Shadows of the Mind

With a pack of bloodthirsty wolves trying to force their way into the mineshaft, we were up the creek without a paddle. To top it off, Aria went on ahead of us without so much as a warning. Our only path was straight forward into the darkness.

We began heading away from the entrance, slowly leaving behind the sound of growling and scraping. We'd pass by the occasional support beam, but other than that, it was pretty bare. It seemed to go on forever before we reached a fork in the tunnel.

"Which way now?" Heavyweight asked.

We all took a moment to use our flashlights to look down each of the tunnels, but they went on further than the beams could reach.

There was a slight sound of dust and pebbles falling from the ceiling as Big Mac gave us a startled look. "We need to find a way out of here fast. Otherwise, we may get caught in a cave in."

Maud then spoke up to get our attention. "There's a door over here, but it's jammed."

I walked over to the old wooden door and grabbed onto the latch. Try as I might though, the thing was stuck tight. I shone my light along the edges trying to find its hinges, but there was no sign of them. Damn, they must be on the other side. "Alright, move aside. Hopefully, this works." I pulled back my right leg and threw a hard kick that landed right next to the latch with a slight creak. I pulled back once more and landed my foot in the same spot, this time with more of a crack.

Heavyweight then stepped forward and tapped me on the shoulder. "Alright, 'scuse me." He got into position right before he threw himself, shoulder first, into the door. The latch broke off, and the whole thing slammed into the wall.

There was a loud echo for a few seconds before we were engulfed in silence once again. After that, we cautiously checked around the room. There was an old-looking cot directly opposite the door along with a dusty oil lamp that hung in the right corner from a bolted chain. We went to check it out and found that it could still hold weight, so we helped Big Mac onto it and used the last of the bandages from our first aid to wrap up his injured calf as best we could.

There was a musty bookshelf to the left of the door. And pressed up against the left wall was a small writer's desk.

"Feels pretty cramped in here," Heavyweight mentioned.

Big Mac looked from the cot to the surrounding walls of the room and back to the door before saying, "Eeyup."

"Maybe there's a map of the mines that we can use to find another way out," Heavyweight suggested.

"Probably." Maud walked over to the bookshelf.

While she was busy with that, I went to the desk. Luckily it was unlocked, so I checked to see what it hid inside. There, a large folded and yellowed paper sat in the middle of the desk.

"Hey, I think I found something," I called to the others. As I carefully unfolded the sheet, Heavyweight helped Big Mac over to the desk while Maud was preoccupied with a book she had pulled off of the shelf. Once the page was open and on full display, we could see a diagram of branching tunnels. At first, I thought we had finally had a stroke of luck, but as I looked over the map, little details slowly ate away at my confidence.

"What's with this map? Some of the paths look to be scratched out or end in an 'x.'" Heavyweight pointed out.

"I think this might explain all that. It's a journal that belonged to one of the miners." Maud carefully flipped through the pages to one of the last entries before relaying what she read to us. "According to this miner, during the mines last few years of operation, several of the miners would wind up rushing for the exit like madmen bloodied and missing bits of skin. It became a common occurrence, especially when they went further into the mines' lower levels, but eventually, it even began happening closer to the surface too. Once miners began to go missing and were presumed dead, the mines shut down. Many of the miners who survived the attacks said they heard skittering along the walls. That's why there are so many unfinished tunnel mappings and xs marking off dangerous parts of the mine."

"Let's see. There has to be a clear pathway through these mines." My eyes scanned over the map once more as I traced the tunnels with my finger. It was beginning to seem hopeless until I managed to pick out a route through to the other side. "Well, this looks like it should get us through safely. But we have no clue if Aria made it through, or…"

I began to contemplate the fact that both Aria and Sonata could be dead. Not wanting to dwell on that too long, though, I shook my head and forced myself to push forward. I folded up the map and placed it in my pocket. "We've got no time to waste."

We left the room and started heading down the tunnel to the right. With our flashlights illuminating the way ahead, every single step we took reverberated deep into the adjoining passages. We navigated the dark with caution. No one dared to talk while we were in there as we tried to listen for anything dangerous and Aria.

We were about midway through when something glinted in the dark as we passed the beams of light across the floor.

"Guys, hold up," I said, while I brought an arm up to stop everyone. The group came to a stop at one of the many splits in the path.

