There is no start to this, no finish, no sense of progress.

Time is dead here, an abstract thing that has dissolved into the quivering mass beneath Elena’s bare feet. She moves—or is moved—through the corridor of her own undoing. Her legs are weak, shaking, but she keeps dragging them forward because standing still is worse. The ground isn’t solid, but it isn’t water either—it’s meat, raw and wet and pulsing. Each step releases a sickening squelch, and she doesn’t dare look down anymore.

She remembers once believing that time could heal all wounds. She would tell grieving families that—would smile with empty confidence while their faces collapsed. It was a lie then. It is obscene now.

The air she breathes is thick with it: sour, clenching reminders of her mistakes. The copper tang of blood. The cloying rot of warm flesh gone bad. The sharp sting of antiseptic that never worked.

“You’re still pretending,”

the voice crawls into her skull, slithering between her thoughts. It’s quieter now and worse for it. It isn’t announcing itself anymore—it’s just… there, like it’s always been.

Her voice trembles, broken.

“Shut up. Please. Just shut up.”

The flesh beneath her feet twitches in answer, rippling upward and spraying her calves with oily bile. She stumbles, catching herself against the nearest wall.

“Shut up?”

The voice laughs, wet and gurgling, like it’s drowning.

“You’re the one who won’t stop talking. Making excuses. Whispering your pitiful little prayers to a god who won’t answer.”

Her fingers press harder into the wall. It’s warm—too warm—and gives slightly under the pressure. The surface is translucent, and she can see dark, spindly veins running beneath it, branches of corrupted life pumping thick, black liquid.

The wall trembles back at her, alive and angry. She jerks her hands away.

The corridor stretches endlessly now, no landmarks, no doors, just her and the writhing walls.

No, not just her.

Something is shifting behind her, just out of view. The sound is faint but wet—like something dragging itself through blood. She doesn’t turn around.

“You can feel me, can’t you?”

the voice whispers from everywhere at once.

“Leave me alone,”

she breathes, though her voice is small, crumbling under the weight of her own words.

“I am alone,”

it replies, and the softness in its tone is almost worse than the anger. It claws at the edges of her brain, fusing with her own thoughts.

“That’s what you made me. What you’ve always been.”

The walls ripple violently now, shifting and contorting as they press inward. She feels the heat radiating from them, stifling and oppressive. The blood pooling around her feet climbs higher, soaking into her thighs, her waist.

And then, they come.

The faces.

They press out from the walls, stretching the fleshy membrane to its limits. They’re incomplete at first—just smudges, like a child’s drawing through frosted glass. Bits and pieces emerge: a mouth here. An eye there.

They are screaming.

Their mouths open, stretching wider and wider, splitting the skin into jagged tears. The screams are soundless but overwhelming—a vibrational thing that radiates into her bones.

She can see individual faces now. They are distorted, melting into one another like wax figures in a fire. And yet, somehow, she knows them.

“They trusted you,”

the voice says lightly, almost flippantly.

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“Did you know that? All of them?”

Her steps falter as she reaches for the wall. It shudders under her touch, the faces pressing closer in response.

One of the faces solidifies.

Emily.

The child doesn’t speak, but her eyeless gaze pierces through Elena, her mouth trembling as if caught mid-sob. Her skin is pale and wet, bloated like a drowned corpse.

Elena’s chest tightens, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She stares, unable to look away.

“No,”

she whispers, her voice shaking.

“Yes.”

Emily flattens against the wall, her body merging with its surface, and then something breaks. Her small, spindly arm pushes through the membrane, stretching toward Elena. Her fingers are bloated too, the skin splitting open to reveal bone.

“You said you’d help me,”

Emily rasps, her voice faint but sharp enough to dig deep into Elena’s mind.

“I tried,”

Elena sobs, stumbling backward.

“I did everything I could.”

“You let me die,”

Emily says simply.

Her legs give out, and she collapses into the blood pooling below. It’s deeper now, reaching her chest, soaking into her body as though it’s trying to consume her.

The walls around her rupture, spilling more blackened ichor into the corridor. Arms push through the gaps, hands reaching for her, clawing at her hair, her skin. She thrashes violently, but the blood pulls harder, swallowing her inch by inch.

“Why do you keep running?”

the voice hisses, its tone sharper now.

“What’s the point? You’re only running from yourself.”

“I’m not—”

“Of course, you are. And you’ve always been so slow.”

Her mind fractures further as the corridor folds into itself, twisting violently in a way no physical space should.

And then she sees it: the door.

It’s waiting for her, sagging slightly on its rusted hinges. The space behind it leaks viscous, black sludge that pools around her knees in heavy streams.

She knows what’s behind it. She’s always known.

Inside, the room is stark white, sterile, blinding.

And in the center of the room is the bed.

Elena doesn’t approach it. She stares at the figure lying atop it, her body trembling violently.

It’s her.

But not her as she is now—her as something other.

The creature on the bed is skeletal, its limbs contorted, teeth bared in a feral grin. Its ribcage is cracked open, revealing a hollow cavity where its heart should be. Maggots spill from the void, dropping onto the bed in writhing piles.

The thing opens its eyes. They are empty sockets filled with black, writhing worms.

“Why are you here?”

I-no-it asks, its jaw splitting further as it speaks.

Elena collapses to her knees, bile rising in her throat.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

The thing rises from the bed, impossibly tall. It towers over her, its elongated fingers reaching downward.

“You’ve been running from me,”

it snarls.

“But I’ve been here the whole time. Sitting. Waiting. Watching you fail. Over. And over. And over.”

Her eyes snap to the ground.

The name tag lies there, glinting faintly under the sterile light.

Dr. Elena Reyes.

She picks it up weakly, her bloodied fingers trembling. The weight of it is unbearable, a cruel reminder of something she no longer is.

“You’re not her anymore,”

the thing hisses, crouching in front of her. Its breath reeks of rot.

“You’ve never been her. She’s just a mask.”

Elena lets the name tag fall from her hands. It clatters to the floor, forgotten.

“What are you?”

the thing asks, its voice soft now, coaxing.

“I’m…”

Her words falter. She stares at the ground, her blood mixing with the black ichor pooling beneath her.

“I’m the monster,”

she utters, barely audible.

The thing smiles, satisfied.

“Finally.”

The shadows pull her down.

When she wakes, the corridor is pristine again. But it’s an illusion, and she knows it.

Her shadow twists beside her, no longer hers but alive. She rises slowly, her body aching, her chest hollow.

And she walks.

Because the monster doesn’t need to run anymore.

It has already caught her. It was always her.