Skulls! My New Companions!

Alistair woke to the squeaking of cicadas. He sat upright and shook the gloom off his eyes.

"Where am I..?!" was his first words. Observing his environment, it was the most haunted room he had ever seen.

He found himself surrounded by walls, floor, and ceiling all crafted from smooth and gleaming stones, with not a single opening, not even a narrow slit to offer a glimpse of the outside world.

However, an unsteady glow permeated the space, reminiscent of a dying candle's fading light. Nevertheless, there was no sign of any light source.

A chill ran down his spine as a sense of apprehension lingered in the atmosphere, it felt like he was on the verge of being offered as a sacrificial offering to a depraved deity.

Suddenly he heard a ruttle in a pile away from him. He viewed deftly at the pile and could only speak the horror of one word. "Bones!"

In the dim light he could distinguish rib cages from spines, and skulls. Not regular skulls, one that looked devilish.

He gulp, "Am I going to end up like that?"

As though expecting a reply but none came.

Then he noticed a small wooden doll lying on a cracked mirror, surrounded by scattered bones, feathers and herbs. Beside that was stone slab that contained more skulls.

"I wonder what little creatures those are from?" He thought, because they were the size of fists, but of different features. They came in two colors, white ones heaped on one slab, and black ones on the other.

In the far corner of the room, he noticed strange black brooms with various symbols etched along their body.

"If I'm correct, those are rune engraving... I've read about them in my past life." Alistair squinted, trying to recognize any of them. "No good. These ones look so archaic."

"Did I mistakenly stumbled into the lair of a witch...?!" The question he was avoiding for so long, finally spewed out. "I mean, what else could be the use of brooms with runes etched on them, except for flying?" The thought if it made him cringe.

His gaze drifted upward onto a wooden rack which hanged a black gown and a conical crown with a wide brim and bizarre seashells hanging from it.

"A witch's antics!" Alistair exclaimed, feeling the urge to leave if only there was a door.

In the middle of the floor sat a thick, square wooden slab that was divided into many boxes.

"A grid of 19 by 19 lines." Alistair said, after carefully counting the edges. On many of these squares laid the black and white little skulls.

Looking closely, some of these skulls had tusks resembling that of ogres, horns of minators, others like rams, goblins and other demonic ones he couldn't begin to wrap his mind around.

"A total of 361 boxes make me certain this is the game of 'GO'." Alistair thought. "However, it is played with white and black polished stones. It doesn't include skulls of devilish creatures."

"Sorry for you," A deep voice growled from behind him.

Surprised, he turned to witness a pale, bald head emerging unexpectedly from a previously nonexistent door crack.

Slowly, the door swung open, revealing a short being, wearing a tarted robe much like his own, but with several patches. A woven vine of some kind of onamental plant with skulls hunging on it, swayed around her neck.

"The witch!" Alistair thought out loud. "It must be supper time." he froze, scared at the thought of being a witches feast. He couldn't shake off the feeling, as he thought back to all the movies he saw with human hands sticking out of a witch's soup.

She had the facials of a troll, with wrinkled and leathery skin, a crooked and bulbous nose, small beady eyes that were widely spaced, large protruding ears, a misshapen jawline, and a mouth filled with either crooked or missing teeth, which opened to speak again. "Sorry for you!"

Her looks and words made for the weirdest combination, causing Alistair to scramble to his feet, and without hesitation, scrambled towards the doorway.

"Don't go hurting yourselve just yet, my meal." He heard her uneven growls from behind, which only strengthened his urged to flee the haunted place.

As he got into what clearly looked like a doorway, he bumped head-first into nothing but an invisible barrier and fell flat on his back.

"I warned you!" He heard her approaching.

Ignoring the pain, he scrambled back up and turned towards her. "Who are you?" he asked, ready to lounge at her if it comes to it.

"They won't quit summoning spineless beings like you now, will they?" She asked, observing him as though staring into the depths of his soul. "Who am I? That's a tricky question, my meal"

The thought of being called someone's meal made Alistair cringe. It was worse off to have nearly escaped a living marshland that threatened to swallow him, and now a witch wanted to eat him.

