The seemingly endless stairs eventually led us to an enormous chamber, but it was not this that caught our eye. No, it was not this room that haunts our nightmares; nor was it the macabre play acted out in front of us.

At the north end of the chamber, the ritual was clearly in full force. A pile of butchered bodies formed the centerpiece of this gruesome tableau. Around the vile pyramid several robed figures shook and chanted wildly, ululating their triumph and joy at a gargantuan chasm that stretched from the edge of their ceremony.

There was never an ocean more abyssal or a black more impenetrable than that which lay before our eyes. I feared for my sanity, as I fought to master both nausea and terror.

The darkness seemed to grow by the second, feeding itself on every scream and shriek.

Older than time, stronger than death: its name is Madness.