The air reeked of burnt flesh and chemical smoke. My lungs dragged in the poison anyway. Every breath scraped like glass, but I couldn't stop. Couldn't collapse. If I lay down here, in the steaming ruins of the chamber, I knew the dungeon would finish me.
The floor trembled beneath my bare feet. Black ichor soaked the stone, still sizzling from where my flames had burned through the Heart. Its massive bulk had melted into a cavern-wide puddle of rot, pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat.
[Objective Complete: Heart of the First Descent Neutralized][Bio-Mass Absorbed: 56 Units][Warning: Corruption Surge – 71% → 89%]
The HUD burned into my skull, jagged red text swimming across my vision. I stumbled, clutching my face as heat surged down my arms. The bone spikes jutting from my flesh twitched like antennae, alive with impulses that weren't mine.
"Not… yours," I growled, digging the claws into my palm. "This is my body. Mine."
The dungeon answered with silence. And then a whisper.
Feed.
I spat blood into the steaming ichor and pushed forward.
The chamber was falling apart. Walls of sinew crumbled, sloughing into heaps of rancid meat. Veins burst overhead, raining down black liquid that sizzled when it touched my skin. The whole dungeon was in mourning, or rage—I couldn't tell.
The girl's voice echoed faintly in my skull. You shouldn't have killed it. Now it won't let you go.
I froze, spinning around, but there was no one there. Just shadows writhing in the ruin.
"Are you even real?" My voice was hoarse, cracking. "Or are you just another infection?"
No answer.
I pressed on.
The corridors beyond were different now—hollow, lifeless. The fleshy pulsations that had lined the walls were gone, replaced with cracked stone and brittle roots. The air was colder, emptier, as though I had burned the dungeon's lungs out.
But every few steps, I saw movement. Shadows twisting at the edge of my sight. Faces in the stone. My father. My mother. Friends I hadn't thought about in years. They whispered promises, begged for help, accused me of abandoning them.
I shoved past them all. "You're not real."
But part of me wasn't sure anymore.
[Neural Entropy: 21%][Stability Threshold Approaching Failure]
My body lurched forward before I could stop it, claws dragging against the stone walls. I realized I was sniffing, tasting the air. Hunting.
I slammed my head against the wall until sparks flared across my vision. "No. Not yet. I'm still me."
When I turned the corner, I found the bodies.
Two humans. Or what had once been. Survivors, maybe. Their clothes were shredded, flesh torn open by something larger than claws. Their bones were hollowed out, marrow gone. Parasites had chewed their eyes clean.
I froze.
The smell hit me like a hammer. My stomach clenched, and my claws shook. My throat ached with hunger.
[Warning: Hunger Level 92%]
I staggered back. "No. No, no, no."
But the hunger spoke louder than my thoughts. It wasn't food. It wasn't water. It was essence, life-force, whatever the dungeon had rewired me to crave.
And the corpses still held scraps of it.
Before I knew it, I was on my knees, tearing into the first body. My claws cracked bone like it was nothing, ripping through ribs and skull. Black and red fluids coated my face, my tongue. I devoured, sucking marrow into my throat, until the HUD blinked.
[Bio-Mass Absorbed: +8 Units][Hunger Level 92% → 48%]
I froze, panting, staring at my own bloodied hands.
The second corpse lay beside me, untouched.
"No," I whispered, trembling. "Not them. Not… people."
But the hunger didn't care.
My claws twitched toward it, teeth grinding against themselves. I fought the urge, digging talons into my thigh until hot blood poured down. Pain grounded me.
I forced myself to stand. Forced myself to leave the corpse untouched.
I wasn't sure if I was proud—or horrified.
The corridors narrowed. I followed the sound of water—real water—until I found a cavern where a stream trickled through broken stone. The liquid was clear, untouched by the corruption. I fell to my knees and drank until my throat felt raw again.
Then I saw her.
The girl. The one from before. Or maybe just another hallucination. She stood across the stream, hair falling ragged over her face. Her silver-grey eyes glowed faintly, the same color as mine now.
"You're changing too fast," she whispered. "The dungeon won't let you leave. It never does."
I staggered to my feet. "What are you?"
She tilted her head. "Your sister."
My stomach dropped. "That's not—"
"Not possible?" she asked. Her lips curled in a smile that wasn't human. "We were made in the same womb. Not hers. Its."
The HUD screamed.
[Genetic Correlation Detected – 71% Match][Symbiote Convergence Probability: 93%]
The girl stepped closer, bare feet rippling the water. "You feel it, don't you? The hunger. The pull. You're not fighting the dungeon. You're becoming it."
Her face flickered, shifting between forms—her own, then mine, then something faceless and writhing.
My claws extended on their own.
"Stay back."
Her smile widened. "You'll never escape me. Because you are me."
The walls convulsed. The stream boiled into sludge. The cavern collapsed in on itself.
The last thing I saw was her face—half mine, half hers—before the stone swallowed us whole.