Tower vs Maw

The puppets freeze mid-charge.

Then slowly... begin to crawl backward. Dragging themselves into the dark.

A sound builds.

PLAP.

SPLORTCH.

SNAP.

The six turn.

Behind them, the bodies—the ones they killed—begin to twitch.

Then move.

They crawl toward each other.

Then—they jump.

Onto one another.

Twitching. Fusing.

Their flesh bubbles, bones grind, blood steams as the heat from their bodies welds them together.

Arms twist into legs. Ribcages become jaws. Dozens become one.

The six can only watch in horror as the mass rises.

---

From the dark, something massive stirs.

The Maw.

It steps forward—its form grotesque, towering. Its body is bloated with mouths, 

teeth, and sagging limbs. Eyes blink open where no eyes should exist. Fingers wiggle from its chest. Its tongue drags the ground.

It breathes once, a sound like lungs drowning in bile.

Then it speaks.

Not in words—but in imitation. A mockery of language.

Its voice is a patchwork of whispers, screams, lullabies, and gurgling wet meat.

 "Hhhhrrrrkk... fffiiirrrsssttt... youuuu kiiilll themmm…"

"Tthheennnn... youuuuu bbbuuiillldd... mmmyyyyy... CCHHIIILDD…"

Its voice flickers—splitting between a 

sobbing child and a laughing corpse.

"LLLOOOOKK... LLLOOOKK WWHHATTT YOUUU'VEEE MMMAADDE..."

A meaty laugh follows—a thousand throats gurgling joy.

"Fffrooommm yourrr FFFFEEEARRR..."

 "MYYYYY SSSEEEDDD HHHAAASSS GGRROOWWWNNN!"

Then it roars—

"MMAAARRRCCCHH, CCCHHHIIILLLDDDDD… CCCRRUUSSHHH THEM... SSSLOOWW…"

"Ssssooo IIIII CANNN FFFEEEEDDD!"

What rises is not a puppet.

It's a Champion.

Twice Caelan's height.

Its chest a mass of human faces, twitching, sobbing, laughing.

Its arms a bundle of limbs—fingers where elbows should be.

Its spine curved into a serrated rib-spear, protruding from its back like a jagged halo.

In its hand:

An axe made of femurs, spines, and shards of scavenged steel.

Its head is half a child's, half a rotting adult's, sewn together with nerves and teeth.

It breathes.

And then.

The Champion charges—

A blur of mass and agony, its axe dragging trenches into the stone floor.

The six brace.

Luke grits his teeth.

Caelan crosses both swords.

Elarin readies her last two daggers.

Singnet raises his bloodied axe with a growl.

Mira shakily grips her club.

The gray-haired boy steps in front of them all.

Then—

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKK!!!

It's not a sound.

It's a psychic razor across the brain.

The world fractures.

Vision blurs. Ears bleed. Teeth chatter in sockets.

And everything goes still.

---

Minutes Later

Luke wakes with blood in his mouth and his thoughts leaking from his ears.

The torches are dim, barely clinging to life.

The others stir beside him—groaning, coughing, confused.

Then he sees it.

They all see it.

A wall, distant and rotted, folds open like skin.

It does not collapse—it peels.

And through it steps The Tower.

It walks on legs of concrete and pulsing veins.

Its spine is a tower block, its ribcage a crumbling cathedral, and its eyes—dozens—peer out from shattered windows sealed with meat.

Its head is a crown of wreckage, twisted I-

beams curled around a child's room, still glowing faintly inside its skull.

The air bends as it moves.

And then it speaks.

Not aloud.

Not with a mouth.

But through the walls, through the stone, through the memory of foundations.

 "BROKEN BRICKS DO NOT BEND."

The voice slams into Luke's skull like a collapsed ceiling.

 "YOUR CHILDREN SCREAMED INTO MY WALLS."

"NOW I SCREAM BACK."

Then—

 SKRRAAAAAAAAEEEEIIIIIIIIIIHHH!!!

The psychic scream flattens a swarm of puppets in seconds.

Their heads implode.

Blood sprays the stone like paint.

The Maw does not retreat.

It laughs—a sound of lungs filled with bile, a dead father mimicking joy.

Dozens of gaping holes open in its swollen gut.

Thousands of cords and intestines unfurl.

"CHHHIIILLLDREEEENNNN…"

"BBBIIIRRRTTHH!"

The floor trembles.

Flesh spills.

Puppets crawl out like wet maggots from a carcass.

Winged ones.

Screaming ones.

Infants dragging blades in their teeth.

Some weep.

Some call for their "mommy."

All run toward the Tower.

The Tower Responds

It doesn't hesitate.

Its arms slam into the ground.

The floor rises, becoming spears of debris, walls of bone, barriers that sprout like fangs.

"YOU FORGOT WHAT HOUSES REMEMBER."

"EVERY STONE WATCHED YOU EAT THEM."

"NOW I AM YOUR GRAVE."

The Tower spewed unknown sentences as if it were saying broken lines of a poem.

The walls ripple, pulling into a labyrinth of living brick, confusing and trapping 

hundreds of puppets.

Then—

SKRRAAAEEEEIIIIIHHHH!!

Another psionic pulse—

The ceiling caves in behind the Maw.

Stone blades spin mid-air.

Steel beams slam into the Maw's side, cracking bone, rupturing flesh.

The Maw vomits a sea of children-shaped monsters, hurling them by the dozen at the Tower's legs.

They climb, stab, explode.

The Tower reels. But it doesn't fall.

It grabs its own chest—

Tears a chunk of building from its torso—

And hurls it at the Maw.

Impact.

Dozens of puppets die. The Maw is hurled backward into its own creation—its Champion.

But the Champion rises again, teeth growing from its shoulders, eyes blooming across its arms.

