Moving away from the house, Anthos decided to approach the village he had first glimpsed. He noticed it was completely abandoned, damp, and covered in mold. The settlement consisted of a handful of houses, about six or seven clustered around the main street where the guide was now venturing. He could see vermin similar to worms crawling across the arid, gray ground. There were bodies hanging from signs, clearly in a state of permanent decomposition, and the nauseating stench wafting through the main street flooded his nostrils, making him gag every so often. Even so, after what he had seen in that house, he felt as though nothing could surprise him.

  Or so he thought.

  The wind caused some wooden shutters to bang against the walls like broken metronomes. For a split second, he thought he saw yellowish eyes peering at him from the shadows through the darkness of the windows, stalking him incessantly.

  However, despite the horror of the place, it was completely monotonous—except for a church, erected to some unknown god of some unknown world. The temple was built of wooden planks that must have once been white, featuring a small tower with a cross atop it and a porch protected by a rusted iron gate.

  "What kind of strange god uses a cross as a symbol?" he said in a low voice. Every so often, he tried to speak loudly to remind himself that he wasn't dreaming and that this place was real. He kept moving forward.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea? Puppy, puppy..." That voice in his head again.

  "Shut your fucking mouth!" His voice echoed through the air, carried by a wind that shifted capriciously, chaotic and shifting.

  As he advanced, he noticed graves all around him, withered and deformed trees, and birds similar to crows—except they were twisted, with strangely human faces. The whistling wind, the banging shutters, and several caws that ended in a choking scream orchestrated the scene. The sky was nearly covered by black clouds, making everything even darker. Upon reaching the door, he saw it was completely sealed. He tried to force it, but it was far more resistant than it appeared. Most of the windows were boarded up and barred. He thought he heard sounds inside, but he couldn't quite pin down what was making them.

  "Nothing good, that's for sure, puppy."

  Finally, exhausted from the effort, he decided to evaluate the situation. It was obvious that he would need some kind of key to enter, though looking closely, the door lacked a keyhole. In its place, there was a small bowl on the side of the wall, no wider than two fists. Clearly, he had to place something inside it—and coincidentally, the macabre old woman had provided him with just the thing after he defeated her "Fluffy."

  He placed the aberration's heart into the bowl at the entrance. He noticed it was still beating. As it touched the bottom, it began to quiver and ended up melting, turning into a gelatinous mass. All that deformed matter began to seep through a small hole he hadn't seen before. At that moment, the door began to creak thunderously, groaning as it swung open.

  Darkness.

  He waited for a moment for his eyes to adjust to the blackness, but for some reason they couldn't, as if that veil of shadows were something unnatural—or as if the darkness itself were liquid. Suddenly, a candle flickered to life a few meters in front of him, revealing the face of an old man. His mouth was pulled back in a sinister grin filled with rotten, greenish teeth; he was balding, and his eyes were so deeply sunken they appeared entirely black, with the pupils occupying the entire ocular space. Warts covered his forehead and part of his nose. He was dressed in a black cassock with a white clerical collar, and a crucifix hung as an ornament against his chest.

  "You do not belong here, my son," he said in a high-pitched, raspy voice that was utterly unpleasant yet strangely rhythmic.

  "D-don't... don't come near me..." Anthos said, raising his trembling sword. The man tilted his head slightly and gave a knowing smile.

  "It is not I whom you should fear, my son. I am merely waiting for my faithful in this place. I have no weapons, I have no tricks… this is a sacred place."

  "Sacred? Friend, I’m not in the mood... this place makes my skin crawl. I’m looking for Ertai... he’s a dark druid. He has long black hair, eyes..."

  "What you seek lies in Tash-Kumak, the castle of the damned. But you cannot enter Tash-Kumak without a key, my son." The laughter that followed his words sounded like that of a demented hyena.

  "Fine, Mr. Creepy, where can I get that key?" He had his "Quiet Death" ready. He didn't trust this type of cleric in the slightest, with eyes as dark as the void itself. That smile had been tightening with malice for years, perhaps centuries.

  "You may go fetch it from beneath the crypt, my son." He made a slow gesture with his arm for Anthos to continue down the main wing toward the back—into the darkness.

  He began to walk slowly, his weapon ready to sever the man's head from his body if necessary, making the rotten wood of the floorboards screech beneath him. Within seconds, he felt as though the floor was about to give way under his weight, but he decided to press on. The macabre priest never stopped staring at him. He did so without blinking and without ceasing to smile, like a surreal statue illuminated from below by the candle at his waist, projecting all sorts of demonic shadows onto the ceiling. Anthos swallowed hard as a shiver ran down his spine, leaving him with goosebumps. Once again, he had that feeling of being trapped inside a nightmare. Suddenly, the wooden floor buckled and, unable to stop himself, he plummeted into the darkness.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Aaah! Dammit!" He fell along with the wooden debris and hit the ground violently, injuring himself slightly near the side of his eye, close to his temple.

  When he sat up, he saw he was in what appeared to be a crypt. Open coffins, human—and not-so-human—skeletons in the wall niches, and of course, the characteristic nauseating stench of decomposing bodies adorned the tomb. It was as if the entire cursed plane of Hol 'Dor were in a permanent state of putrefaction.

  "Who created such a place?" he wondered for the umpteenth time.

