The point of no return

Everything was off to a perfectly smashing start, really. The fact that the silence of the cave, usually broken only by the occasional drip of water further into the darkness was, instead, broken by the boy's alarmed hiss as the match burned out faster than he had expected and stung as his fingertips. He shook out the flame before it had the chance to do any further damage to his fingertips than that of which his distracted teeth accomplished. 

Adrian had hoped that he would have been able to light all five of the bone-white candles he had brought with him with a single flame, but the fifth remained unlit and so, he had to relent to striking one of the few marches he had left to light the final candle. He just had to hope the lantern would be agreeable to light when the time came for him to leave again, as his supply of the matches had dwindled alarmingly on his brief journey through the darkness. Of course, he could have just used one of the other already lit candles to share it's flame, but he had been so careful to meticulously position each exactly where it was supposed to be, and he was rather reluctant to risk throwing this off at all. 

Somewhere far above the earthen tomb he had so willingly entered, the full moon shone overhead, a parent casting it's light as it searched for it's wayward son. But he would not entertain the alluring idea of fleeing the cave, to return to the world of light above him and altogether forgetting his foolish madman's venture. But even the slightest twitch to his face as he trailed a thought reminded him of his purpose and cemented in his mind the knowledge that his path was true. 

In the darkness, the brushing that the fellows at school had so artlessly decorated his features with could have been excused away as nothing more than a play of the shadows, and he would have liked to pretend this was true but it ached terribly. Ached not just on the physical level, but also at that terrible primal place that made the slights against him burn all the more brighter as it festered like a wound within his very heart. 

It had not been difficult to steal the book - no, not steal. Adrian would sneak it back to it's correct place before the sun began to rise, he promised himself this - in fact, it was almost too easy. His father owned a bookshop of a rather particular nature and served clientele to that seemed to be melded together from shadow and the whispered breath of the unknown clandestine secret truths of the universe. So, it was not so very different to find something that would suit his purposes without his father ever needing to know what he was doing. 

The book itself, resting against the stone floor and bathed in the flickering light of the candles as he moved enough to disturb the flames, was a peculiar thing as of itself. It was bound in the thick leather of an unfamiliar beast - or worse, far too familiar sort but he did not want to ponder this too much lest he feel weird about touching it - and wore symbols that felt older than mankind itself could hold in its collective memory. The lad, admittedly, could not read all of the text that the book held, but then again neither could anyone else as there were more fingers on a single hand than people who spoke the dead language well enough to be considered fluent. But being the son of an occultist and scholar did have it's benefits, and so he was able to piece together enough from the pages to know well enough what he was doing.

The fact there were enough diagrams on the pages to extrapolate from certainly helped in that regard too. 

If the legends were to be believed and he was translating the book correctly enough for it to be verified, there was something hidden away in the darkness of the cave. Sealed away in its own private cage beneath the soil. Some stories said it was a demon, locked away in an earthly prison for the crime of its very nature. Others claimed was an elder god that had made the mistake of wandering the earth and drawing attention to itself, and paying the price of offering mankind it's kindness. The lad could not quite work out the meaning of the symbol that addressed the entity in the book, but it was consistent enough for him to work out that it was a term of address. 

One thing that was consistent throughout all of the stories was that upon releasing it from its imprisonment, the demon-elder thing-god would grant a kindness to whoever it was that freed it. 

If Adrian was to claim this kindness, he could not only be free from the cruelty that the schoolyard bullies relentlessly bombarded him with, but he could make them regret any harsh word or unfair blow to his person that he was subjected to. Regret it, and more importantly, fear him and beg him for the forgiveness that he would never grant them. 

The very idea brought the sort of smile to the boy's bruised face that no child should ever have to wear. Tired, angry and burning with a vengeful malice that aged him considerably and terribly.

The very thought that life had brought even half enough cruelty to a child's life to bring the dark glint to his pale blue eyes was a tragedy all of its own. 

The hardest part up until that moment was acquiring the items required for the ritual without drawing attention. His home, fortunately, was positively overflowing with things and so it was not so very difficult to find candles, matches, incense, gravedirt and soot-darkened twine as the text - he was at least most sure - said to find. No, what was difficult was finding something of significance of the three boys he was damning. But as the day drew nearer, he managed. The first boy, quiet yet sharp in subtle cruelies and scorn's journal had found its way from his satchel and into the centre of the pentagrams of candles. The second, the first's brother with the heavy hands and biting words had lost a charm he was wont to carry about to the ring. The third had claimed the role of the leader and Adrian himself to be the hapless victim and so his token had to be something more. Something special. It had been difficult to steal away with the little bronze pocketwatch his tormentor carried so proudly, but a resent scuffle gave him both a bloody nose and the chance to steal away with the little device before the bigger lad had the chance to realise it was missing. 

Illuminated only by the light of the candle, his lantern having been promptly extinguished once he had his ritual sight in order, the boy nervously smoothed the pages of the book down. He knew he could give up and turn back. He could extinguish the flames and leave with his resentments and cruelties unfulfilled. It was not too late, but once he opened his mouth he would have passed the point of no return and would seal not only the fates of the two children who had been cruel to him, but his own. 

If he did, he would be nothing more than a cowardly dog scampering away with his tail between his legs. They were the ones who had first said he was a monster. That he wasn't human. That the reason he had no mother was not that she had perished when he was a baby, but instead that he was some unholy creature that his father had created alone. Built from spare shadows and the madness held within moonbeams. It wasn't true, his father had promised him this in a way he could not help but believe was sincere. No, he was not a monster but he could be. They were practically begging for one, and so he had every right to give them exactly what they were begging for. A monster. Not just the monster that lived deep within his heart, but that thing that lurked within the deepest shadows of the cave and in the spaces that were not things but the absence thereof. 

"Mggoka'ai ya, ymg' ahf' fhtagn," Adrian began reading aloud, and it seemed the whole world stopped to listen, 

"Ymg' ah'ehye ch'nglui'ahog l' l' nog ya, Y' ot ah'kn'a ymg'."

As the boy read on and on, something deep and unseen within the shadows began to stir after eons of slumber.