"What is that?" Big Mac asked. We got up to the spot where that glistening came from and found out that it was a piece of Sonata's yin and yang charm.

It looked like something forcefully snapped it in half based on the bent up edge of the break. For the most part, however, the white coloring and black dot were still intact. Is this going to cause one of those visions again? I thought as I hesitated to grab it. With a deep breath, I reached down and picked it up. I flipped it over to find her name engraved in the shiny metallic back. I have to know if she's okay.

As soon as that thought ran through my head, I blacked out.

Still, a bit blurred but no longer blind, I could see the stream passing by on the left and trees on the right. All the while, heavy breathing was a constant sound as my vision bobbed up and down. That soon came to an end when I leaned up against a tree with a forearm.

Soon I could hear the uneven breathing give way to short sobs, "I can't…I can't keep going." There was no doubt that it was Sonatas' voice that I heard, but there were also gurgling sounds that were coming from behind. My vision shifted to look over her shoulder and caught sight of a disgustingly bloated, deformed corpse bringing down its claws right at her. She threw herself to the ground as the monster scraped off a chunk of bark.

She crawled back up to her feet in a panic before turning to see the creature was quickly approaching her with outstretched arms and honed claws. When it was nearly an arm's length away, a giant wolf suddenly leaped out of the trees and sunk its fangs into the corpse's shoulder.

The wolf savagely thrashed around and slammed the corpse to the ground while it clawed at the wolf's face. The creature shrieked in pain when the wolf bit down even harder and snapped off one of its arms in a gusher of black ooze before it dragged the monster into the woods.

Sonata began running alongside the stream once more and away from the grizzly scene. A while passed before the mountainside was visible from the tree line.

"Why is this happening?" she asked desperately. "I thought it was just those, those 'people,' but then that timber wolf came out of nowhere… I thought I was going to die."

She walked out past the trees and looked up the sheer mountainside when a hushed voice slithered its way through the silence.

Good thing that wolf went after that thing instead.

That voice sounds familiar. It's almost like mine, I thought feeling more perturbed.

In her surprise and terror, she began looking all around. "Who said that?!"

The voice came through again. I would suggest checking out that tunnel.

"Tunnel?" Sonata asked, not sure from where the voice had come. She shone her flashlight all along the foot of the mountain before finally seeing the boarded-up entrance. She went to check it out and tried to get a better look inside by peering in between the boards, but could only see a couple of feet even with the flashlight. "This doesn't feel right…"

A low guttural growl began to sound from the tree line about twenty meters away, startling Sonata. When she turned to look, the growling grew more intense. The voice whispered more directly this time, Get in the tunnel if you want to live.

That growling soon turned into barks and snarls as a wolf ran out of the trees towards Sonata. She quickly began looking all over the barricade for any opening before noticing the gap at the very bottom. She dropped to the ground and pulled herself underneath the board.

She had almost made it entirely inside when a pair of jaws clamped onto her right shoe. It then began jerking her around and nearly pulled her back out.

"Ahh, let go!" she screamed as she swung her free foot blindly, trying to get the beast to release her. She had landed a few hits on it when her shoe came loose in its mouth. With that brief opportunity, she finished pulling herself back into the tunnel.

On the other side of the barricade, the wolf ripped apart her shoe before it realized it hadn't gotten anything and began to claw and gnaw at the boards. Sonata quickly got up to her feet and stepped away from the planks only to immediately feel a stinging pain radiate across the top of her foot. She shone her light at it but didn't see any blood staining her sock, so she removed it to reveal some nasty bruising around the ankle.

"Ow! I won't be able to move very fast like this." While she slipped her sock back on, a thought occurred to her. "What if the others run into those monsters? Slate, this wouldn't have happened if I had stayed put in the camp."

They would have shown up regardless of what you did.But, if you want to help your friends, then I need you to follow my voice. I have something that can drive those things away.

"Who are you, and where are you trying to take me?"

That doesn't matter. I'm just trying to help you. Unless, of course, you would like to stay with the wolves.

She hesitated before reaching into her pant pocket to pull out the yin and yang charm I had given her. She shook her head and replied to the empty tunnel, "Fine, if it will help to get rid of these monsters."

So, if you're ready then, follow the sound of my voice. I'll get you out of here.

