Alone in the Dark

Posted on Tue May 22nd, 2018 @ 2:46am by Amare

2,256 words; about a 11 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Forgotten Sith Dungeon (Polar Region, Irrikut)
Timeline: Continues from "Darkness Falls"
Tags: Irrikut dungeon

OLD

“W-who are you?” Coda called out to the voice. “Are you hurt? Are you trapped down there?” She took one step onto the first stair, then another step on the other.

“Hey kiddo,” the voice was suddenly heard right next to her sending chills of terror through her head tendrils and spine. Before she could turn, the stairs beneath her feet instantly flattened and became a slippery slope which consumed her into the black void below. The sound of her screaming was drowned out as the casket slid over the passage sealing her to her fate.

---

NEW

Coda couldn’t quite tell how far she’d fallen, or if anyone could hear her scream, but she did feel something holding her back trying to slow her fall. It wasn’t enough, however, to keep her from blacking out when she struck the bottom.

You can do this, Zara…save your mother and your brother. I will always be with you.

That memory of her father again, right before his violent end. Those blaster shots…she would never forget them. The thought of having failed her family that day...she might as well have pulled the trigger herself.

Father! Nooo!

Her brother, Capo, screamed after it happened…

Bwahaha!

The pirate captain's laughter was chilling and loathsome as it always was in her mind.

Look at her, boys. She ain’t shedding one bloody tear. Not even a whimper! Ha! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she almost enjoyed that!

No!

She woke with a startle and found herself floating deep in the gloom of a hollowed-out pit of cold water. Although the temperature wasn’t ideal, it was clean and clear all around her, and it felt nice to be back in her natural element. The surface of the water above was shimmering with bright white light and rippling caused by falling water from where that light was coming from. Her amphibious biology allowed her to breathe easy underwater as she glanced about and saw no signs of life until she peered down below her. It was roughly more than several dozen feet when the light above began to fade into darkness, but straining her eyes, she could barely make out what looked like a graveyard of skulls and bones piled up at the bottom, and something swimming down there. Just like the strange nautolan woman she saw moments earlier, the thing below was a dark and shadowy humanoid and appeared to be tearing barbarically into something in its hands that was yielding puffs of red blood.

Coda froze, silently praying that the thing hadn’t noticed her. She was also wondering what it was that the creature was tearing at, and inwardly hoped it was not Thane. Could it have been that her master had wandered down here on his own and met a terrible end? The thought of it made her feel more alone and vulnerable than she ever dared to consider. She started to look for a way out and decided to swim for the surface to safety.

There was, unfortunately, nowhere to go. All she had was the towering darkness far above from which she fell, the nearby waterfall that was the pool’s source, and glimmering white crystal clusters lining the shaft where the water fell through. The cavern walls were smooth and offered no climbing grip to take hold of. She had no choice; she had to find some way out below.

Diving back underwater, she half-expected to see the creature coming at her, but this time it was nowhere to be seen. She took a deep aquatic breath and swam deeper, hopeful there was some hidden way out of the dark trap she was in. As she pushed closer to the bottom, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness where the light above was failing her and could distinguish the large carefully arranged assortment of skulls belonging to various species, but mostly human. It was almost like the creature of the deep was building a macabre altar of death. Its latest sacrifice was oozing blood, but what was left of it was enough for her to know it was a strange bulbous purple and pink fish that had an angled antenna with a faint orange light at the tip sprouted from its head.

Her peripheral vision caught sight of a narrow tunnel to her left and turned just in time to see the resident owner of this forgotten water-logged hole in the ground rushing at her like a bat out of hell. Instinctively, she held up both hands in front of her, and channeled her inner power with a shoving motion at the creature. The Force-push telekinetically reversed the creature’s momentum, throwing it back several feet, and causing it momentary disorientation. It shook its strange, crocodilian-like head with glowing red eyes, pounded its broad and bulky chest which resembled that of a mon calamari, and roared back at Coda letting her know that all she did was inspire its fury to be unleashed. It mimicked her exact same pushing gesture, displaying its own familiarity of the Force, and Coda was thrust much farther back than what she managed and released a mass of air bubbles when her back smacked flat against the rocky pit wall behind her. Much of the creature’s skulls and random menagerie of bones went flying back with her as well, one of which slipped into her left hand which she instinctively gripped. Coda was dazed from the impact, barely able to stay conscious as the creature swam at her with blinding speed and took her by the throat. It viciously plowed her against the wall again to further take the fight out of its young prey.

At this distance, there was no mistaking the creature’s hunger and its row of razor sharp teeth. It eased its grip of her neck slightly and made room for its other free hand with knife-like claws to tear out her throat.

It was partly in motion to perform the killing stroke when the mutant creature jerked and stopped halfway. It looked down at its side and saw the pointed end of a rib drawing puffs of dark oily blood. It looked up at Coda to see her eyes were closed in concentration as more ivory stabs were driven into its back along with a small grouping of skulls and various other blunt bones. The creature roared in her face in pained protest and in seconds burst into a smoky haze of twinkling dust and dark energy.

