The path ahead twisted into something unnatural. The dirt beneath their boots was barren, stripped of life. The trees stood twisted and gnarled, their bark blackened as if burned from within, branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. No birds sang, no insects buzzed—just an eerie, oppressive silence.

  The sun, if it still existed in this forsaken place, made no attempt to shine. There was no way to mark time, no telling if they had been walking for hours or mere minutes. The weight of exhaustion pressed on their shoulders, their thoughts drifting into dark corners, lost in the echoes of the battle behind them.

  John’s legs moved on autopilot, his mind somewhere else entirely. The werewolves had taken too much from him—too much from all of them. He barely registered the crunch of dead leaves beneath his feet, the rasp of his own breath in the still air.

  At some unknown point, they stopped. There was no real decision, no agreement spoken aloud. Their bodies simply refused to go any farther.

  Kaia lowered herself onto a fallen log, her hands idly tracing the hilt of her staff. She watched John for a long moment before finally speaking. “What happened back there?”

  John didn’t answer. Not at first.

  Kaia didn’t press him, didn’t fill the silence with unnecessary words. She simply waited, patient as ever.

  Eventually, John exhaled, rubbing a hand down his face. “I thought of my family.” His voice was quiet, rough. “Of never seeing them again. Of my wife’s smile. My daughter’s laugh. Talking about nerdy shit with my son.” His jaw tensed. “Her face—my wife’s face—filled my vision. My body moved on its own. I had no thoughts. Only action.”

  Kaia’s eyes softened. “Oh, John…”

  Before the weight of the moment could settle too deeply, Thorin clapped John hard on the back, nearly knocking him forward. “Bah, you’ll see them again. Just think of this as the first movie. You’ll get a sequel.”

  John, Thorin and Kaia all laughed. A long laugh releasing some of the dread they've been carrying. Shaking her head Kaia smiled at Thorin

  The laughter was what they needed. But when it ended they got up.

  They had a battle ahead.

  And no matter how dark the road became, they would keep walking.

  ***

  The descent from the hill was slow and tense. The air thickened with an oppressive weight as if the land itself resented their presence. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. The world felt dead, suffocated beneath an unseen force.

  The ground beneath their boots was wrong—a brittle, grayish soil that cracked like old parchment but stuck to their soles like tar. The trees, if they could even be called that, twisted skyward in grotesque spirals, their bark blackened and split open as if screaming in agony. Dark sap oozed from the cracks, the stench like rotting meat.

  No grass grew here. No life at all. Just an endless landscape of decay.

  John tightened his grip on his daggers. The last battle had drained him, his limbs still heavy with exhaustion, but there was no time for weakness.

  They walked in silence, lost in their own thoughts. The fight with the werewolves had taken too much. The sting of near-death still clung to them, and despite the rest they had managed, it wasn’t enough.

  Then, they saw the first sign of something worse.

  A crude structure stood in the middle of the path—a scarecrow, of sorts. But instead of straw, it was made of flesh.

  John stopped dead in his tracks.

  The thing had once been a goblin, but now it was something else. Its limbs had been stretched and stitched together with barbed wire, pulled into a mockery of human shape. It was

  moving, barely percept , but unmistakable—the grotesque form twitching as if struggling against unseen strings. The goblin’s mouth hung open in a silent scream, its eyes hollowed-out sockets filled with writhing black worms.

  Kaia sucked in a sharp breath. “This… this isn’t natural.”

  “No shit,” John muttered, forcing himself to step closer. The ground around the thing was dark with dried blood, symbols carved into the dirt.

  Thorin gripped his axe. “This is a warning.”

  John’s stomach twisted. “Yeah? Well, message received, loud and clear.”

  They edged around the abomination, keeping their weapons ready. But as soon as they passed, the thing lurched.

  Its head snapped toward them with a sickening crack.

  A horrible, rattling voice rasped from its throat. “Turn baaack... or be... unmade...”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  John’s blood ran cold. His body wanted to run, but something in him snapped—pure defiance taking over. He sneered.

  “Oh yeah? Well, you’re already halfway unmade, buddy.”

  The scarecrow-thing let out a gurgling sound, its body convulsing. Then, suddenly, it collapsed into dust.

  Kaia shivered. “That was… not normal.”