Without another word, she began limping her way down the tunnels as best she could, going down whichever direction the voice instructed her to follow. From what I could tell, it led her down a path not laid out on the map, so I was beginning to grow more anxious by the second. It took some time, but eventually, the marginally lighter hues of the outside world were slowly coming into view.

Just a few more steps and she would have passed through the lip of the tunnel entrance when a voice from within the tunnel weakly echoed. Sonata stopped and turned around to see what was happening but wasn't able to catch sight of anything. Right as she was about to continue on her way, the echo got slightly louder and more precise. "Sonata!" the voice echoed from further in the dark, noticeably feminine in tone.

She was shocked to hear anyone else in those tunnels, especially a familiar voice.

"Aria?!" she called out to the inky blackness. There was silence for a minute before another echo reached Sonatas' ears. "Where are you?!"

Sonata was about to take a step back into the tunnels and reply to the echo when an elongated hand with black claws wrapped around her mouth. Soon another slender, spindly arm wrapped around her midsection and violently lifted her off the floor as it began running out of the tunnel. She tried to scream and struggle against the creature, but nothing fazed it.

Then without warning, the thing threw her carelessly to the floor, causing her to see double. The emaciated figure reached a clawed hand into Sonatas' pocket before pulling out her charm. It looked it over before snapping it in half.

Then as it swallowed a piece of the charm, Aria's voice was coming out of the tunnel. The last thing that I saw through her eyes was the blurry vision of piercing yellow eyes as its neck snapped towards the mine, and a smile grew on its face before she passed out.

Everything went dark, but I didn't return to the others immediately. That same voice from the vision slithered its way into my mind. You see, you want to protect others, but you don't have the means. It must be frustrating.

I came to again in the tunnels as Maud, Heavyweight, and Big Mac stood by, giving me worried looks. I asked them, "What's wrong?"

"You were just standing there for the past five minutes," Maud said in her usual tone.

"Sorry. When I picked this up off the ground, I had another vision." I showed them the half of a pendant

Big Mac then asked, "Well, what happened?"

"Someone or something was leading Sonata through the marked off paths out of the tunnels. And it was at this split in the mine that she went off the safe path. On top of that, Aria was somewhere in the mines when Sonata was reaching the exit."

"Well, what should we do?" Heavyweight asked. "Maybe they got lucky and managed not to disturb whatever else is in here."

"Maybe," Big Mac said while he nervously scratched his head.

I tried to think of anything that could give us a solid idea of which way to go. I pulled out the map and showed it to everyone, "If we take the same tunnels that Sonata did, then maybe we'll find Aria since she was near enough to call out to her and get a response from Sonata while she was in here. It's also more of a direct path to the exit than the safe one."

Maud just plainly said, "If your vision was correct and Sonata was able to make it through, despite using a dangerous path, then hopefully we should be able to follow her steps and make it through too."

There was an air of uneasiness as I pointed my flashlight down the leftmost tunnel.

"That's the way we want to go then." I grimaced as we followed the tunnel that Sonata took. We spent probably close to ten minutes of walking down that path and taking several blind-turns down those tunnels before something stood out to us. Midway down one of the longer mine shafts, we could see a flashlight flickering on the floor, and it was casting an odd shadow against the wall.

We focused all our lights on the source of that shadow before we realized that it had two long purple pigtails.

"It's Aria!"

We quickly made our way over to our collapsed companion. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, my heart sank like a rock. Her clothes were stained red, and patches of skin were missing all over her arms, exposing the muscle and sinew. There also appeared to be holes that bored into the tissues.

"Oh God, she's dead," Heavyweight said, sounding full of regret.

In a horrible lapse of judgment and denial, I tried to reassure everyone. "Come on. We need to get Aria out of here. We can still save her." I then grabbed her shoulder and turned her over only to reveal the full extent of her condition. There was a crimson puddle where she had been laying. While her clothes remained intact for the most part, save for tearing on the edges, it did little to hide the fact something had split her abdomen. We reeled back in horror and disgust at the sight. I turned away and steadied myself against the wall as I retched and puked my guts out. I could hear the others becoming sick as well before turning back to Arias' corpse.

More skin and muscle had been removed from her neck and chest as I shone the light on the rest of the grizzly scene. The beam finally came to rest on her face. Most of her left cheek had been ripped and shredded, leaving a ghastly half-grin for us to see while her eyes were rolled back into her head.