The nautolan wanted to collapse and just be part of the gathering of the dead. All those skulls seemed as if they were looking at her, a fresh new face to rot and join them at the bottom of a deep forgotten watery pit for all eternity. It would be so easy to give in and keep them company forever. She didn’t have the strength to go on, and if there was another of those dark beasts, she knew she didn’t have a chance. It was time to let go and rest…

As she drifted towards the waiting embrace of the skulls, a sudden surge of energy warmed and tingled across one arm and then the other. Another surge rushed down her spine and to her legs, and she began to start swimming again against her own will. It felt as if she wasn’t in control as her body pushed her through the side tunnel the beast had come from. Barely able to keep her eyes open, she could make out a faint pulsing of multi-colored light at the other end.

A ferocious current began to pull at her dragging her on as the tunnel angled up and blasted her up towards the surface. She limply flopped in mid air as she went up nearly twenty feet above the water and landed face down on a wet murky shore. As she struggled to slowly drag herself up, a wave rose up and slapped her back down to her knees from behind. The water and the air around her was horribly frigid prompting her to wonder if she was exposed to Irrikut’s surface climate yet again.

As she barely found the strength to lift her head up, she saw through distorted vision that she was in a hidden cove that led out into the open water of a large lake covered in dense fog. The cavern ceiling was marked with scattered outcroppings of orange, green, and violet crystals. She could feel a strong overarching presence of power radiating from them, but none so much as that which lay before her.

She saw a circle of meticulously arranged stones and glowing crystals and two large carved stones set firmly behind it etches with symbols and writing of a language she didn’t recognize. She tried to stand, but her legs were far too sore to support her weight forcing her back to her knees. She crept on all fours until the intensity of the power around her grew too heavy on her head and shoulders. She groaned under the gravity of the invisible field of energy as it pushed her down further until she was prone again and had to crawl.

“I can’t…give up…” she breathed to herself. “Have to…save you…” All she could think of was her brother, Capo. She needed to keep fighting for him. For love’s sake. For vengeance.

“a. little. further…” a soft feminine voice whispered close to her in clipped words.

“failure. pathetic!” huffed another with contempt as other female whispers rapidly assaulted her senses in all directions.

“her. heart. regrets.”

“the. light. is. pulling. at. her.”

“so. much. regret.”

“fear…FEAR!”

“should. have. never. left. saucy.”

“she. is. going. to. die. here.”

“it. wants. her. dead. the. light. HATES. her.”

“this. planet. hates. her.”

“not. meant. to. live.”

“her. flesh. mocks. the. Force.”

“shh! he. is. close!”

“who?”

“who. is. it?”

“Is. it. the. dark. lord?”

“is. it. our. master?”

“no. a. dark. ghost.”

“an. invader.”

“not. a. jedi.”

“not. a. sith.”

“an. ambomination.”

“she. is. almost. at. the. pool.”

“he. is. helping. her.”

“not. fair!”

“she. must. die.”

“i. wanted. another. playmate!”

“he. won’t. let. her.”

“he. created. her.”

“he. defies. the. Force.”

“he. needs. her.”

“he. loves. her.”

“no. he. loathes. her.”

“disappointed.”

“he. wanted. a. male. child.”

“look! she. is. crawling. into. the. pool.”

“no…”

“no!”

“stop. her!”

“send. another. beast.”

“idiots.”

“too. late.”

Coda struggled and sobbed and dragged herself over the rim of stones into the still water within. It was a tiny pool not much wider than her standing height, and it was only five feet to the bottom. She didn’t understand what possessed her to sink into yet another watering hole, but there were no bones to meet her this time and the water was strangely warm. There was only a smooth stone floor that met her as she passed out.

There was an eldritch stirring in the water moments later as it began to glow an intense golden yellow color. Water began to rush and swirl around Coda as an unseen presence began to lift her back up to the surface. Water and coils of gold energy followed her as her limp body began to levitate several feet up in the air. One of the ribbons of light came down and struck her hard in her abdomen, and she was startled awake with a rush of burning pain. She screamed in agony as another pair of energy waves fed into her eyes while another stabbed her in the back spreading the fiery pain through her skull, brain, and across her entire central nervous system. All she could see was a blazing inferno as bright as a star and the shadowed face of a man with slicked-back hair and long delicately pointed ears looming over her.

She begged for it to stop, yet still more raw Force energy poured into her for several more seconds, and then she found herself on the ground again next to the pond. Her body jerked and thrashed while she hyperventilated and brushed her hands maddeningly on her arms, legs, and body as if trying to get rid of something crawling on her. Every inch of her body was tingling and considerably warm to the touch. Sweat began to mix with the water she had been drenched in, and she found herself back on all fours again trying to adjust and slow her breathing.

“No more. No more. Please…no more,” she panted and begged and wept.

A sudden burst of broiling flame roared up from the pool prompting Coda to yelp out another scream as she fell on her back and tried to shove herself away from the inferno. With her vision having returned to normal, she watched with captive horror at the pillar of fire, and what looked to be a tall robed man covered in the darkness of billowing smoke. She saw his eyes, red as blood, and glowing with power to match the surrounding flames. He appeared completely oblivious to the flames, as if he welcomed it.

There was a long, heavy moment between burning shadow and tortured nautolan. And then, in an echoing baritone voice, the shadow said, “The Force is with you, little Wolph…but you are not a Sith yet.”

To be concluded...

 

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