Bazren grit her teeth, her jaw tight, nodding in grim agreement.
Bazren: "I noticed it too -- their bodies look as if they've been sucked dry."
She prodded a nearby corpse with the toe of her worn boot, the sound of leather on desiccated flesh strangely loud in the oppressive silence.
Like empty, discarded shells, drained of their essence. Each and every part seemed dehydrated – desiccated even, as if some unseen force had leached the very moisture from their being, leaving behind only brittle husks.
As if the entire population had been mummified.
Bazren: "Xayn... Stop!"
Her voice, though still low, was suddenly sharp with urgency.
His eyes widened, snapping to attention, as he froze in his tracks.
Bazren (whispering): "Listen..."
She tilted her head, her wind rose irises darting around, searching, listening.
A muffled cry, faint but unmistakable --
A child's.
Distressed, thin tendrils of sound reaching them from a nearby home.
One whose outside, even in this charnel house, seemed especially bloody, the wood stained a dark, almost black crimson.
Xayn (whispering): "Oh come on... Not this for our first interaction...!"
Bazren (whispering): "Don't you start crying, too -- let's get in there already!"
They moved closer to the front door of the blood-soaked house.
No handle.
Judging by the splintered, gaping hole where it should be... its absence seemed less like an oversight and more like a recent, aggressive redesign.
Bazren slowly pushed the door inwards, the hinges groaning in protest, creaking a mournful song as it swung inwards, revealing the horrors within.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Bazren: "O-oy..."
Her usual bravado faltered, the sardonic edge to her voice momentarily blunted by the sheer wrongness of what lay before them.
Though the gruesome scenario outside had already primed them for the worst, somehow...
Their expectations were still crushed.
Sliced.
Diced.
Ripped.
And torn.
Much like the innards of countless inhabitants that were now decking the halls of this demonic sanctum.
The floor, walls and ceiling were coated in blood -- still fresh, still dripping with a sickeningly rhythmic plink... plink... plink.
Intestines hung from above, glistening and slick, left out to dry at the same time as they livened up the otherwise dull wooden joists.
Other organs, with a disturbing commitment to categorization, seemed neatly grouped in their little piles -- the liver pile, a glistening mound of dark red; the lung pile, spongy and pale; the heart pile, still faintly pulsing with residual life.
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At the very least, the one orchestrating this horrific display seemed to have order and organization at the top of their list of priorities...
... and if the list were as long as they were tall ...
... well, let's just say it wouldn't be a very long list at all.
Xayn (whispering): "It's... the child...?!"
At the far end of the house, several more corpses were heaped carelessly near one of the corners, a messy afterthought compared to the meticulously arranged organ displays.
Beside them, a wooden, blood-soaked table, crudely fashioned but functional, served as the one and only workstation in this horrific (dis)assembly line.
Its sole worker?
A terrorized, inconsolable child.
Crying child: "P-please make it stop... PLEASE!!!"
His small body shook with sobs, tears mixing with the blood splattered across his face.
A fleshy appendage, thick and pulsing, extended from his forearm, twitching with unnatural life. It moved with horrifying dexterity, nimbly cutting up each body part with impossible precision, turning its insides into outsides with sickening efficiency.
Each organ, once separated, was thrown with mechanical precision into its corresponding pile.
Disturbing --
but undeniably, and unsettlingly, impressively effective.
Bazren (whispering): "How the fuck do you even deal with this...?!"
Demonic voice: "YOU FEED ME MORE."
The ground trembled beneath their feet, the wooden floorboards groaning ominously.
A deep, guttural voice, thick with malice and a disturbing hint of childish petulance, bellowed out from the strange growth attached to the child. It resonated in their very bones, a vibration of pure wrongness.
Then --
It extended forth, unnaturally long and disturbingly flexible.
From the back of the house, snaking its way across the blood-soaked floor, all the way to the entrance, it moved with alarming speed.
Swinging wildly mere centimetres from Bazren's face, the fleshy horror finally stopped, allowing her to take a good, long look at it.
A fleshy, bloody dagger, grotesquely organic, with a gaping mouth full of jagged, needle-sharp teeth that dripped with saliva and something far less palatable. A large, bulbous nose, swollen and veined, twitched as it sampled the air.
