The Cabin Is Always Hungry (A Dungeon Core Horror Slasher)

LAST RESORT
Part 22

SCENARIO 4
11:34 PM
8 Hours Until Dawn
9 Delvers remaining…

They had been walking for so long the tunnels had blurred into one long, gray vein. Sometimes the ceiling pinched low enough that they had to crouch down to get through. Other times it arched so high their flashlights couldn't find the ceiling, just yawning blackness leering at them. They even heard an underground river somewhere in the distance. The walls sweated, slick with mildew, drops plinking in little syncopations that echoed across the caverns. They couldn't pinpoint where it originated.

Kate had been counting the minutes like prayer beads. An hour, maybe more, by her last measure. The signs they passed didn't help much. The deeper they went, the more they sprouted—arrows painted in cracked white, pointing off into places Kate could vaguely picture.

CEDAR LAKE.

THE CABIN.

SUMMER CAMP.

GAS STATION.

SALVAGE YARD.

TRAIL B…

…and so on.

The words looked like warnings disguised as directions. There were a lot of signs pointing toward the cabin. Most of the intersection and junctions they passed had a sign to it. But she kept her eyes locked on only one name:

THE LAST RESORT.

The manor. Always the manor.

Twenty minutes later, Suraj broke out of frustration and exhaustion. They had been walking in silence ever since they left the farmhouse. "We need to stop. Just five minutes. Please." His breath came in wet, ugly pulls. "I haven't had this much exercise since—fuck, I don't even know."

Kate bristled, her body half-wanting to keep moving just to spite him. But the ache in her calves, the dull jackhammer behind her eyes, said otherwise. She exhaled, nodded once, and slid down the wall.

Unbeknownst to them, Were-Alan was following their scent, keeping a close watch but not too close that they would sense his presence. He was herding them to the manor. If one of them broke off to the other locations, he'd resume the chase...and the game.

Vivian's flashlight beam hovered on Xavier. He sat hunched on a rock like a gargoyle, his injured leg stretched stiff as a board, refusing to bend. The light caught the waxy cast of his face—skin pale, lips dulled, forehead glazed with sweat. A bead slipped down his temple, curving into the cracks beside his mouth.

Vivian stepped closer and pressed the back of her hand on Xavier's forehead. She reeled it back as if it burned her. "Dude, you're burning up."

"I'm fine," Xavier muttered, his jaw locking down around the word. His breath sounded thick with a clogged rattle, like he'd swallowed half the damp tunnel air and it had stuck in his lungs.

He kept moving his leg, shifting it in small agitated jerks, as if the bone itself were trying to crawl out of his skin. His shirt was soaked dark with sweat around the chest and back. His hands trembled on his knee—nervous, fevered tremors—and when Vivian leaned closer, she thought she saw the faintest shadow at his nails, darker than before, like bruises blooming there.

"Hey," Vivian said softly. "We can rest longer. If you need more time, I'm sure she'll consider—"

"Viv." He gritted his teeth. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Once we're out of here, I'll shake it off easy."

She frowned. "What if it's blood poisoning?"

"It's not blood poisoning."

"How do you know? Have you had it before?"

He rolled his eyes. "No?"

"Then how would you—"

"Viv. Please. Enough. Just let me rest, okay?"

She clamped her mouth shut, pressing her lips thin. But her eyes lingered on him as if she could will him back to health. "Fine. You can do whatever." She walked back to her corner and sat across from her brother.

Xavier winced, hunched over to pull the hem of his pants upward, just to see if the wound was infected like Vivian assumed. He made sure that Vivian couldn't see it.

He stared at the bite.

From the commotion in the farmhouse, when the creature grabbed his ankle, he didn't realize it bit him. Cursing his stupidity, he wished he was already at the hospital, jammed with as much tetanus and rabies shots they had in their fridge. How many needles will that take to stop the infection? He pulled down his pants to hide the wound. He couldn't look at it any longer.

Watching them from above, I could only shake my head in disappointment. I've seen too many zombie movies to know that hiding bite woulds were super cliche and never ended well for the person and the people he was around with. Although not a zombie infection, but lycanthropy was just as bad.

But…I was willing to see how this would pan out for them.

I wasn't getting my hopes up.

Five minutes later, they were walking again further into the tunnel. Suraj complained quietly to himself.

Mostly quiet.

