Seth's eyes slowly open to a dim flickering light. His head pounds, and his tongue finds the taste of iron in his mouth. The stone beneath him is dry, and the stench of stagnant water is gone, replaced by something far worse: blood and waste. He’s no longer in the tunnel.

  He tries to move, but his wrists are bound with thick rope, coarse and damp. As his eyes adjust, he sees the walls are smoother here, carved with symbols he doesn’t recognize—twisting shapes that seem to shift when he stares too long. Mark lies nearby, unconscious but breathing, his sword nowhere in sight.

  Seth strains against the rope, but it bites into his skin. Frustrated, he takes a second to think. The distant sound of something not quite steps and not quite sliding echoes through the chamber, slow, deliberate, getting closer.

  He scoots toward Mark, nudging him with his foot. “Mark, wake up,” he whispers, urgency rising in his voice.

  Mark groans, eyelids fluttering. “Seth…?”

  “Yeah, man, it's me. Someone or something is coming.”

  The moving sound stop.

  A dark figure dressed in black robes cast a shadow inside the cell. Seth holds his breath. The figure with long, slender, scaly fingers sticks a key into the cell door. A long tongue sticks out from under the hood. Seth scurries away into the other side of the cell.

  “What the fuck are you? Stay the fuck away from me,” Seth says with panic in his voice.

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  The black dressed figure tilts his head, amused by the fear in Seth's voice. A low, wet hiss escapes from beneath the hood.

  “There's nothing to be afraid of, Human. The Stone has already chosen,” it says, voice raspy and layered, like multiple tones speaking at once.

  The lock clicks. The door slowly opens, creaking as it does.

  Mark begins to stir and tries wiggling his way towards Seth's direction. The figure steps into the cell. Black sludge is revealed as the figure's robes glide across the floor as it walks in. The smell of decay and something older fills Seth's nostrils.

  Seth with horrified eyes, “What in the fuck are you?”

  Mark coughs, struggling to sit upright. “What… what do you mean, the Stone has chosen?”

  The figure reaches a clawed hand into its robe and produces a jagged shard of something dark. Pulsing with a green color and then a blue. “One of you carries the blood. One of you will open the way.”

  Seth’s eyes lock onto the shard. The symbols on the walls begin to shimmer in rhythm with its glow, pulsing like a heartbeat. He feels a pressure behind his eyes, a whisper in his mind, not words, but intent.

  “I don’t want any part of this,” Seth says, voice shaking.

  The creature steps closer, looming over him. “It is not a want. It is fate.”

  Suddenly, the shard begins to hum. Mark begins to shake violently and begins foaming at the mouth. The foam turning a dark red color.

  Seth recoils. “Mark!”

  The stench of iron fills the air. Overpowering the weird smell the creature is giving off. Seth watches as a streak of Mark's blood flows out of his mouth and towards the shard.

  Blue and green pulsing seems to be replaced by a deep glow of red. As the shard floats out of the scaly hand that once held it.

  The torture seems to stop. Mark's body goes limp. His eyes glassy, stare up at the ceiling with no life behind them. Symbols around the cell begin to glow the same color as the floating shard. Then they begin to shift around the walls like they are excited about what is happening.

  “You fucking monster! You killed him.”

  The creature doesn’t flinch at Seth’s outburst. Its hood tilts slightly, as if studying him. “Sacrifice is the first step,” it says, voice calm. “ The Stone feeds. The path clears.”