A god, an angel, he doesn't know either but he thinks of neither. He thinks of monsters with masks of bone and teeth, of hunger, and the sound of muffled classical music while pain rips through in mockery. He is blind with fear.

And then the thing is flung out. He hears its cruel demands. The sludge rises up and he feels sick, but that's all. He doesn't feel sorry for the struggling creature.

But that person, whose name he still doesn't know, he watches as they're swallowed into darkness too. He rushes out. He reaches into that cursed sludge to grasp at them.

"NO! We can still get out of here! Please! If we leave it we can still--!"

He has been a monster. Is a kind of monster in some eyes. Fairytale endings have no place for him. But he fights for it anyway. Fights and reaches and pleads with gods that have forgotten him. He will pull a fellow monster back or he won't.

And the darkness of death will call him back for the hundredth time without rest, whispering gentle and unkind reminders that cautionary tales cannot exist without souls to fall prey.