Page 94 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
Something in me shifted restlessly. The stone around my neck flickered faster, copying the panicked beat of my heart.
A hiss brushed my ear, turning me around only to see the dark I’d come from. A strange distant scuttling followed, echoing from one of the archways I’d passed. The orb moved, bathing the dark in pale light, revealing nothing but puddles and grime.
Nothing there.
Ignoring my childish imagination, I quickened my steps, grasping onto that stone around my neck, letting the warmth of it reassure me as I followed the orb, ducking under roots and shrivelled vines.
‘Emrys?’ I called again, trying not to sound too desperate as the foulness of this place pressed closer. The air thicker, my heart pounding painfully against my ribs.
I turned another corner, boots sinking into a puddle of stagnant water. Then I felt it. Ice cold, almost burning with its intensity, like a frosty breath against the nape of my neck.
A searing pain wrapped around my wrist, a curse slipping from my lips as I grabbed it. The burns Montagor had given me throbbed painfully. The orb dispersed with my distress.
The stone around my neck became blinding with its brightness, casting long, sharp shadows down the dark, ruined hallway.
Run, a quite voice whispered in my mind. Small and scared.
Something was wrong. A strange pressure in the air told me I wasn’t alone. That scuttling came back, something changingin the darkness, moving in the shadows out of the corner of my eye.
Little troll. The pain in my hand intensified with the memory of that voice, almost taking my knees from beneath me. I panted as I stumbled into the dank wall.
No. That wasn’t real.
I shook the memory away, screwing my eyes shut to push it further into the back of my mind. Then I heard it. The familiar click of heeled boots and the intensity of his stride. The sound of his cane as he slapped it against the dorm doors. A warning.
A sick game of chance as he taunted his next victim.
My head shot up, heart pounding as I watched the gloom before me, feeling the vicious bite of that dark in the silence. Something watching. Lurking.
Run, that warning whispered again. Desperate.
I followed its command, turning back the way I’d come only to crash into a brick wall that hadn’t been there before. My fingers curling against the damp stone.
No.
That memory of that stinging bite came back to the nape of my neck, slipping down my spine.
‘Little troll,’ came that taunting voice from over my shoulder. My whole body trembled and my vision dimmed, making my head spin as bile crawled up my throat.
‘S-stop,’ I begged. Just as I’d begged back then.
Those steps still came, a figure walking towards me from the darkness, swinging its cane, a strange smoke rising from it as the horrid stench of burning flesh met my nose.
‘Little troll,’ he called in the bitterly cheery way he always had, stepping into the dim light so I could see the charred remains of him: lips peeled back, black flesh, and hollow pitsfor eyes, his remains still smoldering as he continued to move towards me.
I could smell him, feel the heat of his charred flesh. He was real.
A broken sob escaped my lips. Shaking overtook my limbs, fear taking control of everything else as I slipped onto my knees. The air too thick.
Please! A horrid screaming filled the air, bowing me over. Shattering my heart.
Alma. That was Alma.
‘Stop,’ I begged, a weak, childish whimper leaving me as I pressed my palms over my ears, shaking my head. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
Then those screams came again. Louder as I tried desperately to get to my feet. As I clawed at the rough stone wall but my legs wouldn’t work.
I needed to find her. Needed to stop it.