  “Nothing about this place is,” Thorin said, eyes scanning the path ahead.

  John exhaled. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. Whatever that thing had been, it wasn’t alive—at least not in any way that made sense.

  They moved on, the weight of the encounter pressing on them.

  And deep in the trees, unseen eyes watched.

  The air grew heavier the farther they walked, thick with something wrong. It wasn’t just the absence of light—though the sky remained an unchanging sheet of dull gray. It was the feeling of the place, like the land itself rejected them.

  The trees twisted like broken limbs, their bark blackened and split open like gaping wounds. No birds, no insects—just an eerie, oppressive silence. The ground crunched underfoot, brittle and dry despite the recent rains.

  John wiped the sweat from his forehead. “This place makes Mordoor look cozy.”

  Thorin grunted, his grip tightening on his axe. Kaia’s fingers twitched near her staff, her unease written across her face.

  Then, the whispering began.

  At first, John thought it was the wind—except there wasn’t any. The voices slithered through the air, too soft to make out but unmistakably there.

  Kaia’s breath hitched. “Do you hear that?”

  “Yeah,” John said, voice low. “Not loving it.”

  Thorin turned in a slow circle, scanning the shadows. “Show yourselves, cowards.”

  The whispers ceased.

  For a long, breathless moment, nothing moved. Then—a rustle.

  John barely had time to react before something burst from the trees.

  A figure, thin and wrong. It moved on all fours, skin stretched tight over its bones, its head twisting too far to the side. Its mouth was filled with too many teeth, its eyes wide and empty.

  John swore and threw himself back as it lunged. His dagger flashed, catching it across the arm—but it didn’t bleed. The thing shrieked, a high-pitched, unnatural sound, and two more came crawling from the woods.

  Kaia lifted her staff. “Slow!”

  A pulse of magic rippled out, and the creatures jerked, their limbs struggling against an unseen force. But they still moved, dragging themselves forward, their

  John didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, knife flashing as he drove it into the nearest creature’s throat. The thing shrieked—a sound so piercing and unnatural that his ears rang—but it didn’t die. Instead, it spasmed, its limbs twitching in unnatural angles before trying to claw at him again.

  “Oh, come on!” John snarled, yanking his blade free.

  Thorin roared, splitting another one down the middle with his axe. The creature collapsed, its body twitching violently before going still. "They can die," he confirmed, yanking his axe free. "Just takes effort."

  “Great,” John muttered, dodging another swipe from the third creature. “More effort. Just what I wanted.”

  Kaia raised her staff again. "Paralyze!"

  A golden glow wrapped around the final creature, and it froze mid-lunge. Thorin stepped forward, his axe cleaving into its skull.

  Silence fell once more.

  John wiped the sweat from his brow, staring down at the twitching bodies. "Okay. That was gross. I hate this place."

  Kaia, still breathing hard, examined the bodies. "They're... not undead. They're something else."

  Thorin grunted. "Whatever they are, they're dead now."

  John looked around at the cursed forest, the whispering just barely starting again in the distance. His gut twisted. They weren’t done here. Not by a long shot.

  “We need to move,” Kaia said. “The path ahead isn’t going to get any better.”

  John let out a shaky breath. "Fantastic. Let’s get deeper into hell, then."

  They pressed on, the shadows growing thicker around them, the land ahead promising nothing but more horror.

  The path wound deeper into the cursed landscape, and the air grew thick with decay. A putrid stench clung to everything, a mix of rotting meat and stagnant water. No wind stirred. No birds called. Just the squelching of their boots in the damp, black earth.

  John kept his daggers loose in his grip, his nerves stretched thin. His body still ached from the werewolf fight, but adrenaline kept him moving. Every instinct screamed that something was watching them.

  “This place is worse than the woods,” he muttered.

  Thorin glanced at him. "You’re not wrong."

  Ahead, the road split into two—one path veering left into a thick, gnarled forest, the other sloping downward into a sunken, fog-choked valley.

  Kaia hesitated. “I don’t like either option.”

  John sighed. "Great. Do we want to get lost in an evil forest, or take our chances in a haunted swamp?”

  Thorin crossed his arms. "Which one smells less like death?"

