The centerpiece

I take another step back and almost trip on a rock. My hands tremble.

My questions grow in number like heads of the Hydra, and Zeke is not in the hurry to throw in some fire. But this metaphor isn't just puzzling—it doesn't bode well for me, no matter how I look at it.

It feels weirdly sexual, for one thing. Which shouldn't send through me that spike of a thrill, but it does.

"I-I don't get it. What do you mean by this charade, Zeke? Please…" I fall silent, feeling foolish for even trying to plead with a chthonic monster to be easier to understand.

Zeke's hands drop to his sides. He shakes his head with a smirk. "Knowledge is a precious thing, my Maya. It shouldn't come freely to any fool. It must be worked for, less the idiots throw the world into an abyss. But I am as eager to end this as you are, yes… Very well."

Zeke turns silent for a second, which gives me an opportunity to gather some semblance of a calm before he speaks again.

"Magic is unnatural to this world. It pushes creatures like myself into mundane, dwindles our powers. To work against the world is akin to lighting a bonfire in the rain. You, my precious Maya, and those like you, are umbrellas one can unfurl over their person. This is why the dream I sent to you was so vivid. This is why you can see visions of me, even in the waking world. For others, the extent of my current power ends with dreams they forget at the break of dawn."

I slowly nod, feeling relieved that this explanation has absolutely nothing sexual to it, after all. Any disappointment is pure idiocy on my part. "So you need me, because without me you can't do the magic that's necessary to free you and kill the other monsters?"

"Exactly." Zeke smiles at me with… is that pride? "But this particular magic I can't do not only because of nature's law. This ritual has me as its center—and one can't open a lockbox if the key is inside of it. Come. You will see it for yourself."

"I still didn't agree to help you," I say, but Zeke had already begun to glide outside. With a huff, I follow.

Though the upper half of his body looks human-like, the lower is just that writhing darkness with a tentacle or another visible from time to time. The way Zeke moves over the ground is unsettling, yet graceful. I could almost imagine he just wears a long skirt.

We move to the back of the church. From here I can see the endless grass plains in all their green beauty… And all their eeriness. I see some of the grass far away move in waves, though no wind blows. Was that a rabbit, a trick of light… or something bigger? I shudder and turn to Zeke.

He stops near an old cellar door. Despite the years that passed, it still looks almost whole, even if the wood had darkened. It's a stark contrast to how destroyed the rest of the church is.

Zeke opens the door with a single tug of two tentacles and descends first. I look down to see that there is a set of narrow and steep, but otherwise whole stairs, and no sources of light below.

"Zeke, I don't know what you are going to show me, but I will see nothing without at least a torch or something!" I shout into the darkness.

"Don't fret, my Maya," Zeke's voice is hard to hear from the cellar. "There will be light."

I sigh and carefully descend the stairs. The narrow space feels claustrophobic, and I'm thankful that my personal phobias lie in a completely different dimension.

Despite Zeke's words, there's no light in the room below except for the one that falls from the entrance, and it barely lights all the stairs. They go at least six, maybe eight feet down.

I pause near the last step and squint into the darkness. "And where is it, that light? The place is dark like a vampire's coffin!"

Zeke's answer is a tentacle that wraps around my wrist. I yelp and try to pull free, but although it's soft and slightly warm to the touch, it holds strong.

"Shhh, my Maya. Be still for a moment."

I tug on the tentacle for a little longer, starting to regret that I followed Zeke to a dark, hidden place. This is an uncomfortable reminder of just how much more powerful than me Zeke is. Then I hear him chanting and freeze.

The tongue is completely unfamiliar to me, and it sounds *wrong*. Like a record of your own voice that's playing in reverse. It makes me want to close my ears, and when the chanting stops a few seconds later, I let out a breath of relief.

It turns into a gasp when a small ball of light appears in the air. It's not overly bright, but enough that I could see both Zeke and the surrounding room. The pure magic I is so shocking that I almost miss the moment Zeke lets me go.

"Did you just cast a spell, Zeke?" I utter, staring at the ball of light with wide eyes. "You are not just a plain old tentacle monster, you can do actual *magic*?"

"Yes. This is the power knowledge brings. Beautiful, right? Even this simple spell is bright and captivating. Just like you, my Maya." Zeke smiles at me.

I can't help myself—I blush and look away. Zeke speaks with such sincerity to his voice, such intensity in his pitch-black eyes, that it's hard to remember that I still know so little about him and his motives.

Then I notice the rest of the room that was brought to the light, and a cold weight on my stomach replaces any sense of wonder I had.

The walls are covered in etchings of unfamiliar symbols. The furniture is a crooked mirror of the church above. There are pews and there's an altar. Above it is a fresco of something amorphous, yet full of peering eyes. It's done in something dark brown, almost blending with the brick wall… but not quite. Unlike in the church, this all is in a much better state. The air is stale, and everything is covered in dust and cobwebs, but at least pews *look* whole.

But this all is not what makes me feel sick yet again. It's the skeleton I see lying on the altar.