Crimson Anima, Chapter 13: The Unwelcoming Otherworld
The three friends stood before the ancient stone door in the depths of Barri Dungeon, flanked by gargoyles. Beyond the gateway, they could see nothing but deepest black; not a glimmer of light shone through. It seemed as if no light could cross the threshold.
A sense of dread overwhelmed Meara as she stared into the void.
"Um...after you," she whimpered.
Devin looked at Vivian and Meara, seeming none too confident himself, either. He turned back to the doorway.
"...well, we're here. No choice but...to go forward..."
Steeling himself, he marched forward with all the bravado he could muster. As he passed though the doorway, he vanished.
For a moment there was silence. Then his voice emerged from beyond the gate.
"Whoa. This is weird," he called out. Though lost from sight, Vivian and Meara could hear his voice from beyond the dark portal, loud and clear, as though he were only a few feet away.
"It looks safe enough," he called out. "Come on in."
Seeming reassured, Vivian followed through, vanishing through the impossible darkness of the ancient door.
Meara's dread deepened further, now that she was alone on this side.
"Wow," Vivian's voice called out from the void before Meara.
She still hesitated.
"Meara? Come on," Devin called to her.
Meara stepped closer to the gate, just a few inches from the black divide between something and nothing.
Just one more step, and...
She froze up. Her feet wouldn't move.
...I can't do it.
She could still remember it, the one thing she knew before Erinn. The void.
The void that lay beyond death. The void that denies light, denies life, denies memory, denies existence. The void she was trapped in as a disembodied spirit for untold centuries, until Nao had saved her from that endless nightmare.
A nightmare that was now staring her in the face.
It stood before her. It waited. It hungered.
Meara took a step backward, her blood running cold.
I won't go back... I won't go back!
Vivian's voice called out from the void beyond. "Meara, we don't have time for this."
A green-sleeved arm, shoulder, and Vivian's face re-emerged from the void. She reached out, grabbed Meara by the wrist, and dragged her through the doorway.
Meara screamed as she was plunged into the darkness.
Beyond it, Meara found herself in a place shrouded in deep, yet not total darkness. The platform that they stood upon was perhaps floating, perhaps falling, in an infinite void. Swirling patterns of luminous blue and red eldritch runes encircled the small platform, defying the unconquerable darkness with their faint glow. At the ends of the platform, two portals shimmered; one blue, from where they had emerged, and one red at the opposite end.
Vivian let go of Meara and took a couple of steps towards the middle of the platform. "All right. I guess...we go into that one?"
The wonders of the immediate surroundings were lost on Meara, though. All she saw around her was the endless blacker-than-black nothing around her. Fear overwhelmed everything else.
No. No. No. No no no nonononononono NO!
Beyond this little pocket of something, an endless nothing.
She felt the emptiness closing in around her. It hungered! It would devour her and she would be lost again forever.
Meara let out a faint whimper, unable to move. Her companions turned to look back at what was the matter.
No. No! No! I can't be here! I can't be here again!
She fell to her hands and knees. It felt like...nothing. She couldn't feel the platform below her, as if it had no substance.
No…!
"Get me out of here!" she shrieked, "Please...!"
Vivian's eyes went wide, realizing something was very wrong. "Meara? Meara!"
"Meara, what's wrong?" Devin rushed to her side, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Their voices barely reached Meara. She couldn't move. She couldn't see. She couldn't feel. All she could do was whimper uncontrollably and cry. Fear of the nothingness all around her shut out all else.
She fell over sideways, as all sensation faded away from her.
Despair and darkness claimed her.
Meara felt something. Warmth on her face; pressure on her back, and the back of her knees; the sensation of being pulled downward, but something holding her up.
Wait, where is this? Daylight? Am I...being carried?
"Wh-where are we?" she sputtered. She opened her eyes to a blue sky above her.
"Back with us now?" Devin asked. He was holding Meara in his arms.
She nodded, still disoriented from having fainted.
"Luckily, you're lighter than you look. Think you can stand?" he asked.
Meara nodded again. "I think so… How...how long was I…?"
"About five minutes. I'm gonna put you down now. Ready?" Devin carefully lowered her, setting her down on her feet, keeping a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Her balance held, but only barely. She couldn't stop trembling.
"You scared the hell out of me!" Vivian exclaimed. "You had a panic attack or something, and fainted back in that...whatever that weird place was. Devin had to carry you out, and we ended up...here."
Where is this, anyway?
Meara finally took a look around at her surroundings.
At first it looked a lot like Tir Chonaill, but there were immediate and obvious differences. For one, the buildings were decrepit and decaying. And they were standing in the middle of a small crater, in the place of where the village square should be.
"Sorry," Meara said meekly. "I...I'm...just terrified of places like that. Empty spaces."
She'd never told them of the circumstances of her advent into Erinn, and...where she'd been before that; just that she'd arrived without any memories.
"Oh," Vivian said. "Oh, I...really shouldn't have yanked you in then, huh?"
Vivian put her hands on Meara's shoulders. "I'm...I'm sorry…" She turned her gaze downward. "You never said anything about it? We...we didn't know… Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"...what's done is done." Meara sighed, backing away from Vivian. "More importantly, where are we?"
This place looked like Tir Chonaill, but...abandoned?
Grass had overgrown the dirt pathways. Bladed weeds sprung up everywhere. Some of the buildings were boarded up; all of their wood faded and rotting.
They climbed out of the crater and found themselves standing in front of what was the bank, in the normal world. It too was boarded up. The sign out front was too faded to read, the wood sun-bleached and warped. The mailbox was coated thickly in rust.
No signs of life.
"Some paradise this is," Devin scoffed. "What happened here? This is supposed to be Tir na Nog?"
