Sharp stones dug into his back as Sam fell. He tried to grapple for a hold, but nothing could take his weight and the force of his fall. His arm hit something hard, and the pain blinded him. He felt his right hand go numb, and his gun clattered ahead of him. Again, he tried to hold on to something, a jutting edge that dug into his fingers. Sam hissed, holding on tightly, but he knew that wouldn’t work. His fingers were slipping. Fear weakened him, and when he tried to see what waited for him, he found nothing. Whatever he’d fallen into, it was dark, and he didn’t know how deep it went.

  He tried to adjust his hold, and the stone groaned under his weight.

  Sam would have prayed if he thought it would work. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from hoping for some kind of miracle. He moved his right hand, hoping to work feeling into his fingers; perhaps he could pull himself up before his grip slipped. Moving it slightly sent shivers of pain up his arm. Sam cursed. Above him, he could hear the growling of werewolves. The thought of them catching him hanging made everything worse. He bit down on the pain, closing his eyes as he slowly lifted his right arm to support the left. Bad idea, he realized. The pain came like a storm, shaking his hold, nudging him from the anchor that held him in place. His finger slipped, and as he fell, he braced himself for more injuries. But when he landed, it was so sudden, so shocking he almost bit his tongue in the scream.

  He groaned, trying to breathe. , Sam thought.

  But he couldn’t move. There was too much pain. He felt it everywhere, his head pounded, a deep throb ripping his thoughts apart. He tried to move and swore again. He’d been swearing too much since he dropped into this nightmare. He closed his eyes and tried not to move.

  “You h…have to… Sam,” he whispered to himself. Another thing he’d learned online. In one of those few gaming groups he’d joined, the trick was to look from the outside and use a different voice. A voice that held hope. The voice Sam used now was one of absolute despair. He’d never felt such fear, the sheer volume of dread that had settled in the depth of his soul, and the certainty that he wasn’t going to make it.

  Finally, with one mind-numbing, painful push, he shoved himself onto his back. His breath came shallow, heavy, and fast. All the aches had blended into one unified hell. Sam opened his eyes and peered up at the opening directly above him. He could see a bit of the moon’s light, but the sky itself was an ugly plain black.

  Perhaps Kelly had been right. That leap would have led to his death, but it would have been fast. One impact, swift and destructive. He’d have been dead already. This suffering felt like a worse bargain.

  He groaned, angry at the torture of barely moving his legs. They weren’t broken. He could tell. He felt them, but he also felt that they were not good to move yet. He stayed put, trying to calm his ragged breathing.

  The danger wasn’t over, the opening wasn’t very high above, but he could rest. This was what he’d been looking for, a way to hide from the monsters above.

  He told himself to stop worrying. There wasn’t much he could do, though. So he watched the opening as his body burned with sharp and dull aches. If those beasts came, there was nothing he could do. His gun was down here somewhere, but it was gone. And he couldn’t move his hand to shoot or his legs to run. He was simply done.

  He let that reality numb his fear. There was something calming about being completely helpless, knowing that you had done your best, and now it was time to rest and let the end come. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He couldn’t. There were too many questions rattling in his mind. He’d experienced too much in such a short time. He’d seen his colleagues die. People had jumped out of their windows out of fear of what was in the creeping darkness. Was this what the rapture was like? Hell? He could hazard a guess that this wasn’t hell, though. At least not according to the burning landscape he’d come to expect. This was a different kind of suffering. One he’d have to survive to get answers.

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  First, he had to get up. He needed his gun. There were maybe two or three shots left in it, but he’d probably need that to get out of a tight pinch. There was no guarantee that he'd survive, but he didn’t have to die on his back. He coughed. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt dust falling on his face. That hadn’t happened before, which meant something was coming down. He had to get up. He hated the thought, but he couldn’t just stay there. He started slow, pushing up on his left arm. His right arm ached dully. He could move it, but that would be a whole new world of pain he wasn’t prepared for.

  This new body of his was a marvel. Before the white light restructured him, he would have died from that fall. No, he would have died earlier, exhausted from running; those beasts would have torn through him like a razor going through cloth.

  Sam wobbled once he got on his feet. They shook, threatening to collapse under him, but determination held him up. He moved slowly, first to the left and then to the right. A moment later, he got on his knees, searching blindly for his gun. He found it, taking a glance up just in time to see something move in the darkness above. He staggered right, sliding his Glock back into its holster. With his hands in front, he hobbled forward. As he walked faster, new fears sprouted in his mind. They were not enough to stop him, though. He wasn’t sure of what waited for him, but he knew what was behind him, and he’d rather not face them.

  The path changed from jagged and narrow to wide and back to narrow. At some point, he had to squeeze through, feeling a foot ahead of him to get a sense of the path so he wouldn’t fall off an edge.

  When he found the light, he felt he’d been walking for hours. He staggered toward it, unsure of the bright, yellow light. Yet, hope flared in him. As he got closer, he noticed small differences. This part of the cavern appeared smooth, as if overused. He could see three forms around what turned out to be an odd-looking fire. It flickered, sending sparks about. Blue sparks. On it was something cooking. Sam slowed down. He wasn’t sure what these were, but he’d learned to be careful. He lowered himself, hoping to seem less threatening as he approached. They didn’t notice him until he got close enough to startle them. Sam stood back, waiting for them to attack. He could quickly unholster his Glock, but he’d be a terrible shot with his left hand.

  “Hello,” he called, his voice only a little more than a whisper. They were on their feet now, staring at him as if unsure what to do. He couldn’t see them clearly, but he could tell they were not human. They were shorter, hunched over, and completely covered.

  “I don’t want...” He coughed, pain flaring in his chest. “I don’t want any trouble,” he whispered, and then crumpled to the ground, all thoughts of fighting these creatures vanishing as the last push of adrenaline vanished. His burning injuries, the bruises he’d been braving—they all came like vengeful beasts, wrecking him all at once. He writhed, vision blurring as he suffered.

  He heard whispers, sounds like vibrations. He tried to fight off hands carrying him, but he was too weak. The pain intensified, and he cried out, begging for it to end. Then he woke up to large eyes. They bore into him as if looking for something within his soul. Strange lips moved, and he heard something he couldn’t make sense of. Warmth radiated within him as sweetness filled his mouth. Again, the darkness came for him, and he let it take him. The farther he drowned, the more his pain faded away. Sam took comfort in this moment of relief. He didn’t know what was happening, but he wasn’t dead.

  “You are a strange one,” a voice said in his dream, and Sam woke up to large, glassy eyes peering at him. They were huge, like golf-sized snow globes, and completely dark except for wood-brown irises ringed by thin gold. He couldn’t hold much else except those eyes. They came to him in his many dreams. Sometimes as monsters, but mostly accompanied by the softest of voices he’d ever heard.

  The eyes were not the only thing he’d seen before his final rest for the night. The other thing had blinked into existence immediately after he opened his eyes. It was like the messages from before, but this was different. He tried to see more of it before the darkness pulled him down again, but the words he saw as he sank into the depths of his subconscious were exactly what he woke up to.

  [Trial period over!]

  [Trial status: completed!]

  [Legacy status: D- grade]