Descending Echoes
The descent was a silent trial, punctuated only by the sound of loose stones beneath their boots and the persistent hum that the mountain had etched into the air and their bones. The direct resonance had faded, but its echoes remained—a static at the edge of hearing, fleeting visual distortions at the periphery of sight, and the constant, shivering sensation of being watched by something vast and indifferent.
The path was treacherous. The mountain, awake and enraged, seemed to resent their presence, dislodging rocks, opening sudden fissures, or enveloping them in thick, disorienting mists that smelled of ozone and ancient dust. Every step had to be calculated; every sound threatened to become a scream in the Void's darkness, a constant reminder of Orpheus's warning about Skull.
They found a relatively sheltered ledge for a brief pause. Fatigue weighed on them, both body and mind. K sat with a muted groan, her face pale as she examined the wound on her arm. The makeshift bandage was dirty, and the cut looked inflamed, its healing hampered by the residual energy of the Void.
Zack watched her in silence for a moment, the usual distance in his gaze replaced by a shadow of concern. He moved closer, kneeling beside her without a word, and produced a clean cloth and a small jar of salve from his pack. "Let me see that," he murmured softly.
K hesitated, surprised by his gesture, but the pain won out. She extended her arm. Zack's hands—normally gripping the Black Moon with contained fury—were surprisingly gentle as he cleaned the wound and applied the soothing balm. As he carefully rebandaged her, K broke the tense silence.
"Zack…" she began hesitantly. "The Boy… how did you find him? Where did he come from?"
Zack's hands paused for an instant. He didn't meet her eyes, staring instead at the bandage. A crease of effort and confusion furrowed his brow. "I…" he began in a near whisper. "I don't remember. Honestly, K, I can hardly recall what I ate yesterday." He finished tying the knot firmly, but his gaze was distant. "He… was just there. One day, he was there."
His answer was a dead end, a wall of fog as impenetrable as that which cloaked the mountain. K didn't press further, sensing the painful truth or deliberate evasion in his words.
Meanwhile, Orpheus kept watch, his eyes sweeping the shadowy slopes. The Boy stood close by, studying him with unsettling intensity. "Why did you come back?" the Boy asked suddenly, subtly nodding his chin toward Zack, who was now stepping away from K. "For him?"
Orpheus stiffened, casting a quick glance at Zack, who appeared lost in his own dark thoughts. He leaned slightly toward the Boy, his voice a low, rough growl. "I settle my debts, boy. That's all."
"What debt?" the Boy persisted, expression unreadable.
"One that isn't your concern," Orpheus snapped, straightening up and closing the conversation.
The pause was brief. Soon they were on the move again, the tension between them a subterranean current beneath their need to survive. They faced more dangers—a swarm of insectoid creatures drawn by the lingering energy, which they had to evade with swift, precise strikes; an unstable stone bridge that threatened to collapse under their feet. They also discovered one of Milos's discarded devices, a cracked orb still emitting a faint hum—a disturbing reminder of the scientist and his experiments.
Finally, after what felt like hours of cautious descent, they reached a clearing lower down the mountain. The resonance here was almost imperceptible, replaced by the sound of wind rustling sparse trees. Exhausted, they paused, the sense of having escaped the worst bringing a momentary relief.
It was K who noticed first. "What is that?" she whispered, pointing at the night sky now visible through a break in the clouds and mist.
They all looked up—and relief turned to ice in their veins.
The stars were not still. They seemed to flow like rivers of cold light. Distant nebulae writhed, cosmic dust gathering, twisting, coalescing into an impossible, terrifying shape. Before their eyes, spanning a vast swath of the heavens, a gigantic eye formed—an iris of spiraling galaxies, a pupil of absolute darkness, fringed with lashes of shimmering stars. It was immense, silent, and it was staring straight at them.
There was no doubt. This was not natural. It was the Void, sentient, observing them from the abyss between worlds.
Zack's face drained of color. Orpheus muttered a low curse, a strangled sound of pure horror. They knew what it meant.
"A portent…" Orpheus whispered, voice trembling. "Skull… or something that answers to his call. The mountain didn't just sing, Zack… it screamed. And something… something out there… heard it."
They stood frozen beneath the indifferent, malevolent gaze of the cosmic eye, the tangible threat of Milos and the mountain suddenly dwarfed by a terror of unimaginable scale. The mountain's echoes had followed them, and they had drawn the attention of something far, far worse.
Under the Gaze of the Abyss
The eye in the sky did not blink. It was a constant cosmic presence, a stain of sublime horror etched into the tapestry of night. The initial shock froze the group in the clearing, the chill of infinite space seeming to descend and envelop them—far more penetrating than any mountain wind.