"Maybe I can explain," came an unfamiliar male voice from behind them.
They turned to where the voice came from. A young man had emerged from what would have been Duncan's house. He walked awkwardly, leaning on a cane, barely able to stay on his feet. They walked up to him, going around the crater.
Vivian rushed ahead. "Finally, somebody! What happened here?"
"You're quite brave to come to a place like this..." He stood his cane in front of him, leaning on it with both hands. "I'm Dougal, the last human here, just a loser left behind to guard this ghost town. I think...I'm the last human left alive in this world. It's been years since I've seen anyone else..."
"What is this place?" Devin asked him. "Is this...Tir na Nog?"
Meara looked Dougal over. He looks a lot like how I think Chief Duncan might have looked in his youth. They're even dressed similarly.
"What? The legendary paradise? This? Haha, no. If this was Tir Na Nog, the world where sickness and death don't exist, why would I be crippled like this? This is...just a world that's been vanquished by the Fomors. There's nothing much to see here, but don't take my word for it. Feel free to look around. Who knows? You might find this place familiar. I'd stay away from the graveyard, though. Everyone who was killed...didn't quite stay dead, but they're definitely not alive, either..."
"...The Fomors did this?" Vivian asked.
"It was...a long time ago. We were losing the war...we made our last stand here...but there were too many of them. The Fomors...killed everyone else. Only I was spared..." He thumped his right leg. "And they crushed my leg, so I couldn't run away. The bones never healed right."
"Why just you?" Meara asked? Why would they spare anyone?
"I've asked myself that every day," Dougal answered. "I don't know."
"So...this isn't Tir na Nog, but a parallel world the Fomors conquered." Meara sighed.
Did we get lied to? Are we being led into a trap? Or was this all a mistake?
"It seems so," Dougal lamented. "If this really is a parallel world, it must have some sort of a connection to another world. However, I'm not sure which world is the 'real' one, and which is the 'mirror' world."
"We came here to save the Goddess Morrighan," Vivian asked. "Do you know where she might be held captive?"
"The Goddess, huh? Then search the dungeon in the cave up the road from here. The last three people who came here, some years ago, went there with the same goal in mind. They went in, and...I never saw them again... Hope you fare better than they did."
"Wish us luck, then," Devin said.
Dougal chuckled to himself, turned away, limped over to an old rocking chair by the door of the decaying chief's cottage, and sat down on it. It creaked under his weight. He set his cane aside, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.
"You'll need more than luck."
Meara scowled. It seems he doesn't think much of us.
With no better options, the three headed up the road past the decaying mirror version of the healer's house, Vivian leading the way. However, up where in the normal world Trefor would have stood guard, there was a pack of...feral dogs of some kind guarding the path.
"What are those?" Meara asked.
Vivian drew her sword. "Trouble."
The ragged pack of dogs turned to the three trespassers, growling and snarling. However, after only a moment, something unseen spooked them. They turned and looked about in confusion, then as one, they turned and ran up into the hills.
"...uh, what happened?" Devin asked, bewildered.
Vivian looked around, confused. "It seems like something scared them off, but what…?"
"I don't know, and I don't like it," Meara added.
Vivian started walking again. "We'll just have to be—uh...do you feel that shaking?"
The ground was shaking. Without warning, a huge, horrifying, gray segmented worm-like creature erupted from the ground, just a few feet in front of Vivian.
Vivian screamed. Devin leaped back in shock; Meara panicked and grabbed her Fire Wand, reading a Firebolt.
The giant worm creature lunged at Vivian, gnashing at her with massive foot-long pointy teeth. As she screamed, the creature's hideous mouth clamped down on her left ankle, then started shaking her about like a rag doll.
"Vivian!" Devin screamed, taking aim with his bow at the vile creature. He had a Magnum Shot ready to fire, but hesitated, out of fear of hitting his sister by mistake.
Meara slung a fully powered Firebolt from her wand at the creature, deftly directing it around Vivian. She screamed more as the spell barely missed her. The creature groaned loudly as the Firebolt struck its thick leathery skin. It lost its grip on Vivian's ankle, resulting in her being flung several feet away.
"Now!" Meara shouted.
With a clear aim, Devin fired a powerful shot from his bow. The arrow shot between its huge teeth and pierced right through the roof of the worm's mouth, the arrowhead sticking back out of its skin.
The worm creature topped over to one side and fell limp, apparently dead. Foul-smelling black blood slowly oozed out of its wound.
"What the hell was that!?" Vivian screamed, clutching her mangled ankle. Blood was seeping between her fingers.
Devin and Meara ran to her side.
"Sis! You all right?" he asked, going pale with fright. She was a shade too pale herself.
Vivian hissed through gritted teeth, "Do I look all right? I'm lucky that monster didn't bite my foot off!" If not for her boot, it just might have done so.
"Let me take care of that," Meara said, weakly. She had to suppress the urge to vomit at the sight of blood. Meara tugged off her mangled boot, tightly bandaged her ankle, then used Healing to stop the bleeding.
"Thanks, Meara..." she said weakly.
Vivian tried to stand up, but cried out in pain as her left ankle gave out under her weight and she toppled forward.
Devin quickly caught her. "I've got you. You'd better sit down again..."
"Damnit," she hissed. "Meara stopped the bleeding, but it still feels weak...and I feel dizzy..."
"That's...I think you're going to have to rest for a while, sis," Devin said. He carefully helped her sit down again, then knelt on one knee by her side, holding her hand.
Meara turned her gaze up at the cloudless sky, not wanting to look at the puddle of blood on the ground.
If this world has more horrors like this waiting for us, do we stand a chance here?