The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

Edgar woke up in a luminous room.

There was no sunlight, and there were no candles. Rather, the faint glow that made seeing possible seemed to emanate from a bluish slime that clung to the bare rock. The hewn walls were also riddled with veins of something crystalline that was not quartz, but that throbbed like human blood vessels. It was as though a stream of electricity flooded those paler sections of the bedrock, reminding the young writer of nothing so much as a northern aurora, trapped in magical amber.

Swimming in thoughts as dark and viscous as the water that lapped in pools around him, Edgar discovered that the slime had a familiar, pulsing fluorescence. It was not unlike the fungi that had thrived in the sewer, when he had been a bat, or when Edward had... It was difficult to recall which had been the case. Thinking made his head ache, as though his brain had been bruised from a recent fall.

A steady, subterranean dripping worsened the effect. Clambering up from the damp spot where he lay, Edgar turned and ran his hands over the rock around him, searching for an exit. They were like pale cave spiders splayed against the slippery walls, but even with all their dexterity, they found no crack or seam.

There was no clue to how he had arrived here. He was still half-dressed, wearing an open shirt and pants, but without shoes. He was not the same kind of disheveled he had been in the pumpkin-haunted clearing, but then, that must have been a dream...

Of course, it all made sense in retrospect. He had left the house on a frosty morning, just before sunrise. Therefore, how could he have taken a winding trail outside by autumn's rattling breath and sunset's malevolent light? He must have fallen asleep, he concluded, and felt a shiver crawl over his exposed skin that had nothing to do with the cold.

It was impossible to tell what the hour was now, if indeed hours existed in such a place as this. Edgar had no way of knowing whether he could be found here, if anyone would ever try to find him. His only option, therefore, was to hunt for a way out.

Stumbling with unanticipated exhaustion, he staggered forward down the narrow passageway, lunging at the walls for support. It was only once he had straightened that he noticed a faint humming, like a far-off siren, that was distinct from the ringing in his ears. It was soft at first, but as he crept further down the passage, it became louder.

It was an echo, as of a horn, but it struck him in a peculiar way. It was the resonance of distance; the blaring of vast space, like a trumpet sounding out from hills across a valley. It was a penetrating noise, like whale song, which is designed to echo through the undulating ocean. It was not natural, but neither was it inorganic. It was a deep, submarine droning, which filled the caverns like the restlessness of waves.

As Edgar lurched on, it reverberated through the tunnel, vibrating against his hands whenever he threw them out to stop himself from tripping. Instinctively, he found himself lured by the cosmic noise. It was a music that was not quite music- the song, he sensed, of a starry place.

As he staggered onwards, the passageway became an actual cave, hung with stalactites and filled with the slapping sounds of water. More of the strange, blue light played across the oily surfaces of rock pools, and of an underground river that bubbled up from deeper inside the system of caves. Edgar followed it along, mesmerised by its snaking progress.

Around a pile of boulders, the river turned sharply and plunged off a steep cliff face. Dizzyingly, Edgar peered after it, and saw the frothing turbulence where it met an underground lake. This lake was much more placid than the river had been. It was like a black mirror for the strange illumination.

That wasn't the strangest thing, however.

From the middle of the lake, there rose a mound. It was a sloped dome, with smaller, glassy domes of membrane protruding from it. Each of these glowed like a lantern, being filled with the same light that had been diffused in the slime-filled passageways, but was now much more concentrated, like a cluster of lighthouse beacons. The huge, bulb-covered head belonged to an enormous jellyfish, or something that resembled one. It stood perhaps a hundred feet tall on a mass of legs that were like cords or ropes. Each one was a transparent cable for electricity that raced as through the veins of crystal all around the chamber.

The pulsing of energy through the limb-like stems was echoed by the slimy growths that lined the walls. Their knotted masses made the passageway slime seem sparse by comparison. Across the cathedral ceiling, they formed a thick, cushioned layer, and it was their glow that gave the water its curious gleam. Around the sides of the cavern where they also sprouted, creating a latticework that spanned the whole room, the walls themselves seemed to bleed, running with streams of water as black as ink.

Edgar gasped. His breath stuck sharply in his throat, like a bone. As he swallowed, it seemed to slice into his very heart. He dropped to his knees, felled by the sight of the thing, which turned slowly and monolithically on its trunk of legs or nerves.

Its face was revealed to be a mask; less true visage than a helmet consisting of more beacons that flickered like fireflies beneath bubbles of membrane.

Eyeless horror though it was, it had seen him.