A violent shudder rattled Hubal’s teeth, snapping him out of a deep, dreamless sleep.
Nausea hit him next, a greasy, heavy weight that sloshed in his gut as if the entire house had just tilted on its side.
He bolted upright, gasping for air that tasted like rusted copper and old rot.
Underneath his palms, the cotton bedsheets felt wet, hot, and disturbingly fleshy.
Purple veins, thick as dock ropes, pulsed beneath the floorboards, sending rhythmic vibrations up through his mattress.
Fasihu, his small scaled companion, let out a high-pitched, agonizing screech from the corner of the room.
Desperately, Hubal lunged toward the corner where Fasihu’s wicker basket usually sat.
Only, the wicker was gone, replaced by a wet, pulsing socket of skin that seemed to be growing directly out of the floor.
Fasihu’s sleek, emerald scales were bubbling, turning into a gray mush that fused directly into the wall.
Whimpering, the little creature stretched out a single clawed hand toward Hubal, its slit-pupil eyes begging for help.
Hubal reached out, his fingers brushing the dying scales, but his hand sank right through the soft, dissolving meat of his pet.
Sticky, warm slime coated his fingers, smelling of copper and sulfur.
Cold dread seized his chest, squeezing his lungs until they burned.
Farisa’s voice echoed from the doorway, a choked, wet gasp that made Hubal’s heart stop.
Or rather, where the doorway used to be, because the solid oak frame had melted into a weeping ring of black cartilage.
Struggling to stand, Hubal dragged himself across the shifting, meaty floor, his knees sinking into the soft flesh.
His bedroom had warped into a colossal, living throat, a wet passage of writhing muscle and bone-white ribs protruding from the plaster.
Farisa stood in the center of the room, her eyes wide with a terror he had never seen on her face before.
She was his shield, his older sister, the one who always held the family together with her perfect, effortless grace.
Seeing her like this broke something deep inside him.
Glimmering light began to leak from her skin, glowing with a sickly, pearlescent sheen.
Slowly, her hands dissolved into a thick, shimmering substance, like liquefied pearls mixed with dark bile.
Flowing in thick ribbons, her very essence dragged across the floor, pulled toward the dark center of the room by an unseen gravity.
She tried to scream, but only a wet, bubbling sound escaped her throat before her jaw dissolved into the same viscous glow.
Hubal forced his eyes wide open, refusing to blink, refusing to let the nightmare win.
Directly in front of him sat the most grotesque, colossal creature he had ever witnessed in his life.
Massive, overlapping plates of dark, wet chitin formed its bulk, squeezing against the walls of his ruined room.
Dozens of eyes, wet and yellow, sprouted from its shifting flesh like giant, weeping boils.
Each eye blinked independently, tracking the shimmering ribbons of Farisa's life force as they drained into its gaping, toothless maw.
Everything he loved was disappearing into this beast, and he was completely powerless to stop it.
Memories flashed through his mind, sharp and biting as winter wind.
He remembered the elders' disappointed sighs whenever he failed to light a simple candle with his spark.
"Why can't you be more like Farisa?" they would whisper when they thought he wasn't listening.
Farisa, who could summon a hearth fire before she could properly walk.
Hubal had always been the useless one, the hot-headed boy who broke things instead of fixing them.
His temper was a constant source of embarrassment for the family, a wild fire that he could never tame.
Whenever the other children mocked his lack of control, he would strike out with his fists, earning him nothing but cold glares.
Farisa was the only one who didn't look at him like he was a broken tool.
Anger, hot and ugly, flared in his chest, fighting back the crushing weight of his terror.
He refused to let her die because of his weakness.
Wet, sucking noises filled the air as the walls contracted, pushing him closer to the beast.
Wood splintered, the beams of his ceiling snapping like dry twigs under the pressure of the creature's massive bulk.
Dust and plaster rained down, immediately dissolving into the acidic slime coating the floor.
Every breath felt like inhaling liquid fire, scorching his throat and filling his mouth with the taste of ash.
Plunging forward, Hubal threw his body toward the shimmering stream of Farisa's remains.
His hands tore through the pulsing veins on the floor, ignoring the greasy warmth that smeared across his skin.
Clinging to hope, he grabbed at the viscous fluid, desperate to hold her together, to drag her back from the brink.
Instead, the glowing liquid slipped through his fingers, cold and entirely unresponsive to his touch.
Only a small fragment of her sleeve remained dry, and he clutched it like a lifeline.
Rage surged, overriding the paralyzing fear that usually froze him in his tracks.
He would not fail her.
Not today.
Never again.
Fasihu was completely gone now, absorbed into the wall, leaving only a dark stain on the pulsing flesh.
Looking back at the center of the room, Hubal saw the tiny reptile's eyes glaze over in his mind's eye.
Green scales had darkened to a bruised purple, then liquefied.
Ribs of the tiny creature cracked outward, blooming like a grotesque flower of bone.
