While Elaina frantically flipped page after page, Janet struggled to escape the grip of her former husband.
“Any man who casts a look onto this page will transform immediately. This page, along with the rest of this book, has been bestowed with Darpish magic. The content on this page does not need a verbal component, but is simply binding through the vision of an eye… However,…””, Elaina read out loud, as she stopped on a random page about a quarter of the way into the book. “You knew about this, master?”
Since her master was busy tightening his grip on Janet, Elaina kept reading the words on the page out loud: “… However, it merely changes their genders and identities. Thus, men become women, and women remain unaffected by any magic on this page. Well, that explains it. I guess, we have no use for these two anymore, master! I am going to find the perfect spell for the one, you are holding now… Hmm, let’s see… Something, which shall forever bind her in stone…”
Janet was desperate now. This was unlike anything, she had ever experienced before. Sweat was dripping from her body, and Janet could almost feel her heart, beating against her rib cage. Steve had never hit her, and she was quite sure that he had never thought about it either. But this creature, which was pressing on her hips at this moment, was no longer Steve. This demon. This warlock, or whatever it was, could only have come from hell, and Janet felt very strongly that this was where she found herself right now.
Suddenly, Janet felt the possessed Steve’s hand, which started to burn with a green fire, scorching her flesh and inching its way deeper into her hip.
The possessed Steve exclaimed with a terrifying, maniac laugh, from which the echo consisted of distorted, demonic cries.
As a counter reaction, Janet screamed and, in her desperation, she managed to wrestle her body around, facing the possessed Steve’s side neck and bit into it as hard as she could.
The house immediately was filled with a creepy roar that would resemble a dark techno soundtrack, played in reverse.
When Janet had spit out what looked like black chunks of rotten flesh, surrounded by a tar like substance in the direction of Megan, Janet screamed from the bottom of her lungs at Megan:
“RUN, MEGAN! RUN!”
The sheer intensity of the sound waves from her mother’s mouth, shocked Megan to her very core. Her mother had never yelled at her like that before. They had been in a fight before, of course. Megan had developed a bit early in that regard. But never had she felt such fear in her mother’s voice, while seeing her wide, insecure and trembling eyes. Just on the cusp of crying. Something about this whole dystopic scenario made Megan uncurl and jump up within a split second where after she felt her legs, carrying her towards the front door.
It was only then that Megan began to realize, how far she had come, but in doing that, she stumbled over some planks in the entry hall. Merely twenty feet from the entry door.
“Going somewhere?” A rough, darkened voice behind her said.
Megan’s girly cry echoed throughout the entire house, as she noticed a tiny, odd looking creature, after she had turned her head.
“Shhh, human girl!” The creature shushed while it seemed to keep a calm voice. “You’re giving me a headache with that!”
“Sorry… But…”, Megan was confused. Why didn’t this creature attack her? “I’m sorry, but…What are you?”
“I…”, the creature stopped immediately, as it seemed to notice the possessed Steve who was approaching and looked like, he had given up on Janet.
“Hurry, human girl!” The creature said quickly, as he grabbed Megan by her arm and lead her through a trap door in the floor next to the entrance.
It was only a few seconds after the creature had closed the trap door that they both sat underneath it, while they heard the possessed Steve above, breathing loudly in his demonic fashion.
“Do not make a sound!” Whispered the creature to Megan, as it gently held her head in what appeared to be its claws.
Minutes passed before they dared to even move. Then the creature summed up its courage and got up. It reached out one of its claws to take Megan’s hand, so as to guide her down through the steep staircase, which she was now able to see in the dark.
Megan’s hand was shaking, as she extended it towards the tiny creature, but as soon as she touched the claw, a sense of calm came over her. The claw didn’t feel cold or even sharp, for that matter. It felt gooey, soft and had a nice warmth, pulsating from within, almost affectionate.
“Don’t be scared, human girl.”, the creature said soothingly. “I am not going to harm you. We will just go down into my cave. I have some extra space for sleeping, if you are in need of refuge.”
Megan carefully put her foot onto the first step of the long staircase. Guided by the creature’s hand, she was able to keep her balance in the small corridor, in which she felt like a giant next to the tiny creature.
