At the bottom of the hole, the corpse lies still, though there is one notable thing that differentiates it from the rest of the dead laying in this crypt: it's breathing.
Not well. But it is breathing, so slow it's impossible to notice unless you stare for a long, long time. Its eyes are still open, staring up at the ceiling, dulled and darkened and empty of life. Every once in a while, they flick across the ceiling. The thing that was Avid and may become him again can only think of the terror.
Trapped in a tiny little hole in the ground. Screaming for his life. He was trying to prove himself to them. He was trying to help them.
Was he really that awful?
A finger twitches. Slowly, body begins to respond again, mind begins to focus, everything sort of hazy and slow. Something else drags him to his hands and knees. Avid feels like a passenger, watching it happen, not the one in control. He doesn't mind it so much, though, detached as he is, he doesn't have to think beyond the hurt and the anger that flushes out every other thought.
They actually killed him.
He should be dead right now.
Hand by hand, he begins to pull himself up and out of the hole. Every limb feels numb, blood still staining his clothes, his skin, marring him in equal measure to the mottled black streaks across his body, the coloration that sharpens into claws at the tips of his fingers on his hand, that curls up his face and morphs vampire fangs into the razor-sharp teeth of something worse.
Hunger pangs in his stomach. Anger, hot and ugly, boils in his chest.
Claws dig into the stone at the top of the hole, and the demon hauls itself out into the light. He stares, for a long moment, at the woods ahead of him, not at all certain what he's going to find out here. He isn't sure how long it's been.
If anybody's still... around.
Some things never change, however, and the voice that sounds makes him jump. Avid glances skyward, then around at the nearby trees, before his voice comes out... different.