Echoes of the Damned

Raelyn's breath came in shallow gasps as she clawed at her ankle, frantically trying to stop the maggot from burrowing deeper into her flesh. Its slimy body wriggled just beneath her skin, pushing further inside, like a living parasite determined to consume her from the inside out. She could feel it moving—feel every twitch, every sickening inch as it worked its way up her leg.

She scratched and tore at her skin, her nails digging into her flesh, ripping it open in desperate, jagged lines. Blood poured from the wound, hot and sticky, but it wasn't enough to stop the thing inside her. It was too deep now, writhing just below the surface, pushing toward her thigh.

The pain was unbearable, but worse than the pain was the sensation—the feeling of something alive, something cold and wet, crawling through her body like it belonged there. Her stomach twisted violently, and for a moment, she thought she would be sick. But there was nothing left inside her. Just emptiness. Just horror.

She had to get out. She had to keep moving, no matter how much it hurt.

With a guttural scream, Raelyn dragged herself forward, her body trembling with exhaustion and pain. The floor beneath her was slick with blood and decay, a thick sludge of decomposing flesh and bodily fluids that stuck to her hands and knees as she crawled. Every inch was a struggle, her limbs heavy with the weight of the horror surrounding her.

The walls of the tunnel seemed to close in tighter, pressing against her, suffocating her with their rotten, bloated bodies. The skin of the corpses had turned black, blistered and stretched taut over their bones, like they had been baking in the heat of death for days. Some of them had split open, spilling their innards across the ground, their guts tangled in a web of viscera and bile.

As Raelyn moved, she brushed against one of the corpses, her hand sinking into its chest cavity. The skin gave way beneath her touch, tearing open with a wet, sucking sound. Her fingers plunged into the thick, blackened sludge of its organs, the texture like wet tar. A sickening warmth spread through her hand as she pulled it back, her fingers coated in the rotten remains of the dead. The smell hit her like a wave, so overpowering that her vision blurred, her head spinning.

She gagged, bile rising in her throat, but there was no escape from the stench. It was inside her now, saturating her senses, filling her lungs with the foul, rancid air of death.

Suddenly, the tunnel widened, opening into a massive pit, and Raelyn froze. Below her, the bodies had been piled up, a mountain of death stretching as far as she could see. They were not laid flat like graves but stacked, twisted into unnatural shapes, arms and legs tangled together like a grotesque human puzzle. Some bodies were fresh, the skin pale and blue, their eyes still open in terror. Others were little more than skeletons, their flesh long since rotted away, leaving only bones and dried sinew.

But they all moved.

At first, Raelyn thought it was just her imagination, her terror warping reality. But then she saw it—a hand twitching, a head jerking to the side. The bodies were shifting, crawling over each other, pushing toward the center of the pit where a massive, bloated figure sat, feeding.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen, more beast than man. Its body was grotesquely swollen, the skin stretched to its limit, bulging with the putrid contents inside. Its face was unrecognizable, a mess of melted flesh and oozing sores, with eyes that were too small for its bloated skull. Its mouth gaped open, impossibly wide, swallowing whole pieces of the corpses it pulled from the pile. With every bite, a sickening crunch echoed through the chamber as it chewed through bones, devouring the dead with a primal hunger that seemed endless.

Raelyn watched in horror as the thing shoved a hand into its mouth, the fingers slipping between its rotting lips like noodles. She could hear the squelching of its teeth grinding through the flesh, the wet sound of bones cracking as it tore the hand apart.

And then it looked up.

Its eyes—small, beady, and black—locked onto her, and for a moment, everything stopped. The pit fell silent, the only sound the wet dripping of rot sliding from the bodies. It didn't move, didn't blink, just stared at her, like it was trying to decide whether she was dead enough to eat.

Raelyn took a step back, her body trembling uncontrollably. The thing in the pit let out a low, gurgling growl, a sound that sent chills crawling down her spine. And then, without warning, it lunged forward, its swollen body dragging itself across the pile of corpses, its massive hands clawing through the dead as it came for her.

She turned to run, but the ground gave way beneath her. She fell, tumbling into the pit, her body crashing against the decayed remains of the dead. Her hand plunged deep into a corpse's chest, and she felt the ribs snap beneath her weight, the body collapsing like a sack of wet meat. Maggots and flies scattered from the wound, swarming her face and neck as she struggled to free herself.

But it was no use. She was stuck, her leg trapped beneath a bloated, half-rotted torso. She could feel the flesh tearing as she pulled at her leg, the skin peeling away like wet paper. The corpse above her split open, spilling a thick, black fluid over her chest, the smell so vile it burned her nostrils.

The thing was getting closer now, its body heaving with each breath, its bloated stomach dragging through the pile of bodies. She could hear its wet, gurgling breaths, smell the stench of its rotting flesh as it reached for her.

With a final, desperate scream, Raelyn yanked her leg free, but it was too late. The thing's hand clamped around her ankle, its fingers sinking deep into her flesh. She could feel the bones snap beneath the pressure, could feel the skin tear as its grip tightened, pulling her toward its gaping, rotten mouth.

She kicked wildly, her heel connecting with its face, but it didn't even flinch. It just stared at her with those black, soulless eyes, its lips curling back into a twisted grin.

And then it bit down.

The pain was instant and excruciating. Its teeth sank deep into her leg, ripping through flesh and muscle like paper. Blood poured from the wound, hot and thick, mixing with the filth around her. She could feel its tongue, slick and warm, sliding over her skin, tasting her, savoring her.

Raelyn screamed, her body convulsing with agony, but the thing just kept eating, tearing chunks of her leg away with each bite.