We’re in deep shit, in deep fuck shit! First, there’s some eldritch being is trying to destroy our reality. Second, Omega, Headquarters’ top guys are most likely dead. And third, they plan to perform a cleansing without knowing that it won’t do jack shit!

After Theodor had pinpointed Athena’s location, we continued on our way through the disgusting, ever-changing labyrinth of flesh-tunnels. Nothing else we could do. Even if we’d find our way outside, and would ignore the literal end of the world, we’d never outrun a cleansing. We were fucked, majorly fucked. Our only hope was to stop an eldritch being’s plan, which seemed absolutely impossible. I’d have laughed about all of this if it wouldn’t mean that I was most likely a dead man. Hell, none of this even mattered.

And so I simply trudged after Theodor as he led me through tunnel after tunnel. We encountered more creatures, more of the strange flesh formers, but they didn’t seem to care about us at all. Whenever we got close to them, I heard Theodor mumble in a language I didn’t understand. A shower went down my spine when he did it and I saw his half-empty, unfocused eyes.

“What are you-?” I asked when we’d passed another creature, but he shut me up with a single glance.

Theodor looked terrible as he dragged himself onward. At one point, he staggered and spat blood on the floor.

“Something else’s in my mind, not just me, not just...”

He continued mumbling to himself as he clung to the wall, but it was unintelligible.

“Are you okay, man?”

He gave me a grin, but it was a pained caricature of his usual one.

On our way, we came upon strange idols. They were twisted, shifting statutes created by the creatures populating the womb, most likely in praise of their terrible god. With each tunnel, with each step, the pressure on my mind was rising. I popped two more mind blockers, but they did nothing at all. A third one was already in my hand, but I remembered what had happened to Sandra. I put it back. I’d erase my mind before I’d have a chance of blocking the ghastly influences.

Finally, Theodor stopped and pointed ahead. At first, I saw nothing. Only when we got closer did I notice a discarded weapon on the ground. It took me a moment before I recognized it as Hephaestus’ energy weapon. I lifted it off the ground, but I saw it was busted. Cursing, I dropped it again.

“Are they nearby?” I asked, turning to Theodor.

For a second, he closed his eyes before he gave me a curt nod. We followed another tunnel before we made it to a wider area, a congregation of multiple tunnels.

I’d barely taken a few steps when I noticed a battered body leaning against a wall. I stormed over, but it still took me a while before I recognized him. It was Hades. He was in terrible shape. Half his face was bloodied and his head was strangely dented. His lower body, though, was far, far worse. It was covered in deep, gorging wounds. I was sure he was dead, but then his eyes opened and focused on me.

“Holy shit,” I blurted.

He opened his mouth, but started coughing and brought out a surge of blood. For a moment, his body convulsed before his eyes found me again. He lifted one of his hands, and I took a hold of it. At that moment, I noticed the many small robots surrounding his body, busily working to keep him alive.

“Shit man, hold on,“ I started, and was about to bring out a healing contraption.

When I saw his hard eyes and felt him press my hand, however, I stopped. He opened his mouth again, but only to throw up more blood. When he finally started talking, his voice was weak. It was nothing but a wet gurgle and far from anything human.

“We thought we were prepared, we thought we were, but something like this... nothing like this has ever happened. A-class, forming a cluster...”

“A cluster?”

“Fused together into a single body with such... such power.”

His voice trailed off, and his eyes fell shut.

“Hades! Hey, speak to me!”

“Took Athena,” he muttered. “They wanted her, needed her, and god... killed Hephaestus... killed Ares... I’m only alive because of them...”

He lifted part of his armor and I could see that his entire body was torn apart. I grimaced when I saw flesh move and organs slipping around, being held together by nothing but more of the small robots. His breath came in hard bursts. For a moment, he was convulsing again before his hand slipped from mine in search of something.

“There’s no time,” he cursed.

“Shit, then what are we even supposed to do?”

This time, a sound that might have been laughter escaped from his mouth.

“Nothing you can do. Not someone like you...”

Then he brought out whatever he’d been looking for.

“An energy blocker. Won’t do much, but,” he broke up again under the strain of trying to hand it to me.

I took the small device from him and gave him a nod. As I did, he stared first at me before he gave Theodor a long, hard stare before his eyes fell shut again. Right at that moment, Theodor came forward and before I could do or say anything, he closed his hand around Hades’ neck. I heard a sickening crunch and Hades’ body grew still, this time forever.

“What the hell did you just-?”

“His eyes, he wanted this. He didn’t have long, and he was suffering.”

“But, but how could you just? Fuck!”

I stared at him, at his cold eyes, and his sweaty face. Suddenly, another thought crawled into my mind. Theodor had been acting weird for a while. Those mumblings, the way all those creatures had ignored him and the way he’d just killed Hades. Could I still...trust him? What if...

