The groaning thing in the dark

"How many healing potions do we have?!" Kade asked, eyes wide, hands half-raised like he was ready to chug one right now.

Velra blinked at him. "Calm down, Kade. Healing potions don't come cheap."

"That's not calming!" Kade snapped, pointing at his chest. "Do you see this? This is necrosis! Stage three! I need, like, a hundred bottles. Right now. Maybe a bathtub full."

"You'd die before you finished one," Garron muttered, rummaging through his pack.

Mira crossed her arms. "He's not wrong. Healing potions aren't water. The stronger ones can burn your insides if you chug too fast."

"I'll take that risk!" Kade said. "If I hit stage four, I need a priest. Do we have a priest? No? Then I'm drinking!"

Velra held up a hand. "One. We have one low-grade potion left."

Kade stared at her like she'd told him they had one band-aid for a decapitation.

"One?!"

Renn, quiet until now, spoke gently. "We rationed the last of them when Garron took a hit two days ago. It's that bad out here."

He sat down hard on a rock and buried his face in his hands. "I'm gonna die in pajamas. I swear to God."

Velra crouched beside him, her tone more level now. "We'll find a cure. There's a town south of here. Small. Superstitious. they might have healing potions to sell".

Kade looked up slowly. "And if it won't be enough has?"

Velra stood. "Then you die. Or we burn it out."

"…Can we please try the healing options first?"

She gave him a tight nod.

Kade was about to ask how far this cursed town was when a sound rolled in from the trees.

A low groan. Wet. Twisted. Like metal bending under water—mixed with something that should never breathe.

Everyone froze.

The fire cracked quietly. Even the wind seemed to still.

Then it came again.

Grrhhhhnnnnnkkk…

A dragging, grinding moan—too deep for a human throat, too long for a single breath.

Garron stood slowly, hand on his axe. "That's not an animal."

Velra's expression sharpened. "Positions. Now."

Kade turned to the darkness beyond the campfire's edge. The trees shifted just slightly, as if something had brushed against them.

Something big.

Something wrong.

Another groan echoed closer this time. Grkkkhhhh…kkhhhhh…

Then came the smell—like spoiled blood and wet earth after a grave has been turned.

Kade's heart hammered.

Necrosis, stage three… and now something undead was sniffing around their fire.

"Tell me," he whispered, eyes wide. "Tell me this isn't night time."

Velra didn't look at him. Her voice was cold.

"Shields up. It's hunting."

The groaning stopped.

Silence pressed in—thick, tense, suffocating. Even the fire seemed to shrink.

Kade held his breath.

Then, without warning, something ripped through the side of the tent with a snap of canvas and a howl of wind.

A long, rotting arm—gray and stretched like taffy—shot through the flap.

It grabbed Kade by the chest.

"What the—?!"

He didn't finish the sentence before it yanked him clean off the ground.

The world spun.

The cold night hit him like a slap as he was hurled outside, crashing through the tent wall and hitting the dirt hard.

"KADE!" Mira's voice rang out behind him.

He rolled once—twice—then slammed into a log, breath knocked clean from his lungs.

Stars danced in his vision.

Somewhere behind him, the fire roared higher—followed by shouts, steel ringing from scabbards, and Velra screaming a command.

Kade blinked up into the night sky.

And then he saw it.

A shape dragging itself out from the trees.

The creature emerged from the shadows of the trees—lurching forward on too many limbs. Its frame was skeletal and twitching, hunched like a predator, but it wasn't the body that made Kade's breath stop.

It was the faces.

Three wide mouths stretched across its upper body, each one where a face should've been. Jagged teeth jutted out at uneven angles, some too long, some shattered and black. The mouths twitched independently—one drooling, one groaning, the third stretching wide in a silent scream.

No eyes. No nose. Just mouths.

They opened and closed like they were chewing on sound itself.

KHHHHHRRRK... GGRNNHH...

The thing clicked forward on limbs like sharpened stilts, each step jerky, wrong.

Kade's voice caught in his throat.

Kade scrambled backward, boots slipping in the dirt as the creature skittered into full view under the moonlight.

"I have seen a lot of ugly things in the last twenty-four hours, but you, my guy—you win. Gold medal. Ten out of ten. Absolute freakshow."

The creature tilted its head—or what should have been its head—one of the mouths twitching into a grin that showed way too much gum and not enough sanity.

Kade kept talking, more to himself than anyone else. "Nope. Nope nope nope. That's three mouths and zero eyes. Where are the eyes?! Who designed this?!"

It hissed—a wet, low sound that rattled leaves.

"Seriously," Kade panted, still crawling backward, "was there a sale on nightmare fuel this month? I'd like a refund on my life."

The thing twitched, limbs flexing.

Kade's voice cracked. "You're not even from the game, are you? You're some beta-test reject they buried and forgot."

The creature loomed in front of the tent, its three grotesque mouths drooling thick, black spit as they opened and shut in a sickening rhythm. Spider-like limbs scraped against the earth, clicking and twitching. Its torso swelled unnaturally, as if its insides were trying to crawl out.

"Barrier up!" Mira's voice rang out clear.

A glowing shield of golden light flared from the tent entrance, stopping the creature's next lunge cold. The barrier rippled but held.

Then came the chanting—fast, layered, and purposeful.

"Vel taren ossa—!"

"Focus center mass!"

"On my mark!"

Magic surged from within.

Streaks of violet, crimson, and icy blue shot out from inside the tent like a barrage of magical arrows. One bolt struck the creature's shoulder. Another hit one of its mouths, making it screech with a rattling hiss.

Boom! Boom!

Explosions flared against the creature's side as it reeled backward, blackened limbs flailing in fury.

Kade ducked behind a fallen crate, wide-eyed.

"Okay, so they do know what they're doing. Good to know."

Kade crouched lower behind the crate as another blast of magic lit up the night. The monster shrieked again, a horrible, wet sound like metal grinding through meat.

"Okay, this is bad. This is very bad," Kade muttered. "Time to do the smart thing."

He flicked his wrist in the air.

[SYSTEM MENU]

A translucent window blinked to life.

[Save Game]

He tapped it with hope.

[No Space]

Kade stared. "Excuse me—what?"

He quickly flipped to the next tab.

[Saved Files]

> Saved File 1

> Saved File 2

> Saved File 3

> Saved File 4

> Saved File 5

"Five already? When the hell—oh, right. That one time I got slapped to death. And the other time I tripped over a rock…"

He scrolled to the first slot.

[Delete?]

"Yes, please."

One by one, he began deleting them.

[Saved File 1] — Deleted.

[Saved File 2] — Deleted.

Another explosion rocked the earth behind him. Dirt sprayed over his head.

"Hurry up!" he hissed. "I do not want to respawn inside this thing's stomach!"

[Saved File 3] — Deleted.

[Saved File 4] — Deleted.

Just as he reached File 5, a shadow fell over the crate.

He looked up—and saw one of those long, twitching limbs curling toward him.

"…Can I delete this moment, too?"