The night was heavy inside the cave…
so heavy that even the air itself felt dead.
Railey lay stretched on the cold ground, his body half-curled, his face covered in dirt and blood…
and the darkness slowly devoured him.
His eyes were closed…
but his mind was not silent.
It began to collapse.
The first whispers began…
A faint voice… as if coming from beneath the ground:
"Ra… Railey."
His body trembled slightly.
The sound of footsteps… not real… yet he heard them.
As if someone were dragging their feet across the cave floor.
"You are a failure… you will not survive… why haven't you died yet?"
A voice resembling his father's…
but deeper… distorted… as if coming from a broken mouth.
Railey tries to open his eyes but cannot.
Everything is heavy…
even his tears are frozen in place.
Then he hears something else…
Laughter.
Short, cracked laughter, like that of a dead person.
"Raaaiiiley… where is your arm? Where is your leg?"
In his mind's eye, he sees shadows moving around him.
Not people… not monsters…
but black shapes without faces, without limbs, crawling toward him.
He hears them laughing…
he hears them chewing…
he hears a crunching sound… as if someone is eating bones beside him.
He tries to scream, but his throat releases only a weak sound… just air.
His mind shuts down further…
and the shadows become clearer.
He sees one of them sitting on his chest…
no face… only a black opening, bleeding darkness.
"You want death… don't you?"
Its unseen hand touches Railey's cheek…
cold… cold as ice.
"Let us kill you… let us end this torment…"
Railey trembles violently.
His body refuses…
but his mind wants it.
Then another hallucination appears…
He sees the goblins he killed… all of them.
Torn faces… gouged-out eyes… open throats.
They crawl toward him and repeat the same sentence in one voice:
"Why did you eat us…?"
One of them stretches its severed hand toward him…
its fingers moving despite being cut off…
It gets closer… closer…
until it touches Railey's shoulder.
Only then does Railey suddenly open his eyes.
But the darkness does not disappear.
The cave is still dark…
yet his mind sees the traces of hallucinations on the walls:
imaginary bloodstains, moving shadows, black dots turning into eyes.
Railey whispers to himself in a trembling voice:
"I… am not crazy… I'm not crazy… I'm not…"
But the voice cuts him off.
A very clear voice…
very close…
right behind his head:
"No… you have become one of us…"
Railey turns quickly—
but there is no one behind him.
Then…
Everything goes silent.
The shadows stop.
The whispers vanish.
The cave sinks into a deadly stillness.
Railey remains on the ground, trembling…
crying…
trying to make sense of what is happening.
After long hours of terror, sleep finally comes to him…
but it is not normal sleep.
It is a fall…
a fall into a darkness with no bottom.
And Chapter 7 ends with this line:
"The cave was dark… but the darkness inside him was deeper."