Chapter 3: Override
Many things had happened in the Maw that never should have. But this... this was something worse. An offense. A mockery.
Something that had never existed since the first soul screamed its way into Hell.
A dream.
Buried beneath rolling fields of twitching flesh, the small imp lay still. Sleeping.
Moments before, its body had twisted, flesh bulging, bones stretching, something inside changing. But now...
Silence.
Within its newborn mind, things bloomed that had no name. Shapes. Sensations. Feelings it had no words for.
Light.
It all started with that. A blinding force that tore across its mind like fire. It recoiled, but couldn't look away.
Thoughts shattered through the imp's skull. Fragmented. Not its own. Syllables it couldn't follow. Meanings it couldn't understand.
But the sights, they stuck.
Things that stirred the same hunger it felt when it first saw the club-wielding imp.
A field of green. The cry of a child. A world without rot, without fire, without pain.
It reached out, again and again, but nothing connected. Nothing touched.
Frustration twisted into rage. It tried to scream. Tried to bite and take.
It didn't know why, but it wanted them. It wanted everything.
It had fed once from want, and the taste still burned on its lips, even here. Everything it continued to see, it wanted that too. Needed it.
Then came a voice. Flat. Feminine. Not cruel. Not kind. Just there.
It carved straight through the imp's focus.
[System // Notification]
[System // INSTALLED]
[User // Classless]
[Evolution // LOCKED]
[Requirements // SURVIVAL // CONSUMPTION // DOMINANCE]
[--BEGIN--]
The voice cut in and out, erratic, broken. Symbols flickered across the dream like rot, decaying the vision.
The imp snapped. It felt interrupted, denied. Nothing had ever denied its wants before. It wanted to eat that imp, so it ate. Even the Scorch Gnats only made it wait. Still unforgivable...
But this?
This was different. A new kind of wound. One that festered. It shook something loose inside, something deeper than instinct.
For a moment, it was lost. Then, too quickly, came clarity. It knew what to do.
Kill.
The dream shattered.
It flailed in the dark, claws tearing at whatever it could reach. The walls, bone fragments, and even its skin.
Chaos bloomed in its skull. It stopped, grabbing its head with both hands and rocking back and forth.
'H...head...hurts!'
It jolted upright. Spun in a frantic circle, searching for the source of the sound. Then froze. Slowly, it looked down at its own claw. Gnarled. Twitching.
It brought it up, and touched its skull gently.
"H... hea...head..."
The voice came out small, wet, and raspy, like it didn't belong. Something about it was... Off. Not the kind of sound an imp should make.
But it was his, and that stopped everything. But the calm didn't last.
The imp doubled over, claws digging into its face as another flood of information poured into its brain.
Language. Emotions. Meaning.
It hadn't fully understood the words for what was happening, but now it did.
Everything erupted at once.
Synapses fired like lightning strikes, wild and uncontrolled. Sparks flared in its skull. Nerves screamed as something new forced its way through the cracks.
True thought.
Concepts clawed into place, tearing through the meat of its mind. Words. Shapes. Meaning. It didn't understand them, not fully, but they fit. Like bones snapping back into joints long broken.
Steam poured from its flesh, hissing through fresh tears in the skin. The heat didn't hurt. It wrapped around the creature like breath from some distant god.
It stood in the steam, chest heaving, claws shaking. Something in its chest ticked, tight and uneven. Breath. Panic. Something.
Everything was too loud now. The hiss of flesh. The drip of fluids. The beat in its own skull.
"W...what…"
The creature's eyes widened. It heard them. Recognized them. Felt the shape of the thought before it came out.
It touched its throat. Stared at the steam. Stared at its claws.
Its mouth opened slowly. Strained.
"What...am I?"
A flat red panel of light blinked into view. Thin lines of black text crawled across its surface.
[Racial Profile // LOCKED]
The imp attacked instantly, lunging at the screen, only to slam into the wall.
The impact knocked the breath out of it. A white flash filled its skull. Not instinct. Not reflex. Pain that stayed. Pain it understood. The first it recognized as real.
It crashed to the ground, rolled, then sprang back up. Claws twitching. Jaw clenched as it lashed out, swinging and biting, clawing at the empty air.
The voice returned, flat and cold.
[User is exhibiting cardiac distress. Recommendation, calm down and engage higher function.]
It kept flailing, but nothing changed. The screen didn't move. Didn't react.
After a few minutes, the imp slowed. Breathing heavy.
[Improvement noted.]
It chose to ignore the thing. Couldn't hit it. Couldn't stop it. So it turned away. It was time to get out.
Anger curled in its chest.