My head was spinning from all the emotions that were boiling up inside. The guilt of how I had openly called her out at the lake and letting her die. The anger towards whatever had killed her—the uncertainty of pushing on any further. And finally, the fear of anything else happening to the others and especially to Sonata.

We stood there, not sure what to do. The only sound to be heard was a few sniffles. Then, when we thought that things couldn't get any worse, we noticed an odd bulge in Arias' throat. It moved ever so slightly before it disappeared up into her mouth.

"What was that?" Big Mac asked everyone, but before anyone could respond, something forced Arias' mouth open. It looked like a black insect with a segmented body. It had six needlelike legs and a head that seemed to end in a flat, white protrusion. The longer we kept our lights on it, the more agitated it seemed to get until it finally had enough and split open the protrusion. It turned out that the white spot on its face was its four fang-tipped mandibles closed tightly together. It let out a nauseatingly shrill screech, and all at once, the silent tunnel became filled with a cacophony of a million skittering feet and shrieks.

When we focused our flashlights further down the tunnel, we could see a formless mass creeping its way towards us all along the floor and up the walls. There must have been thousands of those bugs moving in unison while a couple more began crawling out of Aria. The closer ones made a beeline for us as they attempted to sink those fangs in.

One of them jumped at Maud only to end up a bloody smear under her foot. She stoically announced, "Get going," as she began running back past us. With one last glance at Aria, Heavyweight, Big Mac, and I followed Maud back the way we came. No matter how fast we moved, though, we couldn't shake the pursuing swarm of creatures.

We made it back to the fork in the tunnel, where the vision diverged from the map and tried to catch our breath. However, those bugs had not given up the chase. Maud asked, "Which way, Slate?" and I pulled out the map and hurriedly discerned the safe path.

Meanwhile, Big Mac had frantically been throwing stuff out of his backpack before pulling out a lighter and popping open his last bottle of cider. He then tore off a strip from a spare shirt. I pointed down one of the middle tunnels and yelled, "Go that way!" while he stuffed the fabric into the bottleneck.

"Dude, whatever you're doing, do it fast. We don't have a whole lot of time." Heavyweight grabbed Big Mac and yanked him in the right direction. Those bugs were now just a few feet away as we began to run as fast as we could, but with Big Macs' injury, he was slowly falling behind.

"Come on," he muttered while trying to ignite the cloth hanging out of the bottle as he ran. In the brief moment that the fabric caught on fire, several of those insects had jumped onto him. They tore into his leg. He began to scream as more of them sunk their fangs into him.

"No, no, no! Not again!" I went back to help him and crushed several of those bugs. Heavyweight and Maud saw this and did the same. I grabbed him by the hand and tried to pull him out of the insects' tangled mass, but there were too many clinging to him. He wanted to scare them off with the lit cloth, but they would only retreat a few inches before climbing even further onto him. Soon the others were helping me pull him, but it was still no use as those pests inched their way up to his back. Then to all of our horror, the bottle accidentally slipped out of his hand and shattered on the floor.

Within a matter of seconds, the mine shaft was awash in the glow of firelight. Try as we might, we weren't able to pull Big Mac from the mass of writhing vermin. The heat became too intense to handle, and we had to let go. Big Mac, along with those monsters, became completely engulfed in flames, and soon we could only hear the roar of the inferno.

We were in utter shock as the flames consumed Big Mac but had no time to process the whole tragedy as the fire had started to burn at some of the surrounding support beams. The next thing we knew, they were giving off an ominous crackling.

Soon there was a loud scraping of rock that shifted as the shaft became increasingly unstable. I grabbed Heavyweight and Maud and yelled, "Run!"

With each step, rubble and debris were falling from the collapsing ceiling. We barely escaped the mineshaft as the sound of rocks and boulders crashed down, echoing out to us. We got a few more feet away from the mine before we let ourselves drop to the floor.

"We made it out." Heavyweight gasped out of breath as he stood there, hunched over and sucking in air.

"What now, Slate?" Maud asked coldly. While she wasn't showing any signs of distress, I couldn't help but wonder how messed up she or any of us for that matter was after everything that had happened.

"At this point, I don't know," I admitted shamefully. "Thanks to my decisions Big Mac and Aria are dead." my eyes were becoming blurred thanks to the newly forming tears. "If I had gotten him to come along instead of trying to kill that wolf, we would have been right behind you and Aria. Then she wouldn't have wound up going off on her own."