11:59 PM…
12:00 AM
7 Hours Until Dawn
9 Delvers remaining…

The bell struck midnight across the manor.

Kevin and the others had shoved a heavy oak dresser against the double doors, wedging one of the leather armchairs under the handles for good measure in the smoking room. Ever since Ray died, they had barricaded themselves in this room for more than an hour now.

Kevin stood by the window, the barricaded glass mocking him with its black reflection. Wire mesh, steel bars, locked tight from the inside by the manor's security grid. He had tried prying it open, even smashing a chair leg against the corner, but the metal didn't so much as budge or fold. Bulletproof. Bombproof. Bastard-proof. Whatever.

Sheila sat cross-legged on the rug while leaning against the couch, fiddling with her necklace like it was a rosary, her face hard in the glow of the fireplace that turned on an hour ago, just like it did at the library. Nina stood at the corner furthest from the door and leaned against a study table, arms folded, thinking. Daryl had claimed the settee, slouched down, jittering his knee like he was trying to kick his way out through the upholstery.

Finally, Kevin broke the silence. "We can't sit here all night."

"Why not?" Nina shot back. "This is the safest room we've found so far. Doors are blocked. Windows are blocked. We just—stay put. We wait for morning. Out there, we'll just end up getting lost trying to find the way out. This manor is massive."

"What even is this place?" Sheila stammered, sobbing. "My sister was right. We should not have come here." She pressed her knees close, trying to shut out the memory of the woman's slack smile as she dangled from the rope. Trying not to see Ray's face, pale and terrified before the walls closed on him forever, every time she blinked.

Kevin turned, hands spread wide. "Do you all think they'll just allow us to stay put?"

"Who's they?" Nina asked.

"Them. The game doesn't stop until someone wins. And that means moving. That means doing something."

"Ray just fucking died, man!" Daryl snapped. His voice cracked on the name. "The game is probably not even real!"

"Exactly! That's what they want you to think. To watch us run around, fight, scream, bicker, and get killed one-by-one. This is a death game, and—breaking news, everybody—we are the fucking contestants. If we don't do anything, they're gonna get bored and send one of those creatures to storm in here and take us out for boring the crap out of them."

Sheila cried. "What are you even talking about? No one's watching us!"

"As much as I hate to admit it, Kevin's got a point," Nina said disappointedly. "Why go through all this trouble? Maybe the movies got it right. Maybe rich people just have a kink at watching other people die.

Sheila gave her a strange look.

Nina raised her hands. "AH! I don't know! Everything's fucking weird here, okay? There were oddly a lot of cameras around the manor when I went through it. Come to think of it, they're perfectly placed to get as much coverage as possible."

"She mentioned a god," Daryl whispered. "She said we're being fed to one."

"Now I know that one's bullshit," Kevin said. "Sadistic billionaires with a taste for gladiatorial entertainment? Yeah, I'll buy that. I don't really believe that other part. Sure, the monsters? Probably some genetic freaks experimented by Henry. He has the money to have some crazy fucked-up pets, I guess. Sorry. I'm rambling. I'm just spit-balling here to make sense of our shitty situation. And this is a shitty situation."

Daryl grunted, head lolling against the cushion. "You sound like you want to play their game, man."

Kevin's jaw tightened. "I want to survive. That's it."

Sheila shook her head. "Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe playing is the trap. Maybe we shouldn't run around like rats in a maze because the psychos upstairs told us to."

Kevin pushed off the wall, stepping toward her. "You think hiding in here's gonna cut it, babe? You think they didn't plan for that? They'll smoke us out. Or gas us. Or burn the whole damn room down with us still inside just to get us moving to the next death match." He stopped, the thought unfinished but enough to sour the air.

"How come they haven't done that yet?" Daryl asked.

Kevin didn't have the answer right away.

But Nina voiced out loud her thoughts. "Maybe they didn't want us all dead in an hour."

"What do you mean by that?" Sheila asked.

"It means…they want this to last for the whole night by killing us off slowly," Nina said. "It'll be more entertaining that way."

She's not wrong, I thought. I looked to the sky, half-hoping I could get a glimpse of the Administrators having fun like sports fans watching these people die in brutal ways.

Sheila choked a sob. "That's fucked up. Why would you even suggest that?"

