Alpha walked with his shoulders hunched, the three dreamstones clutched tightly in his palm. Their faint glow lit his path, but the ruins swallowed the light as though the stones themselves were afraid.
The silence was heavier now. The kind that pressed against his ears, making him hear his own heartbeat. He staggered forward, bruised and aching, the shard of stone still his only weapon.
The corpse-filled street stretched on and on.
But then it bent.
Not like a road curving through a city. This was different. The stones rippled. The ground itself twisted as though some unseen hand had taken hold of the world and wrung it like cloth.
Alpha stopped. His stomach knotted.
The ruins bled away into something else.
The broken walls sank into the ground. The cracked earth split wider. Ash spilled out, black and endless, coating the ground in a suffocating blanket. The sky above was gone—if it had ever been there—replaced by a red haze that burned his throat when he breathed.
It was as though Viren had torn open another layer of itself.
Alpha sank to his knees, coughing into his hand. Ash clung to his skin, sinking into his lungs. He raised his head and froze.
Figures moved in the haze.
Not shackled corpses this time, but silhouettes of men with whips. Overseers. Their bodies were made of smoke and cinder, their eyes glowing like embers. They stood tall, their faces obscured, but their whips cracked in the silence. The sound was sharp, echoing through the wasteland, stabbing into Alpha's bones.
His chest tightened. His body flinched as though waiting for the lash. The weight of years slammed into him, crushing the fragile spark the dreamstones had given him.
The overseers raised their whips in unison.
"No…" Alpha whispered, stumbling back. His voice cracked, hoarse, his hands trembling. "No… I left you… I left all of you…"
The whips lashed down, tearing into the ash. The sound split the air, and the ground itself seemed to writhe. The overseers advanced, their forms shifting between shadow and flame.
Alpha turned and ran.
The ash clung to his legs, each step heavy, but he forced himself forward. His breaths came in ragged bursts, his body screaming with exhaustion, yet he did not stop. The ruins had been chains. This was his fear given form.
And still Viren twisted.
The ash fields thinned, giving way to a cavern of bone. Towering walls of ribcages rose on either side, skulls embedded in the floor, their hollow sockets staring at him. The air was damp, heavy with the stench of marrow. Every step echoed like he was walking inside the belly of some dead giant.
Alpha slowed, his heart hammering. His legs shook, and his hands clutched the shard and dreamstones as if they could shield him.
From the shadows between the ribs, something stirred.
Not the shambling corpses of before. These were leaner, faster. Their bodies were stitched from sinew and scraps of armor, their skulls bound with wire. Their fingers ended in claws sharpened from bone.
Hungry undead.
They crawled across the ribs like spiders, their hollow eyes glinting with hunger.
Alpha's throat dried. He backed away, his heel crunching against a skull. The sound rang through the cavern like a bell.
The creatures froze. Then they screamed.
They came at him all at once, leaping from the ribs with claws outstretched.
Alpha barely raised his shard in time. The first slammed into him, claws raking across his chest. Pain exploded. He screamed, driving the shard upward into its jaw. Bone cracked, ichor spilling across his hand. The creature convulsed, but another leapt on his back, its claws digging into his shoulders.
Alpha roared, slamming himself against the bone wall, crushing it between him and the ribs. The crack echoed through the cavern, but more were coming, their claws scraping the ground as they rushed forward.
His vision blurred with pain. His breath came in shudders. Fear threatened to drown him.
But in the blur of ash and bone, he remembered the overseers' whips. The sound of chains. The endless years of being beaten down.
Not again.
Not again.
With a guttural shout, Alpha hurled himself into the swarm. His shard slashed wildly, his fists striking, his teeth bared. Each strike was sloppy, desperate, but it was his. His body screamed in agony, his skin torn and bleeding, but he refused to fall.
The first creature died with a crack of its skull. The second fell with his shard buried deep in its throat. The third clawed his arm open, but he ripped its head free with his bare hands, roaring as ichor drenched him.
He staggered, his knees buckling. His breath was fire in his lungs. But the creatures lay still.
Lights flickered again. Stones, faint and glowing, tumbled from their bodies.
Dreamstones.
Alpha's shaking hands scooped them up, clutching them so tightly the edges cut his skin. The warmth bled into him, numbing the pain, sharpening the fire in his chest.
---
[ Dreamstones: 5 ]
---
He collapsed against the bone wall, his whole body trembling. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, his eyes half-closed. The cavern pressed in on him, the skulls grinning in silence, the dreamstones glowing faintly in his bloodied hands.
Viren had shifted again. From ruins, to ash, to bone. Each shape was not random—it was him. His chains, his fear, his emptiness.
The labyrinth was alive. It was not testing him. It was devouring him, one memory at a time.
Alpha clenched the stones, his voice no louder than a whisper, hoarse and broken but stubborn.
"You won't take me."
The bone cavern gave no answer. Only silence. Only the faint pulse of the dreamstones in his hands, like a heartbeat not his own.