It stopped its erratic movements.
Sniffed them... with a wet, gurgling inhale...
... and immediately regretted it.
Its grotesque mouth retched violently, a series of wet, gagging sounds, as if it had inhaled the foulest of odours ever to plague existence.
Demonic voice: "EURGH!"
Bazren's breath caught, earnestly insulted.
Bazren: "The gall...! As if you smell like a bed of roses yourself!"
Without thinking twice, she reached out her arm and gripped the long, distended handle of the dagger with all of her might.
Its flesh squished painfully underneath her crushing force, emitting a wet, gurgling sound, as it began coughing.
Demonic voice: "L-LET GO, OR THE CHILD DIES!"
The voice was strained, panicked, losing some of its guttural menace in its desperation.
The grip of the fleshy appendage on the child's forearm grew tighter, the pulsating flesh constricting, making them cry out in renewed, agonizing pain.
Crying child: "I-it hurts! IT HURTS!"
His small voice cracked, breaking under the strain.
The slight crunch of the infant's bone, sickeningly audible in the sudden silence, followed by the soft, dripping of blood, made Xayn jump into action.
Xayn: "BAZREN! RELEASE IT!"
His voice was sharp, urgent, brooking no argument.
Furious, her eyes blazing with a dangerous light, she looked at him, a storm brewing in their depths.
Bazren: "Release it?! Don't let this abomination tug at your damn heartstrings...!"
Xayn: "I can't allow this, Bazren...!"
Xayn extended his right arm, and in a sudden eruption of blinding light, it was engulfed in bright blue flames, ethereal and cool to the touch, yet radiating immense power.
Within his hand, conjured from pure will and otherworldly energy, an ethereal blue arrow materialized, its end sharp and deadly, humming with contained force.
Without hesitation, his face grimly set, he stabbed the glowing arrow into Bazren's arm, the very same arm gripping the demonic weapon.
Bazren cried out, a sharp, involuntary gasp of pain as the ethereal energy coursed through her undead flesh. Involuntarily, her grip loosened, her fingers spasming open.
In pain and surprise, she released it, freeing the weapon as it rapidly retracted back to the child, the fleshy dagger slithering back up the child's arm, easing its constricting grip on them.
Bazren: "WHAT THE HELL, XAYN?!"
Xayn: "We aren't in Mortmundus anymore! These are living, breathing beings -- if their body perishes, so does all that they are!"
The demonic dagger laughs, a wet, gurgling sound of utterly delighted amusement.
Demonic voice: "YES FRIEND, YES...! LISTEN TO HIM, IT'D BE A SHAME FOR THE POOR CHILD TO PERISH!"
Clenching his fist in anger, his blue enso eyes burned brighter. Xayn took a step forward.
Xayn: "Make no mistake -- I'm no damn friend of yours! Why are you doing this to these people?!
Demonic voice: "SO I GROW STRONGER... STRONGER THAN THAT WITCH BITCH!"
Bazren snorted out a slight laughter, unable to help herself.
Demonic voice: "YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY?!"
The fleshy dagger thrashed wildly, and the child cried out again as its grip tightened once more.
Xayn: "Bazren, this is serious...!"
He snapped, his head whipping back to her, looking at her with blazing eyes, a silent warning.
Bazren: "Oh, come on...! Fine."
She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes heavenward.
Bazren: "Look, if we help you deal with that witch... Will you let that child go?"
Demonic voice: "TAKE DOWN THE WITCH, SO I CAN TRANSFER MYSELF TO HER BODY..."
Xayn: "And what then? Will you keep killing indiscriminately?!"
Demonic voice: "NO...! THE BODY OF THE WITCH BITCH SHOULD DO PLENTY TO SUSTAIN MY... NICHE ITCH."
Bazren immediately held her hand up to her mouth, doing her best to stifle a full-blown guffaw.
Xayn: "Alright -- fine! We've got a deal -- Where is this witch of yours?"
Suddenly, a loud explosion ripped through the relative silence, the sound deafening, destroying a nearby home outside with a shower of splintered wood and flying debris.
Demonic voice: "YOU WON'T HAVE TO SEARCH FAR... S-SHE'S FOUND US ALREADY...!!"