A/N: Happy Halloween, everyone! Thanks for taking the time to read this story! (Reviews much appreciated!) :)

"Kana!"

The terrified yell came from a man who'd just woken up, finding himself underground in a damp and musty tunnel. Moss and mold coated the walls, leaving the smell of rotting vegetation to assault the man's nose. The man wrinkled up his face in response to the stench of the tunnel and tried hard to remember why he'd been thrown into the well. He could only recall a crowd of angry people, all demanding something . . . but what was it?

That's it . . . he and Kana had been thrown in for attempting to harness dark magic. What fools they were.

In attempt to ignore and forget his surroundings, the man called out for his friend again. When he heard no reply, he scrambled to his feet at the sound of a giant skulltula hissing and pinching its teeth together. Jumping back in alarm, the man instinctively reached into his pocket to pull out a long iron dagger spotted with stains of red. With it, he slashed the strands of the web and used it to defend himself from the giant spider. When he'd reached a decent distance away from the skulltula, the man wiped the bug's blood on his shirt and replaced the dagger. He opened his mouth again and cupped his hands around it, hoping he'd get some kind of reply from Kana.

"Kana, please answer me! Where are we?! It's me, Masu! Please, are you out there?"

His voice echoed on through the lonely tunnel. Feeling as if he had no other choice, Masu ran forward, only to find himself at a wall—a dead end. Putting his ear close to the wall, Masu listened closely to the sounds that oozed from them. It was definitely the sound of suffering—moaning, growling, and even slow and quiet footsteps.

"Kana?"

Masu curled his hands into fists and went to slam one on the wall in front of him, in a hopeless attempt to break it down. The first swing didn't hit the wall—in fact, it didn't hit anything. Masu's eyes widened in alarm as he felt his hand miss completely and he fell right through what appeared to be a wall. Looking back, the man reached out to the wall to test it again. His hand effortlessly slid right through.

Masu suddenly realized that he was in a completely different room. Startled upon seeing new surroundings, he stumbled into a clumsy standing position and looked all around him. He checked every wall in amazement to see if it was real or not. When he came across no false walls, the man tucked his torn shirt into his pants uncomfortably.

"Kana!" he called again, running through to another section of the maze-like tunnel. "Kana, I'm here! What happened? Where are we?"

Masu came across a closed door. The moaning sounds were most definitely coming from there, but there was something . . . inhuman about them. As if they weren't natural. Masu, with trembling fingers, reached for the rusted door handle. He pulled it open and whispered his friend's name again.

"Kana, is that you?"

In the room, there was a stream of greenish water flowing throughout the room. Masu stiffened once he realized that the small sticks that protruded from the surface weren't sticks at all—they were once-human hands, reaching out of the water only to find that they wouldn't be able to escape. He tore his eyes away from the hands and scanned the room once more. On the other side, there was a figure squatting on the ground, toying with its hands as if it had nothing better to do.

"K-kana?"

The figure suddenly stood up and moaned sorrowfully. Masu realized he'd made a horrible mistake when the figure got to its feet. It was a rotting body, covered with tight skin that looked as if it had been drained of its blood. It turned to look at Masu, who gasped in horror upon seeing the creature's face. The head consisted of three black holes, two where the eyes should have been, and one where the mouth was. The creature's mouth widened very slightly to let out a horrible scream. Slowly, the creature lumbered towards Masu, who screamed in reply and slammed the door shut as he ran out.

Masu's chest heaved in long breaths as he stopped at a thin tunnel with a single door at the end. Sweat dripped down his forehead.

"Kana . . ." he mumbled, every hope of finding his friend starting to dwindle. He'd probably die in this place anyway, what was the point of searching anymore?

That's right . . . he recalled grimly, The witch said that Kana and I had to find the truth. Whatever that meant.

Limply, he tugged at the door handle and froze as he noticed four pillars completely upright, along with a single body in the middle of the room, mangled and bloody.

