Dark Night of the Soul.

It's your fault.

One million thoughts pummel your brain. You pace the floor, head bowed.

You wanted to quit the mission, wanted to escape the cave and find refuge in the world above. A refuge Engar will no longer have.

Engar is dead.

Because of you.

The guilt digs its claws into you, rips apart your conscience.

Do you think you can continue being Harbinger? You have failed.

'Harbinger.'

Vilkas' voice penetrates your thoughts. His voice brings you no comfort. You expect barbed words, comments blighted by sarcasm. He doubted you from the moment you entered Jorrvaskr. He had every right to.

'Harbinger.'

A memory scratches your mind. The day you returned to Jorrvaskr to find Kodlack dead. Vilkas stood in the doorway of the mead hall, both hands on his hips, chin jutted outwards, legs planted wide. He'd barred your entrance and interrogated you. With every answer you'd given his eyes had bulged, his lips had curled, and through bared teeth he'd growled, 'I hope it was important, because it means you weren't here to defend him.'

The sinking feeling you'd felt that day, returns to you. Like your stomach has just fallen through your body. As if you have been standing on the edge of a cliff and someone has just pushed you over. And as you flail and fall you realise, there is no stopping your descent.

Kodlack. Now Engar. Both dead. Because of you.

There's a lump at the back of your throat. You can't dislodge it.

When Vilkas speaks again he doesn't call you by your title. Instead he calls your name. His voice is followed by what sounds like someone dumping their armour into a pile on the floor.

You turn, expecting to see disappointment on his face. But, you don't see that. In fact, you don't see his face at all.

Vilkas lies face down on the bloodstained floor.

Many holes piece the cave ceiling, allowing shafts of dusty light to slant downwards. They offer you a glimpse at the world of the living. It's a torment when you know you must remain in the underworld.

You've stripped Vilkas of his armour and dragged him to a large flat stone at the centre of the room.

The stone is sprayed with blood. Some old and faded, other splatters vivid and fresh like droplets of paint from the end of an artist's brush. It serves as a grizzly examination table, but Vilkas isn't conscious enough to protest.

His chest rises and falls in quick sporadic movements. Like a slaughter fish out of water, he opens his mouth, gulps in air, and then tries to take in more.

You clench your hands into tight fists, so that your fingernails dig into the flesh of your palm. You feel useless. You're paralysed by uncertainty. But Vilkas depends on you and that is enough to drive you forwards. So you suck in air through your nostrils, and chew your lip as your fingers fumble across Vilkas' neck.

Vilkas' pulse, like his breathing, is erratic.

You cut open his greying, threadbare shirt with your knife. Pull away the sleeves with trembling hands, and yank off the bandage you tied around Vilkas' arm.

You don't have to see the wound to know what's wrong. The answer careered into you like a bolt from a crossbow when you saw Vilkas on the floor.

The puncture marks from the spider's fangs stare at you like the eyeless gaze of a draugr's face. Your stomach lurches and you lean backwards.

You curse the Nord for his stubbornness, for his pride, but you curse yourself more for not demanding to see his wounds. You curse until you are not sure what else to say, and then you pray for some god to aid you, hoping that your voice isn't buried by the ground above you.

The skin around the spider bite is the shade of a bruised apple. Around it a network of veins have become visible through Vilkas' thick skin, and as you empty your bag of supplies onto the slab of rock, you wonder, how much of the spider venom has been pumped into the Nord's body.

A variety of potions lie in front of you. They glow in their glass bottles like mini, multicoloured lanterns, casting eldritch light onto Vilkas' wax skin.

You scrabble to examine each bottle. The potions inside roll and tumble and slosh about.

Philter of Alteration, Solution of Strength, Conjurer's Elixir, you have a potion for nearly everything. Some you don't even need, but kept because you never know when you might need coin.

There's a tingling in your chest as you go through all your potions. You clench your jaw. Everything, everything but the one you need.

