"You don't go mad all at once.The world just forgets to hold still."
The silence after the sealed door was almost worse than the shrieking.
It was too quiet—not peaceful, but hollow. Like everything that made sound had been drained from the room, leaving only the pulse of their blood and the weight of what they'd just escaped.
Matte stood slowly, helping Violet up.
Her body was still trembling. Not violently anymore—just enough to feel wrong. Her hands twitched, her breathing uneven. Her eyes didn't meet his.
"Violet…"
She didn't answer.
Just stared past him, into the thick shadows ahead.
The shrine didn't end here.
The walls stretched forward into new corridors—twisted things shaped like veins and vertebrae, the architecture too organic to be stone, too structured to be flesh. The floor sloped downward, a soft incline leading them deeper.
And deeper.
As they walked, the shrine began to change.
The light no longer came from above or around—it pulsed from within the walls themselves, like blood being pushed through dying capillaries. The path narrowed, then widened at random. Sometimes the ceiling arched thirty feet high. Other times, it pressed so close Matte had to crouch.
Every surface was moist. Breathing. Watching.
The glyphs became less readable.
They weren't etched anymore.
They were grown.
Raised from the surface like scars on skin.
"Matte…" Violet finally whispered.
He turned to her, relieved to hear her voice—until he saw her expression.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking past him. Over his shoulder.
At something that wasn't there.
"They're following us."
Matte turned fast, blade drawn.
Nothing.
Only shadow.
But Violet took a shaky step back.
"I saw her," she whispered. "My sister. She was right there. She… she doesn't have her face…"
He grabbed her shoulders gently. "That wasn't real."
Her lips trembled. "Then why did she smile at me?"
The next chamber was narrower—lined with what looked like memorial alcoves, each holding fragments of things: a burned doll, a rusted blade, a single human tooth embedded in wax.
Each relic pulsed softly.
Each one whispered something.
"You're still here?""Didn't you die already?""You're wearing the wrong name."
Violet stumbled as if struck, clutching her temples.
Matte grabbed her again. "Violet, listen to me—these things want you to break."
She looked at him, tears sliding down her face.
"I think I already have."
And then they heard it.
Scraping.
Something dragging its limbs against the walls.Multiple limbs.
Fast. Then slow. Then fast again.
The corridor ahead flickered—just once.
And in that moment, they saw it.
Not a walker.
Something new.
Lower.
It crawled on four limbs—twisted and backward-jointed like a spider, its body long and stretched unnaturally. It had no eyes, just slits where its face should've been. Its skin was slick and pulled tight, and its mouth ran the length of its entire chest—a jagged slit filled with rows of teeth that never stopped moving.
It didn't roar.
It didn't charge.
It just crawled toward them, twitching, smelling.
Matte stepped in front of Violet, slowly drawing his blade.
"We don't run. Not yet."
The creature hissed—a sound like bone cracking underwater—and was answered.
From above.
And below.
Dozens more.
Scuttling along the walls, the ceiling, slipping from vents and slits in the shrine itself.
Violet began hyperventilating.
"They're in the walls…"
Matte exhaled slowly.
"Let them come."
The first one lunged.
Matte dodged, slashing clean through one of its limbs, ichor spraying across the floor. The creature shrieked—not in pain, but joy, like it wanted to be split open.
Two more came next.
Matte spun, slicing one across the chest—the mouth-slit ripping wider, teeth snapping blindly as it writhed.
The third slammed into him, knocking him down. Its mouth unhinged and nearly bit into his shoulder before he jammed his blade straight through its lower jaw and ripped it free.
He fought.
But they weren't trying to kill.
They were trying to herd them.
"Matte!" Violet screamed.
One of the creatures had grabbed her leg, dragging her toward a hole in the wall. She kicked and screamed, slamming a broken skull against its head, cracking something. Matte surged forward, grabbing her arm and yanking her free—stabbing the beast in its spine.
It screeched as it died.
But the others didn't retreat.
They circled.
Their mouths twitching.
Their heads tilting like they could hear a voice deeper in the shrine calling to them.
Matte pulled Violet up again. "We run now."
She nodded, shaking, barely holding herself together.
They ran down the corridor—limping, bloody, but alive—until they reached another sealed passage. Matte shoved it open with a burst of Essence, throwing them both inside.
The creatures didn't follow.
