Submit This

“Sorry.”

Anna feigned right then lunged forward, snatching the pall from the young man’s shoulder, ripping it away. His eyes went wide as the earlier spell’s effect took hold once more, covering him in delusional spiders. He yelped, seizing up with fear.

“I have the mommy spider right here,” Anna said softly, taking the pulled up stone from beside her knee and placing it in Clayton’s quivering hands. “If you hold her gently, none of the babies will bite you. Ok?”

“Uh-huh,” the young man whimpered pitifully.

“Just hold her gently and you will be ok,” she reassured him. Anna then tied the pall around herself as a sash and began the descent. Looking over to the apparition, he was now reduced to a faint profile. “Once more?”

Going down proved to be much more difficult than going up. With the rungs of the ladder below her field of vision, Anna had to feel for each one with her tip toes. While none were missing, several were broken, requiring her to test each rung carefully with her weight before descending further. With the broken ones she had to skip the rung entirety, which was both nerve wracking and physically exhausting.

By the time she reached the bottom, the apparition was fading slowly in and out of existence, creating a strobe light effect. Anna moved when there was weak light available, then paused to wait for the next strobe before proceeding further.

Stepping through the broken seal, Anna expected to find the commander there, left where she had last seen him, propped up against the wall beside it.

He was gone.

“Rrrrrrah!”

The commander charged Anna from behind, tackling both of them to the floor. Being on the bottom, Anna took the brunt of it as the dim pale blue light flickered on, then off. The commander noticed something, distracting him. Anna twisted away frantically, kicking wildly in the pitch black at where she thought he may still be at. Her foot found only empty air.

Light flickered on again.

The commander gripped a rusted battleaxe in both hands, swiped from a nearby burial niche. He exhaled with vitriol, nose flaring widely. “Your hands are mine. Witch.”

The light went out.

Whup! Anna heard the weapon chop through the darkness, missing her.

When the light returned the commander was already in mid swing again. He roared loudly, eyes full of bloodlust. Anna jerked gracelessly out of the way, the weapon chopping down, just missing her.

The light went out.

It stayed out.

“I will get you, witch. I can smell your fear,” the commander growled in the darkness. He was close. Anna slowly stepped back from the direction of the voice, being careful to not make a sound.

“Your kind has decimated towns, leveled fields ripe for the harvest. Hunger. Disease. Suffering.”

“It ends now.”

The light remained out. Anna continued to back away from the voice until abruptly stopped by the stone wall behind her. She almost let out a meep in fright, but swallowed it down.

“If you have even a shred of guilt, you will submit yourself to execution. I will make it swift.”

“I will tell everyone you had a change of heart and gave yourself up.”

“Close your eyes,” the stylus whispered, faintly.

“Don’t die a villain, Anna d’Hachimi.”

“Submit.”

“Submit this!” The apparition suddenly flickered back in a bright flash of light.

“Ahhh!” The commander bellowed and stumbled to one side, blinded.

Anna bolted past him for the ruined painting.

“Rah!” The commander swiped one handed with the axe, missing widely.

Anna ducked reflexively, pivoted and dove for the opening. What she intended to be a dramatic move ended up failing massively. She clipped the seal with a shoulder, abruptly stopping. The action sent a shockwave throughout the remaining plaster that caused the whole thing to immediately fracture and come crashing down atop her.

The light went out again.

The deep huffs of the commander could be heard. He was close.

“Over here,” a falsetto voice called weakly through the darkness.

The commander spun in the dark, chopping at the voice. The battleaxe struck a wall, splintering the wooden haft with a loud snap, sending the metal head clattering off into the unseen.

“M-missed me,” the falsetto voice taunted shakily.

The apparition flickered briefly, dimly, appearing to be standing on the bone platform.

Still disoriented, the commander staggered towards the apparition, stepping onto a large sheet of broken plaster atop Anna, squishing her underneath. She let out a sound. The muscular man stopped.

“Nope. Here,” the falsetto voice taunted, strained. The apparition flickered again.

The commander lunged with a tackle.

The bone platform creaked loudly as the commander landed hard atop it. In the pitch black, all Anna could distinguish was the man scrambling around on all fours. The platform creaked again. Then a series of snaps. More frantic scrambling.

“This way!” Anna called out.

She pushed up onto her forearm, reaching out.

Silence.

A distant thud.

Anna exhaled slowly, bowing her head. Several minutes passed.

“Stylus?”

“No.”

Fair enough. It had already done more than she thought it ever would for her. Anna pushed up slowly off the floor, broken plaster sliding off her back, pooling at her knees on either side. 16% meant maybe sixteen minutes. She would have to work quickly.

Powering up her phone for the last time, she turned the flashlight on to examine the situation.

The bone platform still clung to the ledge, though precariously, canted such that it was sloped dangerously towards the vertical shaft. Because the base of the ladder had been fused to the platform, the act of the platform failing had ripped away the first few sections of uprights. Now the lowest available safe rung was out of reach.

Anna considered the platform. It could fail completely at the slightest test. She set her phone down on the stone edge, light shining up, straining her body for the first safe rung. It was tantalizingly close but still several inches out of reach. She strained again, nearly losing her balance. Anna panted with fear and stepped back from the ledge.

She could jump for it, but there was no telling if the rung could handle that much force, both her weight plus the kinetics from the leap. And if she missed?

“Stylus, ideas?”

No response.

She would have to solve this herself.