"The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out."
The water welcomed me like a mouth. Dark. Wet. Choked in rot. The deeper I swam, the colder the water became until even the fire inside me flickered against the pressure. But I pushed on. My claws carved through the current, each pull taking me further into the black.
And then I saw it again. The Fucking Blood stone bug's nest.
It pulsed against the sea floor like a blister. A bulbous mass of bone and chitin, webbed in strands of blood-thread. Hundreds of bug-infested corpses lined its outer rim, tethered to its skin by slick vines and twitching tendrils. The infected vampires clung to it like larvae in a womb.
