Monsters Aren't Born Chapter 3 - The Slaughter

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Days passed.

Hunger clawed at Dreama's insides, a gnawing animal that had taken up residence in her gut. She lay curled in the corner of her cell, eyes fixed on the stale bread and cloudy water the undead guards had left for her hours ago, clearing away the uneaten bread and water they had left hours before that. The thought of putting anything in her mouth made her gag, the memories of Rastin's violations still fresh despite the days that had passed. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his cock forcing its way into her ass, still taste his sweat as he bent over her on the ritual table. The scar on her stomach throbbed, a permanent reminder of the knife that had plunged into her flesh. Her body was a map of pain – throat raw from screaming, joints aching from being manacled to the table, thighs and ass still burning.

Better to starve, she thought. Better to die than endure more of this hell.

How many days had it been now? Three? Four? Time had lost all meaning in the windowless cell, measured only by the deliveries of food she refused to touch and the visits from undead guards who stared at her with empty eyes as they dropped it off.

Dreama's once-golden hair hung in filthy clumps around her face, matted with dirt and sweat. Her skin felt like it belonged to someone else—a stranger whose body had been used as a receptacle for a monster's pleasure, and she wished she could scrub herself hard enough that all of that skin scraped off. Sometimes she caught herself floating above her own form, watching herself curled on the stone floor as if observing someone else's suffering. It was easier that way. Easier to pretend it wasn't happening to her.

The screech of rusty hinges jolted her back to her body. Dreama's eyes snapped toward the door as it swung open, revealing not the vacant stare of an undead guard but the very alive, very cruel gaze of a man. She recognized him immediately – one of Rastin's living followers, a brute with a face marked by a jagged scar running from temple to jaw who oversaw the mindless undead down here. "Still not eating, are you, cunt?" His voice grated against her ears like rough stone. He nudged the untouched tray with his boot. "That's the third meal you've wasted. Master Rastin wants you kept alive. That means you need to eat, bitch."

Dreama pressed herself further into the corner, as if the cold stone might swallow her and provide escape. The man set down a fresh tray, this one containing a new piece of bread and another cup of water. The smell of the bread made her stomach contract painfully, a reminder that despite her wish to die, her body still fought to live.

"Eat," he commanded, standing over her.

She turned her face away, closing her eyes. If she couldn't see him, maybe he'd leave. Maybe he'd just go away and let her die in peace.

The sudden grip on her hair came as a shock despite its predictability. His fist tangled in her matted locks, yanking her head back with enough force to make her gasp. Her eyes flew open as pain lanced across her scalp, tears springing unbidden to their corners.

"If you won't eat this," the man growled, his free hand moving to the front of his trousers, "then you'll eat something else."

Dreama tried to twist away, but her weakened state made resistance futile. Her hands pushed against his thighs as he unfastened his pants, but it was like trying to move a stone wall. The rough fabric scraped against her palms as he exposed himself, his cock already hardening in anticipation. "No," she croaked, her voice a broken whisper from disuse and dehydration. "Please don't—"

He shoved her back against the wall, the impact forcing air from her lungs in a painful rush. Her spine connected with cold, unyielding stone, each vertebra registering the shock separately as they pressed against the rough, uneven surface. His fingers remained tangled in her matted hair, twisting tighter until individual strands began to separate from her scalp with tiny, excruciating bursts of pain that bloomed across her head like lightning. His other hand gripped his member, swollen and with the veins standing out against the shaft like ropes. The head glistened obscenely in the dim light, a drop of clear fluid catching what little illumination filtered into the cell. The smell was foul even by the standards of the unwashed scent of her cell.

"Open your mouth, slut," he commanded, his voice echoing slightly in the stone chamber and bouncing back at them from the damp walls.

Dreama pressed her lips together with what little defiance remained in her broken body, feeling the chapped skin of her upper and lower lips seal against each other. Her jaw muscles tensed, nostrils flaring with each panicked breath as she tried to maintain this small rebellion.

The guard's face darkened, pupils dilating until his eyes were almost black. "Have it your way," he growled, and in one fluid motion, he pulled her head forward by the hair only to slam it backward against the wall.

The impact was catastrophic. Stars exploded behind her eyes like fireworks, white-hot bursts of light against a field of darkness. Pain detonated through her skull, radiating outward from the point of impact in concentric waves. Her brain seemed to slosh inside her skull, momentarily disconnecting her from her body's functions. The room spun wildly, walls and ceiling trading places in a nauseating dance. In that moment of shock and disorientation, her jaw slackened involuntarily, muscles going temporarily slack as her body's systems reset from the trauma. Her lips parted just enough—a fraction of an inch that might as well have been a mile.

