Kaelen stirred awake once more—only this time, not to the cramped bed and stark white concrete walls she had endured for the past three years. Her return to consciousness was slow, muddled. Her head throbbed, sharp and piercing, as though someone had driven a knife into her skull again and again.
When her blurred vision finally sharpened, she realized she was no longer in her cell. She lay face-down in cold dirt, her body slick with wet mud that clung to her skin and clothes. Forcing herself upright, Kaelen took in her surroundings.
It appeared to be a forest—but not like any she had ever known. There was no greenery, no vibrant life. The trees stood like corpses, bare and skeletal, their branches stripped of leaves. The ground was barren—no bushes, no grass, no sign of anything that should have belonged to a living forest.
And yet… there was life. A different, grotesque kind. Fungi covered the landscape, climbing along tree trunks, spreading across the soil. Most of it was jet black, its bulbous pores glowing faintly with an inner red light. The closer Kaelen looked, the more revolting it became. The fungus looked disturbingly fleshlike, with veins pulsing beneath its surface and tissue stretched across its growths. From its pores, thick droplets of dark red liquid oozed down like blood from an open wound.
The stench of blood clung to the air, thick and unrelenting. Kaelen gagged against it, certain it seeped from the grotesque fungus that blanketed everything in sight. It was everywhere—on the trees, across the soil, dripping its dark ichor into the mud. She dared not touch it, fearing it might be carnivorous, infectious, or worse.
She sat still for a time, forcing her head to clear and her thoughts to steady. When she finally rose to her feet, her only instinct was survival: find shelter, find something—anything—that could orient her in this nightmare.
The sky offered little comfort. No sun, no moon—only endless, swirling clouds of black and gray, shifting and devouring each other in an eternal storm. Every so often, a weak shaft of light pierced through, only to be consumed again by the churning dark. Whether this place even had a cycle of day and night, she couldn't tell.
Her problem now was direction. No matter which way she turned, she saw the same skeletal trees, the same pulsing, bloody fungi. High ground would be her best hope, a vantage point above the canopy. With no sun to guide her and no compass, she picked a direction at random and started walking.
Time bled away with her steps. Minutes, hours—she couldn't be sure. Each rise of land she found led nowhere, never high enough to break through the wall of dead wood. Her eyes swept the forest floor for signs of life, for anything she might eat or track. She found nothing. No grass. No birds. No animals. Only the ever-present, ever-spreading mushrooms.
'Damn things…' she muttered under her breath. Kaelen was never a picky eater, but the thought that these grotesque mushrooms might be her only source of food made her gag instinctively. Hunger hadn't touched her yet, and she knew why. Back in Lukros, military training had come with body modifications, enhancements meant to push soldiers past normal limits. They were stronger, had more stamina, and could go much longer without food than ordinary people. But finding a food source now would be much better than doing it later when she started to starve.
A thought gnawed at her: if she truly had died, why would she even need to eat at all? The disgusting scenery when she first woke had pushed the idea aside, but now, with her head clearer, the realization began to set in. She had died. And yet, here she was—breathing, walking, thinking.
'Maybe it's one of those clichés,' she thought. 'The ones where the character dies and gets sent into some fantasy world. If that's the case, then why the hell did I get stuck with such a gross one!?'
As a kid, Kaelen had read plenty of novels and watched more than her fair share of cartoons. So she figured she might as well try the same dumb tricks she'd seen in them.
'System. Menu. Status window.'
She waited. Nothing.
'Figures,' she muttered, shaking her head. 'Worth a shot.'
With disappointment weighing on her, Kaelen continued in the same direction. She didn't have to walk far before the forest broke into a clearing. What she found there was… unexpected.
A town. Small, quiet, and long abandoned. The houses looked centuries old, built of wood and brick rather than concrete and steel. Roofs sagged, walls cracked, windows shattered—structures worn thin by time, and of course covered in the same vile fungi. At the center of the town stood a bell tower, rising just high enough that it might give her a view over the endless stretch of dead trees.
But first, supplies. If there was anything left behind, she'd need it more than anything else.
Kaelen approached the nearest house, careful with her steps. The silence around her pressed in close, heavy and watchful. She gripped the handle, pushed—and the door tore loose from its hinges, slamming to the ground with a hollow crash. She froze instantly. The sound echoed through the empty streets, far too loud. If anything was out there, it would know exactly where she was.
