The Count

David lifted his face from the cool rock floor. He slowly sat up, shaking his head. In his hand was his knife, his clothes in perfect order, his neck not about to be bitten in two.

He looked over at the shadowy door.

"Another failure," a thousand voices said, from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Will you continue?"

David didn't respond. Not audibly anyway. He simply stood, walked to the wall to the left of the door, made another mark with his knife in the stone, and walked through the doorway. That mark was number one hundred fifty-two.