I was torn from my thoughts when Theodor spoke up again.

“Let’s go.”

“Where the hell do you even want to go?”

“To where they took Athena.”

“And then what? What do you think we can do?”

He stayed quiet for a moment before he shrugged and moved on. We hadn’t gone far when I felt something probing my mind. A small, impish creature pushed itself from the wall in front of us and focused on me. I was about to pull out my gun, but before I could, Theodor sent it back to where it had come from with nothing but a wave of his hand. More and more of them were around. They were disgusting, fleshy things, no bigger than my head, but I felt a terrible power resonating from them. Those were no mere proxy organisms, those were something different. I almost clutched onto Theodor as he walked, unfazed by their presence. The creatures, in turn, ignored us.

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Suddenly, I saw something. I couldn’t believe my eyes and at first I thought I was hallucinating. In a different tunnel, branching off to our right, I noticed another person. At first, I thought it was Athena and that she’d somehow escaped, or hell, had stopped whatever was going on. I was about to rush in her direction, but then I saw it was a man. He wasn’t a member of Omega and neither of the support squads. No, this was a normal person, wearing cargo pants and a slightly stained shirt. What the hell was this guy doing here? I told myself he had to be a survivor and that he’d somehow escaped from the fleshy walls, but how was he still alive? How was he just walking through these tunnels with all those creatures around? It didn’t make any sense. I was about to approach the mysterious man when Theodor’s arm shot forward.

“Theodor, what are you-?”

Instead of answering, he shot me an angry glare, one that told me to be quiet. From afar, the two of us watched as the man shuffled on. Suddenly, the fleshy wall next to him burst open and another of the impish creatures pushed itself from it. I pulled out my gun, but to my surprise, the creature ignored him. In stunned silence, both Theodor and I watched as the man continued on and vanished down the tunnel.

“What the hell’s going on here?” I finally asked in a whisper.

Theodor was still staring after the man, but then I saw something on his face. It looked almost like... recognition.

“What is it?”

For a moment, he didn’t react before he shook his head. Soon enough, however, I heard him mumble to himself again, thinking aloud.

“Another one, another one like me,” I heard him.

“What do you mean?” I asked, but when he turned to me, his face was empty, puzzled even.

Eventually, the tunnel we were in spread out, grew bigger and from afar I could see a giant, fleshy chamber. Right away, I froze. All the hairs on my body stood up and my instincts screamed at me to get away, to run. At first, I didn’t even understand why, but then I saw it.

In the center of the chamber, I could see a ghastly amalgamation of flesh. It was a thing with too many appendages, too many hands and far, far too much power. Yet, it gave us no notice. Instead, it was feverishly working on something.

Theodor moved on, undeterred by the presence of the A-class cluster. For me, however, every single step was a fight. I head to scream at myself and command my legs to keep following him. Finally, I saw what they were working on. It was another one of the strange, ghastly idols, an elongated piece of twisting, moving flesh.

And then, in utter horror, I noticed a face. I saw wide eyes and a mouth that was open in a perpetual scream. Even in this twisted form, I recognized those eyes. They had been cold and hard before, but were now full of nothing but raw terror and despair.

It was Athena.

They’d transformed her into this thing and when I saw her blink, I knew she was somehow still alive. Oh dear god. For a moment, I was shaking. I retched and almost vomited before I could get a grip. I forced myself to look away from what those things were doing. As I scanned the room, I saw a shimmering, twirling opening of pure energy. It was a portal, a giant portal. With each twist, with each change to Athena’s body, it was bulging, then flattening again. Yet there were more faces, more wide eyes and open mouths all around her. This entire portal was made from people. Just like Athena, all of them seemed to still be alive and to have been pushed together to create it.

As I stared at the unfathomable horror in front of me, I noticed movement from another part of the chamber. My eyes wandered to the spot and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A person. Not the man we’d seen before, but an older woman. The surreal sight of an older woman in a fucking dress in this place made me almost laugh. At first, I thought I’d snapped, but then I saw another person. Soon after, yet another. They were all walking towards and congregating around the portal. I didn’t understand what was going on. Why were they here? Why weren’t they being attacked? While I watched them, Theodor moved on, stepping towards the portal as well.

“Theodor, what the hell are you doing? We can’t just-!”

My voice trailed off. When he turned to me, his eyes were different. He felt different. He didn’t feel like Theodor anymore. No, he felt alien. For a moment, his eyes flared up and were glowing like those of the A-class organism we’d been fighting. Those mumblings, the way the creatures had ignored him and the mental power he’d shown... Something had happened to him, something had changed, and now...

“Oh god, no,” was muttered.

