The chamber was a tableau of hell.
In front of me, a scene of such profound, abject horror unfolded that my mind, the mind of Kai from a world of sterile comforts and distant tragedies, simply refused to process it. People, dozens of them, were scattered across the cavern floor. Some were dead, their bodies torn and broken in ways that defied imagination. Others were barely breathing, their whimpers a faint, ghostly chorus in the suffocating silence. And the women… some were pregnant, their bellies grotesquely large, their eyes wide with a madness born from a suffering I couldn't even begin to comprehend. They were screaming, not for help, but to be killed, to be granted the mercy of an end to their torment. The air was thick and heavy with the coppery tang of blood and the foul, cloying stench of death and filth.
I vomited. A violent, retching heave that emptied the contents of my stomach onto the cold, damp stone.
