The air was a living thing, thick and wet, clinging to my skin like a second layer of filth. Every breath I took was a struggle, each inhale was a battle against the stench of blood, rot, and something else—something metallic and sharp that stung the back of my throat. My eyes watered, not just from the smell, but from the sheer *wrongness* of it all. The ground beneath my boots was soft, and yielding, and I didn’t need to look down to know why. It was soaked, saturated with blood, so much of it that it pooled and glistened under the dim light, reflecting the horror above like a grotesque mirror. I forced myself to look, to take it all in, even as my stomach churned and my body trembled—the bodies—oh, gods, the bodies.

They weren’t just dead; they were *destroyed*. Torn apart, gutted, their insides spilling out like macabre offerings to some unseen deity. Bones jutted out at unnatural angles, stripped of flesh, gleaming white against the dark, wet earth. Some of the organs still twitched, nerves firing uselessly, as if the bodies hadn’t yet realised they were dead. The smell was unbearable—iron and bile, piss and burnt hair, all mingling into a nauseating cocktail that made my head spin. And then I saw *him*. The man being interrogated. My breath hitched, my chest tightening as panic clawed its way up my throat. A man? There was a man here? I had thought—no, I had been *certain*—that this convoy was only women. My mind raced, frantically scanning the scene, searching for more. If there was one man, there had to be others.

My eyes darted across the carnage, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples, each beat a deafening drum in my skull. And then I saw it. Another body. Male. But not human. A lizard man. His grey scales had been peeled away, ripped from his flesh in jagged strips, leaving raw, bloody muscle exposed. His body hung from a crude frame, skinned like a wild animal, his face frozen in a silent scream. His eyes were gone, hollow sockets staring into nothingness, and his mouth hung open, tongue lolling out, blackened and swollen. The display was deliberate, a message carved into flesh and bone.

My stomach lurched, bile rising in my throat, and I had to clamp my mouth shut to keep from retching. Why? Why such a display? Weren’t we scared enough already? The answer hit me like a blow to the chest. This wasn’t just about fear. This was about control. About breaking us. About making sure we knew—*really* knew—that resistance was futile. That any attempt to fight back would end like this. Skinned. Hanged. Displayed. My eyes kept moving, scanning, searching, and then I saw them. Soldiers. Dead. Not just one, but two, five—more. Their bodies were scattered among the carnage, their armour dented and bloodied, their weapons still clutched in lifeless hands. They had tried. They had fought. And they had failed. A coup. An uprising. And now we were all going to pay for their crimes.

The realisation settled over me like a suffocating blanket, heavy and inescapable. My breath came in shallow gasps, my chest heaving as panic threatened to overwhelm me. My mask—the one I had worn for so long, the one that kept me steady, calm, and in control—was slipping. I could feel it cracking, crumbling under the weight of the horror around me. My hands trembled, my nails digging into my palms as I tried to ground myself, to hold on to something, anything, but there was nothing. Nothing but blood and death and the crushing certainty that we were all going to die here. I was pushed forward, stumbling, my boots squelching in the blood-soaked earth.

The guards herded us into huddles, sectioning us off, making sure we couldn’t form large groups. Couldn’t organise it. Couldn’t resist. My heart pounded, each beat a thunderous echo in my ears, and I could feel the sweat dripping down my back, cold and clammy against my skin. My breath came in short, sharp gasps, my lungs burning with the effort to draw in air that felt too thick, too heavy, too *wrong*.

A voice cut through the thick, stifling air—sharp, commanding, laced with impatience. “Kneel.”

No one moved. The order hung there, heavy and absolute, a demand that none of us wanted to obey but all of us understood we would have to. A guard shoved someone to the ground with a dull thud. A whimper followed, then another, as more prisoners dropped to their knees. My body resisted, every nerve screaming at me to stay standing, but the moment I hesitated, a hand clamped onto my shoulder and yanked me down. My knees hit the wet earth, splashing into something warm. Blood. It soaked into my clothes and clung to my skin.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat.

