Altair was shrugging away the momentary blindness for quite a bit, before slowly regaining back his sight. A sudden burst of illumination can hurt the eyes, and in this case of Altair, where he got drowned in deep darkness for some time, the effect was definitely amplified.
He closed his eyes to ease the blinding pain that lasted for a while, before opening his eyes fully to a blurry sight.
The recovery of his sight was slow, but in a moment's time it returned to its normal visual perception.
Shrugging his head from left to right to shake away the pain that remained he then opened his eyes and met with a terrifying realization.
Something was breathing from above him, its heart beating loudly that you could hear its pulse each second, which indicated that it was an enormous creature that towered over him. Altair, realizing that he might be stuck in a dangerous predicament could only express under his breath.
Fuck
Altair was reluctant to take a look at the creature, dreading what he might see. He however remembered the words he just read on the wall earlier.
Be not afraid... remember
Mustering every courage he had, he slowly tilted his head up to glance at the face of the creature that breathed above his head.
What met him was the sight of a faceless creature, its whole complexion as black as the darkness that enveloped the entire chamber, it was like a being that the darkness itself sent to hunt him down. Without any source of light, it was impossible to track down such a beast, well, granted in this place you cannot see if you don't have any light, however you could only really see it if the creature brought itself upon you. In other words, even if you had light, finding this elusive monstrosity will be close to impossible, except if it came face-to-face with you.
Altair did not even know if he should feel lucky that the towering faceless monster revealed itself to him or not, because on one hand he was given a chance to take a look at the creature and how it appears giving him a rough idea on what he is dealing with, on the other hand he did not know how to deal with it, and if it will attack him at any moment in such close-quarters, which is a fair assumption to make given the beast's unknown nature. Regardless, it was both a boon and a curse to have met with the beast this early and at such an uncomfortable scenario.
He did not know what to do, and so Altair could only freeze in place, hoping that the faceless monster did not notice his presence.
Well, he doesn't have eyes for one, but it would be naivety to assume that a being like that did not have any means of tracking down prey, I'll see how it behaves while trying not to get spotted by it.
The faceless beast tilted its head, its eerily human-shaped face in full display for Altair to see.
A shiver ran down Altair's spine, staring at such an eldritch creature, he did not know what to do and is finding it difficult to focus on its behavior when it doesn't even move from its place, practically glued to its feet dangerously adjacent to him.
Should I just slowly walk away? I am not even sure if this thing could see, however if it could it would have probably attacked me already wouldn't it? Then perhaps its sight is practically non-existent, after all it might have just adapted to its environment didn't it? Then I guess I'll have to see.
Altair waved the torch around carefully and gently, trying to see if the monster reacts to it.
It didn't react to the movement, nor did it react to the change in temperature as I brought the torch close enough, that's sight and sense of touch gone I guess. Okay then, it's safe to assume that this thing relies on sense of hearing in some way.
With that thought in mind, Altair moved his front to face the beast, only to be met with such a horrendous prospect.
The body of the beast was extremely slender, thinner than Altair is in fact, its bones were apparent, displayed clearly underneath its thin skin, its joints were protruding from its willowy skin creating small tears in it even with just minimal movements like breathing. The breastbone of the beast was utterly pronounced, and underneath it placed a massive hollow area where a stomach was supposed to be, without the skin holding it together one might mistaken it for an empty hole that wounded the creature mortally, however it only made it seem like the creature was starved for a long amount of time. The creature wasn't exactly fully hunched, its spine however was still curved, making for a bizarre sight of a gigantic being with an uncanny posture.
It then tilted its head once more, however Altair was already backing away slowly from the unprovoked beast, hoping that it wouldn't detect him executing his escape in action.
He backed off slowly, careful not to stumble on even a pebble to produce even a miniscule of sound.
That's it, keep it going, allow me to get away from you as far as possible, or better yet just stay in place.
Altair continued his backing away, and that's when he noticed something peculiar.
The monster wasn't moving, in fact it only stood in the same place, and that made Altair worry a little bit, but not too much. He gained some distance away from the creature and that's where he was made aware, that his torch was slowly dimming away.
The light in itself isn't dying or in a verge of getting extinguished, however what was clear that it definitely got weaker as the distance between him and the faceless monster grew.
He could only swallow his words upon realizing the terrifying reality of his discovery.
The torch only lights up when the monster is around, or within the vicinity, even if it's nowhere to be seen, the farther you are, the weaker the light becomes until it no longer produces a flame, and vice versa.
In other words, to utilize the unparalleled strength of the torch in a place completely enveloped by darkness, he had to be somewhere near the beast that manifested from its lightless embrace.
Essentially, this torch of his was a blessing and a curse, a cruel joke even. Because who in their right minds would fabricate an object that is only ever useful if the user puts himself in death's doorsteps, which in this case a faceless being with enigmatic traits that he didn't even fully understand yet.
What a shitty torch.
As he whispered those words under his breath, the faceless creature moved at such an astonishing speed, with it the strength of the flame that the torch produced drastically got stronger than he could even process.
Its footsteps weren't audible, nor were its movements in the dark.
Altair was only left standing still without any course of action that he could, waiting for his imminent death that was fast approaching.
However Altair only felt a strong gust of wind pass by him. The creature ignored his presence and went past him. He did not understand what was happening, and was left to himself standing in the middle of the darkness, holding a torch which flames were fading away as the beast continued running towards its destination.
Altair had so many questions inside his mind at the moment, and it truly was hard to process all of them one by one, he felt weakened, unsure of what to even do after realizing the bitter truth, that he might have a slim to no chance of surviving this ordeal. For starters he did not even know what he should be doing, what the clear objective was, and how is he supposed to achieve that with no guidance.
Everything was so overwhelming to just think about and Altair could not help but to be pessimistic about the whole situation, and that's not even mentioning the fact that there is a faceless beast born from darkness which could kill him in a single swipe if it wished to lurking around. He could only sigh, staring at his palm where the lightless torch was being held.
Is this even possible?