Tyke woke screaming.
Not because of a dream, but because something had touched him.
The room was dark, the only light a pale smear of moon spilling through the crooked window. He sat bolt upright, his breath jagged, sweat pooling down his back. The sheets tangled around his legs were damp, clinging to his skin as though trying to hold him down.
His heart slammed. He scanned the room—bed, chair, wall, crack. All as before. No sound but the hum of the night and the faint scrape of tree branches outside.
But he had felt it.
A hand.
Cold, paper-thin, brushing his ankle.
"Not real," Tyke whispered to himself, shaking his head. "Dream. Just a dream. Just—"
Not dream.
The voice slid inside his skull like a knife between ribs. He gasped, clutching his temples. He knew that whisper. Not the pit. Not the hooded figure. Something else.
Something he'd carried back.
"No," Tyke hissed, stumbling out of bed. "You're gone. You're—"
We are not gone.
The sound was layered, like a hundred dry throats speaking at once. Tyke staggered against the wall, fingers clawing the plaster, nails filling with white dust.
He remembered the husks.
Dozens of them, twisted, brittle, emptied into the pit. He had fled past them, half-convinced he heard some twitching behind him, but too terrified to look. He had told himself they were just corpses.
But what if they weren't?
Tyke's skin crawled. He glanced at the shadow under the bed. It seemed thicker than it should, stretching wider, darker.
And then—movement.
Something shifted inside it.
Tyke stumbled back, tripping over the chair, falling hard onto his side. His ribs screamed. He scrambled up, eyes fixed on the darkness seeping from beneath the bed.
It wasn't shadow. Not anymore. It was thicker, denser, a smear of black smoke that pulsed faintly. The smell of rot filled the air, sharp and cloying.
Tyke gagged, hand over his mouth.
The blackness rose.
It poured upward, like ink in water, forming the vague outline of a body. Thin arms, a crooked head, hollow sockets for eyes. Its jaw unhinged, and from the gap came a voice he recognized too well—one of the travelers from the corridor. The woman with the hair to the floor.
"You left us," it croaked.
Tyke's stomach lurched. His throat closed.
The figure dragged itself free from the bed's shadow, joints creaking like old timber. Its hair slithered behind it, a mass of strands that twitched as if alive. The husk stepped forward, feet scraping the boards.
Tyke stumbled back against the wall. "You— You were dead!"
"Dead?" The husk's head snapped sideways with a dry crack. "No. Fed. Changed. Waiting."
The strands of hair whipped across the floor, curling like ropes. They slid toward Tyke's ankles, fast as snakes.
He jumped onto the chair, wobbling, nearly falling. His hands found the curtain rod above, and with a panicked grunt, he tore it down. The iron rod came free with a screech.
The hair lashed at him, coiling around the chair legs. Tyke swung the rod wildly, smashing it across the husk's face. The blow connected with a sound like breaking pottery.
The husk's head caved inward, but it did not fall. It straightened slowly, the broken pieces shifting back into place, re-forming with a sick crackle.
"Can't kill," it whispered. "Not now. Not after the pit."
Tyke's breath came in ragged bursts. His arms shook, the rod slippery in his grip.
The husk lunged.
He swung again, catching it in the side. It staggered, hair thrashing, scraping gouges across the floorboards. Tyke darted past, barefoot on splinters, and wrenched the door open.
The corridor stretched ahead, dim as ever. He sprinted, his breath echoing. Behind him came the scraping, the dragging steps, the hiss of strands sliding over wood.
You cannot run forever, the whisper bloomed in his head. We are in you now. In every corner. Every shadow.
Tyke's chest burned. His legs trembled. But he didn't stop.
Not until he reached the end of the hall, where another door loomed—a door he didn't remember.
He skidded to a halt, heart racing. The husk's scraping drew closer behind him. He had no choice. He threw the door open and flung himself inside.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
And then, the door closed on its own.
The door sealed with a sigh.
Not a creak of hinges, not the snap of a latch, but a low, tired exhalation that filled Tyke's ears as though the wood itself had lungs.
He spun back immediately, fumbling for the knob, but his palm found only smooth surface.
No handle.
No seam.
No hint of escape.
Just a wall of black timber, slick under his skin, humming faintly like a beast purring in its sleep.
"Fantastic," Tyke muttered, breath shallow. "First I get called like a cow to slaughter, now I've wandered into a door that doesn't even have the decency to be a door. Brilliant, Tyke. Absolutely brilliant."
His voice sounded small, eaten by the dark.
The room—or whatever this was—wasn't part of the inn. He knew that instantly. The air was different. Heavy. Sweet, almost, like flowers left too long in a grave. It clung to his tongue, sickening. The floor beneath his bare feet wasn't wood but something softer, spongy, yielding slightly to each step. He refused to look down, unwilling to confirm what his skin already told him.
A faint glow bled from the walls, not enough to reveal details, only enough to suggest endlessness. The glow pulsed, slow and steady, as though the room itself had a heartbeat.
"Great," Tyke whispered, hugging the curtain rod like a spear. "I've entered the world's ugliest lung."
Something answered.
Not with words, not even with whispers. The glow dimmed, then flared, as if in rhythm with his sarcasm. Like it heard him.
Tyke's knuckles whitened around the rod. "No. No, no, no. You're not listening. You're not—"
We are always listening.
The words weren't sound. They blossomed inside his skull, pressing behind his eyes. Tyke staggered, clutching his head.
