Hi! This is my very first attempt at a fan-fic, so bear with me.

Miraak's description in this story comes from a fan-art where they redid part of his face to look more dragon-ish, or daedric. Either way, I thought it was a vast improvement from the game. I apologize, I don't know who originally did the art or much about it. It just comes up in google image search.

If you see anything that bothers you, doesn't make sense, or obvious grammatical errors, please feel free to leave a comment below (or PM me).

I've been having trouble getting page breaks and spaces to show up, so when I catch it, I try to re-upload the chapter using [-] to represent a break.

Thanks for reading!

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Andy sat haphazardly by the stone table, staring off into one of the various dark recesses of her self-described cage. Her chair was composed of a mixture of stone, ivory (or what she presumed was), and an odd metal. Intricate patterns adorned all of the fixtures in said "cage". She sighed, closed her eyes, and put pressure on them from the inside of her palms.

The room was quite large. A ceiling did not appear to exist; it nearly disappeared into this dark green fog. The bars sectioning this room off also disappeared in said green fog. On all sides were stacks of dingy books, bookcases, tables with more dingy books, and what appeared to be gate. She quickly contemplated her current situation:

1. She was no longer camping.

2. She had followed a strange noise into the woods.

3. She had been here for weeks, maybe longer (her watch had stopped, and probably mostly to do with the crack in the screen it received "upon impact" with the ground).

4. There was this HP Lovecraftian thing on the other side, reading a book. She had nicknamed it Mr. Tentacles.

Unfortunately, Mr Tentacles was not one for talking. Her pathetic attempts at communication had failed; it refused to even turn around to face her (which honestly, she wasn't too sad about, as she had gotten a look at the front side before, and vomited). About the only noise it made was some sort of bizarre growl whenever she attempted to open, what appeared to be, the exit.

She stared at the pile of old puke in the corner. A couple of books were caught in the crossfire. Maybe this place had library fines? She smiled; she was definitely crazy.

Her neighbor did not seem to mind her progressions towards exploring any other part of the room, though. She had quite the collection of books piled on top of what she claimed as "her table", in "her corner". She still had her giant, ridiculous backpack, full of necessary items: granola bars, tampons, deodorant…her work laptop, which she wondered why she even packed. Some of this cluttered the giant stone surface. However, during her seemingly unending stay, she had not once felt the desire to eat or drink. Or piss, for that matter. She would only fall asleep.

In fact, it was as if everything had "stopped". Her phone battery was completely dead. She had yet to use the bathroom or bathe, but smelled fine (she unceremoniously sniffed at her armpit to verify this claim). She felt frozen in time, although her neurological state had been left free to contemplate this phenomenon. Scientifically, there was no explanation she could come up with.

"She blinded me with SCIENCE!", an amused grin plastered on her face.

Mr. Tentacles ignored her. She frowned, and stuck her bottom lip out.

At one point she had fallen asleep in her surprisingly uncomfortable stone/metal chair, and woken up to what sounded like clanging of metal, in the otherwise maddening silence. In front of her was a book, with similar writing that adorned the literature around her.

Andy's specialty in life had always centered on science and math. She had spent most of her career traveling to various locations in the world, for a plethora of engineering firms, providing solutions to any and all structural issues; dubbing herself "a career whore", always for sale to the highest bidder. Her most recent project had landed her in the middle east, in what is commonly referred to as a "man camp". Decent per diem, an 80% bump on her base, and overtime galore.

Perhaps that is why she was handling her new found isolation quite well?

Oh, and there was always Mr. Tentacles, of course.

Anyways, foreign language was not her forte. Her Spanish teacher in high school gave her a B, out of pity. "Donde esta el bano", was the extent of two years.

Bright green eyes scanned the dull cover. Upon further inspection, she noticed that each page had a picture on it, with a single, large symbol on the upper left corner.

Oh goodie.

She took out her notebook and pencil from her backpack. A couple of scribbles later, and she was on her way to creating the beginning of her own Rosetta Stone.

