Subject 24238 stumbled out of the cave, lungs heaving, limbs aching with exhaustion. The air outside was colder than he remembered, brushing against his skin like a damp rag. He paused for a moment at the threshold, squinting as his eyes adjusted. It wasn't bright, nothing in this world could be called bright, but it was brighter than the pitch-dark cavern he'd fled. A dull, grey-blue haze hung over the land, casting everything in an otherworldly pallor. It reminded him of twilight, but with none of the peace that usually accompanied it.
He looked out across the land, and his breath caught in his throat.
The abyss stretched in every direction, an endless expanse of stone, shadow, and silence. Jagged cliffs clawed at the sky like broken teeth. Rock formations twisted and warped into unnatural shapes, spires that looked like frozen screams, bridges formed from bone-colored stone, great gouges in the earth that glowed faintly with pulses of blue light. The terrain was harsh and unforgiving, with patches of earth that seemed to bubble like it breathed and valleys where thick fog gathered and refused to lift.
In the distance, massive shapes moved through the mist, shadows of things far too large to be human. He couldn't tell whether they walked or floated, only that they were alive and hunting. The whole world felt like it had been carved from a nightmare and left half-finished.
A low hum buzzed faintly through the air, an ambient pressure that tickled the back of his teeth and made the hair on his neck stand on end.
Then came the sounds.
Far-off screeches. Heavy stomps. Shifts in the wind that carried with them whispers, too low to understand, too constant to ignore. The abyss was alive, and it was watching.
He crouched instinctively, pushing himself behind a slab of stone.
Hiding. That's what I need to do.
But hiding wasn't simple. Not here. The last cave had offered shelter, right until a creature had slithered inside like it had been born from the stone itself. If danger could appear without warning, then no place was truly safe. Not unless it was chosen carefully.
So he would have to find a place. Not just any hole in the wall, but one he could watch, defend, and, if needed, escape from.
He stepped lightly now, moving over the craggy ground with the silent caution of someone who had already tempted death too many times in one day. A fine layer of dust clung to everything, making the rocks look like relics. His feet left shallow prints in it, but they vanished quickly, either swept away by a strange breeze or swallowed by the land itself.
It wasn't until he reached the crest of a rocky incline that he noticed the weightlessness in his hand.
He looked down.
The femur.
He'd left it.
The realization hit him like a slap, he was weaponless. Alone. In a world where monsters could appear at any moment, where death didn't always announce itself with a roar.
His fingers twitched at his side, aching for something to hold. Something solid. Sharp.
Next time I see anything useful, he told himself, I'm picking it up. No questions.
The ground here began to slope downward, and nestled in the side of the descending cliff was a dark hole, another cave.
He eyed it from a distance. This one was smaller than the last, with a narrow mouth and a downward slope that led into shadow. No signs of life at the entrance. No footprints. No bones.
Still, he didn't walk in blindly.
He crouched near the entrance and listened.
Silence.
Then he leaned in slowly, peering into the gloom. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It was just stone, shadow, and stillness.
So he stepped in.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, a shriek tore through the cave.
High-pitched. Sharp. Infantile.
His entire body froze.
A shape moved in the dark, small, squat, no bigger than a dog. Its skin was pale and wet, with patches of translucent flesh stretched over twitching limbs. Its head was far too large for its body, and its mouth opened far too wide as it let out another screech that bounced violently off the walls. Two glowing nubs blinked where eyes should be.
It's a baby.
Subject 24238 turned to run.
But before his second foot even touched the exit, a sound rolled over the cliffside like thunder.
A roar.
Not just loud, massive. It hit him in the chest like a hammer, driving the air from his lungs. It came from just outside the cave, low and guttural, shaking the stone around him. There was nothing uncertain about it. That was not the call of a predator hunting.
That was the warning of a mother.
A beast that had just discovered a threat near her young.
Subject 24238's blood turned to ice. He could almost feel her, massive, enraged, storming toward the mouth of the cave. Her breath would be heavy. Her steps brutal. Her mind filled with only one thought: destroy the intruder.
He was trapped.
If he ran out now, he'd run straight into her. If he stayed, the baby would keep screaming, calling its mother closer with every wail.
The cave had gone from sanctuary to coffin in seconds.