The guard seized the opportunity. His thumb and forefinger pinched her jaw painfully, forcing the gap wider as he simultaneously guided his cock toward the opening. The swollen purple head pressed against her lips, hot and insistent, the skin there surprisingly soft despite the hardness beneath.

"Bite me and I'll break your fucking jaw," he hissed. Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke, tiny droplets landing on her cheeks. "The master keeps you gagged anyway... he'll never know."

The head of his cock pushed past her lips, stretching them around its girth. The taste hit her immediately, an assault on her senses that made her nauseous stomach heave. Unwashed skin carried the sharp tang of accumulated sweat and grime. The taste of him permeated her mouth, coating her tongue like oil and triggering an immediate gag response that she fought desperately to suppress to keep breathing.

Dreama instinctively tried to pull back, her neck muscles straining against his grip. Her head pressed harder against the wall, the rough stone pinning her scalp. There was nowhere for her to go: The implacable stone barrier prevented any retreat. She could only endure as he began to thrust, each forward movement sending the head of his cock deeper into her mouth. Her tongue was quickly pressed flat by his intrusion, his cock pushing it down to make room. She could feel it as every vein, every ridge, every imperfection of his flesh scraped over her tongue.

"Stupid peasant whore," he groaned, his voice changing timbre, dropping lower as lust thickened his words. “Too stupid to even eat to live.” His breathing grew heavier, each exhale carrying a slight moan that reflected his mounting pleasure. He adjusted his position, swapping his grip to twist his fingers in the hair on either side of her head, his thick fingers yanking on her tangled mane. With this new grip he held her head completely immobile, transforming her from a person into an object, just a thing for him to pound into. She could not move her head even a millimeter in any direction as he began to fuck her mouth with increasing force and speed.

Dreama's world contracted, external stimuli fading until nothing existed but the brutal intrusion. Each thrust drove his cock deeper, the head now hitting the soft palate at the back of her mouth. When he pushed particularly hard the tip nudged against the opening of her throat, triggering an immediate and violent gag reflex. Her throat convulsed involuntarily around him, muscles contracting in desperate attempts to expel the foreign object. The spasms squeezed his shaft, creating a rippling sensation that drew a guttural moan from the guard.

Far from deterring him, her body's natural defense mechanism only heightened his arousal. "Too stupid to breathe, too," he groaned. His hips moved faster now, finding a brutal rhythm that allowed no consideration for her comfort or even her ability to get air. Quickly, oxygen became a distant memory. His cock blocked her airway completely when he thrust deep, the shaft sealing her mouth while the head pushed against her throat. Only when he withdrew could she snatch desperate, insufficient gasps, and the opening never lasted for long.

Tears welled in her eyes before spilling down to carve warm tracks in her dirt-smudged cheeks, washing away thin rivulets of grime to reveal the paler skin beneath. The salty moisture mingled with the thick saliva leaking from the corners of her mouth, forming rivulets that ran down her chin and onto her chest. The guard rutted into her face with tireless vigor, his stamina seemingly endless as he took his pleasure from her unwilling body.

The guard's breathing grew more ragged, each exhale punctuated by a grunt or moan. His thrusts became wilder, more frantic. "Going to cum soon, bitch," he panted, the words broken by his labored breathing. His fingers dug even deeper into her skull, surely leaving bruises that would bloom purple and yellow in the coming days… if she lived that long. "Going to make you swallow every—"

His words cut off as his body stiffened. A guttural sound, half-growl and half-moan, tore from his throat as his orgasm overtook him. His cock pulsed violently in her mouth, the head pushing past the entrance to her throat as the first jet of semen erupted from him. The hot, bitter fluid shot directly down her throat, giving her no choice but to swallow. Spurt after spurt followed, each one triggering an involuntary swallowing reflex as her body fought to clear her airway.

He held her head immobile throughout his climax, ensuring she could neither spit nor turn away. Her stomach heaved in protest, threatening to expel the unwanted fluid, but his cock remained lodged too deep, forcing her to accept every drop he produced. Only when the last tremors of his orgasm had subsided did his grip loosen slightly, though not enough to allow her escape.

His eyes, which had closed during the height of his pleasure, opened to regard her with cruel satisfaction, taking in the tears, the saliva, the utter degradation written across her features. "There's your meal," he sneered, giving his cock a final shake that spattered a few more drops onto her face. He kicked the plate full of bread, sending it scattering across the floor. "Next time, eat the fucking bread."

