Eldritch Abyss

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

Aaryn had always known that the monolithic stone door in the castle bowels had been sealed for centuries. Like a foul memory, it was always there, waiting on one poor soul’s weakness to move itself to the forefront.

As he stood before it now, he fought the nausea created by the sickish green light that bled through the dense stone. The voices that whispered malevolent temptations of lust and anguish made it even more difficult. Only training offered him a buffer against the assault.

“The colors hurt my eyes,” Ayella said. As a maiden of sixteen, she had no such protection. She’d spent five minutes down here alone on a dare from her friends. Her reward? A belly that signaled a woman in her seventh month.

That was two days ago.

The King revealed the truth to him then. There had been records of such extraordinary pregnancies, sparse though they were. Histories chronicled the disasters that followed the birth of the monstrosities never described. And there was but one resolution. Aaryn’s fury and heartache was only quelled by his duty to his people.

To this world.

Ayella looked up at him with trust Aaryn knew he didn’t deserve. Placing a hand against her back, he ushered her forward, gentle yet insistent. “We shouldn’t be here.”

As they approached, his mind was violated with glimpses of the other side: abominations beyond nightmares and torments that awaited her. “Brother?” Her voice was threaded with fear and confusion. Thousands of lives were at stake. Ayella was but one soul.

Even if she was his sister.

“I am here,” he said, choking down the guilt that threated to consume him.

Then he told her what she had to do.

“Open the door.”