You snatch up the potion that Vilkas gave you when you first entered the cave. Ironic that he had been the one to pick it up, not knowing that he'd be the one to need it.

The stone scrapes your arms as you clamber onto the alter and position yourself next to the Nord. Once seated, you pull Vilkas into your arms.

Vilkas flops in your embrace. His head rolls backwards, his arms are heavy weights.

You pull the cork from the bottle of 'Potion of Plentiful Healing', rest Vilkas against your chest, and use your free hand to cup his chin.

He groans as you attempt to open his mouth.

With the lip of the bottle, you force his jaws apart, hear the clatter of his teeth against glass as he tries to snap his mouth shut. Hoping that he doesn't choke, you force the liquid down his throat.

Vilkas coughs and splutters. For a second his head snaps up. He lurches in your arms, and potion oozes out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin.

There's an ache at the back of your throat. You rub his back, tell him that you are here and that his brother awaits him back at Jorrvaskr.

Vilkas sways before slumping back into your arms. His eyes roll back into his head.

You urge him to drink the potion.

The sunlight is giving up on you.

The cavern darkens, and you look up at the ceiling, watching the shafts as they fade.

Your lips are dry, and your breath catches in the back of the throat.

Vilkas lies in your arms, a heavy weight that reminds you of your failure.

Something needs to be done. You can't just sit here and watch the day fade, along with Vilkas' life.

You slide off the alter, and as your feet hit the floor your knees buckle and you stumble.

The Falmer lived with the spiders. They must have had something to combat poison. You scuttle back into the cavern that the Falmer used as their living quarters.

There's a fence at the far end of the cave where the Falmer kept their Charus herd. Dotted around are red yurts, and you search each one rifling through chests and boxes until you find what you were looking for. A potion of 'Cure Poison'.

The weight of the bottle in your hands, and the splash of its contents as you run back to Vilkas, is comforting.

You carefully tilt the bottle and wash some of the potion onto the spider wound, watch how it fizzes over the bite and turns the inflamed skin a powder white. Then you pour the rest down Vilkas' throat.

The temperature drops .

You hug yourself in an attempt to suppress the shivers that fight for control over your muscles, and you remember the yurts and the beds of fur inside.

It's slow progress, but you manage to drag Vilkas off the stone alter and back into the main living quarters. There, you pull his body into a yurt and roll it into a pile of furs.

The lack of sound from the Nord causes you to check his pulse once again, and you watch the rise and fall of his chest just to reassure yourself that he's still alive. But this action is also filled with dread. The longer you stare, the more you expect the motion to stop.

You tear your gaze away, knowing that to continue to fixate on it will drive you slowly into madness. Instead you busy yourself by tending to Vilkas. You wrap the fur tighter around his body, and when you remember the bubbling spring not far from where the Falmer lived, you take a pot you find discarded on a table and go and collect water.

Now that you have fresh water you rip up bit of cloth, dunk them in the bucket and dab them against Vilkas' clammy forehead.

You fetch Vilkas' armour and weapons and supplies, and pile them in the corner of the yurt, but you keep a tight hold of Vilkas' bow.

There is nothing more you can do.

You sit in the doorway of the yurt with the bow leaning against your body. And you wait for Vilkas to wake. Or die. Whichever comes first.

The darkness grows.

There's fog that lingers on the ground submerged in water. It might be your imagination but, as the blackness of the dark thickens, so does the mist.

Stop staring at things, you tell yourself. It'll only encourage you to see monsters made out of shadows.

The wind howls around the cavern, up and down the tunnels. You're reminded once again at how it sounds like a pack of wolves.

At the far end of the cavern you see what looks like the silhouette of a figure.

Your furious at yourself for letting your imagination take control.

Stare at the ground, you tell yourself.

So you sit at the entrance of the yurt, Vilkas' bow clutched tight to your chest, and cast your gaze downwards.

You feel fingers upon your chin. They are rough and warm, and you catch the smell of earth and what might be blood.

Your heartbeat intensifies.

You look up, meet the gaze of Hircine.