She waited. Seconds ticked by. Nothing stirred.
Slipping inside, Kaelen was met with the stale stench of rot, mildew, and the metallic smell of blood. The kitchen drew her first—if there was food, it would be there. She searched every cabinet, every shelf. The pantry was nothing but dust. The refrigerator sagged open with a foul breath of spoiled air. A few cans and boxes still clung to the shelves, their labels faded, their contents long past the point of recognition.
'Considering the state of these homes, I should've known any food here wasn't going to last. These houses look centuries old compared to today. Wait… why is there even a town here? If I'm not on Earth anymore—or even in the same realm as Earth—why would there be old Earth-style architecture at all?'
'No… I'm getting sidetracked. I can ask those questions later.'
Pushing her thoughts aside, Kaelen made her way toward the second floor. She placed each step carefully on the withered staircase, half-expecting the wood to splinter under her weight. More than food, she needed clothes. The thin white prison jumpsuit she still wore barely offered warmth.
At the top, she entered the first bedroom. From the size of the bed and the space itself, it was clearly the master bedroom. Her eyes moved immediately to the closet against the far wall.
Inside was a row of garments, their colors dulled with age but still intact. Nightgowns, dresses, and suits hung side by side, all styled in a way that looked straight out of the nineteenth century. She focused on the men's garments, pulling out a pair of black trousers and a white button-up shirt. By the door stood a coat rack, holding a long black leather trench coat. She wasn't too cold now, but a coat was better than nothing. There was also a pair of black boots by the coat rack to replace her tattered leather shoes. The more layers she had, the less chance of cuts or scrapes—and with no medical supplies, an infection could easily mean death. If she was even capable of dying again. She had no intention of finding out.
Leaving the first house, Kaelen spent a few more hours searching the nearby homes for anything useful. As expected, there was no food anywhere remotely edible. The clothing was much the same as what she had already taken. Still, she managed to scavenge a few items worth keeping: a compass, so she could finally navigate with direction; a handful of kitchen knives; and, most importantly, several wool blankets to use for warmth and bedding.
Wrapping her supplies in the blankets, Kaelen slung the bundle over her shoulder and set her sights on the bell tower. The fleshlike fungus had spread to cover most of the tower's base, its pulsing growth climbing across the doorframe in thick layers. Near the top, around the bell itself, the stone looked untouched, clear of infestation. The real problem was getting inside. Kaelen still hesitated to go near the growth—let alone cut through it—but at the moment she didn't have another choice.
She set her bundle of blankets on the ground and unwrapped them, pulling out one of the kitchen knives. Steeling herself, she stepped up to the doorframe, lifted the blade, and pressed it against one of the fleshy tendrils stretching outward from the bulbous mass.
To her shock, the tendril twitched. Just a faint shiver, but enough to make her recoil as if it had burned her. She nearly lost her footing.
'Did… did that thing just fucking move!? No. No, maybe I'm losing it. The stench of blood must be messing with my head, giving me some kind of high. Because there is no way in hell that mushroom just moved.'
Kaelen paused to catch her breath, forcing her nerves to settle. With one last effort to steel herself, she pressed the blade against the tendrils again. This time there was no mistaking it—it moved. The moment her knife dug in, thick fungal blood oozed out, and the tissue writhed under the blade like freshly butchered meat.
It took several minutes of grim work to slice through the mass. Each cut made the tendrils twitch violently, but at last she cleared enough of them to squeeze through the doorway. The wooden door that had once stood there had long since rotted and collapsed, its remains now swallowed completely by the infestation.
Retrieving her bundle of supplies, Kaelen crouched low, ducking under the last of the tendrils, and slipped inside.
The sight that met her was worse than she had imagined. The bell tower's interior was completely consumed. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling were buried beneath the growth. Tendrils wrapped across the furniture, winding around beams and splitting cracks into the stone. The infestation here was thicker, heavier—far more concentrated—than in any of the houses she had searched before.
In the center of the room stood a ladder, choked with fungal growth. It looked to be the only way up, likely leading to the top of the bell tower. The rest of the chamber was spacious, and Kaelen felt the urge to explore it further—but the infestation was so thick it formed an almost solid layer, one that would take hours to cut through.
