The whisper cut through the roar of the Heart and the chanting of the children like a thread of cold air.“Run.”
For a moment, I thought I had imagined it. But then it came again, clearer this time, carried on a current of breath rising from the fissure:
“Not all are lost. Run.”
The children tightened their grip, their nails digging into my skin. The towering thing loomed above me, mouths yawning open, its chorus of voices pounding in my skull. “YOU ARE THE SEED. YOU WILL FEED.”
I twisted against the hands, my body moving not from strength but from sheer panic. My heel struck one of the pale children in the chest. The body didn’t fall—it collapsed into a spray of ash, scattering like dust. For an instant, the grip on my arm loosened.
That was all I needed.
I tore free, stumbling toward the fissure. The chanting rose to a shriek, echoing through the cavern, and the Heart throbbed so violently that the walls quivered. The creature above me reached down with a cluster of arms, grasping, clawing, but the fissure yawned wider, swallowing me in darkness before it could close its grip.
I fell again—deeper this time, air rushing past me, the hum fading into a distant throb. When I landed, it was not on living flesh but on stone. Cold, dry stone.
And then I saw them.
Figures cloaked in rags, faces shadowed, their bodies thin but not lifeless. Their eyes glowed faintly—not white like the townsfolk above, but dim amber, flickering like coals. One stepped forward and extended a hand.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” the figure said. Its voice was cracked, human, but burdened with centuries of wear. “But now that you’re here, maybe you can help us finish what we could not.”
Behind them, carved into the cavern wall, was a massive door of black stone. Symbols crawled across its surface, shifting and writhing as though alive. Chains of bone and iron bound it shut.
The figure’s hand trembled as it gestured toward the door.
“This is the root Ashbrook fears. The Heart is only its servant. What sleeps behind this gate… is the true master.”
And then the whisper came again, this time from behind the sealed door itself.
“Set me free.”
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
No comments:
Post a Comment