I

"Homura, are you sure this is okay?" Madoka asked, her hands clung to the sleeve of Homura's dress.

"I won't tell you it's not dangerous, but as long as I'm here you will be fine." They stood in front of the entrance to the labyrinth. Normally, regular humans wouldn't be able to see it, but since Madoka had strong potential to become a Magical Girl she saw it just as clearly as Homura. It was a translucent orb floating in the air, turning slowly with strings of dark colors waving around inside like heat waves. Madoka stared into it, her heart sinking with dread. She could swear she could hear it speaking to her, in a small sadistic whispering voice. She didn't understand this voice as actual words, it was more like the voice was conveying raw emotions to her, emotions of anger, misery, and despair.

"Madoka, I'll be right here with you the entire time. Even if something happens, and you can't see me, just know that I'm right by your side." Homura looked down at her and saw the raw terror in her eyes. The labyrinth let out a burst of pressure and its distorted coloring rippled. On the surface it felt like there was a gust of wind, and it blew their hair and clothing accordingly. Madoka felt this pressure on a deeper level as well, though. She felt like the wind was blowing right under her skin, tightening around her muscles, and freezing her bones. She clung to Homura's arm even tighter.

"The witch will most likely try and mess with your head while we're in there. Whatever it shows you, whatever it says to you, just know that none of that is real. These are creatures that prey on the negative emotions of humans. Whatever bad feelings you hold in your heart will be amplified. Just think of it as a dream, or a nightmare, and when I'm done defeating the creature that lives inside you will wake up and everything will be fine." Homura looked at her and gave her a reassuring nod. Then with a soft touch, pushed her away and smiled warmly. "I'll need some space while I'm fighting." Madoka released her hands from Homura's dress, almost reluctantly.

Homura led the way into the labyrinth. Its ripples pulsated wildly at her touch, and with a flash of light it seemed to swallow her up. Madoka watched with wide eyes as the light got brighter, and then dimmed until it was almost gone. Homura had completely disappeared but the light still focused around the chain that now seemed to just hang in the air. Somewhere, on the other side of the portal, Homura yanked the chain forward and pulled Madoka in after her.

II

Each step they took sounded off with an echoing splash. They ran down a dark corridor, Homura leading the way with Madoka close behind. Homura was moving faster than she ever had before and Madoka struggled to keep up. She felt the collar constantly tugging on her neck, and she slipped her fingers under it to relieve some of the pressure.

They were in a tunnel, the ground covered in shallow green water, nothing but darkness on all sides except for a blue bead of light somewhere far in the distance. Madoka could hear noises coming from the dark, it sounded like squeaking, like sounds small animals would make. The squeaking got louder and louder until it sounded like there were hundreds of them. As it got louder, it started to sound more and more like laughter instead.

Homura stopped suddenly with an outstretched arm, signaling Madoka to stay back. She reached under her shield and pulled out a gun and started firing shots into the darkness. Each shot lit the tunnel with a flash, and Madoka could see the walls were covered with distorted evil grinning faces drawn onto the wall as if with crayons. With each flash Madoka could see the faces changed slightly, and she realized they were moving — in spite of being drawings they could move!

Homura stopped shooting and the tunnel went completely black again. Behind the laughter Madoka could hear the sound of Homura's gun reloading. The magazine dropped with a splash, and with a series of clicks and slides a new magazine was loaded into place. Homura and Madoka were standing still, but Madoka could hear a splashing footfall somewhere in the distance. Something was running towards them!

Homura started firing into the darkness once again. With each flash Madoka could see creatures that took the shape of men, but were hunched over with long hanging arms. They didn't have faces; where their faces should be there was nothing but rippling distorted colors. With a series of shots, each of their bodies fell, one by one, splashing against the shallow water in the tunnel. Madoka then felt the collar tugging her forward again as Homura started to move. She quickly got her own legs moving to try to keep up.

"Are you okay?" Homura asked, still running.

"Y-yeah!"

They continued through the tunnel, the light at the end getting closer and closer, and brighter and brighter. As the light got brighter, the squeaking laugher started to disappear, although it could still be heard as an echo from further back. Now they could see much more clearly, the walls of the tunnel were visible and Madoka could see that there were no more faces drawn on them. Homura slowed her pace to a walk and started to proceed with caution. "The witch is probably at the end of this tunnel. As long as I'm fighting it, it shouldn't pay any attention to you. If it does, I'll just stop time and move you to safety, so don't be too scared." Homura stopped and looked at her. "I have seen you face these creatures before, and you have always done so bravely, so I am sure you will be alright."

Homura could see the fear still deeply rooted in Madoka's face, although it seemed that her words had given Madoka at least some strength. She shook some of the fear away and tightened her face up boldly.

"Homura... did-"

"GET DOWN!"

Water erupted in vertical fountains on all sides of them, and more of those long armed creatures rose from under the slime covered floor. They descended upon Homura with wide, sharp toothed smiles and drooling tongues.

Homura managed to push Madoka away. She let go of the chain, and Madoka fell to the ground, splashing in the slime. She watched the creatures fall down upon Homura. Homura spun away from them and fired shot after shot from between their group. One clean shot to the face sent one of them falling back and disappearing into the slime where it landed.

Madoka put her hands on the ground, trying to get herself back to her feet, but then something rose from out of the slime: a green, boil ridden hand which grabbed onto her wrist! She screamed, "HOMURA!" More hands rose up and grabbed onto her. They grabbed her arms and her legs, and one of them even grabbed the collar around her neck.

"Madoka!" Homura screamed. She kicked one of the creatures out of the way and spun the gears on her shield. She dove toward Madoka with an outstretched hand — but it was too late!