"Brilliant," he groaned. "Now the wallpaper's telepathic."
A laugh skittered through his mind—not the pit's hunger, not El Como's oily whisper, but something lighter, crueler. The walls pulsed again, faster now.
And then the floor shifted.
Tyke nearly toppled. The spongy ground beneath him rippled, bulging upward as though something crawled just beneath the surface. He leapt back, nearly dropping the rod. The bulge traveled across the floor, circling him, faster and faster, until the whole ground seemed to breathe.
The curtain rod shook in his hands.
"Alright," Tyke muttered, voice tight. "Not panicking. Just standing in a… meat-room, being circled by whatever the hell that is. Perfectly normal evening."
The bulge stopped. Directly behind him.
Slowly—very slowly—Tyke turned his head.
The wall had changed.
Where there had been smooth, pulsing surface, now a face bulged outward. Not carved, not drawn—pressed, as though someone on the other side was straining against a sheet of stretched skin. Hollow sockets gaped where eyes should be. A mouth opened, wide, wider, impossibly wide, the thin membrane stretching without tearing.
From the gaping mouth came a single word:
"Hungry."
Tyke screamed and swung the curtain rod with both hands. It cracked against the wall-face with a meaty thud. The face collapsed inward like a popped blister, and thick black fluid sprayed across his arm, stinking of rust and vinegar.
He stumbled back, gagging. The fluid hissed, burning the floor where it landed.
The wall pulsed violently, then calmed. The glow dimmed again, slow, steady, heartbeat returning to its rhythm.
Tyke wiped his arm on his shirt, though the stink clung. He pressed his back to the opposite wall, panting, rod raised.
"Hungry," he mocked between ragged breaths. "Yeah, well, me too, but you don't see me sticking my face through walls begging for dinner."
Silence. Only the pulse.
Tyke slid down the wall until he was sitting, rod across his knees. His whole body trembled. His chest ached where the pit had nearly ripped him apart. His throat still burned from keeping his essence sealed.
And yet—he wasn't dead. That counted for something.
He closed his eyes. Tried to breathe. Tried to convince himself that when he opened them, the room would be gone. That he'd be back in the inn, with a cracked plaster wall and a bed that smelled faintly of mildew, but at least wasn't alive.
He opened them.
The room remained.
But it was no longer empty.
Across from him, another door had appeared. A tall, narrow arch of black wood, its frame carved with twisting sigils that writhed faintly in the glow.
Tyke's stomach clenched. He didn't want to go near it. He didn't want to open another cursed door and fall deeper into whatever nightmare this was.
But behind him there was no exit. Only the wall that breathed.
He stood, legs shaking, and gripped the rod tighter. "Alright, Tyke. Door number two. Maybe it's a kitchen. Maybe it's a broom closet. Maybe it's Hell itself. Place your bets."
He crossed the room. The closer he came, the colder the air grew, until frost formed on his breath. His hand trembled as he reached for the frame.
The sigils writhed, and for a moment he thought he heard laughter in them.
"Fine," Tyke muttered. "Laugh it up. Let's see what's behind curtain number doom."
He pushed.
The door opened with no sound at all.
Beyond lay not another room, but a corridor of mirrors.
Dozens of them, lining both sides, stretching endlessly. Each mirror reflected not him but versions of him. Some older, some younger, some twisted. One Tyke grinned with too many teeth. Another wept black fluid from empty sockets. Another hung suspended on invisible strings, jerking like a puppet.
Tyke froze, bile rising.
"Okay," he whispered. "This is new."
One of the reflections moved.
Not with him. Not in sync.
It leaned closer to the glass, eyes bright red, lips curling.
"Come closer," it mouthed.
Tyke staggered back. Every other reflection smiled in unison.
He clutched the rod to his chest, throat raw. "Nope. Nope. Absolutely not. Not today, demon-me. You stay in your glass box."
But the mirrors began to ripple, surface softening like water. The reflections pressed harder, hands pushing through, fingers stretching into the corridor.
Tyke turned and ran.
The corridor stretched forever, mirrors lining both sides, endless Tyke-variants clawing for release. Some laughed, some sobbed, some shrieked. Their voices overlapped, a chorus of madness.
"Coward," one hissed.
"Liar," spat another.
"Usurper," growled a third.
Tyke's lungs burned. His feet slapped against the cold stone, his rod clattering at his side. He didn't dare look back, though he heard the glass shattering, the scramble of feet on stone.
And then—suddenly—the corridor ended.
Another door. Plain wood, cracked, ordinary.
Tyke didn't hesitate. He flung it open and hurled himself through.
The door slammed behind him, and the voices cut off.
He collapsed on the floor, gasping, chest heaving. His palms bled where he'd gripped the rod too tightly.
When he looked up, he realized he was back in his room.
The cracked wall. The chair. The bed.
Normal.
Too normal.
Tyke's lips trembled. "No. No, it's not. You don't just walk through funhouse hell and end up back where you started."
The window rattled in the wind. The bed creaked. Nothing else moved.
Slowly, Tyke climbed onto the mattress, curling into himself. His eyes darted around, waiting for the walls to breathe, for the shadows to rise, for another husk to drag itself from the dark.
None came.
But he knew this wasn't over. The pit had called. He had resisted. Now it was testing him, shaping him, laughing at him.
And somewhere, beyond cracked walls and false doors faltered.
nother ability-bearer who responded differently to the call?