The Cellar

The Dark Below is a steam-punk/fantasy world filled with the darkness that rests beneath a wavering tide. Generations ago, Gods from the depths below rose from the black seas and in doing so, caused a great flood that would have destroyed all of humanity if it was not for the ingenuity of survival. Living among The Dark Below has come to pass, but now four warriors must come together in hopes of forging a brighter future.

i escaped one monster only to belong to another. and somehow, the devil beneath the chapel feels safer for me. they did warn me about the devil beneath the church but they never warned me he would become obsessed with me.

My husband's childhood sweetheart kills my parents in an accident due to drunk driving. I want to call the police, but my husband blindfolds me and takes me to the cellar. I'm tormented and subjected to inhumane treatment for the next three years. After each torture session, an icy male voice will ring out in my ear. "Do you still hate her, Sabrina?" One day, I finally cave and submit to the icy voice. "No, I don't. I don't hate her anymore!" I hear my husband's joyous laughter on the other end of the line. On the day he welcomes me out of the cellar, I avoid his embrace. Yet he loses his mind when I ask him for a divorce.

Kat was use to moving but it never got any easier. She dreaded having to constantly start over. She had all but given up on a forever place to call home. One day when her husband comes home and hands her a set of keys and a deed. He informs her this move would be the last, she was over the moon. It wasn’t long after moving in that she found her dream of a forever home was going to quickly turn into her worst nightmare. What was watching from underneath the floorboard?

My husband's first love had been trapped in a car for an hour. After they pulled her out, his rage shifted onto me. “It’s your fault she got hurt,” he spat, his eyes blazing as he grabbed me. Before I could make sense of what was happening, he forced me into a wooden box, slamming the lid down with a deafening crack. “You’re going to feel every ounce of the pain she went through,” he hissed, nailing it shut. I pounded on the walls, my screams tearing through the air. “Please, I didn’t do anything! Let me out!” My throat burned with the effort, my fists aching, but nothing stopped him. “Stay in there until you’ve figured out how to act like a decent human being,” he said, his voice cold, dripping with contempt. Hours passed. My body twisted unnaturally in the tight space, bones throbbing as blood smeared the wood beneath me. I whispered into the dark, the pain unbearable. "Please… just let me out…" But he didn’t care. A week later, he returned, his laughter echoing with hers as they entered the house, carefree from their trip. He finally opened the box. But by then, I was already gone. The woman he locked away was no longer breathing, no longer pleading. Just a cold, silent corpse.

My family owned Belgard Estate, a historic wine property that had recently gone viral after serving as the backdrop for a series of advertisements and product livestreams. On one occasion, my butler and I could not even enter the grounds. Influencers crowded the entrance, phones raised, security overwhelmed. My fiancée apologized. "The mayor wanted to borrow the estate, dear. I couldn't tell him no," she said. "Just bear with it for a while, okay? Once the trend dies down, I'll have them all cleared out. Trust me." I trusted her. I never raised the issue again. Some time later, my grandfather prepared to celebrate his 90th birthday. I returned to the estate to retrieve our finest vintage for the occasion, only to find myself nearly crushed by a shrieking crowd packed outside the gates. I slipped away and made my way to the back entrance after someone in the crowd called me a "free-riding bum." Bewildered, I was ready to present proof of ownership when a woman shouted over the noise, "Didn't you hear? Miss LePenn has already announced that Belgard Estate has been given to Jacques Martin! I don't care how big a fan you are of him. You still have to buy a ticket to see him like the rest of us!" I stood there, stunned. Jacques? The first man I had ever allowed to use this estate for a product livestream? It belonged to him now? And since when had Sylvia become the mistress of this place? Since when did she even have a boyfriend? Enough was enough. It was time to bring these people's business with Belgard Estate to an end.