Dreama slumped to the floor as he released her hair, her body curling instinctively into itself. She retched dryly, sending ripples down her already raw throat. The guard tucked himself away, fastening his trousers as he looked down at her with contempt. "The next time I find you haven't eaten," he said, "I’ll be feeding you personally again. And maybe I'll invite some friends to help make sure you get enough in your belly. Understand, cunt?"

She couldn't look at him. Couldn't speak. Could barely breathe through the soreness in her throat and the crushing weight of degradation. But she managed a tiny nod, enough to satisfy him.

"Smart girl," he said. The door clanged shut behind him, the lock engaging with a metallic finality that echoed in the small cell. Dreama remained motionless for long minutes, her breathing shallow, her mind floating somewhere beyond her violated body. Eventually, she dragged herself to the wall, using it to sit upright. With trembling hands, she wiped at the cooling semen on her lips. Then she picked up the dirt-covered roll of bread, staring at it. The thought of putting anything in her mouth made her gag again, but the guard's threat echoed in her mind. Then, forcing herself past the memory of the guard's cock in her mouth, she took a small bite.

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The undead guards came for her at what Dreama guessed was dawn the next day, though no sunlight penetrated the windowless cell to confirm it. Their cold hands gripped her arms with inhuman strength, dragging her from the floor where she'd been curled in fitful sleep. They dragged her through the damp corridor, her bare feet scraping against rough stone. Dreama's legs wouldn't support her weight properly, forcing the undead to bear most of it as they moved. With each step away from her cell, Dreama's awareness of wrongness intensified… a cold, slithering feeling on her skin. It was the feeling of necromancy, she realized. She could sense Rastin's magic before she even saw him.

When they finally reached the ornate door to the ritual chamber, it stood already open. Candlelight spilled into the hallway, along with the murmur of voices—Rastin, still lecturing to his apprentices. The undead guards dragged her across the threshold and into the now-familiar room with its metal table and concentric circles of black candles. The faces of a dozen robed figures turned toward her, their expressions ranging from clinical curiosity to undisguised lust and eagerness.

"Ah, our guest of honor has arrived," Rastin announced, his cultured voice slicing through Dreama's terror like a blade. He stood at the head of the circle, holding up a bloodcrystal… no, her bloodcrystal. She could feel it. … feel that it belonged to her. "As I was explaining, once a bloodcrystal grows strong enough, it can serve some other interesting functions for us. First, we’ll have to start by enhancing the crystal's potency."

The undead guards hauled Dreama to the table and lifted her onto it, the cold metal shocking against her bare skin. Her limbs were wrenched outward as they secured her wrists and ankles into the iron manacles, leaving her bound once again before the watching apprentices. Rastin approached the table, and his fingers traced the puckered scar on her abdomen, the touch sending revulsion cascading through Dreama's body. She twisted weakly against the restraints, earning nothing but the bite of metal against her raw wrists.

"Today we'll be harvesting again from the same subject," Rastin continued, producing his ritual dagger from within his robes. The blade was almost orange in the reflected candlelight. “Anyone’s blood will do to help grow it, but for the sake of making it larger and stronger as quickly as possible, we’re going to use the sorcerer’s blood again."

Without warning, he plunged the dagger into her scar. Dreama screamed into her gag as the blade tore through barely-healed tissue, reopening the wound. The pain was no less intense for being familiar—white-hot agony radiating outward from the point of entry, consuming her awareness. Blood welled immediately, flowing from the wound in a steady stream. Through tear-blurred eyes, Dreama saw her own blood flowing into the channels carved into the table. Quickly, the necromancer began a familiar incantation, his voice dropping to a resonant chant that seemed to vibrate in Dreama's bones. The syllables cut the air like knives, each word making her wound throb with increasing intensity. As before, her blood began to rise from the collection channels, defying gravity to hover above the table in a rotating sphere.

He held up the small crystal from earlier, now placing it within the floating sphere of Dreama's blood. The crystal seemed to drink in the crimson fluid, pulsing brighter with each moment. Dreama felt each pulse as a corresponding squeeze around her heart, as if the crystal were connected to her very core. When the sphere vanished, the crystal was larger than before. A commotion at the door drew her attention away from the floating orb. Two more undead guards entered the room, dragging between them a struggling woman. Dreama's heart stopped when she recognized the newcomer: Marla, the baker's wife, whose plump, flour-dusted hands had slipped extra sweet rolls into Dreama's basket every market day since she was a child.

"Please!" Marla sobbed, her once-round face now gaunt with captivity. "Please don't hurt me! I have children!"

