Underneath the bridge is a lake. The water is dark and glassy, mirroring the approaching dusk with ethereal accuracy.

My reflection in the water is distorted by soft ripples made by the wind over the water’s glassy surface.

When we reach the other end of the stone bridge, we have to jump down because the stone steps that must have been there previously have been removed, leaving a pile of weathered rock and sand behind.

Ace keeps leading the way as if he has been here a thousand times before.

The ground is more stable now. The pavements are made with stone but it would seem that the builders took more liberties here than at the main school building - the floor’s patterns are inconsistent but more attractive to the eyes than the measured square patterns I have grown accustomed to.

A huge stone building looms over us in the distance. It looks like a dark lord’s forbidden lair.

The stone here is darker and moldy with age. It resembles a castle with the high towers and parapets.

The windows at the center of each tower look like dark, foreboding eyes.

I gulp.

Maybe, Morrow is actually the lucky one.

I keep wondering if I should ask Ace what to expect.

My heart is hammering against my chest.

Is it me, or does the sky look darker on this side of the bridge?

The atmosphere is brimming with uncertainty. The silence is too eerie for even a lover of the quiet like me.

My steps begin to drag with dread. Ace does not even seem bothered.

I take a shaky breath to steady myself.

The air tastes stale and dead, like coffee that has been left for hours - bitter and choking, leaving you with an annoying aftertaste.

We start ascending the stone steps leading to the large double doors.

A shiver runs down my spine. I don’t know what to expect.

It’s a school for heaven’s sake, they can’t be harbouring something too dangerous, right?

I try to take reassurance from Ace’s calm and stoic presence, but it just eludes me.

The only reassurance I’ll get is from seeing whatever lurks within.

The door is an ancient one. A bar has been slid over it to keep the massive panels shut. Both of us slide the heavy bar off and push the heavy doors open.

Eerie darkness greets us.

Some of the light from outside filters into the room. There are no windows.

The room is so heavy with silence, it feels like a presence.

Ace closes the doors and bolts it in place on his own.

We are now completely drowned in the darkness. The little light coming in from the open door is gone. I can’t even see where he is, I can only hear his movements.

Each sound seems to have been amplified a thousand times.

I can hear his steady breathing, a sharp contrast to my fast one.

I can hear the scruffing of his feet over the stone floor as he moves. The sliding of wood, the hiss of fabric against skin, wood against wood, everything.

Ace feels along the wall for something. I hear something clatter to the ground. The sound of metal clanging against the stone floor tears through the void of silence.

I hear something rolling, then it stops.

Ace strikes something and grunts slightly.

The faint light of a fire begins to glow, burning up the oil until the entire torch is lit.

Fire torches?

Why aren’t we using flashlights?

Ace looks fierce under the fire’s light. There’s no trace of fear or anxiety, which is strange, but there is something else - anger?

I tame my curiosity by reminding myself of my situation.

He picks up another torch and lights it.

I feel like I’m back in the medieval era.

He hands one to me and starts walking.

The fire only lights up a small section of the vast room. It seems to bring the shadows to life.

Every now and then, I flick my light in all directions, just to allay my fears.

I’ve never been afraid of the dark, because I always knew what to expect. The shadows had become my friend.

But now, the darkness is an enemy - it leaves me undefended against my unknown foe.

Our footsteps echo in the silence. I follow the rhythm - Ace’s before mine, then repeat.

Whatever lurks here must be a silent creature. Since we arrived, I haven’t heard a single growl or roar. Just endless and unnerving silence.

Maybe, it’s human.

When I heard the word Dungeons, my first thought was a locked up beast. But, it could be anything.

We reach the end of the gallery and an old pulley elevator sits there.

Ace hands me his torch without preamble and lifts the metal gate.

We walk into the elevator and he pulls the lever down.

His familiarity with the place is grossly intriguing.

As the lift descends, wind gushes in and attempts to snuff out the flame. The flames dance wildly to the rhythm of the wind, but stubbornly refuse to die out.

The lift descends slowly. As we go lower, the air gets cooler, chilly.

The temptation to shiver overwhelms me.

Chilly wind gushes over us and one fire dies out.

Then, the lift jams with a loud noise. The scraping sound it makes echoes through the silence.

I turn to Ace. He doesn’t seem bothered. He looks like he expected this to happen.

He takes the torch from me and looks down.

"We still have a long way to go. Now that you’re here, you can hold the light for me while I fix the pulley".

He’s definitely not new to the dungeons. His familiarity with the place has been explained.

I use the burning torch to light the other one while waiting for further instructions.

"We have to climb up. The pulley is at the top. But I’m not sure if it would take both our weights - the system is pretty old".

I don’t respond.

He glances up at me absently and suddenly shakes his head.

"I’d better do it myself".

He collects a torch from me and drops it on the roof of the lift.

He hoists himself up and braces his legs against the stone wall to support himself.

The elevator shakes alarmingly.

He tries to lift himself higher, but his foot slips.

My breath catches sharply.

He regains his foot and pulls the rest of his body upward. I exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

The lift creaks under his weight. I look up. The metal creaks with each movement he makes.

Metal scrapes against metal, a shrill sound cutting through the dense stillness like a sharp blade.

Ace grunts and walks to the other end. The rope sags and the lift droops down slightly.

Then, he slides down and slips into the lift carefully.

His white shirt is now stained with smudges of dust, rust, and dirt.

A few cobwebs linger in the strands of his hair. Even the palms of his hands and his wrists are stained black.

He pulls the lever and we start moving.

The descent is slightly faster now.

We reach the floor with a loud thud.

Ace hands me his torch and lifts the gate.

We walk into another long hallway.

Every hallway always seems endless.

At the end of the hallway is a cell. A single cell.

The bars look like the kind you’d find in a normal police station.

"So there’s only one cell down here?"

Ace nods.

So, all this was built to cage just one creature?

Ace stops and picks up a pair of glass masks from a shelf I hadn’t noticed.

He hands me one and drops his torch to wear his.

I raise an eyebrow.

"The creature in there is very cunning. He can possess your body if he makes direct eye contact with you. This", he taps his mask, "stops him from possessing you. The moment you take it off, he can use your body and escape. He has no true form. No one knows what he truly looks like, not even me".

I slide on the mask slowly and clasp it.

"When you say ’not even me’, does that mean you can see people’s real form?"

He ponders my question absently.

"The mind is regarded as an individual’s safe space. There are no lies, only truth. When I invade a person’s mind, I see them as they are truly. But, in his case, his form keeps changing".

I don’t know how to react now that my question has been answered.

If he’s so powerful, why is he locked behind such a simple cell?

We approach carefully. Ace sets both torches in sconces by each side of the cell.

The light of the fire filters into the cell sparingly.

I peer in.

The cell is empty.

I turn to Ace. He seems completely unbothered.

"He’ll come around. He always likes to play hide and seek with new guests".

I step backward. The air is even more chilly now.

Fingers snap and the fire goes out. It snaps again and the fire comes alive.

In front of me is an exact copy of myself.

I step backward.