Then, with the wave of his hand, he sent me flying, and I crashed against the wall next to us. The air was pushed from my lungs and I felt ribs break before I slumped to the floor. I felt blood in my throat, and when I tried to get up, I noticed the odd angle of my lower right leg. In a mixture of surprise and indifference, I stared at my broken leg, unable to even feel the pain. I wondered why I hadn’t been killed, but then I remembered what Hades had handed me. An energy blocker, he’d called it. I’d wondered what he’d meant, but now I understood. It was a device that blocked attacks, attacks by mental energy. The only reason I was still alive was because of this device, and now I wasn’t even bothered with. I didn’t matter. I was nothing but a fly, an ant, a discarded, broken thing, not even worth the effort.

For a moment, I just lay there, grinning, before I turned my broken body around and looked ahead to where Theodor had joined the congregation. There he stood, completely still, right next to the portal and in front of the A-class cluster. His eyes were glowing again, filled with the same alien light. Not just his, I realized. Every person’s eyes were glowing and I could feel the power, the energy within them. I cringed as I felt it wash over me.

Theodor’s words came back to me.

‘Another one, another one like me.’

All those people, they were like him. They were all being controlled. Yet, why would this creature control those normal people?

‘Like me.’

I finally understood. They were like him. Not because they were being controlled, but because they were like Theodor. They all must’ve been infested by similar parasites.

In front, the A-class cluster stopped its feverish work and the portal burst open. I watched as a multitude of smaller, delicate tentacles slithered from it. It had to be hundreds, thousands. They moved towards the people gathered around the portal. They were caressing them, probing them. A moment later, however, I watched in horror as they plunged into the first person. Skin was torn, flesh was shredded and what had once been a person was dismantled until nothing but a strange, small core remained. No, not a core, I realized, a parasite. As they moved on to the next person, the A-class cluster began working again. It was twisting and rending flesh, tearing it from the walls and forming it into... something. Then the hands picked up the parasite and delicately plunged it into the hovering mass of flesh.

‘It needs to create a new body for itself, a proxy, an avatar.’

That’s what Theodor had said. Was that what I was seeing here, right in front of me? Why did it need those people, though, those parasites? None of what I was seeing made any goddamn sense. By now, another person had been shredded. Skin, flesh and organs covered the floor where the man had stood moments before.

And then, for a second, Athena’s eyes met mine. She reached out to me, and I felt her mind digging into mine. I felt her despair, her terror, her pain, and I felt her pleading for me to end her. I cringed back and tried to push her presence away.

“No, I can’t. I can’t even fucking move anymore,” I said, while tears were streaming from my eyes.

Right at that moment, the tentacles approached Theodor. When they slithered over his body, my eyes grew wide.

“No, Theodor, get away!”

Mere moments before they plunged into him, I saw him strain, saw his body growing tense. The glow in his eyes abated as the otherworldly energy left him. In the blink of an eye, he charged forward, right at Athena, and tore her to pieces. A cacophony of screams echoed through the chamber, screams of anger. I saw the portal shimmering, saw it wavering before it turned into a vortex. Some of the tentacles retreated, but the portal’s wild fluctuations tore many others apart.

A fresh assault of mental energy erupted, one of raw, burning anger so powerful, the entire womb was shaken by it. As I lay there, I couldn’t believe what had happened. Theodor, he’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d stopped it. Yet, things wouldn’t be so easy. A second later, I felt something new. I felt the will of the eldritch being itself, a will as strong as a universe ushering a single command.

Sacrifice.

In the center of the chamber, Theodor was on the ground, but behind him the amalgamation of A-class organisms was cowering, twisting and changing. I could feel their terror, their pain as they were pushed together and formed into something new. One after another, I felt their powers waning. Their presences fizzled out as they were forced to sacrifice themselves to restore the wavering portal. As I watched it all, I realized what must’ve happened. Somehow, either by himself or in a last-ditch effort by Athena, Theodor had freed himself from the thing’s control and had destroyed the portal. In the end, though, it hadn’t done a thing and had only been temporary. A minute setback.

Then the portal burst open again, this time bigger and more powerful than before, and the entire floor of the chamber was torn apart. I could feel the being’s power, could feel the cosmic threat it presented. Tentacles pushed themselves from the portal again. These were more massive and borrowed deep into the walls of the womb.

For a moment, something else erupted from the portal and glanced into our reality. It was nothing but an eye, but an eye so huge and alien it pushed me to the edge of sanity. A laugh escaped my mouth, an insane laugh, before I closed my eyes, gnashed my teeth and screamed at myself to not give into it. Then it was gone again, and the small, delicate tentacles were back to continue their ghastly work.

And there I was, all by myself, broken, half-insane, lying on the floor, not able to do anything but watch.

Fuck monsters and fuck the end of the world.