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Breeding Grounds Chapters 1 - 4

Erotica/Horror ┃ Monster x Human┃ M x Monster ┃ Dubcon ┃+30k words

Content Warning: Body horror, gore, oviposition. A terrible creature prowls in the Black Bellmouth forest, looking for its next mate.

Chapter 1

The hiking boots that had fit nicely mere hours ago on Algy’s feet had now left painful blisters on his feet that had opened more than a hundred paces ago, but even with the raw pain in his feet and lungs, Algy had no time to stop because the creature following him was not going to stop either. The late fall frost had already covered the ground, and each step Algy took sent the sound of crunching grass all around the Black Bellmouth forest. There was no way the creature did not know where he was going, and hiding was no longer an option. All Algy could do was run, and as far as Algy knew, the only place he could escape to was the old mine just beyond the forest that was still somehow operational even after the years of decline. The men there had to fend for themselves against wolves and bears; surely their guns would work against even the creature gaining on him.

Now, Algy only hoped he had picked the right direction.

Algy did not dare to look behind him; the creature's inhuman growls were enough to make him realise he was running against the clock. One by one, the monster had picked his hiking group, dragging them into the darkness before they had had any time to act, and when they had, it had already been too late. Most of them were gone, and Algy was the only survivor. Vielat’s coagulated blood on his face was everything that was left of the others, along with their screams; he swore he could still hear them echoing in his head. The brisk night air filled Algy’s lungs as he reached the end of the thicket, leaving him closer to his goal, yet also more vulnerable. The creature following him was a large one, and the forest might have slowed it down a bit, but here in the open, it would have more room to roam. The man took one quick glance at the bright night sky above him, sparing a brief moment to wonder at its beauty before the terrifying screeches from behind him urged him to run again. With the terror running rampant in his brain, there was not much room to think about anything other than survival, maybe not even that. All Algy could concentrate on was the next step he would take in the utter darkness, while the adrenaline rushing in his veins did everything else.

He could just barely spot the small, orange lights in the distance set by the Beira Digging Company, marking the outside of the Bleakfall Burrow. Algy still had more than four hundred paces to bridge the distance between him and the mine, yet the tiny hope inside his mind told him he was closer to safety than the creature, a sweet little lie if nothing else. Had Algy not known better, seeking cover in the workers’ trailers would have been his first thought, but he had seen the creature rip apart a log with its large claws, like it was the kind of paper used in the shittiest rest stops. What it could do to a human body, the man did not even dare consider. Running on the shale rock mountain side made Algy almost stumble, but he managed to keep his balance just barely. The half-frozen mud underneath the stones made each of his steps more precarious than the one before it, and it felt like his movement speed was halved, even with the burst of energy inside him that was the only thing separating him from prey. Yet, in the blink of an eye, Algy made a decision he was going to soon regret.

After almost slipping again for the second time, Algy decided to look behind him.

Far too close to his liking, he could distinguish a large shape coming after him, its heavy claws hitting the muddy ground, and a thunderous sound of its weight now audible even under Algy’s heavy breathing and quickly beating heart. Where Algy struggled to run, the monster’s weight gave it more stability as its claws sank into the slope. Algy turned his head and began to run faster, more rashly, wobbling ahead, feeling the last shreds of hope leave him. The little lights grew larger right before him, but not fast enough, and the low growling behind him got closer, and soon he felt something gnaw at his calf. A quick, sharp, painful scream echoed through the mountainside as the creature sank its teeth into the tender muscle, making Algy hit the hard ground in an instant. He tried to crawl away, but the beast wouldn’t let him go, no matter which god he would pray to. Algy struggled against its hold, screaming and kicking as it dragged him back into the forest, deeper into the darkness and cover of the canopy. His hiking gear gave him a little cover as the shale cut into Algy’s skin. Leaving a stinging pain slightly eased by the brisk ground.

Here, even in the darkness surrounding them, Algy could finally see his hunter closer than ever before, and what he saw was straight from his worst nightmares. The large creature was bigger than any other animal he had ever seen, and far more gruesome. It was made from the same raw flesh as his aching heels ripped by his boots. Whether it had eyes or not, Algy could not tell underneath its body as it finally stopped dragging him once they crossed the tree line. The creature released him from its razors and seemed to examine its shivering prey, who had already readied himself for the final bite, hoping it all would be over sooner rather than later, although the screams he had heard once his hiking friends had been taken away proved otherwise. The grotesque monster sniffed him with its almost bear-like, elongated snout, almost as if it wanted to make sure its prey would not dare to run away. Something Algy would not dare to do anymore.

“Just do it,” Algy shivered before adding, “End it now.” The creature answered his prayer with a deafening howl that was mixed with an almost human-like scream coming from deep within its throat. Letting Algy know that, no, this creature would not grant such pleas, as for it, this was no hunt for a meal, but for something far more sinister.

The creature roared again and bit into Algy’s hiking pants, ripping them apart with ease. The human underneath its teeth screamed in terror as his lower part was exposed, his now bare groin feeling the mix of hot breath from the monster and the crisp night air. First, they go for the soft parts, like eyes and belly, Algy thought in horror, suddenly remembering every horrible fact he had learned while looking for missing people. Whatever this beast was, it was not something he had ever learned or even heard about. He had come here for leisure, not for voluntary help, even though Algy had heard that people had gone missing in this very forest for the past few months. Had he helped or reported if he had seen something during his trip? Sure, but he had not been actively seeking anyone. His mind reminded him of all the missing person posters he had seen near the visitor centre and about the quaint local radio show, where the hosts had talked about the missing people. Someone in the car had been worried about it; was it Vielat? What had he told them? People go missing all the time; there is nothing to worry about. There had been a large earthquake in the area; things like that happen.

You will be safe with me.

The creature pushed its long, pointed tongue out of its maw and gave a slimy lick to Algy’s nether regions to the man’s shock. The gooey saliva felt warm against Algy’s bare skin, followed by a tingly sensation, which confused the hurt human even more. The monster’s slithery tongue moved to lick his groin again, gliding all the way down to his still slightly covered behind and pushing past his cheeks, brushing its goo on his puckered hole. Algy let out an unwanted cry as he felt it, along with the growing tingling sensation on his cock. Nothing in this situation seemed what it should have been; no beast would treat their prey like this, and even Algy knew it. Any thoughts about being a mere meal were disposed of as soon as the creature's pointed tongue entered his hole, slithering inside it and spreading the same slimy saliva inside him. Algy let out another barely muffled moan as his arousal got the better of him; the pain he was feeling earlier shifted, becoming more muted and enhancing his arousal, making Algy quickly believe that the goo he had been slathered with must have other properties than a mere tingling sensation. Instead of expected burning agony, there was now a slight throb gleaming inside him, making him feel almost paralysed. The creature withdrew its tongue and drove it back inside Algy’s ass, feeling his body from the inside and readying him for what was to come.

Algy squirmed slightly on the frozen ground, trying to grasp at something to grab onto or anything to get out of this growingly weird situation, but his hands only found wilted plants and brisk stones. His own cock now at half-mast, Algy glanced behind the four-legged beast and saw the large pouch between its hind legs. Slowly, the pouch opened up, and a bulgy, slime-covered member similar to that of a reptile with a tear-shaped, wavy tip began to erect from deep within, growing into a size far longer than Algy’s very human leg with almost as much width as his muscular thigh. As soon as Algy realised what it was, the rest of it protruded out and revealed four large sags hanging from the base, swollen with the creature’s terrible spawn. Algy was not going to be its meal; he was becoming its mate.

Four appendages like the monster’s tongue sprang out of its back and attacked Algy’s squirming body, two slipping underneath his shredded shirt to keep him still, and the other two forced their way inside his mouth, pushing past his dried lips as deep as they could, reaching past his throat and making it bulge from the width. They moved back and forth, slithering Algy’s face with the same tingling fluid, numbing him from their assault. The man gasped for air while the creature’s real tongue violated his hole. Algy wanted to beg it to stop, not wanting to be defiled by such a monster. At the same time, his animalistic instincts were taking over him; the fear and the desire being close companions, his mind fighting against his needing body. Whatever reason the monster had for taking him like this, Algy didn’t know yet. Still, in the fight against his lustful side, he realised that the screams he had heard in the forest by his fellow hikers had not been from pain or fear, or maybe they had been that at first, but then those same shrieks had turned to the same ones he was now letting out between the forceful tonguing; to the screams of pleasure.

Algy’s erect tip began to leak with precum, staining his shaft while he moaned and cried against the tongue-like appendages in his mouth. The firm, yet slimy tentacles were rough, moving past what should have been humanly possible and stretching Algy’s throat wide open. Somewhere deep in his mind, the man still had some sense in him, wondering why the creature was doing it. What little biology Algyn had learned during his time in school, he had always thought animals seldom mated for pleasure, even if this one was nothing as he had ever seen before. His violation had to have a purpose, yet he was male; there was no womb to be impregnated, and animals should only breed for reproduction. The creature had no intentions to quit either way in the wake of Algy’s less than stellar academic knowledge; it kept shoving its members in and out of Algy’s body as if he was its little cocksleeve, pumping its gooey slime inside him, some of it pouring out of him with each thrust, spreading the tingling sensation all over Algy’s body until it was ready to explode from the sensation. With a sudden jolt and arched back, Algy came, shooting a few ropes of his seed onto his groin and shuddering in euphoria.

