Skara Braens

Part 1

The gentle sounds of the ocean, dulled, as if far away or shielded somehow gently bring you from your slumber.  You were having a strange dream.  An old woman - or was it an old man? - stood over you, chanting.  Or were they singing?  Was there an eagle calling?  There may have been an eagle.  It might have been the wind, though.  There was wind in that dream.  Or was there?

It's all fading so quickly.

Most of the dream is already forgotten before your eyes flutter open.  You smile and stretch, then frown as you realise that you are staring straight up at blackness.  It's darker than death. You can see almost nothing.

Now that you are awake and aware, the sounds of the ocean have almost faded entirely.  Was that, too, part of your dream?

You turn, finding the bed beneath you to be hard, with small lumps poking uncomfortably into your back.  You turn you head, trying to figure out where you are. There is nothing but stone.  Stone and darkness everywhere.

The air feels suddenly too close.  You can't breathe as panic sets in, robbing you of reason.  Forcing yourself to regain control of your lungs, you close your eyes again and take three slow, steady breaths.  On the third exhalation, you open your eyes.  It's still as black as a starless night, but your eyes are beginning to make out hazy lines; shadows and not-quite-shadows start to form patterns in your vision.

You think you are surrounded by stone on all sides, a relatively small box long enough for you to lie straight with some extra room.  You slowly point your toes, expecting to hit wall, and finding nothing.  You lift your head and stare down at your feet.  You cannot see them.  The panic starts to rise again, and again you close your eyes and force yourself to calm.

At the third exhalation, you open your eyes again.  Trying again to judge your surrounds, you slowly lift your hands up.  Your palms press against stone, cold and surprisingly smooth.  You run your hands lightly over the stone, seeking a crease or crack you might be able to exploit.  You find nothing.  Your hands are, you think, running over a single massive slab or block of stone.  The exit is not up.  You let your hands drop again and think.

If the way is not up, then there must be another answer.  You lift your hands again, swinging them back above your head.  You were not expecting the stone wall to be so close, and paid no heed to the speed with which you lifted your arms.  You wince as your unprepared knuckles smack into the the stone.  Muttering curses, you roll onto your stomach and start to feel the wall.

It's longer that you expected, stretching about a metre and a half from end to end.  You feel no obvious opening, though you can tell the edges of each stone that was set in place.  You can feel no mortar or cement.  The stones were cut and placed without any binding.

Sighing, you continue along the next wall, turning on your belly to face it.  This wall is longer than the last, being almost seven feet in length.  The construction is similar, however, being made of cut and placed stone with no cement or mortar.

Is there even a way out of this place, or are you simply trapped in a stone casket?  Buried alive.  Buried alive without any idea how you got here, or even who you are.  You stop in your search a moment as a sudden realisation hits you - you have no idea who you are.  When you try to identify yourself, no name springs to mind.

You try, instead, to remember your life before this moment, only to find that you cannot.  A small niggling in the back of your mind recalls some of the fragmented parts of your dream, but beyond those small things - the chanting elder, the sound of the ocean, the cry of an eagle - you can remember naught.

This new information makes you forget your escape for a time, and you lay on your stomach, your feet up in the air to avoid banging on the wall behind you, your palms pressed to the neatly built stone wall, your mind whirling as it tries to recall something, anything that might lead you to remember yourself.

In the parade of images your mind is struggling to recall, there is only fog.  Every so often, something moves, some shadow shifts in that fog, but it reveals nothing.

You are without a past and, your note, jolting yourself back to the present, without a future if you don't find a way to escape this place.  You resume your search along the wall, finding no opening and no hint of one.  Sighing to yourself, you turn again to try the next wall.

Like the two walls before it, this wall yields nothing.  Your stomach growls, suddenly starving.  You shush it, knowing full well that stomachs are wilful organs and don't obey commands.

Trembling as you try and control your panic, you search the final wall.  About halfway along, your fingers feel the lip of something. An opening, almost perfectly square.  You cautiously follow the opening to find it's end is less than a foot away, opening into what might be another chamber like your own, or perhaps outside.  It's too dark to tell.  The only thing you know is that it is the only way out.

You search the rest of the wall as a precaution, to find that you were correct.  That opening is the only way out.  You run both hands around the opening again, making sure that there are no jagged bits or levers or traps waiting for you to throw yourself against them in a desperate bid for freedom.

The opening is small.  It will be a struggle to pass through.  Still, you have no options.  You wrap your hands around the outside edge of the opening and prepare to pull yourself through. The sound of someone, or something, shuffling beyond gives you pause.  You stop dead and listen.

Heavy breathing echoes up to you, distorted from a great deal of reverberation.  A few more scuffles join the breathing.  Someone is walking nearby.  The walk is hindered, as if the person was bent over, or had a wounded leg.  It's definitely getting closer, however.

A small spread of light hits your eyes, so small it would not be noticeable if your eyes were not so adjusted to the dark of your chamber.

"Searching, searching," a muffled voice whispers.  "Always searching.  I don't know why.  But he says I must, and so I must.  No point in arguing with the master.  Curse this ceiling!  Who built this, dwarves?  No, no, silly minion.  Dwarves aren't real.  Searching, searching.  Always searching."

A cough, weak and full of phlegm followed by a muffled curse, reaches your ears.  The shuffling steps are coming closer, the light growing stronger.

"Are you in here?" the voice whines in between wheezing breaths.  "Master is looking for you.  He wants you.  Where are you?  Searching, searching.  Always searching.  Hello?"

Another cough.

"Why? Why must Master send me?  Can't find what doesn't want to be found.  No, can't find it.  Stupid Master!  No!  No!  Master is kind.  Master is benevolent.  Master saved minion, remember?  Good Master!  Kind Master!  Wise Master!  Minion search for Master.  Searching, searching, always searching."

The shuffling stops momentarily as the speaker erupts into an awful coughing fit.

If there was any time to act, now would be the perfect chance.  Your brain leaps back into action. Who is this Minion person?  Who is their Master?  Who, or what, is this Master looking for?  Why?  Clearly you are lost, but does that mean you want to be found?  If you do, by whom?

The questions race through your mind a break-neck speed.  Deciding almost as quickly, you leap into action.

What do you do?

a) Call out!  Finally!  Help has come!

b) Try and get out of your chamber, so you can sneak around this Minion person and try to escape stealthily.

c) Move to the side of the opening and press against the wall, hoping to avoid detection if whoever it is does check the chamber.

Voting is now open until midnight Ottawa time 19 May 2016. Get your votes in before then to be counted!  Good luck, YVOA-er!