Wonderful Insane World

The night had finally passed.

A veil of pearl-gray draped the camp, pierced by the dying embers of the fire. Around them, the shadows of beasts still prowled, furtive silhouettes in the darkness, their eyes glowing like cursed lanterns. Yet none had crossed that invisible threshold which divided their hunger from death.

Maggie knew why.

It wasn't the fire, nor the weapons, nor even the fragile order maintained by the soldiers. No, it was that invisible pressure, heavy as an anvil, emanating from the Awakened. A muted force that seeped into the air, almost animal, almost dominative. For weaker creatures, it was a siren of doom — a promise of instant death. For those of equal strength, it was a tempting balance, like an arena calling them. And for the stronger… ah, for those, it was an irresistible temptation, a promised feast.

Maggie watched all this with her usual calm eye. Her mind worked in reverse to others': where many gave in to fear or fatigue, she read the night as one reads an open book. Every creak of branches, every heavy breath in the damp air was a phrase in this silent story.

She told herself that the true battle did not only dwell in blades and blood, but in this constant, invisible negotiation with the wild: frighten enough to keep attacks at bay, but not so much as to draw out the supreme predator.

Her gaze slid toward Élisa, curled up in her cape, and for a moment, Maggie recalled her expression from the night before — that mixture of revolt and doubt. She smirked faintly.

"Poor girl…" she thought. "You still believe you can make it through with fine ideals. But in this world, there are only two roles: the one who bites and the one who is bitten."

The sky gradually shifted to pale shades of gray and orange, chasing away the heavy shadows of night. The embers cracked softly, remnants of an agitated vigil. The first soldiers were already on their feet, shaking dew from their cloaks, sharpening blades, tightening straps. Habit spoke for them: every gesture precise, mechanical, almost cold, as though dawn served only to prepare another march into the unknown.

Maggie stretched slowly, her joints cracking in the silence. Her eyes rested on Élisa, carefully folding her cloak with studied seriousness, then on Inès, still sluggish, her face drawn with fatigue. She said nothing; she never needed to. Each bore their burden, and dawn never lightened it.

The beasts had scattered with the first light. Their absence was no reassurance: Maggie knew such withdrawal was never without price. They would return, later, at the most unexpected moment.

"Move out!" barked a soldier's voice, breaking the fragile balance of waking.

The Awakened were the first to fall into line, checking their weapons, adjusting their gear. The air carried a metallic scent, that of a day promising to bite again.

Hours of marching had eroded the men's drive as water eats away at a cliff. At last, the jagged silhouettes of the fissures appeared ahead, gaping scars in the ravine's flank. From afar, these crevices seemed to exhale a cold breath, a damp draft that carried the stench of rotting stone and dried blood.

Zirel slowed, his gaze fixed on the mouth of that natural labyrinth. Behind him, his companions tightened formation instinctively, as though the very air whispered not to drift too far. The fissures sprawled in an anarchic network, snaking under the earth like dark veins waiting to swallow the reckless.

He recalled Martissant's words: "These passages are your domain."

A domain, yes… but not a home. This place was not made for men. It was the belly of the world, and it already had its own inhabitants.

"So these are the damned entrails the Count left me," he muttered, more to himself than to the others. His voice echoed against the stone, a brief sound swallowed at once by the silence of the galleries.

One soldier spat to the ground, uneasy.

"Smells like death in there."

Zirel gave a joyless grin.

"Then breathe harder — it'll spare you from smelling it when it comes."

He drew one of his daggers, twirling it in his hand with feigned calm. Behind his eyelids, tension burned: these tunnels would be a perfect stage for his talents, but also a trap with every step.

He raised his hand, slicing the air with a sharp gesture.

"Formation. Two front, two rear. We map every passage, every nest, every patrol. Nothing passes without my knowing."

A cold draft swept over their napes, like an invisible caress. The fissures waited, silent and dark, ready to close their stone jaws.

The first soldiers entered the cracks, blades raised, shields forward. Daylight only reached a few meters inside, carving golden streaks into a sea of ink. The smell changed at once: morning freshness was replaced by a thick stench of mold, rotting meat, and damp earth.

They had barely taken five steps before the darkness stirred.