Not caring or noticing the human’s sudden blissful state, the creature clawed at his clothes, removing the last shredded parts of his trousers, and withdrew its tongue from Algy’s hole while its tentacles kept pushing inside his mouth. The monster adjusted its heavy member against Algy’s hole and growled, which momentarily woke the human from his ecstasy. It was not asking him for permission or warning him of what was to come.

It growled from the excitement.

The fleshy creature cared little for the human’s pleasure; it was here to take what it wanted, but to the man’s blessing, his mind had been taken over by enthralling bliss. Nothing was going to stop it now; he could only enjoy the ride as long as it lasted. The creature thrusted its muscled hips forward, missing Algy’s gaping hole just barely. It readied itself again for another push, this time hitting its mark with its flared, pitcher-like tip and forcing Algy’s used hole to make room for it, stretching him open so much that he had to spread his legs as wide as he could, reaching the limit of his mobility. The human let out a similar cry he had heard when his friends had been taken, which was soon muffled by the tentacles returning to plough his abused throat. The creature's pole slid in with terrible force, impaling the man going insane, reaching his guts. Algy could see the massive member bulging his stomach from the inside, which somehow seemed to reach all the way to his rib cage. The impossible sight made Algy’s eyes widen from the terror for a moment, yet there was only a slight pain surrounding his rim where the creature’s mast spread the widest and nowhere else. Whatever the creature had done to him had made the human’s body more applicable to its width and length. The whirling tentacles inside Algy’s mouth might have even reached the pole, assaulting his back while exploring his insides, doing something more to him for the sake of prepping his body for something it was not supposed to be able to do, to mould him and rearrange his insides for a specific purpose.

The monster’s fleshy balls hit against Algy’s buttocks with an audible smack, and it withdrew its hefty member from the aching hole. Algy could feel the bulgy tip hit against his entrance, not allowed to leave by his still spasming muscles, which seemed to suit the monster just fine. Now it knew it could mount the poor human without tearing him apart, and it could begin to breed him. Without any warning, the creature bucked its hips and drove its member all the way back inside Algy, who screamed against the tentacles with tears in his eyes, only for the creature to back out and ram itself repeatedly inside him, ruthlessly using him as its barely willing mate and target of its battering ram. Each shove seemed more forceful and faster than the one before it as the monster quickened its movements, pleasing itself with the much smaller human. The frozen ground beneath them had turned into a mushy mix of mud and thawed grass, offering little padding as Algy’s body was used, his mind turning to jell from the pleasure, staining his once blond hair to a brown mess. Algy lolled helplessly as the creature's member pulled him into the air and slammed him back against the ground with each merciless thrust, pushing his body deeper into the mud. He wanted to be taken by the creature, to be its little breeding hole. Whatever he was before this was now gone, while the creature slammed into him, spreading him impossibly wide with its abominable tool.

Algy felt the hot cockhead inside him open up as did the ones inside his mouth, while the creature kept slamming into him harder and harder. Suddenly, a slick substance began to fill his throat and hole, leaking into him to brace his insides for something more. The creature let out a howling screech into the night air and slammed Algy to the ground, and he felt the massive shafts pulsate as they released even more fluid, along with the first eggs. One by one, the creature released its fist-sized eggs inside him, filling him up to carry them to term, howling loudly while its fertilised eggs pushed inside Algy. The human’s belly began to swell from the eggs, quickly protruding like that of an eight-month pregnant woman. Algy’s willing body sucked in each egg the creature could muster, giving them a warm place to incubate, and when his over-inflated belly finally stopped growing. The creature gave him a few more thrusts to secure its eggs deep inside him, and Algy’s body convulsed against its flesh in an orgasm, allowing the eggs to clutch even deeper inside.

Steadily, the creature first withdrew its tentacles from Algy’s mouth, giving him finally room to breathe properly, even with the massive amounts of eggs inside him, weighing him down. His body wanted to keep the monster inside him, and as it began to pull out of his hole, it dragged Algy’s listless body a few paces back with it before permanently popping out of him and leaving a trail of its gooey fluids on the ground. Algy could only spare a few thoughts for his fallen friends, hoping that they, too, were experiencing the same bliss somewhere deep in the forest as he was. Swollen to the brim by the monster and waiting to lay its eggs when the time came, he even hoped to see it as he thought about them for the one last time. The monster huffed at Algy, releasing wisps of breath from its large nostrils as its member slowly withdrew back into the pouch it came from, undoubtedly still filled with enough seed to impregnate another unsuspecting hiker or maybe the miners far above the canopy that hid them both.

The creature had done its part and left Algy all alone in the forest, beginning its prowl once again. The man paid little attention to the monster leaving, enjoying the flowing bliss inside him and barely managing to reach his hand over his belly. Algy brushed it carefully with a wide, tired smile on his face, feeling the eggy bumps just underneath his stretched skin, promising silently to be their guardian and a perfect host. He took in the scent of the thawed ground and the scent of the monster’s seed, both sharing the same earthy tone that Algy had learned to love while hiking in the woods, before closing his eyes, fulfilled.

It wouldn’t be until a while that he would finally come to his senses and realise the horror of his condition, long before the creature would come for him again.

⛏

Chapter 2

Ollen stood by the entrance to the Bleakfall Burrow, taking deep breaths alternately of the night air and the smoke between his fingers, tightly gripping the lighter in his free hand. The cold air did not reach the men resting deep in the cave. Some were sleeping in the makeshift lodgings that offered some privacy from the ones who were still well awake, enjoying their personal time before they, too, would have to turn in. The workers preferred the self-made plywood shelter of the caves to the mouldy trailers provided by the company. Ollen had tried to sleep in a trailer first, but the solitude and the creeping noises coming from outside had made him decide quickly to join the other workers in the mines. The workers here only ventured outside to either glimpse the wildlife before them, to make a call back home at the company-granted landline once a week, or to use the showers that resided in the same stale trailers they refused to use for rest, which they did not use as much as Ollen would have liked even though he had gotten used to the stench in the past few months and it was not like he was ever getting properly clean here either. The coal from the Bleakfall Burrow never truly washed away, and Ollen dreaded the time when he, too, would begin to cough only black dust.

The Bleakfall Burrow was no longer the sprawling worksite as it had once been, and the Beira Digging Company had steadily run it down to a bare minimum. It was almost a wonder they still had some machines to work with rather than the pickaxes the miners of olden days used. The derelict state of the mine could even be seen in the area surrounding it. The once-wealthy city of Green Bleak had slowly dribbled away, turning into a town that was now hardly even a place worth a quick stop. Ollen had tried to get away, to start a new life as soon as he was ready to study elsewhere, but the death of his father had brought him back and forced him to find work where there was still some, and the only place willing to hire him without any experience was the Bleakfall Burrow. The underground mining had never been something Ollen had dreamed of doing; he had seen how it had affected his father, leading to his death from black lung, a fate which Ollen was not keen on partaking in. Still, perhaps even the great change of catching that disease was better than joining the army and dying for nothing in some faraway land like Harran. During peaceful nights like this one, it was easy for Ollen to forget how much he disliked his job, but the other alternatives were out of his reach, and his mom could not survive without him on disability benefits alone.

The men of the Bleakfall Burrow mine were as tough and rough as the land itself. Ollen was the youngest one, and to most men, still a stranger; most had regarded him with subtle mistrust at the beginning of his career, while others had been more lenient. They had all known Ollen's father, and the goodwill brought by a dead man gave the rest of the workers some assurance that Ollen would eventually be the same as them, even though he hoped that he would not have to work here long enough to reach their full trust.

Ollen took in another breath, feeling the burning smoke in his lungs dissipate as he glanced at the lighter. It was all his father had left for him, and something he aimed to keep with him until his dying day. A sudden shriek coming from further down the mountainside jolted Ollen back into the moment, and he quickly pushed his smoke between his lips to take in one last breath before stamping it into the chilly ground and returning back to the mines. The first time Ollen had heard a mountain lion scream, he had been left confused and afraid. It had sounded so human, but terrifying enough to make one's gut release its contents into the ground. The other worker, familiarising Ollen with the work, had laughed.

"Don't be afraid, it's only a big kitty!" Zhav had said in his thick Slavic accent, a few others joining him and telling how they too had once been terrified by the same sound, and that had been enough to make Ollen feel a little better. Tonight, Ollen had been startled, but he had quickly deduced what it had been and knew better than to stay put. There had not been any animal attacks while Ollen had worked in the mine, but it had been common knowledge that people had gone missing. Ollen had seen a lot of missing posters while visiting the town, and especially one wall at the police station had been plastered with them. Whenever the disappearances were just a coincidence, done by some animal or a serial killer, Ollen did not want to become part of the statistics. The stones underneath Ollen's boots made loud clacking sounds as he made his way back into the rest area.

"There's a mountain lion out there," Ollen said softly to the man cradling a hot bowl in his hand while sitting near the doorway.

