I had lived a perfectly content life until I spotted that damned knight.
He stood on the path in front of my farm clad in full plate-mail, neatly polished and shining in the afternoon sun, his left hand resting on the pommel of the longsword at his hip. I couldn’t see his face beneath his helmet, but his gaze seemed to be intensely fixed at the small cave that lay within view of my wheatfields. I didn’t know what exactly in that cave could possibly pique his interest; it was nothing more than a short path into the hill that culminated in a dead end. I had never seen a knight in person before, and I couldn’t deny the prospect of approaching someone with a weapon displayed so prominently at their side intimidated me somewhat, but my sense of curiosity overcame any reservations I held about approaching him. The knight didn’t acknowledge my presence as I dropped my watering can down into the dirt, nor when I gingerly walked towards him.
“What brings you out to the country, sir? Is everything all right?” I asked, carefully and inquisitively. At first, the knight gave no response, and I began to think he might have made the choice to simply ignore my presence, as those of higher standing were wont to do in the presence of the common folk. But then, without breaking his gaze upon the cave, he spoke in a loud, resolute voice that even the muffling effect of his helmet could not limit the impact of.
“Worry not, peasant! I seek the Basilisk.”
“The basilisk?” It was not an answer I had even conceived of. The word was completely unfamiliar to me.
“Aye, the Basilisk! For too long has that foul beast ravaged our lands. Its very existence is an affront to God! It is my sacred duty to slay it, so that peace may be returned to this realm.”
The knight’s words, full of a clear conviction that seemed to echo throughout the grasslands, did little to satiate my sense of confusion. “But what is this ‘basilisk,’ sir? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
At that, the knight finally took his sight off the cave in the distance and turned his head to look at me. I heard the clanking of his helmet as it moved, and though I could not see his eyes beneath it, I could feel the intensity of his gaze being focused upon me. It was if a great pressure had been placed upon my head, pressing me down, and I felt almost as if I had been pushed to my knees; and yet, it instilled within me a sense of confidence, of optimism, as if I knew that this man had the strength to triumph over whatever challenge had been placed upon him.
“Do not be ashamed in your ignorance. Not many have, and that is for the best,” said the knight. He paused, as if considering whether to elaborate, but then continued. “As the beast will soon be dead, I see no reason not to regale you of its origins, if you wish to know.”
Though a sense of deep unsettlement had begun to fester within me at the strangeness of this situation, my curiosity once again overpowered any doubts I had. “By all means, tell me.”
“Very well. It is an old story, known by few,” replied the knight. “Ages ago, in a long-forgotten kingdom, there lived a sorcerer who wished to gain the power over life and death. In his pursuit, he had an idea: he would birth a creature that existed outside the natural order, and from it he could learn the very secrets of creation itself. So he took the newly-laid egg of a chicken and gave it to a snake to hatch, and soon enough life emerged from within the shell. It was a creature so unfathomably evil, so profane to existence itself, that upon first laying eyes upon it the sorcerer simply dropped dead where he stood.
“Its scales were harder than diamond, its teeth sharper than razors, and its venom deadly enough that a single tiny drop could kill hundreds. It rampaged through the kingdom, leaving death and devastation wherever it went. Its existence remained unknown for the simple reason that no man could see it and survive, so there were none left to even tell tales of it. It would have doomed the whole realm if not for the actions of a single beggar.
“The beggar was the only one who managed to realize what was going on, for he was blind from birth and had no sight to look upon the beast. He noticed that the rampage would only pause for a brief moment at sunrise, for the Basilisk would hear the rooster’s crow and mistake it for its father. So he lured the beast into a cave by mimicking the crow of a rooster, and he sealed the entrance behind it. When everyone else finally realized what happened, the beggar was hailed as a hero, and the kingdom’s strongest wizards enclosed the cave with a magic seal that would last for a thousand years. And so, the Basilisk passed into legend, slowly forgotten over time.”
It was a nice story. I would have to remember it, so I’d have something to impress my friends with at the tavern. But any fool with half a wit could see it was far too ridiculous to have any measure of truth to it. I wondered for a moment if perhaps the knight was making fun of me, believing me to be some gullible superstitious peasant, or even if he was some sort of madman in armor. Regardless, I saw no harm in choosing to humor him to some degree. “But if it’s sealed away, why bother trying to kill it? Why look for something if looking upon it would doom you?”