  He began to walk through the crumbling, ancestral tunnel, filled with foul-smelling cadavers and ancient skeletons. Suddenly, a sound coming from the darkness put him on high alert. It was as if some stones had been shifted. Due to the pitch blackness, he couldn't see the area clearly. He stared into the darkest corners where the sound might have originated. He could head into the dark to settle his doubts and perhaps find the key the priest had mentioned, or he could wait in his position for whatever made that noise to make the next move. He closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, and took a guarded stance. He knew that, at the very least, he had a sliver of light from the glow coming from the floor above.

  He stood static, waiting. He knew that whatever was coming would be nothing good. Only abominable and impossible things could emerge from Hol 'Dor.

  The darkness made it impossible to see his surroundings clearly, but his hearing was far more developed, allowing him to perfectly hear the noise that was now growing louder. From the shadows, he began to sense a subtle, unpleasant sound. It was as if something were wallowing in mud or some viscous liquid, or as if it were swimming in jelly. Once more, he heard the priest laughing from the floor above.

  "Come on... you son of a bitch..."

  After a while, the sound stopped.

  Silence. Nothing, as if it had never been there. Had he imagined it? Suddenly, he felt a viscous, whitish liquid dripping from the ceiling onto the spot where he stood. He slowly raised his head…

  "Aaaaaahhh!" something shrieked from above, letting itself fall directly onto Anthos.

  He didn't get a good look at it, but it attacked with its massive teeth. He managed to scramble aside, but it succeeded in wounding his shoulder. He fell to the floor and finally got a better look at the monster before him. It was a kind of terrifying, deformed humanoid with enormous teeth and razor-sharp claws. He could even see that it had a mouth and eyes where they were actually supposed to be. A crown of thorns rested on its head, digging into the skin. Its stomach split open into a repulsive, cavernous maw filled with sharp teeth, and several more limbs emerged chaotically, moving like snakes or tentacles, with suckers that ended in black spikes dripping blood, eager to attack.

  "Oh, shit! You are ugly!"

  "Ooh… Loooord… Oh, Loooord!" the abomination repeated over and over in a raspy, hissing voice as it moved closer to Anthos.

  The monster lashed out with one of its tentacles. The guide managed to step aside just in time, delivering a blow with his sword to the massive, fleshy ankle, sending the creature to its knees. Quickly, the outsider rolled across the floor, dodging another attack, and struck one of the tentacles, severing it on the spot. However, one of the abomination's hands managed to reach him, striking him in the stomach and throwing him several meters back.

  "Ooohhh… Loooooord…" it continued to say, as it pulled itself up and advanced toward the battered Anthos. The monster opened the massive vertical mouth in its abdomen like a rose blooming in spring… a drooling rose filled with teeth and thrashing dangerously.

  He managed to roll across the floor just in time to dodge a simultaneous attack from several tentacles and both deformed hands. Quickly, he grabbed a stone and hurled it with all his might. The blow struck the monster’s head, and it seemed to stagger from the daze. Wasting no time, he grabbed another stone and threw it. This time, the abdominal mouth caught it and devoured the rock, crushing it as if it were made of paper.

  He stood up and attacked again with his sword, landing several cuts that, while forcing the abomination to pause, failed to finish it off.

  "How the hell do I kill you?"

  "Oohh… Loooord…"

  Suddenly, the radiance coming from the light above illuminated the monstrosity's face for a split second, showing Anthos that, right between its eyes, the same cross symbol from the temple was carved. It seemed to emit a faint, greenish glow.

  "This is your chance, pal," he said to himself, trying to bolster his courage. He inhaled, exhaled, and made a powerful leap forward.

  This time, the creature moved with staggering speed, dodging two of Anthos's attacks and striking him in the shoulder with one of its limbs, throwing him several meters back. The guide fell, clearly in pain. The abomination didn't hesitate for a second and charged, but in a swift motion, Anthos scrambled up and, leaping forward with a duelist's lunge, pierced its head—right in the center of the cross.

  At that final blow, the ominous creature began to writhe and produce a series of guttural sounds. Almost the instant it collapsed, it started to melt, falling apart into a strange, bubbling, amorphous mass that gave off a sweet smell like hazelnut—but inhaling it triggered an uncontrollable cough. It also emitted a faint greenish iridescence, almost imperceptible.

  As it dissolved, Anthos thought he could make out the shape of a key inside it. He didn’t waste a second and plunged his hand into that disgusting, thick sludge, touching what felt like something rigid and cylindrical.

  “For the love of the gods, that’s disgusting!” he exclaimed aloud as he pulled the key out of the twisted mass.

  From the place where the deformed monster had appeared, he noticed a staircase that, judging by his calculations, led up to the side of the church’s main wing. He began to climb, carefully stepping on the uneven stone steps, and reached the rear part of the main hall, where the priest was waiting for him with a wide smile—the same malicious smile.

  “Have you obtained the key, my son?” he asked as Anthos passed by him, trying to avoid the hole through which he had fallen. While speaking, he nervously tapped the fingertips of his right hand against those of his left. A thin strand of dark saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth and hung from his chin.

  “Yes, and not thanks to you.”

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways…”

  Anthos turned back to look—and the priest was gone, as if he had vanished into thin air.