  As if answering, a low moan drifted from the valley below—distant, guttural, and inhuman. The fog swirled, and John swore he saw shadows moving within it.

  “Yeah, no,” he said quickly. “We’re not going down there.”

  Kaia nodded. “Agreed.”

  They took the forest path, weaving through twisted, skeletal trees that clawed at the sky. The deeper they went, the more unnatural it became. The branches bent at impossible angles. The bark pulsed, like breathing flesh.

  Then the buzzing started.

  At first, it was barely a whisper. Then it grew—a droning, rhythmic hum that seemed to come from all around them.

  John gritted his teeth. “Please tell me that’s not coming from the trees.”

  Kaia’s face was pale. “It is.”

  The bark split open.

  Dozens—hundreds—of bloated, wasp-like creatures began pouring out from within the trees, their wings vibrating at an unnatural frequency. Their bodies glistened with something wet, something alive.

  And then they swarmed.

  “RUN!” Kaia screamed.

  They bolted down the path, branches whipping at them as the monstrous insects gave chase, their unnatural hum filling the air.

  John slashed wildly as one got too close, its slick, writhing body bursting apart with a sickening squelch. But there were too many.

  “Thorin—fire!” Kaia shouted.

  Thorin didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a flask from his belt, hurled it behind them, and struck it with his axe. The flask exploded, igniting the trees in a blaze of orange and red.

  The creatures shrieked, scattering into the smoke.

  The three of them didn’t stop running.

  Only when the buzzing faded into the distance did they collapse against a boulder, panting and covered in sweat.

  John wiped a hand down his face. “I hate this place. I hate this place so much.”

  Thorin let out a short, breathless laugh. “Still better than the valley.”

  Kaia groaned. “Barely.”

  John stared at the charred path behind them, the distant moans still rising from the valley below.

  Something worse was coming.

  And it wasn’t far.

  John’s boots pounded against the cursed earth, his lungs burning as they ran. The forest was on fire behind them, and the unnatural buzzing of those wasp-like creatures had finally faded. But the relief was short-lived.

  Thorin skidded to a halt, nearly slamming into John’s back. “Shit.”

  John’s stomach dropped. A wall of undead stretched across the path ahead.

  Rotting skeletons with rusted armor. Bloated corpses leaking black ichor. Hundreds, maybe thousands. Their dead eyes glowed with sickly green light, and their twisted fingers twitched with anticipation.

  John pivoted—only to see more behind them.

  Kaia sucked in a sharp breath. "We're surrounded."

  The dead stood motionless for a heartbeat. Then they rushed forward all at once.

  “FIGHT!” John roared, daggers flashing.

  Thorin swung his axe, cleaving a skeleton in half, its bones clattering to the ground. Kaia raised her staff, chanting—a wave of holy light erupted, incinerating several zombies in a blinding burst.

  John ducked under a clawed hand and drove his daggers into a corpse’s ribcage, twisting the blades before ripping them free. Black ichor sprayed over his arms, the stench unbearable.

  Another undead lunged. John spun, slashing across its throat, but it kept coming, grasping for him with rotted fingers.

  Thorin bulldozed through the horde, his axe a whirlwind of destruction, but even he couldn't cut them down fast enough.

  Kaia sent another burst of magic outward, but she was tired. Her breathing ragged, her movements slower.

  John stabbed. Slashed. Dodged. But they just kept coming.

  Then he heard it—the rattling of chains.

  A massive, towering figure emerged from the horde. A knight, its armor corroded and blackened, chains wrapped around its body like a cage. A cursed champion.

  It raised a jagged sword wreathed in green fire—and swung at Thorin.

  Thorin barely got his axe up in time. The impact sent him flying, crashing into a pile of bones.

  Kaia screamed his name.

  John lunged, daggers flashing—but the knight backhanded him with an iron gauntlet. Pain exploded in his ribs as he hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from his lungs.

  The dead swarmed.

  John gasped for air, clawing at the dirt as skeletal hands dragged him down.

  Kaia tried to reach him, but rotting arms wrapped around her, pulling her away.

  Thorin roared in defiance, swinging wildly, but the undead piled onto him, burying him beneath their weight.

  John fought. He fought with everything he had.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The last thing he saw was the green glow of the cursed knight’s eyes before the tide of the dead swallowed them whole.