"Ah, it must have smelled my stew," Mureno replied with a smile that revealed two black holes between his teeth. Ollen laughed back, nodding at the man, walking past him. The rest area was large enough to fit thirty men comfortably and served as a main room in this surprisingly well-built home. Strings of light bulbs ran around the room, giving it a homely glow even during the winter, and in the middle of the room, there was a long steel table, rusted at the feet, but still steady enough to be used for dining. Three men, Simun, Thio, and Sulaman, sat at the far end, playing cards and cursing loudly when someone got a better hand. Another, Raman, sat in the corner, reading a book that had a foreign letter on its cover. The voices of Lauron and Leof were coming from the small kitchen on the other side of the main area. The rest of the workers currently at the site were sleeping in their bunks. Not feeling like going to sleep, Ollen joined Raman, sitting on the empty couch next to him. When Ollen had met Raman for the first time, he had been afraid, much to his embarrassment. Raman was taller and burlier than the other workers, and his dark skin awakened some deeply rooted prejudices still lingering inside Ollen, not helped by the fact that Raman was also very quiet, keeping to himself most of the time. As soon as Ollen had gotten over himself, he had come to learn that Raman was not only the strongest of the group but also the smartest. He knew the machines used in the mines unlike any other man, and when he spoke, one could easily hear the years of learning in his voice. It felt like he had an answer for any question one could come up with and never made the asker feel like he was dumb for not knowing.

Raman gave Ollen a quick, acknowledging glance before his eyes shifted back to his book. Silence like this suited Ollen just fine, especially before going to sleep. Had the workers used the company-lent trailers, six people would have slept in each one. Here in the mines, the wooden walls, even though rather thin ones, gave each man a room of their own, something Ollen was very thankful for. The metallic creaking of the bunk bed when someone was cranking out one was not something Ollen wanted to hear when he wanted to hear or feel when he was trying to rest. Sure, sometimes he could still hear some noises when lying on his bed, but he believed it would be much worse if they had shared the trailers.

"Hey, Ollen! Come join us so I can pick you clean too!" Thio hollered while sliding his winnings with both hands towards himself. The winnings consisted of various small bills, cigarette packs, and bottle caps, small promises of drinks that they were in debt for. Simun and Sulaman looked dejected, even though the prizes were not much; it was the act of losing that hit the hardest. Ollen waved his hand at Thio and nodded with a yawn, letting him know he was good as is. From time to time, Ollen liked to play, but right now, he was too tired, and Thio was known to be almost unbeatable. Most workers who had dared to play against him had lost; only Raman had beaten Thio, and he had played against him only once.

Thio replied back with a comically loud, disapproving sigh and returned to collect his winnings. The other two men seemed like they were done, too and stealthily returned to their den with their tails between their legs. The tiny rooms they had built over the years still allowed for more personal space for one person than the trailers, even though the plywood was past its heyday and the walls had water stains on them. Ollen had only seen a few of them from inside, but most seemed to have similar interiors if one did not count the personal touches each one had made during their time here. Each room, if one could call them that, had a sawed-off half of a bunk bed, a nightstand made from a metal stool, a light bulb, and a rubber curtain working as a door. Ollen's room had a few books, a large military surplus backpack, a large wooden box under his bed for his belongings, and the walls had been covered with rather raunchy posters of half-naked ladies. The books and the backpack belonged to Ollen; everything else was already there when he had joined the team. Even though Ollen had never really cared for the posters, he had never taken them down, partly due to hoping that he would not have to stay here for too long, partly because he prayed the dark stains on them were just water damage.

Just as Ollen was thinking about going to his room, the mood inside the main hall switched. The calmness of the night was swiftly turned to uncertainty. First, there was a laugh, possibly Thio's, who was trying to count everything he had won that night; then there were hurried yells, someone shouting for help, which was followed by the sound of people stirring awake, some irritated as their shifts were beginning in a few hours, others confused from the sudden ruckus. Mureno stood by the doorway to the main hall with something that looked like a large sack of cement to Ollen. It took him a while to realise that Mureno had another man hanging just barely against him. The stranger was shivering and mumbling, his features almost unrecognisable as human. His eyes were wild, and the mud was packed against his shredded clothes and body, yet the most shocking part of him was his belly, which was unnaturally protruding from his hips. Skin was spreading over it so tight it looked like it was about to pop. Some of the workers hurried to help Mureno; others were too shocked to do anything but stay put, Ollen being one among them

Soon, everyone was standing in the main hall except for Antoon, who was known to sleep like a rock. A mattress was brought into the room, and the stranger was promptly laid on top of it. There was a metal bucket filled with fresh water, and a first aid kit was also brought in. Thio began to wash the man clean while the "I-almost-got-into-med-school" Rein examined him.

"W-why does he look like that?" Ollen whispered to Henning, who was standing next to him, and Henning answered him truthfully.

"I don't know, he looks like he's been through hell…"

"It looks like he's been in the mountains for months," Ollen replied.

"Could be liver damage, my mama looked like that before she passed away," Uril chimed in, "Fluids start to leak into your gut and… Well, you get to look like that."

"Do you think he's homeless?" Henning asked, "I mean… Not that your mom was…"

"Black Bellmouth is pretty far from the town," Ollen answered before Henning could embarrass himself further, "I think he's dressed like a hiker, though."

"Marli! Brucen! Go into the Steiger's shack! Phone for help!" Raman shouted over everyone, and Marli nodded quickly, running out of the hall deeper into the mine. There was a landline at one of the trailers on the surface, but the one deeper in the mine was more reliable. Ollen moved closer to the strange man, somewhat hoping that he could be of some use. When he got a better look at the man, he almost gasped. The man's belly was not only bulging, but it looked like there were large lumps pushing against his skin from the inside. The stranger's eyes locked with Ollen's, and he began to scream.

"GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" The man shouted with a bloodcurdling voice, "TAKE THEM! TAKE THEM OUT!" The rest of his words turned into a mumbling mess that had no rhyme or reason, and Ollen could feel himself being quickly turned away as two warm hands grasped him by the shoulders.

"Come, you don't need to see that," Raman said softly, ushering Ollen to rejoin Henning and Uril far behind the gathered crowd. The shock in Ollen's eyes told more than either of the men wanted to learn, yet Henning asked anyway.

"What did you see?"

"He… He has lumps… In his gut or something, pushing out…" Ollen hesitated, "How fast will the help get here?"

"Two or three hours," Uril answered. "There is no way for a helicopter to land here; they have to come on foot."

"The closest clearing is near the Bellmouth visitor centre; they have forest rangers. They will come here and take the poor man with them, while the paramedics drive to the centre to take him to the hospital," Cerdic said and moved to join the three men. "Don't worry, Ol. Your pops must have told you stories; it's not like this is the first emergency we've had."

"It's true," Henning added, "One time, one man got stuck under a digger, and we thought he was done for!"

"Was he?" Ollen asked with a shiver in his tone.

"Yes, but he died in the hospital, not here," Henning spluttered, and Uril punched him in the shoulder.

"Good job, man, scare the kid even further," Uril scolded, turning to Ollen. "The man might not live, but you are fine. If someone asks you to do something, do it. Otherwise, stay out of the way and let the others handle this. That's what we're doing."

The strangers' garbled screams quieted down slowly. People were talking, but his heavy breaths could still be heard. Thio had gotten most of the mud and dried blood, while Rein mended his wounds. The stranger was unable to answer any questions, and Rein had bandaged him as best he could. The man's skin was cold to the touch, but the coarse blanket given to him slowly brought up his temperature. As time passed, Raman told another worker to check on the ones he had sent to make a call. Some went back to their beds, knowing they could do nothing to help the situation. Uril boiled water, offering tea and coffee for those waiting for the forest rangers, while a few others ventured outside to put more lights on.

Now all they could do was to wait.

⛏

A moment passed, then another.

The longer the men waited, the slower time seemed to go, a complete contrast to the moment when the stranger had arrived. Another man had joined those who had delved deeper into the mine to make a call, but none of them had come back yet, and no matter how many times Thio had washed his hands, it seemed like the stranger’s blood was never truly coming off; it stuck to his skin like the coal. What made it even stranger was that it blended with the soot on his skin, turning to a similar dark shade and looking almost as if it was seeping under his tanned flesh, but bringing it up with others did not seem like the smartest thing to do at the moment. Thio gave a quick glance around, witnessing the uncertainty and slight fear in the eyes of the men around him. He wanted to believe the rescue would arrive soon. There was something weird going on with the stranger, not only in his blood, but in the man himself. They had no idea how he had gotten here. The man was clearly sick, lost, and deeply traumatised. The stranger might have been a hiker, but unless he was able to tell them more, all they could do was to guess, and guessing never ended well around here. Yet, even though Thio could reason with himself, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. Had the man been one of those who had disappeared in the mountains in the past few months? Maybe he had been the reason why people were going missing? Thio recalled a theory he had heard some weeks ago from Denko, who had concluded that the disappearances were due to a serial killer. Zhav had laughed his ass off and told them that disappearances like that were nothing unusual where he had come from.

“Bellmouth, it a big forest like Nevakraj; people go missing all the time,” Zhav had laughed, and right now Thio missed that hairy man and his laugh. Zhav had gone with the others to call for help, and Thio thought his jolly nature could have helped to ease the growing tension inside the mess hall. Still, Zhav had been right. People do go missing all the time, even if now there have been a lot more cases than in the years prior. Most came to Black Bellmouth Forest to escape, whether by hiking in nature or by their own hand. The land was beautiful, yes, but it was also deadly. Bellmouth was far from any larger cities, and the cellphones had little coverage here. The forest rangers who had decided to stay after the cut funding of the park, as well as the visitor centre, were mostly doing it as volunteer work. They were old folk like most of the workers in the mine, too stuck in their old routines and lives to ever move on.

