The next doorway was crooked, the frame partially melted as if acid had eaten through its upper corners.
The moment Rhaëlya stepped through, the air changed, thicker, damp, colder. The door slammed behind her with a wet thud, vanishing into the seamless wall.
Everything was quiet. The room was massive, at least twenty meters across, but bathed in a soft red haze. There were no light sources. The floor was made of cracked black stone, yet...it moved.
Rhaëlya crouched slowly, squinting. Not stone, it was bodies.
Thousands of them, crawling, writhing, all human-shaped but semi-transparent, like smoke molded into flesh. Their fingers dragged across the floor endlessly, mouths frozen in voiceless howls, eyeless sockets weeping black liquid.
They weren't real. Or at least, that's what she told herself.
