The second Natasha entered the space everything around her became different.
A strange pressure touched her body before she entered the Forbidden Zone. A background noise made her bones tremble although she could not detect it with her ears. The vault made the temperature decrease while showing her the false light of its walls through her misting breath.
Entering this Forbidden Area works a change on you.
No outside contacts can reach you now.
[Unknown Presence Detected…]
The system notifications appeared faintly in her peripheral view but Natasha paid them no mind. Something else demanded her attention.
The walls… moved.
Their appearance as carved stone blocks did not reveal their mystery until I studied them. When she entered further the engravings started changing their shapes and they felt like beating hearts close to her mind. The symbols resisted her attempts to study them.
It was an illusion. It had to be.
"It has to be."
"Everyone stay close," she ordered, gripping her sword tighter. "Something isn't right."
Alison took her side as he reached for his knife. He showed strain across his shoulders as he checked all directions with rapid movement. "That whisper…" His voice was low. The disturbance affects us physically just as it does mentally.
Ira used her radiant palm to feel the wall surface. Her fingers trembled. "No. This place… it's alive."
Dren released his air quietly without hiding his concern. "Great. Another creepy death trap. Just what we needed."
The more they descended the worse the danger became.
The darkness was wrong. The darkness changed how it worked instead of being a basic light loss. As they walked forward the darkness shrank away yet came back quickly when they stopped viewing it. Something invisible followed each movement they made with a strange yet known tempo.
Then the whispers came.
A voice becomes barely audible in the background. When they entered the chamber it produced only the wind sound of stone particles moving. But as they walked, it grew. The conversation fragments flew across the air through ghostly voices.
Then—
"Natasha."
She froze.
The whisper wasn't distant anymore. It was right next to her ear.
"Natasha."
Slow. Deliberate.
She picked up a new voice but it felt familiar to her soul.
Her pulse pounded. "Did you hear that?"
She stared at Natasha with her intense concentration. "What?"
"The voice." She swallowed hard. "It said my name."
Ira's breathing hitched. "I think… Everyone in the room can sense the strange message.
All members of her team stared past her in a strange behavior that made Natasha aware they shared the same experience. The members of their party briefly lost focus before their stare returned to normal. They felt their minds suffering attack.
Her own thoughts felt… slippery. Unsteady.
Then the hallucinations began.
First, flickers in the corner of her vision. The shadows move around at the edge of the sunlight. As she glanced around the room no living thing existed.
Then, the walls warped. A series of distorted symbols on the wall provoked intense nausea when she saw them transform into empty-eyed creatures with open mouths stretching out their grasping hands.
"No." She pressed her teeth together then closed her eyes briefly to open them once again.
The walls turned back to their usual state. The symbols still.
But the whispers didn't stop.
They were being watched.
The truth revealed itself in her stomach. The ancient dungeon did not only contain leftover magical power. Something else was here. Watching. Waiting.
Then—
A sound.
Not a whisper this time.
A scrape.
Stone against stone. Slow. Deliberate.
She secured her gun tightly in her hand. They were not alone.
A sudden wind passed them yet they detected no origin. The stone walls did not provide all the coldness she experienced because the deeper feeling penetrated her bones.
Alison's body posture changed as he moved to step in front of her. "Did you feel that?"
Ira exhaled, her breath unsteady. "It's like something's breathing on us."
Dren reacted with a shaky laugh while waving his hand. "Great. Just great. Maybe we should—"
Boom.
The ground shook violently and made them lose their footing. Dust fell from the ceiling while the walls shook and the engraved symbols lit up with a disturbing bright light.
And then… the whispers changed.
Their soft talk turned into a full-blown chorus. They screamed.
Pain. Hunger. Madness.
The many voices mixed together produced a terrible sound that penetrated Natasha's brain in the same way sharp needles hurt flesh. Her vision blurred. Her limbs felt heavy.
She escaped the cold vault space for a short pause.
She was somewhere else.
Somewhere wrong.
A black fog fell across her path as it pulled her into the darkness. An unpleasant odor flooded the room made up of blood, old death, and an eternal craving. The voices resided both within her surroundings and also within her mind itself.
"Come closer."
"Let go."
"Stay."
The abyss wanted her.
"Natasha!"
Someone grabbed her firmly by the wrist and she returned to normal reality.
His fingers held her tight as he stood close to her face. He stared at her intensely but his worry showed through.
"You were slipping," he said, voice tight. The motion of your body stalled yet your gaze kept alive.
The large ball of emotion blocked her throat. "I saw something."
"So did I," Ira whispered. The energy that lived in her made a sudden dip before steadying back up. The area around us seems to resist our departure.
Dren cursed under his breath. "That's it. I officially hate this place."
A strong echoing pulse passed through the chamber without a clear source at the same time from everywhere and nowhere. The shadows thickened, pressing closer.
And then—
It moved.
Not just the walls. Not just the air.
Something. In the darkness. Shifted.
A shape, vast and slow, unfurling from the abyss.
Too many limbs. Too many eyes.
And yet, no form at all.
The whispers laughed.
Natasha held her sword as the beating of her heart filled her mind.
The real trial of Abyssal Vault began for the first time.