Chapter 7: If i was a Worm

Raze was still in the desert.

Despite having spent the past few days walking, with only a few short rests inbetween, he still felt that he was no closer to any town.

'Should i turn back? Only one guard saw my face, and i bashed 'im good before i ran. Maybe he's dead?'

Pondering useless thoughts like this, Raze continued to walk, trying his best to take his mind off recent events days, and the unnatural pains emanating from his right arm.

'This shit's annoying. Doesn't hurt too bad, but just enough to stop me from relaxin'. Should've taken some booze from that inn too, would've been nice.'

Turning his thoughts to his injured arm, Raze reflected on the sandstorm, the beast, and whatever the hell had melted into his arm.

He had no clue what effect it would have on him.

Would he become like them? Would he sprout razor sharp fangs? Would his skin turn a lifeless grey, covered in cracks?

'If i'm gonna be like them, then I at least want to have the ability to spew golden fire or somethin'. I mean, what kind of powers did that dog have? Sharp teeth? I dont need to bite anythin', no thanks.'

He continued to walk, useless thoughts zipping around his head, the suns beat down, and sweat dripped from every pore, making his hair cling to his forehead briefly, until it evaporated, leaving only itchy salt patches behind.

Over and over and over, his feet, barely covered by his ragged shoes, hit the burning sand, not hot enough to burn, but enough to keep him from standing still for too long.

'Fuck, i gotta see what the hell's with this shit.'

Anxiety getting the best of him, he decided to unwrap the bandages, and take a better look at the wound.

'What the...?'

It had already healed.

The only trace that there was a ever a wound there, was a band of dark, lumpy scars wrapping around most of his forearm, and the dark red blood clots that stuck to the bandage as he unwrapped them.

'If it's healed, then why does it still hurt? Is it the scars? It's gotta be, right?

He knew what the actual reason was. He merely didn't want to face that it was related to that beast.

It was a sensation he had never quite felt before, not itchy, or aching, but a strange, almost ethereal pulsing, one that dissapeared as soon as he focused intently on it.

It felt like a pain from beyond this world.

He almost wanted to slash his arm open, in order to forget this peculiar, almost ghostlike sensation, he wanted to flay the skin, and yank out whatever he feared might be growing inside.

But he didnt.

He knew just how precious blood was, and he wasn't about to spill his own over some worthless fear, or the damned dog that caused it.

He flapped his arm around a bit, making sure to flex his muscles slowly, trying to feel for any abnormalities, but he didn't notice anything significant, except that his arm seemed to have healed up nicely.

As a final test, he held his arm up to the light, and tried to get a better look beneath the scars.

'What the-? Oh right, just my veins, they look a bit weird though, must be a trick of the light. Yeah.'

He inspected his veins closely, noting that the dark coloured scars made them appear a brownish-black, he also saw a faint pulsing, as though it was resonating with-

Raze swung his arm back down, and quickly wrapped it back in the bandages, before supressing his concerns, and then continuing to walk through the desert, fighting every step of the way to keep a lid on his thoughts.

'Fucking hell. First those damned starvers, then that big freak, now this stupid dog tooth has got me shittin' myself. I'll figure whatever the hell this is out sooner or later. i mean, it's just a dog tooth, what's the worst that's gonna happen?'

He hoped that he wouldn't recieve an answer to his question.

But he did.

Not long after, he was laying on the sands, watching the evening sky. Until-

"GAH-! FUCK! WHAT THE HEL-"

A sensation from his right arm interupted his thoughts, and with it brought a blinding pain incomparable to the feeling of having his arms shredded.

His vision was spinning, and his entire body felt like it was being electrocuted by the lightning of the gods.

Failing to stagger to his feet, he fell face-down into the sands, the only sound being that of his incoherent, garbled cries, mixing with the sand.

He promptly lost conciousness.

As he slept, Raze dreamt that he was a worm, traveling through dark, moist tunnels, and that in order to become the best worm he could, he needed to find the origin of these tunnels.

He wasn't sure what the tunnels were, or what they were made from. 

They were, cramped, pitch black, and somewhat quiet, save for a constant thrumming sound, and a distant pulsing.

He knew that the distant pulsing sound was the origin point, and so began to move in that direction.

Trying to move, his feeble brain noted he had no limbs, and that his body was covered in a slick, transparent coating.

He wriggled absent-mindedly, only stopping to note that he wasn't quite as worm-y as he thought, leaving a strange system of roots along his trail.

Despite that, he felt a strange sense of closeness with the roots, and so they caused him no alarm.

Along he went, down the winding caves, only stopping to drink some of the liquid that pooled all around him.

It was delicious!

In the darkness, he couldn't identify what the tangy juice was, and he didn't really care either, his worm-brain incapable of thinking too hard.

As he went, wriggling, drinking and spreading roots, he eventaully came upon a junction, like a fork in the road, it had two differing paths.

One one the left side of the junction, the juice flowed towards him, an endless tide of nourishment that he could sit and drink until he had his fill.

On the right, the juice flowed away from him, as though to fill a great expanse, and the juice would be harder to drink.

Despite supposedly intersecting, these flows did not interrupt one another.

Extending a listening organ towards the right-hand path, he found that the pulsing sound was louder.

Worm-Raze's worm-brain thought the hardest it ever had. One one path, he could drink as much as he pleased, and potentially find the source of the juice, but on the other, he may be-able to find the origin of the pulsing sound, at the cost of having less juice for him to drink.

He continued to think, being sure to drink some of the juice every now and again, until he made a choice.

He began to wriggle down the rightmost path, as determined as a worm could be, to find the origin, and ascend to a new stage of wormhood.

He wriggled and crawled, passing many junctions like previous, always moving in the driection of the pulsing sound. It was an ardous journey, and with visibility practically nonexistent, he had to rely on his sense of hearing to driect him towards the right path.

But it was worth it.

As he continued to wriggle, and he began to lose count of how many junctions he had passed, he eventaully found it.

In a grand chamber, Worm-Raze saw it.

A giant, red mass of flesh its shape solid, but irregular, it's pulsing now deafeningly loud, drowning out Worm-Raze's hearing, but neither that, nor the regular contraction and expansion of this mass of flesh made him hesitate for even a moment.

Diving headfirst towards it, he prepared to ascend, and become the greatest worm, he opened his small mouth, and attempted to bite into the flesh!

But.

His teeth couldn't break through.

He couldn't consume the divine flesh, and ascend as a worm.

He could only crawl miserably on the flesh, covering it in his roots, that began to rapidly grow and spread everywhere, like an infestation of snakes.

Just as Worm-Raze was about to scream, to curse his feeble jaws, reality crumbled around him, the chamber, the mass of flesh, the roots, and Worm-Raze himself all fell into an infinite, silent black void.

Raze woke up.

'Huh...? Had a dream... somethin' about worms? The fuck?'

Recalling he was still face down in the sand, Raze began to stand up, noting that his arm no longer hurt.

Until he was sent careening back to the floor, by a sharp pain in the back of his head. Hot, then cold, then hot again, he felt blood soaking into his hair, and trickling down his face, his vision began to spin, and his limbs felt numb.

A high pitched, nasal voice broke his thoughts.

"Well, well, well, lookie what we 'ave 'ere boys!"