Chapter 13: The Hunger That Lurks Beneath

The Hero was still there—physically, at least. His body had been swallowed whole, ensnared by the wriggling mass of parasites, yet something resisted. The Hunger Beneath—the nameless entity lurking beneath the cathedral—had tried to consume him. But it could not.

It coiled around him. Constricted. Yet it did not devour.

He gasped for breath, forcing himself to rise. The parasites clung to him in patches, but they could not fully claim him.

His fingers trembled. His vision swam. A sickening cold had taken root inside his chest, a frost blooming beneath his ribs. And yet, he did not succumb.

Why?

Why had the Hunger Beneath not finished him?

—

The tunnel opened into something vast. The cathedral was no longer a structure of bone and meat. The walls had become something far worse—writhing, churning parasites, each the size of a man's arm. Their slick bodies pulsated, breathing in unison.

The air was thick with rot. A putrid stench, not just of decay, but of something older. Something that had never belonged to human perception.

The walls whispered. The parasites shifted, coiling in response to an unseen will.

They were inside it.

At the chamber's center, a figure stumbled forward—one of the cultists who had fled earlier. His robes were torn, his breath ragged.

Erasmus did not move. He studied.

The man's flesh… shifted. Not tearing. Not breaking. Just changing.

His fingers elongated, then split into something not quite tendrils, not quite veins. His skin shuddered, melting like wax. His mouth opened, but what came out was not a scream.

It was laughter.

The Hero rushed forward—but Erasmus caught his arm.

"Don't."

"He's still—"

"He's already gone."

The cultist turned toward them. His face had no eyes. No mouth. Just a shifting surface, as if deciding what to become.

Then the voice came.

Not from him.

From everywhere.

"There is no death. There is only return."

The cathedral breathed. The walls rippled.

And the cultist's laughter became a choir.

The Hero staggered, bracing himself against a pillar—a pillar that twitched beneath his grasp.

The cathedral was not merely old. Not merely corrupted.

It was alive.

The walls undulated in slow, rhythmic waves. The ceiling above squirmed with tendrils, pulsing with unseen movement. The long, spiraling tunnels yawned like gaping throats, stretching endlessly into darkness.

Everything—every brick, every stone, every surface—was seething, writhing, consuming.

And yet… it would not take him.

The Hero's breath came in ragged gasps. His thoughts blurred. A presence stirred inside him—something that was not him. It ached to become him.

It slithered through his mind in slow, insidious waves, testing the edges of his self. Feeling for weak points.

Erasmus stood at the base of the shifting altar, his expression unreadable. His golden scale hung at his side, untouched—yet the weight of judgment already pressed upon this place. He tilted his head, watching the Hero's body struggle within the mass.

"Curious."

His voice was barely above a whisper.

The Hero gasped. His arm twitched—no, something inside him twitched. His limbs were no longer entirely his own. The Hunger had slithered into him, but it had not yet taken root.

He clenched his fists, trembling. His mind clouded, memories flickering like candlelight. He could feel the parasites slithering beneath his skin. But they recoiled, writhing as if in agony.

The mark—the unseen sigil burned into his soul by forces beyond his comprehension—protected him.

Or perhaps… it merely delayed the inevitable.

Erasmus stepped forward.

"You should have been devoured."

His voice was cold. Clinical. No concern—only curiosity.

He crouched, watching the parasites twitch and hiss at his presence. They recoiled from him. They were not mindless creatures.

They knew.

The Hero shuddered. The voices still whispered.

"You are ours."

"You will be hollowed."

"You will feed."

But something held them back.

The mark.

And Erasmus.

Why did the worms fear him?

The priest raised his hand. He did not touch the parasites—yet they retreated from his fingers, slinking back into the cathedral walls.

The eldritch hunger that had swallowed the cultists, that had transformed them into the smiling ones, did not touch him.

Not because it feared him.

But because it recognized something in him.

The Hero coughed violently, falling to his knees as he finally tore himself free from the living walls. The remnants of the parasites clung to his skin before shriveling and falling away. His breath came in ragged gasps. His vision blurred.

"You… knew this would happen."

His voice was hoarse. Accusatory.

Erasmus did not deny it.

He merely watched. His expression unreadable.

"I suspected."

The Hero's hands trembled. He could feel his own heartbeat.

And beneath it—something else.

A second rhythm.

Something foreign.

Something waiting.

Erasmus turned, eldritch light flickering behind him. Shadows twisted unnaturally at his feet.

"You should pray," he said, almost amused. "While you still have the mind to do so."

The Hero did not answer.

He only stared at his hands.

Feeling the thing that now lurked inside him.

Waiting.