Dangerous Ink
By Jonathan Hyde
Chapter I: What I saw from the peak
I felt an uncomfortable liquid oozing down my throat, and spat it out. I was so tired; my eyes were still too heavy to lift open. At least I felt a lot less crappy than I did what seemed like hours ago. Of course, I hadn’t tried to keep track of time since… well, I didn‘t want to think about that now. I felt the floor vibrating up and down, and I could literally feel the beating of my heart against my chest. I sat there, paranoid to the thumping on the ground. As soon as I reassured myself I was alright in a hospital somewhere, and everything I had felt was fake, I drifted into a deep sleep.
Some time later, I wrenched open my eyes to see where the hospital nurse was. There wasn’t anyone nearby, so I rolled over in my bed to find a more comfortable position. The bed was rough and cold. But something tugged at my arms as I moved. I instantly realized what it was, and I couldn’t help shivering with fear. Chains. This definitely wasn’t any hospital. I saw that I was surrounded by passages carved into the rough, natural stone. I could only just see by a small light that emanated from behind a turn in the passage. No color came to me, however.
More pounding reverberated through floor, digging the stones into my new pair of jeans. Leaning forward as far as I could in my bonds, I saw something turning around the corner. I figured it probably thought I was still asleep, and I closed my eyes again. The pounding grew in force as the thing approached, and my arms leeched onto the chains to prevent myself from being thrown into the wall.
It was so close that I could hear its labored breathing. It started to mutter. “Supic ilhae fu eatue witits payig rotig copse” was all I could hear, but at least my suspicion that this creature was alive was answered. Through all my life I had gone through tough things, but in this cave I felt that it was all just molehills compared to this. It stood by my feet now (as I could hear by its breathing) and started pouring a foul liquid down my throat. I mustered up all my willpower and swallowed it. It burned my throat on the way down, and I could just barely resist gagging. It suddenly made me feel dreary, like I hadn’t slept a wink in the past few days.
I winced in pain as a cold, scaly arm made hard contact with my shoulder. It slapped my body over and over again until I was scarred and the little blood I had left emerged from the deep gashes all over my body. After my body had been battered tenfold, it decided I was asleep (or dead) and unlocked my chains and swept me into its monstrous arms.
The entrance to the cave was only a short distance away as it turned out, but it was still much too long for me or anyone to be in this monsters company. I glimpsed out of my weary eyes at the creature. It was gray (as was everything in this strange place), and looked like a disproportionately huge human. Its body was nearly featureless, except for two black eyes and a gaping hole for a mouth. Its skin was scaly, and it was fat. One thumping accounted for, I thought.
It moved its piercing gaze to meet mine, and I prayed it didn’t notice my eyes open. It threw me a fair distance, but I had lost all of my feeling. My new shirt ripped as I skid across the floor. The ground was the same cold stone I had lain on, and I risked a look and was amazed by what I saw.
We were on an outcropping, overlooking more bleak and gray mountains, much like the one I was on. They stretched for miles in all directions, and each was riddled with caves with caves. I couldn’t bear the thought of looking down. The sky was white, but the mountains were all the shades of gray.
The lack of color reawakened the sense that I saw in a new, strange place, and alone to boot. No parents, no friends, no Alli… not even the old man could keep me company now. Nothing was left for me except a creature who thought I was a toy and several human sized birds in the distance.
