By BLAINE ROCHE
Staff Writer
Your brothers trudged along the wooden bridge, it creaking in protest with each step, to the door of the black spire. The bridge was long. Arduous. Testing. Your brothers were slowly migrating to the edge. Without warning, one crumpled and silently falls into the foggy abyss below them. Then two. Then seven. More and more of your hundreds of brothers continued to fall from the bridge in silence. Then there were whispers. Twisted and grotesque appendages slither up the sides of the bridge and out of the cavernous void, writhing and festering like a cold wildfire. Whispers, joined by echoing screams, spoke of the places where malevolent, hateful beings lurk in the dark and screamed out the names of the damned. Within the cacophony of their voices, their ravenous limbs split and split, branching into a myriad of endless claws and fingers. A symphony of scratching and clicking began, conducted by the long, spindled fingers of the countless bony hands, coupled with the chorus of screams and black whispers to create a demented and chaotic hymn. Their song breaks the strongest of wills and pushes the mind far over the brink of madness. They call you to the abyss, to join them where they will forever exist in torment and anguish. They beckon forth and you heed their call, your mind already seized by the manifold of extremities. They poke and prod, carelessly exploring the reaches of a new mind as your feet shuffle closer and closer to the edge of the pit. They toy with your memories, warping and disorienting them, filling your mindless husk with malice and retribution. You’ve reached the edge. They force your gaze into the dark. The limb’s writhing turns to thrashing and the wailing and murmuring become louder. The legion of hands and fingers reach for you, your body and mind-bending before their iniquitous will. In the midst of the now deafening voices, you step forth. Your body plummets down and down, into the countless fingers that enclose around you. Forever you lie in torment, wrapped in madness, the dark voices echoing through you shattered and empty mind.