BEXLEY BRIAR
Nothing good can come out of this, she knows, and yet she is still here: impulsive and grandiose as ever, slinking serpentine through the winding caverns of the Abigo Caves.
Light seems falsified now. What does it even look like? She can’t remember - in the oppressive darkness that surrounds her like a second skin, even the idea of sunlight is something strange and magical, strange for a Solterran. Cool mist and deep shadow envelop her, humid and stifling. Bexley knows her braids must be falling apart, but for once she cannot bring herself to care; she is far more concerned with the wet slosh of mud under her feet, the stalactites dripping icily overhead and how they send trickles down her fragile spine, the tears of frustration building in her blue eyes as she rounds the same corner for the third time, feeling her own footprints replayed against the dirt.
It is an awfully familiar feeling, the mouse of Bexley lost in the maze of Bexley. She thinks back to a year ago, the labyrinth that opened up just near here, and the hours she spent winding through it without an end in sight, and the worst part of it all is that, she knows, however she made it out, it was through no worth of her own: something had picked her up and flung her away, like trash, alive, but like trash. And she had woken up bruised and battered at the base of Veneror Peak, dizzy and black-eyed and utterly confused, and knew that her success was only a sleight hand of the gods.
And the gods are busy now. This is terrifying to think about.
The smell of wet moss fills her nostrils, and near-invisible, in the dark, Bexley’s face contorts into a expression of bitter disgust. The cold grasp of her necklace is almost choking. With a deep inhale, she steels her nerves and pushes forward, narrow shoulders scraping against the damp walls, and for a moment she almost thinks she sees a light at the end of the tunnel, a way out, an escape -
And then an ear-splitting shriek echoes from the wall on her left, and it explodes towards her in a shower of damp, rotted wood and dripping moss, and Bexley ducks away just in time to avoid the body that follows, white-eyed and horned, chips and hunks of bone and dust flying off him and into the atmosphere around them: she screams, shrill and fearful, and scrambles backward as quickly as she can, only to hit a wall within moments. Fear turns her pulse to a pulp, shreds every nerve in her body and lights it on fire. With her heart in her mouth, Bex stands wild-eyed and fearful in the corner, watching the dark figure blur and thrash and then reform, too bewildered to say anything other than, What - the hell - are you?
@turhan <3