Focusing on her goal, she set her supplies down for a moment and pulled out some spare clothing. She had no intention of touching the vile growth with her bare hands, so she wrapped the fabric tightly around her pale fingers.
Glancing at the ladder again, she exhaled sharply.
'This is probably the most disgusting thing I'll ever have to touch.'
Her first grip made the fungus writhe and twitch under her palm, but she forced herself upward. Step by step, she climbed, and as she did the growth thinned. Higher and higher she went until, after a minute of ascent, the ladder was free of the infestation—and so was the upper chamber of the tower.
Above her was a trapdoor. She pushed it open and hauled herself through.
The top of the bell tower was clean, untouched by the fungus. It was wide enough for her to spread her blankets across the floor, offering a place of rest. But what caught her attention most was the copper bell itself.
Setting her supplies aside, Kaelen approached the bell. She couldn't explain why, but something about it drew her in—almost as if she were enchanted by its presence. Reaching out, she ran her hand across its surface, brushing away a thick layer of dust.
Beneath the grime, faint markings began to appear. She wiped more of the bell clean, revealing rows of strange symbols etched into the metal. Kaelen frowned. She was no expert in foreign languages—her training as a soldier had only covered the basics—but she knew enough to recognize that these symbols were unlike anything from her world. They looked ancient, impossibly old, as though they belonged to a civilization far removed from anything she had studied.
She wanted to know more, but there was little she could do. The language was alien to her, and ringing the bell to test it was out of the question—she had no intention of drawing unwanted attention with such a sound. For now, she pushed it to the back of her mind, dismissing it as nothing more than a copper bell marked with strange engravings.
It was time to focus on what she came here to do. Kaelen retrieved the compass from her stack of supplies, orienting herself as she scanned the horizon for landmarks. West offered nothing but endless trees and more fungal growth—the direction she had originally come from when she first woke up.
'I definitely got lucky picking the right way. If I'd gone in any other direction, I would've been walking for days.'
She shook her head at the thought and turned east. More trees. More fungi. But there was one landmark that stood out.
'…A church? With a bell tower, just like this one—directly connected to it.'
It didn't appear to be a town, just the church and its adjoining tower. Still, it wasn't far. A couple of hours on foot and she could be there. Such a close landmark would likely be her next destination.
Next, she looked south. From this height, she could clearly see the end of the forest, where the land was cut off by a massive mountain range. But these weren't the elegant mountains of Earth, the kind meant for sightseeing. Their jagged, spiked peaks clawed at the sky, their presence radiating a sinister atmosphere.
Her gut twisted. She couldn't explain why, but every instinct told her to stay far away from those mountains.
Finally, she turned north. She didn't have to search long before her eyes caught the massive landmark looming in the distance.
'Is that… a city? No… calling it a kingdom would be more accurate.'
To call it massive would've been an understatement. The walls were impossibly tall, stretching over the forest and extending so far east and west that she couldn't even see where they ended. By foot, it would be at least a week's journey away.
Beyond the walls, the structures were hidden from view—except for one. The castle.
It rose like a jagged spire, its dark silhouette piercing nearly into the clouds. The higher it climbed, the thinner and sharper it became. The longer she stared, the more her head throbbed, as if the sheer magnitude of the structure pressed against her mind.
With a heavy breath, Kaelen sat back down on her spread blankets, letting the weight of the discovery sink in. As she settled down, Kaelen noticed something shift within the clouds above. The swirling mass grew thicker, darker—swallowing what little light had managed to pierce through earlier. This realm did have a day and night cycle, it seemed, but not like the one she had known on Earth. Here, the sun did not fall beneath a horizon—it was simply smothered by the heavy blanket of clouds, choking off the light until only darkness remained.
Any further exploring would have to wait until tomorrow. Kaelen shifted on the blankets she had spread across the floor, pulling one over herself. Despite the unsettling conditions, this was the most comfortable rest she'd had in years.
'At least now I have actual leg room,' she mumbled, letting out a dry chuckle.
After everything that had happened—her execution, waking in this strange realm, the endless hours of walking, scavenging through rotted cabinets and decayed wardrobes—it was no surprise that sleep came quickly. Every detail of her death lingered fresh in her mind, but exhaustion drowned it out, pulling her under.
Yet not even a few hours into her rest, she began to understand why the nights in this dreadful world were truly harrowing.