Kevin was slowly losing his patience. "Look, guys! That doesn't fucking matters. All I'm saying is that they want us scared. They want us feel cornered so that we make mistakes. But if we find the exit—if we move—then maybe we take some of that power back, huh? Do you want to die here?"

Sheila visibly gulped. "No?"

"Good. At least we're all in the same page."

Daryl's head rolled back against the cushion. "What about Lope? I thought we're trying to find him."

"If he hasn't found us yet, or found Ray, or heard all that commotion earlier, then, safe to say, he's probably dead."

Daryl let out a sharp click of his cheeks. "That's fucking cold, man." But Kevin just ignored the jibe.

Nina swallowed. "They're really picking us off then."

Kevins huffed. "And if you don't want to be next, I suggest we get moving."

How long is he going to be asleep? I wondered, hovering above Lope's unconscious body.

As if on cue, Lope woke with a pounding headache and the taste of iron slick on his tongue, the stone floor pressing cold into his spine. For a long, confused heartbeat, he couldn't tell if he was awake or if the nightmare was still running in his head. His eyes opened, unfocused, shapes tilting in the dark until the one bare bulb overhead burned itself into existence. The room shivered in yellow light. He didn't recognize a single inch of it.

Am I in the basement? The thought wasn't as reassuring.

He pushed up slowly, every nerve whining. Muscles aching, joints swollen, even his teeth throbbed like he'd been chewing rocks in his sleep. His hand found the tender knot on his skull and winced from the sharp pain. He leaned against a tipped garbage bin, fought the sway in his legs, and waited for the nausea to pass.

"Easy there, buddy," I said. I was about to raise my hands to steady him when I realized I had none. I keep forgetting about that part.

Beyond the garbage room, the basement sprawled wide, a labyrinth of corridors twisting back on themselves like some giant, living vein of a slumbering creature. Workshops with tables covered in neatly arranged tools. Large apartment-sized wine cellars, their racks packed floor-to-ceiling with expensive and exotic bottles and crates. Storage rooms with boxes stacked high, metal filing cabinets dented and locked, long-abandoned office desks (from the fake old sanatorium) with papers yellowed and curling at the edges. Somewhere, deep in the darkness, a generator throbbed, a low mechanical heartbeat vibrating through the floor into his chest, in sync with the anxiety building in his gut.

His hand went to his waistband. Empty. A cold sweep of panic shot through him. He dropped to the floor, searching under the tipped bin, under the table, everywhere. Nothing. The gun was gone. His lungs tightened around the realization. He swallowed it down, because what else could he do? He reckoned what the others were up to. If some of them were still alive, were they looking for him now?

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The only door loomed across the room.

He thought: Gotta keep moving, I guess—

He shoved it open.

—and find the others.

A narrow hallway waited before him. Pipes ran along the ceiling, dripping moisture and hissing hot. Somewhere further down, the echo of water pinged against stone. He passed a wine cellar. Rows and rows of bottles and wooden barrels with labels he couldn't pronounce or were missing entirely. Some of the storage rooms were clearly old asylum cells converted into storage rooms, but they had the faint, lingering smell of disinfectant. The thought of prisoners, or ghosts appearing right there if he looked at it too long made his skin crawl.

Lope approached a table in the hallway with an old newspaper folded neatly at the edge. He picked it up and read the headline:

THE LAST RESORT ASYLUM CLOSES FOR GOOD!
REAGAN ACT HITS OREGON HEALTH INSTITUTIONS STATEWIDE.

Lope put down the newspaper back on the table.

"Look what I did there? Kinda neat prop, right?"

But Lope didn't hear me as he continued down the hallway.

I sighed loudly, which I doubted he heard at all. No one appreciated detailed realistic sets anymore.

The corridors tangled him deeper. Workshops again, drills and saws lined in careful rows, silent and waiting. Crates. Boxes. Every turn, every hallway, every door led him somewhere new—or nowhere at all. It was hard to tell even if he was going the right way.

He paused in one stretch when a brush of cologne wafted under his nostrils, bergamot and citrus, coming from somewhere to his left. He followed it to a larger room that looked like the heart of this place, four corridors splitting off to one side or the other. He barely had time to register the room before a voice came out of the dark:

"You're finally awake!" Roy's shout cut from the stairwell. He stood outlined in the stair's mouth, Lope's gun a dark extension of his arm. "Good."

Lope froze for a beat, everything jarring like a blown fuse. "Roy—" came out small and stupid.

