I was not supposed to live.
The elder said it without looking me in the eyes, then gestured to the soldiers.
The shove was stronger than any protest,
and the iron gate closed behind me with a sound that ended everything.
The Abyss of Morium.
A place where the guilty are not thrown…
but those who are no longer needed.
The air below was suffocating,
as if the rock itself was breathing slowly.
Moisture crept over my skin,
and the silence…
was not silence, but waiting.
I tightened my grip on the knife they had given me.
Its blade was worn,
but it was real,
and that alone was enough.
I took one step forward.
Then I stopped.
The sound came before the sight.
Scraping, breathing, something crawling in the darkness.
I did not need to see it to know:
if I fought it now, I would die.
I stepped back.
Slowly.
My breath trapped in my chest.
The creature emerged from the shadows.
Its skin was gray, its limbs too long,
its eyes wide open, without blinking.
A crawler.
One of the lowest beasts of the abyss…
and me?
Lower than it.
I ran.
Not only out of fear,
but because I understood something simple:
fighting is not bravery,
fighting is a choice.
I jumped at the rocky edge.
The fall was brutal.
The air burst from my lungs.
Pain in my shoulder,
the taste of blood in my mouth.
But I was alive.
The crawler screamed from above.
It did not jump.
It could not.
I smiled despite the pain.
I survived.