Unsolved Deceptions Chapter 5 Decaying in Waters DRAFT

Authors note: Ok so I mentioned before that chapters 1-4 were all already on Wattpad before I joined YWS so I couldn’t really do much with the reviews I got other than use it for future chapters but NOW I CAN BABY! So this chapter isn’t public on Wattpad yet this is the first draft so I’m looking for y’all to review it so I can edit it before publishing it officially which will be on Wattpad and on here too. So if you’re gonna review anything on my portfolio make it this chapter cause now I’ll actually be able to properly use it. Remember this is the first draft not final version so there may be more typos and small mistakes than usual. Also I’m sorry how long this chapter is, as the levels of the game Dark Deception that I base this chapters off of get more complex so will each chapter so they may start to get kinda long so sit down and get some yummy snacks and without further ado, here’s chapter 5

I let out a tried annoyed sigh as I crossed my arms trying to ignore the dash of unease that was sticking with me. The way Malak messed with me felt like he knew things he that he shouldn’t. I didn’t like Malak here in general, for obvious reasons but his presence in the ballroom in particular always gave me this dash of nervousness, the way he taunted me and Bierce just outside the door, the way the veiny eye pierced through the safe environment of this ballroom always gave me slight paranoia.

“So, you’re absolutely sure Malak was no way of getting through those barriers of yours, like at all?” I questioned. Bierce gave me a look and straightened myself up not wanting to sound like I was being scared or paranoid. “It’s just that, Malak seems pretty powerful and all and I just wanna make sure,” I added. “I’ve been here for a while, if Malak were to break in here it would’ve already happened long ago,” Bierce responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I shifted a bit awkwardly feeling kinda dumb for asking that but I just got this weird feeling about Malak. “Malak’s getting to you is he?” Bierce suddenly asked to my surprise. For a moment I wanted to deny it, but then I nodded. “Yeah kinda…” I mumbled. Bierce let out a sigh as her tone softened just slightly, “I get it, he can be annoying he drives me insane too, but I can assure you that the barriers are secure, they make it so that mortals and mortals only can get in. Malak and the monsters are just super annoying.

I even remember not long after I started waiting for the next soul to arrive which ended up being you, some monster thought they were being hilarious and kept pounding on the portal for an incredibly annoying amount of time. They were so damn persistent it drove me crazy, until after what felt like an eternity I guess they finally got bored and stopped, it was pathetic,” Bierce said with an annoyed eye roll. “A monster was pounding on the portal?” I questioned a bit surprised.

“Mhm, Malak and his pathetic minions are always pestering me but that was a new low…” she ranted. I couldn’t help but feel a bit unsettled at the thought, even if Bierce was used to it, the idea of being tormented by demons and monster constantly was not a pleasant one, but the way she spoke she seemed to used to it yet still annoyed about it. How did she end up here anyway? Why was she here? I never seen here go anywhere else and there seemed to be no exists, could she be trapped here herself?

“How’d you end up here anyway? I mean with there being no exits, can you even get out?” I questioned. I saw Bierce tense ever so slightly before she quickly composed herself. “Enough chat, I have a new power for you,” she said, conveniently dodging the question as she gestured me to the ring altar. “About my question?” I continued to press. “Do you want this power or not?” Bierce said sharply. I flinched slightly at her change in tone, she didn’t often get heated like this but I knew by now that when she did it was better to drop whatever you were talking about, so I nodded.

“Yes, I’ll take the power,” I replied as I walked over to the altar. “Now with the power of telepathy, you’ll be able to see things through walls, which you allow you to be more aware of your surroundings and see enemies from afar,” she explained. My eyebrows raised slightly, that did sound quite useful. “Now hold still and close your eyes, or else they’ll pop out,” Bierce instructed. I quickly shut my eyes tight before a splitting sharp burst of a headache hit me. “Ow!”

I hissed in pain as I stumbled, feeling dizzy and my version blurry for a moment before it passed. I glanced at the new symbol of the tablet and pressed it. Immediately a faint purple glow appeared on my body as well as Bierce. “Mortals will appear as purple and demons as red, this will help you see them every through walls,” she explained. Guess it also confirmed that Bierce was a mortal, I honestly was starting to think she was something else entirely that simply looked human.

