The Descent

The air in the narrow, winding stone staircase was instantly freezing, smelling of ancient dust and crushed minerals. Clara descended blindly, her hands scraping against the rough rock walls. She had to hurry. Julian would know she was down here. He felt every shift in her spiritual energy.

At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel opened up into a massive, cavernous space.

The Root Cavern was terrifyingly beautiful. The walls were lined with raw, jagged veins of black obsidian, gleaming faintly in the bioluminescent glow of strange fungi clinging to the ceiling. The spiritual resonance in the room was deafening. It felt like standing inside a massive, vibrating bell. Clara could hear the whispers of her past lives echoing off the glass-like stone.

* Run, hide, burn, bleed.* In the center of the cavern sat a smooth, flat altar of pure obsidian. Resting atop it was exactly what she needed: an ancient, curved dagger made of the same black stone.

Clara stumbled toward the altar. Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely grip the handle of the dagger. To perform a Soul Suicide, one had to pierce the heart while speaking the ancient syllables of unmaking, commanding the soul to fracture into nothingness upon the point of death.

She raised the dagger, placing the razor-sharp tip against her chest, right over her wildly beating heart.

“I unbind the tether,” she whispered, her voice echoing strangely in the vast cavern.

Before she could speak the next word, the temperature plummeted. The bioluminescent fungi on the ceiling instantly died, plunging the cavern into near-total darkness.

A shadow separated itself from the wall of the cavern.