"Bring her closer," Rastin commanded, unmoved by the woman's pleas. The undead guards positioned Marla beside the table, forcing her to her knees directly in Dreama's line of sight. He took several steps toward one of his apprentices and handed her the crystal. “Hold this,” he said. Then he turned his attention back to the new woman, walking towards her.

Dreama strained against her restraints, but no one paid any attention to her. In a movement too swift to track, Rastin stepped behind the kneeling woman and drew his dagger across her throat in one smooth slash. Blood fountained from the severed arteries, spraying across the floor in a crimson arc. Marla's words transformed into a wet gurgle as she clutched at her neck, blood pouring between her fingers as she collapsed forward.

Dreama screamed, the sound tearing from her throat with enough force to make it bleed. She thrashed against the restraints, no longer feeling the pain of her own wounds as she watched Marla's life drain away before her eyes.

But what happened next made her screams die in her throat. As Marla's body convulsed in its final moments, Dreama felt something impossible… she felt her life energy fleeing from the dying woman’s body. And… and it felt like she was reaching out for it. She could see nothing, but she felt it as tendrils of energy reached out from the gemstone, heading towards the dying woman. The crystal pulsed softly as the woman died, blinking in time with the slowing beat of Marla’s heart. Then the woman lay still in a widening pool of her own blood… and the crystal had grown larger again.

“So, what did we just see?" Rastin asked, walking back to pick up the enlarged crystal from his apprentice’s hand. “Once a bloodcrystal grows strong enough, it no longer needs your help to gather additional energy. No ritual or anything like that. A crystal this size can absorb the energies from any death within, oh, perhaps thirty yards or so. The distance increases exponentially with the size of the crystal.”

Dreama barely heard him through the roaring in her ears. Marla's death played on repeat in her mind: The slash of the knife, the fountain of blood, the light fading from kind eyes that had always crinkled at the corners when she smiled. Another death she had caused, simply by existing. Simply by being valuable to the monster who used them all as resources.

“With proper planning, you can store a great deal of power and trap it inside the bloodcrystal, keeping it to use as you see fit.” Rastin shrugged. “The application, I think, should be obvious. Simply killing a large number of people to empower a potent spell is often impracticable. However, letting them die one by one and storing the power as you go... that is far easier. Waste not, want not, after all.”

Many of the apprentices laughed as he ran his palm over Dreama's wound. The now-familiar green fire bloomed beneath his hand, seeping into her torn flesh with excruciating slowness. The pain came again, and when he removed his hand again the cut was gone but the scar was even more prominent than before. "Return her to her cell," he ordered the undead guards. "We'll allow four days for recovery before the next extraction. We’ll see how strong we can make this crystal before we let her perish."

As the guards dragged her from the table, Dreama's gaze remained fixed on Marla's lifeless body, left in a heap on the floor like discarded trash. Another death on her conscience. Another soul sacrificed because of what she was. The guilt was a physical weight, pressing down on her chest until she could barely breathe.

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Weeks passed… or months.

Dreama couldn’t be sure.

The only thing she had to keep track of time was how many times Rastin had brought her out to harvest her blood. Six times since Marla’s death he had cut her open. Six more times he had drained her blood to create his crystals. Several of those times, he had violated her, using her pain to fuel his power. The cut was still a fresh scar, pink and tender… a raised line that throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat as she lay on the cold stone floor of her cell. How many more times would he cut her? How much more could her body endure before it simply gave out, empty of blood and life and everything that made her human?

However long it had been, her once-healthy frame had grown gaunt, ribs visible beneath stretched skin like the ridges of a washboard. Hollow cheeks and sunken eyes gave her face a skull-like appearance, accentuated by the dull, matted hair that hung in limp strands around her face. The only food she received was the bare minimum needed to keep her alive, and even that stuck in her throat, each swallow a struggle against the memory of the guard's cock forcing its way down her gullet. As her body weakened, something else had grown stronger, though. Dreama felt the magic everywhere now, a strange awareness prickling at the edges of her consciousness. Ever since Marla’s death, the ability had sharpened with each harvesting session. Now she could feel the cold, slithering presence of necromancy even through the thick walls of her cell. She could sense when Rastin was working his spells elsewhere in the complex, could feel the moment another prisoner's life was extinguished, their energy harvested and condensed into that awful crystal.

Her crystal. That was how she could feel it, she felt certain… that crystal was tied to her, and through it she could sense everything.

The shuffling footsteps of undead guards approached her cell. Dreama didn't bother to sit up. The guards cared nothing for her dignity or comfort or her nudity… they were merely animated tools, performing the tasks assigned to them with mindless obedience. The door hinges squealed in protest as the first guard pushed it open, the sound setting Dreama's teeth on edge.