“I guess we should get to it then,” Bierce said as she gestured to the portal. I took a breath before stepping in. The moment I passed through it a disgusting smell smacked me in the face. I found myself in a large sewer system standing in gross water with a dirty metal tunnel ahead of me, certainly a change of scenery from that fancy manor. “Guess I’m mouth breathing for this one…” I said to myself in disgust as I walked through this nasty water.

I just hoped whatever freaked lingered here wasn’t particularly fast since walking through his water did slow me down quite a bit. “Seems this place is just as disgusting as I remember,” Bierce commented as I took in my surroundings, on the walls I spotted a carved out message, “PAY ATTENTION Not everything is what it seems” my eyes squinted as I read the scribbled message. I took of mental note of that message as I continued. A sudden light flicked on to my side making me jump.

I turned and saw metal bars containing a wall of three ducks floating in the water, but they were huge, big enough to were someone could ride them like a toy horse if they were stupid or crazy enough. They had the look of those classic rubber ducks with the yellow color and orange beaks, but they looked absolutely filthy, not so surprising considering the location, with hollow empty holes were their eyes should go and an orange dirty traffic cone on their heads.

The sight was somehow both ridiculous and slightly unsettling, but I honestly would’ve laughed this thing off if it weren’t for the message and the common sense that underestimating any of these creatures would be a death sentence. “Ah why it isn’t the duckies,” Bierce teased, but I simply ignored her and turned my attention to a large metal door in front me. I turned to the wall beside it and saw a hole in the wall followed by another carving, “Watch out for the BIG ONE” “the what?” I muttered to myself in confusion.

Just then, a glowing pair of red eyes appeared and before I had even a second to react a long mechanical hand shot out of the hole and took hold of my throat tightly in a death grip immediately sealing off air completely accompanied by the sound of a high pitched crackling screech. It all happened so fast I had not a second to process what was happening as all I could do was crawl at the hand and squirm around like a fish out of water trying desperately to break free as I coughed and gagged.

By some miracle after a the horrifying seconds of struggle I managed to pull the arm away and it slithered away back into the darkness with a rumble of a distorted screech that only faintly sounded like a duck. I stood there staring at the hole in shock for a moment rubbing my sore neck before I immediately turned my attention to the door and quickly looked around for a way to open it in paranoia that the mechanical arm would shoot out and grab me again. I spotted a rusty old lever on the side of it.

I grabbed on to it giving it a hard tug but it was rather old and stubborn not moving down. I shifted to using both hands tugging with all my might until the old metal creaked, gave in and finally went down soon followed by the large heavy door slowly lifting up, the creaks of the old heavy metal echoing throughout the hollow sewers. I found myself in a dry open area of the sewer, with metal grates, dirty metal walls with dirty wooden boxes and traffic cones cast aside in the corners and in the center of this area stood a similar large metal door.

After giving it another hard tug on the lever the door slowly lifted up revealing dark sewer water filled tunnels with dirty walls, crudely scratched messages, floating dirty traffic cones, and trailing this dark path were the glowing purple crystal fragments of the soul shards. “I hate this place…” I grumbled to myself, already preparing for those stupid ducks to jump out at any moment and give chase. I cautiously took a few steps accompanied by the sounds of the water shifting and splashing under my steps.

My movements came to a screeching halt as I saw those same ducks from before lined up drifting in the water, but, they weren’t moving, just completely inanimate. After standing there frozen for a moment not knowing what to do I mustered up the courage to slowly approach one of them. The ducky was gross, dirty yellow color and hollowed out large black eyes, but no attacking or movements at all, it didn’t even look alive.

Boldly, I even kicked it lightly with the tip of my foot and still nothing, just swayed slightly in the water before sitting straight again. I started to think that maybe these things were just meant to be a distraction for some real monster, maybe that monster in question was that thing that tried to strangle me. I cautiously walked through the tunnels collecting the shards and it was very quiet, with only the faint echoes of the creaking old metal in the distance and the sounds of the sewer water lightly splashing under my feet.

I eventuality made it to another metal door and gave another hard tug at the lever. As I waited for the annoyingly slow door to open I kept looking over my shoulder, the walls and at the dark corners, waiting for whatever monstrosity that I knew was hiding here to strike. “Your fake little ducks aren’t fooling me, I know you’re hiding here somewhere…” I muttered to myself with a stern careful squint. Just then, I jumped at a loud metal creaky snap sound.