The knight’s head turned back to his original focus, and I could sense a sudden, intense solemnity emanating from within him. “Because it has been a thousand years, to the day. And that cave—,” he raised a gauntleted hand, pointing directly at the cavern just across the field, “—is the very one from the legend. It must be slain, for there is no alternative.”
An unexplainably strong fear suddenly radiated throughout my body, and I instinctively placed my hand over my heart as if to calm its panicked beating. I knew the story had to be false; I had seen inside that cave many times, and there was absolutely nothing there. I knew this knight had to be lying, deluded or mad, and yet something about his voice, the tone, the seriousness within it, caused a part of me to believe wholeheartedly that what he was saying was the truth. I stood there frozen, staring at the cave, my legs trembling, unable to move or speak or even think. Though the knight did not turn back to look at me, it was obvious he could tell how afraid I was.
“But as I said, worry not! To slay the Basilisk is my solemn duty, a duty that has been passed on to me from a millennia ago, and I am more than capable of achieving my task. Come the morrow, I shall walk out of that cave with the beast’s hide draped upon my shoulders, and none shall need fear that vile creature ever again!”
With those words of optimism, the knight began to walk towards the cave. His hand still rested on his sword’s pommel, though it almost looked to be shaking slightly. I listened to the clanking of his armor slowly grow quieter as he left, the deep terror within me still preventing me from saying anything. As he reached the dark mouth of the entrance, he seemed to hesitate before stepping inside, but soon enough he was gone. My fear subsided a bit once he was out of sight; I could almost pretend the whole encounter was some sort of strange hallucination I dreamed up from overexertion on the fields. I tried to calm myself down and get back to watering the field.
As I worked, I couldn’t stop myself from keeping one eye at the entrance of the cave at all times. The fear I had felt was all but gone, and I no longer believed that ridiculous tale of some ‘basilisk’ hiding in a perfectly benign cave. Still, the sight of that knight returning triumphant, or even simply returning alive, would have laid to rest the final few doubts that still festered within the depths of my mind. And so, I kept a constant vigil on that cave as I labored on the fields and the day turned to evening and then twilight, waiting to catch a glimpse of the polished metal armor emerging from its mouth. But the sight never came, and eventually, as the last light of the day began to sputter and fade, I was forced to retire to bed with my slowly-returning worries unsatiated.
~~~
That night, I dreamed of the cave.
I was standing there at its entrance, staring into the inky blackness that was unlit by the sunlight outside. There was no wind, and it was silent enough that I could hear the rapid pulse of my heartbeat as I looked into the void. My legs, moving without my will or consent, forced me to take a slow step forward, then another, until the darkness slowly swallowed every last corner of my vision, and I was struck blind. I could see within, though not with sight; I was simply aware. It was an empty tunnel, just as I had remembered it, culminating at a dead end.
The smothering silence had reached a point where even my own breathing and heartbeat could no longer be heard. My legs took me to the deepest point of the cave, and I faced the rough stone wall ahead of me. I reached out a hand to touch it, bracing to scrape myself on some jagged rock. Yet, when I felt it, it was smooth, unnaturally so. It was devoid of any dust or imperfections, as if some mason had purposefully filed it down and worked tirelessly to maintain it.
Upon touching it, my nervousness was replaced by the same overwhelming, paralyzing fear that had overtaken me before. It felt as though my heart had stopped. I tried to scream, to run, to do anything, but my body simply refused to take any action I demanded of it. I was forced to stand there, alone in the cold, silent dark, panicked and helpless, unable to even think clearly enough to make any attempt to calm myself. The stale air grew heavy in my lungs, and I began to feel as if I couldn’t breathe. The tendrils of fear began to tighten around my heart.
At that moment, I was shocked out of my terror-induced stupor by a sound. It was faint and quiet, but it broke through the absolute silence as if it was thunder. It was the simple drop of a small pebble on the cave floor—completely ordinary for such a locale, in normal context—and yet something about it was wrong.
It had come from beyond the wall.
Suddenly, the crowing of a rooster awoke me from my nightmare, and I shot out of my bed drenched in a cold sweat. It was dawn.
