Re: Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 1: The Great Catacombs]
09-18-2011, 03:43 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by XX.
It was dark again and Talmadge was getting worried.
He’d spent so long in the white room that he’d forgotten what anything outside of it looked like. Was everything so dark? There had been a window in the room, or he’d imagined one, and all he could see on the other side was a blackness. He didn’t like to look at it. He’d smashed the window and broken his hand once. Proper came not long after. He was sure Proper would know why the window was there if he could get him to stay long enough to listen. Proper knew everything.
The darkness in the catacombs was like the one outside the window, Talmadge thought. The voice that had spoken to him wasn’t Proper’s, he knew that, and no one else had ever said a word to him while he was in the white room. They came and went. It was probably a hallucination, that voice. Proper would know what to do about it, Proper knew what to do about everything. Should he be nervous?, he wondered. Did heroes get nervous? He didn’t think they were afraid of the darkness. If he ever met one he would try and remember to ask. He would write it down in his book. Heroes are not afraid of the dark.
The lack of walls was starting to frustrate him. Where was everything going to go if there was nothing holding it in? What if it all fell out? There were too many shadows. He wanted to pick them up and move them somewhere else but they kept slipping through his hands.
There was a smell of death.
In the shadows of the catacomb Talmadge heard a sound, only a moan at first, then a howl and then a cacophony, symphonic. He felt it in the marble under his feet, swimming through the ground, then as a breath of air against the back of his neck that crawled inside his skin and turned his bones to stone. He knew before he turned who it was. A wolf’s face was grinning at him, black on black on shadows with a knife between its teeth and eyes all afire in the gloom.
Talmadge smiled weakly. Proper never left for long.
The knife clanged to the marble floor with a blasphemous sound. It wasn’t a knife at all, Talmadge realized as he picked it up. It was a sword, four feet from hilt to tip and viciously sharp. It was lighter than it looked. He wondered if it was actually there.
I found it for you.
Talmadge winced. Proper’s idea of finding things tended to involve their previous owners losing the ability to own anything at all.
Aren’t you going to thank me?
He held the blade in his hands for a long minute, weighing it. He didn’t know how to use a sword. He hadn’t been allowed anything with an edge to it in years. It couldn’t be that hard. Proper wouldn’t have given it to him otherwise.
Well?
He turned and walked into the catacombs, sword tip carving a line into the stone.
It was dark again and Talmadge was getting worried.
He’d spent so long in the white room that he’d forgotten what anything outside of it looked like. Was everything so dark? There had been a window in the room, or he’d imagined one, and all he could see on the other side was a blackness. He didn’t like to look at it. He’d smashed the window and broken his hand once. Proper came not long after. He was sure Proper would know why the window was there if he could get him to stay long enough to listen. Proper knew everything.
The darkness in the catacombs was like the one outside the window, Talmadge thought. The voice that had spoken to him wasn’t Proper’s, he knew that, and no one else had ever said a word to him while he was in the white room. They came and went. It was probably a hallucination, that voice. Proper would know what to do about it, Proper knew what to do about everything. Should he be nervous?, he wondered. Did heroes get nervous? He didn’t think they were afraid of the darkness. If he ever met one he would try and remember to ask. He would write it down in his book. Heroes are not afraid of the dark.
The lack of walls was starting to frustrate him. Where was everything going to go if there was nothing holding it in? What if it all fell out? There were too many shadows. He wanted to pick them up and move them somewhere else but they kept slipping through his hands.
There was a smell of death.
In the shadows of the catacomb Talmadge heard a sound, only a moan at first, then a howl and then a cacophony, symphonic. He felt it in the marble under his feet, swimming through the ground, then as a breath of air against the back of his neck that crawled inside his skin and turned his bones to stone. He knew before he turned who it was. A wolf’s face was grinning at him, black on black on shadows with a knife between its teeth and eyes all afire in the gloom.
Talmadge smiled weakly. Proper never left for long.
The knife clanged to the marble floor with a blasphemous sound. It wasn’t a knife at all, Talmadge realized as he picked it up. It was a sword, four feet from hilt to tip and viciously sharp. It was lighter than it looked. He wondered if it was actually there.
I found it for you.
Talmadge winced. Proper’s idea of finding things tended to involve their previous owners losing the ability to own anything at all.
Aren’t you going to thank me?
He held the blade in his hands for a long minute, weighing it. He didn’t know how to use a sword. He hadn’t been allowed anything with an edge to it in years. It couldn’t be that hard. Proper wouldn’t have given it to him otherwise.
Well?
He turned and walked into the catacombs, sword tip carving a line into the stone.