"Dude, there was no way to know that any of this was ever going to happen," Heavyweight offered to try to get me to snap out of it.

"That doesn't change the fact that everyone back home is going to question how all this happened," I answered in frustration and guilt. "Adagio and Big Mac's family aren't going to buy a story that monsters in the middle of nowhere killed them. At best, they'll think we're crazy and, at worst, blame us for it."

Maud still calm as ever then asked, "So then the plan is to do what, give up and die out here?"

I wasn't able to answer her as my head was pounding. Asides from that, I wasn't in my right mind at that moment.

"Slate, I get it, but dying out here won't help anything. We have to make it back at the very least for the sake of Aria and Big Mac. Their families have to know what happened to them. Besides, we all have family that's waiting for us to get back."

Confidence was the last thing I was feeling, especially about our current predicament, but I couldn't argue with what my friend said. I got back up, stuck my hands in my pockets, and took a deep breath. My hand then brushed across the two pendants from Sonatas' necklace. A mix of urgency and anger suddenly filled me to the core.

"Fine, you're right," I agreed begrudgingly. "Before anything else, we have to find Sonata."

"Then perhaps we should check down that way," Maud suggested, pointing her flashlight down a cleared path.

"Anything is better than just staying here," Heavyweight agreed, then took a moment to adjust his backpack.

"Alright, then." I took a moment to wipe my face with the front of my shirt.

The path was quite a bit longer than it appeared at first, which I assumed was due to the darkness, but regardless, we followed it all the way through. To our surprise, we found ourselves at the edge of a small abandoned frontier town that consisted of a few old buildings. The first thing we passed by was a stable that had long since fallen apart and connected to a small house. There were at least three other tiny houses nearby, a large lodge looking place as well as a bar, and the outer skeleton of what I could only assume was a town hall. They stood around a well in the center of the quiet town.

"Well, I wasn't expecting to go back in time," Heavyweight remarked.

"I've never heard of any abandoned town out in this area," Maud said in what I assumed was a puzzled tone for her.

"I suppose it must have been in use before Canterlot was even a thing," I offered, more concerned with finding Sonata than anything else.

We continued walking past the small homes towards the lodge when a voice weakly called to me. "Slate, help me…"

"Wait," I said, halting the other two before asking, "You heard that, right?"

Maud nodded while Heavyweight replied with a quiet, "Yeah."

The voice called out again, and this time I was able to recognize it. "Slate, help…" it had come from the lodge. We pointed the flashlights all along the exterior when I saw a set of curtains in a second-floor window near the right end of the lodge flow as if someone had brushed past them.

"Sonata!" I yelled, trying to elicit a response, but received none. Without a second thought, I ran up to the double doors and flung them open. The reception area I had entered was a gloomy mess; dusty furniture, destroyed tables, and cobwebs everywhere. And towards the opposite side of the room was a fireplace.

Before I could check the rest of the place, Heavyweight and Maud came in after me. "Slate, we should stick together." Heavyweight mentioned.

"Well, keep up then," I said with a hint of impatience. "We have to find Sonata soon."

They nodded and followed behind as I turned to the staircase near the entrance. When I placed my foot on the first step, it let out a loud creak in protest to having any weight placed on it. We carefully climbed the stairs up to the second-floor landing only to find dark hallways on either side. I thought I saw someone in one of the windows closer to the right end of the lodge, so that's where I wanted to start the search.

We quietly made our way to the last door, but when we checked out the room, it was empty. Without another option, we began checking every door as we went back through the hallway but only found maybe three doors that would open, all of which were disappointingly empty. All the rest, however, were jammed or blocked up on the inside.

We went and checked the other hallway, but found nothing. We had no clue if the whole place was going to be empty, but we still had the first floor, so we went back to the staircase. When we got there, something went clicking around the floor below.

I looked back to Heavyweight and Maud and pressed a finger to my lips before turning off my flashlight. They followed my lead, and we cautiously made our way down the stairs, wincing when the second to last step creaked. I held my breath as I squinted, trying to catch sight of what could have made that sound. But to my relief, the room was empty. We turned our flashlights back on and looked around.

"What was down here?" Heavyweight whispered to the both of us.