I whipped my head around and saw the duck that was once drifting lifelessly suddenly sprung up on rotten gray scrawny yet human looking legs and immediately started running towards me. I immediately took off running through the now open door as fast as I could, but my movements slowed in the water making me almost stumble and trip a few times, but I was stopped when I was met with another damn door in the way.

I practically slammed the lever down but that stupid metal practically took a century to slowly lift. I whipped back around and the thing lunged at me. I such a quick moment all I could do was stick my hands out grip onto it’s nasty upper and lower beak to both restrain and keep it from biting me. My arms were shaking like crazy barely able to keep the thing at bay as it let kept letting out that awful broken screeching sound.

The force I was trying to push back was so strong I nearly fell back into the water. In the heat of the moment thinking fast I stepped on it’s rotten foot as hard as I could causing a splash of gross water and for the thing to let out an incredibly loud screech that felt like hell on my ears but it finally pulled away giving me an opportunity to escape through the door that luckily closed in on the thing. I stood there in shock trying to catch my breath, what the hell was that?

I felt like an idiot for not listening to that message on the wall, but I thought what they meant by ‘things aren’t what they seemed’ meant these stupid ducks were just a distraction for some other monster hiding here. I wasn’t expecting the motionless thing to suddenly just get up and pounce on me. So were they all just pretending? But then why did only one of them get up? We’re only some of them alive? But how the hell would I know which when they all looked the damn same?!

Just then I spotted a piece of paper stuck on the dirty wall beside me. I let out a sigh of relief, some advice from the D.H person was very much needed right now. I ripped the thing off the wall and quickly began to read it.

Another piece collected, another step closer out of this Hell. I think I’m starting to loose my mind a little. I don’t think it’s death that truly scares me here but rather the unknown factor of it all, not knowing whether or not I’ll make it through this or not might honestly be worse than just knowing that soon I’ll die, but I’ll turn my attention to whoever might be reading this. I’m sure you have noticed the Dread Duckies floating about in the sewer water by now, only some of them are actually alive while most are inanimate. I had to learn the hard way that that’s what they use to trick you, but I have a trick of my own. If you use the telepathy you’ll be able to see which ones are alive and which are not, but unfortunately even with this advantage there come times where you’ll need to get close to the alive ones anyway since the soul shards are right next to it, so being chased at least once will still be inevitable at some point. My advice if you find yourself in that situation is one try to open up doors in advance because if anything will get you killed it’s those doors as they take forever to open. Also the Dread Duckies can shoot out a grabber thing almost like a cuckoo clock to strangle you but if you’re strong enough you can actually manage to pull away from it. If anyone’s actually reading this, I hope for your survival.

-D.H

The moment I finished reading I felt like the word’s biggest idiot. Of course, the telepathy, duh. The whole time I was running around like a fool when I could’ve just used the damn power this whole time. But that feeling of annoyance at myself faded into a feeling of unease as a pit formed in my stomach. I avoided growing attached to this D.H person for the most part since I knew from the moment I read there first note that they were long gone, and most of their writings was strictly as guidance instead of much personal.

But they way they they wrote about the dread of not knowing when they’ll die or if they’ll live I couldn’t help but one: relate to, and two: feel this ache in my chest knowing that death was what their fate ended up being, I honestly kept having this awful sense of anticipation of which nightmare would it be where the notes would eventually be gone, and if I would even make it that far. Hundreds of people die in one portal alone, every time I return I come back with worse and worse injuries.

The nightmares were getting harder and harder and I was struggling to keep up, how much harder would it be to where I never return at all? Stuck forever as some soul shard for some other person to collect and probably fail as well to continue this twisted horrid never ending cycle of death. I felt as if walls were closing in on me, my breathing grew heavy as my hope started to flicker and dim. I tried to remind myself why I was doing this, who I was doing this for, what I wanted to change, but the memory was a painful one.

No matter how foggy and distorted memories may become in purgatory this date was one I could never forget like a persistent permanent stain, February 28th 1992. Funny enough it was during a Saturday and it was one of the few times I actually treated the weekend like a break. Tom would always encourage me to take breaks, saying I overwork myself and part of me knew he he was right, so for once I decided to actually take his advice. No matter how long it has been I remember this moment almost exactly.