Well…not quite that extensive, but her neighbor was quite impressed when she yelled excitedly at him (it really wasn't, it never moved).

After a few days, she had managed to decipher most of the strange alphabet, and even started to recognize certain words. "Elk, cow, lavender" were among her most accomplished vocabulary. "Daedroth and scathecraw", not so much.

What kind of reality had she ended in? Was this just her imagination? Was she in a hospital bed in a coma? Was this hell?

She wondered if this might have been where her cousin disappeared to, all those years ago.

It had been weeks since she arrived, face first, into the floor here. Maybe longer. Her sense of time had started to degrade. She had taken it upon herself to dive further into her readings and translations, to keep her mind occupied; her notepad becoming full of the strange writing. She had even started to be able to "read" some of the other novels around her, albeit, progress was slow.

She picked up a random book.

"The lu…lust…lusty Ar-go-nih-an maid."

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. She put it right back where it belonged.

Occasionally she would sketch her roommate, even proceeding to break it out into comic strips. She added text bubbles, imagining it saying witty things like "how many tickles does it take to tickle an octopus? TEN TICKLES!"

She felt her sanity slowly slip away. She had, at first, resorted to talking to herself. After time passed, she wound up saying nothing. The silence was weighing her down. She doubted her own voice worked anymore, and didn't care.

One day (or week, or hour…time had no meaning) she finally decided she could no longer remain cooped up in "her corner". Packing all her belongings up, she slipped the straps of her bag over her shoulders, snapping the front clip.

Her aunt owned about 500 acres south of the Appalachian mountains, in South Carolina. It was quite a thick wooded lot. Andy often spent time here during her childhood, and her and Michelle would camp for days, pretending to be part of the Rough Riders.

Her uncle had passed away when Andy was twelve years old. Michelle had only been three at the time, and as far as Andy knew, never had anything but a few hazy memories of her father. Her aunt had tried the life of a single mother, but eventually fell back in love, marrying a guy named Ted.

Michelle had disappeared without a trace one night. According to Aunt Cathy, Michelle and Ted had gotten into a heated argument over curfews, and she stormed out of the house, into the woods.

The next day, helicopters and hundreds of people formed search parties, combing the entirety of the region. All they found was her cellphone, about thirty miles west of Pickens, in a ditch.

The authorities even drug poor Ted in for questioning, listing him as potential suspect. While no one blamed him for what happened, you could always see the guilt in his eyes. He blamed himself for her death, and there was nothing you could say that would change it.

Those were dark times. She was in California at the time, finishing up her masters. Michelle and her had never been "best friends forever" close, but she still missed her cousin, regardless.

Ted had given her a Henry Varmint Express a few years back. It was mostly for keeping coyotes away and had decent range. Once a year, she would take vacation and come spend two weeks with her Aunt and Ted, sometimes camping for a few days.

She loaded 11 bullets in the magazine, and cocked the lever back.

She looked up. It hadn't noticed. She could shoot it, but, it was Mr. Tentacles.

And that was simply unacceptable.

Slowly, she crept towards the ornate handle. She felt the cold, bizarre metal in her hand, all the while keeping her sight on Mr. Tentacles. It flipped a page in the book.

Going as slow as she could, she pulled a bit and found that it was never latched.

She stood there staring at the gap. What…a complete…moron. How could she never have checked it before? Oh yeah…

She turned into a face full of Mr. Tentacles. Some elliptical mouth of razor sharp teeth, where the stomach or chest should have been. About twenty arms, or tentacles, were feverishly waving about. This thing was a biological fuck-up from a bad science fiction movie.

And she was pretty sure she would have crapped her pants, if possible.

It started making the weird noise again, and a bright light was forming by its "mouth".

In her fear and panic, she did the only thing she could think of. She pulled the gate as hard as she could, slammed it in the face, and took off in a full sprint down the dark hallway.