There was no way out. We were trapped here, corned within the confines of this tempestuous abyss. It had been only a few days since our entrapment, but it had felt like years. Everything that festered and thrived here spurned with the enmity of a thousand demons thirsting for the blood of a human heart. Numerous times we had attempted to escape, to evade and escape the patient hands that waited for our death. But it was not to be so. Every time we had tried to break their impregnable hold, it only ended in us retreating once more. We were cornered, herded into this strange and unfathomable place, unable to mangle the stalwart fingers that clutched at our throats. But that was not going to stop us. We would escape, and it would be now.

The plan lay before us, defined and clear in its purpose. There was to be only one way to untangle our bodies from their acidic grasp – one way to steal free from the metaphorical caged that ruled us. It was quite simple, really, yet it had failed us numerous times before – we were to sneak undetected and indecipherable into the chamber in which the chest was kept. In that chest of magical proportions was such a mystical nutrient that could mend our bodies and allow us to flow to shelter unharmed and unscathed. This was the only way – to ingest the substance and then melt away into the comfort of the darkness. Although they prowled the edifice of the chest day and night, anxious and prepared for our arrival, we would survive. I could be sure of it.

We would try to pose as one of their own – conceal our true nature in the fashion of their essence. Tours and other groups of escalated proportions traveled past numerous times within the threshold of the daylight hours, so it was then in which we would approach. Our perch in the shadows would be abandoned, and we would make our last rush towards redemption. It was now that our fate would be decided – now we would live, or now we would die.

It was now time to move, to initiate the plan. Our disguises would be hard to discern, for we had narrowed down the shape of our bodies to an exact replica of our enemies own. The ability to alter our forms was one that we could finally cherish and depend on in this time of need, for it would be the only thing that could save us now from certain death.

We stole our way along the long passageways, yearning fully in our anticipation of blending in the environment. No one gave a second notice to our stiff-legged pace, or injected on the point that our faces never really emerged from the passing shadows. It was working. We were scathing along undetected.

It was as we reached the facade of the grand escritoire that we paused to consider to motions before us. There, in plain open view, was the chest, seemingly unguarded and unattended. It was a rare chance, a rare and scintillating chance to succeed in our attempt of escape. If we could just shy quickly to the right and, without pausing, pry open the lid of the chest to reveal its innards…

But it couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be. There could not have been a chance this valuable and open, no matter what our position was. They would never leave something so priceless to their foes so vulnerable. Could they?

It would have been so seemingly easy to walk over with a effervescent step and calmly open the chest as if to acquire a midday’s sustenance. But in debate, we failed to accept this step, and instead proceeded onward with the original calculations. Was this the right choice?

It did not matter, because the decision was made, and we began our path once more towards the guards pacing at the obverse point of the desk. At our approach, their attention was drawn toward us, and their pace immediately slowed in a defensive manner. I breathed in slowly as my heart rate quickened, and reminded myself with a fierce calm that this was their common apprehensive behavior.

“Good day,” I pronounced sturdily, stopping the ebbing fear from escaping into my voice. “My friends and I are in want of a tour of this establishment, if it would be no trouble?” I swallowed audibly, and prayed with all might to the heavens above that my fretful concern could be felt by the onlookers.

The guards remained in the position for a moment, as if considering, calculating. Then, with ease, they lowered their erect posture and degraded into a much more informal stance.

“Certainly,” replied the creature on my left. “A group is in formation down the hallway to my right.” He led a hand to point to a sullen and insidious appearing archway behind him, the complete opposite direction of the treasure we coveted. “If you just proceed forth, you will find the group in attendance.” The guard seemed pleasant enough in his mien, and I could only hope that he had no hint of our real identity. Desperate to flee from their presence, I nodded simply and began to walk towards the unlit path, the rest of my band following close behind. Soon, all became a faint outline for my eyes, and I could only sense forms rather than spy them. The idea of a betrayal birthed into my mind, but I willingly abandoned the pregnancy – the creatures could not be on to us that quickly, could they?

But my reckoning was correct, for we soon came to the end of the tunnel. In front of us spanned a light filled cavern that served as the center of the establishment. Many of our enemy scuttled past, unaware of our presence, absorb in their need to attend to their own business. I spotted the group of waiting pedestrians ahead, and urged for my group to follow.

“More have come to join us!” cried a black-clad guide in the front of the assembly. Unsure of the proper response to give, and not willing to provide evidence of our game, I merely nodded, and hoped that this expression would be enough.

The one in command must have believed so, for he continued briefly.

“Now our numbers are full, and we can begin our journey. We are to split into different sectors. This section of you shall accompany me. This portion will accompany Caen. And your group,” He pointed directly to me and my peers. “You shall accompany Varen.” The specific encroachment of our group caused to pounding to resume in my chest. He… they could not know.

The people around us dispersed until we were left standing with a different black-clad individual. His face was hidden from view, but I associated that he was to be our guide, and so I paced forth beside him.

“Come,” he uttered in a deep melancholy growl, and I could not force the swell in my chest to be subdued. As he had spoken, he had raised his head to reveal his countenance, and it immediately caused the blood in my veins to become flooded with the ice of the Antarctic tundra. It was he.

