20. The Horror That Watched
Shanane pulled her shawl tightly around herself as the cold bit into her skin, the distant hum of the village prayers fading behind her. She had left the ceremony as soon as she could, her mind too heavy, her chest too tight. The whispers, the stares, the weight of their judgment, it had clung to her like a sickness.
She had thought taking the path through the woods would be faster and quieter. But she had been wrong.
The deeper she walked into the forest, the more unfamiliar it became. The road twisted in ways it shouldn't. Trees she had known since childhood looked different: their shapes wrong, their branches curling toward the sky like grasping fingers.
The night had fallen too fast. One moment there had been dying sunlight filtering through the leaves, and the next, nothing but darkness.
Then she saw it. The cavern.
A gaping mouth in the earth, jagged and unnatural, its entrance barely visible through the shadows. It loomed before her as if it had been waiting, a wound in the landscape, deep and endless.
Shanane hesitated, her pulse quickening. She didn't remember this cavern being here. Not on this path.
A gust of wind howled through the trees behind her, the branches rattling like bones.
She turned, glancing back toward the forest. The darkness stretched endlessly, consuming the path she had come from.
There was no going back. The cavern was her only shelter.
With a slow, steadying breath, she stepped inside.
The temperature dropped immediately, the damp air wrapping around her like cold fingers. The walls of the cavern were rough, slick with moisture, the scent of damp earth thick in her lungs. Each step echoed against the stone, swallowed by the heavy silence.
Something about this place felt wrong. It was too empty, too still.
She ran her fingers along the wall as she walked deeper, guiding herself through the darkness. The path narrowed, the shadows deepening. A strange sensation crept over her skin, like something unseen was watching.
Then she heard a whisper, a breath against her ear. She spun around, her breath catching in her throat. But there was nothing, only the empty cavern behind her.
Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her shawl as she pressed forward.
But with each step, the air grew heavier and thicker. The walls seemed to pulse, the carved stone shifting under the flickering light.
Then, suddeny the ground beneath her shifted. She stumbled and fell. But the impact never came. Instead, she was standing. The cavern stretched around her, but it was different.
The walls, once gray and lifeless, now pulsed with a sickly glow, the symbols carved into them twisting and shifting as though alive. The air stank of rot. Thick. Suffocating.
She heard a wet and ragged breath.
Her body stiffened, her pulse slamming against her ribs. Slowly, her gaze followed the noise. And she saw her.
Hunched over at the far end of the cavern, trembling and broken, was her grandmother, alive.
Shanane's breath caught in her throat.
Her grandmother's frail body quivered, her hands pressed against the damp stone as she tried to crawl forward. Her silver hair was tangled, streaked with blood and dirt. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, her ribs heaving with the effort.
The young woman tried to move but she couldn't. Her arms, her legs were frozen like something held her in place. A force unseen seemed to wrap around her limbs, pressing against her throat, forcing her to watch.
Her grandmother let out a broken whimper.
__Grandmother: "Please…"
Then the growls came. It was low and rumbling. The shadows shifted and black dogs emerged. They looked like dogs but they were wrong in every way. Their limbs were too long, their bodies stretched unnaturally. Their spines curved like twisted branches, their ribs pressing against thin, sagging skin.
Their mouths were too wide. Their lips curling back to reveal jagged, uneven teeth, dripping with saliva. And their eyes were a hollow, empty pits that swallowed the light, locked onto their prey.
Her grandmother's breath hitched. She scrambled back, nails scraping against the stone.
__Grandmother: "No. No, please" she whispered
But he first dog lunged. Its teeth sank into her arm. The bone snapped like dry twigs.
A high and scream filled with agony, ripped through the cavern.
Shanane's body convulsed against the unseen force binding her, her muscles straining so hard they ached. Her throat burned as she tried to move, to speak, to do something. But she was trapped and forced to watch.
Her grandmother thrashed, her fingers clawing at the stone floor, trying to drag herself away.
But another dog tore into her leg. Its teeth ripped through her skin, slicing deep into the flesh. It yanked, dragging her back, her nails raking uselessly against the ground, leaving streaks of blood on the cavern floor.
The third dog lunged, this one larger, its ribs protruding beneath its stretched, thin skin.