The muzzle flash came before the sound—bright orange ripping through the gloom. The bullet pinged off the stone wall, ricochet screaming down the hallway.

I let out a startled yelp. "Ahh. You missed."

Roy ignored me.

Lope ducked and dove hard, pain lancing through his side, and tumbled into a wide-open wine vault to his left. Rows and rows of old oak racks loomed like prison bars. Bottles clinked as he slammed into them and crawled behind a dusty shelf. Another shot cracked, splintering wood just inches from his head. Glass shattered, and the sharp stink of vinegar-wine filled the air.

"Don't run from me, Lope!" Roy's voice whipped through the aisles, raw and weirdly gentle. "I can make this easier for you. For both of us."

That was a weird way to put it, but I'm letting Roy cook here on this dungeon encounter. After all, this was his first. I had no clue what he was as an enemy combatant, but it was a nice way to test out how minions fight for real. I had one already stirring upstairs, which I couldn't wait to spring on the others, if they ever get their asses out of the room. For now, I'm letting them recuperate. Their Resolve ain't ready yet.

I focused my attention back to the wine cellar.

Lope pressed his cheek to the cold stone floor, lungs on fire, trying not to breathe too loud. He heard boots scraped against the floor not far from him. Roy was coming in slow, the gun clutched in both hands. His voice cracked and warbled in the cellar.

"I'm sorry. You're a good kid, Lope. But I have to do this. He's watching."

"Hey. No spoilers," I said to Roy.

Still, Roy ignored me. I realized it was deliberate.

Lope peeked through a gap between the racks. Roy's silhouette moved down the aisle, a pale shape trembling in the dim yellow lightbulb that swung overhead.

"You don't have to do this, Roy!"

Roy answered by shooting in the direction of the sound. Lope dove again, scurrying deeper, and found a brace of barrels to hide behind. Bullets punched clean holes in the staves; a red cascade thundered out in a long stream, suddenly the floor was bleeding wine. Roy leaned and peeked along the shelf and found it empty. Lope was already somewhere else.

Roy cursed under his breath, frustrated. "Come out, Lope. Unlike the others, I promise I won't make it hurt too much. Just a little pain. Just enough. Your soul is not ready yet. I need to make it ready for him. You understand, right?"

Lope gritted his teeth. This guy's fucking crazy!

He scraped his palm along the shelf until his fingers found a corkscrew. Aha! A weapon! He wrapped his hand around it as if someone had handed him a knife to a gunfight. He rehearsed the motion in his head: lunge, seize the hand with the gun,, point it away from him, and then drive up the pointy end into Roy's throat. Quick. Ugly. Bloody. He was sure he could do it. Lope readied himself.

"Oh, this will be good," Oracle said, watching the entire thing through the computer screen back at the cabin.

"Hush. It's getting exciting," I said to the robot.

"You mustn't make it harder than it needs to be," Roy crooned from somewhere ahead. "Think of it as mercy. A few shots to drain you—then a clean end. The werewolves won't be so kind."

The word werewolves hit him like a stone, but Lope didn't have the energy to let the thought marinate further in his mind. He had the energy for one thing: staying alive long enough to get the hell out of here.

Roy was getting closer now. The hum of the generator thudded through the stone and in rhythm with Lope's blood. He could hear Roy talking to himself, but he couldn't make out the words. Wait, is he praying?

A footstep. Then, two. The bulb swayed, throwing them both into a strip of light. Lope's fingers tightened around the corkscrew until the metal bit into the side of his fingers.

"Please," Roy said, more to himself than to Lope. "Forgive me."

Then the light hit the aisle and Roy appeared up-close, unbelievingly small and horribly human with his gun raised, a single tear soaking the line of his right cheek. Lope lunged forward with the corkscrew.

Are those real tears? I wondered.

Roy fired. But Lope was already ducking, his shoulder rolling with momentum. The bullet screamed past his ear and smacked somewhere behind him.

Lope didn't stop there. He twisted his body and slammed into Roy like a linebacker. The hard impact should've driven the man to the floor. Should've knocked the wind out of him. Should've at least staggered him. But Roy didn't move. He stayed upright, solid as a post sunk in cement.

What the fuck—Lope barely had time to register it before Roy's hand was in the back of his shirt, yanking fabric tight against his spine. Another arm hooked beneath his armpit with obscene familiarity, and then Lope was airborne.