The man before us was not any ordinary man – no, no indeed. This man was different. He was the man each and every one of us dreamed of at night during our entrapment – this was the man who had caused it all. The man behind the pleasurable mask that outlined this place. The man whose evil could not be matched in all the other evils of all the beings of this world combined. This was our most feared enemy – the one who commanded the forging and maintaining of this organization. It was he. Varen Omontob.

I tried to cloak the instant trepidation that clouded my face, but it was an effort that was well wasted. The obsidian eyes that glared out at me from under the painted white cheekbones caused an instant fear to seized my limbs, locking my joints and freezing me to the exact place in which I stood.

The others must have too realized this err on our part, for they remained stagnant behind me. This stillness was not easily unobserved by Varen, for in that chilling voice, he uttered the words…

“Are not you coming? The tour is to proceed in this direction.” But as he spoke, as the words concocted from his vocal cords reached my ears, a vindicating truth began to dawn upon me. The words, were, in fact not chilling. In fact… the voice was not his at all. This was not him, but an imposter. A forged attempt to deceive, just as we were.

“Yes, of course,” I replied, assurance in my voice. The rest of the group behind me caught the unalarmed presence of my voice, and seemed to reconcile with their own fear, for they followed behind me as I began to trail Varen. I was not sure if they too had come to the same realization as I, but they must have realized that my calmed exterior was a hint that the situation was not as bad as they feared.

We walked along briskly, and every so often Varen would utter a few words about the scene we were passing. But I, as I was sure was true with the rest of my crew, was not able to pay attention to his words, too focused on the treasure and escape that lay before us. It would not be long now, I knew it in my heart, that the road would curve and bring us to the chamber we so desired. At any minute, we could be free, our bodies enabled to dissolve through the drains into the sewers that waited below. With the nutrient in our system, none would be able to stop us. We would not be prisoners for much longer.

My desire was soon fulfilled, for as we rounded a curve of strange looking mechanics, suddenly it was in view. The chest, in all its insubordinate glory, lay before us.

“We’ve reached the end of this event,” muttered the fake Varen in an apathetic tone. “Now you may provide yourself sustenance by utilizing the usage of our food chest.” The man smiled, a smile that was all too knowing, and my stomach became clenched in my abdominal cavity. He paused here on the brink of the room, and seemed to wait for us to make the first move. Was the time now? Did we have to maintain this secret pose, and should we indeed rush now and take our future. I could tell the others were looking for me to decide, and would not approach any further until I did. The debate quickly played out in my mind, and before long I decided the secret game would be extended just a moment longer.

“Thank you.” I tried to make my tone sound confident, but it came out as a choked utterance. However, Varen’s smiled never faltered, which catalyzed the queasiness in my stomach to triple. The time was now. Now.

I began to move forward slowly, putting one foot in front of the other whilst never taking my eyes off the prize in front of me. My behavior may have appeared odd to the onlooker, but I hoped it would just be mistaken for an extreme case of famine. There were many life-sustaining foods within the chest, but it was only one I desired.

The distance between me and the door grew less and less, until I was finally pitted within an arm’s reach of that which I had for so long failed to obtain. I took a deep breath, inhaling sharply and then exhaling the consternation and unease. We were here now. Nothing could stop us. Nothing.

I lifted the lid, and an instant chill rushed over the flesh of my forearm. My hairs prickled up in expectance as my eyes began to sift through the contents of the chest, milling through in my mind the picture of what we longed to obtain.

There they were. The miracle drug, the substance that would give us a release from this menacing hell hole. The carton of eggs.

I could feel Varen’s glance still eagerly glowing on my spine, and knew that if I was not careful, this could end in the wrong fashion. I could not just pull the carton of eggs from the chest and begin distributing them openly to my friends. No, that would create an instant throw of havoc. Instead, I had to apply the rules of stealth in order to accomplish my task.

I reached my hands inside the box, and carefully lifted the lid of the carton, being certain that my movements were not discernable by the man. Then, carefully, so utterly carefully, I pulled out an egg with my left hand and brought it across the right side of my body, so the movement would just appear as if I were moving my arm to the other side of the chest in search of more savoring foods. A needy hand understood the movement and grasped the egg discreetly from my grasp, taking it and in some manner of inconspicuousness passing it on to the person behind them. We continued this chain of movement until all the eggs had been distributed, and I was left holding the egg that would be my own savior. I clutched it in a fist at my side, using the skin of my fingers to conceal it from immediate view, and reached the other arm up to replace the lid on the chest.

“Was the food not to your expectations?” I turned at the sound of Varen’s voice, and saw with complete disappointment that his grin was even more pronounced now. It would appear that his happiness could not just be sprouting from our inability to find sustenance. No, he would have to have known our secret by now.

“No, of course not…” I echoed off, desperately thinking of any way to mend his already decided mind. “It’s just that we claimed our meal a quarter of an hour before our proceedings. So, it’s certain that our appetite is not yet at its fullest.” I tried to plaster a smile upon my face, but realized that my features would not properly display the emotion, so instead just retreated to a blank expression.