Thio looked at Ollen, the youngest of them, who still had a future ahead of him even though he was stuck with them. The youngster was nodding off on the corner couch, stirring awake from time to time, but falling back to sleep almost as soon as he awoke. Thio thought about how Ollen would probably remember this night for the rest of his life, hopefully telling about it to his kids someday as a funny story, even though it might not feel like that right now. Most of the horrible things Thio had endured had mellowed with time; those that hadn’t, he had either forced back down or turned into funny stories. No one else needed to know the truth about what had happened at the Twin Metal factory, and the rest of the survivors of the incident would not spill the beans either. It had been one of those things that men took with them to their graves, and Thio was not one to break ranks.

“Hey, T, wanna come with us to check on the boys?” A familiar voice on Thio’s right said. Pavyl was a tall and lean man, even paler than those who had lived all their lives around the Bellmouth, almost too pale, Thio thought; it’s like he’d never seen the sun. Thio had never asked how long he had lived here, but he thought he could detect a hint of an accent in his tone. The other man next to him, Sulaman, seemed to have lost all the ill will he had held towards Thio after his win streak; now there was only concern in those deep brown eyes that had only a few hours ago simmered with need for revenge.

“Sure, but if they’re having trouble with the tech, I’m not the one who can fix it,” Thio answered and followed Pavyl and Sulaman through the doorway. Sulaman let Raman know where they were going, and the impromptu leader of the group lifted his thumb up for approval. Raman had been talking with Rein about the strange man, but was now busy with the workers coming from the outside who had been lighting the area around the mine entrance. Four had gone outside: Denko, Kippos, Merco, and Jinas. Only three had returned, and none of them seemed to know where Kippos had disappeared. It looked like Raman would have his hands full tonight as he began to make a new plan to find the missing man.

Outside the mess hall, Thio felt almost naked. The cave leading to the lower levels of the mine had been carved over decades to be as wide and tall as possible, and it was almost impossible to see the ceiling, unlike back at the mess hall, where the rock was much lower. The bright lamps following the small rail and the mine side drew harsh shadows around them with their white light. The trio began to follow the rail further down the mine with their echoing footsteps, hailing their arrival for the men on the lower level. No matter how many times Thio had walked down this path, he had always found it creepy, especially at night, and he was happy that he was now in some company. There had been a few times over the years when he had had to walk alone during the night, and those moments had left him feeling lonely, allowing his darkest thoughts to creep over him and terrify him, something that was far more dreadful than imagining some monster lurked in the shadows waiting to catch him.

Thio took his place at the tail of the group while Sulaman walked in the middle, and Pavyl took the lead. The mine was wide enough for them to walk side by side three times over, but something about walking in a row felt right. At first, there was only the sound of their boots hitting the gravel, but soon Sulaman began to whistle, trying to calm his nerves the further they got from the others. They walked past old machinery that had been lifted from the rails to the side for repairs, only to be forgotten like the mine itself. Most machines had bases so rotten by the rust that one could see the ground beneath them; others had exposed wires that clung together in a way that would certainly fry a man if they were still operational. Not that their current machines were any better; most came with firing patterns that only the men who worked them knew how to operate. One of the wheel tractors Thio used worked that way: Bang a hood, put the key in the correct position, rev it a bit, let it cool down for exactly two and a half minutes, and fire it up again to get it running. Still, the smell of the rust and oil had been ingrained so deeply into Thio’s mind that it had become homely to him, and that same scent of rust grew even stronger as they made their way down the shaft.

It took them about fifteen minutes to finally see the barracks’ lights ahead. Unlike their counterparts above the mine, these shacks were made from metal and worked not only as the foremen’s offices here underground, but also as a second rest area for the workers. The shaft leading deeper into the mine got ever wider here as the mining had truly begun on this spot so many years ago. Back then, most of the work had been done by hand, and one could still see the marks of pickaxes scraping the mine walls in some places. From time to time, Thio had thought about how much better things were nowadays than before. They had machines and better safety systems in place than the men who had started to carve out this mountain, but as soon as he got stopped by a truck that refused to move because of a blown fuse or saw how much he had been paid that month, such thoughts went away, and he wished things would get better.

The cave began to widen, and soon they were at the first expansion of the mine. Without any words, both Sulaman and Pavyl stopped, making Thio almost bump into them. Sulaman’s nonchalant whistling went quiet, and Thio could sense the smell of sharp, wet rust.

“T-there is blood,” Pavyl muttered, “A lot of it…” Thio stepped next to the two men and saw it was true. The gravel ground had been almost bathed in it. The red keeper of life ran from all the way from the foreman’s shack all the way deeper into the mine. Sulaman was the first to run towards it, soon followed by both Thio and Pavyl. The rusty blue shack that stood on short metal stilts had bloody handprints on the door like someone had tried to open it during their last moments. The sight of it all made Thio’s head feel like it was washed with static; the moment felt unreal, something that should not be there. He had seen blood before, many times in fact, even during his work here in the Bleak, but this was something else.

“What happened here? Where are they?” Sulaman asked, saying the words everyone else was thinking. Thio wanted to say something, to give at least some semblance of an answer to the man, but he was only able to make a wet, smacking sound with his lips. Another man answered, who was neither of the three, but a fourth man with a feeble voice that had no palpable words in it. It was a pained whisper, and it came from beneath the blue shack. Thio crouched down and saw a shadowy figure under there. It reached for it, but it looked more like a large trash bag than a human. Thio grabbed the man’s hands and pulled him into the open. The awful scream the man let out made Thio grimace, and he was sure the others behind him were feeling the same. The man beneath the shack was Brucen, or what was left of him. The man was badly wounded, even more badly than the mysterious hiker. His face was bloodied and looked as if he had been dragged against the gravel ground, but it was not that which shocked Thio the most. Neither was it the other smell, the smell of the brown fluid staining the man’s pants, that hit him as soon as he had gotten the man out. It was the size of Brucen’s belly, swollen in a similar way to the hiker’s. Brucen whimpered, pleading with his eyes to Thio to do something, but unable to say anything, as only hoarse weeps were all he could let out. There were bruises on the man’s neck, looking like it had been bruised from the inside, much to Thio’s confusion. Pavyl crouched next to them, trying to talk to the man.

“Hey, man, what happened here? Are you alright?” he asked, and Thio thought to himself how stupid such a question was. Why would the man be alright? The man’s in pain. Brucen opened his tightly squeezed palm, and Thio saw the shack key on it, which he swiftly threw over to Sulaman.

“Call for help, quickly!” Thio said, knowing how unnecessary his emphasis on haste was. Sulaman half walked, half ran at the door and stepped over the three aluminium stairs with one long jumping step. The key was slippery and almost slipped from Sulaman’s hand when he pushed it inside the round doorknob. The key turned, and the door let out an audible click, allowing Sulaman to enter the shack to find the radio within. Brucen whimpered again, and Thio glanced back at him, cradling his head with his hands. Brucen’s eyes were rapidly moving from Thio to the far side of the mine. Thio tried to see where the man was trying to point him, but there was only darkness.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Pavyl asked again, not understanding Brucen either.

“There is a first aid kit in the shack; go get it,” Thio ordered, and Pavyl nodded, getting up and running into the shack, where he found Sulaman trying to get the radio to work.

“Can you reach anyone?” Pavyl asked, but Sulaman was too busy to answer him with anything more than a mumble.

Outside, Brucen began to whimper louder, his eyes moving from side to side like he was having a seizure. Thio put his legs under Brucen’s head, trying to keep his head on something soft yet not restricting the man too much so as not to hurt him even further.

“Hurry, Pavyl! Hurry!” Thio shouted, hoping there was at least some sort of anti-seizure medicine in the kit. He tried to remember how long a seizure could last and what he was supposed to do in such a situation, but just as soon as Pavyl ran out of the shack with the red first aid kit in his arms, Brucen grabbed Thio’s arm so hard it made him wince. The man groaned with a guttural sound coming from somewhere deep down his throat and pointed at the darkness with a finger that was no longer there, but there was still nothing in there. Pavyl put the kit next to Thio and almost sat next to them when Thio finally spotted something.

“Pavyl…” he whispered with a strangely detached voice.

"What?" Pavyl turned to look at Thio, who was still sitting on the ground with Brucen’s head on his lap.

“I want you to get up and run as fast as you can back into the mess hall and warn everybody,” Thio replied, his gaze fixed on the distance. “Tell everyone to arm up; we’re not alone in here.” Pavyl followed Thio’s gaze, yet did not see what he was seeing, but what he heard next was enough for him to almost wet his pants. A bloodcurdling shriek coming from somewhere deeper into the mine sent Pavyl straight up, and before Thio could shout his final words to him, Pavyl was already running.

"GO! RUN!" Thio’s orders echoed behind Pavyl, turning into screams so horrifying that Pavyl did not dare to look behind him. All he could do was run, his lungs burning with the coal dust and the strain as he made his way back up.

⛏

About thirty minutes earlier, Denko, Merco, and Jinas had walked around confused outside the mine, trying to see where Kippos had gone, not knowing that the man they were looking for was just a few feet away from them in the darkness. The rather large man had been forced onto the ground by the even larger beast. Kip tried to reach for them, shouting against the tendril that had invaded his mouth to keep him silent as the large creature pinning him down watched the other three walk back into the mine. It had picked Kip before he had had time to lit his smoke after walking to the side to see if any lights were coming from the woods below in the hopes that the group venturing deeper into the mine had managed to contact the rescuers. The creature had been smart; it had muffled Kip immediately and hid in the shadows, staying still while the others kept working on the lights. As soon as the last man’s back disappeared back inside, Kip’s eyes were filled with tears. He tried to grab some rocks from the ground and throw them as far as he could, but it was no use. The others were gone, and he was all alone with the monster now.

