hellbound: the chronicles of vincent black
"Check your pack," replied Hilda, with an amused expression on her face.
Vince did as was requested, and after some rummaging, held up a heavy-duty black flashlight. "Good..." he muttered, placing the flashlight between his teeth in standard, Vince-regulation fashion. "Grad to thee thith ithn't amatheur night."
"What a hole," muttered Brand, looking pointedly from Vincent to the interior of the entrance.
"Yeah, and it's dark, too." Vincent formed his reply in the shape of an extended middle finger.
"Children, please," chided Hilda. "We haven't even entered yet." At her single glance, Kain stepped inside the entrance and vanished into the darkness inside.
Vince took a cautious step forward. "Dude, your flashlight.."
"He doesn't need it," informed Hilda. "He can see sufficiently without it." She looked into the darkness which held Kain with subtle pride; the look of a mother, or more accurately perhaps, a scientist pleased with the result of her labors.
"How?" asked Brand, his eyes narrowing, his light shining into the black hole and onto the back of Kain within.
"Augmentation," was Hilda's curt reply. "You wouldn't understand."
This answer seemed sufficent for Brand, for the time being, though he kept his suspicious nature about him. Vincent not so satisfied, but he was wont to begin prying now. Vlad, as was typical, said nothing, and only watched with careful, silent eyes.
The inside of the stone tunnel was small, perhaps only ten feet squared in diameter. The smell of dead air lie thick within, curling, taking away breath as it devoured oxygen. "Holy shite," squeaked Vincent, running a hand over its ancient, hallowed surface. Even he, irreverant as he was toward all things, had some inkling as to the power and magnitude of those walls.
"Hilda?" he continued to squeak, stepping slowly just behind Kain as the team progressed with reverent caution. "Where, exactly, are we?"
"An Enochian temple..." replied Hilda. The hushed tone of her voice seemed to indicate a subject bearing an unusual amount of awe for her. "What we believe... might be...the Enochian temple..."
Now, the light of the entrance was growing increasingly dim... and not even their faint footsteps echoed sound down the dark hallway. As if something was suffocating the trail of their sound. To this fact, Vincent - ever the eyes and ears of the party - was instantly alerted. "Something's wrong, here," whispered Vince to Hilda, who was beside him.
"Yes," said Kain. He stopped, and held a hand back in caution, though his sight never wavered from directly ahead them. "Something is wrong."
"What is it, Kain?" inquired Hilda, with just a faint trace of strain in her voice.
"The darkness begins ahead," was Kain's only cryptic reply.
Vincent was visibly unhappy with this statement. "The what?" he squeaked. His arms grew ever tighter around his precious black case, just moments from revealing its contents.
Kain paused a for a moment, as if listening, as if pressing his senses intently for more information. "The light ceases in twenty paces," he continued, with a quiet and patient voice.
Vincent muttered his feelings succinctly. "Damn."
Hilda's eyes narrowed slightly in the dim glow of the hall. "What do you mean, Kain?" she probed.
Another pause from Kain. "The light of the interior extends for twenty paces. Beyond that, there is only darkness."
Hilda puzzled this for a moment as they proceeded. Whatever suspicions she may have held, however, were soon confirmed, as not even their powerful halogen beams would penetrate the veil of darkness ahead. Kain, without hesitation or trace of fear, pulled up his sleeve and thrust his outstretched hand slowly into the black space.
"Kain, what are..?" But her concern was cut short as Kain cautiously removed his hand from the depths, with no sign of visible change. He peered at his returned hand for a moment with narrowed eyes, and flexing it experimentally, seemed satisfied.
"Hmm," was Vlad's only immediate contribution.
Brand seemed surprisingly detatched, as if such things were to be expected. "What now?" he voiced, with only a trace of unpleasantness toward the situation.
"It appears to be a barrier of some sort," offered Vlad after a moment of thought. "A ward of darkness that prevents light waves from entering a particular space."
"And perhaps sound, as well," added Hilda, as she tapped the stone walls of the hall. The sound was distorted, and hollow, uncharacteristic of such a narrow passageway.
