I didn't know how much time had passed since I left the screaming library. Time here wasn't measured in hours — but in horrors. And by now, I had crossed more than I could remember. Memories flaked off my mind like dry bark.
The ground beneath my feet was no longer bone or word. It was flesh.
Pulsing, warm, uneven. With each step, I sank slightly — as if the world breathed beneath me. Around me, hills of muscle trembled, covered in black veins that shimmered under a moon that didn't exist. Trees made of torn sinew bent over me, weeping dark sap that whispered my name. Eyeless birds circled overhead, slicing the skin-thin sky.
And then I heard it.
The first growl.
Not of a wolf. Not of a man.
Both.
They emerged from the shadows like nightmares spat out by reality itself. Werewolves, but broken. Each one a mistake. Bones snapped where they shouldn't be. Limbs twisted in unnatural ways. Fur slicked with bile. Their eyes? Sewn shut. Yet they saw. They saw me.
They were called Lunargasts.
Hunters of sound.
I didn't learn this from words — but from fear. They fed on noise. The faintest whisper. The gentlest breath. Silence was their veil. Sound was their feast.
I froze. Held my breath.
Too late.
A drop of saliva hit the ground.
They heard it.
Ten of them.
Charging like fire through a dry forest. Leaping with liquid hate, claws stretched toward my throat.
I ran.
The flesh beneath trembled, screaming with each step. Trees snapped like ribs behind me. The sky tore open, revealing a second moon — made of ribs, spinning like a dead eye.
Then something changed.
A cloaked figure stood between the trees. Tall. Lean. Not human. Not entirely monster.
Eyes like burning coal.
A vampire.
But not from legend. His chest was open, displaying mummified hearts strung by wire. His fingers were needles. His feet hovered above the ground. His skin… was hunger-colored.
A Bloodscalp.
He didn't attack me.
He attacked them.
He was a silent storm. Tearing through them with perfect violence. Their blood spilled — thick and white, like spoiled milk. One by one, they fell. The vampire never missed.
When the last snarl faded, he turned to me.
His eyes glowed.
— They smell what you are, he said.
— And what am I? I asked, my voice barely there.
— Still human. But not for long.
He tossed something at my feet. A small totem made of human teeth bound in hair.
— Wear it. If you want to last the night.
— Why help me?
He smiled. Not with lips. But with eyes.
— Because if you die now… I die later.
And vanished.
Leaving me among bodies and weeping trees.
But silence didn't last.
Something else was coming.
Claws. Wings. Jaws.
The Lunargasts were only the beginning.
And the world was testing me.
Not to kill me.
But to reshape me.
Question for the reader:
How many parts of yourself would you let die… to survive a world that only honors monsters?