Motion from the periphery wakes you from your slumber. You lie flat, unmoving, unseeing, the darkness encompassing you entirely.

Somewhere near your head, something skitters by, treading very lightly. Tentatively, you open an eyelid. Your sight is blurry for a moment, but as the fog clears, you notice a solitary being just inside your field of vision.

You peer intently out of your one, half-opened eyelid. A crab sits nonchalantly a foot or so away from your head, apparently having nothing better to do. You feel the rough stone surface under your face as you attempt to open the other eyelid. Nothing doing — the eye is swollen shut. You can't recall what happened, precisely, but it wasn't pleasant. You don't think you got the better of your opponent, at any rate.

The crab moves slightly, now centered with respect to your monocular gaze. It almost looks as if it's staring at you, sitting there, one eye stalk half-cocked, peering intently in your direction. Its shell is a deep ochre hue, a bit worn on the edges, and one large claw protrudes ahead of the other. It makes no move to leave, still fixing you in its regard.

Your body aches as you attempt to shift into a sitting position. Taking in the rest of the dank, shadowy cell around you, it appears you are alone with the curious crustacean. A single oak door traps you inside, together with the heavy, rusted iron lock it houses. Glancing at it, you note that it appears to have moved slightly towards the wall. A moment passes, and the crab lifts a claw towards the slime-covered stone wall behind it.

Am I going mad?

Your eyes follow the direction of the claw, and notice a depression in the wall that you would have not likely seen had you not been looking intently in that direction. It appears you may not be as trapped as you seemed to be...

RATE THIS BRANCH!