"I don't know, man. But there are two more hallways that we gotta check."

We went down the left-wing and found a whole lot of nothing, so we were left with the right hallway. We went through the usual process of checking the rooms individually, but I was getting the feeling that we would need to check the other buildings when out of nowhere, a door slammed shut at the end of the hallway. I ran into the hall and found Heavyweight outside a door messing with the handle.

"Heavyweight, what happened?" Before he could answer, a loud crash came from inside the room.

"Maud went in to check for Sonata," Heavyweight explained while trying to get the door open. "But something shut the door with her in it."

We tried to break down the door, but something was barring our entry.

"Maud, hang on, we're going to get you out of there!" Heavyweight called through the door. The ruckus that had been going on while we attempted to get into the room abruptly stopped.

I gave it one more shove, but it remained shut. "Give me a minute. Maybe we can use something from the entrance to pry it open. See what you can do here, though."

"Alright."

Without wasting any time, I ran back to the main entrance. There was a stone fireplace with a dusty mantle right above it with a couple of decorations along with some old-style candleholders. On the floor, next to the chimney, was an overturned and empty rack. I then noticed a handle sticking out of the fireplace from underneath a mound of ashes. When i pulled it out, the handle turned out to be a part of a fire iron.

"This poker should do it," I said while I examined it, getting ashes on my hands.

Then without warning, Sonatas' voice called to me from a window that was just a few feet to the left of the fireplace. "Slate, help me..."

Startled, I flicked my flashlight up to the window and caught sight of something very odd. What looked like a big cat, on account of the lynx-like face, peered over the window sill and stared directly at me.

I leaned the poker up against the fireplace as I focused my flashlight on the big cat. Then the next thing I knew, a spindly, blood-soaked hand slapped against that same window. The cats' eyes began to emanate a piercing yellow glow as it slowly rose.

That cat-like head sat upon a thin gray body with patches of fur hanging off of its slender frame. The hand was attached to a long arm that pressed up against the glass to stand up. Once it had reached its full height, it was nearly going past the top of the window frame. All the while, it never broke eye contact with me. That was right up until it looked beyond where I was standing. It then took off running to the left side of the lodge. I turned to see the front doors slightly cracked open. Before I could even begin to move towards it, that thing slammed one of the doors wide open and completely off its hinges as it stood right in the doorway.

The creature was at least eight feet tall, give or take a foot thanks to its crooked stance. Its arms practically reached down to the floor as it took a few steps towards me. My heart began racing at the sight of that thing when its neck snapped and cracked as it tilted its head as if to show curiosity. The vision I had in the mine suddenly flooded into the forefront of my mind. That was the thing that had dragged Sonata out of the tunnel.

In fear and rage, I barely managed to whisper, "You took her."

It stopped about 18 feet away from me and froze suddenly for a few seconds before it straightened out its posture. It then hunched forward and placed its hands against the wood floor before it mimicked my voice in a distorted tone. "Took her…" it then tilted its head to the other side, and in an eerie imitation of Sonatas' voice asked, "Why didn't you save me, Slate?" It then flashed a toothy smile.

It killed Aria I glanced at the poker as I prepared myself to fight. It noticed and in an unsettling combination of both mine and Sonatas' voices, it laughed, all the while taking slow, plodding steps forward. I turned and picked up the poker as fast as i could, but in the split second that I turned back to face it, it had closed the distance from the middle of the room. It took a swing at me with its long, thin arm, but I barely managed to raise the iron to try and block the hit. While it took the brunt of the blow, I still got sent rolling into a broken sofa with a loud crash, and I lost my grip on the poker.

I pulled myself up from the debris only to find my whole body was swimming in colors of pain as I tried to keep my balance. It laughed again as it crawled closer before rearing up with a clawed hand poised to strike.

"What happened, I heard a…" Heavyweight called to me as he ran out of the hallway and saw the monster. It had stopped to look and size him up before turning back to me. Luckily he managed to throw his full weight at it with a tackle as it swung, forcing it to barely miss my head by mere inches with an audible whoosh.

In a spastic jerk of its arms, it knocked my friend across the floor. It then turned to grab Heavyweight by the leg, but I took a broken table leg and jammed the sharp end straight into its back. The impact of the strike shot through my wrists as the wood collided against its spine. It gave me a bit of confidence that we could fight off the slender creature, but then its head made a one-eighty degree turn to face me with a sickening crack. It then shot its freehand towards me and wrapped it around my neck before slamming me up against the wall.