The creature began to move again, hauling Kip further from the camp against the cold ground, leaving only Kip’s knit cap as a mark of his existence in the ground. The gravel scratched Kip’s belly when his shirt was pulled up as he was dragged backwards, but his screams meant nothing to the creature whose wide tendril stayed inside Kip’s mouth. Kip could feel something slimy oozing from the tendril dripping down his throat, which made him cough, yet there was no way to get it out, no matter how hard he tried. With no air to breathe, Kip’s mind went into panic mode. He tried to grab anything he could get his hands on and pull the tendril out. As soon as his lips turned blue, the creature released him, allowing him to gasp for air. Kip tried to scream, but his throat was full again when the creature plunged the tendril into it again. He didn’t know why it kept him alive, but he would soon find out.

In the darkness of the night, as soon as the creature had dragged Kip onto the hillside, it stopped and revealed its gooey member out into the open, dripping and ready to breed another victim. While Kip did not see it, he managed to grab a bunch of grass into his hands and tried to pull himself away from the creature to no avail. The monster moved back on top of him and flipped him over with its claws that ripped through Kip’s trousers, revealing the bare skin beneath. Kip saw the gigantic member hanging between the creature’s rear legs and tried to scream again, but managed only to bite into the tendril inside him. The monster pushed Kip with its tendril slightly away from it to remove what had been left of Kip’s trousers and smacked its tear-shaped, wavy tip on his bare belly, jerking it forward to bring the tip right in front of Kip’s bearded face. The large veins on it pulsed with heat, and Kip could see the large hole in the tip enlarge as it began to leak with the same gooey fluid that tingled against Kip’s skin. The man wanted to scream again, to get away, but soon found himself in an awkward position as a warm sensation began to spread from his nether regions with the goo. His cock was hardening with the response to the fluid, and soon, instead of trying to bite into the tendril, his mouth eased. The monster used him to harden itself even more, sliding its slimy member against Kip’s body and spreading its goo even further. The creature’s member withdrew all the way back next to the human’s knees and jerked back upright over his throat as if it were sizing him. Kip began to involuntarily suck the warm tendril inside his mouth, and as soon as he did so, the creature growled with a deep, throaty sound and pulled its tendril away, much to Kip’s sudden disappointment.

Not knowing what the creature wanted and losing his mind, Kippos spread his legs wide and lifted his behind to grind his own erect member against the long shaft that moved back and forth. Another tendril found its way around Kip’s throat, wrapping around it and squeezing him each time he made a sound loud enough to be heard by someone else. The creature was teaching Kip to obey, and the man hoped he would be rewarded with the beast’s member if he behaved well enough. Kip then let go of the grass and wrapped his hand around the large member, not caring when the sharp pain in his back tried to bring him back into reality, when the rocks tore into his skin. He could feel the pulsing veins under his fingers, flowing more blood to the creature’s member. Kip moved with the creature, his body dragging against the ground with each thrust, and the hefty tip getting closer to his face as the beast jerked forward. An image of his wife flashed in Kip’s mind for a moment, but was gone almost as soon as it had come. For all of his life, Kippos had been a model of a straight man, working in the mine and having drinks after work. He had never been with a man or been pegged; he had always been loyal to his first crush, but right now his mind was changing as the creature’s being melted his brain. He wanted the creature to take him, penetrate his body so hard that he could no longer walk on his own, and with that lust burning inside him, he decided to lick the leaking tip as soon as it passed over his throat again. The creature growled again, unsatisfied by Kippo’s actions, and repositioned itself while pushing down Kip by his shoulders with its claws. Kip winced from the pain and felt another tendril finding its way against his lip, pressing itself to get in, which Kip gladly allowed. The tendril passed his tongue and moved all the way to the back of his throat, sliding further down and beginning to match the creature’s jerking pace. The tendrils’ width was a little better than the previous ones, but still suffocating enough to make Kip gasp for air each time they pulled back to his mouth.

The monster’s four hanging balls were brimming with its fluids, and the firm eggs were getting ready to flow inside another victim. It had been only about an hour after its last unloading, but it was already primed to breed again. The creature pulled its member back and shoved it against Kip’s rear, widening his rim to a breaking point until its whole member slammed against his guts. Kip cried out loud, now sucking the tendril inside his mouth to soothe the stinging pain that soon passed. The monster did not wait, and its thrusts were quick and deep, hammering Kippos deeper into the ground beneath them. Kip tried to grab the monster to steady himself, but more tendrils came from its back to wrap around his wrists and push them back into the ground. Kip bent his knees, holding them up as he was spread wide, violated beyond the possibility of recovery, and loving every moment of it. The pulsing veins pressed against his insides, sending jolts of pleasure across Kip’s body and forcing him to come. Kip’s back arched as far as it could against the muddy ground, and his muscles clamped him to the beast. It let out a great howl before slamming its whole length back inside Kip and releasing its first egg. Filled by both holes, Kip’s body sucked in an egg after an egg that was larger than his fists, yet somehow his body easily adjusted to. Each time one passed against his prostate, Kip convulsed from the pleasure, coming hard and releasing a feeble string of his own seed. His belly began to grow, swelling to hide his toned shape and making him twice as wide as before. His protruding stomach raised to touch the creature’s underside and left Kip’s body tainted forever. When the creature finally pulled out, Kippos tried to caress its fleshy belly to make it mount him again, even though his bloated belly was making him heave from the strain. He had to have more, even if it was just the tip inside him or another egg; whatever it could give him, he would take gladly.

“I- I can carry more,” he begged, but the creature was done with him. Disappearing for a moment back into the forest.

Still feeling the heat burning his mind, Kip was left to lust for more tragically alone. He could no longer see his feet from behind his egg-filled belly, nor could he feel them. The creature had taken his ability to walk just as he had hoped it would. The eggs were warming him from the inside, pulsing with life that he had been called to carry to term. He found himself protective of them, almost as if nothing else mattered to him more than carrying them and being filled with more. He reached for his cock, stroking it with a trembling hand while admiring what he had been gifted with. The soft skin turned firm soon enough, and his tip throbbed as he felt the eggs press against his insides, with one close enough to his rim to peek out. Kip slid his free hand on his hairy chest to squeeze a nipple and moaned back against the ground. He was writhing and pleasuring himself while he waited for the creature to return, still lingering on the hope that it would breed him again. He did not know for sure if it was going to come back or leave him there, but something inside him told him that it too wanted to take care of him now that its eggs were in him. Kippos could feel his balls flex and rush with the sizzling semen to stain the ground. He groaned and smiled, eyes closed in the cold night air that had settled around him after the monster’s warmth had left him.

Time went by in what felt like an aeon, but the creature finally returned. As soon as it got to Kippos, its tendrils spread from its back and wrapped around him, tying him under its belly. The creature let out another growl, slowly forced its still firm cock inside him, pushing the eggs further, and lazily pumping his tunnel as it walked with him higher on the mountainside. Kip’s legs twitched with each long stroke, while his eyes lulled back. The sensation of its huge cock inside him was all he could think about; his tender body belonged to the beast now, and he was more than fine with it as the scent of his breeding reached his nose. While Kip no longer had the mind to see, there were dragging marks on the ground, all leading in the same direction where the beast was taking Kippos, who was amazed, even in his hazy mind, at how much stamina the creature had. Unlike him, who had been done after just one session with his wife, the creature seemed to have a never-ending endurance along with a plentiful supply of eggs.

The gooey fluids pushing out of Kip’s hole left another track on the ground, as there was no other place for it to go. The creature’s strokes were much shorter now as the eggs filling Kippos’ insides did not let it go any further, yet it pushed against them hard enough for Kip to feel the pressure inside him, making him whimper and drool. The monster’s fleshy underside pressed tightly against Kip’s belly, putting more strain on the man, who was already lost. There was a large crevice on the mountainside, and the drag marks ended right in front of it. The creature slipped inside with Kip, where there was even more darkness, as the light of the stars was hidden by the dark rock. Kip had not known about the crevice before this, and soon, it too was forgotten by him as his body jolted again and he let out another desperate moan. Whether the crevice had always been there or had been formed after the mining operation had drilled deeper into the mine was anyone’s guess, but it was deep, and the further down they went, the foggier and the hotter the air got. A faint light drew dark shadows onto the rock wall with an eerie red gloom, and the heavy air filled Kippos’ lungs with humidity. The short and waiting thrusts did not allow Kip to think about where the creature was taking him, keeping him strictly still in his carnal needs.

Kip moaned, and then even more moans joined his.

Echoing from deeper within the cave.

⛏

Having one man to crash through that damned doorway would have been enough for Rein; having a second one was enough to tell him that the night would not be over anytime soon. Although Pavyl did not carry anyone with him, Rein could see from his eyes that he had witnessed something too terrible even to describe. Pavyl hit the ground as soon as he entered the mess hall and screamed at the top of his lungs:

"THERE IS SOMETHING DOWN IN THE MINE!" He was close enough to Rein to almost burst his eardrums, but Raman was quickly kneeling next to him, his arm on Pavyl's shoulder to make him calm down. Rein had never liked Raman; he stayed quiet most of the time, but ordered people around when it suited him. The others had come to see him as a leader of sorts, but Rein had never bought it. To him, there was something deeply irritating in the way he behaved, and besides, the man was an outsider. He had not been born in the area, and that made him suspicious.

