I was told we must not disturb them. That we must pass through silently.
The memory of the warning is sealed in my mind. I cannot remember who spoke it, nor what their voice sounded like, but the words remain, engraved in permanence.
We cannot turn back. Behind us lies a chasm of purgatory, where a cold stillness settles around those who enter, and none return. We were told to move only forward. That we would come upon a door we would not recognize, but would remember.
And now I believe we stand before it. Its edges shift subtly, as if breathing. Like everything here, it is grown, not built. Manifested, not engineered. There is no handle. No seam. We search in the dim light with our hands, feeling the faint pulse beneath its surface.
Just as we begin to wonder if our memory is flawed, contaminated—the center of the door draws inward. The flesh parts, folding into itself, forming a tunnel. Take my hand. It is time.
We have arrived. This is where I was told they gather.
The passage slopes downward into a chamber grown in reverence to entities we have never known. The floor is uneven. Cords of tissue run along the walls and beneath our feet. We move carefully.
Another opening waits ahead, and beyond it, a vast chamber unfolds. The walls pulse slowly. Larger cords climb upward, branching into twelve hollow recesses.
This is where they dwell.
Within those hollows, shapes shift in shadow. Their ceremony fills the chamber, a low-frequency chanting that reverberates inside our bones. We must pass through without disturbing them.
Slowly, quietly, we reach the center. And then the thought comes, shared between us without words.
Why have we come here?
We freeze in place, and in that moment the reverberation rises. The chamber pulses harder as movement stirs in the hollows.
We should not have thought that. We have failed. We have disturbed them.
And now they emerge.
Towering forms draped in thick folds of flesh like ceremonial robes. Their elongated heads tilt upward as they sing—tones that ripple through our marrow.
They surround us as fear rises and we try to move, but it is already too late. Our bodies lift from the ground and we hover in stasis, arms outstretched, suspended as if nailed to invisible crosses.
One approaches me.
It stoops low.
Then, astonishingly, it lowers itself before me. As if in supplication.
Its body spreads across the pulsing floor, its flesh softening into a viscous mass. From within that heap something begins to rise.
A second form unfolds upward from the liquefying body.
Rigid and angular, a black metallic bone gleaming beneath a thin translucent skin stretched tight across its frame. Inside, ropes of corrugated black tissue twist and writhe like worms.
Its head tilts down toward me and the face moves closer.
Eyes—hollow fleshy pits containing deep red spheres swimming in clear mucus—flick across me with cold indifference. Two grotesque digits grasp my arm. Black talons curl around my flesh, and it spins me in the air until I face you.
Behind you another has transformed. The chanting swells until the air itself trembles. The sound rotates around us, pulling from one side, pushing from the other.
And then—
silence.
For a moment I believe this was the path all along. But that moment leaves as quickly as purgatory did. In perfect unison the creatures reach forward, their claws slide gently along our torsos. Searching, then finding purchase beneath our ribs.
They pierce our flesh.
We scream, but the sound that leaves us is swallowed by a new chant rising like the tide. The claws push deeper and then draw our ribs outward. Our chests bloom like grotesque flowers. Yet our organs do not spill. The pressure of the chanting holds them suspended within us. Two more figures approach, their slick skulls push our chins upward, and from their mouths emerge black tendrils, thin and glistening.
They slide inside us. Around every organ, separating, unwinding.
Drinking.
I feel my essence draining away as I watch the same happen to you.
We are joining them.
Our bodies dry and crumble as awareness fades, and something else begins to align within us. It is clear now.
We were never meant to leave.
We will stand among them.
In reverence.
And we will wait—
for the next interlopers
to stumble into our chamber.
© 2025 Joel L. All rights reserved.
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Thanks for reading. - Joel L.
The Drift Faction Index- Available Here
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