Panic
He stood there, all alone in that damp, cold, underground cavern. Death seemed to surround him at all sides — quite literally, considering the ankle-deep piles of broken bones that lay scattered about the dirty ground. Every turn he made, darkness swallowed him whole, and now not even the dim lantern could offer any hope for it, broken as it was.
He walked past the skeletal remains of a centuries-dead drunkard, stepped over a rotting wooden crate that held gunpowder and sails from ships long-sunk on the shores of this haunted coast, and stumbled over sharp, moist rocks until — at last — he reached a large crack in the ceiling of the cave where he could look up and see the dull moonlight glowing through the billowing clouds and torrential rain.
Even with all the unnerving disturbances of the pirates' cave, coupled with the sure knowledge of what unspeakable horrors he would soon find upon entering that cursed lighthouse aboveground, he was yet unafraid. From the moment he realized the truth behind the kidnappings, discovered the inhumane tactics of the believers of the "Great Ones," he had steeled his mind and emotions. He had prepared himself mentally for whatever nightmarish things he might encounter on this long, chilling voyage.
With all his careful planning and every bit of his mental preparation, he found himself entirely ill-prepared for the onslaught of rising panic in his chest when he called out for his friend and received no answer save the unending roar of the wind.
Please tell me someone else noticed the edge his voice took on when he kept calling over and over from the cave...