~~~
I tried to push the past night out of my mind and return to my work on the farm, but it quickly proved impossible. Every time I tried to look away from the cave, I would be stricken by the same intense fear, and I would be forced to return my gaze to its mouth. My arms trembled far too much to be able to hold my watering can; I could barely even manage the strength or focus to stop it from tumbling from my grip. As the sun hit its zenith in the sky, I had still done effectively nothing for the day save for standing there, simply waiting for the knight to emerge. He hadn’t yet, and every minute that passed, I grew less and less confident that I would ever spy that glint of silvery steel again. Had the knight even been there in the first place? I was starting to believe the events of the previous day had simply been an extension of the nightmare, yet another dream that my cruel imagination had thrust upon me.
At some point, I made the decision that I had to do something. If I kept standing here, falling for some tricks my mind was playing on me, I would surely go insane. I couldn’t trust my own judgment; I needed to ask for help. I would go to town and speak with the local vicar. He was a very knowledgeable person—he would know what to make of this. I went to the stable and saddled my horse, continuously glancing back at the cave as I did so.
As I rode to town, it was only when I turned a bend and the cave mouth finally disappeared from sight that I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It was as if a great weight had been lifted off my chest, and my worries largely abated. It seemed so inconsequential now, as if it was the presence of the cave itself that had been causing my fear. By the time the town itself came into view, about fifteen minutes later, I had just about managed to convince myself that the knight and basilisk were little more than a delusion, brought on by the banal stresses of life on the farm. It was almost winter, after all, and making sure the last harvest of the season went smoothly tended to be far from calming. Perhaps simply taking a break from the farm by coming to town was what was making me feel better. It was a much more believable reason than being haunted by some strange monster that just so happened to live right next to me.
I arrived in town and hastily made my way to the small chapel at the center of town. It was empty save for the vicar, who I was forced to rouse from his seat of quiet contemplation. Once he saw the clear unease that still lingered on my face, lessened as it was from earlier, any annoyance he had held quickly faded. He indicated that I sit next to him and speak my mind, and so I did. I spoke of the strange knight, and the tale he had woven of the ancient basilisk imprisoned within the cave. I spoke of my rising fears, and the horrifying nightmare I had suffered. I spoke of my belief that it might have simply been a delusion, and I spoke of how the knight had still not yet returned, no matter how long I watched. The vicar listened in focused silence as I talked, his gaze expressionless. If he held any judgements or concerns for my sanity, he was careful not to let them show. Only once I had finished did he look away, pausing in thought for a moment, before speaking.
“I understand your concern. Let me assure you that this ‘basilisk’ you speak of is not something that exists, nor could possibly exist in the way you described. God would not permit such evil,” said the vicar calmly, in his faint Scottish accent. “Of the knight, I cannot say for certain, but there are many simple explanations. He could have been a madman, or a trickster, or simply deluded. He could have left while you slept, or tripped on a rock and perished in the cave. Our own imaginations tend to make things more compelling than they actually are.”
The certainty of the vicar’s words brought me a sense of relief, yet a pang of doubt still rested in the depths of my mind. “But what if you’re mistaken? How can you know for sure that such a monster cannot exist?”
Again, the vicar paused for a moment. He stood up in silence and disappeared into a side room, returning quickly with a small metal crucifix necklace that he promptly pressed into my hand. “Keep this with you. Your faith in the Lord will protect you so long as you hold onto it.” He gave a reassuring smile. “And, if you are willing to consider it, you may wish to simply go look at the cave for yourself. You mentioned it is an empty dead end, yes? I have no doubt that confirming this with your own eyes would put your fears to rest.”
I gladly accepted the gift, though the latter idea brought such a sense of deep unease that I didn't even take the time to consider it. “Perhaps. Thank you, Reverend.”
“Of course. God be with you.”
