We followed Isgar in silence, the air growing colder with each step. Typical, really—just when you think the day can't get any worse, you get led into god know what. The corridors twisted and sloped downward, as if the place itself was conspiring to send us to hell. Shadows flickered along the walls, stretching and warping in ways that made the stone look more like jagged teeth. Fitting, I suppose. The pits sound like a place that swallows you up.
The others shuffled along behind me, their footsteps slow and hesitant.
"Don't worry," Isgar said with that irritating grin, "the trial itself ain't hard.There are four pyres in the pit, light as many as you can and make your way back—simple, right?"
Simple. Like gutting a bear with a butter knife. His idea of "simple" was probably watching us stumble around in the dark until we were picked off one by one. That grin of his told me as much. Like a man who already knew the punchline to a joke only he found funny.
"What if we only light one?" I asked, more out of spite than anything else.
"Then you only light one," Isgar replied with a shrug, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Daris chimed in, brow furrowed. "So does it matter how many we light?"
"It does," Isgar said, in that vague, superior tone that made you want to throttle him.
Kel, ever the one to voice what the rest of us were thinking, grumbled, "Do you have to be so cryptic?"
Isgar sighed dramatically, like we were the ones making this difficult for him. "I know the first lesson is how critical thinking is bad, but common sense is still encouraged. Clearly, the more you light, the better your result."
Common sense, I thought bitterly. Sure, if you had any of that, you wouldn't last too long in this place. Common sense told me to run, high knee it right to the outside. But I held my tongue, because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sarcasm rarely helps when you're about to walk into the maw of something hungry.
We reached the iron door at the end of the hallway, its edges crusted with rust. Isgar leaned against it as casually as if he were leaning on a bar counter. Probably just as drunk on his own smugness. "Before you go in," he said, his lazy grin returning, "a little advice."
Thalen, barely able to hold himself upright, glanced up with wide, trembling eyes. Rylin and Sael stood shoulder to shoulder, the twins as stoic as ever, though I could see the tension in their bodies. Kel was still rubbing his eye, though the injury had healed. Meris, always distant, stared straight through Isgar, like she wasn't even there. Daris crossed his arms, his muscles tense under his shirt, his jaw still clenched.
"Whatever happens in there," Isgar continued, "Don't let the flame go out, stay in the glow of the torch. Keep moving but never run—" He paused, eyes glinting with a kind of dark amusement,"—remember, you're not alone in the Pit. There's always something watching."
A shiver ran down my spine as Isgar's words sank in. The way he said it—the way his grin twisted at the corners—made my stomach tighten. There was something else down there, in the Pit. Something beyond the cold and the dark.
Daris shifted uneasily. "You could've mentioned that before," he muttered, eyes narrowing at Isgar.
Isgar's grin widened. "Where's the fun in that?"
Fun. Right. Maybe for him. For us, not so much. As the iron door creaked open and that icy draft hit me, I had to suppress a shudder. It wasn't just the cold—it was that smell. That mixture of burnt wood and something fouler, something that raised the hair on the back of your neck. Rot? Or maybe that was just my imagination playing tricks. But then again, imagination's all you've got when you're staring into the darkness that was the pit.
"Good luck," Isgar said, handing Daris a torch, its flame barely sputtering to life. Yeah, good luck—like that's ever been on my side.
Daris took the torch, his muscles tense as if holding it made him feel like he had control over this nightmare.
"Shouldn't we all get torches?" I asked but Isgar just grinned.
We stepped into the Pit, one by one, like lambs to the slaughter. The air felt thicker here, heavy with that same mix of rot and cold. I glanced back at Isgar, who stood leaning casually against the doorframe, his grin fading as the darkness swallowed us. He wasn't grinning now. That should've been a warning.
"Stay in the light," he'd said, with all the enthusiasm of a man reading from a script. The kind of script that ends with us dead. Sure, stay in the light if you've got enough to keep it burning. The torch Daris held barely lit the ground beneath us, casting more shadows than light, the flames flickering like it was struggling just as much as we were. Which seemed like a cruel metaphor for our current situation. A struggle to stay alive, and not much to show for it.
"We need to find something else to burn before this burns out," Daris said, his voice tight with the pressure being the torch bearer.
I looked around, but unless we planned to set the smell of rot on fire, there wasn't exactly an abundance of kindling.
Then, a thought struck in me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my dorm room key. The sharp edge glinted faintly in the dim light. Not much of a weapon, but it'll do. I used it to cut a strip from my shirt, the fabric tore surprisingly easily.
"Add this to the flame." I handed Daris the torn fabric, a pitiful offering from a desperate man
Daris nodded without a word and added it to the flame. The torch sputtered, flared for a moment, casting a little more light. Not enough to comfort, just enough to make sure we were all covered in the glow.
The flickering light did, however, give us a better look at our surroundings. And, unsurprisingly, that didn't help either. The walls stretched out in jagged, uneven patterns, like they'd been carved by something wild, something that didn't care about neat edges or balance. Shadows danced along them, twisting and contorting in ways that made my stomach churn. Every crack and crevice seemed like it could be hiding something far worse than the darkness itself.
Great. More places for something to jump out and kill us. Good to know.
Thalen was practically vibrating with fear, his wide eyes darting around like he expected something to leap out and rip him apart at any second. "I saw something move, over there," he whispered, his trembling hand pointing into the abyss.
Kel squinted in the direction Thalen indicated and shook his head. "I don't see anything."
Neither did I. Just a thick, suffocating wall of blackness. But I didn't doubt him. Not one bit. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, my skin crawling with the unmistakable sensation of being watched. Something was out there, lurking just beyond the fragile reach of our pathetic torch. Waiting.
Daris's voice cut through the tension, low and clipped. "Let's hurry and get out of this place. It's making me feel uneasy."
Daris was trying to sound confident, and maybe it was working for the others, but I wasn't buying it. Not for a second. "Uneasy" didn't begin to describe the gnawing dread that clawed at my insides. It was the kind of feeling that digs deep, like an old wound that refuses to heal. And the thing about fear—it makes you imagine all sorts of horrors, most of which are probably worse than what's actually out there. At least, I hoped that was the case.
We pushed on, the torch casting just enough light to remind us how little of it there was. The darkness beyond was solid, pressing in, almost as if it were alive. I kept glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting to see a pair of eyes gleaming back. But no, just more darkness. Nothing to see, and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something was seeing me.
"Almost there," Daris muttered, his tone just as clipped as before. Ahead, the faint glow of the first pyre glimmered like a mirage. Not far, but in a place like this, "not far" could mean a lot of things. And none of them good.
"We got this" Kel said, and i allowed myself to believe those words.
It's funny, isn't it? When everything's falling apart, you start acting like you've got it all figured out. Maybe because if you admit you're terrified, that's when fear really digs its claws in, and it's all downhill from there. I don't plan on dying scared. Not here. Not like this.
We kept moving, the flicker of the pyre getting brighter with each step. But the dread kept growing too, coiling tighter, squeezing like a noose around my neck. The shadows—they weren't just shadows anymore. They felt like eyes, cold and unblinking, waiting for that one wrong step. Just one. And I could almost hear them whispering, promising what would happen when we stumbled.