Mother's Milk In The Void

Ignoring this, he sat up with a low groan, golden-blonde hair matted to his forehead by the damp.

And immediately he did, immediately he got up, he felt it.

Something wrong—something was here with him.

It wasn't the sound that tipped him off, and neither was it a feeling but a shadow, watching, waiting.

The moment he registered this shadow, Maxwell froze.

Slowly, he stumbled to his feet, his balance slightly off, but he never looked back, not when he knew something was there.

As he got up, his hand brushed the edge of a sturdy rock, snapping it clean off. This prompted a pause, as he hadn't meant to apply that much pressure with his arms.

Beneath where he had been lying, a shallow puddle had formed, which let him observe his reflection.

And though everything was normal, one small detail seized him by the throat.

'My eyes,' he thought in wonder, not believing in the slightest what he was seeing. His eyes were red not in the sickly sense, but in the mystical.

His irises were aglow with a crimson bioluminescence, a trait that he had only ever dreamed of.

'A wizard,' he thought, a chill running down his spine, one that was a mix of excitement and fear.

It was said that humans could become Wizards by just stepping through a passageway but he didn't know the details.

With that thought, Maxwell backed away from the puddle, gaze darting around, yet never looking behind, for he could feel it.

He did not know what it was, yet every instinct in his body told him not to turn back.

And he listened.

The walls of the cave gave way to a much larger opening, so he stepped forward instead, his feet crunching softly over brittle moss.

That was when he saw it, the fact that he had no escape, the fact that the cave was perched at the edge of an impossibly vast canyon.

He peered over and discovered that there was no bottom, at least not in sight.

Rather, a void stretched endlessly beneath him, broken only by faint gusts of screaming wind.

He was trapped.

With IT!

And in his growing despair, he looked above, and saw that the moon hung high, but it was not silver.

No, how could it be?

Only the human world bore such luxury; rather, it was green.

A sickly, luminous green that pulsed faintly, and for a moment, Maxwell saw not a moon but an eye staring down at him, watching.

Simultaneously, thick, black clouds rolled across the sky like bruises, and thin, icy rain hissed against the stone.

At the chill, he pulled his tattered clothes closer, but it did nothing, and the more he gazed at that green eye he realized something that chilled him.

'Did it just blink-'

"Ahh," Maxwell suddenly exclaimed before stumbling forward, almost falling.

He felt pain, a gift from the eye above, as though it had noticed him.

It felt like a lance of agony stabbing through his skull.

And so he dropped to one knee, clutching his head, his breath came in short panicked gasps.

At that moment, he felt something and looked at his back noting that a strange eye-like rune had appeared on his torso, burning his shirt.

No, he was sure of it, something other than the thing in the cave had seen him from above, it did not want him here, he did not belong here.

His body began to tremble, as to suppress him.

The air thickened, as to labour his breathing.

And gravity pressed down with invisible fists, as to render him immobile while something burned on his back—that rune—pulsating like a heartbeat.

His ribs ached, his joints throbbed, and as he fell to his knees his vision swarmed.

His fingers clawed into the ground, but he couldn't stand, he couldn't even scream, so he crawled, crawled back to the thing in the cave.

"Kill me!" He begged as he saw it, a golden glint within the cave, looming in the shadows.

Silver mist parted around the looming figure; It was hunched, broad-shouldered, its golden claws gleaming even in the rain light.

It was the Skilion, the same twisted beast he had seen once before; it had followed him here, but he did not fear.

He tried to crawl towards it despite this feeling of pain—this whisper in his mind telling him that he needed to be controlled.

Was this how every human who stepped into this world felt? "Kill me!" He mouthed attempting to bang his head against the stone.

But the force didn't let him.

Meanwhile, the thing before him stepped closer, its claws scraping stone, as though enjoying his torture.

But its voice was as smooth as silk soaked in blood. "You do not belong here," it said. "And this world knows it."

He trembled as the Skilion crouched, its halo-eyes glowing like twin suns.

"Like you, I was controlled, only a beast meant to evolve into another beast, but your predicament is different, you are meant to be a slave to their slaves, and so you will die soon," it whispered, "unless you make a deal."

Upon hearing this, despite the pain, Maxwell's throat tightened.

Every breath tasted like rust.

His body couldn't endure this pressure; he knew that much. Whatever power he had, it was incomplete.

Foreign.

Wrong.

"To stop the pain, a being from this world must lend you what you lack," the Skilion murmured, "a master," it continued.

"What are you? Why can you speak? HELP ME!" Maxwell could not hold it anymore so he spoke, he asked, pleaded even.

But the beast remained quiet, watching him suffer, its hollow, bulging eyes existing with no human emotion.

Like so, after a while, its voice emerged before its maw moved, its tone confessional.

"Does it feel unnatural Maxwell?" the creature asked, leaning closer, "That he gave me sentience?"

Its voice made the chamber pulse with something foul. The thing's body shifted, its bone-like maw peeling back into a smile, revealing countless teeth, none meant for speaking.

"He is different," it breathed, closer now and in his pain, the man's vision blurred, but he listened as it spoke, "He is different, he is not like you and ME."

The beast cocked its head, twisting it far too far, bones crunching like gravel. "He is but a victim to faith and yet he controls it," it whispered mockingly, "he will help us escape. Escape from them..." it added.

"F-from what?" Maxwell stuttered, groaned even, but the Skilion just pointed above its gold claw gleaming.

"The watchers... watching from above... You will not die from it, I promise, I promise, you will live, you will... Hush now, they can hear you, they can see you..."

Its body convulsed as if something inside was laughing, but the sound was wrong, like a child crying underwater.

"They are the ones that saw you just now," it hissed, its mouth splitting down to its neck. "You will be with me, safe with me as his servant."

At those words, the man trembled, his body refusing to obey, his skin crawling as if it knew what was coming.

And upon seeing this, the creature leaned in, voice rising, it sounded almost joyous.

"I who had escaped… I who had glimmered into his mind..." it breathed, its tone almost reverent, terrible. "I have escaped."

Then immediately after it rose and yelled, loudly, ecstatically:

"HIS WILL, HIS WILL…"

It then surged forward, eyes flaring with a lightless gleam, its mouth agape as though it wanted to devour the man.

"Ahh," Maxwell screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the thing's voice.

"I want you to understand, like me. Come," the thing begged, as if offering salvation, "let me torture you… Let me shape you… let me show YOU HELL—"

The cave went still as the creature paused, waiting for Maxwell's answer but when it observed the man trembling with pain, it realized that there was none and so it added:

"OR LET ME EAT YOU RIGHT NOW."

The man whimpered at those words as he realized that he did not have a choice, he could feel his heart straining to keep up, tearing slowly.

Meanwhile, the creature shivered with anticipation. "Can you feel it?" it whispered, almost tender now. "Their gazes… their gazes watching what you will do."

But what would he do? What could he do?

"Save me," Maxwell yelled, crawling forward, drawn not by will but by something older, something primal.

The beast's chest split open like melting bark pouring black blood and revealing folds of flesh and organs.

Without a word, the man crawled into the hollow, the cavity, his eyes lifeless, as the creature closed around him like a mother's embrace.

'I don't want this,' was the only thought that slipped through before Maxwell descended to darkness.

The silence that followed was brief.

The creature's form twitched, then writhed, its limbs flailing and fusing.

Bones bent wrong, flesh folded, some peeling back, before turning inside out.

And where once the Skilion stood, lay only a glistening, heaving egg, veined with red and sickly light, throbbing with some hidden beat.

Yet, something on the moon was still watching.

Something on the moon was waiting.