Page 55 of Drenched

Pearl…

You let us die…

Free us…

The water felt like grief, cold, continuous and smothering. The cave’s mouth gaped before me, a jagged wound in the fabric of the ocean. Blackness seeped out, an ink-stain spreading, waiting to swallow me whole.

I hesitated, my heart a frantic drumbeat. But I couldn’t turn back. Not now.

I crossed the threshold and swam deeper into the cave, and that’s when I saw them.

Bones.

So many of them.

The sheer number of them was impossible to grasp. Hundreds. Thousands. It was like a labyrinth of the damned, every bone was like a monument to suffering.

I gagged, bile burning my throat. But there was no escape from the horror.

And then, I saw the faces.

They surged up from the depths, twisted and broken, barely holding their shape. Eyes rolled wildly, filled with terror that never ended. Their mouths opened and closed, trapped in silent screams, their agony echoing in the dark water.

Kim.

Her face floated up first, her eyes glassy with agony, her mouth contorted in a scream that shattered my heart. Her features rippled, dissolving at the edges like wet paper, then reforming into something worse.

Jamie.

His eyes met mine, wide with desperate recognition, his features melting, warping. His hand reached out, fingers splayed, but his arm disintegrated into wisps before he could grasp anything.

Trevor.

His form flickered, his jaw unhinged in an eternal scream. His arms flailed, reaching upward, his eyes filled with horror and betrayal.

They were trapped.Their souls shredded, splintered, yet still aware. Still suffering.

A sob tore from my throat, a garbled mess of grief and rage.

“No,” I choked, my voice strangled. “No… no…”

The pit convulsed. The molten glow flared violently, casting grotesque shadows across the walls. More faces surged up. More screams layered together until the sound became a physical force, a wave of torment crashing over me.

You let us die.

You knew.

You’re next.

The voices clanged inside my skull. My limbs trembled, my vision edged with black. My chest felt tight, suffocating. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I screamed, the sound ripping through my throat. My arms flailed, my body convulsed with terror. The shadows surged closer, wrapping around my limbs, tightening.

And then…my fingers struck something hard.

A glint of metal on a skeletal finger.

I reached toward it, my hands trembling, and closed around it. A ring. Small. Delicate. Faintly gleaming in the hellish light.

I turned it over, and the engraving pierced me like a blade.

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