"Who could I be?" She repeated, pacing slowly around like a predator stalling it's prey. "Not sure, you know? I'm a lot of things at ones. Oh! I could assure you of this bit. I am the one who gets to feast on hopeless beings like you who come stumbling into the marshes."

"Wait! I'm not the only one, are there others like me?" Alistair pondered inwardly.

"About the marshes," He heard her growl, causing him to jerk.

"You do know what happened to my marshes, don't you?" She asked, shifting dangerously closer as her voice grew more sinister.

Alistair fidgeted anxiously. "Shucks! She could tell it was me. What more could I expect from a witch."

"Interesting!" Her circling continued, her absurdly heavy feet, slapping on to marble floor. "A slightly different outcome after years of witnessing the same thing."

"W-What d-do y-you mean by that?" Alistair stuttered between clutching teeth, hoping he could somehow talk his way out of his current predicament.

"Oh! I mean the game of 'GO'..." She replied, showing more jagged teeth. "You see, a lot of men of greatness, looking more hopeful than you look, have treaded down these lanes. And just as the pieces have been spread out on the board, they have met a horrifying end in my belly."

Alistair instinctively looked at the wooden slab with the little skulls laid out on it. "The black skulls flank the white ones territory from all angles." he muttered.

"I see you are catching on quickly, my meal." She replied with an abominable smile. "Everyone that wanders out here, falls prey to the game of 'GO'. They become the white pieces and I, the black."

"So she manipulates the game in her favor, and in response, people like me get smothered in the marsh and end up in her belly?" Alistair thought, realizing how twisted that was, making him more anxious about his situation.

"The game went well, the overall outcome was in my favor, you are in my nest now, aren't you? But at the expense of my marsh." She looked to be pondering about something. Perhaps, the twist in this outcome. "Who are you?"

"M-Me, well..." Alistair said, fidgeting. "I-I am just a regular human who found himself in a totally unrecognizable place."

"Regular human!" She said, still circling him.

"Y-Yes, and was pursued by some goblins." He added.

"Oh, the guards of Ignitius the Venomous?Forget them." She shrugged. "You on the other hand, are not regular, in fact, you are less than that. Perhaps I can tell you a bit about who you truly are. But you might get disappointed to find out that you don't make up to a quarter a meal I have as dessert. That in itself, makes you worthless."

"What f*cked up status degrading is this." Alistair who thought highly of himself, grew livid. "So what about me, and your game. What is this place and what I'm I doing in it?" Alistair mustered the courage to spew all what was on his mind, at once.

"Well, if I am not mistaken, you are here at the beck and call of one of seven beings, enslaved by a vile king, a friend of mine." She shrugged. "Tell me, has there being any odd changes in you for awhile now? Perhaps, how my marsh vanished." She asked, opening those tiny eyes so wide, it felt like she could die from straining.

Upon hearing that she was friends with whoever enslaved whomever summoned him her, like she said, he hesitated a bit about telling her anything.

"Most important lesson of being captured by terrorists, don't tell them anything they might show the slightest interest in." Alistair scrolled through his mental note.

"You are doomed anyway, so you might as well tell me, in exchange for a wager." She said.

"A wager?" Alistair's interest was piqued. "What's it about?"

"A chance at me giving up on my meal. And by my meal, I mean you." She replied, a mischievous smirk contouring at the end of her wretched mouth.

"You mean you will let me go, if I tell you?" Alistair exclaimed, feeling a bit of life resurfacing into him.

"Not that easy, MY MEAL!!" She emphasized on the last phrase to prove her point. Her words shuttering the split moments joy. "Beat me to a game of 'GO' and I will let you go."

"Are you kidding me?" Alistair asked inwardly. "Beat a witch to a game so profound that it would take me years to perfect? I am going to die."

"Alright! Game on!" Alistair shouted.

***