The survivors stumbled through the door, already slick with their own blood, when the stench hit them. Thick. Metallic. Rotten. The air was heavy, almost liquid, choking their lungs before they could even see.
Then the lantern revealed it.
The entire carriage was flooded. Waist-deep, thick, crimson blood sloshed and churned as if alive. Every ripple carried whispers, every wave lapped against their skin like a greedy tongue. It was warm, almost feverish, as though fresh from a thousand slaughtered bodies.
Sophie gagged, clutching her throat. "I… I can't… it's in my mouth—"
The liquid surged suddenly, splashing higher. It wanted them submerged.
Alex cursed, dragging Sophie closer to the center. "Keep moving! Don't stop!" But the blood clung to him like glue, pulling at his legs, sucking him deeper. When he wrenched free, strips of his flesh came with it, drifting away like meat in stew.
Leo screamed as a face broke the surface—a pale, drowned figure with black, empty eyes. It lunged, mouth wide, forcing a gush of hot blood into his throat. He gagged and choked, thrashing violently as more pale faces rose all around them.
Dozens. Hundreds.
The drowned dead.
Each figure clawed upward, dripping gore, dragging at their clothes, their skin, their hair. Their voices gurgled through the blood:"Drink… drown… bleed with us…"
Sophie was dragged under first. Evelyn lunged, shoving the lantern into the blood. The light cut through for a moment, revealing a vast abyss beneath—the carriage wasn't shallow. It was endless, a black-red ocean filled with corpses drifting just below the surface.
Her heart slammed in her chest. She screamed, "Sophie, fight it!"
Sophie's face broke the surface, gasping, her eyes wide with terror. But blood poured from her mouth like a fountain, her scream swallowed by the red tide.
Evelyn yanked her upward, her own lantern light blazing. The drowned dead recoiled, skin sizzling as the glow seared them. Alex hacked wildly with his bare fists, punching faces back into the water, his arms shredded raw by teeth and nails.
Leo coughed violently, his lips stained black-red, eyes unfocused. He whispered hoarsely, "It's inside me…" and vomited blood into the flood. The liquid hissed and writhed, as if feeding on his weakness.
The whispers grew louder. "Drink… become one with the tide…"
The blood surged higher, up to their chests, threatening to swallow them whole. The lantern sputtered violently, drowning in the suffocating darkness. Evelyn's mind screamed—if the light went out, they were finished.
She raised it above her head, forcing every drop of willpower into it. "We are not yours!"
The lantern erupted. A beam of white heat tore through the ocean of blood, boiling it into black smoke. The drowned dead shrieked, their bodies dissolving into ash as the flood receded, draining away through cracks in the floor until the carriage lay empty.
Empty… except for the survivors, collapsed, heaving, soaked in crimson.
Sophie sobbed, blood dripping from her nose. Alex clutched his shredded arms. Leo lay on his side, twitching, blood leaking from every orifice. Evelyn clung to the lantern, its glow now faint, cracked, and barely alive.
For one moment, there was silence.
Then, from the far wall, a whisper rolled through the emptiness—low, wet, and mocking:"Blood is memory. Blood is life. And you're running out of both."
The next door opened. A stench even worse than blood drifted through.
And Evelyn realized—this was only the middle of the ride.