Zack felt a shiver that had nothing to do with temperature. It was a glacial recognition, a deep vibration that resonated not from the stone under his feet, but from within him—from the Black Moon and the dark corners of his fractured mind. The sword in his hand seemed to shrink back, not in fear, but in a kind of cautious reverence before something immeasurably older and hungrier.
Orpheus, normally the embodiment of controlled fury, was visibly shaken. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the katana's hilt, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his brow despite the cold. "Skull…" he repeated, the word a harsh breath. "Or whatever answers to that name. Milos was an arrogant fool. He toyed with forces he didn't understand."
K fought back a wave of vertigo and nausea, the eye's indifferent vastness threatening to dissolve her very sense of self. This was the essence of cosmic horror—the overwhelming realization of one's own insignificance before the universe.
The Boy, by contrast, had tilted his head back, studying the eye with an almost childlike curiosity, utterly devoid of fear. He murmured something low, words lost on the wind but strangely rhythmic, like an ancient lullaby in a dead language.
"We have to get out of here. NOW!" Orpheus's urgent shout broke the paralysis. "We can't stay exposed under… that."
They resumed their descent, but the earlier caution gave way to a feverish, near-desperate haste. Every shadow cast by the twisted trees seemed to lengthen and writhe. Every twig snap sounded like an approaching footstep. Paranoia seeped into their minds, a poison fueled by the abyss's unblinking gaze above.
The rule against unleashing their power became torture. They felt vulnerable, their weapons and abilities reduced to useless toys before that cosmic threat. Frustration gnawed at Zack, the Black Moon pulsing with unused power—a power he now feared to release more than ever.
As they reached the forest's edge at the mountain's base, the disturbing signs grew more pronounced. Trees with trunks spiraled into impossible knots, as if writhing under an unseen force. Mushrooms emitted a faint, greenish luminescence, pulsing in rhythm with a beat only they could hear. The silence was heavy, oppressive; the nocturnal creatures had either fled or fallen silent—or worse. In the distance, they heard a long, distorted howl—not any known creature's cry—a sound that sent ice through their blood.
"The mountain bled," K whispered, examining a streak of dark, oily slime seeping from a rock fissure. "And the infection is spreading."
The shared fear did not forge stronger bonds; on the contrary, it frayed the already fragile edges of their alliance. Orpheus shot accusing glances at Zack, the tension between them nearly erupting into outright conflict. "Your sword… it's not quiet, is it?" Orpheus hissed during a forced halt. "Did it like what it saw up there? Is it calling for more?"
Zack only clenched the hilt of the Black Moon, saying nothing, his jaw tight.
K tried to mediate, keeping their focus on survival, but her gaze kept drifting to the Boy. He seemed increasingly distant, absorbed in his own world. At one pause, K saw him crouched, drawing complex symbols in the damp earth with a stick—spirals, sharp angles, shapes vaguely like distorted constellations or the very eye in the sky. "What are you drawing?" K asked softly.
"Hunger," the Boy replied without looking up. "It has many names. Many forms. But it is always hunger."
At last, after an eternity of tense descent, they emerged from the tree line. Mount Andur rose behind them, a dark silhouette against the sky still marked by the cosmic eye (now perhaps fainter, like an afterimage on the universe's retina, but unmistakably present). Ahead of them, an old dirt road wound toward the dark horizon.
They were exhausted, physically and psychologically spent. But there was no time for rest. A few meters from the road lay the wreckage of a wagon—splintered wood, scattered cargo, and the bodies… the bodies were horrifically mutilated, not by beasts but by something that seemed to have drained their very essence, leaving behind only dry, twisted shells frozen in expressions of unspeakable horror. There was no blood—only gray dust.
A chill ran through the group. This was fresh. And it was not the work of Milos or his creatures.
They looked down the road. In the distance, the faint lights of a village flickered unevenly, like a candle struggling against a strong wind. Would they be safe there? Or had the disturbance, the eye's influence, the hunger the Boy spoke of, already reached it?
Their other option was to disappear into the now-corrupted forest, to avoid civilization. But how long could they survive alone, with the mountain at their backs and the abyss's gaze upon them?
The choice loomed before them, as dark and uncertain as their future under the sky watched by the Void.
The Putrid Whisper of the Void
They found precarious refuge in a cavern concealed by rocks and twisted vegetation—a small pocket of relative silence under the ever-watchful gaze of the cosmic eye. The air still thrummed with residual tension, and the low hum seemed lodged behind their eyes. Exhausted, they set up a tense watch.
