I thought I was prepared. I thought I would at least put up a good fight, maybe knock off a few heads, even if I was ultimately destined to end up as dinner.
But this…
Oh my god.
The sight. The stench. The ancient rot and ruin clinging to creatures that should’ve died and disintegrated long ago—creatures that shouldn’t even exist…
No. It was too cruel a fate, too monstrous for my mind to even process.
Time slowed to a crawl.
My body began to shut down, as if it had already decided we didn’t stand a chance against this abomination and noped the hell out. Adrenaline faded from my limbs, the pain of my injuries rushing back to me in a hot, sickly wave that left my legs shaking and my stomach roiling. My chin dropped to my chest, my head suddenly too heavy to hold upright. Blood spilled from my mouth, splashing onto the broken earth as the ghouls continued to rise, rise, rise in the distance, skulls swiveling on bent necks, their ghastly nose holes sniffing the air, finally catching the scent of their new prey.
All at once they turned to me.
And the sound…
A thousand undead monsters squealed into the night—my final warning before they charged.
That terrible, ear-splitting, gut-wrenching sound skittered up my spine and grabbed me by the throat, shaking me out of my stupor.
Fuck.Fuck!
I gripped my dagger, but what the fuck would that do against the undead?
I needed something… magick. A spell.
My mind raced as the ghouls closed in, their feet not even touching the ground.
Fifty feet. Forty. Thirty.
They’d swarm me, just like the hybrids in that prison compound beneath the Olympic National Forest back home—the place where I’d first petitioned the Dark Goddess to help me fight.
That was it. That’s what I needed.
Twenty feet.
The spell came back to me in a rush. I wouldn’t dare call on Melantha again, but a quick change of the last verse should do the trick…
Ten feet, and…
I sliced my palm, clenched my bloody fist, and with a feral cry that ripped through my lungs, I cast my magick out into the darkness.
Blood of hell, blood of night
I call on the darkness to show us the light
May evil and malice and violence intended
Return to its hosts uprooted, upended
Magick of Midnight, hear now my plea
Grant me this power, and so mote it be
The ghouls surrounded me, leaped on me,smotheredme as they dragged me to the ground. I flipped onto my stomach and tried to cover my head, but they were relentless. Jagged finger bones tore at my scalp, yanking chunks of hair from my head. I felt the first piercing sting of skin tearing along the back of my neck, then down between my shoulder blades as sharp claws shredded Keradoc’s cloak and my shirt, scoring the tender flesh beneath. Teeth snapped hard around my shoulder, more around my thigh, and I cried out as the pain exploded through my arms and legs.
They dragged me on my belly toward that great maw in the ground, the abyss, the end.
