[He comes to with a die in his outstretched hands, frozen in time. When he can move again, there's something in his chest, or his throat, or both or all of the above. He clutches his throat, nearly dropping the die, claws blunt-nailed gouges at his flesh until he almost draws blood.]

[Except not blood. Wheezing, he coughs some of it up and sees a spray of black. Looking down at his hands, he sees tar under his nails. What he can't see is the thick sucking black veins stark against skin sickly in contrast with his normal sun-kissed olive. When he breathes out, it's black mist.]

[His survival depends on being able to move. Even at the start, he knows something's wrong. Even at the start, as he meets another Reclaimer's eyes, he's looking for what he already knows is there: horror, or disgust, or something in between.]

[Mista doesn't know how it is that he came to be in this place. A wrong turn made somewhere; he doesn't know. He doesn't know how long he's been down here — going down and down in circles, getting colder and colder until his fingertips start to turn blue.]

[What he knows is that going in circles is starting to hurt his mind. What he knows is that he's running out of food. What he knows is that if he was alone, he would've lost it a long time ago.]

Hey.

[Voice rough, fingers trembling, he reaches for the person stuck in this shit with him. They're lit up by the halo of light flickering around them; by nothing else at all. The tinderbox doesn't seem to work down here. He's trying not to think about why that might be.]

[The walls roar, a flickering reflection of his fear. He forces himself to smile, ghastly in the dim light.]

Tell me a story. Pass the time. [Keep spirits up. He's watching his breath, careful to keep it as clear as he can.] I'll tell you one, too.

[Hit me with whatever you got. I'm open to anything different, especially in post-Stylosaquest threads. PM or passiones for something specific.]