Both Oracle and I cringed hard. "Oof. That's gotta hurt," I said.

Lope slammed hard across the room, shoulder first, ribs screaming as stone bit into him. He rolled, skidding in a spray of broken glass and leaking wine until the top of his head kissed a barrel as his breath fled his lungs. Pain rang through him.

But the corkscrew was still in his fist, and when Lope staggered up, he realized there was blood around the swirling metal. Roy's shoulder was torn open where he made a shallow stab. Roy looked down at it with a kind of bored curiosity, then brushed it with his fingers like someone swiping dust from a sleeve. The blood came away wet and red, but his face didn't change.

Roy raised the gun again, leveled it at Lope's chest.

CLICK.

A hollow sound. He pulled the trigger again.

CLICK.

CLICK.

The gun jammed.

Oracle swiveled his head around to look at me.

I shook my head. "Nope. Not me. I didn't do that."

Lope didn't think and just grabbed the nearest thing he could see: A wine bottle from the rack. He hurled it with fastball speed. It caught Roy in the side of the head, bursting against his temple in a spray of shards and wine. Roy reeled back for just a second.

Lope was already grabbing another bottle. This one he smashed against the rack, the jagged bottom blooming in his hand like a crown. He didn't hesitate and lunged forward again.

Roy met him head-on. His hands came up fast—frighteningly fast—one clamping Lope's wrist, the other catching his shoulder. The two of them crashed together, teeth bared, grunting in each other's faces. The gun flew off from Roy's grip, skidding under the stacks of wine barrels, lost forever. Lope drove the bottle down mere inches from Roy's throat. But Roy's strength held him back, the jagged edges quivering against the air above his collarbone. Roy's breath came hot and rancid in Lope's face.

"Please, Lope, don't make me hurt you worse!"

Lope snarled, spit spraying his chin. "Go to Hell!"

The bottle jerked sideways, scraping across Roy's shoulder and tearing fabric. Roy roared, fury snapping through him, and with inhuman strength, he twisted Lope's wrist. But Lope wasn't giving up this fast. He let out a loud roar and drove his entire weight into Roy, slamming the jagged stump of bottle straight into the side of his neck. The glass punched through skin with a wet pop, slid deep into meat. Blood erupted hot and fast, spraying Lope's knuckles and all throughout his screaming face.

Roy shoved Lope off him with inhuman strength. Lope staggered, heel sliding in a puddle of wine as he hit the floor. His vision swam, but his adrenaline screamed at his body: get up, get up, get up!

Roy rose to his feet. The bottle was jutting grotesquely from his throat like a second Adam's apple. He reached up, grabbed it, and yanked it free with a wet squelch. Blood poured down his shirt, but his face stayed eerily calm. However, Lope noticed that Roy struggled a little to stand now.

He's getting slow, Lope thought. But he didn't know how much he could keep this up with weakening him when the man almost twice his age just brushed off a wound to the jugular.

I moved deeper into the wine cellar to take a closer look at the action. Then, the lights above flickered. The whole cellar stuttered with electricity responding to my supernatural presence, throwing shadows that jittered across the walls, long and insectile. The air grew thicker, heavier, like the cellar was breathing down on both of them. Lope's eyes widened, horrified.

Roy looked up at the lights—at me—and smiled, and yet I could still see hesitation behind it. Regret. Guilt. Defeated acceptance. "I know. I will."

Lope scrambled backward, crawling on his palms and heels, heart hammering against his ribcage. Roy advanced, each step slow and deliberate. The glass shard glistened in his bloody hand as he raised it overhead, like a priest with a sacrificial blade.

"You can't stop what's coming to you," Roy whispered, voice bubbling with blood. "You can't—"

He never finished.

A scream tore out of him as an axe head burst through his back, cleaving muscle and splitting bone. His arms pinwheeled, the glass shard fell and clattered against the stone floor. His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor with a loud grunt.

Behind him stood Kate, both hands locked on the axe handle. Her eyes were wide and bright in the flickering light in a mask of horror.

"Get up, Lope!" she hissed, wrenching the blade free with a wet, sucking sound.

Lope pushed himself upright. His hands found the iron rungs of the wine rack, rows and rows of dusty bottles staring out like blind eyes. The heavy rack gave way with a tortured scream as wine bottles cascaded like artillery fire. The air filled with glass shrapnel and the stench of sour grape blood.