Together, they charge again.

---

The Six Watch

Hidden behind fractured debris, Luke's group lies still.

Bleeding.

Broken.

Silent.

 "They're killing each other," Mira whispers.

 "We can't stay," Caelan growls. "We get caught—we're dead."

"If they see us…" Elarin mutters, clutching her wound, "we're nothing to them."

Luke watches The Tower crack under puppet claws.

Watches The Maw take a building to the chest and keep laughing.

 "We run," he says at last. "Now. Anywhere but here."

No one argues.

They begin to crawl—through ash, blood, and bone—while gods made of sorrow and vengeance battle behind them.

And in the shadows—

None of them feel human anymore.

The world crashes behind them—stone, steel, and bodies collapsing in a grotesque orchestra of ruin.

Luke is the last to look back.

Through dust and smoke, he sees it:

A silhouette half-dead but not dying.

A rotting leviathan of meat and teeth, still breathing through its gaping, melted jaw.

The Maw.

The monster's single remaining eye burns with glee. It shudders forward, gurgling as it speaks:

 "III WOOONNN… NOWWW ITSSS YOURRR TURNN…"

Luke doesn't hesitate.

"RUN! DON'T LOOK BACK!"

The others listen—stumbling forward through rubble and gore. Mira, Caelan, Elarin… even Singnet is limping, pushing through his pain. But Luke stays.

He stays.

Because that's what he's always done.

SHLACK.

A tendril of glistening, organ-wrapped flesh explodes from the Maw's chest—aimed straight at Caelan.

But Luke dives first.

His broken arm useless, he tries to parry with his good one—

But the rope of meat wraps around him instead, yanking him into the air like a caught fish.

"GHKK—!"

Blood spurts from his shoulder as he's dragged midair, body twisting, suspended like meat on a butcher's hook.

He thrashes—

But it's no use.

The rope tightens. He's caught.

And then, hanging above death, Luke begins to think.

---

Time slows.

He floats, a bloody marionette, as his mind slips to the real world—the one he left behind when this nightmare began.

I always felt small back there…

My parents never even yelled. That would've meant they cared enough to get angry. No—they just sighed. Just looked past me.

 "Why can't you be more like your younger 

siblings?"

"Why can't you try harder?"

 Even my successes felt borrowed. Secondhand. Fake.

And my siblings… they were kind. That's what hurt the most.

 They never hated me. Never mocked me. That should've been enough—but I twisted it into pity.

 I was the background character in my own life. The footnote. The apology.

His body aches. The tendril pulls tighter.

His sword clatters, dangles from his one 

good hand.

And even in death… I was no one.

 Killed because I happened to exist in the wrong place, with the wrong name.

 It wasn't personal. It was just cruel.

Then I came here. A second chance. A world so broken that even I could matter.

 And for a while—I did.

They looked to me for decisions. For orders. For survival. I was weak, but I made myself useful.

 I saw in them what I never had. Trust. Hope. And I wanted to protect it.

Below him, he sees the group still running.

Elarin screams his name—but Caelan holds her back. Even the gray-haired boy glances once before pushing forward.

Good.

They made the right call. They're learning.

 If they had turned back, we all would've died.

 Let this be enough. Let my sacrifice mean something.

But something inside Luke snaps—not in grief, not in despair.

In defiance.

No.

 Not yet.

 I can still fight. I can still LIVE.

---

Luke steels himself.

He grips the base of his limp arm with his good hand.

This is going to hurt.

CRACKKK—!

"RRRAGHHHHH—!"

He dislocates the already broken shoulder, twisting it violently out of place.

A flash of white-hot pain explodes behind his eyes. He nearly passes out.

But it gives him wiggle room.

His sword-hand moves—shaking but free.

 Move. MOVE.

He then swung at the monsters tendril with his full force. 

CUT.

He broke free from its constraints, but The Maw persisted and shot out another organ rope. Now wrapping around his dislocated arm.

He grits his teeth. The rope twists tighter around his already ruined arm.

 I only need one arm. Just one.

He stares at the jagged bone jutting from his shoulder.

I've already lost the use of it.

 So let it go.

He tightens his grip on his short sword.

And begins to cut.

While extended mid air.

SHRRRIP.

The steel slices into skin.

"AAARGHHH!"

His scream echoes across the ruined room.

CHNK.

The blade digs through muscle. Sinew snaps like taut string.

SPURT. SPURT.

Warm blood pours down his side like a broken faucet.

GRRKKK.

He hits bone.

His body begins to tremble. He feels the world spin. But his resolve holds.

Come on. Come on. Just a little more—

He bites his lip so hard it splits open.

CRUNCH.

A final twist—

THWIP.

Luke detaches from his arm now being held midair by The Maw's tendrils

Luke falls.

He smashes against stone, lands hard on his knees—stumbles.

He's free.

Only a spurting stump remains of his arm, blood pouring in rhythmic waves.

But he's alive.

He's alive.

Luke drops to the ground with a sickening slam, his shoulder gushing blood.

THUD.

The pain is unreal.

His vision blurs.

His breathing hitches.

But he pushes himself to his feet.

 As he gasps, he looks once more back at the battlefield.

The rubble shifts.

The air vibrates.

And from the ruin—

The Tower rises.

Not whole. Cracked. Burned. Bleeding from impossible wounds.

But it stands.

It screeches, and the very earth warps.

The Maw, still crawling, snarls in response, new puppets vomiting from its ribcage.

They clash again like two gods of filth.

They're still fighting...

Good. That gives me time.

Luke doesn't wait to admire.

He stumbles forward—vision doubling, blood dripping—but feet steady.

 I have no arm.

 I have no strength left.

But I have a promise to myself. 

I said I would survive no matter what.

So I will.

He disappears into the tunnel—

One survivor among monsters.