The Haunting Grows

—clean, digestible c

The Husk groaned like a beast choking on its last breath, its charred beams straining under the weight of a night that no longer made sense in Ironwell's slums.

Torin slumped against the plank he'd jammed across the door, his broken sword a cold, jagged weight across his knees, its snapped edge glinting faintly in the sickly green starlight seeping through the roof's splintered gaps. The air was thick—ash and rot clogging his throat with every ragged inhale. His knuckles throbbed, split and crusted from slamming the beam, but the pain was a lifeline, tethering him to a world slipping out of focus. Three days to fifteen—or was it two? He couldn't tell anymore. The sky was a mess of red cracks now, bleeding a faint, unnatural glow that swallowed sun and moon alike. Dark miasma rolled in with the demons, a fog that turned day into a murky haze and night into a disorienting shroud. Time bled into the mud, and the claw-biters clawing closer didn't care.

Mira huddled against a splintered crate, knees drawn tight, her sharp eyes flicking between Torin and the shadows pooling in the Husk's corners. Her tattered hood slipped, baring dirt-streaked cheeks—ten years old, but worn like she'd lived twice that.

Jek paced near a collapsed rafter, wiry and restless, his bent knife twitching like a cornered rat's tail. Silence pressed down, heavy as the slums' filth, broken only by the claw-biters' distant chittering—closer now, prowling the Pit, their claws scraping a promise into the fog-choked dark. Torin's chest tightened, but he forced it still. They'd survived this long—him, Mira, Jek—because he didn't flinch. Not when boots cracked his ribs, not when hunger gnawed him hollow. Not now.

"You think they're gone?" Jek muttered, his voice a thin thread slicing the quiet. He stopped pacing, peering through a crack in the wall, his knife scraping the charred wood with a nervous rasp that set Torin's teeth on edge.

"No," Torin said, flat and hard, steel-gray eyes narrowing. "They're out there. Waiting." He didn't need to hear them—slum rats felt danger in their bones, and his ached with it. Fat Dren's scream had torn through the haze earlier, raw and guttural, drawing a chittering swarm like flies to rot. Torin had peeked through a crack—five claw-biters, spindly and vicious, tearing into Dren's thrashing bulk. A second scream, weaker, cut off with a wet crunch, and Torin had hissed, "Move!" They'd bolted from their alley hideout, Mira and Jek stumbling behind, racing for the Husk through the miasma's blur. It had bought them a breath, not a break—the claw-biters would finish Dren and come sniffing for more.

Mira's fingers tightened on her hood, pulling it lower over her face. "Heard 'em last night," she whispered, small but steady, cutting through the gloom. "Skitterin' past the Pit. Didn't stop—might not now." Her gaze locked on Torin, wide and unblinking, like he was the only thing real in this fog.

He nodded, slow, his jaw clenching until it ached. "We hold till we can't, then move. Husk's got walls—better than out there." No comfort—just truth. The Husk loomed solid in the slums' decay—a squat, sprawling ruin Ironwell's gangsters once claimed as a bolthole, hiding from lawmen who never came this far. Its beams were blackened, its floor strewn with ash and broken crates, but the walls were thick, patched with scavenged iron, riddled with nooks and crannies to duck into. Better than the Pit's open filth, where the poorest slept on rags and bones until the claw-biters came. The UAA—steel and grit, their only shot—had to come. Horns had sounded days back, faint through the miasma, before the red cracks split wider and hell spilled out. Now, silence mocked them.

A cold prickle stabbed his neck, sinking into his skull like a shard of ice. Torin's breath hitched—the spectre. It hadn't left since Dren's blood bought them this pause, a wisp at first three days back when he'd stared too long at the red cracks, now a shadow pressing his thoughts, peeling them open. He'd glimpsed it crossing the Pit—his own shape, broken sword raised, gone when he blinked. It fed on his anger, his fear, growing sharper with every thud of his pulse.

"Torin?" Mira's voice sliced through, sharp and insistent. She shifted closer, hood slipping further, her eyes searching his face. "You're starin' again."

He blinked, his gaze snapping from the far wall where the spectre loomed—edges hard as rusted iron, his gaunt frame staring back with a hollow, mocking grin. His pulse hammered, rage surging—at the slums that birthed him, the nobles who let it rot, the blade he couldn't ditch. The shadow's mouth split wider, whispering soft and slow, a rustle like leaves over bone.