Just before time stopped, the hands pulled Madoka under. Homura found herself on her hands and knees, staring at her own reflection on a floor covered with sticky green slime. "NO!"

III

"Where... am I?"

Everything was dark, she couldn't so much as see her hand in front of her face. She just sat alone in the dark, curling her body in a tight ball, not knowing what else she could do to protect herself.

Then she could hear whispering. It started as one or two really low voices, but slowly escalated as more and more voices joined in until it was like an entire theater full of people. She couldn't make out any of the words, but she knew she heard some of them laughing. "Help me," she whispered to herself, curling up into a ball. "Someone please help me."

Then, with a 'sschunk' a bright spotlight came on. That same sound came again and again, as more spot lights turned themselves on. They were far overhead and all of them focused on Madoka.

She peeked from behind her hands, and realized she was in a cage. Its steel bars rose high into the sky, twisting and becoming more and more misshapen as they disappeared into the mist of distance above. Then the laughing started again, starting out as low animal squeaks until it rose into a loud mocking laughter. Madoka could see silhouettes of small people walking towards her from out of the fog that surrounded the cage.

Madoka screamed, and scooted as far to the back of the cage as she could. She began to curl into the fetal position once again, but as she did this she realized something: She was naked! She looked down at her own body, screaming in horror as she quickly crossed her legs and covered her arms over her chest. The silhouettes got closer and closer, until she could start to make out their features.

They had the same faces as the drawings that were on the sewer walls, their smiles and grins were drawn with crayons. Most of them held either torches or pitchforks, others just pointed at her with clawed hands and disdainful expressions. Madoka, still screaming, closed her eyes and tried to just wish all this away. She tried to tell herself that this couldn't be real, it was just a nightmare — it had to be! She just needed to wake up and...

She jumped when she felt something grab her arm from behind. She pulled away and realized an identical group of those nightmarish creatures had been approaching her from behind. This group was closer, and were already at the bars, reaching their hands inside the cage and trying to grab her.

She scooted back to the other side of the cage in such a blind panic she failed to even cover her exposed body. Once there, she realized the original group had gotten just as close and were now approaching the cage and reaching their arms in as well. Laughing and grinning and pointing. It wasn't just the front and back, all sides of the cage were now covered by them!

Madoka repositioned herself at the dead center of the cage, where she was just out of reach of the clawing hands that were trying to grab her. She screamed, and batted some of the hands away. She was waving her arms in a blind flurry of panic. If she stayed right in the center of the cage, it seemed they couldn't reach her. Still, that did little to ease her terror, she felt like her mind was going numb with it.

Without thinking why she did it, her hand reached to her neck where her collar should be: and she could feel it, it was there. She traced her hand around, and she felt the chain as well. She could feel it in her hand, and she held it up, but she couldn't actually see it. It was invisible... but what could that mean?

She was snapped out of this thought when one of the hands managed to grab her hair. She screamed and batted her arms at it, but its grip was tight, and pulled her in. More and more hands grabbed onto her as she was dragged into their clutches. Another scream of terror as she was pulled closer to their wicked grinning faces.

With one big thrust of effort, she snapped away, and she felt pain on her scalp as a lock of hair was pulled from her head. The force caused her to fall back on the other side, and again she was fighting the hands until she got herself centered in the cage once more.

"Save me! Someone please save me!" she whimpered, trying her best to keep her eyes on all sides of herself and keep away from their hands. She reached back to the invisible collar around her neck. This collar was her connection to Homura. Homura had let go and that's why she lost her. She looked up to the sky, looking at the high steel bars that twisted and intertwined within themselves like vines of ivy. She screamed: "Homura! Help me! Please! Come back!"

Then, she felt that familiar tug against her neck, and her heart leaped in elation.

IV

Homura appeared in the air just above her, as if she had fallen in from some invisible door that existed in mid air. In one hand she held the other end of the chain, in the other hand a light machine gun. Her high heeled shoes landed on the ground with a click. Madoka grabbed onto her leg, wrapping both arms tightly around it, and pushing her face against the soft flesh of Homura's thigh.

Homura dropped the chain, and stationed the machine gun in both arms as she opened fire. She sprayed the gun back and forth, driving back the crowd with each pass.

Madoka, naked and trembling, still holding on tightly, watched with wide red eyes, peeking out from behind Homura's leg. She was terrified by the pure surreality of where she was; seeing things that couldn't possibly exist, being attacked by creatures that couldn't possibly be. However, she no longer feared for her life, now that Homura was back she couldn't get hurt: She felt safe.

"They keep coming," Homura said as she loaded a fresh clip into her gun and started opening fire once again. She was moving in full circles now, trying to keep the crowd held back as best she could. Madoka was still on her knees and clinging to her, but trying her best not to disrupt her movement. "We need a way out of the cage."

Madoka looked around and spotted something. It hadn't been there before, but it seemed simply thinking about it was enough to make it appear. On the left side of the cage there was a door made of metal bars, with a cartoonishly large padlock keeping it shut. "Over there!" Madoka yelled to be heard over Homura's gunfire. Homura turned, and saw it, and started focusing all of her fire on the lock. Bullets sprayed the lock, but richoteted right off, barely seeming to make any difference.

"Damn it! No good!" Homura grunted as she worked on loading a fresh clip.

Madoka looked past the crowd, and she thought she could see something: something RED! It was far behind the crowd, slowly revealing itself out of the fog as it ran. "Is that the witch"? Madoka thought, with horror. If these monsters were just its familiars, how awful was the actual witch going to be?

As it got closer and closer, however, Madoka realized it couldn't be a witch: It was a girl!


-Atomyst

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