#ash blight

“SPEAK TO US!”

Blind, lost, they fumble. He fumbles, writhes. The star is gone. The cavern glows red, lost, wandering, face to the dirt. The drum beats, the heart beats, his heart stops and there is nothing.

“Again,” A man’s voice, old but firm, “do it again Uupse.”

He felt his muscles contract, relax, contract, the pain searing through his chest, as his body slams against stone. His muscles are fire, everything moves of its own accord, and he can’t will himself to stop. Again and again, an eternity. He writhes in one spot, scraping, twisting. His arm numb, his shoulder out of socket. He is aware and not, his body moves of its own accord. Snapping striking, scraping. He can’t breathe. He screams out, the sound little more than a rasping exhale as his body continues to slam against the stone. His head hits the hard, cold surface that he lay upon. Again and again and again. Over and over. Then suddenly it stops and he relaxes. Everything is wet. He burns, and his heart lurches in his chest. Fire throughout his body, a torch, immolation. It stops and he is suddenly unbearably cold. His heart stops.

“Again Uupse.”

A crack, a burning in his chest, it spreads from the centre outwards, his head turns, jaw clenches, and again he writhes, something in his chest snaps. Everything is muffled, it's too much. There are voices in the ether, distant, the language unrecognisable as he once again loses consciousness.

***

“Go to him, beneath Red Mountain, kneel before him, and he will show you mercy."

He speaks the words from his own lips, drawn tightly against his teeth. Dry. His skin is stretched across his bones, the joints split, oozing, and he crawls before himself upon his knees. They ooze a black substance as they scrape along the ground. He reaches his mirror’s feet, his forehead touches the ash before him. His reflection met him at his level. He lifted his chin up, traced his lip, and forced him to look at him, his face hollow, reforming, falling in, and reforming. His eyes dead, the crimson dulled. Clouded. The same images over and over. Teldryn spoke.

“What are you? Where is this place?” His voice was alien, not his own, ashen, rough. Unrecognisable.

His reflection smiled, it was menacing, lips stretched, uncanny. His eyes are dead.

 “Go to him, kneel before him, as you do me, and he will show you mercy.”

Teldryn tried to speak again, a long, bony finger pressed against his lips, silencing him before a could verbalise.

"What are you doing?” A laugh, “You have no idea, do you? Poor animal. You struggle and fight. You resist!”

“YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING!”

The words did not come from either of them. Deep, rasping, hollow. It screeches from the darkness. He watches himself stiffen as the creatures approach. A mess of ash, malformed, elephantine proboscises emerging from their faces. Pits for eyes, ornate yet tattered robes. They hum, they writhe. One takes his reflection by the ear and tosses him to the side. His naked, emaciated form breaks against the rocky walls of the cavern. He watches himself twitch, thrash before he stills. The thing that stands before him offers its hand, skeletal, the ash and its skin mingled, he could not tell where one ended and the other began.

He did not want to take it.

He felt a shock in his chest, and he shuddered. Again. Another. He seizes. He awakens. The thing offers him its hand again.

And he refuses.

A second shock, stronger, it burns at his very being. His every nerve set aflame. His head hits the ground, grazes the stone. He is forced to his feet, a dead, decrepit arm hooks either side of him. He is forced forward. His body taught, unable to move of his own accord.