I was in my apartment just watching TV flicking through the channels not finding anything particularly interesting when suddenly every single news station was flooded with news of a crash that happened over at the McKees Rocks Bridge. It wasn’t like your normal car crash, a car crashed into another erupted into flames before falling into the water below, such scale and devastation you would find in a movie. A mother and daughter in the car that fell into the water were obviously dead but when I found out who the two others were that were killed from the collision that was when my world fell apart, it was Tom and his wife Lauren.

I remember everything just stopped and I just couldn’t believe it. How could this big tragedy that everyone in town was taking about, was all over the news happened to involve such a regular guy like Tomas, my friend? just couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it. I analyzed this crash obsessively. I wanted to know how this could’ve possibly happened, how could someone be so careless to crash into another car like that? Was it reckless speeding? Drunk driving? A twisted suicide?

Reports say the woman behind the wheel suffered from an overdose of sleeping pills causing the crash, they say she was likely already dead by the time of the collision but I just refused to accept that it was the whole story. No sane person who just took sleeping pills would then drive especially with their child in the car. I wanted to get the whole story, I wanted to finally get closure for this aching grief, to not leave the death of my friend unsolved but I never could.

Of all the cases I couldn’t break it was my own friend, guilt and regret ate me alive for the rest of my life. If only I had talked to him more, if only I had overworked myself less so I wouldn’t be too busy to hang out with him all the time, if only I had able to at least been able to fully understand how my friend was taken away from me, if only I had just done better…I stared hard at the sewer water at my feet waiting for the tears building to dry up, don’t cry, that won’t solve anything.

As torture as it was to think of that memory it was the reminder I needed to keep going. I glanced up ahead and saw those ducks drifting motionlessly in the water ahead of me, along with the trail of soul shards. I shifted my attention to the tablet and pressed the telepathy symbol and as Bierce promised the monsters then began to glow red, but only about a little less than half of them. Most didn’t glow at all, most were inanimate. A rare twinge of relief came over me, this made things more doable.

I slowly began to walk through the dark tunnels cautiously letting each shard absorb in me as I kept a close eye on the live ducks. I stopped and stared at one of the shards, it was right next to that stupid duck, of course, this was what D.H was talking about. I slowly stepped over to it keeping my eyes locked on the duck each step controlled like one wrong move would kill me. I stepped just close enough to get the shard and immediately backed away. It didn’t move.

I let out a sigh of relief that I somehow didn’t trigger it and continued on. I eventually came to a point where I couldn’t find another shard but the tablet still showed there were 191 left. “That’s half of them, the rest are in a different area,” Bierce said. “And of course you’re not gonna tell me where it is,” I commented bitterly as I looked around for where the rest of the shards were. I eventually made my way to a door and yanked the rusty lever down as the door slowly opened.

The moment the large metal lifted from the ground part of me wished I never opened it. The first thing that hit me was red, there were red lights at the ends of this room that painted it in a deep crimson rather than the dirty green hue it had before. Another thing I was quick to notice was a spiked trap right at the front of the door like some sort of unwelcome mat. As I carefully stepped over the trap and properly entered the room the sight didn’t get much better.

It was nothing like the narrow sewer filled tunnels, it was large almost like an arena with a dry concrete floor and the celling held up by dirty pillars. Dread duckies were clustered against the corners of the room like broken discarded toys with about 5 sitting motionless in the center. Also in the center was a small metal device in the center with a rusty wheel you could turn almost like a faucet. I gave the wheel a curious turn but it wouldn’t budge.

Against the wall in the corner was the ring altar, there was nothing I could do with it now as I had only gotten half the shards but I committed it’s location to memory. I as I made my way to the door at the other side of this room a sudden deep staticky rumble erupted into the room making the whole place shake, like some sort of beast was being barely contained within the dirty walls. I felt my blood run cold as I quickened my pace and quickly made it out of that room.