K cleaned her wound again. The skin around it was pale and cold to the touch, the healing unnaturally slow. Orpheus stood guard at the mouth of the grotto, katana drawn, but it was he who broke the oppressive silence. "I've seen this before," he murmured, more to himself than to the others. "Hunters who spent too long in the Mist… their skin goes… wrong. Holes start to appear, like something is eating from the inside. And the mind…" He shook his head. "They talk to themselves, see things. The Void exacts its price."
Zack shivered involuntarily, running a hand through his hair as an irritating itch crawled across his scalp—something he fought to ignore. The Boy, sitting quietly beside K, looked up at Orpheus. "You drank too much once," he said with his usual bluntness. "In the noisy place. With Master Zack. You laughed."
A flicker of surprise crossed Orpheus's face, followed by a shadow of… nostalgia? "The Leaky Mug," he muttered, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "They had the finest dark ale in the entire Polyhedron Realm. Even you," he glanced at Zack, "seemed almost human that night."
Zack met Orpheus's eyes, and for a moment their hostility gave way to a shared memory—a fleeting echo of a simpler, perhaps less grim time. But the moment passed as swiftly as it came, swallowed by their oppressive reality.
They decided to rest in shifts, suppressing their auras as much as possible, becoming almost energetically invisible—a precaution born of instinct against the eye in the sky and whatever else might be listening.
Sleep brought Zack no respite. He plunged abruptly into a vivid, chaotic nightmare—a torrent of fragmented images transmitted directly from the Void. In Medias Res ablaze. Milos, not as a warrior but as a mad conductor, orchestrating carnage with a scientist's ecstasy, his remaining lieutenants and corrupted soldiers mercilessly hunting the survivors. He saw Alf, beard wild with fury and despair, fighting like a cornered lion before numbers and brute force overwhelmed him. Screams echoed as villagers from Browneyes were dragged from their homes, terror stamped on their faces, herded into the main square like cattle. A ritual circle blazed on the square's floor, pulsing with dark, hungry energy fed by bodies flung onto it. And looming above it all, drifting in the putrid mist that cloaked the neighborhood, the unmistakable, cold glow of the King's violet eyes, observing the harvest.
Zack awoke with a stifled scream, his body drenched in cold sweat, heart hammering against his ribs. The Boy was beside him, shaking his shoulder with surprising force. "You were screaming in your sleep, Master Zack. Bad dream."
"It wasn't a dream," Zack panted, sitting bolt-upright, eyes wild with horror. He looked to K and Orpheus, roused by the noise. "In Medias Res… Milos… he's there! Alf… they're killing everyone! A ritual… the King!"
He spilled out the vision in jagged fragments, urgency and panic rasping his voice. K listened with a skeptical expression. "Zack, the Void plays tricks, distorts truth. Maybe it was just… the stress, the mountain…"
"No!" Zack insisted, grasping K's arm. "It was real. I felt it. Alf…"
Orpheus regarded Zack closely, his face a grim mask. He'd seen that look before—in men who'd touched the Void too closely. "Dream or warning," he said slowly, voice low and grave, "to ignore something like this, coming from there,"—he gestured vaguely at the sky and the mountain's memory—"is to invite disaster. If there's even a chance Milos is in In Medias Res…"
The implication hung in the air. Their home. The few allies they had. The decision was instantaneous, unspoken. They had to go back.
They departed at once, the bittersweet memory of the Leaky Mug replaced by desperate urgency. They moved swiftly, the threat of the cosmic eye temporarily eclipsed by the vision of slaughter. They followed the old road toward the nearest village, hoping to find a quicker route or supplies.
The stench hit them long before they saw the first huts. A sickly-sweet rot mingled with a chemical, metallic tang that churned their stomachs. K retched violently by the roadside. The Boy, usually unflappable, trembled and succumbed as well.
Zack and Orpheus exchanged grim looks. This was no ordinary corruption.
They approached the village with weapons at the ready. The wooden gates stood wide open, one hanging precariously by a single rusted hinge. Silence. A heavy, absolute stillness that even the wind dared not break. The houses were dark—windows like empty eye sockets. Some doors were ajar, revealing overturned interiors or voids of emptiness; others were closed, their surfaces scored with claw marks or splintered by forced entry.
They stepped onto the main street. The odor was nearly unbearable. No bodies lay in sight, yet the pall of death hung in the air, clinging to the ground and the walls. The cosmic eye still hovered overhead, its indifferent gaze witnessing the desolation. A presence lurked here—something invisible and oppressive, a corruption beyond the physical. The Void had passed through, or perhaps… still lingered.
They halted in the deserted square, surrounded by that putrid silence and the abyss's unblinking stare. Zack's vision of In Medias Res no longer felt like a distant nightmare but a horrifying prophecy fast approaching.