Something snapped—a metallic crack followed by the sound of something small hitting the stone floor near the entrance to her cell.

One of the guards paused, its vacant eyes dropping down to the floor… but after a moment of apparent confusion, it simply continued with its task. The second guard placed a tray on the floor—the usual meager rations of stale bread and cloudy water—before both backed out of the cell without a word. The door slammed shut with more force than usual.

When their shuffling footsteps had receded into silence, Dreama finally raised her head. Her gaze immediately went to the spot where she'd heard the object fall. There, glinting dully in the faint light that filtered through the small barred window of her cell, lay a thick metal pin. Dreama stared at it for a long moment, not quite sure what she was seeing. The door, she realized, was leaning inward from the top… one of the neglected door hinges had snapped under the guard's rough handling. Slowly, painfully, she dragged herself across the floor, her weakened muscles protesting every inch. When her fingers closed around the cold metal, a strange sound escaped her lips—something between a laugh and a sob. For the first time since her capture, she held something that might serve as a weapon.

She could kill herself with this.

One quick jab to the throat or wrist, and this nightmare would end. The pin wasn't particularly sharp, but it was sharp enough with some force. She could be dead before the necromancer showed up to heal the wound… and then Dreama could finally escape the pain, the violation, the endless cycle of torture and partial recovery. She pressed the dull point against her wrist, feeling the cold metal dimple her skin. It would hurt… but what was one final pain compared to the endless suffering that awaited her at Rastin's hands? Just a quick, hard push, and then...

The image of Rastin's smug face floated in her mind, his pale eyes gleaming with satisfaction at another successful harvest. If she died now, he would simply find another victim. Another girl with magical potential to cut open and drain. She remembered her mother. She remembered her father. She remembered the kind mayor and his family, and Marla and her bread, and all the villagers she had lived with. All of them dead… because of her.

"No," Dreama whispered, her voice a rasp from disuse. "Not like this."

She lowered the pin from her wrist and turned her gaze to the damaged door hinge. With one pin missing and the door hanging slightly askew, the remaining two hinges were bearing more weight than they were designed to support. If she could weaken or remove another...

The thought of escape had seemed so impossible that she hadn't even considered it until this moment. But now, with the pin clutched in her trembling fingers, a wild hope began to bloom in her chest. She wouldn't die in this cell. She would either escape or force them to kill her trying.

Dragging herself to the door took all her remaining strength. The cell's dimensions had never seemed so vast as they did now, when every movement sent fresh pain shooting through her harvested body. But anger fueled her where physical strength failed. Anger at Rastin for his cold cruelty, at the guard who had violated her, at the undead servants who dragged her to the ritual chamber again and again, at a world that had allowed her to fall into this hell.

By the time she reached the door, sweat coated her skin despite the cell's chill. The pin in her hand was crude and not well-suited for the task of breaking through metal, but it was all she had. At least the metal was well-rusted and weakened. Gritting her teeth, Dreama began to work at the hinge, scraping and prying with desperate determination.

The noise of metal scraping against metal was horrific and it echoed in the silent corridor beyond her cell. Each sound made her flinch, certain it would bring guards running to investigate. Her fingers cramped around the pin, knuckles white with effort as she worked it into the hinge mechanism. Blood welled from beneath her fingernails, adding to the countless injuries that marked her body. Still she continued, driven by the wild hope of freedom or the grim satisfaction of dying on her own terms.

Minutes stretched into hours. Her arm burned from the awkward angle, her shoulder socket screaming in protest. The skin of her forearm was scraped raw where it pressed against the rough edge of the door. It was still loud… but somehow no one came to investigate the noise. The absence of response was almost more frightening than being caught would have been… the lingering tension as she expected something to happen weighing on her psyche. Her fingers felt like they were going to fall off with her exhaustion, so to motivate herself she imagined each scrape of metal as a wound inflicted on Rastin's flesh. In her mind's eye, she saw herself driving the pin into his pale eyes, twisting it deep into his brain. She imagined tearing open his chest and ripping out his heart, just as he had torn open her body again and again. The violent images should have horrified her… the gentle farm girl she had once been would never have contemplated such brutality. Now they brought only grim satisfaction.

Something gave way under her assault—a small shift, followed by a groan of stressed metal. The second hinge was weakening. Dreama redoubled her efforts, ignoring the fresh blood trickling down her arm and the tremors wracking her exhausted muscles. Just a little more. Just a little longer.