They stopped at the threshold.
Watching.
Smiling.
Inside the next chamber, the air was still. Dense.
The walls here were smoother. Covered in thousands of handprints—all reaching upward. Some small. Some large. Some with claws.
The floor was layered in ash.
Bones turned to dust long ago.
Violet collapsed to her knees again, sobbing quietly.
Matte knelt beside her.
She didn't look at him.
"I don't know where I end anymore."
He rested his forehead against hers, his voice barely above a breath.
"Then hold on to me until you remember."
They didn't move for a long time.
The chamber was cold.
Not the kind of cold that bit at the skin, but the kind that sank into your bones, whispering reminders of everything you'd tried to forget.
The thousands of handprints on the walls loomed around them like silent witnesses. Some of them were fresh. Matte didn't mention that.
He just held Violet.
She clung to him, not crying anymore—just breathing hard and fast, as if forcing her lungs to remember their purpose.
The silence hummed.
And then, quietly—too quietly—
the walls began to pulse.
Not like breathing.
More like… twitching.
Subtle at first.
Then sharper.
The handprints started to bleed—tiny trails of black ichor oozing from the palms, dripping slowly down the smooth surface like ink melting from forgotten history.
Violet didn't notice right away.
Her eyes were wide but glassy, focused on nothing. She was somewhere else—mentally adrift, sinking into a place that didn't belong to her.
"I hear them," she whispered. "They're behind the walls."
Matte turned toward her. "They're not coming through."
Her voice was flat. Empty.
"They're not trying to come through, Matte. They're already in me."
The walls groaned.
The chamber shook just slightly—dust falling from the ceiling in slow, graceful spirals.
Matte stood and pulled her up with him. "We have to move."
She nodded, but her steps were sluggish now. Uncoordinated. Like her mind lagged behind her body.
The next doorway opened as they approached it—before they touched it.
It welcomed them.
That was new.
They passed through a corridor where the walls turned glasslike—mirror-polished, reflecting not just their faces, but twisted versions of themselves.Matte saw himself with hollow eyes and violet veins crawling down his throat.Violet saw herself smiling too wide, her skin peeled at the edges like it was sewn on.
She looked away.
The reflections didn't.
They kept walking beside them.
The next chamber was worse.
The floor dropped into a pit of old wood scaffolding, built into the sides of a massive, cathedral-sized flesh pit.
Below, the scaffolding disappeared into shifting muscle, twitching slowly in time with the same heartbeat they'd heard before.
Strapped to the walls were bodies—some half-digested, some perfectly preserved, all of them whispering.
"This place remembers you.""We prayed and were devoured.""The gods were just the first skin."
One of the hanging bodies suddenly twitched.
Matte drew his blade again.
The body looked up.
It had no eyes. No face. Just teeth—across the whole front of its head.
It screeched, a chittering, blood-curdling wail.
Something answered.
Across the pit, in the shadows of a far corridor—
more movement.
Skittering.
Fast.
The spiderlike demons were here again.
Dozens. Maybe more.
They crawled in formation, not attacking, but following from just far enough away.
As if herding them somewhere.
Matte scanned the scaffolding for a way out.
There—an iron gate halfway down, barely visible through the hanging bodies.
He turned to Violet.
"We're dropping to that platform. Stay on me."
She nodded—but her knees buckled as she tried to jump down.
Matte caught her. Pulled her in close.
"Violet. I've got you. Say it."
"You've got me…" she whispered.
"Again."
"You've got me."
"Good. Now don't look back."
They leapt together, landing on a lower scaffold. The wood creaked dangerously, but held.
The screeches above got louder.
The flesh pit below shivered.
As they sprinted for the gate, one of the spider-demons lunged from the shadows. Matte spun and slashed upward, catching its jaw—but it latched onto his arm, biting with its stomach-mouth, rows of teeth raking across his sleeve.
Violet screamed—not in fear, but rage—and plunged her dagger into its spine.
It convulsed and dropped, leaking acidic blood across the planks.
They reached the gate.
It slid open.
Then sealed behind them.
Darkness again.
But this time, the dark felt full.
The walls whispered.
The ground pulsed.
And ahead, something massive breathed in the black.
Matte helped Violet up one last time, steadying her.
Her voice was low.
"This shrine… it's not a prison."
He looked at her, confused.
"It's a womb."