The cold bites into my skin, cruel, voracious.
This isn't just a simple gust of wind; it's a caress from the otherworld, a breath from a place where light is an anomaly, where time itself refuses to exist.
A faceless shadow slips down my spine, grazing my neck.
My brain refuses to believe it, but my body, it knows. It shudders.
Roch moves ahead of me, relentless.
His steps are almost unnaturally regular.
No shortness of breath, no hesitation.
He cuts through the night like a sharpened blade, as unflinching as Terminator hunting Sarah Connor.
Me? I'm Frodo in Moria, stumbling through darkness, wary of a monster lurking beneath the stone.
Each step takes me further from the world of the living.
The day dies behind us, swallowed by the rock, pulled into the darkness like the Overlook Hotel devouring souls. The air changes, grows heavier.
Breathing is a struggle.
Each breath is a silent war against an invisible force that tightens around my throat.
As if Darth Vader himself is testing me from a distance.
Then, suddenly, Roch stops.
The silence cracks.
It is absolute, total, a void of sound that consumes everything around us.
The sound of his steps stops, and the absence of it is worse than any scream.
My heart skips a beat.
Before us, a wall.
— Me: A dead end? Seriously? This is where we get trapped like NPCs on repeat?
But it's not just a wall.
There's a crack.
Thin, but too precise to be a natural accident.
It's a clean, surgical cut.
Like a door that only those who know can see, like Harry Potter at the Leaky Cauldron.
— Me: Elementals, Mr. Author! This is unnatural…
Roch places his hand on the stone.
His lips whisper something I don't understand.
Then, the world trembles.
A low rumble, coming from deep within the earth.
BOOM.
The shockwaves vibrate through my bones.
The rock splits open with a sinister sigh, exhaling a spectral, sickly light.
A pale glow that reminds me of the cursed light from the curse in The Lord of the Rings.
This light doesn't comfort.
It reveals a truth we weren't supposed to see.
My instinct screams to run.
— Me: Game over, bro. I already dropped the Controller!
But my legs are frozen.
Trapped by a force that goes beyond my understanding.
— Me: Bro… this is way too many questions!!
No time to ask them.
Roch steps into the opening without a second glance.
Like Morpheus stepping through the mirror.
But behind me... something moves.
The shadow lives.
It breathes. It watches me.
An ancient, hungry presence lurking in the dark.
As if Gollum himself whispered in my ear, "My precious…"
I don't have the luxury of thinking.
I take a deep breath, throw myself forward, and plunge into the unknown.