“Or…” he began to utter slowly, and I was most certain that our element of surprise had been shattered. “Could it just be that you are the escaped band of convicts for which we have been perilously searching for in vain for the last week?” His bluntness was most mind-numbing, and I knew that was the effect he had wished to create. But it would not dull me, not when we were so close to evading his grasp.

“Now!” As I spoke this one word, this one fatal and catalytic word, all chaos broke forth around me. Immediately, several members of my party cracked open their eggs and began to pour the yoke into the holes their mouths offered. As soon as the egg entered their throat, they began to melt and wither before my eyes, cascading into a liquid cream that filtered down into the sewer grate so conveniently beneath us. These people were now free, for they were going to a place these creatures could not follow. Our body chemistries allowed us the privilege of such shape-shifting and a variable homeostasis – but theirs was not as lenient, and they could not follow once we made it past here. I was tempted to follow their path, but I would not allow myself to be so easily persuaded. For I was their leader, and due to my connivance, I would not allow myself to cower away at the position. I would be certain the rest of my family were safe before I would convenience myself with the opportunity to escape.

At this same exact moment, a band of darkly cloaked streaks flew out at us from the shadows, knocking several of my party members to the ground. They seemed to come from everywhere, all at once, and it was then that I realized that this whole thing must have just been a charade. They must have known who we were from the beginning, and had planned to corner us here.

I saw a few eggs fall to the ground, their innards slowly seeping into the grate below us. I could only hope that these unlucky ones had enough time to salvage the remains of their egg before it was completely wasted. For my own safety, I placed my egg in the pouch that hung from my waist and fastened the top with shaking hands. The time to fight was now. I began to lurch forward in order to tackle the nearest creature, but was instead molested from behind as an unknown force knocked me to the ground. I tried to squirm free of the presence, but instead was only crushed further into the ground, the skin of my face harshly scarring against the sharp metal of the that once rested below my feet. Around me, I could feel the chaos winding down to a minimum, and I realized that the rest of my people were gone. All that remained were a few egg droppings, and a horde of the large and sinister black creatures, all standing in a semicircle around me and my attacker.

The one on my back shifted, and I felt myself able to draw in a thick breath of air once more. However, his weight was still greatly portioned on my body, and I realized he was holding me to the ground with his hands, preventing from resuming any sort of position in which I could pose a threat.

“We knew it was you from the very beginning of this trek,” uttered one of the dark figures, and I knew it was Varen this time. His true voice was strictly distinguishable, and brought undeniable fear to my chest. “Your horrid stench was just too much for us to be able to ignore.” He began to laugh, a hideously horrid chuckle that burned my ears and forced the bile to simmer in my throat. This was the end. The time… the time was not now. Not… now.

“And now…” He continued sweetly, arrogantly, pompously. “We shall feast upon your flesh!” His chilling laugh was the last vocalization I heard as the world faded to an extreme blackness.

I expected to never wake again, but thankfully I did. The sound of laughter and slurred speech brought my consciousness back to the surface of the river I had drifted under. I opened my eyes, and witnessed an extreme celebration of some sort. People flashed and whirled all around me, and I struggled to make notation of it all. The light was dim and shallow, and the sharp movements of the people around me caused everything to flow in a spinning repetition. I tried to glance closer at the people around me, and noticed they were eating something. It appeared to be dark red and somewhat glistening, as if freshly brewed. For some reason, this attracted me most of all, and I glanced around to find the source of the dark red meat.

There it was. Or rather, there I was. For it was me, clutched in the hands of Varen himself! My head, my own flesh and blood, my head supported frailly within his grasp. My body was nowhere to be seen, and a severed line proved that the decapitation was a reality. That, however, was not the most mortifying conclusion. I had not at first even realized it was my head, my face, merely because the entire upper half of the skull had been ripped and torn away. All that remained of my face was the lower half of my jaw – the rest of my countenance had been stripped away, picked apart by ravenous fingers until the raw flesh was no more. All that remained of the upper half of my head was the back portion of my mangled grey brain as well as part of the tissue around my ruptured cheekbones. All of the rest was gone, replaced by a deep chasm that used to contain my countenance. The only distinguishable feature left was my lips and teeth, generally untouched but smeared with the blood of my consumed flesh. At that moment, a body flashed in front of the display, and I heard a hideous crunching noise. The body turned, and I could see he was holding my bottom jaw, the lips still attached.

“Victory!” he cried valiantly, and I felt myself start to swirl back into the blackness from which I had been born. As my presence began to dim, I held my eyes to his frame, and could see his hands dart to the ground beneath him. His fingers began to pry at the dusty earth, sheepishly digging a canyon in the placid dirt. Once he was satisfied with the size and depth of the rupture, he produced my lips and teeth from his other hand. He gingerly dropped them into the earth, and began to cover them with the mound he had piled. He let the sand gently cover them, so that though they still had a layer of dirt concealing them, the contoured outline of my mouth was still visible. The darkness pulled me further away, and as I fell into the black zenith of death, the grin on his exuberantly still living lips was the last image I observed.