Lucien stared at the ominous staircase. He stared until his eyes started drying, after which he finally remembered to blink.
He was entranced by the staircase and by a strong, metallic odor that invaded his nose, coming from below.
Lucien carefully approached the staircase, his muscles tense. His legs were especially tight, ready to bolt at any moment.
It's… dark, huh? Lucien observed quietly as he took his first step down the staircase.
CREAK.
How old is this..? It's creaking so loudly! Lucien thought to himself, his jaw still clenched. His legs tensed further at the sound, and his nose recognized the strong, disgusting stench of rot mixed with blood.
Lucien took another step down, then another, then another. By the time he had taken twelve steps, he felt it was enough.
He turned around, only to find no exit. His sight was taken away, leaving him in complete darkness.
What happened!? My vision..! Lucien panicked, his thoughts turning into a wild current, impossible to organize.
In the midst of his panic, Lucien slipped. He fell, rolling all the way to the bottom of the staircase. He stood up shakily, immediately feeling something slimy coating his legs.
"AAH!" he screamed. He bolted toward the direction he believed he had fallen from, only to faceplant into a hard, unforgiving wall.
Ugh… having no sight is so— He bumped into something else. Something softer. Something slick.
"We elves have great hearing due to our ears, so follow your hearing if any of your other senses are unavailable." Lucien remembered his grandfather's words.
I thought that was a biology lesson! I didn't think I'd ever encounter a situation like this myself…! Lucien cursed inwardly. Then he stopped thinking altogether. Even if only for a moment, he focused.
He listened.
Drops of liquid dripping, then splattering against the floor. A faint straining sound, like thick fiber being pulled tight.
Is that— What even is that sound? Lucien pondered, his brows furrowing as his open eyes instinctively narrowed. He tried to make out the shape of whatever fabric that sound belonged to, relying on sight that simply wasn't there.
"Ugh! It's way too dark!" Lucien exclaimed in frustration. He threw his arms up in exasperation, hitting something. That something rebounded and struck him in the face. It was hard, yet parts of it felt disturbingly soft.
Lucien relied on his hearing to navigate the dark space, bumping into several of the same objects over and over again.
He slipped.
When he fell, he felt something vile beneath him. A thick, wet substance smeared over his arms, soaking the side he landed on. He even felt some of it touch his chin.
Ack! Ew! Yuck! What is this slimy liquid!? Lucien complained in his thoughts. He gagged violently, almost vomiting. The stench was unbearable, and his face twisted in disgust.
He tried to stand, only to fall again, his hand grasping onto something solid for balance. He heard cogs turning, followed by the unmistakable sound of a lever being pulled down by his body weight.
FLASH!
Lucien squinted hard, his pupils shrinking to the diameter of a sewing needle. The room flooded with blinding light. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted. The first thing he looked at was the floor, desperate to understand what he had slipped in.
"AAH! What's this!? AAH!" Lucien shouted as he stumbled backward, his body slamming into something that rebounded and struck him again.
He turned around to see what it was, and his jaw dropped in absolute horror.
The sounds of straining fibers and dripping liquid finally made sense.
Reflected through the lens of his eyes was a scene of pure nightmare. The soft yet solid, slimy thing he had been bumping into… it had been a rotting, decomposing corpse all along.
Hung from the ceiling by jute ropes tightened around their necks were dozens of corpses. The liquid coating his arms was thick blood mixed with decomposing, slushy organs.
The hairs on his arms stood on end as chills ran down his spine. His eyes were blown wide. The sounds of dripping blood and strained rope became overwhelming, and Lucien collapsed to the ground.
After a moment, he forced himself to move and followed the source of the light. After all, he had heard cogs turning, so the lever couldn't have only activated the light… right?
He followed the glow, and after what felt like an eternity of carefully avoiding the hanging, rotting bodies, he finally reached it.
He stepped closer. "What's this..? A luminary stone?"
Lucien reached out and tried to grab the stone. The moment his skin touched it, searing pain shot through his palm.
"Agh! What's this!?" he yelped, jerking his hand back. The stone slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the floor.
"Geez… who makes things like this..? The corpses are already scary…" Lucien muttered, his charred hand trembling violently.
He stared at the glowing stone lying on the ground, his eyes narrowed.
An odorless luminary stone that burns anyone who touches it? How was this even created? It's so bright I might go blind just staring at it…
Lucien scanned the room for anything non-flammable. There has to be a way to pick this up. There's no way this thing has just been lying here, in this random basement I've never seen…
All he found were hanging corpses, a blood-soaked floor, and yellowed walls splattered with dried and fresh stains alike.