With a sudden crack that sounded impossibly loud in the confined space, the second hinge snapped. The door sagged dramatically, now supported only by the bottom hinge. Dreama fell back, panting, as the full weight of the door pulled against its last remaining support. For several heartbeats, nothing happened. Then, with a groan of protesting metal, the final hinge tore free from its moorings. Then the heavy metal door toppled inward and Dreama scrambled backward to avoid being crushed, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The door smashed into the stone with a tremendous crash that surely must have been heard throughout the entire complex. No one could have missed that… guards would come running at any moment. She pressed herself against the wall, clutching the blood-slick pin like a dagger, prepared to fight or die.

But the seconds ticked by, and no one came.

No shuffling footsteps of undead guards, no shouts of alarm from living overseers. No talking. No slamming doors. There was nothing but the same oppressive silence that had filled the corridors since her arrival. The lack of response was so unexpected that Dreama wondered briefly if she had finally lost her mind—if the crash had happened only in her imagination, the product of a mind fractured by trauma and starvation. But no… the door lay broken on the cell floor, the path to the corridor now completely unobstructed. Freedom beckoned, terrifying in its sudden possibility. Dreama stared at the open doorway, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing. After weeks of hopelessness, of resignation to her fate, the world had cracked open to reveal a chance she had never expected to receive.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Dreama clutched her makeshift weapon and prepared to rise. Whatever awaited her beyond that doorway—escape or death—it had to be better than remaining Rastin's willing sacrifice.

And she froze as she reached the threshold of her cell, legs trembling beneath her as she stared at the undead man standing just a few feet away and staring at her. It had been here the whole time, but it had done nothing to stop her… and it wasn’t moving now, either. It just stood there like a grotesque statue, vacant eyes staring at nothing, jaws slack, hands hanging at their sides. The wrongness of it sent shivers down her spine. These same creatures had dragged her to torture sessions, had watched impassively as Rastin cut her open again and again. Now they seemed as lifeless as the truly dead, despite remaining upright. Dreama swallowed hard, her throat clicking with dryness as she took her first uncertain step toward freedom.

Her bare foot touched the stone floor of the corridor. Nothing happened. The guard remained motionless, not even their eyes tracking her movement. Dreama's heart hammered in her chest, each beat painful against her protruding ribs. She clutched the metal pin tighter, its sharp edges digging into her palm.

Emboldened by their continued inaction, she waved a hand in front of the nearest guard's face. The corpse—once a middle-aged farmer whose pigs had often broken into her family's garden and whom her father had always complained about but never failed to share a meal with—didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't react at all. Its eyes remained fixed on the door she had come through, milky and unseeing.

"Why aren't you stopping me?" she whispered, her voice strange to her own ears after so long in silence.

No answer came, of course. Just the soft, wet sound of air passing through dead lungs that no longer needed to breathe. Dreama reached out, her hand hovering inches from the guard's cold flesh before she jerked it back, unwilling to actually touch the animated corpse.

They must only follow specific orders. The entire time she had been here, they only did precisely what they were instructed to. Some instinct told her that these beings only followed specific orders. Without instructions from Rastin or his living overseers, they were nothing but empty shells—no will, no initiative, no purpose. The realization sent a thrill of hope through her exhausted body. If she could avoid the living followers, maybe… maybe she could navigate through the complex unhindered.

Gathering what little strength remained in her wasted body, Dreama began moving down the corridor, giving the undead guard a wide berth. Every step sent pain shooting through her scraped feet and her muscles cramped horribly from weeks of disuse, but she pressed one hand against the wall for support and kept going. The first cell she passed was empty, its door shut. Dark stains marked the floor, long since dried to a dull brown that could only be blood. One of her fellow townfolk had been in there when she was dragged past before… but he was gone now. Dreama moved on, checking each cell as she passed. Empty. Empty. Empty. Empty. All of them were gone.

Where were the other captives? Dreama remembered seeing dozens of villagers taken that night—men, women, even children. All of them were gone now, their cells empty save for bloodstains and silence. The sixth cell contained a small, pathetic pile of cloth in one corner. Dreama recognized it immediately—a child's doll, crudely sewn from scraps of fabric, now filthy and abandoned. Little Anna's doll. The baker's daughter had clutched it to her chest the night they were taken, her small face wet with tears as she clung to her mother, Marla. The same mother Dreama had watched die while she laid on Rastin's table. A sob tore from her throat before she could stifle it, the sound echoing in the empty corridor.

Anna was gone now, too.

