Witch of Fear [Mild horror, Isekai High Fantasy]

Down. 

It was always down. Always falling. Always crashing down into a hungering abyss. 

The rocks and roots fell away from Autumn’s feet as the Tyrant’s heavy bulk broke the fragile ground. Beneath them yawned a lightless well once hidden by a weaved mat of nature and time. 

As her stomach lurched and fell away, Autumn desperately scrambled to cling to the edges of the collapsing ground. It was all for naught. The entire ground buckled and descended into the hungering darkness, dragging all above with it. Down into the darkness that desired the starlight and warmth unveiled suddenly before it. 

Nothing could escape the black maw that swallowed all. 

Whistling wind cut past Autumn as she plummeted and deafened her to the panicked screams about her. Her own stolen as she screamed into the void. 

Darkness growing below and light dying above. 

Naught in her brief arsenal of magic could halt Autumn and she fell ever onward down into the dark. A few others around her were not so limited; they cast flowing magics with song and slowed themselves and others on wings of glow. However, even they couldn’t deny the decent its due. Gravity bore them deeper still, albeit slower than Autumn. 

The lone witch fell with a heart fear-struck and lost to a rapid drumbeat. Her mind drowned in an intoxicating ambrosia of terror. 

Alone once more. 

Time wrenched as the deep dark ate the light and with it the falling bodies and tattered weaponry faded from sight. The light of heaven vanished, fading into a dim point, and eventually succumbed to darkness. A nothingness encapsulated Autumn’s world; her faulting human eyes failing to pierce the dark. Desperate, she clutched to her wand with a bone-white grip. 

Suddenly, without warning, Autumn crashed into a wall of ice-cold water and her mind stuttered at the sudden shock. Like a light-switch being flicked, her mind turned off. Fainted. 

Into a coldly familiar embrace she sank. 

Ice tore at her heat while vengeful tides tossed her limp form from rocky wall to rocky wall, dragging her down narrow underwater tunnels. The young witch’s body bruised against the rocks and a slacken grip lost a wand to the water’s tearing fingers. 

Away it drifted, lost to the dark and cold. 

Autumn consciousness broke back into the world as she cracked against a sharp rock jutting from the tunnel’s wall. Waters rushed into gasping lungs with a chilly fury, filling them to the brim with brackish flavors. 

An unwelcomingly familiar taste. 

Struggling and drowning, Autumn kicked for a surface she could not discern, grasped for ledges she had no sight of. Not in this all-encompassing dark. But in her desperation, be it because of luck, fate, or a story playing unbidden, her fingers clawed upon a lip worn smooth by time. Her fingers became raw and bloody as she clung tight. 

The waters were unhappy, furious even. They snatched at the waterlogged form that dared to defy it. 

It wasn’t to be. 

Autumn heaved herself out of the waters on shaking limbs and onto the rocky shore beyond. Great gouts of water vomited forth from her cracked lips as she cleared her lungs with wracking, painful coughs. 

Exhausted, Autumn lay upon her side. Sodden clothes clung to her fragile frame, shielding underneath the myriad of fresh bruises. Luckily nothing felt broken as she panted and coughed. As the adrenaline faded, shivers dominated her. 

Autumn felt about herself for her wand, having noticed its absence from her hand, but she could not find it. 

“F-u-u-ckk” She managed to shiver out through pale lips. “No-o no no!” 

On torn hands and knees Autumn searched, but had no luck. Reaching back behind herself, Autumn retrieved her waterlogged pack. It’d somehow survived, albeit worse for wear. An oil-coated torch found its way into Autumn’s hands alongside a flint and tinder. 

After several agonizing tries a bloom of light was born into the cavern, sending dark shadows scurrying back in fright. 

Glancing around, Autumn took in the cavern she’d found herself.

Cast into the light of the torch was a sprawling cavern coated and overgrown by rot and a multitude of mushrooms of kinds and colors. They grew as towering as trees of the Overworld, a forest all of their own. Some clung to each other in clusters like a city made entirely of fungi, while others stood alone, dominant in their own spaces of death and rebirth. A mist of darkness clung to the edges of the light, and Autumn could see no further. 

Squinting out into the dark, Autumn swung her blazing torch about in search. Turning in place, she spied another soul washed up like her, not that far away from herself. Currently, they lay face down in a puddle of watery red. 

“Hey, are you alright?”

Autumn’s timid and cracked voice bounced around the cavern as she approached the lying figure. Tattered and soaked apparel of a guardsman reflected in the flickering light. The demonkin, judging by the red horns peeking out from limp wet hair, didn’t respond to Autumn’s call nor her approach, even weakly. 

“Hello?” 

No response. 

Autumn stood above the demoness, light pooling down. Gulping down her trepidation, she grasped onto their shoulder and with a heave rolled them over. A horrified gasp ripped clean from Autumn’s abused throat as she beheld the demoness’ face. It was gone, carved inwards by a stray rock in her fall. All that remained was a gaping hole of gore and blood. 

Retching, Autumn scrambled to the side, letting loose whatever was left in her stomach. Not that there was much. She was horrified, a chill running down her spine; it so easily could have been her laying there, face destroyed and life forfeit. 

Alone in the dark. 

Dead. 

The shiver rolled over Autumn’s skin as she dry-retched. However, a wave of relief crested inside of her, much to her shame. 

She was relieved that it wasn’t anyone she knew, anyone she cared about.  

