What Evil Lurks
Friday, February 7th, 2003Somewhere in The Catacombs, underneath the heart of the City, in the darkness a voice began speaking :
“I used to be the errand boy for the Powers-That-Be… up above.
It was a THANKLESS job.
I knew that.
I had never asked for ANYTHING.
The one time that I did, I was denied.
It dawned on me then just how unfair the world really was.
How much in need of a makeover…
I say we need a new start. A FRESH BEGINNING…
…done RIGHT.
I tried this before, you know.
But I was limiting myself when I tried to remake The Falls.
Fixing one region doesn’t help when the WHOLE WORLD… heh, the WHOLE UNIVERSE… is screwed up.
This is my chance.
My blank page for Creation.
My chance to remake EVERYTHING — the way it SHOULD have been made…”
Soft giggles in the darkness erupt into wild, mad laughter.
Water drips from the stone ceiling above, making a sort of musical drip-drip-dripping beat on the floor below. Amid the refuse a body shifts from under a small pile of newspaper and sits up in the darkness. Mad laughter echoes from elsewhere in the Catacombs, but it’s too difficult with all the echoes throughout the caverns to tell exactly which direction it’s coming from.
Clearing away the papers, the body stands up and steps out into a shaft of light streaming dimly in from a crack in the ceiling. The man is dressed in rags, unshaven but other than the ragged clothes he appears to be somewhat clean, considering everything.
He turns his head this way and that, listening to the falling sound of the laughter in the darkness. He knows that laugh… but from where?
In his mind he reaches back, searching for the memory. A shiver runs up his spine involuntarily, making the hair on his neck stand on end. His eyes widen with a sudden realization, and he sprints off into the darkness and towards the stairs that will lead to the surface… to tell her.