As I opened the door I was hit with pure silence, so much so I could practically hear my heart beating in my chest. I was back in the tunnels, but they were somehow even dirtier and much darker, to were I could hardly see. I turned my flashlight on to shine myself a path but the dim glow only made this place even more creepy. I looked around, soul shards, and ducks surrounding them, great, more of this. I activated my telepathy and made my way, walking slowly, collecting each shard and backing away slowly after getting a little too close to the live ones.

I stopped at one particularly shard that was practically hovering over one of the ducks. I was able to grab shards close to the live ducks for the most part by being careful but I knew that grabbing it without waking it up would be damn near impossible. So instead of relying on the unrealistic hope of it not getting up I instead prepared myself for the inevitable chase. I slowly walked over to the metal door, the sewer water swaying and splashing under my feet.

I grabbed the rusty lever and gave it a heard tug and the door slowly lifted open. I took a deep breath before I slowly approached the duck, and snatched the shard and quickly ran. As expected the thing got up in an instant sprouting those gray rotten legs and gave chase. I immediately took off to the door opened in advanced using the aid of my speed boost. I was able to get close to the door already and the thing was still a good distance away.

But what I failed to think about was being so focused on getting to the door I didn’t bother to make sure I avoided the other living ducks, for as I passed by one of them that one got up too. I was so close to the door I barely had time to react before this thing shot out a metal spring grabber with a small duck face with sharp teeth at the end. It latched onto my throat, it’s little teeth dull but harshly gripped around my neck making me gag and cough.

I thrashed around trying pry this thing off of me all while I could hear the one that was initially chasing me catching up fast. I could feel myself stumbling forward, hear the sounds of water splashing as the metal grabber starting pulling me towards it but by some miracle I managed to yank off its death grip and quickly went through the door with it shutting just before the ducks could get in. I stood there trying to catch my breath rubbing my aching neck.

It didn’t go well, but I was still alive, I just needed to keep it that way. Soon after I got the final shard I could already see Malak giving chase as well now, looks like the demon is here. “Get to the ring altar now!” Bierce ordered, I quickly made my way back to that red room where I saw the altar. Dodging over the trap at the front of the door, I dashed towards the altar and grabbed the newly formed piece, but as I stuffed it in my pocket I heard a dark chuckle I recognized all too well.

I whipped my head around and there Malak stood, he had shifted out of his dark ghostly shadow form and shifted into his more humanoid form with the dark suit. “Well if it isn’t the bitter mouthed detective,” Malak teased. Detective? How did he know about that? I never even told Bierce a single word of my past let alone to any of these monsters. “And how exactly do you know that?” I retorted while staring the demon down, but he just laughed. “You truly are clueless are you?

You have no idea what you’re even getting involved in…” he chuckled darkly. “Yeah, yeah I’m a clueless foolish mortal and you’re gonna defeat me, I’ve heard enough of your tired little empty threats,” I retorted, the past person may have been quiet but I sure as hell will would not be. I could see the patience wearing thin in the demon’s expression. “Now what a nasty attitude you have. You know what? I think a little play time with a loyal pet of mine will turn that bad attitude around!”

He said in cheerfully in a mocking condescending manner, I scowled. “Bring your ugly little pet here then!” I spat, but Malak just laughed as large metal doors from behind him that I didn’t even notice started to slowly open with a low rumbling creak. Through the darkness all I could really see where dirty large hands hovering around in the darkness, there looked to be 7 at least. My eyes widened in confusion and worry of what the hell this monstrosity was this?

“Ha! How quickly I wiped that smug fierce look on your face. Well it was a nice chat but I have business to attend to, I’ll being seeing you later, or rather what’s left of you. And also Bierce, since I know you’re watching I just hope you know that if I can take your your little puppet away from you, I can easily kill this pathetic excuse of a detective too.” He let out one final dark chuckle before disappearing into black puff of smoke leaving me along with this thing.

I turned to the creature, as my eyes focussed in on the dim light I could finally see what it was. The drifting floating hands revealed to be long twisted metal arms connected to a huge body with a duck head of a normal size giving it somewhat comical yet horrifying proportions, the duck’s eyes not black and hollow like the others, but a deep glowing red. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” I muttered in bewilderment. Suddenly, the monstrosity seemingly picked up one of the normal sized ducks from nowhere and threw it right at me giving me just a small amount of time to just barely dodged it.