Finding nothing useful, he approached the stone again. This time, he didn't touch it. He simply observed it in silence, trying to reason through the fear.
"Well… if I can't pick it up and there's nothing here that can… I'll just come back to this later," Lucien muttered, his shoulders slumping. He took a deep breath and sighed, utterly defeated.
One last time, Lucien scanned the room for anything that could help him retrieve the stone. That was when the stench hit him again. The putrid scent of rot filled his lungs, sharper than before.
Grandpa… What would you do in my situation?
The thought echoed in his mind, silencing all others.
A pause.
No… now's not the time to think of him. I have to leave my morals behind.
Grandpa… if you're watching me right now, please don't be disappointed by what I'm about to do.
Accepting those thoughts, Lucien walked toward one of the least decayed corpses and untied it from the ceiling, holding his breath to avoid inhaling its foul stench.
He knew this was a grave act of disrespect toward the dead, but his curiosity burned stronger than his guilt.
Slowly, he approached the luminous stone and used the corpse's half-rotten hand to pick it up.
Immediately, the hand began to char. Moments later, the corpse itself started decaying at an unnatural speed. The remaining blood lifted from the body, levitating into the air and forming a bowl-like shape. The stone absorbed it greedily, shifting from bright yellow to a deep, radiant indigo.
"What… just happened?" Lucien whispered, his body trembling at the atrocity he had committed.
He clutched his face, his nails scraping against his skin, nearly tearing his lower eyelid. "It absorbed the blood? Grandpa… did you know this was here..? Is this your gift to me? Please… say it isn't so. Please, Grandpa… tell me I didn't just use the corpse of one of our fallen brethren to test this thing."
"I… I'm not a monster! What have I done!? I deserve death!"
Lucien grabbed the stone with both hands, gripping it tightly as if inviting his end.
As expected, the stone scorched his flesh. Blood began to pour from his eyes.
DRIP. DRIP. DRIP… FLUSH.
Lucien screamed at the top of his lungs as unbearable pain tore through his body, his hands burning while an unknown force sucked the blood from him.
I'm… really going to die, aren't I? he thought weakly. Maybe I deserve it… for disrespecting the dead.
His eyelids fell shut, and he collapsed.
By then, the stone glowed a pure white, having absorbed Lucien's blood.
SQUELCH. THUD. STEP.
"Well… how peculiar. A barely eighteen-year-old child made it here? I must not have hidden this place well enough. You're still alive, huh?"
A mysterious figure approached Lucien's fallen body and crouched beside him. Their face was distorted by an unknown force.
"That mark on his shoulder… so you're one of their descendants? Four spearheads of the highest valor, hm? Those ears… there's only one elf from that lineage that I know of. Lucifer's grandson, huh? How ironic. The name Lucifer is tied to demons, yet he was an elf… and your name is Lucien. 'Light.' How fittingly ironic."
The figure chuckled darkly.
"Look at me, talking to an unconscious child. I must be losing it. I'll let you live this time, for Lucifer's sake."
"Well then, I'll be taking this stone—"
The figure reached for it, only to be blinded by a burst of white light.
"NO! THE STONE! MY LIFE'S WORK!"
The stone phased through Lucien's skull and embedded itself into his brain.
"NO! TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF KNOWLEDGE! HOW DARE YOU!? I'LL KILL YOU!"
The man conjured a massive bubble of water, trapping Lucien inside.
"Hehehe… once you're dead, I'll extract your brain and claim that knowledge for myself."
His face twisted into madness. Wrinkles sagged across his skin, eyes bloodshot. On his forehead was the same intertwined serpent mark, though with only two spearheads instead of four.
Suddenly, the bubble burst.
"What!?" the old man gasped.
"You've gone too far this time, Eldran." A stern feminine voice echoed through the basement.
Lucien's eyes fluttered open, his vision blurred and unfocused.
"No… of all people! Nyriel, you wench!" Eldran shouted, hurling a spear of compressed water.
Nyriel deflected it effortlessly and plunged her hand straight into his chest, ripping out his heart.
SQUELCH. BADUMP. SPLAT!
She crushed it underfoot.
Eldran's lifeless body collapsed.
Lucien watched in terror, trembling as the brutality of the world revealed itself before his eyes for the first time.
Nyriel looked down at him. "You're about my age, huh? First time?"
Lucien recoiled, staring at her like a feral beast.
"Wow. You're really scared stiff. Can you even see me?" she asked coldly.
"You're lucky to be alive. I'm leaving now, so stop staring. It's disgusting."
Nyriel vanished.