Steeling herself, Autumn turned back to the body. Briefly glancing, she spied a shortsword of iron and bone buckled to their waist. With only a brief hesitation, Autumn relieved them of it and secured it to her own waist. She justified it to herself that they weren’t using it and with the loss of her wand, she needed the reach it provided.

“Sorry.” Autumn rasped. “I-I don’t even know who you are, but I’ll try to let your people know where you fell. I…Goodbye, and rest well.” From around the dead guardsman’s neck, Autumn retrieved a small amulet, their holy symbol, and tucked it away. A token of proof, one that’d hopefully help put the dead to rest, but she doubted it.

This place felt devoid of faith and comfort, locked away from the eyes of the gods above.

Autumn set off with a flaming beacon in one hand and iron in the other.

Following the river upstream, in mere moments since she’d left, Autumn came across more signs of the battle she’d fought above. Scraps of broken weapons and ruined armor, sundered roots and branches, and mangled bodies littered the rocks. 

So many bodies. 

They lay like scattered dolls, dots of green against the gray. Goblins. The slain horde had fallen in with them as the ground had collapsed and now rested in the under-roots. 

Foul faces frozen in grim scowls.  

With nervous steps, Autumn picked her way across the carpet of the dead. Like the arc of a lighthouse, her torch swept across the mounds in search of familiar faces. 

Perhaps thankfully, she spied naught.

Cold nipped at her bones as she walked on with echoing steps. The underground was still and chill. She shivered underneath wet clothes that bound tight to her body. Only the held flame kept the sapping cold at bay. 

Autumn listened keenly as she walked. However, all she heard was the sound of her own breath, the beat of her heart, and her timid footsteps amidst the deafening rush of water. Whatever foul creatures of the dark that laid claim to this city of mushrooms and fungi were silent, unnervingly so. Nothing stirred louder than the river’s burble. 

“Fuc-c-k-king creepy-ass p-place.” 

Despite her fright and trepidation, Autumn continued on, using anxiety as fuel for courage. 

Holding the flame aloft, she nervously scanned the towering mushrooms around. The bright scythe of light revealed strands of white glistening amidst the stalks. Strung between the towering trunks were great silken spider-webs of intricate make. All manner of sizes dominated the cavern, some even as large as a ship’s sail, maybe even larger. This wasn't Autumn's first encounter with such giant-sized webs, but they loomed even creepier in the oppressive darkness.

As she squinted at them glinting in the torch-light, a prickling sprouted up all over her skin as if a multitude of hidden eyes watched her. 

Ignoring the feeling, she pressed on, burning away the webs in her way. 

Dark shadows watched on in hunger as she fled. 

Time once more felt lost, eaten by the dark. Down here there was a nothingness that dogged her steps. A lightless world of decay.

How long had she walked? 

It was hard to gauge without a sun to trail her or moons to guide. All she had to rely upon was the dimming of the fire in hand and the increasing ache in her feet; an annoyingly recognizable feeling. 

Autumn’s feet halted.

Laid out before her was a dense wall of fungi. It stretched tall and wide like a forest of white stalks from the water’s edge off into the darkness that her torch failed to press into. The gaps between the tall growths were thin, barely wider than Autumn herself if she’d press sideways. She could make it through alright, but that wasn’t the thing that alarmed Autumn so. Dusting the tall caps was a heavy powder of spores; even now she spied the musty air was heavy with them. They drifted slowly downward like snowflakes in a windless void.

Autumn gazed down the long line of stalks that disappeared into the darkness. She was lost, utterly and entirely. 

Story of her life. 

If she braved the dark, moving away from the river’s edge, it was highly likely she’d never find it again.

Autumn slipped her reasonably bulky pack from her back and removed her sash from her waist to use as a face mask. The fabric was musty, wet, and claustrophobic but it beat a lungful of drifting spores. 

“Alr-right. You can d-do this Autumn.” 

With her pack in one hand and torch in the other, Autumn ventured into the towering ‘woods’. The spongy trunks pressed in tight around her as Autumn sucked in her stomach as best she could. 

It was slow going. 

Step by arduous step, Autumn maneuvered through the maze of fungi. Even with all her care, she could not avoid brushing up against the stalks here and there, sending down a rain of spores to coat her and her hat. The powder irritated the skin where it fell. Fortunately, only a small portion of Autumn's skin was actually uncovered. 

Her eyes, however, bore the brunt, leaving her teary-eye and in pain. 

Autumn’s improvised mask kept the worst of the pollutant from her lungs, but her every breath came tinged with spikes of pain. A particularly nasty fit left her breathless and lightheaded. Blood beaded on her pale lips.

With a great gasp of relief, Autumn slipped free from the white forest. Her pained breaths came in wet, ragged coughs from behind her mask. Panicked and in pain, Autumn hastily rushed to the river’s edge, dusted like a snow-clad angel. 

The river's roar carried away the spores as she carefully washed herself, keeping a keen eye to the water's greed. 

Mucus mixed with blood splattered into the flow as Autumn hurriedly removed her mask and spat.

The delicious currents of pain blackened Autumn’s mind to her surroundings. Her soul-splitting hacks and coughs that threatened to disgorge her lungs deafened her to the soft footfalls behind. 

It was too late by the time she realized. 

Hands grasped Autumn’s arms and pulled. Sight watery with pain and tears, all she saw was a smile in the dark before her mind fled once more.