"Easy there," Raman said to Pavyl, who was breathing so fast that Rein could feel his heartbeat from a foot away. "What happened down there?" Raman added.

"They are dead!" Pavyl shouted, his eyes wilder than his heartbeat. "Something tore them into pieces!"

"Check his SpO2 levels; he's hyperventilating," Rein said and threw a little device from his pack to Raman. Pavyl was making no sense, and the way he was breathing suggested he had accidentally inhaled some harmful gas leaking through the rock, although the little sensors set up in the mine should have warned everybody. The device on Pavyl's forefinger beeped in an uneven tone as his pulse got faster.

"It's 100%; his pulse is over 190," Raman answered the question Rein did not have time to even ask. Pavyl grabbed onto Raman's collar and looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Please! We need to get the guns, call from the shack, and get out!" he cried out.

"It's alright, Pavyl," Raman hushed, "What did you see?"

"Nothing! But I heard more than that! There is something down there, and it has taken Thio, Sulaman, and all the rest who went there! There was blood everywhere!"

"Are the oxygen tanks still in the infirmary?" Rein asked Raman, who only pointed his finger up to hush him.

"You are safe," he said to the panicked man. "What happened?"

"I don't know… Thio told me to run while Sulaman was in the office, and then I heard the screams… Oh, the screams, Raman… Something growled, and I could hear Thio scream. It did not sound human anymore, Raman. He didn't sound human!"

Rein looked at the stranger who was now lying on a mattress at the far side of the room. Rein had given him some morphine to calm him down and ease his pain, and had been glad when the man had stopped screaming. He looked almost peaceful now, if not for his deliriously constant whispering. What had been done to the man terrified Rein. he had made a thorough examination and seen the bruising on the man's thighs and the gaping asshole, making him believe that there was some truly dangerous person or people hiding in the woods. Like many others, he too had wondered what had happened to the missing people, and now he feared he knew what it had been.

"We should check if there's a leak," Rein said, "And check on the others down there."

"They are dead!" Pavyl shouted again, "Don't you listen? Dead!"

Rein glanced at the men gathered in the room; some had been sleeping before Pavyl had returned, but they were all awake and alert now.

"Shut up," Rein snapped, "Raman, he needs fresh air. Where are the oxygen tanks?"

However, Raman did not listen to him and instead turned back to Pavyl.

"You said they were torn apart? What did you see before you ran?" Raman asked. Pavyl turned into a babbling mess and stuttered about what had happened before he got back in the mess hall. He told Raman about the walk down there, how uneasy they had felt and had not even dared to talk, and how when they had finally arrived, they had seen lots of blood and Thio had found Brucen hiding under the shack, and when he had dragged him out, his stomach had been similar to the stranger's, all bloated and unnaturally large. Both Raman and Rein looked at the stranger when Pavyl mentioned him, feeling another wave of uneasiness fall into the room.

"Come on, Raman, he needs air," Rein insisted. "He's delirious! The others might be suffocating in there, too!"

"I-I can go," Henning interjected, "I can go look for them if someone comes with me."

"No, don't go down there! They are dead!" Pavyl shouted again, "We need weapons!"

Rein looked at Raman with his hands on his sides, frustrated and fidgety, while Raman fell silent, pondering what they should do.

"If it's a gas leak, they will die if we don't get them," Rein pressed on, "They will suffocate, Raman!"

Raman let out a sigh. "Fine… Henning, take Rein with you. If you see or hear anything suspicious, run right back," he ordered, and turned to Rein, who was shocked to hear he had been enlisted without his consent.

"Hey, I'm not going, I didn't volunteer!" he exclaimed.

"If they are suffocating down there, they will need first aid; you're their best bet; you will go," Raman countered. "I can get the oxygen tanks from the infirmary, but you need to go now if you're certain they are still alive."

"Fine…" Rein muttered, "… But I'll also take Leof; we need more people to carry them…"

Leof, who had been silent all of this time, quickly got up from his chair and tried to protest, but as soon as he saw that everyone was looking at him, he nodded slowly and joined them.

"Gyrbert, I want you, Lauron, and Eeron to get the guns from the locker. Can you do that?" Raman asked, and the large, fat man rose from his seat and nodded.

"Of course, we will try the phone again there too," Gyrbert said and waved his hand at the two men who had stood up too. "Let's go."

The trio walked through the doorway, and each of them looked at Pavyl and saw the fear in his eyes as they began to make their way towards the surface. They were not allowed to have any weapons inside the mines, but the shacks on the surface had an office with a weapons locker in it in case any bears or mountain lions were roaming nearby. They were not meant for killing, but instead of scaring them away, Raman had decided it would be for the best to get them anyway.

"If there is something down there, then we need to guard the entrance," Raman reasoned, "I want Cedric and Simun to take the first watch, others pick a pair for yourselves and rest, I want to change shifts every two hours, let's hope this will not so long that we'd need to use all of you," There were over twenty men inside the mine before the night fell, and as far as they knew, there were at least nineteen still left. Raman guided the shivering Pavyl to the table and offered him a warm drink, which he took gladly.

"Kip's gone too, remember?" Merco said as he joined the two men, "… When we were outside…"

"I know," Raman replied with a heavy sigh, "But if there is something out there, it can be at two places at the same time… Whatever it is…" Thio, Sulaman, Zhav, Kippos, Brucen, and Marli had disappeared, some without a trace, others, according to Pavyl, had left with trails of blood, and Raman hoped no more would follow. Raman got up and walked to the doorway. "I will get the tanks. Try to stay calm, we're gonna make it through this."

"I'll come with you," Ollen perked up. "Those tanks can be heavy." Raman looked as if he was about to decline Ollen's offer, but decided otherwise and just waved his hand. As they both left the mess hall, Rein, Henning, and Leof followed them. The infirmary was set in the mine, a little bit further down the mine than the mess hall was, but still much closer to the entrance than the area where the foreman's shack was.

"I need to get a better first aid kit," Rein grumbled. "When we find them, we will get them on the tracks and bring them here. You will hear when we get moving back up."

"Good, we'll leave four tanks with masks near the track and take one with us for Pavyl," Raman replied. "Don't stay down there any longer than you need to, alright?" Rein huffed and looked at Raman like he was a complete idiot, but decided not to say anything. "You do know if there was a leak, there would have been an alarm," Raman said, and Rein shrugged his shoulders.

"This place is a mess; sometimes stuff breaks, and this time it could be the sensors," Rein scoffed.

The room in which the infirmary was had been carved into the stone and had gypsum walls that had been painted over with a white paint that had turned yellowish over the years. The fluorescent lights came alive with a flicker and bathed the small room with various cabinets, a bed, and a table full of instruments with a blue light. The company had allowed them to have a limited amount of drugs, but even though some of them could fetch a high price on the street, they had not bothered to lock them down as they had done for the guns. Rein grabbed a few supplies into a bag and left quickly with Henning and Leof, leaving Raman and Ollen by themselves. Raman grabbed one of the tanks and moved it around between his hands before picking up another while Ollen stood by.

"That one's half empty, so is this one." Raman said, "… But even if Rein's right, these should do."

Ollen's hands were behind his back, and he tried to make himself appear as calm as he could, but the trembling in his legs betrayed him, and he could no longer hide it.

"Raman… I'm scared," Ollen confessed.

Raman turned to the young man and smiled gently.

"It's okay to be scared; we all are," he comforted, "… But you shouldn't worry; it might feel terrifying right now at night, but it won't when the sun begins to shine."

"I- I can't stop shivering," Ollen replied, and Raman walked over to him, wrapping him in his warm hug.

"It's okay… I promise," Raman hushed. Ollen could smell Raman's scent, which was made from sandalwood and black pepper; it was as warm as his grip, and Ollen could feel himself relax a bit. The cold air of the mine did not breach through when he felt Raman's hands wrapped around his body, and Ollen pressed his head against Raman's chest.

"Uh, oh…" Raman whispered.

"What? Do you hear something?" Ollen gasped and glanced around, afraid, before realising something. Between his legs, poking against Raman's leg, his member had stirred from its slumber and was now hard as the rock around them.

"Uh… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…" Ollen fumbled and pulled away from Raman, "I'm not like that… I don't even…"

"It's alright," Raman hushed again, "It can happen to anyone. I can go outside if you want to… You know…" Raman stroked his hand in the air, "It might ease some tension…"

"I'd rather be hugged…" Ollen said softly, "You're warm…"

"Oh, okay…" Raman gulped and stepped closer to Ollen again, pulling his hands around him and trying to ignore Ollen's sudden bulge. Ollen took another sniff and turned to look at Raman straight into his eyes. he could feel the tension between them, either brought on by their current predicament or by something else, and Ollen decided to test his luck, moving his head closer and pressing his lips against Raman's, who quickly pulled his lips away from Ollen.

"O-Ollen, I'm not…" Raman muttered, and Ollen shied away.

"I mean… You said it might ease tension…" he stuttered, "You were tensing up, and I was tensing up, and I thought…"

"Ollen, you are so young," Raman stated. He knew he should have made Ollen stop, but instead found his hands gripping the young man tighter. He could feel Ollen's warm breath against his skin and the beating of his heart that grew faster with each passing moment. Raman thought what he was about to do might not be right, but it would feel right in this moment.