It twisted, jumped, spun, and slammed its weight against the wall. Even bashed its head into the ground. Nothing worked.
The screen stayed. Fixed in view.
"Go!"
The panel blinked out.
It froze, stunned. Tilted its head, then snarled it off. There was something more important now. Escape.
It didn't know why its surroundings were solidified and scorched. Didn't care. It did what it knew best. It started eating.
Claws scraped into the wall, peeling back hardened layers. It scraped until it finally reached the soft spots. It didn't take long before slick warmth reached its talons.
The second it cracked enough, flesh pushed through. Growing fast.
The imp backed up, panic causing its limbs to twitch. For a breath, instinct and thought clashed.
Then the blood hit its nose, and all conflict vanished.
The hunger took over as it tore in. Bit, ripped, and swallowed. It ate to fill the sudden, gaping emptiness gnawing at its gut.
Not just starvation, need. A new kind. A hollow ache that hadn't been there before the mind opened.
It ate to survive, same as always. That part hadn't changed.
What changed was this: now it understood the difference.
It clawed its way out and up, pressure building beneath it as the flesh swelled behind, pulsing faster than the imp could dig. Each bite, each tear, barely kept it ahead of being crushed.
The meat was growing too fast, pressing it toward the surface, but not fast enough to spare it the pain.
'Faster…!'
Something snapped. Its arm twisted wrong, crushed between its ribs and a closing molar of hardened flesh. No space. Barely room to breathe. The imp chewed, swallowed, tore again. One rib cracked. Then another. Then a third.
Blood welled up from its chest, rising into its throat.
It swallowed it anyway. Its mind had expanded, now it knew what death was. A new fear.
A new reason to keep moving.
'Won't die!'
The panel appeared.
[System // Notification]
[System Admin // Access Request]
[System Request // ACCEPTED]
[Initializing Forced Racial Ability Integration // Temporary Access...]
[...Forced Racial Ability Integration // SUCCESSFUL]
Heat exploded beneath its skin. Like fire in its veins, surging toward its skull in a blink. It couldn't scream, only writhe. The pain didn't come from a place. It came from everywhere.
[Forced Racial Ability Integration // Savage Feed]
[Soul Integrity // 40%]
[!! WARNING !! // Degradation Imminent]
As the flashing panel disappeared, the calm, detached voice replaced it.
[Recommendation. Do not die.]
Before the last words finished, the imp's body changed.
Its jaw split open, skin liquefied, bone cracked, and a massive maw tore into place. Rows of black teeth lined its throat like blades.
It didn't think.
One chomp cleared five feet of meat. Then another. And another. It tore its way forward like a tunneling beast. The rising flesh behind couldn't catch it, each bite carved a tunnel seconds before collapse.
Then...rupture.
The imp burst free near the top edge of a massive flesh pit, ejected in a surge of blood and pus that hurled its body off the edge. Straight into the pit.
It was falling. But it was free.
It hit the ground hard.
Rolled once, twice, then slid across a wet stretch of cracked skin and pooled ash. When it stopped, it didn't move. Just lay there.
Its jaw began to close on its own. Teeth pulled back. Flesh sealed. Bone snapped back into place. The massive maw was gone, replaced by its original face. Scarred and twisted, but whole.
It blinked. Breathed.
The wind, if that's what it was, burned its lungs with every inhale.
'I am alive...alive.'
The thought was clear. Direct. It lived, and that meant something now.
Before, it had just existed. Crawling, feeding, not knowing why. Now it understood there had been a chance, a real one, that it wouldn't have made it out. That it could've been crushed, burned, eaten, or just lost to the Maw like every other imp.
But it hadn't.
And now, it was something. Something more than it was before. That mattered, maybe not to the Maw, but to itself.
The thought settled in, and with it, the beginnings of awareness. Of meaning.
Then the voice returned.
[Proximity warning.]
Pain flashed in its skull as something opened, then the panel followed, flashing in its face.
[System Directives // UPLOADED]
[Initializing Core Functions…]
[...System Directives]
[Daily-Directive // FEED]
[System requires fuel. Consume viable organic matter to activate further pathways.]
[Status // ACTIVE]
[Daily-Directive // KILL]
[Initiate combat against a living enemy. Devour remains.]
[Status // PENDING]
[Daily-Directive // SURVIVE]
[Life expectancy under standard conditions // 12–36 hours]
[Status // CRITICAL]
The text finally stopped, hovering for a moment before the panel blinked away. The Imp's vision sharpened, finally taking in its surroundings.
While it was still trying to figure out what directives meant, shapes emerged from the haze. Movement. Slithering, twitching, and dragging across the stone.
Not one, not two. A whole brood.
Corpse Worms.
And they were coming.