The heroes had thought it odd that a tower would progress downwards instead of upwards, but it didn't really matter much. The dragon was expected, and was as such swiftly dealt with it. The Ancient Green Dragon was so old and worn-down from previous adventurers that it wasn't too much of a challenge. However, as they crossed the threshold to the room where they imagined the princess lay, the door swiftly sealed shut behind the heroes.

"What the!? Is this a trap?! Is the king behind this?!?" Maria, the rogue, pounded against the metal door, now sealed shut.

"I don't think so," Oak the Barbarian said, looking around the room cautiously. The room had too many visibly moving parts, had too many bright lines running across it. The group was him, Maria, Baren the Sorcerer, and Lewis the Paladin/Cleric. General... holy warrior type.

A faint buzz filled the air, and a red light shone down on the quartet. They closed back together, weapons at the ready, but nobody came. There wasn't anything... until they heard the voice.

*Humanoids identified.* An old-sounding, robotic voice rang out. *Please request preferred language.* As it was talking in Draconic, none of the party understood it, beyond it sounding intensely dangerous. The old mechanisms cycled through abyssal, celestial, before finally, by chance, repeating the instruction in common.

"...Language?" Baren lifted his hand to his mouth, calling out loudly. "Common! We understand common!" The voice paused as faint whirrs emanated from somewhere within the tower. The voice now spoke again, speaking in common and sounding significantly less evil.

[Welcome- Scanning. Adventurer Garb identified. Welcome, adventurers. What are you doing here?]

"We're here to rescue the princess," Oak called out. "There's endless tales about her. Power and wealth beyond anyone's wildest dreams." The robotic voice was silent as it evaluated the statement.

[Negative.]

"What?"

[Negative. No humanoid lifeforms have been here since I was created.]

"How can there be nothing here? There's got to be something?!" Maria cried out.

[There is something. Something that, long ago, did give power. Did give wealth. But no longer.]

"...What do you mean?"

[My creators, before I was made, made a substance they used to power great machines. Entire continents glowed with light, even in the dead of night. But the substance poisoned them. Thus, they buried it, deep down here. I presume the dragon hatchling outside the chamber is no more?]

"...It isn't, no."

[Unfortunate.]

"...So there's nothing down here? Nobody to save?" The construct was silent for a long time, before the room started glowing. Lights turned on in the room, slowly growing in intensity. Lighting up the walls.. upon which were written strange drawings.

Drawings of people mining into the ground and hitting a strange layer. The layer then released some strange substance that resulted in the people dying horrible, horrible deaths. And in uncountable languages and tongues, with words known and unknown, sprawling over every surface in a maddening mantra, were written phrases. One stood out to the eyes of the adventurers, and though they did not know why, the phrase made their skin crawl.

This place is not a place of honor.

This place is not a place of honor.

This place is not a place of honor.

Within the Tower

Removing the dragon's head was not easy. My opponent laid stunned and incapacitated from a magical potion I had finally managed to throw at it when the dragon's fatigue, much like my own, had begun to catch up to it. Its long neck of golden scales like chain mail laid across the ground, a prisoner in its own body, but not for long. The potion mage only guaranteed me that this concoction wouldn't last more than sixty seconds, so I moved with haste to finish this fight one and for all. I drew my blade up in the air and swung it down, using the rest of my might to hack through the dragon's thick scales, dense bones, and pulpy flesh like a lumberjack chopping through the mightiest tree in the forest. Halfway through its neck the beast let out a deep moan, it was then that I realized that I had cut through most of its esophagus as a spurt of wind rushed up from the wound taking with it crimson blood that sprayed all over my shining armor and face. I did not stop, in fact I chopped harder and faster in fear that the potion had begun to wane. I did not do so to put the beast out of its misery. No, my mind had become clouded with the bloodlust of victory and a desire to save the rumored beautiful damsel that laid within the tower that I had staked my upon my life to save when I set out for this quest many moons ago. I had become a man driven by conquest and spoils, nothing more. Little did I know at the time that the dragon did not guard the tower to keep its prisoner in, but to protect the outside from what lies within.

