Nero blinked.
His eyes narrowed as he took a small step forward.
'What was...'
The shadow that had appeared in front of the cave was gone.
He had only managed to catch a glimpse of it before it vanished too, so there was no way for him to guess what it was exactly.
A chilling sense of unease wrapped around him.
'Should I go check?'
He took a mother step forward.
Suddenly, he froze.
Then he turned around.
'This... When has the cave ever been this deep?'
For some reason, right before his very eyes, he cave seemed to have elongated.
The uneasy feeling became even stronger than before.
He turned around.
Then his eyes widened.
The fear he seemed to have forgotten came back like a mighty wave crashing.
The entrance of the cave had vanished and was now replaced with darkness.
The shrill whistling sound was gone as well.
All that was left, was the sound of his own breathing, bouncing against the walls to create a strange rippling effect.
There was also something dripping at the ends of his mind.
But it was something he couldn't quite pin down.
Nero felt a chill creeping up his leg.
His face paled and he glanced down, his breathing heavy.
There was nothing.
All his strength seemed to wash away and his body became sluggish.
His eyes widened and became bloodshot.
He tried to speak, but it felt like his tongue had been glued to the roof of his mouth.
'Damn it!'
'O-Oracle!' he yelled internally.
'What's happening to me?!'
Silence...
A deep panic settled over his very soul.
His eyes frantically rolled in their sockets, desperately searching for some sort of answer.
Anything.
Anything at all!
Perhaps, at the play of some twisted, mad god, his prayers were answered.
Right before his eyes, Nero watched as the dark walls split open to reveal an eye.
It was covered with black veins and its center was a chilling black with rings of red towards its center.
It was an enormous eye that filled most of his vision.
A terrible pain instantly assaulted his mind. Nero cried out and tried to flee and close his eyes.
He turned his head.
His gaze shot onto another wall.
With a squelching sound, that wall also opened to reveal the same eye.
The ceiling opened up to reveal another one.
Then the other walls.
More eyes.
The ground.
Eyes everywhere.
Until all that surrounded him, were those terrifying eyes.
Nero's eyes bulged out of their sockets and exploded.
Now, he could see nothing.
Except for those eyes, the very image of them so twisted and wrong, it tore at the seams of his sanity.
He wanted to scream out to express his agony, but he couldn't.
He tried to run. He tried flailing his arms.
But he was locked in place by something.
As his mind tore apart, Nero seemed to remember a certain tale.
A tale of a lady that sat at the center of the lake back in the town.
She had long black hair, and was dressed in white robes.
But that was most of what was known about her.
Some called her the Water Witch, others called her the Lady of the Lake.
However, there was one thing that was certain;
Those that saw her and heard her voice would vanish without a trace once night came.
The Lady of the Lake was an Evil Spirit or ghost as most knew them by.
The existence of ghosts was based on the very curse that plagued the world.
By offering prayers and offerings to the church, most humans were said to escape such a fate. However, those that were not deemed faithful enough, were doomed to be damned.
Their names would not be written in the Records of Life and Death, and their souls would be cursed to roam the Earth for eternity.
Most of these souls would be lucky enough to come to inhabitant the bodies of Abominations as they were defiled and corrupted.
Some souls were even taken by the Four kings of the Seven Hells.
However, there were a few souls that wouldn't suffer the first two fates.
Their torment was different.
They would exist as spirit bodies, turning into ghosts that constantly plagued the living, envious of their flesh and bones.
Most Evil Spirits were often mischievous or vengeful in nature. But they were not very powerful. The most they could do, was lure unsuspecting victims to their deaths using illusions and tricks.
But this...
Trembling, Nero could tell that this was something more than an ordinary Evil Spirit.
This was the embodiment of despair itself.
Tears of blood streaked down his hollow eyesockets.
'What do I do?'
He couldn't talk to the Oracle.
His body was in excruciating pain, and his soul seemed to be on the verge of being torn apart.
He gritted his teeth.
And bit his tongue.
For some reason, he was still grounded.
He was just a step. A single inch from losing it all.
He was in so much pain, he was on the verge of begging for death.
But it was not even to fully send him there.
'What do I do?!'
In his tumultuous mental state, he seemed to hear whispers of something.
It was a song...
Nero grasped onto that thread as hard as he could even as his mind turned murkier.
Slowly, the song became clearer and clearer until it was he could hear.
He couldn't understand the words of the strange song.
But they enchanted him nonetheless.
Until it was the only thing he could think of.
Nero's lips moved.
The words that contained madness. Words in the tongue of curses.
Damned words.
Words that should not be spoken by any human lest they fall into corruption and have their bodies and souls tainted.
Wicked words.
A terrible song. A profane song.
With his mind now fully consumed, his lips moved to sing it.
It was the Song of Wretches.