The shelf smashed down across Roy's back. He buckled with a guttural roar, knees cracking the floorboards, hands clawing blindly at nothing. Bottles burst against him, dark liquid soaking his clothes, his hair, streaking his face like black blood.

A final grunt pushed out of his chest before he slumped under the wreckage, motionless.

Lope just stood there staring at the collapsed shelves and the sprawled thing beneath them. His chest rose and fell, adrenaline slowly escaping out of him. His hands trembled even though he tried to steady them against his knees. For a long beat, he looked less like a survivor and more like a kid lost in the dark room, too afraid to make any sudden moves.

"Kate?" Lope whispered, finally realizing who was in front of him. "What the heck are you doing down here?"

Before Kate could answer, another voice cut through the musty air. Suraj stepped out from behind the stacked barrels, his mouth wide open. He craned his neck to stare at the vague, sprawled shape pinned beneath the shelf.

"Holy fuck. Did you just kill that guy?" Suraj's shoes crunched broken glass as he edged closer.

"Don't go near him," Lope barked, sharper than he meant to. His hand shot out, palm open. "He's…something is wrong with him."

"Where's my sister?" Kate asked.

Lope stepped over the rack to get closer to them. "The last time I saw her, she was with Kevin at the library upstairs."

"Do you know the way?"

Lope paused for a second. "I think the stairwell back there leads to the rest of the manor. Roy was blocking it earlier."

Suraj pointed at Roy. "Wait, you know who this guy is?"

Lope gave a tight nod. "He's local."

Suraj let out a laugh, shaking his head. "Is everyone in this town just freaking crazy?"

"It's a…new thing." He looked at Kate when he said the next part, his voice low. "He's one of them now."

"One of what?"

"Whoever's attacking us. We were attacked earlier and Ray got injured."

"Us, too. There's this wild animal that got Xavier."

"How in the hell did you get here?"

"The tunnel."

"There's a tunnel?"

"Yeah," Suraj jumped in, his voice too eager and too loud. "A lot of them. All connected to the places around here. Hell, half the forest and the mountain's carved out with them. We were originally from that creepy Texas Chainsaw farmhouse. Glad we got out of there to swap it for another creepy dump."

Lope jerked his head up. "Um, excuse me, who the hell are you?"

"Suraj. Lawyer. Kidnapped victim."

"Oh." It was all Lope could say.

"It's a long story," Kate said quickly.

"Wait. Did you say Xavier got hurt? Are the kids with you?"

Before anyone could answer, frantic voices rattled down the hallway. They rushed out of the cellar and found Vivian crouched over Xavier. He was on the floor, his whole body jerking in violent spasms, his arms flailing like a puppet with its strings yanked. Foam flecked his lips, his eyes rolled white.

"Help me!" Vivian screamed.

"What's wrong with him?" Lope asked.

"I don't know!" Vivian's voice cracked. "We were walking and then he just collapsed all of a sudden!"

"He's having a seizure!" Kate said ran toward them.

Xavier's heels hammered the stone floor like a drumbeat. Vivian struggled with him as she sobbed, trying to cradle his head, but Xavier's body thrashed like it wanted to tear itself apart from the inside out.

Kate dropped to her knees beside her, shouting over the noise, "Roll him! Put him on his side or else he'll choke on his own spit!"

"What's happening to him?" Lope also got to his knees to help.

"He's been feeling sick…I…I don't know! What should we do?!" Vivian said frantically.

The three of them heaved together, muscles straining, until Xavier toppled onto his hip. His chest hitched, foam bubbling out between clenched teeth. And then—

A wet CRACK split the air.

Xavier arched in a way no spine should ever bend. Something inside him snapped. Blood geysered from his back, a red spray that splattered Kate and Lope across their faces and drenched Vivian's clothes in its steaming warmth. They screamed and recoiled, but Xavier only shrieked louder; an animal cry that reverberated throughout the basement.

"What's…happening…to meee?!" Xavier screamed. "It hurts! It hurts!"

His shirt tore itself apart as his flesh bulged against it. Vertebrae punched through skin like white fangs, splitting the length of his back. The sound was obscene, a ripping coupled with a deep, muscular pop, as if his whole skeleton was rearranging beneath the meat. His hands clawed at the floor, fingernails tearing away as black claws pushed through the nailbeds.