The dragon let out one last moan when my blade finished it off. Its body went limp and the life flicked away from its eyes like a blown out candle. With my opponent now just a husk of flesh, scales and bones I turned towards the tower and began limping towards the tower doors. Time and rot had devoured the tower. The ancient stones had been eroded away and eaten by the scarlet vines that stretched upwards from the base to the very tip. Like a flame devouring a fuel log in the middle of a bonfire. I feared that even the gentlest breeze would rattle the walls and send it crumbling down upon me and the dame that lived inside. However, this did not fuel me with fear, but haste to save whoever had been taken prisoner. I began moving as fast as my tired body would allow.

When I pushed against the doors a deep groan came from within the walls of the tower. I paused, bracing for another battle with another beast, but the groaning stopped. I pushed again and the same sound echoed through the tower's cylindrical walls and bounced back to my ears. Pausing once again the sound stopped. Finally, with one last push I heard the groan again, louder and fuller, and then I laughed at my own delirium. My chuckles reverberating off the walls back towards me. The doors! There was no beast calling to me from the abyss of the tower, but the sounds of the heavy metal doors as they rotated about their hinges. I must had been more exhausted from that battle than I had previously thought. Shaking my head I gave the doors one final heave and entered the tower.

The interior was pitch black, darker than I had expected given the daylight outside. But luckily for me I found a torch beside the door and lit it up, granting me some respite from the darkness. I lit the torch and the room filled with an amber light, except there was no room. I had expected a room filled with tables, chairs and perhaps some books, as one usually expected to find in old mage towers, but instead I was greeted with an empty void just a few meters from the entrance. A thick dark abyss that absorbed even the sun's light as it shown through the door. To my right, a spiral staircase descended into the void. Putting all sense of unease behind me, I followed the stairwell. I would not have come all this far just to cower away at the sight of darkness like a child.

I journeyed down the stone stairs, only the light of the torch and the clattering of my armor accompanying me. The deeper I went the silenter it got, the echos of my armor became more muted at each level, and the flames of the torch dimer. As if the darkness itself absorbed them. Soon, the pounding of my heart had become the loudest sound in the depths. For the first time since I was a little boy, I begun to feel real fear. I looked up. The light from the door had nearly vanished, just a sliver of white light. Like a moth near candlelight, I felt a strong urge to go to it and I hard nearly given into my rational fear when I heard her.

A gentle singing from deep down within the well of darkness. Beautiful and delicate. Alas, I had found my princess and she was not far away. Laughing again at my delirium, I ventured down towards the base. I had not noticed at the time that my chuckling did not echo back to me.

At the base I could feel the immense pressure of the darkness pressing against everything. My torch, although still burning full, seemed to let out no more light than a candles, and the clattering of my armor had taken on a muffled sound as if it had been submerged underwater. My heart however, thundered through my ears. A drum pounding loud on either side of my head. Looking up only the abyss remained. Even the faint musk of mold and dust that I had smelled at the top of the stairwell had disappeared. The air had become completely scentless. All that remained beyond the dim reach of my flames was the trace of a stone floor. Again, the cowardly side of my brain began nudging at me to retreat back up. To return to the comfort of the daylight. But when I looked up into the endless void above me, I wondered if I would ever be able to find my way back to the light. And then a sliver of light appeared across the room from me, followed by that elegant singing.

Pure white light. Whiter than even the sun shone from across the well. My eyes now well adapted to the abyss had become nearly blinded in its rays. When they finally dilated I made sense of the source. An opening to a doorway! And beyond it, her voice. I followed the light and the voice and entered the room.

--

Have you ever seen a rat king before? I have, it is not a pleasant sight. A group of poor rats all tangled together at the tail in an impossible knot. Each little creature pulling away from one another, squealing for their lives. Each tug tightening the knot. Each shrill more agonizing. Until death comes in and spares them of their unfortunate hell. Now imagine that with people, except without the blessing of death.

--

I entered that room, eyes still blinded and adapting to the harsh light. The singing now filled me on every side, too full to be just a single damsel but many. For a brief moment as my eyes recovered I grinned in thinking of the reward I would get for being the savior of so many lost ladies. I would wed the fairest of the bunch and then marry the remaining off to my other fellow knights. I would be a hero to not just one kingdom, but many. Perhaps all in the land. But that fantasy did not last long. Once the curtains of light faded away I found myself within a realm not even reserved for nightmares.

