Drip! Drip! Drip!
The sound echoed faintly within the hollow expanse of the cave, the subtle plop of water falling from the jagged ceiling to the cold ground below. It was slow, almost meditative. Yet, in its persistence, it became maddening.
It was not the only sound in the cave.
Accompanying the dripping water was something far more grotesque—the wet, tearing sounds of flesh being ripped apart. Again and again. The repeated crunch and pull of sinew, the slick squelch of meat between teeth.
It was dark. Not the kind of darkness you blink away or adjust your eyes to—but a consuming black, thick like tar, seeping into every crevice and robbing the world of detail. It was a mystery how anyone—beast or man—could see well enough to eat in such suffocating obscurity.
But this wasn't a beast.
It was a man.
A soldier.
