Hall of Infinite Doors
You pause before you maneuver to leave, but you know you have to. You feel the fear knotting up your insides at you stare at that horrible dragon aperture and know that whatever's in there can't be good. Perhaps you'll warn your tribe about it, and maybe one day return in force. Or perhaps it'll become a legend, something like the origins of the myth of dragons, and it will never actually be slain. You know you can't handle it, though. The thought of being alone in the darkness with whatever's in there fills you with horror, and you begin climbing down the mountain again, resolving to try your luck another day.
The thing is, climbing DOWN the steep face of the mountain is much, much harder than climbing UP it. Looking down fills you with a terrible sense of vertigo and nausea, and your fingers, numbed by the cold and worn by the trip up the mountainside, don't react as well. You rest for long periods when you do get to rest, and are ever more reluctant to start when you remember you must set down again. The wind constantly harries you, and what's more, night swiftly approaches, covering you and your mountain with encroaching darkness.
But what gets you isn't the cold, or the height, or the wind, or the mountain. It's looking up, back up at that stinking opening you paused at, and hearing something. A vast instake of breath. Something sniffing.
And then seeing the head of a snake, the head of a thick-scaled horrible nightmare snake spear demonically from that hellish cave. And seeing it turn, and look down at you, before being joined by a green-scaled twin.
Your fingers stiffen with fear, and the terror racing up and down your muscles render them still and weak. By the time its great tongue sticks out to taste the air your arms have already failed you. By the time you spot a third of the hideous creatures, you've struck a sharp point beneath you, and your life is fleeing as a scream through your mouth.
The thing is, climbing DOWN the steep face of the mountain is much, much harder than climbing UP it. Looking down fills you with a terrible sense of vertigo and nausea, and your fingers, numbed by the cold and worn by the trip up the mountainside, don't react as well. You rest for long periods when you do get to rest, and are ever more reluctant to start when you remember you must set down again. The wind constantly harries you, and what's more, night swiftly approaches, covering you and your mountain with encroaching darkness.
But what gets you isn't the cold, or the height, or the wind, or the mountain. It's looking up, back up at that stinking opening you paused at, and hearing something. A vast instake of breath. Something sniffing.
And then seeing the head of a snake, the head of a thick-scaled horrible nightmare snake spear demonically from that hellish cave. And seeing it turn, and look down at you, before being joined by a green-scaled twin.
Your fingers stiffen with fear, and the terror racing up and down your muscles render them still and weak. By the time its great tongue sticks out to taste the air your arms have already failed you. By the time you spot a third of the hideous creatures, you've struck a sharp point beneath you, and your life is fleeing as a scream through your mouth.
