Have you stared into it? Into that long cold abyss? Have you felt it's touch or song or hollowed ugh? It will run straight through you, it will. It's gaze as chilling as ice. I pray then, that you'll come prepared.

  Again, peace and quiet greeted me as I stepped foot into my home away from home in the woods of Freezke. Nothing to disturb my thoughts but the occasional bird call and the buffering of the wind. I let that quiet ground me as I spiraled into my own thoughts. Thoughts that were mostly about the amulet in my hand, what it might do, and the merchant who gave it to me.

  Who was he, why had he given me the amulet for free, and why did it seem like he knew my plight? All were questions I didn't have the answer to, but pgued me nonetheless.

  Unfortunately, it seemed the only way I would be getting any answers would be from the amulet itself. So, with a hefty bit of hesitation, I yanked it's cloth covering off and unveiled it. Which was when I was met with yet another surprise.

  The amulet was socketed with an onyx.

  A perfectly smooth ovoid stone. Illegal and outwed in every corner of Targan that could enforce such a w, and it was with good reason. Onyx's, like the one in my hand, were theorized to be direct anchors to the abyss, binding the two pnes. A theory supported by how often they were found on the bodies of cultists, and in the dark corners of the world where the abyss's influence was at it's strongest.

  Which was why I should've destroyed the thing. Cast into ke Freezke and hope it never resurfaced. Maybe even show my father and have the merchant arrested. All reasonable courses of action that I should have took.

  Yet, I found myself entranced by the gem. Transfixed by its beauty, the grip it had on me too strong to break. There was simply something about it that seemed... Familiar. As if I had been here before, with this exact stone, holding it just as I did now. A nostalgic feeling that held me in limbo. Torn between wanting to do what was obviously the right thing and wanting to put the cursed thing around my neck, as if it was a long lost family heirloom.

  Somehow, I struggled with that. A shortcoming that had me feeling like a traitor already. That feeling only grew worse when I gave in to temptation and lowered the amulet round my neck.

  My traitor neck. Which there was no denying now that the onyx was nestled in my cleavage, gem unnaturally cool against my skin.

  I expected something to happen after that. But it didn't. I simply stood there feeling stupid, looking down between my breasts at one of the most illegal items in the kingdom. Next came the shame, and it hit me like a wave of the sea.

  But, in the midst of wondering what my father might think if he saw me right now, something did happen.

  The onyx began to glow, shining with a dark light, runes fring to life across it's surface. I recognized none of them. The foreign symbols belonging to a family of rune engraving I was entirely unfamiliar with. Origin aside, I didn't need to read them to know they meant bad news. I could feel it.

  A chill ran through my bones, starting from my colr down and causing me to shiver involuntarily. The movement sent a reverberating wave of motion through my chest that didn't stop for almost a whole minute, and when it did a new sensation immediately took it's pce. A feeling like physical darkness crawling over my skin. Which was about as uncomfortable as it sounded, and spread all the way from my neck down to my toes.

  Then I watched as an inky bck portal tore open beneath my feet. It's walls lined with teeth that closed inward as I fell past them and into its embrace. As they did so, I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself that what I was seeing wasn't real, that it was some sort of twisted waking nightmare. One I was going to wake up from any second now. A lie I almost started to believe.

  Unfortunately, when I opened my eyes, I was greeted by the worst kind of confirmation.

  An unfamiliar environment, made of hook shaped trees and grey clouds. The ground beneath my feet muddy and soft, with a veritable wave of cold pouring up from it.

  It was also quiet, like I was in the aftermath of a storm. Where grief caused even the wind to die down in homage to the dead.

  I was also, thankfully, still alone. Which gave me all the time I needed to come to grips with my current situation. That is, being lost in the abyss. A fate that I'd only ever heard about in passing rumor. The sort of thing that you knew was possible but never actually happened to anyone you knew. Much less yourself.

  Until it did.

  ...

  I screamed. A wailing cry that could've spooked even a wolf, and when I was done, lungs freshly burned, I started thinking. Logically of course, I'd have to if I wanted any chance of getting out of here. If that was possible. Which I was half certain it wasn't.

  But that didn't matter. What did matter was the amulet round my neck. The obvious conduit that had brought me here. One I tried to yank off in a fit of rage. Only to be stopped in my tracks when I realized the thing was stuck fast to me, bound. My every attempt to remove it ending in failure.

  So I stopped trying to remove it and started trying to read it. Which, I knew, wasn't going to do me any good. It took me years to learn the Targanian runic nguage, and there was no way I was gonna learn another one in a few short minutes of bashing my head against the wall. Still, I tried. Desperation ripping at me to do so.

  Unsurprising, twenty minutes ter, it didn't work. All it left me with was a heaping handful of frustration and a bubbling of despair. Something I knew would be the end of me if I gave into it. A lesson my father had taught me while out hunting once.