Fasihu's final cry was cut short as the wall drank him completely.
Grief hit Hubal like a physical blow, knocking the wind from his lungs.
Fasihu had been his shadow, a silent observer of his late-night frustrations and whispered hopes.
To see him extinguished so effortlessly, turned into nothing more than fuel for this expanding corruption, made Hubal's blood run cold.
He was losing everything in a matter of seconds, his home, his companion, his sister.
Squeezing through the ruptured ceiling, more of the creature's massive body spilled into the room.
It had no true shape, just a mountain of rotting flesh, chitinous plates, and twitching limbs.
Long, thin arms with too many joints scraped against the floorboards, leaving trails of black rot.
Dozens of mouths opened and closed along its flanks, whispering incoherent, wet noises.
Whispers vibrated through Hubal's teeth, making his skull ache with a high-pitched whine.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, to flee this impossible nightmare.
But there was nowhere to go.
Outside his window, the sky wasn't blue anymore.
Swirling voids of violet and sickly gray tore at the horizon, chewing away the very fabric of the landscape.
Destruction consumed the horizon, starting right here in his bedroom.
Helplessness threatened to drown him.
Why did his hands always shake when it mattered most?
He had spent years trying to prove he was strong, picking fights with the village boys, pretending he didn't care about magic.
Magic was now the only thing that could save his sister.
Deep inside his belly, a spark flickered.
It wasn't the polite, controlled flame Farisa always conjured.
This was something raw, wild, and incredibly angry.
Liquid iron seemed to bubble up from the soles of his feet, rushing toward his chest and filling him with a terrible power.
He welcomed the pain of it.
Anything was better than the cold, empty void of losing Farisa.
Farisa's face was nearly gone now, replaced by a swirling pool of iridescent silver.
Only her eyes remained for a fraction of a second, locked onto Hubal's.
They didn't hold blame, only a soft, devastating sorrow.
Giving up was her only option now, or so it seemed.
That realization cut deeper than any blade.
A roar ripped from his throat, a raw, animalistic sound of pure denial.
He lunged, throwing himself into the center of the room, his hands outstretched.
"No!" he screamed, his voice cracking under the strain.
Searing heat exploded in his palms.
Bright, chaotic white light burst from his skin, smelling of ozone and burning copper.
It wasn't a spell; it was a violent expulsion of raw will.
Blistering heat scorched his own flesh, bubbling his skin, but he didn't care.
He wanted to burn the world down if it meant stopping this monster.
Every muscle in his legs screamed as he fought against the suction of the floor.
Rotting meat of his room was trying to digest him too, dragging his ankles into the warm, wet pulp.
He pulled his left foot free with a sickening pop, leaving his boot behind.
Bare skin pressed against the acidic slime, and he hissed as it began to eat away at his soles.
Still, he pressed forward, clawing his way toward the beast's underbelly.
If he couldn't pull Farisa out, he would tear this thing apart from the inside.
Monstruous eyes blinked in unison, as if the creature finally noticed his pathetic struggle.
One of its many jointed arms swung downward, a massive spade of black bone designed to crush.
Hubal rolled to the side, his shoulder slamming into a pulsing rib that protruded from the wall.
Hard impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but he forced himself to scramble back up.
Reaching her was his only goal.
He had to do something.
Shimmering light of Farisa's dissolved body was almost entirely inside the creature's mouth now.
Only a faint, sparkling mist remained in the air, drifting toward the gaping maw.
His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
Insecurity whispered in his ear, telling him he was already too late.
It told him he was the failure everyone always said he was.
But the anger was louder.
Rage became a roaring fire that swallowed the whispers whole.
He refused to let his story end with him standing by, watching his sister disappear.
With a desperate scream, he reached deep down, grabbing that liquid iron spark in his gut.
He pulled it up, dragging it through his veins, ignoring the agonizing heat that charred him from within.
His skin began to glow, not with the soft light of Farisa's magic, but with a harsh, blinding glare.
Cracks of white light split the skin of his forearms, leaking raw, untamed power.
Vibrations hummed through the air, shattering the nearby window glass with a high-pitched whine.
Shards of glass fell, suspended in the air by the sheer pressure of his awakening power.
He thrust his hands forward, aiming the core of his burning soul directly at the creature's chest.
A beam of pure, destructive energy erupted from his palms, tearing through the fleshy floor and gouging a deep trench toward the beast.
Acrid stench of burning meat filled the room as his magic scorched the creature's hide.
But the colossal entity barely flinched, its massive bulk absorbing the blow with a wet, sucking sound.
It was too strong.
His magic was a flickering candle compared to the ocean of rot before him.
Yet, he didn't stop, pouring every ounce of his life force into the attack, his palms blistering under the heat.
He would burn himself to ash before he gave up.
As Hubal's untrained magic flares, the creature's largest eye swivels, locking onto him with an ancient, knowing malevolence that whispers a name in his mind: 'Maelstrom.'