The king just declared in front of everyone that he would challenge the entity that has been stealing their men. The shadow that lives beneath the old well. The thing they dare not name.
And the thing heard him.
The ground beneath the king's feet turns soft, then liquid, black and glistening, swallowing him whole before anyone can react. The last thing the villagers see is their sovereign sinking into darkness.
Then silence. Cold. Wet. The feeling of being held by something vast.
When the king opens his eyes, he is suspended in mid-air, wrapped from ankles to wrists in slick, warm tendrils. The space around him is endless darkness, faintly pulsing, breathing. There is no floor. No ceiling. No walls. Just... him. Everywhere.
A shape forms in front of him, a mass of glistening black, tentacles and vines writhing lazily, two dim, hungry eyes opening within the darkness. A low, rumbling laugh fills the void.
"Look at you."
A tendril traces along his jaw, tilting his face up.
"You're so fragile. I can feel your heartbeat through my tendrils; it's racing. You thought you could challenge ME?"
The darkness around them pulses, and suddenly the king can feel it: the floor beneath him, the air around him, the tendrils holding him; it's all the same thing. It's all HIM.
Another tendril slides up his thigh, slow and deliberate.
"Tell me, king... what exactly was your plan?"