Jack woke up with a throbbing headache and a sore jaw. He wiped his chin and looked at his finger tips. Blood drops starting to clot. His mind a blank.
He felt the physical pain, but felt otherwise strangely bereft of emotions. No anger, no regret, no rage, no sorrow, no anguish, no fear,... Nothing. Void. Hollow. But he did feel besumement."What the hell happened?", he thought, "How did I get here?". He stood up, stretched his back and continued his train of thought. "In fact, where IS here?"
Jack looked around for any clues to his whereabouts, but became none the wiser. He put his senses to work. As far as he could tell, he was in some cave system. Solid rock ceilings prevented any daylight from reaching down here. There was little light, except for the torches that were mounted on the walls. He could sense a draught, though. Not much sound neither except for the sputtering of the torches under the breath of the wind. Jack decided the best course of action would be to follow the direction of the wind backwards and hope it would lead to an exit. He had walked for a couple of minutes and had just turned a corner when he bumped into something big.
Scratch that, make that something BIG! Something BIG! and... LONG! and... hairy?! Jack slowly backed away and looked up.
"Oh", a single utterance escaped his mouth as he noted that it was also horny. And no, not like that; like actually horny. As in: with big, large, curled horns on top of its head.
"We have nothing to fear, but Fear itself"
And boy, was Fear a frightening sight!
The demon towered 5 feet over Jack, its shadow almost swallowing him whole. It stretched out its right arm and scraped the wall with the tips of its claws, sending sparks flying as it approached. Obviously, it had taken Freddy's Master class. The demon swiped its freshly sharpened claw at Jack and stopped an inch from his face. The Fear demon was puzzled. It sensed no fear, no emotion whatever. It slowly arched its body and lowered its head till it stared into Jack's eyes. It was like it was staring into a mirror. For the first time since aeons, it felt its powers projected back onto itself. It... felt... fear.
"Let's dance", Jack said. The demon whimpered like a dog, turned and ran with its tail tucked between its legs. Its whinying cries echoed down the caverns before slowly dying.
Jack continued on his way. Left turns, right turns, dead ends,... At times it felt like he was walking in circles but his mind kept telling him the draught and the slow incline upwards were leading him out. He still felt somewhat detached throughout the whole experience. Like he was undergoing it, rather than living it. Dancing on the strings of some infernal puppet master. It was enough to lower a man's spirits... had they been up to begin with. "Spirits?", Jack thought as he patted himself till he found the trusty flask in his trenchcoat. He took a swig and found it to be almost empty. Running out of liquid courage. He didn't know how long it would last him. Time seemed to pass slower in the dark. How long had he been down here? Was it hours? Days? And then there came that sound.
He listened intently to a small rumbling until he realized it was his own stomach. He'd need to find food fast and miraculously stumble upon a stash a booze or he'd soon settle for things like water and vegetables. There were plenty of murky puddles and mushrooms down here. Hell, suddenly the prospect of drinking his own piss didn't seem too bad by comparison. As luck would have it, Jack could hear the breath of the wind picking up however. Only to be drowned out by the sound of water dropping as he pressed on. He also noticed the tunnels slowly brightening with natural light as he reached a waterfall.
He'd come to the surface at last. He finished the remains of his flask and stepped out from under the curtain of water.
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