"You can't save them. Too weak, too broken. Take my gift—fix the blade. Cut the nobles who left you here."

Torin's fist clenched, the hilt biting into his palm until blood seeped between his fingers. He'd thought it—gut the Lionhearts in their stone halls, take their gleaming swords—but it wasn't him. "Shut it," he snarled, his voice bouncing off the Husk's walls. Mira flinched, scooting back against the crate, and Jek spun, his knife raised like he'd stab the air.

"You hearin' it?" Jek asked, his eyes darting to the shadows. "That… thing?"

"Yeah," Torin muttered, jaw tight enough to ache. "Wants me to give up—or worse." He didn't say it—fix the blade, turn on everything—but it churned in him, a bitter tide he couldn't drown. No class yet, no skills like the UAA's archers conjuring arrows—just "Grip of Will," his lone trick stumbled into years back against a snarling dog, forcing his will into his hands to stop the shaking.

A growl rumbled outside, closer, vibrating through the Husk's iron-patched walls. Torin shoved to his feet, peering through a crack in the plank. The Pit blurred in the miasma—five claw-biters, eyes glinting like wet sores, chittering rising as they prowled nearer. "We can't stay," he said, voice steady despite the tremor in his chest. "Scrap Lane, then the Hollow—might hold 'em." Scrap Lane's junk—rusted metal, broken carts—led to the Hollow, a half-caved shack at the slums' edge. Not safe, but better than this trap.

Jek's face paled, his knife trembling. "Now? They're out there, Torin! We—"

"We will," Torin snapped, cold as steel. "Stay and die then. I'm goin'." He wouldn't leave them, but the words snapped Jek straight, his jaw clenching. Mira nodded, her eyes locked on him.

He pried the plank loose, wood splintering under his grip, and slipped out, Mira and Jek trailing close. The miasma hit—cold, reeking of blood and rot, fogging the street into a gray haze streaked with red light. Torin bolted, trusting his slum-bred sense of the alleys, Mira and Jek's footsteps pounding behind. Shadows flickered at the corner of his eye—his own shape, sword raised—and he veered right, instinct guiding him. Mira grabbed his arm, yanking him back. "Not that way—Husk's left!" she hissed, her voice sharp with worry. "You okay?"

Torin shook his head, the spectre's weight blurring his bearings. "Fine," he lied, but the delay cost them—chittering swelled, five claw-biters closing fast through the fog. Mira's grip tightened, her eyes wide, but Jek moved first, lunging with his knife to shield them. A claw slashed—Jek screamed, blood spraying as he crumpled, his knife skittering across the mud.

"Jek!" Torin roared, steel-gray eyes flashing black as rage boiled over. "Grip of Will" locked his focus, and the spectre surged—"Take my gift." A faint shimmer flickered from his broken sword, "Sword Will Projection" straining against his unawakened will. No full blade formed, but the edge sharpened, glinting wicked as he swung, slicing the claw-biter's neck clean through. The other four claw-biters warily stared at him. No, they stared at his sword. They had felt danger coming from it for a split second.

Taking the opportunity granted by their hesitation, Torin hauled Jek over his shoulder, blood soaking his back, and grabbed Mira's arm. "Run!" They sprinted, leaving the other four to feast on their dead comrade as if it was nothing.

The Hollow's sagging shape loomed through the miasma. The spectre whispered, louder—"He's dead weight—bait them. Let me take over, unleash it." Torin felt numb all over his body. As if his body was no longer his. The voice in his head grew louder. Every time he shut his eyes he saw himself. No, another image of himself—more sinister, more demonic. "Please stop, get out of my head," he muttered low, clinging to sanity, still running. Jek's voice rasped, faint against his ear, "Shut… up… protect Mira…" His breath stilled, body slackening, but the words burned.

Torin gripped the hilt of what could barely be called a sword tighter than before. He shoved Mira into the Hollow, dragging Jek's limp form inside before barricading the door with a crate. Claws scratched outside, four claw-biters chittering, and the spectre's shadow loomed, mouth wide.

"You're mine," it rasped, as Torin's head throbbed, Jek's blood warm on his back. Two days to fifteen—if he lasted this small reprieve.