The stench was always there, thick and suffocating—a rancid fog of decay that never left Vacem's skin, hair, or mind. When he woke again, the comforting black of unconsciousness had vanished, replaced by the same nightmare. The ground beneath him—an endless, heaving field of diseased, mottled flesh—squished wetly underfoot. Every step was like treading on something that should never be alive. A wave of revulsion twisted in his stomach with each sickening squelch.
Above, the sky was still that jaundiced blend of yellow and gray, like a bruise left to rot. It was marred by tentacles riddled with holes, writhing grotesquely from sky-piercing, glacier-like structures. Their tips occasionally dipped into the living terrain, dragging trails of glistening slime. From their orifices came a wet, slurping sound that bored into Vacem's skull like a drill—an endless reminder of the alien nightmare he was trapped in.
He had been walking for hours—at least, it felt like hours. Every step was a fight against the bile rising in his throat. His uniform was gone, replaced by a scratchy, oversized tunic and pants that clung uncomfortably to his skin in the oppressive humidity. The silence around him was almost as maddening as the landscape, broken only by the wet pulses of the ground and the ceaseless sucking of the sky-born tentacles. He tried to cry out, to scream for help, but his throat was shredded, his voice barely a rasp. There was no one to hear him. He was alone. Utterly, terrifyingly alone.
And then, without warning, the eruptions began.
Somewhere far off, a glacier would quake, sending a deep tremor through the quivering land. Then a geyser of black-red slime would explode into the sky, trailing stench like a poisoned wind. The odor was unbearable—rotten blood, bile, and something worse, something chemical and alien that scalded his nostrils. He quickly learned to spot the signs and dive for cover behind jagged, bone-like rocks. Still, every eruption reminded him: this place did not want him here.
Driven by raw survival instinct, Vacem pressed forward, desperate to find anything—anything—familiar. The terrain swelled and dipped with nightmarish consistency, valleys of tumorous bulges giving way to ridges where the tentacles loomed lower, like instruments of torture just waiting to strike. The threat of another eruption kept him hyper-aware, on the verge of sensory overload.
Eventually, the landscape changed again.
A river. But not of water.
Thick, blood-like liquid oozed its way sluggishly across the terrain, gleaming with an oily sheen. The smell here was even worse—a metallic, clinging scent like slaughterhouses left to rot in the sun. Massive, jagged rocks jutted from the riverbed like decayed teeth, bone-white and stained with rust-red. They rose like ancient molars from a beast long dead and eager to block his path.
Vacem had no choice but to cross.
He picked his way across the slick surfaces, careful not to slip. The cracks were filled with dark, gelatinous clots. He slipped once—just once—and touched one of the "teeth." The texture made his stomach lurch, his body convulsing in pure revulsion. But he kept going, forcing himself forward step by step.
Then came the sound.
Wet. Tearing. Followed by a guttural snarl.
He froze. Something was moving in the shadows between the larger teeth—something big.
It stepped into view.
Humanoid, but horribly wrong. Three meters tall, painfully thin, its flesh a glistening horror of rot and exposed muscle. Blood, black and clotted, clung to its skin like mold. Its head was just a mound of decayed tissue with two pinpricks of blazing light where eyes should be. Its claws dragged rivulets of blood across the stone.
It moved like a predator—jerky, yet disturbingly fluid. Vacem's breath caught in his throat.
Flesh Stalker.
The name just appeared in his mind. As if the world itself whispered it to him.
It lunged.
Vacem dodged instinctively, the creature's massive claw slicing through the air where he'd been. Blood splashed up in thick gobs. He stumbled, scanning the landscape frantically for anything he could use. That's when he saw them: bone-like spikes jutting from the ground.
He ran.
Muscles screaming, lungs burning, he tore toward the nearest one. The Flesh Stalker was right behind him. He yanked the jagged shard free—it was slick and grotesque, but its edge was sharp.
The creature charged.
Vacem didn't think. He lunged, jamming the bone into its chest. It sank in with a revolting squelch. The Flesh Stalker shrieked, staggering back—but even as it retreated, the wound began knitting together. It could heal.
But it could be hurt.
He stabbed again. And again.
The shard began to splinter inside the beast, but he didn't stop. Each strike tore another scream from the monster, its movements growing more frenzied, more erratic. It was weakening.
Summoning every ounce of strength, Vacem drove the bone deep into the creature's pulsing center.
The Flesh Stalker convulsed violently. Then it collapsed with a gory thud. Its body began to melt into a puddle of tar-black liquid that sank into the flesh below.
Panting, bone shard still in hand, Vacem stared at the puddle. His arms trembled. The stink was unbearable. He looked at his hands, slick with gore, and felt something cold settle inside him. He had killed something—something unimaginable. And the world had not changed. What was he becoming?
He stumbled away.
The blood river behind him, he pushed forward into this grotesque hellscape. Time had lost meaning—was it hours? Days? More? He passed fungal fields that pulsed like diseased organs, walked beneath weeping tendrils that looked like sores, and skirted towers of rotting meat stacked like architecture.
He didn't stop. He couldn't.
Standing still felt like death.
The constant fear of another eruption or another Flesh Stalker began to chip away at his sanity. His senses were frayed, his mind flooded with the rhythmic squelch of his steps, the wet gurgle of the land, and the sucking sounds from above.
Then came the whispers.
Soft at first, almost like a breeze rustling through leaves.
But there were no leaves. Just flesh. Bone.
He told himself it was stress, lack of sleep. But the voices grew louder. Clearer. Dozens of them. Hundreds. All talking at once, whispering to him.
He clutched his ears. Useless. They weren't coming from outside—they were in his head. He squeezed his eyes shut.
And when he opened them, it was there.
Not a creature.
Not flesh.
Just darkness. A presence that swallowed all light, all sound. A void.
It had no form, no shape. Just a blot of pure blackness that stood out even in a world of nightmares.
And the whispers exploded.
They weren't words. Not really. They were thoughts. Concepts. Raw understanding that his brain wasn't built to handle. He saw things. Knew things. Felt things. His mind buckled under the weight. His thoughts drowned beneath the flood.
He opened his mouth to scream, to speak, but even that was lost.
The void pulsed—not with light, but with absolute absence.
Then it was gone.
The blackness folded in on itself and vanished.
The whispers stopped.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Vacem collapsed to his knees, his chest heaving, his vision swimming. His mind felt… wrong. Warped.
What was that?
A hallucination?
A god?
Something else?
He lay there, staring at the rotting sky and its twitching tentacles. This place didn't just threaten his life—it was unmaking him. Tearing his sanity apart one horror at a time.
And he was still trapped in it.
Alone.
Human.
Breaking.
To Be Continued...