André’s heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to burst out of his chest, tearing through flesh and bone. The hallway he was in was lit by flickering lights, barely illuminating his surroundings. The walls were streaked with irregular trails of blood, and the floor was covered with bodies, mutilated and horribly wounded, making them barely recognizable. André's eyes fell on one of them, and a cold sweat ran through him as he recognized Miriam, the soldier from his company.

"Damn, shit. What the hell am I doing here?" he thought, trying to remember how he had ended up in this hallway. He couldn't.

André looked over the other bodies of his former comrades. Ricty, Kaltar, Ordwulf… they were all dead.

Behind him, he heard the heavy sound of footsteps. André quickly turned around, his mind once again trying to figure out what was happening.

"I'm coming for you, human," said a deep, malevolent voice.

Suddenly, the soldier remembered he was being chased by something evil, terrifying, monstrous.

André turned and ran, not caring what was chasing him or what had happened to his companions. He just wanted to get out of there. But before he knew it, something grabbed his leg, and he fell flat on the floor. The smell of blood and organs overwhelmed his senses.

"Don’t… leave us. Please, André. Help."

André turned. The soldier Ioan was clutching his leg with a bloodied hand. His face was mangled, and half of his body was missing. Panic took hold of André, and he tried to break free by kicking his former comrade. The sound of the footsteps grew louder. André knew that thing was almost upon him. He let out a scream, pulled out his pistol, and shot Ioan in the head again and again until he let go. André stumbled to his feet, crashing into the wall of the hallway.

“Shit, shit.”

André forced his body to move and ran in the opposite direction of his pursuer. He ran longer than he thought possible through the endless hallways until the sound of the footsteps faded. He found a door to his left and opened it, hoping it was an exit.

It wasn't.

André entered a room with lighting similar to that of the hallways he had been running through. On one side of the room were two elevators. One was fully open, and the other was partially open. Leaning against the doors was Neisa, who was being strangled by a tentacle emerging from inside the elevator.

"Hel…p me, André. Pl…ease," managed to say his childhood friend.

"Hang on, Neisa!" André said without a second thought, rushing to her aid.

When he reached her, André pulled out a knife and stabbed the tentacle repeatedly with all his might, until it finally broke, held only by a thread of flesh. Neisa gasped for air and then coughed. André helped her up. From the elevator shaft, they could hear the scuttling of legs approaching.

From the other elevator doors emerged a humanoid creature, raw and exposed, walking on all fours and upside down. Numerous tentacles, moving like a sunflower searching for sunlight, emerged from its stomach, which opened like a mouth filled with bloody teeth. Its neck extended over a meter, and its face, full of holes and covered in blood, both cried and laughed.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

André recognized the monster instantly. It was the one that had killed Burmac.

"We have to get out of here, now!" André shouted, but his friend seemed unable to move.

The creature approached at a terrifying speed and, with a swipe of one of its tentacles, knocked André's childhood friend aside. André tried to shoot, but another tentacle knocked the weapon out of his hand, and two more tentacles ensnared him. The creature lifted André’s body and brought it closer.

"You save her and leave me to die?!" the creature shrieked.

"What?" thought André, and then something inside him twisted. The creature had Burmac's face.

"It can't be, you're… you're dead."

"Because of you, you miserable rat! You abandoned me!" Burmac screamed, bringing his face close to André's. "Just like you did with the sergeant and the rest of the squad! Just like you did with those children!"

"I… I had no choice!"

"You don’t deserve to belong to the Regiment of the Fierce Stewards," Neisa shouted this time. "You’re a coward! You even abandoned me!"

"No, Neisa," André replied, shaking his head. "You know I would never abandon you."

Suddenly, Neisa’s body bent in an unnatural way, her head spun like a top as her neck began to stretch, and her stomach tore open, spilling blood and tentacles.

"Yes, you did," said his friend’s head, now level with him. Her face had become demonic. "You even left me, your beloved, to save your damn skin. And now I am one of them!"

"No, you made me! You told me to go!" André shouted, desperate and distressed.

"No, it was your cowardice that did it," said Isen suddenly, who had appeared on the other side. His skin had turned pale, and his eyes were yellow. He had finally revealed himself as a demon. "And now she’s one of us," he said with a laugh.

"You bastard! It’s all your fault!"

"But don’t worry," Burmac interjected, "because you’re going to join us too."

The tentacles holding André captive started to pull him toward Burmac’s mouth-stomach, drawing his body closer and closer to the demon’s insides.

"No, never! Let me go!"

"Don’t resist, darling," Neisa said. "That way, we can finally be together. Just like you always wanted."

"No!!" André’s voice ripped savagely from his throat as his body was devoured by Burmac’s mouth-stomach.

"No!!" André screamed as he jolted upright in bed. It had been another nightmare. He was drenched in sweat.

"By Ibelir... it was another damn nightmare," he said, running his right hand over his face.

"But that will happen if you don’t keep Neisa away from that damn battle mage," a voice said.

"What?" André said, turning quickly to see who had spoken.

No one was there. He was alone.

"Must have been my imagination," he thought.

André pushed off the sheets, got up uneasily, and went to the bathroom. He turned on the faucet and looked at his face. He was exhausted, covered in scabbed cuts and swelling. He looked like a living dead man—and in some ways, he was. The military life had worn him down beyond imagination. He wasn’t made for this life. He was tired of risking his life every day, of killing people, of everything. He wished he hadn’t listened to Neisa when she suggested joining the Armed Forces of Ibelir. If he’d listened to his parents and hadn’t enlisted, he’d now be working in some middle-class area. It would be a dull life, sure, but at least it would be safe. In the end, what good had it done to choose love over reason? None at all. Just pain.

André scooped some water in his hands and splashed it on his face. Then he ran his right hand over his face to wipe off the droplets and dried himself with a towel while still looking in the mirror.

"If you don’t do something, the battle mage will take her from you," the voice said again, drifting through the air.

"No!"

For a moment, André imagined Neisa and Isen kissing and making love in the darkness of the tunnels.

"No..." he repeated, shaking his head. "How can I be thinking about that instead of worrying about her safety? This is starting to get to me..."

André sighed. Then he opened a drawer in a small cabinet and took out a photo of Neisa in a tight bikini. He stepped into the shower and began to pleasure himself, thinking of her.