  "Despair's like a poison." He had said, giving me the straightest look I'd ever seen on him. "And all it takes is a sip to kill ya'."

  Words, that right now, were ringing in my ears, forcing me not to give up. So, I took a deep breath and tried focusing on the positives. Most important of which, was the fact that I wasn't dead yet, and so long as I was alive, I could do something.

  Right now, that was walking. It was simple, didn't make me any less lost, but it was better than standing there doing nothing, and there was always the chance that I might find something. I wasn't sure what, but I knew enough about the abyss to know that it wasn't empty. It was anything but, really.

  No more evidence was needed than the plethora of stories, both factual and fictional, about the creatures that poured out of it and into our world. Or the dark and mysterious powers cults were always vying to get their hands on.

  I just hoped I didn't run into anything too violent. Or anything living really. A thought that made me shutter, sending a jiggling wave through my chest. No, I was instead looking for shelter, which I knew was a long shot in a realm whose primary inhabitants were bloodthirsty monsters. But I knew for a fact that it existed. Well, records of such pces existed at least. Records that hopefully weren't as outdated as their age had implied them to be.

  Regardless of whether they were or not, they were my best bet as far as safety went for now. So, like the razor hawks that often flew over our vilge, I kept my eyes peeled. Scanning the dark world around me for any sign of a building or a ruin, or anything that wasn't a gloomy leafless tree really. All while the onyx that had brought me here continued to glow in my cleavage.

  A glow that I soon realized was blinking. The runes on it growing brighter then darker in repetitive pattern. One that would have almost been mesmerizing if not for my current circumstance. Or if it hadn't brought me here in the first pce.

  Instead, it left me feeling concerned. As there was no way that wasn't part of its function, just like dragging me down here was, and basing it off it's current track record, whatever it was doing now was likely just as nefarious.

  Unfortunately, there wasn't anything I could really do about it. Especially without the gift of magic for myself. I was essentially at the Amulet's whims. Doomed to whatever fate it was trying to bring on me. One I sincerely hoped wasn't the violent kind.

  Either way, I didn't stop moving. If it was trying to bring about my end, then I wasn't going to wait around for it. I wasn't going to start running for it, either - dangerous as it was and all that.

  Eventually, though, my refusal to stay still paid off, as after a half an hour or so of walking without break I stumbled upon what looked like a decrepit stone building, and a grand one at that.

  It stood 10 maybe even 11 meters tall, was lined with cracked and falling apart pilrs, and still had a mostly intact roof. The door was also wide enough to permit me and my chest easy entrance. Where I found the inside to be in just as bad a condition as the outside. If not worse. With one of it's walls cracked all over, and sporting a few holes. The worst breeze I could imagine coming through them.

  But shelter was shelter, and I figured this was safer than being outside.

  It also gave me a chance to give my legs a break. Which I did, as I leaned against one of the walls and let myself slide to the ground. An action that brought my hefty front down with me, and buried my already exhausted legs in a breast avanche. Something I was more than used to.

  If anything it was a welcome feature of my bizarre figure. As if I had a giant wrongly shaped bnket that I always carried with me. The warmth generated by it warding off the cold. At least for the parts of me buried under it.

  As for the rest of me, I was left out. Still it was better than nothing, and thinking about it made for as good a distraction as any. Something I could sink my mind into instead of focusing on how bad my situation was.

  Well, for a little while at least. But after an hour of sitting there, alone and in the dark, my thoughts drifted. Their betrayal coming as suddenly as rain, veering into the metaphorical abyss as I realized that I didn't even have any food. Or water. That I might die here, and all because I fell for a stupid merchants stupid scam.

  It made me want to scream. But I held the impulse to vent out my frustrations into my chest back. Refocused that energy on a coming up with a pn instead. Which was really all I could do at the moment.

  So I did, and after several hours of doing so, I came up with nothing.

  There was just so little I actually knew about the abyss other than widespread rumor. Information, that without, I couldn't reasonably come up with the slightest sembnce of an idea on how I was supposed to get back to Me. A realization that quickly turned into my breaking point, causing me to give up right then as I finally succumbed and drowned out the sound of my woes into my chest. An experience that I was disappointingly familiar with.

  But in the midst of my sorrow, a creature fell through the roof.

  It's descent was rapid, and it's shadowy form left a gaping hole in the roof. Details I noticed first before my eyes finally fell on the culprit in question. A creature, no, a being who stood almost twice my height. His eyes a deep amber in color and compound. Wings like a bat's unfurling from behind him. As for his head, it was shaped like that of a beetles. His horns, though, were arranged in the position of a crown. One he wore well as he rose to his full height and stared down at me.

  "Hello child, I am king of the abyss, and have long waited your arrival."