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Horror Fiction – Guest post by S.M. Boyce

The door swung closed behind Kara, the click of the latch echoing through the vast space and announcing her with a boom. The echo continued for several minutes, even as she began her walk towards a pedestal on the far wall.

It was exactly the hall that the drawing had shown her: dozens of pillars supported the roof in diagonal rows that had nothing but darkness between them. A pedestal glowed from its place on a raised platform about a hundred yards away, its body carved from rich orange amber. A hole had been cut through its center, and a rounded hourglass glimmered in the open space.

She kept to the light as much as she could, shooting side-long glances into the shadows which clung to the pillars. A huffing breath came from the darkness; it was a wheezing sigh that made her hair stand on end. She focused her mind on her palm, bending the heat which raced through her veins until a small purple flame erupted in her hand and shed its flickering violet light over the cracked pillars that supported what must have once been a great temple.

She walked quickly, but the room was still. Quiet. Tense. The shadows between the dark columns grew longer, darker, and deeper the closer she came to the hourglass.

Feet shuffled along the dirt-covered floor just beyond her vision. Something growled. A sharp screech, like nails on metal, made her jump. Dust lingered in her nose and tickled her sinuses, but she held her breath until the urge to sneeze disappeared. Whatever these things were, they could make noises; she would not, in case they were looking for a reason to attack.

Hot air wafted over the back of her neck in an unnatural stream, but she did not stop or glance behind. She was fifty yards away from the hourglass, now. The scraping became more frequent.
Forty yards. Growls bled into grunts.

Thirty yards. The shifting became the swish of creatures pushing one another.

Twenty yards. She could see the defined edges of the hourglass, now. All of the sand had pooled in the bottom of the curved glass, which reflected the golden flush of the amber around it. She was close enough, now, that its glowing light illuminated her shaking hands.

Her pulse raced. Her breath was unmanageable. Fear told her to run towards it, run! and she could no longer dominate the impulse. She sprinted for the pedestal.

It was a mistake.

Something roared. The nearest pillar cracked from the shrill bite of the sound. A fist the size of her head slammed into her ear, sending her flying. Her arm snapped as she was thrown against a column. She tumbled onto the hard stone, glaring into the darkness to see what she had let free. Once she saw it, though, she wished she could undo ever opening that damn door. Her eyes went wide with fear.

The monster was a giant shadow shaped like a giant ape. Its edges blurred into the darkness around it, so that there was no telling where it ended or began. The creature towered over her, hunched on its hands. It had no eyes, but roared and revealed the crooked white daggers that were its teeth. They jutted from every corner of its mouth, piercing its black gums and drawing bright red blood. It snarled and roared again.

Three more shadow demons bled into view from the gloom-drenched pillars, blocking her view of the pedestal. They bellowed. Panic raced through her. Warmth pooled in her hands from the adrenaline and magic, but she had already drained a good deal of her own energy. She was left with only the air, the darkness, and the little drive she had left.

She brought her hands together over her head, focusing on the air as she contorted it into sharp daggers that hovered in the space above her fingers. Ten, then fifty, then a hundred arrows surrounded her like a suit of razor sharp armor.

Raging heat coursed through her as she focused and bent the air as far she could. The blades circled, speeding around until they left streaks on the low light as they moved. The blur grew faster and thicker, until all she could see was the rush of sharp air. The demons chorused and chattered, each of them screaming.

The ground trembled. They were coming.

She threw her hands away from her body, yelling as she released the tension which had kept the blades near to her. The strain dissolved from her fingers as the blades flew in every direction. They coursed through the room, slicing through pillars and demons alike. Arms and legs and heads fell to the floor. The monsters shrieked, their voices shrill with pain.

Support columns cracked and toppled, forcing her to duck and dart her way around raining blocks of stone. Rivers of the demons’ red blood snaked across the tiled floor, the sticky, crimson streams the only color in the room besides the glowing orange amber hourglass.

A thick hand the size of a bush flew from the shadows nearby and swatted at her like she was a fly, knocking her onto her back. She skidded for a few feet. Another monster leaned over her as she came to a stop and lunged, its claws ripping her clothes before she could roll out of reach.

She bolted towards the hourglass, throat stinging as she fought for breath, but another demon grabbed her and lifted her to its face. Its claws bit into her arm, the sharp nails ripping apart the skin as the thing clutched her tighter. She screamed in agony as thick lines of her blood ran down to her hands and dripped from her fingers, splattering to the floor. Her feet lashed out on their own, landing a solid kick in what would have been the monster’s nose if it’d had a real face.

The demon screamed and dropped her. She rolled across the ground, her arm still stinging from its grip. Blood bubbled from four holes in her arm, evidence of where the creature’s nails had dug into her. She held the wounds and dodged another demon’s hand, trying to ignore the hot rush of pain.

This had to end now.

She set her hands on the floor. The heat from her palms seeped into the tiles, which rippled at her touch. The stone bent to her will, and she sensed poor supports in the ground beneath two of the demons to her right and another to her left. She smirked, the control over life and death dissolving away her fear. A hum droned in her mind, blocking out the demons’ snarling and heavy breaths. There was no pain anymore, no feeling: just the rush of life and magic and power.

Thick tension pulled on her fingers until it seemed they would fall off from the strain. She roared like the demons she was fighting, and stony ripples pulsed through the tile. The ground burst. Gray bricks were hurled into the ceiling from the force. Deafening echoes of smashing and shattering rock broke through the hall as the ground twisted and broke away from beneath the three unlucky demons. They screamed and fell into the unending blackness below the temple.

She grinned and glanced around for the next fight, but her smile faded. Her adrenaline dissolved into disbelief, and the power was gone.

Moonlight streamed through the broad dome above, now, brighter than before. The depths of the temple were finally illuminated, though the floors were still shrouded in a deep shadow that no light could ever penetrate. Hundreds of rows of the demons surrounded her from wall to wall, allowing her only the small space in which she fought. They stood motionless, waiting for their turn to attack. They could overpower her at any time, but had chosen not to.

To her, this was life and death; to them, this was a game. She forced a hard swallow as the dread weighed her feet to the floor.

The hourglass waited on its brilliant pedestal, visible through gaps in the only row of demons which stood before it. She groaned, unsure of what else to do, and focused the air around her into one long blade that clung to her hand like a sword. The tension pulled on her mind, stealing energy and focus she did not have, but this was her last attempt towards the hourglass.

At least the strain was a distraction from the hopelessness.

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How dark do you like your Fantasy Fiction?
Where’s the line between Fantasy and Horror?