I slipped the cross around my neck as I left the chapel. As I rode out of town, I could not help but feel that the brief confidence I had held earlier was beginning to slip away. Even with the vicar’s assurances, I could not shake that deep unsettling fear that dwelt within the recesses of my mind. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that the existence of the basilisk was not a possibility, I simply couldn’t accept that; there was always a chance, no matter how small, that the knight was telling the truth. As I rode on, I slowly began to think to myself that perhaps the vicar’s suggestion of looking into the cave was worth trying after all. It would only take a quick glance, and then I could again rest easy—
At that moment, I went around a turn in the road, and the cave came back into view. Instantly, I was again filled with the same overpowering, bone-chilling terror that I had felt before. My horse slowed, feeling me trembling in my saddle as I futilely tried to stop my panicked hyperventilation. My hand shot up to the cross I was wearing, squeezing it until my knuckles turned white. Surprisingly, holding it actually managed to lessen my fear slightly—not by much, but enough for me to make it all the way back to my farm. I stabled my horse, making sure to keep one eye on the cave at all times, before bolting to my house and slamming the door hard enough to rattle the furniture in the main room. For the rest of the day I didn’t go outside, nor did I leave my bedroom.
~~~
I awoke to the darkness of my room, lying in my bed. I hadn’t realized I had managed to drift off; I had fully expected to be cursed with a sleepless night. My eyes glanced around, taking in the familiar shadowed shapes of my furniture. Nothing was out of place. Still, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, warning me that something was wrong.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore my unease, feeling a strange slight buzzing in my head as I did so. I tried to ignore it. If I had managed to fall asleep once, I could do it again. I took a deep breath in and slowly released it, calming myself down. It was a peaceful night. I could hear the faint chirping of crickets as the wind whistled through the wheatfields. I could hear the slight creaking of my house—
creeeeak.
My eyes shot open. That wasn’t a regular creaking sound. I instantly recognized the sound of my front door slowly swinging open. It couldn’t have opened. How could it have opened? I had made sure it was shut and locked tight. It was impossible for it to have opened on its own. Did someone open it? Was someone—or something—here? I must have imagined it. I had been drifting off, and I must have dreamed the sound. It was the only possible explanation. It had to be.
Again a sound caught my ear. A soft, slow scrape, then a light thump. I was certain of it; it came from the main room. I suddenly became aware of a presence within my house. Though I couldn’t see it, it was as if I was watching a large, dark shape move towards my bedroom. Scraaaape-thump. Closer this time. I became overwhelmed with the urge to scream, to leap out of bed and run, but I was unable to. My limbs and mouth refused to budge, no matter how hard I tried to move them. I was trapped, a prisoner in my own bedsheets, in my own body, lying in a growing pool of sweat as the scraaaape-thump got louder and louder.
Tendrils of fear wrapped around my heart, threatening to stifle its rapid beating. The cross necklace. It wasn’t around my neck. Scraaaape-thump. My panicked gaze darted around my room until I spotted its faint shape upon my bed stand. How had it gotten there? I hadn’t taken it off. I knew I hadn’t. I didn’t have the courage to take it off by myself. Why wasn’t I wearing it? Scraaaape-thump. It was right next to me. I just had to reach over and grab it. I tried to lift my arm, but it remained still. Why couldn’t I move? I tried again to scream, but it was futile. All I could do was move my eyes.
Suddenly, the sound stopped. I could no longer hear the crickets outside. The silence was overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe. I had to move, to do something, but I couldn’t.
With a slow, excruciating creak, my bedroom door began to open. Tendrils squeezed so tightly against my heart that I felt it might burst.
In the darkness, I saw a faint shape.
The rooster’s crow shot me awake. It was dawn, and I could move. The crucifix still hung around my neck, and I instantly grasped it tight. It had been another nightmare.
~~~
It took me hours to gather the courage to leave my house. When I finally did, all I could see was the cave. Just a few days ago I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but now I could think of nothing else. So long as I knew of the basilisk, it stood in the back of my mind at every waking moment, laughing at me, daring me to seek it out. Would I ever be able to sleep soundly again, knowing that such an evil could be just a stone’s throw from my bed?
I held a measure of resentment for the knight. After all, if he had not told me of the basilisk, I would still be living in content ignorance, caring little about anything other than the state of my harvest. But, as I thought more, a memory crossed my mind. I had asked the knight, after he told me that damnable tale, why he would go to such lengths to seek out a monster that would kill any who looked upon it. He had answered that there was no alternative but to slay it. I had assumed that such a thing meant he sought to slay it for the sake of the innocent, but could it have been possible that he felt the same as I did now? Could he have been plagued by the same unbearable uncertainty, and concluded the only way to free himself from it was to plunge into the cave and see for himself—to ‘slay’ the very idea of the basilisk within his own mind? If so, why hadn’t he returned immediately, seeing it was empty? Was there truly more to that cave?
