Chapter 197: In the Dark

Well. I’m still stuck in darkness.

Frankly, it’s kinda nice. I’ve always thought about what it’d be like to be blind and/or deaf. Now, of course, this is a rude thought, and I wouldn’t actually want that, probably. But this does seem pretty in line with, say, a sensory deprivation chamber. Then, the humming gets louder.

“Hey, can you be quiet?” I ask into the darkness. “I’m trying to enjoy myself here.”

For just a moment, the voice quiets down. Then, I hear an arrogant huff, and the humming approaches faster. I sigh, softly, and pulse another scan, walking towards the nearest wall, and leaning against it. Then I close my eyes.

“Are you serious, Snow?” Opal asks. I can’t see their face, but I know they’re grinning brightly. “You’re gonna get like this right now?” 

Noisily, I unzip my backpack and, pointedly, put on my headphones. Decompression is very important to me, and it’s not like I’m lazing around. With every passing second, I put more runes underneath my skin, and even feed Kuro some mana. My shadowy friend has already spread out, seemingly loving this place.

[The Crawling Darkness is surprised at your calm. It delights in finding a fellow lover of dark spaces.]

I tilt my head at the notification and smile thinly. My headphones don’t have any battery, but they still work to slightly dull the noise. Even as it closes in, I lean against the wall, and close my eyes.

The ground is made of soft moss, faintly wet. There’s a dripping sound from the ceiling, where water falls down. Darkness, so perfect and quiet, covers my entire vision, and all the sounds are softened by it. Somewhere in there, there’s a truth. Somewhere in there, I smell Silence. 

After about thirty minutes of me resting against the wall, something happens. The others have made their plans, Richard has tried lighting fires, Opal and Inu have gone out to explore, and Sylves has been playing with the moss and her cape. Thatch stands guard over me, the sweetheart that he is.

But, once that time is up, something happens. There’s a long, distant shiver in the darkness, one that creeps across a tendril that is somewhat connected to me. Kuro, giving a tiny whimper of displeasure, withdrawing from the vastness around us, and quickly weaving back into a mantle, abandoning their long appendages. 

“Did someone hurt you?” I ask them, whisper-quiet.

My cloak purrs in response, coalescing into a soft little thing in my lap. A perfectly black cat. I can’t even see them, but they’re curled up there, cradling into me. I scratch behind Kuro’s ears, and they chitter in pleasure. 

“Apologies,” someone says from the darkness. I hear Thatch’s clothes ruffle as he stiffens, and I feel the violence oozing off him as his monstrous shell manifests. “I believe I stepped on one of your bonded companion’s tentacles.”

Their voice is quiet. Innocent and small. Girlish, too. I send out a scan of mana, and a moment later, it’s violently torn apart and the darkness erupts into a horrible screech. Warm spittle touches my faces, burning with acid and heat against my skin. And for a moment, I feel fear blossom in my heart.

And then, the noise disappears. The darkness returns to normalcy. My flayed magic falls to the ground in motes of mana, and the little girl clears her throat. “A-hem,” she rasps awkwardly, as if her throat were sore. “That was rude, my apologies. I am picky about being perceived.”

I nod, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Got it, sorry. I’m picky about being touched, for reference.”

“Oh, I see. My apologies,” she replies. And I feel the darkness withdraw ever so slightly. “You were awfully rude about my singing, though.”

Thatch looks back and forth between me and the source of the voice. I can imagine his eyes glinting emerald in the darkness, and feel his tension, so I gently place a hand on his shoulder. “I got this,” I whisper to him. Then, I turn to the little girl in the dark.

“Sorry,” I say simply. “It’s been a rough few days. I wanted some quiet.”

“How rough?” the creature in the dark asks.

I smile. It’s just cuz of a funny thought I had. The thought that it, if it’s a girl, might be tilting its head. “My species doesn’t usually have holes through their upper body.”

“Oh,” she says. “How troublesome. Apologies for being too harsh on you.”

What a silly critter. “Forgiven and forgotten,” I say, waving a hand.

“Why did you not run from me?” it asks.

“Should we have?” I ask in return.

There’s a soft rustle, like leaves in the wind, like crackling fire, and I interpret it as a shake of its head. “No,” it says. “Yet most do. Why not you?”

Gently, I hum for a moment, thinking it over. Then, I smile. “Too comfy,” I say simply. “It was too comfy.”

“How strange. The darkness is intended to be unsettling. It deprives you of information, does it not?” she asks.

I nod. “It does,” I say. “And, well, my curiosity tells me to look at you.” There’s a bristling growl in the dark, a beast that could crush me in a moment. It doesn’t scare me. “But I’m polite. I get it. Your boundaries are where my curiosity ends. And I had a feeling that this would go well.”

“A feeling?” she asks.

“If we had run, you would’ve hunted us,” I say simply.

“Yes,” it confirms. “I would have torn you limb from limb, gutted and devoured your insides.”

Thatch shivers slightly at the statement, but I just nod. “But it was too comfy for that. To run. Just a feeling.”

“Just a feeling?” she asks.

“Just a feeling,” I nod.

[Annexation 8 > 9]

And if she tried to tear me limb from limb… I would’ve won.

- - -

We talk a little while longer. The little girl in the dark that is not, at all, a little girl, eventually sits down in front of me. She crosses her legs with the sound of a flowing river. She tilts her head with the crackle of a campfire. Her curiosity brings me existential dread, and her anger makes me want to vomit up my guts.

Despite that, we talk. I don’t begrudge her peculiarities, and she doesn’t begrudge mine. We have a calm, reasonable, and relaxed talk. And all the while, Thatch just stares at me in confusion, sitting quietly. He listens, adding things occasionally, sometimes getting the girl in the dark to calm, sometimes making her bristle.

But we talk. We make it work. How far a bit of good faith and kindness will get you.

Jean watches in curiosity, and I think he notices how similar she is to him. He even asks her to play, and they do, for a moment. The boy comes away with a few scratches, and the girl ends up crying a little, but I think neither regret it. They learned.

And then, eventually, the question comes. “What do you want from here?” the girl in the dark asks.

I tilt my head at it. “What can we ask for?”

“Nothing,” it says. “Everything,” she concedes a moment later.

Kuro slithers forward carefully, the cat in my lap unravelling into a formless shadow. Chitin legs clatter against the mossy ground in a few steps, as Kuro circles the murderous monster. And then, they purr. 

More noises fill the dark. The scraping of teeth on bone, the horrid ringing of nails on a chalkboard, and the innocent giggles of a child. A moment passes. The girl focuses on me again as Kuro returns. “What do you want?” she asks. This time, she’s nicer.

I smile faintly. “Is there anything you’d like to show us?” I ask.

Instantly, the darkness grows even darker in her excitement. I can feel the heat leech from my body, deathly cold grasping at my bones. “Yes!” the girl says happily. “Yes, there is. May I take your hand?”

“No, thank you, I don’t like to be touched.”

“I was going to cut it off,” it pouts.

“I know,” I say. Then, I smile again. “Lead the way,” I say.

After a moment, there is a small sigh, and then footsteps in the dark. The muted clicking of hard shoes going through a thin layer of moss and hitting cold stone. All of us who stayed near the entrance rise, and we walk forward. What treasure would a monster in the dark like to show off? I can’t wait to find out.