The Son of Cthulhu: Chapter 3
I’m Scheduled for Execution…Upon My Own Request
As my captors guided me through the facility, My hands were bound, and my eyes blindfolded. I was led only by the surprisingly powerful grip of Maria.
She seemed less intense since my interrogation. I was grateful for that. If I was being honest, since our fight, I had grown to fear not only her strength but also her unpredictability.
As if her shielded thoughts weren’t bad enough, even through normal means, it was also impossible to tell what she was thinking at any moment.
“Watch your step princess,” She said a second too late while I tripped past the doorway pathetically. As I fell to my knees, I noted it was the second time today.
Maria ripped the hood off in a single motion, blinding me with the piercing light of the sun. As my eyes adjusted, the other two Kidnappers slowly came into view.
The other woman looked surprisingly young with dark curly hair, umber skin, and a worn lab coat with an illegibly frayed name embroidered into the pocket.
The older man beside her looked to be somewhere in his fifties. He had long grey-tinted dreadlocks and a white beard that contrasted perfectly with his jarringly golden eyes. Strapped to his back was a massive sword with a beautifully decorated hilt adorned with diamonds and rubies.
The pair of them looked down on me with an unblinking focus that I couldn’t discern as fear or as just plain hatred. The man pulled from his jacket a vial of clear liquid. He removed the cap, never taking his fierce golden gaze away from me.
The woman in the labcoat jotted down his every motion upon her clipboard with the frantic obsession of your average viewer of reality TV.
“If your words are true, this will be as easy to drink as a bottle of water.” He said powerfully, instantly capturing all of our attention.
“However, If you speak only lies this potion will force you out of your helpless vessel and reveal your true form to us.” He concluded, seemingly uninterested in answering any further questions on the matter.
“Are you ready?” He asked as he approached, placing the veil in my still-bound hands.
“Like I said before, I have nothing to hide,” I answered confidently before drinking the liquid in a single bold gulp.
The three gazed at me meticulously, no doubt awaiting the worst possible scenario. I would be lying if I said my confidence hadn’t been shaken as well under these unusual circumstances.
Several painstaking moments passed, and nothing happened. The tension in the air could’ve stopped a sprinter from reaching his finish line.
“See? I told you guys,” I said with relief after an eternity of waiting.
The others seemed to relax, although still visibly burdened by confusion.
Maria chuckled “Damn! Does that mean I don’t get to fight?”
I rolled my eyes in annoyance as I got up from the ground. The moment I stood, a sinking feeling in my gut began to spread like wildfire throughout my entire body.
In only an instant, the sun's light vanished. In its stead was a full moon mired in a strange purple glow.
A murky darkness filled the night sky above us. What had once been a warm day had become cold enough to see our breaths.
A strange dark fog lowered swiftly upon us, separating my view from the Swordsman and the Doctor. Desperately, I looked to Maria for answers, but she seemed even more shocked than myself.
“This isn’t possible, The Abyss? Here?” She gasped in confusion. Before I could answer, she disappeared behind the wall of mist, leaving me bound and alone.
…
Despite immediately attempting to escape the cloud somehow, I could never reach its end. It was as if the Fog itself was a living entity, stalking me like how a predator would hunt its prey.
Chattering voices seemed to emanate from just beyond the mist, trying in any manner they could to shake my spirit.
A few voices imitated my loved ones begging me for help, and others hissed threats like a monstrous serpent. Together, they created a chaotic melody that was so overwhelming I couldn’t so much as think.
“Help!” I cried in desperation to anybody that could hear me. However, admittedly, the attempt to do so felt sillier than during my interrogation.
Even though they had kidnapped me, attacked me, and humiliated me, I could tell that these people had good intentions, however misguided they were.
Unlike them, this force I felt seemed sincerely malicious. I was between a rock and a hard place, but I knew which of the two I preferred.
The mist instantly became silent in response to my cries, growing blacker and colder until all I could see was darkness. Then, from the void, I heard a single, chilling voice so horrific it reverberated through my bones.
“My Son, that’s exactly why I have come to you, to give you help.” It bellowed with the cadence of a dagger scratching a chalkboard.
I tried to tell the beast I had no interest in its help, but my voice left me. It was like trying to talk in space. Despite my efforts, not even the softest sound could escape.
“Enter into the Abyss, my child, It is long past time for you to return home.” He said pridefully as the shadowy mist began to form into tentacles and wrap around my body, pulling me into the surrounding gloom.
Once again, I tried crying out for help, but my voice still wouldn’t work. The reality of being kidnapped a second time with no way to escape forced me to tears as I accepted my fate helplessly.
The tentacles fully wrapped around me, and I sank into the deep.
In the darkest moment, when I had abandoned all hope, a dim light appeared in the distance. It looked almost like a shooting star, getting brighter and brighter as it approached. Eventually, becoming so radiant it was blinding.
“Stardust Strike!” Maria cried as she blasted into the ground beside me, filling my vision with an explosion of light. The mist all around us dissipated almost instantaneously. Fleeing frantically from the attack.
Once again, the sky returned to its natural state, and the horrific voice disappeared along with his wretched mist.
We all stood frozen in shock, still reeling from what had happened.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” I managed to ask Maria faintly, as the exhaustion of what happened hit me like a wave.
“Cause you were begging for my help dummy” She answered as if it were a matter of fact.
I managed to smile and mutter a faint thanks before my eyes became too heavy, and I surrendered to my inevitable fatigue.