“So, what are you?” Megan asked. “I have never seen anybody or any animal that looks like you before.”
They went down a few more steps, before the creature answered:
“I am a gump… A very rare species these days, it seems. At least, it has been years, since I met a fellow one of mine… I remember when there were still more of my kind. I was even married once. A beautiful woman, named Sandrine… Oh, I havn’t mentioned my own name yet, have I? How rude of me! Excuse me, human girl! My name is Benjamin. Benjamin the gump.”
“Alright. Hi Mr. Benjamin!” Megan answered. “My name is Megan. Megan Donaldson.”
“Ooo… Why look at that? A Donaldson, you say?” Ben exclaimed. “I once knew a Donaldson, although that was, in fact, his first name. Donaldson the gump. We don’t deal with surnames a lot. In fact, I don’t remember a single gump, of whom I have known their surname… Not much use for it when you only know a few neighbors and live underground anyway… I suppose, you could call us mole people.
“How come there are not that many more left of your kind, Mr. Benjamin?” Megan asked, intrigued.
“Well, my dear.”, Ben explained. “I am afraid, the sad reality is that we’re not very friendly to one another. We deal with you humans just fine, but when it comes to cooperation amongst our own, we gumps tend to become very aggravated and even hostile towards each other. That is, of course, assuming we meet another one these days.
“But what about your wife, Mr. Benjamin?” Megan asked again. “You must have loved her.”
“I sure did, Megan. I sure did.”, Ben replied. “Sandrine was a very good example of the rare love, you only hear about in myths and long forgotten tales.”
Ben stopped on a step for a few seconds and chocked back a forced sniffle.
“Why are you crying, Mr. Benjamin?” Megan asked when she noticed, Ben was shedding a tear.
“I’m sorry, human girl.”, Ben replied with grief. “It’s just… It’s barely been five years, since she died, and I miss her so much!”
Both of them climbed down the staircase in silence for a while. Megan felt Bens hand shaking every now and then, and sometimes they even had to stop, so he could carefully remove the water from his eyes with the palm of his claw. After the third time, he did this, Megan pulled out a pack of tissues, she had in her back pocket, and dabbed his eyes gently.
“Thanks, Megan.” He spoke. “You surely are one of the nicest humans, I have met. And believe me, when the house above was built on top of my cave… This was decades ago and I hadn’t even built this staircase, we’ve been walking on for the past ten minutes, yet… I had a few run-ins with construction workers. They weren’t very nice, though. They were always huffing and puffing, always complaining about their co-workers being too slow, their salaries and their wives. And I would just always think to myself: ‘Good that I am not a human construction worker’.”
Ben sniffled a bit again at the thought of his wife.
“But here we are now.” Ben said, as he opened a half round wooden door with metal bolts on one side. “My home.”
Bens home was nicely decorated with the finest carved wooden and metal objects. Even silk tapestries hung all over the place.
“Wow.” Megan exclaimed with cheerful joy. “This must have taken you so long.”
“Well, you know. I had a lot of time too.” Ben humbly said. “But we better get to bed now. It is already late, and we’ve been through quite a lot today. Haven’t we, Megan?”
“Yeah…”, Megan said pensively. “But I…”
“You can borrow my bed for tonight, and I’ll make myself a little place from some of this hay over there by the fire. Hay is a good insulator.”
Megan still stood there in silence, as she looked at Ben while thinking things over.
“Or you can have the hay?” Ben suggested. “I’ll help you arrange it comfortably.”
“No, it is not that, Mr. Benjamin.”, Megan said with concern. “It’s just… My family. You know, they are still up there. And I don’t know what happened to them.”
“Oh.” Ben said. “I understand.”
They looked at each other in agreement. Both already knew the responsibility, Megan felt in that particular moment. Where was her family, and what had happened to them? Surely, it had something to do with that strange book, emanating green light. She knew, she had to find out more. Though, before she could make a decision about what to do next, Ben said:
“I know, you need to search for your family, but child, you are exhausted, and I can see, you got some scratches on your arm from the fall before. You need to rest for the night, before you can proceed to do any sort of sensible activity… But it is your choice, Megan. What do you do?"
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