At first it was a feverish scratching, a viscous slithering across the stone. Then silhouettes detached from the black, not to attack, but to flee the intrusive light that burned them. They rushed into the depths, a stampede of deformed, grotesque shapes.

"There!" shouted a soldier, pointing his sword.

One creature, slower or more panicked than the others, writhed in the shaft of light. It was the size of a dog, but hairless, gray, its skin slick with mucus. Its body was a parody of human form, with shriveled limbs flailing, and a mouth without eyes that gaped in a silent, shrill scream. Daylight scorched it; its skin smoked where it touched, leaving oozing streaks.

A young soldier, jaw clenched in a heroic effort not to vomit, lunged forward and lopped its head off in a single blow. The thing dissolved into a flood of black, reeking blood that stank of metal and rot. The head rolled, its mouth still opening and closing in silence before finally going still.

"Rock-maggots," Zirel growled, eyes never leaving the shadowy recesses they had spilled from. "They flee the light. Alone they're nothing, but they swarm. And where prey flees, predators hunt."

He turned to his men, his face hardened by the greenish gloom. "They mark the walls with their slime. That stench is their trace. It means we're in their territory. And it means something bigger is hunting them."

Maggie stood still at the entrance, watching. She saw the nausea twist Élisa's face, the sudden pallor of Inès. She inhaled the air, thick with fear and death. It wasn't the men's fear that interested her, but that of the beasts. Their stampede was an alarm signal, a disruption. In fleeing, the rock-maggots had screamed their terror to everything in these tunnels. The feast was declared.

A faint smile brushed her lips. Her eyes met Zirel's. No words were needed. They knew.

The calm that followed was worse than the attack. A heavy silence, thick with the damp breath of stone and the distant drip of water. Torches were lit, their wavering flames casting wild, dancing shadows on the oozing walls, turning every stalactite into a claw, every crevice into a watching eye.

The formation drew tighter still. Footsteps echoed too loudly, profaning this sanctuary of shadow. The advance resumed — slow, meticulous, each man scanning a direction, breath short.

They pushed deeper into the cold belly of the world, and the darkness patiently closed behind them, swallowing the last trace of day. Their only horizon now was the trembling circle of torchlight, and the only certainty was that the first attack had been but a whisper before the true scream of the night.

The torches flickered, their flames casting orange gleams on black walls stained with dried slime. The smell of rusted metal and rotting flesh thickened with each step, clinging to the throat, filling the mouth with a bitter tang.

Zirel led, dagger in hand, every sense sharpened. He hated this silence — too perfect, too calculated, like an ambush laid by the stone itself.

A scraping, sudden, to the left.

Then another, behind.

The walls whispered. No — not the walls: something was moving along them.

"Close formation!" he barked, and the soldiers tightened their shields with a sharp clash of steel.

The first strike did not come from the front, but from above.

A dark mass tore from the ceiling and crashed down upon the rear guard, toppling two men in muffled cries. Their torch rolled across the ground, casting a circle of flickering light that revealed the assailant: a long, reptilian creature, with clawed limbs and a skull split open like a mask. Its glistening skin shimmered like that of a diseased fish. Its eyes were nothing but hollow cavities, oozing black liquid.

"Chasm-fangs," Zirel hissed, lips curling into a carnivorous grin.

The monster shrieked, a piercing, metallic wail that made the rock tremble. One soldier tried to spear it, but his weapon shattered against its slimy carapace. A heartbeat later, the beast opened its jaws — not toward the man, but toward the torch. In a single snap, it swallowed the flame whole.

Darkness fell.

The tunnel drowned in a viscous black, broken only by the frantic breathing of men.

Maggie, unmoving, felt the air shift. Not just from the dark. Something else. Behind the creature's cry, behind the human panic, she heard a deeper rhythm… a summons, almost a calling. The first would not be the last.

In that blackness, Élisa clenched her teeth. She wanted to scream, to run, but Maggie had already told her the night before: "Bite, or be bitten." Her hands trembled, but she drew her weapon, determined to prove she was not just dead weight dragged through this world of shadows.

And in the belly of the earth, the darkness laughed softly, closing its jaws.