It sank its teeth into her stomach.
Her grandmother's body arched, her spine bowing unnaturally as she let out a sound that was no longer human. It was a broken shriek of agony.
The smell of blood thickened, warm and metallic, suffocating the air.
Shanane's vision blurred. She tried to turn away but she couldn't. Something still held her.
The dogs dug deeper, their snouts buried in her grandmother's torn abdomen. The cavern filled with grotesque sounds, the slick squelch of organs being torn, the wet slap of flesh against stone, the gnashing of teeth grinding against bone.
One of them lifted its head, strings of red and pale tissue hanging from its jaws.
Her grandmother coughed, a violent, choking sound, wet with blood. It spilled from her lips, trailing down her chin.
The largest dog, its body unnaturally long, its spine curved like something misshapen, lowered its head to her exposed stomach. Its teeth sank deeper, ripping upward—
Her grandmother's body convulsed, then stilled. The cavern walls pulsed. The symbols carved into the stone burned brighter, their twisted forms shifting, reshaping...alive.
They then started to hear murmurs. it was soft at first.
Many voices layered on top of one another, whispering in a tongue she had never heard.
Shanane's head snapped upward, her eyes forced open, her breath hitching as something began to take shape in the darkness beyond the dogs.
Something that wasn't human.
The last thing she saw was her grandmother's face, her eyes, still open, her mouth, frozen in a silent scream. her hand, still reaching. And the darkness swallowed her whole.
Shanane's eyes snapped open.
A violent shudder tore through her body, her breath ripping from her throat in a raw, strangled gasp. Her vision swam, her chest rising and falling in sharp, panicked breaths that barely filled her lungs.
The weight of the nightmare clung to her, thick and suffocating, pressing down on her like a pair of unseen hands. She wasn't in the cavern anymore. The scent of damp earth and blood was gone. The chilling growls were gone.
Shanane's entire body convulsed as the memory slammed into her, so vivid it burned behind her eyes: the black dogs, their hollow eyes locked onto their prey, her grandmother alive, suffering, her scream, the wet tearing of flesh, the crunch of bone, her grandmother's hands clawing at the ground, her voice reduced to desperate, choking sobs.
Shanane let out a choked whimper, her hands shooting up to her ears as if she could block it out, as if she could force her mind to forget.
But she couldn't. She could still see it in her mind.
Her grandmother's body jerking violently as the creatures ripped into her, her limbs twisting at unnatural angles, her blood pooling on the cold stone floor.
And the worst part that made Shanane's insides curl with horror, with shame was that she had just stood there, frozen, helpless and useless.
She had tried to move, to run to her, to fight, to scream but something had held her in place. A force stronger than her will, stronger than her grief, stronger than the fire in her blood that should have made her fight until she had nothing left.
Instead, she had been forced to watch. Forced to watch as her grandmother, the only family she had left, was torn apart like nothing more than meat. Forced to watch as those twisted, monstrous things fed on her, their bodies writhing in the dim light of the cavern, their snouts wet with blood.
Her grandmother had reached for her. Even as her voice turned to weak, gurgled sobs. Even as her eyes dulled, the pain consuming her.
Even as she died, her torn fingers still stretched toward Shanane still hoping, still believing she would save her. But she hadn't.
She had just watched her die.
A ragged, broken cry wrenched itself from Shanane's throat as her body curled inward, her nails digging into the fabric of her blanket like claws. Her chest ached with the weight of it, with the suffocating guilt clawing its way into her ribs.
She gasped for air, but she couldn't breathe. A sob raked through her, her vision blurring with tears, her fingers twisting into her bedsheets.
It was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare. But it didn't feel like one. It felt real, too real.
Her breath hitched violently, her entire body trembling. She needed to ground herself, to do something, anything to prove that she was awake, that she was in her bed, that she hadn't just lived through that.
Slowly, her shaking fingers reached toward her arm, pressing her nails into her skin. Hard. A sharp, stinging pain flared beneath her touch. This was real. She was awake, the cavern was gone, the dogs were gone.
And her grandmother...
Shanane's stomach lurched violently, and she barely had time to twist to the side before bile surged up her throat.
She retched, her entire body convulsing with the force of it, her fingers digging into the mattress as she heaved over the edge of the bed. Acid burned her throat, hot tears streaming down her face as she gasped between choking sobs.
