The temperature plummeted further, and frost began to form on the stone walls, glittering like scattered diamonds in the meager light. Elliot's breath came in sharp puffs as his body shivered uncontrollably.
"Can you help me?" Elliot's voice cracked with desperation. "I need to know what happened to my father and mother after the fight. My sisters—what happened to them?"
The presence seemed to consider this, the silence stretching like a held breath. "I do not know," it finally admitted, and for the first time, the voice carried something almost like regret.
"Useless," Elliot spat, anger flaring through his fear. "What good are you then?"
"I am far away, in other realms beyond your understanding," the entity replied calmly. "If you truly want my help, you would need to summon me properly."
Elliot's pulse quickened despite himself. "How? How do I do that?"
In response, something appeared in his mind's eye—not seen with his physical eyes, but burned into his consciousness with startling clarity. A symbol of intricate design: eight radiating spikes arranged in perfect symmetry, each arm branching into smaller points that seemed to writhe and shift even as he studied them. Ancient power hummed within its geometric lines, making his scalp prickle with unease.
"The Helm of Awe," the voice whispered, and the symbol pulsed with dark significance Helm of Awe (Ægishjálmr). in the old tongue. This is the key that opens the door between worlds."
"I can offer you power," the voice whispered, suddenly closer, as if speaking directly into his ear. "Strength to break these bonds, to hunt down those who wronged you, to ensure no harm ever befalls those you love again. All I require is your answer to one simple question."
The darkness seemed to pulse with anticipation. Elliot's scarred hands, marked by years of drawing bowstrings and setting snares, clenched into fists despite the rope's bite.
"What question?" His voice was steady now, hardened by desperation and the terrible weight of choice.
"Will you embrace what you truly are to save what you truly love? Will you become the predator instead of the prey?"
The silence that followed was absolute, heavy with possibility and damnation both. In that moment, suspended between hope and horror, Elliot understood that his answer would reshape not just his own fate, but the destiny of everyone he held dear.
Darkness.
Complete and absolute darkness.
Elliot woke to nothing—no light, no sound, no sensation except the cold stone beneath his cheek and the distant throb of pain in his shoulder. For a long moment, he thought he might be dead. Perhaps the mist had taken him after all. Perhaps this was what came after.
Then the smell hit him.
Unwashed bodies. Urine. Blood. Rot. The stench clawed its way into his nose and down his throat until he gagged, rolling onto his side. His stomach heaved, but nothing came up except thin strands of bile that burned his throat.
Where am I?
He tried to sit up, but his body refused. Every muscle felt weighted down, as if someone had filled his veins with sand. His right arm hung useless at his side, still screaming with pain. When he tried to flex his fingers, only three of them moved.
Panic fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird.
"Hello?" His voice came out as a croak, barely recognizable. "Is anyone there?"
Silence answered him—thick and pressing, like the darkness itself was swallowing his words.
Elliot forced himself to breathe slowly, the way his father had taught him when he was small and afraid of storms. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Count to four. But his father was gone now. The village was gone. Everything was gone.
No. Don't think about that. Focus.
He was in a room. A cell, probably. The stone beneath him was smooth, worn down by countless bodies before his. When he ran his good hand across it, his fingers came away damp and sticky with something he didn't want to identify. The walls, when he finally managed to drag himself to them, were close—too close. He could touch both sides if he stretched out his arms.
A cage, then. A small, dark cage.
Time became meaningless. Minutes could have been hours. Hours could have been days. Elliot drifted in and out of consciousness, his dreams haunted by mist and chittering laughter and his mother's face as she pushed him toward the forest. Sometimes he thought he heard voices—low conversations in that broken, clicking language the creatures spoke. Sometimes he heard screaming, distant and muffled, that made his blood run cold.
But mostly, there was silence.
And darkness.
And the slow, creeping certainty that he was going to die here, alone, in this black tomb where no one would ever find him.
The sound came first—a scraping, grinding noise that cut through the silence like a knife.
Elliot jerked awake, his heart immediately racing. Light flooded into his cell, blinding after so long in darkness. He threw his good arm across his eyes, squinting against the sudden brightness. The scraping continued, metal against stone, and then shadows moved across the light.
Three of them entered his cell.
He could see them clearly now, and the sight made his stomach twist. They were even more grotesque in the light—their bodies a patchwork of human and animal features that shouldn't exist together. The one in front, the scarred leader from the forest, grinned down at him with those too-many teeth.
"Wakey, wakey, pretty boy." Its voice scraped like rusted metal. "Time to play."
Elliot tried to scramble backward, but there was nowhere to go. His back hit the wall, sending fresh waves of agony through his shoulder. The creatures laughed—that horrible chittering laugh—and spread out around him.
"Please," Elliot whispered. His throat was so dry the word barely came out. "Please, I haven't done anything. Just let me—"
The first blow caught him across the face.
Stars exploded across his vision. The taste of blood filled his mouth, warm and copper-bright. Before he could even process what had happened, another blow landed—this one to his ribs. Then another. And another.
They came from all sides, fists and feet and something that might have been a club. Elliot curled into a ball, trying to protect his head, his injured shoulder, anything vital. But there were too many of them, and they knew exactly where to hit to cause the most pain without killing.
A boot caught him in the kidney, and he couldn't stop the scream that tore from his throat.
"That's it," the leader hissed, grabbing Elliot's hair and yanking his head back. "Scream for us, pretty boy. Make pretty sounds."
Elliot clenched his jaw shut, biting down on the inside of his cheek until more blood flowed. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. He wouldn't.
But the beating continued.
Time lost all meaning again, but now it was measured in pain—each blow a second, each scream he choked back a minute. His ribs cracked. His nose broke. Blood poured from cuts he couldn't see, soaking his clothes, making the stone beneath him slick and warm.
Through it all, he kept his eyes open, glaring at his tormentors with all the defiance he had left. His father's voice echoed in his memory: A man can lose everything but his dignity. That, they can only take if you give it to them.
He wouldn't give them anything.
Finally—after an eternity compressed into minutes—the beating stopped.
The leader crouched down beside him, its breath hot against Elliot's ear. "Dead yet, pretty boy?"
Elliot didn't answer. He couldn't. Every breath was agony, his lungs struggling to inflate around his broken ribs. His vision swam with red and black spots.
The creature prodded him with one long, twisted finger. When Elliot didn't respond, it chittered something to the others. They laughed, that same bone-chilling sound, and turned away.
"Leave him," the leader said. "Dead or dying. Either way, he's done."
Their footsteps receded. The scraping sound came again—the door closing, sealing him back in darkness.
But this time, Elliot could still see light.
Not from the door. From behind his eyes.
His mother's face. His father's smile. The sunrise over his village on summer mornings, painting everything gold. The taste of his grandmother's bread, still warm from the oven. The sound of the river where he and his friends used to swim, clear and cold and full of life.
All of it was still there, somewhere inside him.
All of it worth fighting for.
I'm not dead, Elliot thought, even as consciousness began to slip away again. I'm not dead yet.
And somewhere in the darkness, in the deep places where pain couldn't quite reach, something small and stubborn began to kindle.
Not hope—not yet.
But the refusal to surrender.
The refusal to die.