"Kana!" Masu realized as he ran to the body in the middle of the room. Kana's eyes were wide with terror; his face paralyzed with fear. Masu breathed heavily and quickly examined the wounds all over his friend's body. There were punctures in his legs, his chest, and his arms, and one wound, the

most mysterious one, appeared to be bloodied teeth marks surrounded by bruises on one shoulder.

"M-Masu . . ." the injured man breathed, "you have to get out. Out, do you hear me?!"

Kana choked up coughs as he raised his voice. Masu shook his head.

"What—I can't leave without you!" he protested, "Why?"

Kana shook his head frantically, his eyes still wide.

"Don't make me say it . . . again, Masu!" he cried, "Get out now, please! The truth can't be reached . . ."

Masu opened his mouth to speak, when Kana coughed again, a deep red trickling from his mouth and dripping to the ground. He then choked out one more plea.

"Leave . . ."

A single long breath left Kana's throat as his heart stopped pounding in his chest all together. Masu knelt next to his friend, trembling with fury as he watched Kana die. He let out a cry of despair, ripped the dagger from his pocket, and slashed angrily at one of the white pillars. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears started to sting them, not noticing the deep red that oozed out of the pillar from the place where he'd slashed it.

Masu gritted his teeth and buried his face in his hands, mourning the loss of his friend. The long and skinny structure that he'd slashed bent mid-way and snapped in doing so. Startled by the sound, Masu whirled around to see what he thought was a pillar to be bending towards him. Before he could react, five appendages at the end curled and cracked their knuckles, reaching for his face. Masu realized with a sick feeling that the pillar was a bloodied arm with sharp red claws at the hand. Paralyzed, Masu could do nothing but shake violently as the hand extended its fingers and suddenly seized his face.

Screaming, Masu clawed at the wrist of the arm in a futile attempt to remove the disembodied limb from his face. The claws dug into the skin, leaving droplets of blood to trickle down his face. Masu's screams were muffled by the palm of the cold hand over his mouth. No matter how he contorted his vocal cords to express his terror, he was still too quiet to be heard.

As he tried to get the hand away from him, Masu heard a deep growling behind him. He squeezed his eyes shut again and felt a sharp pain on his back, the sudden pressure throwing him forward. He hit the hard floor and stumbled backwards to see something hastily sinking into the solid ground. Trembling, he ran for the door and tugged at the handle.

It wouldn't budge.

Panicking, Masu pounded his fists against the door and screamed for help, hoping for the miracle that someone would be on the other side, listening, and would heed his cries. When nothing happened, Masu turned around to see his lifeless friend being pulled into the floor. His stomach twisted into a knot as he heard bones crunching as the body went down. When it was gone, there was nothing left of his friend but a pool of blood.

Masu doubled over, his stomach not holding itself steady. He collapsed to the ground and tried to regain some kind, any kind, of serenity. Or sanity.

"This isn't real," he tried to convince himself, "This isn't happening. I'm going to wake up any second. They gave me a sleeping potion. This isn't real . . ."

His peace and self-reassurance was interrupted by another hand reaching for him and grabbing the back of his head. He wrestled with it in every desperate attempt to remove it from his head. The man forced himself to turn around and face whatever had sunk into the ground before. His heart dropped to his feet and his stomach couldn't hold for any longer.

The creature behind him stood at over eight feet tall, its neck gruesomely extended and its eyes looking towards the ceiling. Two bloodied points were the creature's arms, and the body appeared to be a mass of loose flesh beneath stained bandages. The monster lowered its head to reveal two empty holes for eyes and a huge jaw.

Masu bent over again in seeing the creature and retched. The creature, as though showing some kind of mercy for one quick moment, tilted its head at nearly ninety degrees as Masu emptied his stomach. The monster bent all of its disembodied arms to reach for the man and hold him down once his vomiting had slowed. Masu gave a yell as all of the hands forced him to stay close to the ground and punctured his skin. The creature came closer, its mouth a gaping hole in front of him.

"No one steals the truth," came a voice from nowhere.

Masu's scream echoed through the tunnels as two rows of teeth snapped shut over his head.