For I Am Calm

Chapter 5: Antrum

"Wow..." Xavier's voice echoes in the massive cave. You said it... candles lit a path that stretched across the floor and disappeared around a turn. "There's nowhere else to go..." I point out. Below on either side of us were bodies of water that flowed from the small waterfalls behind us... maybe that's where the river outside goes. Looking over the side one could assume the water was bottomless if not for a few glowing stones that contrast the darkness of the water bed. I was tempted to dive in just to see if I was right in thinking that... no, we don't have time for that. We follow the lit up path, our footsteps echoing each time we move. There was no other sound to be heard with the exception of the droplets that would randomly patter on the stone floor or splash on the puddles and river creating small ripples on the surface. 

The lit path kept curving around rocks and walls, eventually forking out into two paths. One way was darker as the candles were extinguished in that direction unlike the opposite path that still had lighting. "Perhaps this way is an older unused spot..." I conclude as I try to see what's up ahead. "Chances are more cultists are this way so... let's go down that path first and come back here later." Annalise suggests as she walks towards the unlit path. We all agree and make our way. It felt like we were going down hill and at some point the light behind us was so far that it wouldn't illuminate ahead of us so we had to take out our flashlights. I started to sniff the air. Cold, damp, and eventually it smells of old rotting wood. I shined my light in a direction and there was a wooden wall. Moss growing out of the cracks, the wood darkened from age... it's a doorway.

The old doorway was missing the most important thing, a door. Looking in and shining all of our flashlights in revealed a small room with pews and a podium in the back. I walk in and notice old candles that have wax at the base of the stand that was probably from when this area was still in use. I decided to head to the podium so I walked down the aisle. I could feel some form of a presence. I would assume it could be spirits of the dead cultists, maybe spirits of those who were sacrificed. Regardless of what it could be I could feel eyes on me. I go behind the podium and I look in a little cubby. A leather backed book that had pages yellowed and, when I looked through the pages, ink very faded. We didn't find anything else in the room so we all headed back to the fork.

Returning to where we were, we look down the other way. As we walk I have this sense of dread I only ever felt when other exorcists asked for additional help with certain demons. Going around the last bend there's a small man-made door infused with the caves rock wall. Various runes seem to have been engraved around it. Phylos pushes on it and the door refuses to budge. "Try pulling." Xavier suggests. However pulling on the door didn't work either... must be locked. "What's going on with your pocket?" Annalise asks. Everyone turns towards me and I look down to see a glow is shining through the fabric of my pants. I reach in and take out the cross, the only thing in my pocket. The demon blood stains that were left behind looked to be reacting to the runes. Out of curiosity I touch the blood stains to the door. Doing so caused the floor to shake until the door was being slid upward. The blood stained cross stops glowing. Was the blood some kind of key... I start to think that the ringing in my head was telling me to take the blood with me. If we didn't who knows if we could have opened the door, or I could be over thinking things and it was just coincidental. The floor stops shaking as the door fully slid open.