It then let go of Heavyweight and turned completely to face me as it slowly began to reach its other sharp claws right for my stomach. It was deliberately taking its time as it watched me struggle against it, seemingly deriving some sick joy from my efforts. There was little I could do other than hitting its arm and wrist, but that had little effect. But as soon as I grabbed onto its forearm, it completely stopped to watch as smoke began coming out of it. It recoiled with a screech as it let me go. Without a second to lose, I grabbed the poker and swung it at its face. More smoke began rising from the beast as it backed away.

I wasn't sure what I had done, but the creature was desperately wiping at its face and where I had grabbed its arm as if trying to remove something. I then noticed a burn mark on its forearm in the shape of a handprint. I looked at my hand and saw that the ash had rubbed off. I realized at that moment that the ash was causing it to react.

While it tried to get the ash off of it, I quickly stuck the poker into the ashes and took a handful. The creature growled as it leaped forward and swung its claws at me once more. Luckily I was able to roll out of the way of its wide arc. I quickly got up, and I threw the ashes I was carrying right in its face. It began gasping and choking as smoke billowed from its skin. I ran at it with the poker at the ready. It was about to swing its other arm, but I managed to stab the metal into its gut. It staggered back and yowled in pain as it attempted to remove the poker, but instead recoiled when its hand touched the ash-covered handle, which was causing smoke to come out of the wound.

Not wanting to give it the chance to gain the upper hand again, I yelled, "No, you don't!" before landing a hard kick right on the handle, burying it deeper into its stomach. It toppled over as it squirmed and pushed itself away from me. I quickly checked on Heavyweight, who was woozy but otherwise alive and got him back up, all the while that thing managed to yank out the fire iron and to drag itself out the front.

"Dude, are you alright?" I asked Heavyweight, trying to get him to focus.

"Yeah, I think so," He replied, "What was that thing?"

"I'm not sure," was the only thing I could say for sure. "But I don't want to find out. Come on, let's get Maud out of that room."

We took the poker back over to the room. We wedged the tool into the edge of the door, and with a few hard shoves against the poker, the door finally gave way with a loud crack and splintering. Unsurprisingly, furniture and the bed had been wrecked or flipped over. What was worse was the blood spatter all over the room. There was no sign of Maud; all we found was a single pebble in the middle of the room.

"No. Maud's gone," I said, realizing that only my friend and I were left. "That thing did this."

"But where is the body?" Heavyweight asked now more troubled than ever. He then tried checking under the wreckage but couldn't find anything. "Why aren't you helping?"

I shook my head and answered, feeling the pit in my stomach worsen by the second. "She isn't here; just look at the window."

Blood dripped from the windowsill, so we went to check it out. There was a trail of red leading around the side of the lodge.

"Come on." After clearing the glass from the window frame, I jumped out of the window. With my flashlight, I followed the trail of gore.

Heavyweight followed me over to the window where the monster had left a bloody handprint.

"If that thing came straight to this window, then there's no way it could have taken her that far, "I reasoned before following the rest of the trail. It went out past the front of the lodge and up to the well. Right on the edge of it laid a black teardrop-shaped piece of metal — the other half of the yin and yang charm.

I reached out and picked it up to examine it closer. It still had the white dot, and on the reverse side was my name. I stared at it intensely, just waiting for a new vision to come to me, but nothing did.

"Why isn't anything happening?" I asked, shaking the pendant.

Heavyweight, noticeably more concerned than before, placed a hand on my shoulder. "Slate, something doesn't seem right."

I didn't pay any attention to what he said and pointed my flashlight down into the well. It was pitch black, and no matter how hard I strained my eyes, I could not see the bottom. "They have to be down there."

Suddenly the sound of fast, heavy footsteps were coming straight towards us. Heavyweight, in a panic, yelled, "It's back!"

When I turned around, the monster had grabbed Heavyweight by the face and slammed him headfirst into the ground. Without stopping, it raised its deformed hand slashed straight down at me. I barely managed to lift my arms to protect my head, but its claws ripped into my left forearm. The force of the hit sent me reeling into the well, and whatever ambient light I was able to see was soon swallowed up by the darkness.