Dripping water echoed through the catacombs. The guardian followed the sounds through the dark stone tunnels. He wore no armor beyond the metal bands along his robes. His footsteps were calm and measured. He needed to be quiet. He needed to hear everything in the catacombs. He also did not want anything in the catacombs to hear him.
Water dripped from the damp ceiling above. The guardian gasped. He braced himself. Waves of slime rushed from the corner. They leapt into the air to absorb the water’s moisture. The guardian ran forward. He drew a sword from his sleeve and cut halfway through the slime. The two chunks fell behind him at each side. They shook and took form. Claws grew from the slime’s side, and eyes bubbled to the surface. The monsters raced forward. One managed to slash the guardian’s sleeve. The other could only claw at one of the guardian’s metal bands.
The guardian growled. He gripped his sword and started with the beast that scraped the metal band. The guardian used his sword to bash the beast into the wall. Its sticky slime body clung to the wall, unable to escape. The other monster took the chance to bite the guardian’s leg. He growled again and kicked through the back of the monster’s jaw. Then the guardian slammed down his sword to slice the fiend in half. The slime still quivered, so the guardian ran to escape the reforming monster.
Memories raced back to the guardian as he raced through those tunnels. His eternal foe really was getting stronger again. Ever century, the enemy seemed to surge in strength. Things had been this way for most of time now. The guardian wandered the catacombs. His enemy pursued him. The guardian was the only one keeping his enemy down here. Every second he survived was his victory and his foe’s defeat.
Crashing sounds boomed in the catacombs. The guardian paused his thoughts. The wall beside him burst open. Slime raced forward as a giant hand. It grabbed the guardian in a crushing grip. His metal bands even began to dig into his ribs and his arms. The slime arm slammed the guardian into the ground. The fiend began to form the rest of its body. It roared and made a second arm to bash the guardian’s head.
The guardian panicked for a moment. His foe almost never sent forth such powerful minions so early. The enemy’s strength even seemed to have grown this time far more than ever before. The guardian had to search for a reason to go forward. He found the memory of his family.
The guardian screamed out in fury. He fought to raise his chest and loosen his captor’s grip on him. The monster laughed at the attempt, which gave the guardian just the chance he needed. He summoned all his strength. He slammed his arms into the ground and propelled himself through the slime monster. The guardian stopped halfway into the fiend’s body. It began to burn away at his foe to absorb him. The guardian screamed from the pain. He punched his arms to the side and split the creature in half from the inside. The beast’s two halves fought to reform and attack again. The guardian roared and slashed his sword over and over. He would cut this slime as small as it could be cut.
The guardian stopped to breathe a moment. His old wounds were already being reopened. He needed to finish this fight quick.
Then the guardian could hear something rushing around the corner. He turned and saw a wave of slime racing at him. The guardian’s eyes widened. With no other option, he ran into the hole the earlier monster had smashed open.
The guardian ran. He balanced himself along the rigid walls whenever the makeshift tunnel’s floor became uneven. The slime wave overshot the opening at first but threw its back half into the gap. The rushing force filled the area behind the guardian. Little fiends lunged within the front of the slime. They fought to claw and grab their prey. The guardian pushed forward. If he proved too slow, the slime would overtake him and absorb him.
Soon the guardian found an opening where the tunnel had first been smash open. He ran back into one of the catacombs’ proper tunnels. The guardian thought he could gain his bearings here. Prepare himself to face his pursuer. Then the guardian heard something rumbling above him. He looked up. Slime started seeping in through the cracks in the ceiling. The guardian gasped. The slime expanded within the cracks. The ceiling broke open, and slime fell in a deadly storm. Slime from the tunnel even began exiting the makeshift tunnel. It absorbed the raining slime to grow larger and larger.
The guardian ran. Slime was rushing, falling, and forming monsters all around him. When slime started to crash through the ceiling in front of the guardian, he grabbed his sword. He would need to fight his way forward.
The guardian cut through strands of slime and kicked away any which seized his legs. He needed all his strength to push ahead. The guardian thought back to his purpose, his family, the last people left from his village. His enemy came to the village to absorb everything. It wanted only to consume. It wanted nothing to exist outside of itself. The guardian was the last warrior left standing against it. His family were soon the only ones left in their homes. For some reason, the guardian’s enemy did not seem to want them without taking him first.
The ground shook. The guardian gasped. Slime broke through the ground to block the guardian’s way. Slime kept rushing behind the guardian too. He roared and ran his sword through the slime in front of him. He swung his sword with unbelievable fury. It was the only way to keep the slime from wrapping around him. Even still, some did start sticking to him and burning away at him. All the guardian could do was scream out and power through. He remembered fleeing the village with his family. He remembered watching their home be fully consumed. He remembered how they ran.
They ran halfway around the world. Still, their enemy pursued them. It wanted the world, but it wanted to start with the survivors of its first attack. The last hope came in a far-off temple. Strange monks lived there. They knew how to fight the enemy. There was no way to destroy it. It was a force of nature. It knew nothing of life and death. However, it still had a mind, a curious one at that. The fiend did indeed grow angry at anything which did not belong to itself. In fact, its anger prevented it from shifting focus until it absorbed its current prey.
Slime burned at the guardian. He screamed. His enemy’s horrific form was finally starting to wrap around him. It pulled him deeper into itself. He could barely even breathe anymore. The guardian desperately swung his sword just to cut open some space for air. The slime responded by forming little fiends inside itself to claw at the guardian and restrain him. He closed his eyes.
The guardian remembered again. Those monks made him what he was. They freed his body from the pains of time. They showed him a place in the world’s darkest depths. A place mostly unknown even to them. These infinite catacombs were made to store the world’s worst evils. The guardian would give his life away. He would lead his enemy into these catacombs. As long as he lived, his enemy would remain there with him. The deeper he led it into the catacombs, the less likely it could ever find its way out when it defeated him. The guardian just needed to keep fighting.
The guardian summoned his strength one more time. He threw his sword up to create a hole in the slime. He grabbed the edge of the hole and ripped it open to make an exit. The guardian swam up. He took a breath and swung his sword down. He split the slime and freed himself. His enemy’s two present halves formed monsters. They both roared. The guardian screamed out. He gripped his sword. He became a storm of steel and fury. He split the slime until it was almost nothing. He actually forced it to retreat and find more of itself.
The guardian stumbled forward. He planted his sword into the ground and knelt beside it. He needed to remember his purpose.
The guardian remembered saying farewell to his family, his last day with his children, his last night with his wife. No one wanted him to be the one to enter the catacombs. Still, he was the one his enemy wanted. He could only imagine the horror if it had focused on one of his children. This really was the best way things could be. The guardian imagined how his family continued without him. They were long gone by now, but his descendants could still be out there. Belief in them was often all that kept him going.
The guardian stood. He carried his sword at his side. He needed to keep fighting. That was the only way to ensure his enemy stayed as deep in the darkness as possible. He would keep it there past the end of time if he could.
Like This Story?
This story has a related blog post about its inspiration.
Also, if you like my content and wish to see more, then you have a few options.
You could check out my book Good Stuff: 50 Poems from Youth on Amazon. Good Stuff is enrolled in the Kindle Matchbook program, so anyone who buys the paperback can also get the eBook for free.
Finally, be sure to like my Facebook page and share it with your friends. I post a link there whenever a new blog post goes live each Friday at 5:00 PM EST.