"Well, Kain stuck his hand in, and he's okay," pointed out Vincent. "Why can't we just... uh... walk through it?" He seemed none-too-thrilled by the prospect of his own suggestion.
"I mean, being very careful, and all," he added hastily.
Hilda pondered this with a scowl. "I'm not sure. We don't know what effect this field would have on others."
"Additionally," noted Vlad, "We have no idea what sort of traps may lie within the field. Obviously, if they would to go to such lengths as to create a field like the one before us, they would want to hide something which would do more than merely confuse would-be intruders."
"Such as..?" squeaked Vince, morbidly.
Vlad pushed his spectacles upward slightly. "I'm not sure. We're dealing with ancient architecture here, though obviously one of a very advanced nature. I suspect dealings with..." At that point, Vlad became strangely silent, as Hilda shot him a stern glare.
"Dealings?" Vince's voice was near panic now. "What sort of dealings? Dealing with who?"
"Not who," corrected Vlad. "What."
Vince, on the verge of understanding, stared ahead blankly. "Oh shit."
The darkness seemed unusually omnipresent then. The feeling of things better left undisturbed was growing, and it was not until Kain suggest a course of action that anyone dared speak.
A stern voice, and set jaw. "No place to go but forward."
"Wait," called Vince, just as Kain began to step forward. A maelstrom of thought was stirring in Vince's head as he reached to open his case. From he, he deftly (with skill gained from a past of repeated experience) drew a custom-modified, double-barrel shotgun. He held it up proudly as he also reached to pull two slugs from one of the numerous recesses of his tattered black trenchcoat.
Vlad eyed him curiously. "I fail to see what-"
But Vincent only shushed him as he looked intently at the two slugs in his hand with one eye closed. "You look like a brainiac," he said, grinning. "Haven't you ever heard of objectificative enchantment?"
Vlad was stumped by his complete lack of insight. "You appear to have me at a loss, Vincent."
"Haha," taunted Vincent. "Well, guess I'll explain it, then. See, it's like this..."
He ran a hand over the slugs in true showmanship fashion, muttering something under his breath. Something to the effect of "supercalifragilisticexpialedocious" repeatedly, but only Kain was sharp of hearing enough to detect that, and he said nothing.
"Everything has properties, right? Light is light, sound is sound. Fire is fire, and water is, well, water. Metal things are metal," With that, he shook the slugs lightly and put his ear to them. "But if you're tricky enough, you can fool one object into thinking that it has the properties of another object."
Vlad appeared puzzled. "And how, pray tell, does that work?"
Vincent then proceeded to unceremoniously pump the two slugs into their respective barrels. "You scientist-types always overthink things. Always looking for the simple answers, but always looking in the hardest places. You just can't let yourself believe that something could happen just 'cause it does, can you?"
Squatting down on the ground, Vincent eyed the darkness like a hunter watching his prey. Eyes focused, never straying from the target. "This bullet bears light, because I say it bears light. And because I'm the only one between the two of that can think, it must do as I say."
"My will..." He holds up a third bullet up to his eye, produced mystically from nowhere, gripped between his thumb and forefinger. "...becomes our shared reality."
"You're a Dark One, aren't you?" queried Brand. Leaning with his back against the wall, he placed one hand on the dagger thrust through his belt, more out of amusement than accusation.
Vincent shot him a glare that was as dead-serious as it was deadpan. "Aren't we all?" he replied with a smug, biting glance.
Without further discussion, Vincent took aim at the wall of darkness and fired. There was an eerie flash of light as the bullet succeeded the air of the tunnel, and sure enough, ripped its way well into the shadowy field and beyond. The rend was merely temporary, however, and as soon as the darkness was split in two, it began to mend itself.
"Damn," proclaimed Vincent.
"Everyone, quickly," said Hilda, taking charge. "Get into formation. Vincent, lead the way, we haven't time to waste."
The thought of what she meant crossed Vincent's mind. The implication, as far as he was concerned, was that the previous party was in some sort of pressing danger. At least, that was the safer of the two conclusions he arrived at.