"Fine…" Raman huffed, while his hands slid down to Ollen's waist and he turned him over, pushing the young man against a table, "… But we need to be quick… They might come back…"

Ollen gasped from the excitement. He had never been with anyone before and could enjoy Raman's warm hands touching him through his clothes, before the man pulled his pants down, eagerly playing with his cheeks while Ollen lay against the cold table. Raman hastily grabbed a jelly tube from the shelf and slathered it on Ollen's rear and on his own member that now pulsed with need. He slipped two of his fingers inside Ollen, spreading his hole and gently pumping them in to adjust the young man for his size while stroking his cock. Ollen's hard cock already leaked with precum as he panted against the table and swayed his hips in rhythm with Raman's fingers. Raman pushed in a third finger, spreading them and pulling them back together, quickening Ollen's hunger for more. Ollen moaned uncontrollably when a shiver ran down his spine, and Raman took it as a sign that he would be ready for him. He pulled his fingers away and placed his throbbing, red tip against Ollen's entrance.

"Alright… Be ready…" Raman groaned and began to put pressure on Ollen's rear. The first half of Raman's tip slid in easily, but the larger midpoint made Ollen jerk forward from the sudden pain. Raman pulled back and began to push himself in again, this time popping right in and locking his tip inside Ollen. He waited for Ollen to stop whimpering and took him by the hips, slowly putting more of his weight on the young man leaning against the table. About halfway, he stopped again and pulled out a little, keeping his hot tip inside before beginning to move deeper. Ollen gasped with each inch, whimpering and stomping his legs like a mare in heat.

"Damn, you sound so hot…" Raman huffed, finally bottoming out as his balls touched against Ollen's sack.

From there, Raman began to gently move back and forth, enjoying the tight, warm squeeze around his fat cock. He lifted Ollen's shirt to plant a kiss on his back and gripped his hips even tighter as his movements became faster. Raman poured more jelly on his cock and slammed into Ollen with all earnestness, pulling back and thrusting in again. Had there been someone outside the room, they would have heard the groaning of the table that rose and fell with Raman's hammering and the conjoined moans of two men in rut. When the metal table creaked forward, Ollen's legs were pulled in the air and slammed back into the metal flooring in quick succession. Raman cursed out loud, his balls slapping against Ollen's and sending a tingling sensation within him. He adored how the boy felt around his cock, and in turn, the boy loved having him inside him; each thrust sent Ollen closer to the edge, and each of his moans brought Raman closer to his. Suddenly, in a jolt of energy, Ollen arched his back and cried out loud, as his cock released a string of his seed onto the ground. Ollen's whole body relaxed, and he lay on the table like a ragdoll as Raman kept thrusting, never pulling out completely as he penetrated the much younger man, while Ollen's muscles clasped tightly around Raman's pulsing cock, coaxing him to come. Raman's balls flexed as a rushing warmth ran through them to his tip, and his semen took away the last pieces of purity Ollen still held onto. Raman made a few more thrusts to make sure he'd shot all of his reserves into the young man before pulling out and finding something to clean himself with. Ollen could feel Raman's warm seed pour out of his hole, while his muscles spasmed uncontrollably from his climax. He was unable to move at all as his legs trembled from the strain, but in his mind, he did not even care how he might look if anyone were to come to the infirmary, as the sweet wave of orgasm still washed over him. All the fears he had had were now a distant memory, hidden beneath the waves, and Ollen would enjoy the feeling as long as he could. As Raman's warmth left him, the cold air settled in, and the cum slowly dripping down his bare thigh absorbed into his undressed pants. Ollen's hole ached from the use, and the heat of the moment had taken all of his strength. Raman took paper towels and helped to clean Ollen, planting one final kiss on his back as a thanks before leaving him alone to get the air tanks.

"… This will not happen again…" Raman said, "… And we can never talk about this to anyone, alright? I have a family…." Ollen nodded while resting against the table, unable to comprehend what the man had just said. Raman carried the tank to the tracks, and after getting the last tank out, Raman searched for more supplies to see if there was anything they could use or might need. As soon as he was done, Ollen had recovered enough to feel shame, and neither of the two shared even a word between them as they took two more tanks to bring back with them to the mess hall.

Ollen glanced behind him one final time to see the place where his virginity had come undone, blushing at the thought, but knowing better than ever to bring it up with Raman. The door to the infirmary was closed, and the two began to walk back to the others.

⛏

At the foreman’s shack, Rein had to keep his voice as even-toned as he could, or otherwise it would betray the fear he was feeling inside. The amount of blood alone would make a weaker man churn out his guts, but it was the scene itself that made Rein very afraid. One could easily see where men had been fighting against something far larger than they were. The way the shack had been bent was unnatural, as something big had slammed against it multiple times in order to get someone inside. Rein’s hands shivered as he collected himself and glanced at Henning and Leof, who were just as stunned as he was. Henning had both hands on his dirty-blonde head, as if trying to push his thoughts together through his skull to form at least some sort of explanation, while Leof, a large, muscular eastern man, stood still, his hands firmly by his sides and silent.

“It’s not a gas leak…” Rein muttered, unable to come up with anything else, “… We should see if the radio still works before we leave…”

“The radio?!” Henning exclaimed, “You want to check the radio when we should be running?!”

“Whatever did this is not here anymore, see?” Rein countered and pointed at the large claw marks on the shack’s wall, “Whatever did this is big; big means slow and noisy. If we can’t see or hear it now, then it’s gone for good. Besides, do you really want to go back to the others without trying to call for help first?”

“The doctor is right, ” Leof chimed in. “We’ll do it quickly and leave after.” Leof picked a long metal pole from the ground that had been rusted twice over and snapped it into a sharpened point. “I’ll keep watch,” Leof stated, even though he was a large man who had once told them that he had hunted polar bears in the Arctic before coming to work here; both Henning and Rein felt a little relief at the thought of him watching over them. Whatever had done this was far too large a foe for even someone like Leof to face with a mere pole. Leof found another sharp piece of aluminium on the ground and ripped a piece of his shirt to make a handle before giving it to Henning. “Just in case…” he said and stepped further from the bent shack to take his watch.

“Okay… I’ll try to get into the shack,” Rein replied and stepped to the short, bloody step, which had once shone with brushed metal. The locked door had partly caved in, and the large claw marks had ripped the floor open, leaving behind enough blood that still dripped down the cracks even though most of it had already clotted. He peeked inside, but the light coming from the outside revealed little of what was still inside.

“… So, Leof…” Henning began nervously. “The polar bears… Are their pawprints smaller or larger than these? It’s gotta be a bear, right? What else could do… This?”

“Smaller,” Leof answered, “… Bears have five claws; this one has only four.”

“… Fewer is better, right?”

Leof declined to answer back. He did not dare to tell Henning about the time in the Arctic when they had found a camp wrecked completely by one bear. It had ripped through the metal as if it were canvas and left a dark red frozen trail behind it, taking the lives of five good men with it. Neither did he care to tell that the claw marks here looked nothing like those of a bear. Whatever had been here had been bigger than any other living being Leof had ever seen, and the cruel mystery of the attack reminded him of the incident at the Arctic base they had found after a month of radio silence years ago. When they had arrived, they had found an eerie sight with dead dogs, burned corpses that had melted together, and a building that had been blown up. Most of it had been buried by the snowstorms, but they managed to find the body of a black man who had been frozen to death, instead of burning with a bottle of scotch in his hand and ripped clothes around him. At first, everyone had thought the black man had been the one to kill everyone and light the place, but then they had realised that the black man still had his clothes on, meaning the ripped clothes belonged to someone else, but there were no unburned corpses near the building. ‘Paradoxical undressing,’ someone had called it; it had something to do with hypothermia, where a person suffering from it feels too hot and decides to undress even though it is freezing cold. Leof did not want to think about what it might have been like to walk naked in the snow, as it had been cold enough to feel the chill in his bones even through his thick winter clothes. The two men might have gone mad together and killed everyone before perishing, but as there was no one to ask, the world would never know. The whole incident was reported as an accident, but something in the decision troubled Leof. It did not feel right; there had to be something else, but Leof knew better than to question his leaders or the government, even if the whole incident had been one big mystery to all of them, just as this one might be for the men working in the mines. Leof still had nightmares about the Arctic base, where, in the darkness of the snowy night, with only the cold howling wind covering him, someone was still walking back home through the eternal white. Never stopping, never arriving.

"So… if a bear has made the Bleakfall his home, will it-” Henning began to ramble again, but was suddenly stopped by Rein.

"Quiet!" Rein yelled from the doorway, kneeling as half of him had disappeared into the darkness. Henning’s blood froze, and even Leof turned to look at Rein, who crawled deeper into the foreman’s shack. ”Henning, Leof! Quickly! Get the door open!" Rein shouted again, and Leof was the first one to spin into action. He grabbed the door with both of his hands and began to bend it back.

“Henning! Get over here!” Leof yelled, and the closer Henning got, the more he could hear the soft cries coming from the inside. Henning took Leof’s rusted pipe and forced it between the door and the shack’s floor, and yanked hard. The metal door creaked with a nasty groan before coming off its hinges and falling to the ground with a loud bang. Both men got inside and saw Rein kneeling next to Sulaman, whose right leg was not there anymore. Sulaman’s dark skin had turned grey, and he cried without a sound as Rein made sure the tourniquet the man had made with a belt was tight enough.

“Get me a stretcher, hurry!” Rein ordered, and Leof and Henning rushed back outside.

