Occurrence in a Pentagram
11 May 2019Today’s prompt: “You have a dream that you’ve murdered someone. Who is it, how and why did the murder happen, and what happens afterward?”
You wake up mostly immobilized, hands and feet tied with ropes to massive eye-bolts sunk into the concrete floor of a dimly lit basement, your outstretched limbs intersecting the edges of a crude pentagram. There’s a tall figure in the corner wearing a dark robe, hood covering his head, chanting something mostly unintelligible in a deep voice. You hear a “fhtagn” or two. As if you weren’t in enough trouble already.
You tug with your wrist. The knot feels slack, poorly tied, as though it wants to be undone. Given enough time, you might be able to twist your arm enough to loosen it, to free yourself. You set to work moving your wrist and the muscles at the base of your thumb, stretching the rope. You work your thumb down under the loops and stretch one of them up over your hand.
The chant is louder now, and you see the robed figure has turned around to face you. There’s a glint of steel in his hand.
You work faster, pulling another loop over your hand. And now you have plenty of slack to work with. You stretch your arm and force your thumb into the knot holding your hand to the eye-hook and start forcing it open.
The figure strides toward you, still chanting. He kneels down by your side and raises the knife.
The knot opens like a tulip, and as his arm comes down, you seize his wrist.
You have surprise on your side, and the way he’s holding his knife is awkward. Slowly, slowly, you turn his wrist. Slowly, slowly, you force your knife toward his heart. And then a push of adrenaline, and you force it in between his ribs.
You’re not sure if the blow was fatal, but he’s at least weakened. You force the knife in and out. When you’re sure he’s dead, you finally allow yourself to breathe deeply. You pull back your arm, and his body collapses across your chest.
And then you remember, you can’t rest. There might be others.
You pull the knife to your other wrist and cut yourself free. Then you push the man’s body off you and get to work cutting the rope around your ankles.
You rush up the basement stairs, still holding the knife. You want to burst out into the daylight, but you catch yourself in time. You listen at the door for voices, footsteps, anything. You think you hear breathing. You hold your breath, unsure if it’s you. The soft breathing sound comes again.
One guard, then? Hopefully? The door looks like it might be squeaky. Make it quick.
You open the door in one fluid gesture and stab with the knife. Another man in a robe falls to the ground.
At this point, you aren’t even aware of the layout of the building you’re in. You start running. Some hooded figures are in the far end of a room you pass. They see you. You hear a “Hey!” and the sound of running. You run faster.
A door. That looks like a front door. You bolt toward it, throw it open, rush through, and slam it behind you.
Through the corner of your eye, you see a bonfire in the side yard, and several vehicles parked out to the left. You run to the nearest one that’s not parked in, hoping against hope. You hear shouting from the direction of the bonfire and the group spilling out of the house behind you.
The window is open on the driver’s side door of the Jeep, and you pull open the door. Miraculously, the keys are in the ignition. You leap in, turn the key, and the engine roars to life. You throw the Jeep into reverse just as a robed figure from the house reaches the door and grabs hold. You stab his hand with your knife. He screams and lets go, and you pull away from the cultists’ house in a cloud of dust and gravel.
The knife enters your heart. Your blood pools across the cool basement floor and into the edges of the pentagram. The man in the robe chants louder for Cthulhu to come.