CRACK.
The noise reverberated from the Deep, leaking into the physical layers.
Makun heard it and felt his soul shake. He knew things had gone wrong. He knew the good luck he felt he had earlier was going to run out at some point and create trouble for him.
Yime had explained everything to him. After the first ignition, when the soul truly connects to the Deep, it announces you.
That had happened.
However, he did not let the process finish. The announcement was not complete. Everything else was done, but he had to be broadcasted in a way he could not understand yet.
Who could blame him. If he let the process continue, it was certain he was going to die.
Going back had been the best solution.
Other than that, once you were announced, you attracted outer layer entities. Feeders, scavengers, parasites. Beings who could not enter the physical world unless someone cracked the Veil. And the potion was responsible for cracking the Veil.
Normally when someone underwent initiation, the process was hard. Extremely difficult. But after the route core formed at the size of a grain of rice, the announcement, which was basically the reverse of initiation, acted as a closure.
Announcement happened as a way for the Deep to acknowledge you. Your personal signature was imprinted in every information atom linked to your route of choice, thereby acknowledging you as a new warrior in the boundless universe.
However, because death was at his door, Makun, who did not know this, skipped that part.
He forcefully ended the connection with the Deep.
He was done. But the Deep was not.
The announcement had to happen. It had to be completed. Therefore, the crack that linked Makun's body to the Deep, and was supposed to dissipate right after initiation, widened.
The crack who had been existential, formed in his body, widened. He could feel it. His connection to the Deep becoming stronger.
Then
Fwoosh.
Demonic spirits who dwelled at the outer layer of the Deep, who were attracted by his initiation and saw opportunities to access the physical world, rushed.
It would have been manageable if just a few of them rushed.
But then the chains reappeared.
The chains who had disappeared during his initiation, tightening his soul like a vice. They wrapped around his spiritual body, constricting, pressing, searching.
The laws of the universe did not allow interference during initiation. While the route core was forming, the chains had been forced back, blocked by something older and more absolute than will or power.
But now the initiation was incomplete. The route core had activated, but the announcement had not finished. Makun had forcefully returned to Earth, and that imbalance woke something.
The chains reappeared, enraged.
They tightened with brutal force, as if searching for the core. As if hoping to crush it before it could stabilize.
And their presence drew more.
The chains leaked spiritual pressure into the crack. The crack bled into the outer layer. The outer layer sensed it, tasted it, and swarmed.
Dozens of demonic entities surged toward the opening.
Makun was like an open vessel.
His body became a gate.
The entities from the outer layer did not attack him. They did not swarm him.
They hoped to penetrate the physical realm through him.
They entered him.
SLAM.
The first wave hit like a battering ram. His body convulsed. His back arched violently as his mouth opened in a silent scream. Black smoke erupted from his lips, pouring out in thick, choking clouds.
But the smoke did not dissipate.
It reversed.
The demonic spirits dove into his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his wounds that appeared because of his initiation. Every opening in his body became a doorway.
They poured in, one after another, compressing, squeezing themselves into the spiritual vessel he had created within his soul.
Their forms were grotesque. Twisted, horned shadows with clawed hands and eyes that burned like embers. Some had mouths full of jagged teeth. Others were faceless, their bodies writhing masses of darkness. They shrieked as they entered him, their voices merging into a single, terrible chorus.
Makun's veins turned black. Dark lines spread across his entire body like a web. His skin took on an ashen hue, and his eyes, his eyes, turned fully black. No whites. No pupils. Just emptiness.
But he was not gone.
He was still there.
More demonic spirits came. And more. And more.
Makun was conscious, but he felt like he was slowly losing control of his body.
Blood. Blood. Blood!
Makun heard the entities asking for blood, commanding him to kill. As strong mentally as he was, he felt like he would not have control for much longer. He felt like he might lose it and kill whoever he saw.
At least he had chosen the park. At 5 AM, no one was there.
Dark smoke poured from his skin like steam, and within the smoke, faces flickered. Demonic visages screaming, laughing, weeping.
I knew it. I knew the semblance of luck was for this to happen.
The chains continued tightening. The crack opening. The entities swarming.
Makun was holding strong, trying not to lose control.
Urgh. Urgh.
He forced his mouth to stay shut. His body jerked.
That was when.
"Woof. Woof."
"Mom, why is Ruffy running that way?"
The voice was small. Innocent. A young girl, around ten years old, with a pink backpack bouncing against her shoulders. Her name was Mary. She had freckles across her nose and her sneakers lit up when she ran.
She was chasing after her dog, a scruffy terrier named Ruffy, who had bolted toward the bench where Makun sat convulsing.
Dogs were naturally attracted to spiritual phenomena.
Mary's mom, a tired woman in her early thirties with flour still dusting her apron from the bakery shift she just finished, called out behind her.
"Hey, Mary, stay here. Don't go far away."
Her voice carried the exhaustion of a single mother who worked double shifts just to keep her daughter fed. She jogged after Mary, her breath short, her knees aching.
Mary did not listen. She giggled and ran faster, her small hands reaching out for Ruffy's leash.
"Ruffy, come back. Mom said we can get pastries if you're good."
She smiled. A gap where her front tooth used to be.
Fuck this shit.
Makun cursed in his head after hearing the kid.
Why now. Out of every time. What are they doing here at this time.A kid.
A mother. Innocent people who had nothing to do with any of this.
This is really getting out of hand. You want to now turn me into a monster.
Makun gritted his teeth, every muscle in his body screaming as he fought for control. The entities inside him roared, their voices layering into a single command.
BLOOD. BLOOD. BLOOOOD!!!
He knew that if he lost control now, they were as good as dead.
But the influx of entities entering his body was not stopping. Blood spurted from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes. It dripped onto the bench, pooling beneath him in dark, thick streams.
His skin wiggled. Not a tremble. A ripple. Like there were maggots crawling beneath the surface, burrowing through muscle and vein.
No. Worse.
Like something was being born inside him.
His veins bulged black, pulsing with unnatural rhythm. The skin over his arms split in thin, jagged lines. Not cuts. Tears. As if his flesh could not contain what was inside anymore.
Dark smoke poured from the wounds. Thick. Choking. And within the smoke, faces formed.
Dozens of them.
Twisted. Screaming. Laughing. Weeping.
Their mouths stretched impossibly wide, jaws dislocating like snakes. Their eyes were hollow pits that burned with ember-red light. Horns pressed against the smoke from within, sharp and jagged, trying to tear free.
Claws scraped at the air, reaching, grasping.
One face turned toward Mary and her mother.
And smiled.
NOOOOO!. Makun shouted inside his own head as he felt his consciousness fading away.
Thud!
Makun collapsed forward off the bench, his body hitting the ground hard. His head cracked against the pavement. Blood pooled beneath him.
But his body did not stay still.
It twitched. Jerked. Convulsed.
Then it moved.
Not like a man getting up.
Like a puppet yanked by invisible strings.
His head snapped upright. His neck twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes, fully black, locked onto the coming Mary and her mother.
The demonic entities inside him wailed in unison, their voices pouring from his mouth in a guttural, inhuman chorus.
His lips peeled back. His teeth were stained red.
And then, with a speed no human body should possess, Makun's possessed form lunged.
He darted toward the mom and her daughter, limbs moving in jagged, broken motions like a marionette controlled by something that did not understand how bodies worked.
His mouth opened wide.
Too wide.
Blood dripped from his chin.
And he screamed for blood.