I immediately bolted to the metal door to get the hell out of here. I tugged on the lever with all the strength I had but the stupid rusty thing wouldn’t budge. I immediately tried to use my teleportation but even that wouldn’t work, the metal must’ve been too strong for me to just phase through. I whipped back around trying to think of how to get out of here while Bierce was of course offering no help whatsoever, she loved to talk on and on but when I actually need her input suddenly she’s quiet.

That’s when I spotted that rusty wheel, out of pure desperation I tried to spin it again and this time after some great effort I managed to get just a slight turn, I glanced over at the door and was it was beginning to slowly open, this was it! But this monster wasn’t gonna make this easy though as it threw another lifeless duck at me which I barely managed to dodge all while making these awful low creakily noises that sounded like some weird parody of a quack.

Suddenly I saw the thing began to coil and tense like a spring, oh no, that didn’t look good. Suddenly it launched it’s head out like some sort of deranged cuckoo clock with its razor sharp teeth behind that orange dirty beak and glowing red eyes. In that split moment I didn’t even have time to move out of the way all I had time to do was raised my arms to shield my face that would’ve done absolutely nothing, this attack would have surely killed me but by an act of some miracle I happened to be standing behind one of the rusty metal pillars causing it’s face to slam into it rather than me.

Not only was I safe but the impact seemed to disorient the thing, it’s head slumped to the side, it’s eyes dazed a vacant, that’s when the lightbulb went off in my head. I rushed back to the wheel and began to tug and managed to turn it even more, but the thing didn’t stay stunned for long as it soon rose and immediately threw another stupid duck at me. It missed but it landed on one of the hollow ducks sitting on the floor, and immediately after the impact it suddenly got up with the same glowing red eyed and began to give chase.

“Are you serious?” I exclaimed as I practically had to run around in circles like a silly cartoon to avoid this thing as I had nowhere to go. I didn’t have much of a strategy, I didn’t have a way to stop the duck or slow it down so I had to just quickly turn the wheel in the brief amount of time I had before the duck got too close and I had to run to create more distance, all while the huge monster was throwing more ducks at me that I had to dodge.

The only silver lining in this disaster was when the monster would try to launch itself at me I would go behind the metal pillars which caused it to slam against it which seemed to both stun the monster itself and the duck chasing me. Which was quite useful but also a bit confusing, the duck didn’t face any impact at all, why would the monster being stunned effect it as well? It made this beings feel oddly connected in an unsettling way.

After a final turn of the wheel the door lifted just barely enough to squeeze through so I instantly took the chance, ducking through the small gap and making a break for it. In a blink of an eye I was back in the dirty sewer folded tunnels, but of course I could never get a break as all the ducks even the ones that were never alive before all rose at once and gave chase with the same piercing red glowing eyes. I’d say there were at least 10 of those stupid things right behind me but I didn’t look back, just ran.

I could see the portal I was so close, then suddenly that wall on the side that was once a small hole where that arm shot out, that huge monster broke from the wall it’s beak with the razor sharp teeth trying to grab me, I let out a yell from the shock as stumbled back falling right into that gross sewer water getting it all over me. I somehow managed to scramble back on my feet and dived for the portal. I stepped into the ballroom with shaky legs gross sewer water all over me that smelled god awful, bruises around my neck from being strangled twice.

“God, you just had to bring that awful sewer smell in here Evans,” Bierce cringed as she pinched her nose in disgust. “For once Bierce, just shut the hell up!” I snapped, I was irritated enough, I smelled like crap, my entire body pretty much hurt and that nightmare honestly might have been worse than those stupid statues, Bierce just rolled her eyes. “Why must you always be so clumsy?” Bierce scoffed. “And why does Malak keep saying that you’re lying to me!?”

I retorted, the frustration just made the words spill out faster than I could think. Bierce didn’t look smug or teasingly anymore, she looked like she was getting ticked off too. “And what? You think the demon is the one telling the truth? You’d be an absolute fool to believe that,” she scoffed. There she goes, using that excuse of an argument again that she must be a saint just because she’s not a literal demon. “Being human Bierce doesn’t automatically mean you’re completely innocent, you don’t have to be inhuman to be a monster.”

I spat, I was tired of that argument, even a realm with creatures and demons sometimes humans can be the real monsters, I of all people would know that.