There are a numbered few experiences as peaceful as coming just short of learning what it means to drow, once the fight is over and that smooth serenity has seeped into every part of you.


    Nikola fought. He wrestled against the formless weight above him, yet his hands could never break the surface. It remained firmly beyond grasp, each movement as useless as slapping air. His legs fared similarly, kicking helplessly as he flopped around, unable to right himself or get any closer to precious air.


    Vaguely, he recognized it was as if something were pulling him down, like a lover’s embrace around his midsection.


    There was nothing there, yet he flailed aimlessly, never rising nor sinking further.


    His lungs burned, his throat tense, and it wasn’t long until an involuntary gasp sealed his fate. A singular, large gulp of icy water forced its way down his throat, and he spasmed, searing pain tearing through his chest until it, too, grew cold.


    There was no use in struggling, not anymore—Nikola stilled, not allowing himself to float so much as simply surrendering. That the act left him gently adrift in the water was mere coincidence.


    Overhead, he could see flickers of light, the spectrum of candlelit oranges and something silvery beyond.


    But above all, one thought rose to the forefront of his mind—if he gave in, everything would be fine. There would be neither pain nor fear where he was going.


    Only the pleasant ataraxis of becoming one with the world.


    Nikola’s eyelids fluttered shut, the soothing coolness caressing his skin as time seemed to come to a halt. One second, he felt peace—in the next, simple nothingness.


    A dull pressure tore past his spine, like a claw latching on to his navel. Smaller points, like swift blows, hit his body elsewhere, and his mouth contorted into a gasp without air, his writhing too weak to be meaningful.


    Still, he caught blurry sight of his forearms as his eyes snapped open, unmarred despite the sensation that had just ripped through them. Distantly, he had expected he would learn he was now little more than a mangled corpse, yet he found he was entirely unhurt—all of a sudden, his perspective of the world shifted, and he was propelled upwards as innumerable tendrils of ash-gray rose all around him.


    Nikola choked, the water forced from his lungs as more wisps of shadow pierced him, visible now as they had not been under the waterline. He had yet to bleed regardless.


    Pinned as the well appeared to become the narrow end of a funnel, he could only watch as those tendrils panned further out, coming to a stop on the edges of the grate above. Each shadow was immovable, holding his body in place. Struggling felt unnaturally painless, his flesh simply held in place instead of being shredded against the dark threads.


    At some point, he grew aware of his chest moving—up, down. The coughing subsided, followed by some of the most satisfying breaths he had ever drawn in. A pleasant tingling spread through him, and his ears popped.


    Voices grew loud enough for him to hear, coming from everywhere and nowhere, yet so clear they might as well have been whispered by his neck.


    “So you tried to get your new assistant out, only to kill him anyway?” the voice sounded like and reminded him of that of Maria Adianoeta. “When did I teach you to be so wasteful?”


    His brain had turned to mush, and it remained that way.


    “I begged of it to return him to me, but it would not.”


    Nikola wondered who or what they could possibly have been talking about. “Because it eats everything it gets its claws on within the instant, you fool!”


    What a strange family.


    Something akin to sleep covered him like a blanket once again, the unconventional restraints being the only thing that kept him from curling in on himself, then and there.


    The last he heard of the matriarch’s voice reached his ears like a whisper carried by breeze. “And to think, I had wondered if he noticed me. I wished to know what his blood could do for our senses.”


    For an indeterminate amount of time, he hovered like this, teetering between awareness and something else. Nikola sighed the next time he felt himself grow fully awake, the scene above the grate playing out with impossible clarity. Before his tingling eyes, feet shuffled, their movements through the uneven surface cautious.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    “Boss, you sure this is the best spot?”


    “It is. Worry not—we aren’t the only guests who will end up here.”


    “Whatever you say, boss.”


    There was something familiar about the voices involved in the exchange, but they were soon drowned out by others, as the area above them became more populated—the second speaker’s assessment had been accurate, after all.


    Nikola almost drifted away again, only for the scrape of something against metal to catch his attention. It was a strange state to find himself in, as if only motion and sound sufficed for him to return to reality. He barely felt like a person anymore—only reacting to stimuli, watching what transpired above, enabled him to evade the allure of thoughtless sleep.