At that moment, with my trembling hand gripping so tightly at my cross that it nearly brought me pain, I made my decision. I had no option but to go look for myself, to venture inside the cave as the vicar had suggested. It was not that my fear of the cave had lifted; in fact, it had only intensified. I simply could not bear to go on living in this state of constant terror. I would slay this basilisk myself, for there was no alternative. I stumbled my way to the barn to retrieve my lantern, glancing at every shadow, my whole body shivering in the warm air. Before I even realized it, I found myself standing in front of the pitch-black cave, staring into the depths. I made no attempt to stop myself from stepping inside.
My lantern banished the darkness from within, revealing a familiar rocky tunnel. I steeled myself for a monster to leap out in front of me at any moment, but it never did. It was empty. I slowly inched forwards, taking one step after another, making sure not to stumble on the uneven stone of the floor. I was almost to the end, and nothing had happened. I clenched my necklace with my free hand, holding the lantern out in front of me as if it were a shield. Finally, after an excruciatingly slow minute, the end of the cave came into sight.
At least, it should have been the end.
Where once was a featureless wall, a rectangular slab had been carved out of the rock, opened to the side as if it were a door. Beyond it lay another tunnel, but it was not a naturally-formed one—it was a cleanly-carved stone corridor, with a staircase leading deeper into the earth.
I froze in place, too terrified to move. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. Why was this here? It shouldn’t have been here. Who could have built it? Why? What did it lead to? I had to turn and run, to abandon my farm and take refuge in town, but I felt the same paralysis as before. I couldn’t do it. My heart beat rapidly, straining to hold back the squeezing tendrils that hoped to stifle it. I had to do it. I had come this far, hadn’t I? If I turned back now, it would just make my fears even worse. The basilisk couldn’t be real. There had to be some explanation for this strange passage, and I could only figure it out by looking for myself. I felt my legs begin to move towards the opening in the wall, making the decision for me. I started to descend.
I walked down the staircase for what felt like aeons, though I could not say if even a minute had passed yet. My breaths grew ragged from exhaustion in the stale, dusty air. As the silence of the depths consumed me, broken only by my echoing footsteps on the cold stone, I slowly became aware of a faint dripping noise. There, before me, lay the bottom of the staircase. It was a large, empty cavern, far too big for my dimming lantern to illuminate. I could see stalactites in front of me, hanging from the ceiling, slowly dripping water onto the ground.
But something wasn’t right. I could feel something dripping onto my feet, but there was no stalactite above me. I lowered my gaze to the floor, and was greeted by a flash of red.
Blood. My own blood, dripping from my left hand.
I had been gripping my crucifix so tightly that my palm had begun to bleed. I hadn’t even noticed.
In a stupor, I slowly walked towards the center of the cavern. The fear had become so intense that I could hardly think. But there was no basilisk. It was empty. I don’t know how long I stood there.
Suddenly, a glint of silver caught my eye. My gaze instantly shot to the side. There, slumped up against the wall, lay the corpse of the knight, still clad in his dust-adorned armor. There were no scratches or claw-marks on the metal, nor visible signs of injury. His dead hand still tightly gripped his longsword. It did not seem as if he was struck down by a vicious beast. It was as if he had simply fallen over and ceased to live.
At that moment, lucidity suddenly struck. I felt the pain of my hand wound shoot through me, forcing me to let go of the crucifix as I let out a scream of pure terror. I took two panicked steps backwards, my knees shaking. The walls started to close in on me. I had to run. I spun around to face the staircase.
Above the passageway, colossal fangs leered down, slowly dripping venom onto the ground.
It was behind me. It had been behind me this whole time, waiting for me to turn back.
The tendrils of fear enveloped my heart completely, stopping its beat. The last thing I saw was a small speck of yellow, staring back at me.
Then, there was nothing more.
That night, the vicar dreamed of a dark cave.