My entire body, still engulfed in pain, tensed as Harland approached me. Damien was still in his forced grip, squirming and fighting like a fish out of water.

  "You damn bastard!" Damien cried, his white eyes narrowed with bold, child-like rage.

  Harland looked towards the doors leading out of the cafeteria, smirking, before looking back down at me. The black-haired man reached down towards my feeble state, grabbing hold of my sleeve with an iron grip. Making his way to the doors, he pushed them open with his foot and began walking down the hallway.

  He took both of us by our arms, dragging us down the dimly lit hallways with surprising strength. Damien repeatedly sank his teeth into Harland's flesh, but the attacks did little to make him wince, almost laugh from how much it didn't affect him. I, on the other hand, didn't try to attack him, as doing so would bring larger consequences than any chance of victory.

  "Should I feed you to the dogs, or have my friends beat you up more?" The man with black hair looked back at us, giving us an almost honest look.

  Hearing the man's question, the fear that had been churning in my lower gut, much like the pain from the many previous attacks, began to bubble like a freshly-made stew.

  "The dogs?" I asked, my voice barely containing the slight tremble it carried.

  Harland didn't reply to my question. Instead, he looked a little farther down the hallway and smirked as if sensing something amiss, something within the darkness. At that instant, one of the doors—the one at the end of the hallway- sounded like it was being pounded from behind. The door wasn't adorned with a label—it looked strangely menacing.

  Behind the door at the end of the dimly lit hallway, faint scratching, followed by low growling sounds and animalistic chatter, were the only sounds other than our shaky breathing. After a few seconds of silence, accompanied by our listening, Harland turned back to us with a small smile.

  "It looks like they're already hungry."

  "W-why not we have your friends beat us up?" Damien's eyes gained an uncharacteristic tinge of fear, a stark contrast to his usual snappy and bratty demeanor. Instead of considering this option, Harland continued walking forward without saying a word.

  He soon began whistling an upbeat tune from his lips, which succeeded in running a chill down our spines. Damien sank his teeth into the back of Harland's hand again, but the man didn't flinch or do anything to indicate he was even in the slightest pain. Throughout the entire ordeal, my heart continued to race in my chest, accompanied by a feeling of lightheadedness.

  I frantically looked in both directions and down the countless corridors lining ours. I didn't see a single nurse or attendant, which only intensified my hopelessness. Harland's cheery tune shut abruptly as he looked back at us. I was so afraid to notice we were standing directly in front of the door.

  Damien attempted to bite him again, but Harland grabbed him by the jaw, forcing the boy to gaze into his eyes, the deep crimson flickering with a palpable satisfaction.

  "I was going to have my meal in the cafeteria until this bastard showed up. To appease my hunger, why not watch others get eaten alive instead?"

  Without any time to react, Harland opened the door and tossed us inside the dark, chilly room. Damien landed on the stone floor faster than I, and his body also reacted faster. He shot up from the ground, running over to the door to hold it open with his arms, but Harland kicked him back and shut it before he could conduct any further actions.

  As Harland slammed the wooden door, the sound reverberated through the room and up to the ceiling. Judging by the echo caliber, the room we were both in was pretty large. I let out a shaky sigh as I looked around the darkness, silently scanning for any danger.

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  Weren't the dogs barking and slamming against the door just a few moments ago?

  Damien would have pouted in a situation like this, but strangely, I felt his warm body press against mine. My heart ached the moment he began to quiver like a leaf, his small hands enveloping my upper arm in a macabre embrace.

  There was no light anywhere in the room, not even a sliver that could protrude from a crack in the wood or stone. The ground beneath us was cold and slightly wet.

  "I-is that water?" Damien asked, running a finger through the liquid on the floor. After bringing it to his lips, I heard him immediately gag and spit the liquid out, a trail of slightly sticky liquid dripping from his lower lip.

  "I-it tastes weird," he continued, his voice bitter just like his description.

  After taking a moment to digest the boy's information, I too grew curious about the contents on the ground. Letting out a shaky, reluctant sigh, I ran a finger through the liquid on the floor and brought it to my lips.

  It didn't settle well on my tongue. It tasted coppery, bitter, and almost rancid to a degree.

  It was warm, succulent blood.