Bodies tangled in bodies extended across the floor and climbed up the walls into another deep void that hung overhead, a demonic creeper from the depths of hell itself. Limbs twisted and turned into one another, limp and boneless like rope. I could not discern where one body began and the other one ended. The tangle of flesh withered and pulsed like a pile of worms upon the flesh of a rotten corpse. Faces of women stared back at me all letting out one harmonious moan after another. Others had been buried deep within the monstrosity, if they moaned I could not hear them against the backdrop of the shrills that filled the room. I wanted to run, I wanted to escape, but instead my instincts locked me into fear. My mind grasped to find some sort of explanation for this and yet it found none. When I found the will to move I stepped one foot back. I should have made a large step.

An arm extended from the pile and grasped itself around my ankle. I shook my leg, trying to wiggle it loose but the arm would not let go. It tugged at me. I tugged back, and then another arm of a different flesh wrapped its fingers around my leg. They pulled and knocked me off balance. I reached for my sword and swung at the limbs indiscriminately. The more I swung the more they pulled and many more joined in on the effort. The moans of the flesh grew louder and louder until not even the clattering of my armor as it dragged against the floor while they dragged closer could be heard. My resistance had been futile, soon the tangle had covered all but my face. I let out a scream as my body became submerged in the tangle of human flesh. It was then that I thought I finally understood what the women had been singing. "Join us, join us!"

I don't know why I write so much horror (and horror comedies). I just do. Probably because I read a good amount of it, after all this story is highly influenced by the Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, and Uzumaki by Junji Ito. If this story piqued your interest then I suggest you subscribe to /r/QuadrantNine for more short stories by me, along with project updates and the occasional post about random things like productivity (scary, I know). I also have an complete list of my short stories over on my website that extends past the subreddit's archives.

If you enjoyed "Within the Tower" then may I recommend you check out "The Last Apple" which is about what would happen to the doctors once we run out of apples. Another rec of mine would be "Potted Plant" (only available on my archival website) which is about those strange creepy beings that hide behind faux plants inside all our houses.

With a crack as loud as thunder, splintered wood exploded into the chamber.

The door swung gently open and in stepped a figure clad in armour. The plates ground together and clunked with each furtive step taken into the chamber. Armour like this was hard to come by and so was not worn by any run of the mill soldier, but by a knight. A gallant hero besmirched with scratches and scrapes from arduous adventures and ferocious fights.

The knight sheathed his longsword, still glistening with a claret sheen afforded to him from the emptied veins of a once monstrous dragon that now lay still, cooling at the bottom of the tower steps.

A gloomy darkness blanketed the chamber before him. This is not what he was expecting. Tales told this tower was the prison of a most splendid and beautiful princess who was sequestered away by her jealous kin for being the most fair of all the Elven maidens. Someone of such beauty would not live in the dank destitution presented by the crumbling walls and cracked floors of this cold and uninviting chamber.

Peering through the dim light, the knight could make out little of furnishings in the room. Beneath the barred window sat a small wooden table and chair set for one adorned with dusty aged crockery and rusted utensils. Flecks of spoiled food long since perished bled into the woodwork, sprouting small colonies of sweetly smelling fungal growths. The princess was clearly neglected for any decent maid would have cleared this mess long ago. A thought stirred within the knight and spurred a flash of anxiety. Where was the princess?

He sharply turned to face deeper into the room and was met with a soft silken curtain blackened with mildew that caught what little breeze passed between the bars on the window. Billowing ever so slightly, the stained veil obscured a low and narrow bed, atop of which lay a figure still as stone.

For fear he was too late, the knight hastened across the room. One hand upon the hilt of his sword, the other groped for the curtain and tore it aside to reveal a shocking site.

Laid atop not a bed but a slab of chiselled marble was a delicately carved and ornate relief of the princess. Carvings of this kind were not uncommon but were typically reserved to graveyards and crypts. This was no prison; it was a tomb.

Disheartened, the knight stood for some time. Standing a silent sentinel over the final resting place of the princess until he could no longer, the knight gave a gentle caress across the relief’s cold grey cheek and whispered a gentle prayer before turning to leave.

