Opium froze.

The sound still rang in his ears as his body locked in place, every muscle seized. His chest tightened. His breath caught.

His body didn’t move an inch. The silence that settled back in after the sound had weight.

But nothing happened.

Seconds stretched into something that felt like minutes.

Finally, he forced himself to move. Looking around the chamber, searching desperately for something to use. Anything.

Among the scattered trash, lay a long wrench.

As soon as Opium grabbed the wrench, the black metal door shot from its frame. With a deafening shriek of metal, the heavy massive slab was hurled across the chamber as if it weighed nothing at all.

“Wha—”

A violent shock wave tore through the room and slammed into Opium, throwing him backward into the casket. Stone bit into his spine as he fell.

Dazed and scrambling, he shoved himself up. His eyes lifted to the entrance.

The lack of the door showed pure blackness. With only flickers of torchlight.

Then something moved.

A skeletal hand burst from the darkness and clamped onto the skull wall. Several skulls cracked under its grip.

An arm next.

Then a shoulder.

Then a skull, crowned with fractures and shadow, sliding into the torchlight.

Opium’s stomach dropped.

Its frame was long and crooked, wrapped in layers of black and crimson rotted fabric that might once have been robes.

Then Opium heard it. A grinding scraping, dragging just beyond the light.

A wide slab of dark metal, longer than Opium was tall. Its edge warn with age, jagged and ancient. The blade dragged across the stone as the skeleton moved, carving lines into the floor.

The rugged skeleton advanced one slow step at a time towards him. With every step the chamber seemed to shrink around him.

The skull walls murmured louder.

The torch flickered violently as he passed.

When the creature finally lifted its head, two white sparks buried in shadow, fixed on Opium.

‘No—no—‘

The disturbing creature took another step forward. Sword hanging behind its neck, the far end of the blade angled toward the floor.

Stone cracked and bone groaned beneath it.

‘This can’t be happening.’

It did not slow.

‘This can’t be happening.’

The white sparks latched to him.

<Move!>

Opium barely snapped out of it, stumbling out of the tomb like a mouse escaping its trap.

Once out, he never took his eyes off it, backing away as fast as he could. His movements were frantic and uncoordinated.

Opium’s feet were moving before he told them to. One step back for every step it took.

The creature didn’t rush. It didn’t need to.

‘None of this—‘

Opium’s heel struck something.

He went down hard.

Skulls rolled. Dust and bone scattered around him as he crashed into the side of a stone casket. Pain flared through his back and elbow. Something warm slid down his long over-sized sleeve.

Blood.

He scrambled up, nearly slipping on loose fragments.

‘What the hell is this thing!’

The skeleton kept advancing, taking more ground bit by bit.

‘Think! Think!’

In the moment of desperation, he ran sideways. Refusing to let himself be cornered, searching for an angle to the exit.

As soon as he sprinted, the ancient skeleton pulled the jagged sword from its neck, using two hands, charged a swing at Opium’s direction.

The blade was too far to do any direct damage.

Then air compressed. A sudden weight against his ears.

A compressed wave of air exploded outward, hurling bone, stone, and dust across the room, erupting the chamber into utter chaos.

Opium flew back with the debris, shards scraping across his skin, a chunk of stone cracking into his ribs as he tumbled helplessly through the air.

He slammed into the skull-lined wall on the far side of the chamber. The impact blasted the air from his lungs, his chest convulsing as everything inside him shifted.

‘How…’

<i>

Opium struggled as he breathed. Each inhale scraped in and came back half-empty.

Sharp pain radiated from his back. Something shifted inside him.

Nowhere left. No space. No solutions.

His fingers found the wrench that was flown up against wall and clenched it tight. The metal trembling in his grip.

His mind raced, grasping for cracks in the moment. A mistake. A rule. Anything.

Nothing came.

The truth pressed in. The sound of bone dragging. Closer.

‘I can’t…’

‘I can’t die here.’

‘I didn’t survive a suffocating tomb just to fucking die!’

He could feel the coffin he was once in, slowly being suffocated.

‘I already paid the toll!’

His grip tightened.

‘I—I just got to make a plan. Anything.’

Every scenario Opium played out ended with him dead.

The Skeleton loomed over him, its sword dragged behind it. Empty socket burned into him, the slow creature finally caught up.

‘No-no-no-no’

Opium’s breath came faster and faster.

The skeleton lifted its blade.

He leaped to the side and flung the wrench, aiming for its skull, and dove with all of his strength. His eyes squeezed shut as he ripped himself aside, praying that a miracle would happen.

The crack came a second later, the wrench striking the creature’s skull before spinning into the dark.

The jagged skeleton didn’t fall. Not in the slightest.

But its head was slightly up.

The sword still came down.

By nothing but blind luck, he slipped just outside the heart of the blast. One second later would have ended him.

‘I’m Ali--?’

The world detonated into motion, skulls bursting apart, stone flying, dust choking the air. The force of it hurled him sideways across the floor, tumbling him through bone and shattered stone, skin and cloth tearing as he rolled.

But it also carried him, giving him a few more seconds of distance.

He twisted with the momentum, and used his arms to throw himself into the closest open coffin. The pain came instant, almost flying into hard stone. But as the cloudy dust settled, everything was quiet.

Unsure of everything, he could only hope that the jagged skeleton lost him.

His body surged with pain as he crashed into the tomb. Blood soaked through his clothes. Everything hurt.

But he couldn't care less.

His body quickly pressed onto the coffin, as if it was consuming him. Making himself as small as possible. Something warm still moved down his sleeve. Slow. Steady. He hadn't stopped bleeding.

He clamped his hands over his mouth. Held his breath. Trying to hide every ounce of pain from his voice. His own heartbeat filled his ears. He was sure it could hear that too.

In that moment nothing happened. No sound, no noise. Not even the whispers.

Everything was completely still.

Opium sat there and listened.

After agonizing seconds, a low hum broke the silence.

A faint red glow appeared, bleeding into the dark and washing this side of the room in dim crimson light.

He knew better than to peek out.

The scent of blood filled the air, coming from the direction of the mysterious red light which began to pulse.

Just then a voice boomed in his head.

[THE SKELETON PRINCE IS NOW BOUND TO YOUR BLOOD]

[NEW STATUS EFFECT: HUNTED]

'Wh—'

Without any time to register this. The footsteps resumed, along with his attention.

Slow.

Heavy.

They did not wander.

Out of the many coffins in the chamber, The Skeleton Prince walked straight toward the one Opium was hiding in.

Step by step.

Closer.

Closer.

Until it stood right beside the coffin.