She felt filthy like the nightmare had seeped into her skin, into her blood, staining her from the inside out.
She pressed a trembling hand against her mouth, her breath hitching as she rocked slightly, trying to shake the feeling, to shake the horror, to shake the image of her grandmother's broken body from her mind.
But she couldn't. And then her body went still.
Something was wrong. The air in the room was heavy and thick as if the nightmare hadn't truly left.
As if something had followed her back.
Her breath slowed, her ears straining against the silence. The shadows in the corners of the room felt deeper, the air colder.
She heard a floorboard creaked. It was not from the wind or the house settling. It was from something that was moving, inside the house.
Shanane's entire body locked up, her breath halting in her throat. Her fingers curled into the blanket, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
The darkness in the room felt alive. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might shatter.
She wasn't alone and she knew it. And whatever had come back with her. It was still watching.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Her fingers dug into the fabric of her blanket, her body locked in place, every nerve screaming at her to run. But she couldn't.
Something was here.
The darkness in the farthest corner of the room was wrong. It wasn't just a shadow. It was deeper, darker. And it was watching her.
Her breath hitched, her pulse hammering so loudly she could hear it pounding in her ears.
Then the it moved. A slow, deliberate shift, like something unfolding itself from the blackness.
Long, unnatural limbs stretched from the void, pulling a shape forward too thin, too elongated, its movements jagged, jerking like a puppet whose strings had been yanked too hard.
It didn't walk. It slithered.
A grotesque, jerking glide as it pulled itself from the darkness, revealing more of its wrongness.
The air turned ice cold.
Shanane's breath came in sharp, shallow gasps, her body refusing to obey the primal instinct screaming at her to run.
She couldn't. She was trapped. Just like in the cavern.
Her eyes darted wildly, locking onto the thing in the corner as it crept forward, its grotesque form becoming clearer.
Its face... There wasn't one. Only a mass of blackness, shifting, writhing, twisting.
It turned toward her. The weight of its gaze slammed into her like a physical force, pressing against her chest, her throat, her limbs, pinning her down.
It doesn't have eyes or mouth.
And yet, she felt it staring, sSudying her.
A guttural, wheezing breath filled the silence. The sound of something wet that is dripping.
Her stomach twisted violently, bile burning her throat. Her body refused to obey her.
The thing shifted again, its jerky movements sending a sickening crack through the air, as if its very bones were breaking with each step.
Then, it lunged. The space between them vanished in an instant.
One moment it was across the room, the next it was on her.
It didn't run, it moved faster than sight.
A blur of darkness, a sudden, suffocating weight like the air had been ripped from the room.
Shanane barely had time to gasp before it struck.
Clawed fingers, too long, too sharp, clamped around her throat, slamming her back into the mattress with inhuman strength.
A sickening crack echoed through her skull as pain exploded in the back of her head.
Her vision swam. Her body convulsed violently, the breath ripped from her lungs.
She tried to scream but the thing's grip tightened, cutting off every sound. It lifted her.
Her body jerked upward like a doll on strings, dragged from the bed with effortless strength.
Her feet kicked wildly, not touching the ground, not touching anything suspended in its grasp like she weighed nothing at all.
Then, the pain came. A sharp, searing agony, claws driving deep into her flesh.
Her stomach tore open. The wound was too deep and too wide. The flesh and muscle were ripped apart as though she were nothing but paper.
And she finally was able to use her voice. She screamed, a sound of pure, raw agony, ripped from her throat so violently it barely sounded human.
Her back arched, her limbs spasming, white-hot fire tearing through her body as the thing sank its claws deeper, twisting inside her, wrenching, pulling, as if it was trying to tear her apart from the inside.
Her blood hit the floor in heavy, wet drops.
The room tilted, her vision blurred and her body weakened.
Through the haze of pain, she felt it. It was leaning closer.
The shifting, writhing mass where its face should be hovering just above hers.
A sound low, wet, a gurgling, grotesque whisper slithering into her ears like something rotting speaking to her directly. A voice that didn't come from a mouth.
A voice that came from everywhere: from the walls, from the air, from inside her own head.
"it begins"
After this, the world snapped to black.