    “I must rejoin my grandmother at once. Wait here, for I shall return soon,” it was a voice he recognized that spoke. John… John Adianoeta.


    Even reaching that conclusion felt like sifting through murky waters.


    Nikola blinked, for the first time making an attempt to remain conscious. It was as arduous as his struggle within the well, draining him not only physically but in a way he could not parse, but he held on until the moment a horn blared across reality itself, filling him with energy as the fog lifted once again. For the time being, whatever kept trying to keep him dull appeared to back off.


    And that was when it hit him.


    The altercation with Clarisse Adianoeta as she dragged him to the hidden catacombs. The bizarre well. The ruined contract.


    Drowning, for he certainly had.


    Now he laid pierced by what looked the part of a treetop, shadowy branches curling up towards the edges of the grate as his body remained near the center, the well under him. Though he could not see it, something told Nikola the waters remained unblocked beneath.


    Waiting.


    Why would the waters be waiting?


    An ear-shattering scream tore from a woman’s throat just above, a mess of hair and fabric hitting the ground. Strands dangled through the grate, and crimson droplets fell like tears. Shouts replaced her eternal silence within an instant, a cacophony that lit the spark necessary for Nikola’s struggles to commence anew.


    He writhed against the ashen shadows, knowing full well that there was nothing he could do to free himself. Only then did the absent wounds begin to ache, as if they were scrapping at his insides with his twisting.


    That only fueled his desperation further.


    Throughout his life, Nikola Zuzen had been little more than a doormat. An unfavorite son, and the last choice for every job he ever applied to. It was true that he had failed to put himself out there, that he had erred in the side of meekness when some assertiveness might have taken him further, but it had seemed the safer path at the time. He would rather make neither enemies nor friends if it guaranteed him he could at least subsist.


    Now, he wished he had quit this job. He wished he had come up with an excuse to avoid the trip he had never wanted to go on in the first place. That he had turned down this task, that he had said ‘no’ at any point along the way.


    Now, all his efforts were fruitless, and he was about to die, trapped by some unregistered monstrosity in the Adianoetas’ catacombs.


    “Rejoice!” Maria Adianoeta’s voice and its rich timbre broke through the shouting and his reverie alike, impossible to miss. “Edmund, we bring you home tonight, at last!”


    The tendrils twisted, and Nikola gasped. It tickled and itched, anything but painful, yet each motion was excruciating. They shifted in size and width, their grip on the grate tightening at points, new coils surrounding the bars.


    More metal against metal. Nikola could see footsteps, trampling, running. People were fleeing, and some were falling. He did not catch sight of Benjamin, nor did he identify his voice amid the chaos.


    A bearded man hit the ground, his teeth bared. Blood poured from the wound in his throat as he flailed like a fish torn from the water, until his body stilled.


    Crimson pooled, covering the tendrils. It sunk into them, and soon, they were dry again.


    Nikola found he felt greed emanating from them, the air thick with it.


    One impossibility after the next.


    And that man was not the last to fall. Others joined him, their number growing by the second, until the chamber grew pitch black, the bodies packed so tightly that they kept all light from reaching the room with the well.


    The stench of copper and iron would have made him gap, under other circumstances, but Nikola found himself numbed.


    Of all ways to go out, he supposed a family from the highest echelons choosing to sacrifice their guests during the celebration was one in which he could count himself blameless. He could have avoided coming here, but as he had not, there was nothing he could do.


    There was something liberating, about the finality of that.


    The helplessness, and the acceptance.


    Eventually, the screaming died down. Only Maria Adianoeta’s graceful laughter echoed through the dark.


    “I call upon you, benefactor. Come to me, Edmund!” she roared. “Come to us, Edmund!”


    The room caught alight then, each tendril now a glowing, crystalline red. It looked closer to an artistic depiction of a tree than anything else.


    Nikola couldn’t tell if it had blinded him for what little remained of his life, as the sight burned itself into his vision and somehow brightened further, until all he could see was searing red and all he could feel was the cold of death. The matriarch’s voice resounded once more.


    “Edmund, dear! Tell us, my love—how do we refill the fountain of youth?”