Ren had been wandering for what felt like hours, time had long since dissolved from thought. Every step sent needles through up his legs. Every breath scraped the inside of his lungs raw. Yet, he moved on, dragged forward by something deeper than will. The fear of stopping.
Then, the view changed.
The forest's crushing presence loosened, like fingers relaxing around his throat.
The air was thinning thinner. The skies, once a writhing crimson overhead, was fading into a sickly grey mist.
Fog pooled around his ankles, crawling upward in lazy coils. It brushed the edges of his cloak, licked his boots.
From above he could see rooftops, jagged silhouettes that speared through the tree line.
"Buildings? That must mean...survivors?"
Hope took him over. A fragile, desperate thing. There could be someone alive to help him. Someone still real.
Quickening his pace, her stepped beyond the trees.
A village.
The roofs of cabins caved inward, like lungs after their final breath. Doors hung on rusted hinges. Stone walls were bloated with rot, streaked with mildew and strangled vines that crawled up like veins. For how many buildings were here, it was awfully silent.
Down the narrow dirt path, Ren moved carefully.
To his side, he saw them.
Figures that stood scattered in the mist. Their bodies were gaunt, bone threatening to pierce through. Skin clung to bone like stretched parchment. Faces were hollowed, and eyes were clouded with milky film. Yet, these were different than the corpses he had seen before.
There was something behind those milky eyes. A thin, stubborn remnant of humanity that refused to fade.
'Are...they alive? Can they see me?'
As he walked along the path, none of them turned. None of them reacted.
Until one did.
An old woman stepped forward from a collapsed porch. Wisps of grey hair clung to her scalp.
"You…" She whispered, voice frail and fraying at the edges. "You shouldn't be here…"
Her eyes shimmered with panic.
She reached out to him, fingers trembling, stopping just inches from contact, as if touch were forbidden by some unseen law.
Ren wanted to speak. To ask for help. For answers...
But the terror on her face strangled the words before forming.
"Please, child..." She muttered. "You need to leave. It's not safe here anymore."
Then, her expression shifted, a ripple beneath her skin, like something was moving inside her face.
She smiled...
But it was wrong. All wrong. Not human.
SNAP
Her mouth stretched wider than it should have. The corners tore open, skin ripping apart as blood spilled down her chin. Her jaw strained past its natural limits, tendons pulling ever so tight, flesh tearing under the force.
"You don't belong..." She pleaded, voice trembling against the pain. "You need to go. Please..."
Ren staggered back.
"Please...run before—"
Her body began to convulse violently, her voice emptying of all warmth.
"Mother sees you..."
The words fell out of her mouth, and around them, the village awoken.
Those that once ignored his presence turned to face him at once.
Bone snapped. Necks twisted backwards. Spines hunched. And all of them were smiling.
No...
They were tearing themselves apart. Faces contorted violently, as if invisible hands were pulling at their lips.
Blood welled from rips as their mouths stretched too wide.
Milky eyes overflowed with blood that fell down their cheeks.
In perfect, dreadful unison, they spoke:
"Mother sees you..."
Men, women, children, all of them. Again and again, the chant continued, crawling its way into Ren.
Panic detonated in his chest.
Run...
His body obeyed the command and he tore through the dirt streets. Vaulting broken fences, swerving past splintered carts, slamming through hanging cloth on lines, Ren fled with all he could. The footsteps were prominent behind, hundreds of them, so close.
And the words.
"Mother sees you..."
"Mother sees you..."
"Mother sees you..."
He turned a corner, and something seized him.
Slammed into a wall, the impact blasted the air from Ren's lungs. A gaunt man pinned him, ribs pressing through paper-thin skin. Its face was torn into that same impossible grin. Cold hands clamped over Ren's face with inhuman strength.
Without thinking, Ren drew his dagger, and stabbed...
One.
Five.
Ten times...
The blade sank into the mans side over and over, but the man didn't flinch, nor did he gasp in pain.
One hand forced Ren's mouth open, and the other reached for his left eye.
Fingers dug deep into the socket.
Pressure, pain, and a white-hot blindness.
'No...No, please!"
POP
Ren's world ruptured into a searing red, shattering his mind. Pain drowned thought, drowned reason.
He screamed in pain until his throat burned raw. Tears and blood poured down his face, as instinct took over.
He ripped the dagger free and drove it into the man's skull.
Fourteen times...
The skull turned to mush, blood spraying hot across Ren's face.
The man seized, shuddering before he collapsed.
Still smiling...
Ren slid down the wall, cupping the empty hole where his eye had been. Blood leaked between his fingers, dripping to the ground.
He remaining eye veered to the side.
A woman was rushing him.
SLASH
Ren swung on reflex, the dagger opening her throat.
Blood erupted from the arterial spray, gurgling on her own blood as she collapsed.
And more footsteps were approaching...
"Oh, god...I-I didn't—" Ren choked, his voice breaking apart.
The blood covering him was crimson red.
Not rot, but real blood.
Human...
Ren staggered back, sobbing in disbelief.
"You made me—Why did you make me do this?!" He screamed. "Why won't you stop?!"
The dagger trembled in his grip, slick with gore.
The crowd of villagers were closing in, the sound getting closer.
But louder than their footsteps, another sound become prominent.
A pouncing sound.
Hooves.
From the mist emerged a steed—tall and decaying, yet so majestic. Its pale mane flowed as if caught in a wind that touched nothing else. Silver light burned in its eyes, and with each pounce left faint, glowing prints that shimmered before fading. And it charged straight at him.
Ren had no time to react before its jaw clamped onto his remaining arm.
The steed galloped away with Ren in its hold.
Ren twisted to look back.
The villagers were standing at the edge, bloodied and mutilated.
Still smiling through torn flesh.
"Mother sees you..."
"Mother sees you..."
"Mother sees you..."
The chant had begun to fade the further the village became.