The light revealed something more of a monster than one with golden, soulless eyes. His awful gaze, how it shot ice in her veins. It was as though the air was sucked out of her lungs. The lighter fell from her quivering grasp, landing with a clink on the stone. He spoke, every syllable paralyzing her in fear. The candlelights surrounding Aislin reacted to her dread and slowly extinguished, one by one, until a single remained. The stranger was silhouetted in the semi-darkness, hands behind his back. 

How vain she had been, descending into the darkness alone. She wished to cut out her own tongue, with all the good its done her. She wanted answers so bad, and here she blew her only chance. The stranger looked pissed as hell, almost murderous.

Malevolent, the devil uttered, [I]"And here you are, [/I]all alone[I] threatening someone you do not truly understand... Where no one will ever find you!"[/I]

Metal blades glinted in the low light as he whipped them forward. Wicked, long combat knives aimed for her throat, and Aislin did the only think she could do, instinctually. The ground gave out below her. One moment it was solid, the next more fluid than water, and Aislin fell into the stony earth. It immediately reformed as a concrete surface above her, barricading her from the devil. 

She had half a breath in her lungs, and her terrorized body screamed for more. The fluid stone pressed up against her lips, and she fought to not panic. She couldn't push it away, there would be no oxygen and she would rip apart with the building pressure. If she lost focus, the rock around her would solidify and she'd be trapped. But dying under stone sounded better than dying at the hands of a psycho devil any day. With her last shreds of determination, she cleared her mind. The stone relaxed with the slowing beat of her heart, and something clicked. 

She could feel the devil's shoes a couple feet above, pressing down into her. The stone continued on from her body, sensing the shapes around and above them. It was a new, unifying feeling, being half-aware of two separate thing. And using this building of an extended conscience, Aislin summoned stony vines to wiggle alive around the devil's feet. They latched on, tightly wrapping once around his ankles before returning to being motionless rock.

Her lungs screamed again, and Aislin swam through the fluid darkness before resurfacing around a corner down the tunnel. She gasped for air, pulling herself out of the stone rippling below her. It was just as hopelessly dark in the cave, and Aislin had to listen for the devil located behind her. 

She didn't say a word until she was running on her own two feet in the opposite direction. [B]"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!"[/b] 

Poor Aislin fled for her life, running up the maze of tunnels in the cave systems. She couldn't see a damn thing in front of her eyes, but her mind was aware of the second consciousness extending below her feet in the stone, sensing the twisting path and sharp turns. It also was aware of her feet, and aware of anything possibly catching up to her. She was unfamiliar with the tunnels, being so deep in the caves. Hoping to God she was going the right direction, Aislin ran and ran.