Skit's consciousness, still new and fragile, drifted in darkness. No lucid dreams, no nightmares—just a emptiness.
His tiny mind, still raw and developing, felt neither rest nor unrest. It was a blank, without a shape or a sound, but then… something stirred within him.
A pull.
It began as a tug in the deepest recesses of his consciousness, subtle at first, but it grew stronger, more insistent.
His mind, still so young and undeveloped, responded to the call, unbidden, unaware.
Before Skit could even register the change, a massive scent filled his senses.
Gahff—?!
It was suffocating—overpowering, sharp, like the stench of blood, thick and pungent.
His instincts screamed at him to recoil, his lungs burned. The scent invaded every pore, the taste of iron flooding his mouth, choking his throat.
He gasped, or tried to.
The air wasn't right. It was heavy, thick with something more than just the blood.
Skit's tiny body, weak and fragile, fought against the invisible weight pressing down on him, but he had no strength, no knowledge of his enemy.
His eyes snapped open.
But what he saw—
What he saw was nothing like what he understood.
He opened his eyes—or at least, he thought he did.
Red.
Everything was red.
A vast, endless sea of blood stretched in every direction, as far as his young eyes could comprehend.
It was thick, viscous, like a living thing, undulating gently, waves rising and falling.
Skit flailed, but the blood surrounded him—swallowing him whole. He didn't know how to swim.
He didn't even know what swimming was. His body, so weak and underdeveloped, had no chance in this vast sea.
Gahpff—!
He tried to scream, but the blood filled his mouth, choking him.
A wave of panic surged within him, and his mind, still confused and blurry, tried desperately to make sense of what was happening.
The suffocating pressure built, his chest tight with the struggle to breathe, but there was no air—only blood.
The deeper he sank, the more it pressed against him, clawing at his skin, pulling him into its depths.
The pain—sharp, agonizing—began to blur his thoughts. The world around him, once so vast and overwhelming, turned into a dizzying whirl of red.
His limbs were heavy, his head swimming in the toxic weight of the blood. His mind grew foggy, slipping into unconsciousness as the suffocating grip of the blood sea closed in.
And then, just as the darkness was about to claim him, a violent force seized him.
Skit was ripped from the depths of the sea of blood, the current that had threatened to drown him suddenly reversed.
SPLASH—!
He was thrown upward, his small body flung out of the viscous blood with such force that it sent him crashing into the surface of a pool—a pool of more blood.
He landed with a harsh thud, and his body recoiled as he coughed violently.
His chest heaved in desperate, ragged breaths. His throat burned, raw from the acidic touch of blood that had filled his mouth and lungs.
His eyes, still stinging, squeezed shut, trying to clear the irritation that had clouded his vision.
Blood soaked his small frame, dripping from every inch of his skin.
His tiny body, trembling, lay sprawled on the blood-soaked surface, and though he gasped for air, he could barely find enough to fill his chest.
The air was thick, tainted with the suffocating weight of blood, and still, it felt like the oppressive presence of something ancient lingered in the atmosphere.
But Skit could do nothing but cough, his mind clouded with dizziness, eyes closed tight against the pain.
Skit's barley managed to flutter open one of his eyes, The other remained swollen and closed, blood seeping from the corner and mixing with the tears that streaked down his face.
Before him stretched an unimaginable landscape—a world of blood.
Rivers of blood coursed through deep canyons carved from jagged bone. In the distance, towering mountains loomed, their peaks like monstrous spires made of decayed blood.
Above, the sky—if it could even be called that—was not a sky at all.
It was a vast, pulsing red veil, alive, shifting with a breath of its own, as though the very air carried a heavy, oppressive weight.
Skit's breath caught in his throat.
His one open eye burned from the sheer intensity of the scene before him, but still, despite the overwhelming sight, he couldn't tear his gaze away.
The crimson world was silent. Silent in the way a grave is silent—too still, too waiting.
Skit lay frozen on the bleeding surface, eyes wide and blank, his senses overwhelmed by the surreal landscape.
