"Enter The Depths of Madness" Chapter 1

Breathing heavily, my heart pounding, I dashed through the dark and haunted woods. I ignored the branches cutting into my arms as I ran. One of the cultists was gaining on me, out of the corner of my eye I saw him pull a cyllintrical tube out of a pocket of his robe. He raised it to his mouth and blew something at the me. Whatever it was hit home, I felt a sharp pain in the small of my back, I gasped and cried out in pain, I almost lost my footing but somehow I managed to keep moving foward.

Out of breath and knowing I couldn't keep this pace long enough to reach town, I leaped over some thick shurbbery and into a small clearing where I saw an entrance to a small cave benethe the remains of a gnarled, deformed tree stump. I ran towards it, caring not what might lie within, my only thought was that I may yet escape the grasps of the mad men trailing behind me.

The Cave was dark and humid, and further adding to my sense of unease was the putrid smell that permeated the air in this long forsaken place, I breifly wondered if he had made a mistake in coming here but then I thought back to the cultists. They couldn't be far behind me now, I could still escape but I need to keep moving.

The deeper I traveled within the cave the more spacious it became. Yet as I crept ever deeper into the dark cavernous space I couldn't shake the feeling that I was no longer alone. As if in answer to my ominous thoughts I could hear an echo from further within the cave, very faint, like claws scraping along the walls.

That was when I realized that carved into the walls around me there were small indintations, the cavern was too dark to see them clearly, I took out my phone and tried turning on the flashlight hoping to myself that maybe these were placards that would lead me to an exit. The indintations were in fact not placards.

Sprawled across the wall was:

?????? ????? ????? ??? ?? ??????

??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???

For the first time I actually began to entertain the thought that maybe I really wasn't alone within the cavern. And, again I could hear the scraping noises. Now overwhelmed by terror, I began to pick up the pace. First jogging, then running, now I was sprinting.

As I ran the scraping noises seemed to get louder and began to become intermingled with multiple voices chanting in a language I couldn't understand.

Suddenly I stopped running, I felt sick, like any moment I was going to wretch. I did just that, I fell to the the floor my whole body heaving with the effort. The scraping noises continued to get louder as did the chanting, it had now become so loud that that I had to place my hands over my ears. I didn't even realize it but I had added my own sound to the cacophony of madness...

I was screaming.