His attention was arrested by what stood just beyond the foot of the stone coffin on the far side of the chamber. Not the rotting dresser that had seen better days, but the box that sat atop it.

A fine ebony box wrought with intricate golden filigree caught the diminishing light and radiated a powerful opulence that drew the knight towards it. The knight picked up the expertly crafted box and felt something rattle inside. Unfastening the tiny latch and opening the box revealed, sunk in a bed of black velvet, a plum-coloured fleshy sack that both resembled and stunk of a butcher’s leftovers. It writhed and pulsed with a weak regular beat, squelching slightly with every throb.

The knight almost dropped the box and its contents as he wretched at the sight of the ghastly thing. As disgusting as it was, the knight could not take his eyes of it. The thudding of each beat was oddly enchanting, the sound slowly rising the closer he got. The pulsing mass occupied every corner of his hazy mind, forcing out all but one thought.

He had to touch it.

Morbid curiosity got hold of him, and against his better judgement, after placing the box back on the dresser he reached out with trembling gauntleted fingers and prodded the obscurity.

It ceased beating.

Coming out of the daze like one waking from a deep slumber cleared the knights mind, any and all thoughts of the fleshy sack slipped away like a fading dream. He had no memory of touching the thing but knew he had stopped the beating himself.

A cool terror then slowly traced its way down his spine, teasing his nerves with icy fingers that penetrated through his flesh and into his soul. Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the chill deepened. A sudden overwhelming feeling of dread washed over him, diving out any semblance of positive thought or emotion.

Black fog seeped from under the lid of the sarcophagus and pooled in an inky layer across the floor. The knight turned to watch as a shape took form from the mist. Columns of coal-black smoke spiralled in the frozen air, coiling and twirling into a wispy mass that took a more solid form.

Suspended on stilts of smoke and wreathed in a shroud dark as night hung a grisly phantom bearing a resemblance to the princess. Her hair wispy and grey as clouds bellowed from a drawn and pallid face twisted into a silent scream. It wasn’t the grey-green gangrenous flesh or the yellowed nails as sharp as talons but the pale vacancy behind those dulled eyes that truly filled the knight with fear.

Neither moved nor spoke for what felt like an age. Stunned silence filled the room as they stared at each other. The knight then made a move for his sword, but She was faster.

One of her gnarled bony hands snapped forward with a sickening crack, each crooked finger clamping down upon the steel helm of the hopeless knight. He screamed as the steel buckled and bent not from pressure but from freezing cold all the while his cloudy white soul was drawn from nose, mouth, and eyes into the gaping mouth of the princess.

His lifeless corpse slumped to the floor, a layer of frost coating the front of his helm where it had been touched by the princess. She too dropped to the floor in a cloud of smoke that broke away like ripples on a lake.

All was still upon the surface of the fog until it was broken by an island of pink that rose to take the shape of a young woman. There stood the princess, fully formed and as beautiful as she had been in life. Long flowing hair as red as fire kissed her pale milky skin as she stepped over the knight towards the box. Drawing it level with her emerald eyes she saw the fleshy mass, now glowing a warm orange-red from within, beating a strong and steady rhythm.

Finally, after centuries she had finally returned to the mortal world with a fire in her heart that could only be extinguished by one thing, and one thing alone. Revenge.

---

If you liked this, you can find more of my writing here r/TheHiveWithUdders

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

The door opened to an unexpected sight. Instead of a beautiful damsel running into my arms I am met with an almost empty circular room. With the exception of one thing, a stone pedestal with a small trinket on top of it. My footsteps each through the room as I approach it’s center, the smell of old wood and hard stone permeating the room. I run my fingers along the dusty, hideous faces chiselled into the trinket, it was barely the size of my hand, yet as soon as I touched it, all I could feel was dread, pure, unbridled, Lovecraftian dread. I fall back, the trinket clanging against the floor with a metallic ring, just the idea of touching the object is enough to make me sweat. I had already beaten the dragon, this thing wasn’t worth my time. As soon as I turned around, I saw the door swing shut and the trinket starting to emit a strange whirring sound.