His face, streaked with tears and blood, bore a grimace not of pain—but dread.
Then—
A voice.
"Ah… I forget," it said, like a whisper inside his skull. "You're only six days old…"
A pause. A breathless chuckle.
"No, wait. Seven now. Yes… seven."
The voice giggled—not in joy, but in hunger. Like a predator marveling at a helpless bug pinned to a wall.
Skit stiffened at the sound, a chill crawling up his spine.
He didn't know the words. He didn't understand what was being said. But his body did. His blood did.
His instincts—barely a week old—screamed louder than the Stalker ever had.
Run. Run. RUN.
But there was nowhere to run.
Suddenly, a suffocating pressure, far greater than anything the sea of blood had ever caused, crashed down on him.
The sea of blood rippled.
Then it parted.
Not violently. Not with grandeur.
The blood split gently—lovingly, as though it had been waiting for this moment.
Like a veil being drawn back by unseen hands.
And something stepped through.
Not from the horizon. Not from the air.
From beneath.
The blood parted like curtains, revealing the silhouette of a figure—unseen but felt in every bone of Skit's trembling body.
A red shadow, monstrous and looming, stepped into the pool of blood.
The very air around Skit seemed to warp, heavy with an oppressive presence that made every instinct in his tiny body scream in terror.
It rose from the blood as though it were her birthright. It body was not fully seen—only suggestions, glimpses.
A silhouette too perfect to be real, and too wrong to be named. It eyes glowed like twin gashes in reality—crimson slits that drank in light.
"You sank like a stone," It said, teasing. "Such small limbs… not even a twitch of resistance."
Skit's gaze fixed on the silhouette before him, his eyes wide with terror.
The presence of the figure twisted his very perception, his mind suddenly clouded, like a thick fog settling in.
Instinctively, his eyelids fluttered shut.
Then, the voice came again, slow and teasing, almost kind—an eerie contrast to the pressure that lingered.
"Good, you know how to kneel."
The words slid into his mind like a knife, sharp and cold.
His ears rang, the sound of it reverberating through his skull, while the suffocating pressure that had once gripped him began to ease.
Something twisted inside him. His blood churned with a strange, unnameable feeling.
He didn't know what kneeling meant, nor why the thought of it filled him with such feeling.
But his blood reacted—his tiny body shuddered, vibrating with the intensity of something far older than him.
Step—!
The figure's footsteps sounded, slow, deliberate—savoring each one.
Each footfall sounded louder, closer, until the air around Skit seemed to shrink.
Step—!
The footsteps echoed as the figure grew closer. It presence lingered like an oppressive fog.
Skit felt as it gaze, it gaze was stripping him bare. His thoughts raced, his body frozen in place, unable to move an inch.
"I felt something strange near one of my children," the voice mused softly, as though speaking to no one in particular, its words slipping into Skit's mind like icy fingers, yet a touch of amusement lacing her tone.
Step—!
"I never expected a goblin," the voice sighed, the sound of mild disappointment seeping into its words, though a teasing, almost playful tone lingered beneath. "Goblins... such quaint little creatures. Always so small, so... scrawny. They scurry about, never rising above the muck. Hardly worth the attention, really."
"They never amount to much, do they? never able to rise above their pitiful existence, It's almost... sad, isn't it?"
Skit's heart thudded in his chest, fast and wild. What? What was this? Why was it talking about him? His head spun, confusion crashing through his little mind.
What's happening? What is this? His body wouldn't move.
It felt stuck, like he couldn't make it do what he wanted, couldn't get away. The air... the pressure—it made him feel small. Small and helpless.
It was too much. Too big. Too heavy. His tiny mind couldn't understand. But he felt it. The weight. The words.
Step—!
The steps ceased, and Skit's heart pounded erratically in his chest, as though his very life was being measured by the piercing gaze that held him still.
"A tiny goblin, barely seven days in this world, and yet… there's something strange about you, isn't there?"
.........
UPCOMING NEXT - CHAPTER 9 - The Scent of Blood III
.........
-:-