He did as he was instructed, and wasted no further time. His shotgun pointed straight ahead and aimed to kill anything hostile that might pop up in his sights, he proceeded down the tunnel, blasting a path at appropriate intervals. The others followed quickly as the blackness sealed itself behind them: Vlad, Brand, and Hilda behind Vincent, with Kain bringing up the rear.
Light, or relative lack of darkness, found them on the other side. But the darkness, coming to life as it writhed and twisted from such direct damage, snapped shut behind them silently, in spasmic and violent patterns. Kain, bringing up the rear, vanished within it.
Five.
Vince spun around, alerted to the sudden loss of a team member. Tense silence followed, as the others turned about quickly and waited, pressed to the walls. Anxious.
"Ohno," whispered Hilda, within the space of a single syllable.
Four.
"What happened to him?" asked Vincent, gun still levelled, his voice rising in a strain as he aimed at the roiling wall darkness. Still, nothing.
Three.
"I said, what happened to him?!" repeated Vincent, more insistantly. Tiny droplets of sweat began to grow on his forehead, though his aim remained steadfast.
Two.
And then, Kain emerged from the darkness, which split like water around him. And stood, and was silent.
Hilda looked at him with mild concern. "Kain? Are you.. well?"
Kain merely nodded in reply as he stepped forward and rejoined the group. "We should continue on," he said simply.
Vince lowered his gun, hunching his shoulders as he exhaled a sigh of relief. "Well, that was interesting," he muttered.
"Just a moment," called Vlad. He had apparently taken interest in the walls that lay on their side of the darkish field, and small things embedded on them, carved depressions of some sort. Vince inched closer to get a better look.
"Runic writings," said Vlad, with that puzzled look on his face. "But.. certainly not Northern. ...No..."
Hilda also pushed inward to get a better look. "It's not Aramaic," she noted, squinting at it through her tiny glass lenses.
Vlad and Kain, apparently uninterested, merely stood again the opposite wall. Kain, however, kept his masked eyes on the long, black hallway still ahead.
Vlad ran a finger, not directly over the runes, but rather, a fraction of an inch over the wall's surface, as if he were afraid to touch the runes themselves. "This make no sense."
"No shit," said Vincent, largely unimpressed.
"No," continued Vlad, his sight never leaving the wall. "It's.. Nanjipur'an."
Vince, who was making faces at the stoic Kain, looked over. "Nanya-what?"
"Nanjipur'an," said Hilda, awe in her voice. "The.. the rumored lost language of archescholars during the Antediluvian era."
Vince was beginning to wrap his mind around the concept. "Ante.. diluvian?"
Hilda nodded. "Yes. If you believe the Judeo-Christian Bible, it was the era before the Great Flood, which eradicated most of the civilization of that time. All that remained to show that it ever even existed, were a few stone tablets discovered thousands of years ago."
"But... the flood, and all that.. it's just.." Vincent searched his limited vocabulary to find a word which would fully encompass his incredulity. He finally decided upon "horseshit."
Hilda shook her head, a gleam of interesting rising in her eyes. "No, it isn't. There has been scientific evidence to support the occurence of a major catastrophic event thousands of years ago, far predating even the birth of Christ. It simply hasn't been made public yet."
Vincent looked at the runes again, his eyes borne with a new respect. Even then, the ancient writings seemed to whisper with a new, darker meaning.
He spoke, in the silence, what everyone wanted to know. "But.. what do they mean, then?"
"This, we cannot say," said Hilda, with a trace of regret in her voice. "But one thing is certain: these symbols, the primative beginnings of language... they are, very nearly, as old as the human race itself."
"This temple has been sealed since before the Great Diluge. Within it..." She paused momentarily to lend impact to what was to follow. "Within it, may lie the remains, possibly the only remains, of a thing believed lost forever. A final legacy - indeed, the only proof - of the bridge of unity mankind formed in its dark, stumbling early years."
Her words dropped to a whisper, as she ran smooth fingers over the cold rock surface. "The very first civilization..."
episode 02: from beneath the waters dark and still
Vincent squatted before the dark, black opening, pondering many things, including but not limited to the peculiar problem of how to light their way. "Um.. I know someone brought flashlights... right?"