Cell after cell told the same story, the smell and detritus of captivity and a hollow emptiness. As Dreama moved deeper into the dungeon, a terrible understanding began to take shape in her mind. She was the only one left. The only prisoner Rastin had kept alive. Everyone else from her village had been sacrificed to fuel his necromancy, their lives harvested and fed to that bloodcrystal, and their bodies discarded like empty husks. Only she remained… her magical potential too valuable to waste so quickly.

They were all dead.

The realization sent a wave of dizziness washing over her. Dreama sagged against the wall, her legs threatening to give way beneath her. Guilt crushed down on her chest with physical weight—guilt at surviving when everyone else had perished. Guilt at being special when specialness meant continued torture rather than merciful death. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty cells, to the ghosts of those who had died while she lived. "I'm so sorry."

Then she pushed herself upright, forcing her trembling legs to support her weight. Sorrow wouldn't save her, and guilt wouldn't honor their deaths. She had to keep moving.

At the end of the cellblock, a heavy wooden door stood partially ajar, revealing a narrow staircase leading upward. Dreama hesitated, straining her senses for any sign of danger. The cold, slithering sensation of necromancy still lingered in the air, but it felt distant, unfocused: Ambient energy rather than active spellcasting.

Dreama continued up the stairs, each step a struggle against her weakened body. Halfway up, she heard a sound that made her blood freeze in her veins—the shuffling gait of undead guards approaching from a connecting passage. She pressed herself against the wall, trying to make her emaciated frame as small as possible as two animated corpses trudged past the foot of the stairs, unseeing eyes fixed ahead. They carried between them a bucket of water… something to scrub and clean with, perhaps?

Neither noticed her.

When they had passed, Dreama released the breath she'd been holding, her head spinning. At the top of the stairs, she paused to gather her strength and her courage. Beyond this point would be the more populated areas of the complex—Rastin's chambers, the rooms where his living followers dwelled, the terrible ritual space where she had been violated repeatedly. The danger would increase exponentially… yet the complex remained as silent as a tomb.

Dreama clutched her metal pin, now slick with blood from her clenched fist. It was a pathetic weapon against the horrors that might await her, but it was all she had. Then she left the stairs and rounded the corner… and almost tripped over the body of a man.

He was sprawled on the floor, arms and legs splayed at unnatural angles. The living overseer… the same one who watched the dungeons, the one who had forced his cock down her throat, was lying on the ground. She didn’t need to check to see that he was dead. His eyes were open, bulging from their sockets as if he had died in shock or terror. His outstretched hand seemed to reach for something beyond Dreama's sight, fingers curved like claws digging into the stone floor. No visible wounds marked his body, yet the twisted expression on his face told of an agonizing death. Dreama couldn't summon even a flicker of pity.

She edged past the corpse, giving it a wide berth despite knowing it posed no threat. Unlike Rastin's undead servants, this body showed no sign of animation. Had Rastin killed him? Had the necromancer gotten angry and ripped the life from the man? If so, why hadn’t he resurrected him into one of his undead slaves like the others? Why had he been left here on the floor? The body was actually starting to smell… he hadn’t been here for just a few moments.

Weeks ago, Dreama would have been so revolted she couldn’t function. The sight of a dead body would have crippled her. Now, after the horror she had witnesses, she just felt numb… and confused. What was going on here?

She continued down the corridor, alert for any sign of living threats. The complex felt wrong… too quiet. Something catastrophic had happened here.

Around the next corner, she found two more bodies—apprentices she recognized from her torture sessions, both lying face down as if they'd been running when death caught them. Once again, neither of them had a wound. One still clutched a bloodcrystal in his rigid hand, the gem's inner light now extinguished and dull.

Dreama could have run then. There was a window in the hallway, and it wasn’t that far to the ground. She could probably lower herself, fall, hit the ground, run for her life. She didn’t. Something was pulling her onward… some compulsion to move forward. More bodies lay scattered through the halls as she walked. Some had died in their open rooms, contorted in positions that suggested their final moments had been excruciating. Others appeared to have been fleeing, cut down mid-stride. A female apprentice who had particularly enjoyed watching Dreama's violations was slumped against a wall, her pretty face now a mask of horror, her robes torn as if she'd clawed at her own chest in her death throes.

It wasn’t until she stood before the door that she realized where she had been walking: Dreama stood outside of the door leading to the ritual chambers where she had been drained. Where the lessons were taught. The ornate door stood partially open. She put her hand on the door and felt it… a rhythmic pulsing, almost like a heartbeat.

She pushed.