The soldiers moved among us, methodical in their inspections. Their boots crunched over bones and splattered through the mess of flesh and gore without hesitation. They weren’t disgusted. This was just another day for them. My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms so hard they might’ve drawn blood. My breath came too fast, too shallow. Calm down. If they noticed me panicking if they saw my mask slipping—

A heavy silence settled over the camp.

I forced myself to look up.

The captain had arrived.

He was seated before us, legs spread in a lazy sprawl as if he were merely observing livestock before a sale. His armour gleamed despite the filth around us, polished steel and deep crimson—no doubt stained with the same blood that painted the earth. But it wasn’t him that sent a fresh wave of dread crawling up my spine.

It was the thing beside him.

A shadow, a figure draped in something too dark to be fabric, its form shifting like ink spilt into water. Its face—if it had one—was obscured beneath the hood of its robes, but I felt its attention like a weight pressing down on my chest. Cold, suffocating. It didn’t move, didn’t breathe, yet the air around it pulsed with something wrong, something unnatural.

No one spoke. No one dared.

Then, the captain sighed, as if we had already disappointed him.

“Some of you,” he said, his voice smooth, almost conversational, “have caused quite a mess.” He gestured vaguely to the bloodied corpses of his men. “A rebellion? Really?” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “I suppose I should commend your bravery. Or your stupidity.”

A soldier dragged a prisoner forward—a man, barely older than me, his face beaten to a swollen, unrecognisable mess. He collapsed at the captain’s feet, too weak to hold himself upright.

The captain leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Who led it?”

No one answered.

The man on the ground let out a ragged breath, his shoulders shaking.

The captain smiled. “Oh? No volunteers?” He turned his gaze to the figure beside him. “Shall we encourage them?”

The shadow moved.

The air grew colder.

And then the screaming began.

It wasn’t just a scream of pain—it was wrong. A raw, guttural wail that didn’t sound entirely human. My breath hitched, my heart hammering so fast it felt like it would burst. The prisoner spasmed on the ground, his body jerking as if unseen hands were prying him apart. His fingers curled into claws, nails raking the dirt, his back arching in agony.

And then—crack.

His arm twisted, bones snapping like brittle twigs.

I flinched. Others did too. But no one moved to help. We couldn’t.

His body convulsed, and the second scream came—higher, shriller. His flesh darkened, veins bulging under his skin, turning black, writhing like worms beneath the surface. The hooded figure had not touched him, had not spoken a word, yet its presence alone was tearing him apart. My breath came in sharp, panicked gasps, the air too thick to swallow, too heavy to breathe.

What is this? What is it doing to him?

I tried to look away—I wanted to, gods, I wanted to—but I was trapped, forced to witness every sickening second. The prisoner’s mouth wrenched open, a strangled sob escaping his throat, but no words came. Only agony. Only suffering.

Then, abruptly, the screaming stopped.

His body slumped forward.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing.

Then his head lifted.

And I saw.

His eyes—his eyes weren’t his anymore. They were black. Not like the eyes of a blind man, not like the dead fish I sometimes saw in the market back home. This was emptiness, a void where a person used to be. His mouth twitched, moving as if he were trying to speak, but there was no life left in him.

The captain sighed, almost bored. "A pity."

A soldier stepped forward and, without hesitation, drove a sword through the prisoner’s throat. The body crumpled, finally lifeless.

My stomach lurched.

The world swayed.

The air was still wrong. Still heavy. Still poisoned with something unnatural. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, my fingers curled into fists so tight I thought my nails would pierce my skin. I needed to breathe, but every inhale brought the thick stench of death, the copper tang of blood.

The captain surveyed us, his expression unreadable. "Now, let’s try that again. Who led the rebellion?"

Silence.

No one spoke.

The prisoners around me trembled. Some sobbed quietly, heads bowed, bodies pressed together as if clinging to the warmth of another would somehow shield them from what had just happened. I wanted to do the same. To shrink, to disappear.

The captain's smile returned, slow and cruel. "Well, I can do this all night." He gestured lazily to another prisoner. "Bring me the next one."

The guards obeyed.

Another body was dragged forward.

Another scream was coming.

And all I could do was watch.