  The moment I put two and two together, my body reacted on its own as I snatched Damien from the ground, picking him up and hoisting him onto my shoulders. My gaze fell on the area where the door once was, reacting habitually as I began to kick and pound on it. I also called out for anyone to help us, but after what seemed like a few minutes, I slumped back against the wall and let out a shaky sigh.

  At this moment, I entered a sudden period of deliberation. I could take the both of us to my mindscape, but the sudden exposure to something so supernatural and foreign could prompt a dangerous reaction from Damien.

  On the other hand, these dogs would have no way to reach us, and maybe, I could find a way out of this situation.

  Before I could make a proper decision, a low growl emanating from the darkness caught both of our attention. Within the inscrutable, clammy dark, I heard a low growl once again, followed by the sound of something viscous hitting the ground—something like a liquid.

  These growls intensified in volume and frequency, and a new sensation flooded the surroundings. It was an ice-cold rush of fear the moment something brushed against my leg. The object was large and bony in texture.

  "What the hell..." I mumbled.

  I felt a sharp, stinging pain in my forehead where the sigil was. The crimson symbol burned through my brown locks, threatening to spill into my entire body with this red-hot sensation. I clenched my jaw, trying not to make much noise to expose my location.

  The darkness around me slowly began to recede, but the cold feeling in my body didn't retreat. The blackness turned to a somewhat gray shade. My eyes widened as I caught sight of an uncountable number of figures on their hands and knees in the darkness.

  When I gazed upon their faces, their eyes and mouths had been removed, with surgical stitching surrounding sheets of skin that had been applied over the missing organs. These figures ranged in shape and size, but the one thing they had in common was the incisions in their backs, where their spines protruded through the skin, erecting upwards like disgusting pillars of surgical failure. These newly transformed organs seemed to act like tails.

  Some of them were curled into balls on the ground, resting silently without making a noise, while others remained poised on their hands and feet like rabid dogs, swaying back and forth as if silently observing us from the darkness. Around their canted forms was an illusory black aura that gradually ebbed away at their beings.

  Suddenly, I felt an ability I had been told I'd acquire when I first drank the Doomweaver potion activate. It was calamity sense! Luckily, I leaped out of the way before the creature without a face could reach me. The gray surroundings allowed me to look around the space much more easily than previously.

  Damien was still on my back, his body trembling as he looked at the floor towards the unseen attacker. I continued to evade the attacks of the creature, narrowly missing the claws and tail that were repeatedly swinging in my direction.

  The faceless human-like creature let out a low, muffled sound from behind its faceless countenance. The dull-nailed fingers it had been using to claw at me quickly extended into dagger-like claws. It suddenly leapt up at me, reaching about head-level in an attempt to slash my face off. Luckily, I had the stamina and stumbled back before it could land a good hit on my body.

  The burning of the sigil continued, only intensifying as I continued to fight this creature. I frantically turned towards the other creatures in the room, arching an eyebrow upon noticing their eerie stillness. None of them moved, only swaying back and forth and observing my fight.

  Why weren't they helping their friend?

  The moment I dodged another attack, accidentally positioning myself in their direction, the monsters all froze in their swaying. The bony erections on their back all stiffened like a cat sensing danger and reacting to it. One of them, the tallest of the group, slowly began to crawl backwards, edging towards the corner of the room.

  Soon, the entire pack seemed to follow their master. At this moment, I turned around to face the monster that had been attacking me, but I too noticed that it had retreated to the farthest corner, its body trembling rabidly.

  "I-Isaac?" I heard Damien's voice pierce the dense atmosphere.

  "Yeah?" I whispered back, my gaze never leaving the creatures huddled together.

  I felt Damien's small hands wrap around something on my head--two to be exact. I was hesitant to regress from this state of sudden sight in the darkness, but judging by the creature's reactions to whatever was happening, I could most likely do so without prompting a reaction from them.

  As the light gray color of the room darkened to pitch black, a blinding crimson light immediately penetrated it as my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. Feeling a rush of confusion, I looked up at my head.

  Perched atop my head were a pair of glowing, crimson horns that resembled a dragon's. Seeing this, my eyes widened as I immediately recalled the incident with Bertram. When the boy wouldn't let go of my body, the illusory horns appeared on my head, and he felt a strange sense of fear that he hadn't shown until that point.

  Could these monsters be exhibiting similar behavior? Are these horns linked with the Apocaplyse pathway and my role as a Doomweaver?

  A sudden, piercing shriek echoed throughout the room as the monsters slowly receded into the darkness.