The sight that greeted her on the other side of that door stopped her cold. The ritual chamber had become a charnel house. Bodies of apprentices lay scattered across the floor in pools of black fluid, their faces frozen in expressions of unspeakable agony. Some had apparently tried to form a protective circle around the central table, while others had attempted to flee, only to collapse before reaching the door. That was bad enough… but it was the figure on the central table that drew Dreama's horrified gaze. Rastin himself lay spread-eagled where she had been bound so many times, his expensive robes torn open to expose his chest. Or rather, what remained of it. His ribcage had been split open from the inside, bones splayed outward like the petals of some grotesque flower. The cavity where his heart should have been gaped empty, the surrounding tissue blackened and withered as if burned by some caustic substance.

Dreama approached the table slowly, unable to tear her eyes from the necromancer's mutilated corpse. His face was contorted in an expression of such pure terror that it barely looked human anymore. The eyes that had watched her suffering with cold amusement were now wide and glassy, fixed on the ceiling in eternal horror. Black fluid had poured from every orifice—eyes, ears, nose, mouth—creating a dark halo around his head on the metal table.

"What happened?" she whispered, not expecting an answer from the dead. "Who… what… did this?"

As if in response, the pulsing sensation she'd felt earlier intensified, drawing her attention to Rastin's robes. Something bulged in an inner pocket, creating a small, rhythmic movement that mimicked a heartbeat. Dreama hesitated, revulsion warring with curiosity. Then, steeling herself, she reached into the pocket with trembling fingers.

Her hand closed around something warm and solid. The crystal was nearly the size of a small plum. When she pulled it free, her breath caught in her throat. The crystal pulsed with crimson light that matched the rhythm she'd been sensing, each throb perfectly synchronized with her own heartbeat. Veins of silver-blue energy swirled within it, dancing around the central red glow in hypnotic patterns.

It was hers. This was the crystal she had bled for. The one that so many souls had been fed to. It had grown large, enhanced with the death energy of her fellow villagers. Rastin had kept it close, using it to fuel his most powerful spells. Now it responded to her presence like it recognized her as its like, and the warmth of the power contained inside the crystal ran up her arm and throughout her body.

Someone had killed them all. They hadn’t taken anything, like bandits would have. They hadn’t slain the undead automatons like one of the churches or kingdom enforcers would have. They hadn’t stayed behind like a conquering rival would have. Whoever had done this had just slaughtered everyone here like they were insects and left without a second’s hesitation… they hadn’t even checked the dungeons to realize there was a captive left alive.

What if they came back?

Dreama didn’t know where she found the strength to run, but ran she did. If she had been walking through this nightmare like she was enchanted, that enchantment was broken now… she fled in a panic, seeking the quickest way out. She didn’t know the way, but she picked directions more or less at random until she found a door, opened it, and stepped outside into a courtyard near the forest. Dreama hesitated at the threshold, momentarily overwhelmed by the sight of the outside world after weeks of captivity. The air smelled of pine and damp earth, so sweet after the stench of death and decay that it brought tears to her eyes.

Then she resumed running, and she did not look back.

Panic propelled her forward, bare feet flying over the rough path despite her weakness. She clutched the crystal to her chest as she ran, its warmth the only defense against the chill that the forest inflicted on the naked girl sprinting through it. Branches whipped at her face and naked body, reopening half-healed wounds and creating new ones, but Dreama didn't slow. The pain was distant, irrelevant compared to the primal fear driving her deeper into the forest. She ran until her legs gave out, collapsing in a small clearing far from the necromancer's complex. Blood trickled from dozens of small cuts, her feet torn and bleeding from the punishing flight. But she was free. Whatever had slaughtered the house hadn't noticed her… or if it had, it had chosen not to claim her as it had claimed Rastin and his followers.

Dreama lay on the damp forest floor, gasping for breath, the crystal still clutched to her chest. Its pulsing had slowed to match her heartbeat once more, a comforting rhythm that anchored her to the present moment. She was alive. Broken, traumatized, forever changed—but alive.

There, in that clearing, Dreama finally allowed herself to weep. Not the silent tears of captivity, but deep, wrenching sobs that tore from her throat and shook her entire body. She cried for her parents, burned in the fire her magic had created. For the villagers sacrificed to Rastin's ambition. For Marla, whose kind face had been the last thing Dreama saw before the knife took her life. For the child with the doll, whose blood had stained a cell floor. For the self she had been before—innocent, untested, unbroken.

When the tears finally subsided, a new emotion rose to take their place—determination, cold and hard as the crystal in her hand. She had survived when all others had perished. That had to mean something. Whatever power had drawn her to the crystal, she would understand it. Master it. Use it.

And then, perhaps, find a way to bring back those she had lost.

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