Xavier's head snapped back. His mouth opened in a soundless scream, neck straining until the tendons stood out like ropes. His eyes rolled, not to the people crouched around him, not to the cellar walls—upward. Toward the ceiling.

And there he saw something.

He saw me.

Terror ripped through Xavier like a heavy blanket. His own scream joined the crack of his bones and the wet gush of blood, as my silhouette leaned closer. I realized my form was no longer human, but something else entirely. It must be different for each mortal, but horrifying to witness nonetheless. He was turning into one of my archetypes…becoming part of my dungeon and inheriting the powers I bestowed for his archetype. And it was a grotesque and painful process.

Does he even recognize me? I wondered.

"Oh my god!" Suraj froze where he stood. "Get away from him or you'll get what he has!"

"Stay back!" Lope dragged Kate and Vivian away from Xavier, but they were too enthralled, in a macabre curiosity and horror, to watch what's happening to him.

Xavier's jaw unhinged with a crack that echoed through the cellar, stretching impossibly wide. Teeth rattled loose, spattering the boards in a mix of enamel and blood. New ones pushed through the ruined gums—long, canine, yellow, and hungry. His tongue lolled out like a black snake, thrashing as he gagged on his own transformation. His face warped, bones shifting under his skin like rats running just beneath the surface. His eyes bled red, pupils shrinking to pinpricks of gold. Tufts of hair sprouted wet and greasy from split follicles, spreading in uneven patches across his chest, shoulders, arms, and neck.

His spine finished this grotesque evolution with another wet pop like bubble wrap, and then a sudden lurch forward. Now he was on all fours, hunched like some starving beast, breathing raggedly through a new jaw built for killing.

[ You have gained 2 essences: Xavier Yates ]
[You have gained 300 crystals]

Were-Xavier blinked, bloody jaws parting, and exhaled a sound that wasn't human.

A growl rolled out of him like thunder.

And the realization hit all of them at once:

They were trapped in the cellar with this monstrosity.

In an instant, I saw two of the delvers's Resolve dropped to red: Suraj and Vivian.

The werewolf's eyes snapped to their trembling movement and saw the bloody aura that now shrouded them. Lope saw through it's intentions and barreled into the two women, knocking both of them sideways. They hit the ground hard, but the shove spared them.

Suraj bolted in the opposite direction, shoes almost slipping on spilled wine. He screamed and sprinted into the open belly of the cellar. For a second or two, it looked like he might make it, but the werewolf's momentum carried him straight into Suraj.

It hit Suraj mid-run, claws raking across his back with the wet rip of fabric and flesh like a butcher tearing a slab of meat from the bone. Suraj pitched forward, his scream breaking into a gurgle as the beast's jaws clamped down on his shoulder.

"Jesus Christ!" Lope bellowed, dragging Kate up by the arm.

Vivian couldn't move. She just stared as the monstrous creature shook Suraj like a rag doll, bones snapping inside his skin. One of his legs twitched grotesquely in the air before tearing free with a spray of blood, shoe still laced. The werewolf tossed it aside like garbage and went back for more, muzzle buried in his chest.

The noise was unbearable of flesh tearing and cartilage ripping apart, especially the wet sucking noises as the beast wrenched chunks free from the man's body. Suraj's screams dwindled into hoarse, pitiful whines, then nothing at all. Just the sound of chewing, tearing, and feeding.

[ You have gained 1 essence: Suraj Goyal ]
[You have gained 150 crystals]

Lope yanked Vivian by the wrist, hard enough to bruise. "I said, move!"

Kate was already sprinting, blood-slick shoes slapping against the stone. They hit the stairwell and climbed up the steps two at a time. Behind them, the beast raised its gore-soaked head, Suraj's insides draped from its jaws like butcher's trimmings. It snarled with red froth dripping down its fur, and bolted after them.

The three of them hurled themselves through the doorway. Lope grabbed the metal handle and heaved. The industrial sliding door screeched in protest, rust grinding against rust. The werewolf was already bounding up the stairs, claws scraping, and its eyes locked on them.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Lope grunted as his muscles screamed.

The beast was nearly on them when the door slammed shut with a metallic thunder. Its claws raked against the steel, the force of its body making the hinges quake. The whole stairwell shuddered with each impact.

"Let's go! Let's get out of here!" Lope shouted.

The three of them ran away from the door and spilled out into the manor's sprawling maze.