They say the dungeon strips you down until there's nothing left but the bones of who you were. I used to laugh at that idea. I thought survival was enough—claw, bite, devour, repeat. But now, standing knee-deep in the ichor of creatures that no longer looked fully alien nor fully human, I understood.
Survival wasn't enough. Not when the dungeon whispered back. Not when it started calling me by name.
The chamber pulsed around me like a living lung. Walls of slick muscle contracted and released in slow rhythm, pushing rancid air through tunnels carved by creatures I'd long since stopped naming. The stench was cloying—mold, rust, and something sharper, like ozone after lightning. I pressed a clawed hand against the wall and felt it shiver beneath my touch, like it recognized me.
[System Notification: Neural Resonance Increasing – 78%][Warning: Host Consciousness Integrity at Risk]
My HUD burned across my vision, numbers rising and falling like a heartbeat that wasn't mine. Every breath I took was laced with static. Every thought was shadowed by something hungry and patient, watching me from behind my own eyes.
And yet, part of me wanted to give in.
I limped forward, dragging the weight of my armor-thickened body through the mucous-slick floor. My left arm still bore the carved pattern from before—the glowing lattice that pulsed like circuitry fused into flesh. Each pulse sent a jolt into my chest, reminding me the parasite wasn't just inside me anymore. It was me.
Then I saw her again.
The girl.
She stood across the chamber, half-shrouded in fungal light. Silver-grey eyes reflected the glow, familiar yet alien, as if they belonged to both me and something older. Tendrils of organic chains still tethered her, but they pulsed faintly, slackening with every movement she made.
Her voice slipped into my skull without sound.
"You're late."
I froze. "You can… talk to me?"
Her lips didn't move, but I heard her as clearly as my own thoughts. "I don't need to talk. We are stitched together already."
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
She tilted her head, studying me like I was the aberration here. "I could ask the same. You walk with claws. You wear the dungeon's gifts. You bleed like us… but not enough. Not yet."
Her words scraped against something raw inside me. The parasite stirred, purring like a beast at her recognition.
[Symbiote Compatibility: 71%...]
I clenched my fists. "I didn't choose this. I woke up in this hellhole, same as you."
"Wrong," she whispered, and the walls seemed to echo it back at me. "You were chosen. That's why you survived the First Descent. Why the dungeon doesn't spit you out as bones."
I wanted to deny her, but the proof was in my skin—my claws, my armor, the alien thrum in my veins. She wasn't lying.
The floor rippled. A tremor shuddered through the chamber, and sacs above us burst one by one, spilling half-formed creatures into the muck. They twitched, screeched, and began dragging themselves toward me.
The girl's gaze sharpened. "They test you still. Show me… which side you belong to."
Her tendrils cracked, snapping one by one, releasing her inch by inch.
Panic surged through me. If she broke free before I decided what she was—ally, enemy, or something worse—I wouldn't survive the answer.
The first beast lunged. My claws erupted instinctively, bone splitting and reforming into serrated edges. I tore its skull apart in one swipe, warm ichor splattering across my face.
Another screeched, a limbless crawler, dragging itself with needle teeth. I stomped it down, feeling bone and brain crunch beneath my heel.
One after another, they came. A tide of malformed things, all carrying fragments of the same infection that twisted me. My HUD screamed warnings.
[Vital Integrity: 62%][Adrenal Response Active][Symbiote Overload Risk: High]
I carved through them, each kill feeding me in ways I couldn't understand. My claws sank deeper, sharper. My skin hardened under blows that should've crippled me. For every drop of blood spilled, the parasite cheered louder.
And then—silence.
The last creature spasmed at my feet. I stood trembling, panting, ichor dripping from every inch of me. The girl stared. Her chains had fallen completely.
She stepped forward, unbound.
"You are closer now," she said. Her eyes glowed faint silver. "The dungeon favors you. But do you favor yourself?"
"What the hell does that mean?" I snapped, though my voice cracked with exhaustion.
"It means…" She raised her arm. Flesh rippled across her body, reforming into bone-white armor, wings of jagged crystal and sinew bursting from her back. "…that you don't have the luxury of denial."
My HUD flared.
[Boss Encounter: Symbiote Queen Candidate]
"Wait—" I raised my claws, not to strike, but to ward her off. "I don't want to fight you."
Her wings unfolded wider, glowing veins of light coursing through them. "You don't get to want. You adapt. Or you die."
Her first strike came without warning—a whip-limb slashing across the chamber with enough force to crack stone. I dove aside, my armor screeching as shards of crystal grazed me. Pain seared through my ribs.
Instinct overrode thought. I lunged forward, claws slashing upward. She twisted midair, impossibly fast, and my strike only tore through air.
"You hesitate," her voice hissed in my skull. "That's weakness."
She struck again, wings beating with blinding light. My HUD spiked.
[Neural Desync: 49% - Foreign Override Attempt Detected]
My vision blurred. Her thoughts pressed against mine, invasive and suffocating. Images flickered in my head—her memories, or maybe mine twisted: chains, darkness, the sound of screaming that wasn't fully human.
I staggered. "Get out of my head—!"
She didn't answer. She didn't need to. Her claws raked across my chest, cutting through armor and flesh. Heat flared as ichor spilled. My knees buckled, but I refused to fall.
[Vital Integrity: 48%]
I roared, mutation surging. Spikes burst from my forearms, chitin thickening, my body reshaping in desperate defense. I countered with a thrust, bone tearing into her side. Instead of blood, light gushed out, burning my skin where it touched.
She screamed—not pain, not fear, but awakening.
The chamber trembled with her cry.
We clashed again, blow after blow. Each strike was faster, harder, more desperate. My claws locked with her whips. Her wings cracked against my armor. I felt myself fracturing, every nerve screaming, every bone threatening to snap.
And yet, somewhere in that chaos, I realized: I wasn't fighting to win.
I was fighting to not lose myself.
Her eyes bore into mine, silver fire burning. And in them, I saw… myself. Not mirrored. Not copied. But shared.
"You feel it," she whispered into my mind, her voice suddenly soft beneath the fury. "The hunger. The calling. You are me, and I am you."
I staggered, claws trembling. "No. I'm… I'm still human."
She leaned close, her tendrils brushing my face like cold fingers. "Then why do you bleed like us? Why do you devour?"
Her words carved deeper than her claws ever could. Because she was right. I wasn't human anymore—not really. Every kill, every mutation, every adaptation had pulled me further away from the boy who once feared the dark.
But if I admitted it… what would be left?
The chamber cracked overhead. Debris rained down, stone and flesh tearing apart as the dungeon convulsed. We were tearing it apart with our struggle.
The girl—no, the Queen Candidate—stopped. Her wings folded, her gaze locked on me with something I couldn't name. Pity? Recognition?
"You can't run from it forever," she said, almost mournful. "When the dungeon calls… you will answer."
Before I could reply, the floor split. Tendrils lashed upward, dragging her back into the walls. She didn't fight them. She let them take her, her eyes never leaving mine until she vanished into the pulsing dark.
Silence followed.
My claws dripped with ichor and light. My chest heaved. My mind screamed with the echoes of her voice.
And my HUD burned one last warning:
[Symbiote Bond Strengthened: 84%][Cognitive Bleed Imminent]
I collapsed to my knees, clutching my head as static devoured my vision.
Her words echoed again, soft but unyielding.
"We are what comes next."
I screamed, not in pain, but in terror.
Because I knew she was right.
And I didn't know if I wanted to stop it anymore.