MidnightScreams

Full Story:

The prison is deathly silent. Dust floats through the stale air, glittering faintly in the wan torchlight. The once oppressive weight of the witch’s presence has lifted, but in its absence, something far colder has seeped into the stone walls.

You lie on the cracked floor, staring at the black veins that pulse beneath your skin. Your body is a battlefield of sensations—weakness from centuries of starvation clashing with the raw, seething power you siphoned from the witch. It burns through your veins like molten iron, twisting and reshaping something deep within you.

You press your palms to the floor, struggling to rise. The darkness that once whispered from the shadows now coils within your own flesh, a living, writhing entity.

Then you hear it.

A faint, rhythmic pounding.

At first, you think it's your imagination, a hallucination brought on by the witch's blood. But the sound grows louder—steady, ominous.

Footsteps.

You drag yourself to the bars, peering down the corridor. The flickering torchlight barely illuminates the ancient hallway, but you see movement at the far end.

A figure approaches. Tall, gaunt, and cloaked in black, its face obscured by a veil of shadow. The air thickens with the scent of earth and decay.

Your instincts scream to run, but there’s nowhere to go. This prison is a labyrinth, and every cell block is a dead end. You’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

The figure stops just beyond the reach of the torchlight.

“You did well,” it says, its voice low and hollow.

The sound reverberates through your chest, unsettling something deep inside you.


“Who are you?” you demand, your voice hoarse.

The figure tilts its head. “I am the warden.”

You freeze. The warden has been dead for centuries, his bones entombed beneath the foundations of this cursed place. You saw his execution with your own eyes—watched as the guards turned on him, blaming him for the chaos unleashed by the witch.

“You’re lying,” you spit.

The figure steps closer, and the flickering torchlight catches a glimpse of its face—thin, pale flesh stretched tight over a skull, empty eye sockets glowing faintly with an unnatural light.

“I never left,” it whispers. “None of us did.”

A cold dread seeps into your bones. The air thickens, and faint whispers echo through the corridor—voices of prisoners long dead, their agony imprinted on the stone walls.

“You freed her power,” the warden continues, his voice filled with grim satisfaction. “But it never belonged to her. It belongs to this place. And now it belongs to you.”

The black veins on your arms throb painfully, and you double over, gasping. The darkness within you writhes, as if answering an ancient call.

“I didn’t ask for this,” you growl through clenched teeth.

“It doesn’t matter,” the warden says. “The prison has claimed you. You are its heart now.”

Panic claws at you. You stagger back, pressing yourself against the bars. The cold metal bites into your skin, but it’s nothing compared to the searing heat within.

The floor trembles beneath your feet, and the walls groan as if the prison itself is awakening. Stone shifts and cracks, creating jagged fissures that glow with an eerie, pulsating light.


The whispers grow louder, merging into a cacophony of anguish. Faces form in the cracks—twisted, tormented visages of the dead. They scream silently, their mouths gaping in eternal agony.

“No,” you whisper. “This isn’t happening.”

But it is.

The warden watches impassively as the prison begins to warp around you. Shadows stretch and twist, forming grotesque shapes that flicker at the edges of your vision. The very fabric of reality is unraveling.


“You have a choice,” the warden says. “Embrace your new role, or be consumed.”

The words echo in your mind, and you realize with dawning horror what he means. If you don’t take control of the power inside you, the prison will tear you apart—and possibly the world beyond it.

But if you do embrace it...

You’ll become something worse than the witch ever was.

The thought fills you with revulsion, but survival is a powerful instinct.

“I won’t be your puppet,” you snarl.

The warden’s lips curl into a grim smile. “Then you will burn.”

The walls shudder violently, and a massive fissure splits the floor beneath your feet. Shadows erupt from the chasm, tendrils of darkness reaching for you. The prison screams around you, a symphony of chaos and destruction.


Your body seizes with pain as the black veins spread across your chest and face. The darkness inside you surges, desperate for release.

You can’t fight it anymore.

With a guttural cry, you let the power flood through you. Darkness explodes from your body, engulfing the corridor in a tidal wave of shadow. The faces in the walls scream and dissolve into ash. The fissures seal themselves, and the trembling stops.

Silence falls.

You collapse to your knees, gasping for breath. The prison is still once more.

The warden is gone.

But you are not the same.

You feel the weight of the prison pressing against your mind, a constant, oppressive presence. You are connected to it now, bound by the darkness you unleashed.

And deep beneath the stone, something stirs—something ancient and ravenous.

You are no longer a prisoner.

You are the warden.