“Go get the cart running; I’ll figure something,” Leof said to Henning, who nodded in answer. Henning followed the mine rail to the carts, running further into the mine. Each level of the mine had its own mine car that could be switched to the main rail at a moment’s notice, and Henning was relieved to see that the one in here had not been moved. He rushed to it with only a faint light coming from the bulbs on the carved walls, leading him on. Cursing, he tried to separate the car and one of the carts from the rest, but the rusted metal did not budge, leaving only bloodied scratches on Henning’s hands the more he tried to push. With the rest of the heavy carts intact, the car would move too slowly, but running back up with a man on a stretcher did not seem an option either. Henning tried to look around him and saw a large hammer on a shelf, which he then took and began to bash the junction with it. The sound of metal hitting metal hid behind it a sudden, terrifying screech, and when Henning raised his head to wipe away the sweat from his eyes, he saw a large figure rushing past the side tracks and towards the foreman’s shack. Before Henning could realise what he had just seen, he heard Leof cry out from the shock as the creature passed him with a thump almost as loud as their heartbeats. As horrifying as the creature itself was, what it had tied with its tendrils underneath it was a far more terrifying sight to Leof. The man witnessed as the monstrous beast jumped past him with naked Thio impaled by its member, moaning like a bitch in heat. The creature was in Leof’s sight only for a few seconds, but he swore he could see its shaft bulge and push large lumps inside Thio, whose belly was already swollen similarly to that of the stranger. He suddenly remembered Pavyl’s words, how Brucen had looked similar, making him wish that Pavyl had been suffering from a gas leak after all.

The creature was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. It had not cared for them, but it was running back up through the main tunnel, straight to where the others were, where Cedric and Simun had just begun their watch.

Henning turned back and slammed his hammer down one more time, releasing the junction and freeing the car with the first cart from the rest. He quickly got into the seat and revved the engine, which lit up the control board before him and rumbled with a familiar, almost comforting sound. Henning quickly moved the cart near the shacks and shouted to Leof.

“Did you see it?! What was it?!”

“I don’t know, but it was going up with… Thio…” Leof answered, still in shock.

“You saw Thio?” Henning asked and looked around him to see if there was anything they could use as a stretcher before spotting an old bed near the resting place with a dirty mattress on top of it. Rein peeked his head outside the shack, just missing the creature and fearing that something else had happened, as Rein had only felt the shaking of the ground, along with the sound of the heavy steps and Leof’s cry.

“What happened? An earthquake?” he asked the two.

“… The thing that did this…” Leof replied and waved his hands, “… I think…”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” Henning replied, “Come, Leof, let’s get that mattress and Sulaman on it; we need to get him out of here before that thing returns.”

“B-but it went that way! We can’t go up!” Now it was Leof who was more scared than the rest. Did you not see Thio? He asked in his mind, what was it doing to him?

“That way also leads to the outside; it might run into the woods,” Henning reasoned. “Sulaman’s bleeding out; we have to get him into the infirmary at least, and do you really want to be here if that thing gets back?”

Leof was not going to argue with that, and together they went to grab the mattress while Rein pulled Sulaman closer to the doorway of the shack.

“What about the radio?” Henning asked as he and Leof grabbed Sulaman.

“Trashed, let’s hope they have better luck on the surface…” Rein answered with a woeful tone. Henning peeked inside the shack and saw a mess of wires and broken parts before helping Leof carry Sulaman to the cart.

“Couldn’t you two find anything cleaner? His wound will get inflamed,” Rein blustered when he saw the mattress after he sat next to Sulaman.

“Do you want us to stay here until we find something else?” Henning snapped back before firing up the engine again.

“… No…” Rein muttered to himself as the cart slowly crawled forward before picking up speed. Leof hung onto the rusty pole he had found, as Henning did to the makeshift weapon Leof had made for him, as they ascended, both recognising that such weapons would do little good to safeguard them from such a creature. They glanced at each other nervously as Rein tended to Sulaman, who was, by some miracle, still alive.

“Does any one of you know his blood type?” Rein asked suddenly.

“No…” Henning answered back.

Sulaman coughed, and then Rein could no longer feel his pulse. He looked at the others, shaking his head slowly, before they all fell silent, leaving only the sound of the shifting tracks and the rumbling of the diesel engine to fill the cold silence of the Bleakfall Burrow.

⛏

Chapter 3

Cedrik and Simun stood by the mess hall when Raman and Ollen returned from the infirmary with an oxygen tank. Cedrik had taken a metal shovel with him, while Simun did not have anything longer than his arms with him. Both were unsure if Raman's precautions had been necessary and, as such, slacked on their duty, standing around without actually guarding anything.

"Do you think Rein will be back with the others?" Simun asked as he took another smoke from his back pocket.

"I don't know… Maybe? I think he knows his stuff, and the stuff Pavyl was babbling about did not really make any sense…" Cedrik replied, and then both men fell into an awkward silence. Cedrik buried the tips of his boots into the gravel and made small circles around him while Simun smoked. There was still tension lingering in the air, even though they were not in the mess hall. They too knew that something terrible had happened that night, but what that had been, neither of them knew or wanted to know.

"So… How's your wife?" Cedrik began, and Simun hushed him up quickly.

"Can we not talk about my wife? She's still staying with her sister, that's it," Simun snapped.

"Oh… yeah… Sorry… I forgot…" Cedrik muttered and returned to make more circles in the gravel. He had completely forgotten that Simun had, according to the rumours at least, cheated on his wife, who had then left to live with her sister almost three months ago. Cedrik was unsure what he thought about the whole situation; it was a private matter after all, and the lives of his fellow workers did not mean much to him. Still, he found himself silently judging the man and glanced at him quickly before looking back at the ground. Cedrik had never been married, and his love life had been more than lacking in the past few years. Back in the city, there was usually someone willing enough for a one-night stand, but nothing more. The city was full of divorced and half-divorced women, but like the city itself, they did have little desire to see a future with Cedrik.

The air in the cave grew heavy, and the scent of moist leaves and half-frozen grass flowed down the entrance all the way to the mess hall. Simun looked up the tunnel and sighed.

"Great, I think there will be a hailstorm…" He muttered.

"How do you reckon that?" Cedrik asked and looked at Simun.

"I can feel it in my bones, and the air is getting stale… I think the paper might have mentioned it, too."

"Huh… Well, that ain't comforting…"

"Figures… As if this night could not get any worse." As soon as those words escaped from Simun's lips, both men could hear a thunderous rumbling. They both looked up the mine tunnel only to realise that the rumbling had not come from above them, but from the mine below them. The earth under their feet shook, and when Cedrik turned to Simun to say something to him, he only saw a flash of black and an empty place where Simun had been mere moments ago. Then something slammed against him, hard, and for a second too late, Cedrik realised he was in the air before slamming against the cave wall, leaving only a dark red trail behind him when his lifeless body hit the ground. Uril was the first one to respond and came out of the mess hall to see what the noise had been all about. He could only barely spot the large dark figure that rushed through the tunnel towards the entrance, and when he turned to look on the opposite side, Uril saw both Cedrik and Simun, the men who were supposed to watch over them, lying dead on the ground. Both had been slammed against the cave walls, and Simun's cracked skull revealed the sight that was never meant to be seen as his brain matter stained the gravel below his head.

"Uh… Guys…" Uril hesitated. Two other men, Antoon and Mureno, peeked outside and were as horrified as he was when they spotted the dead men.

"What happened?" Raman shouted from the inside before coming outside, "What was that noise?"

"… I-I don't know…" Uril fretted, "… But whatever it was, it took Simun and Cedrik with it…"

Raman saw the two men lying on the ground, and while Simun looked deader than the rocks around him, Cedrik was still in one piece, even if a bloody one in that. Raman rushed to Cedrik, only to see his lifeless eyes looking back at him. Just a few moments ago, when he and Ollen had returned from the infirmary, those same eyes had been full of life, and the man had greeted them, asking if everything in the infirmary was still in order. Raman had never truly known him, but the growing despair in his heart wished he had. Raman put his hand over Cedrik's eyes and closed them, trying to hold back his tears and the stutter that tried to creep its way into his voice.

"They are dead… We need to get them somewhere… Maybe their rooms?"

"What?!" Antoon yelled, "I'm not having any dead man in the same place where I eat and sleep!"

"We can't leave them here either," Mureno rebutted, "What even did this to them?"

"I wish we knew… It seems we are in much more trouble than we could have ever known…" Raman answered as he looked at the marks on the ground that looked like some large animal had made them. "I think we can safely assume that Rein and the others are dead… Gyrbert and his team might still be alive if they were in the shacks. We should fortify the mess hall and stay there until someone, anyone, comes for our rescue."

"… But if that thing ran outside, maybe it's not gonna come back?" Antoon reasoned, "It's a bear, right, a big bear?"

"I'm sorry, but did you not feel the tremors? Can you not see those marks? Whatever it is, it is big, and a black bear would not have just attacked them and left them in here," Uril said.

"Well… It's not a human… Like you know, how people think those disappearances in the forest are because there is a serial killer on the loose?" Mureno added.

More men tried to see what was happening outside the mess hall, but the men already in the tunnel shushed them away quickly. The whispers spread around, and soon everyone inside knew that Simun and Cedrik lay dead. Someone offered the men outside their bedding so that the two could at least be covered with something. Uril and Raman carried the bodies against the cave wall on the opposite side of the mess hall and put the stained bedding on them before returning inside, where curious eyes looked at Raman for leadership. Raman looked at each one of the men still standing in the eyes and shook his head silently.

"As you might already know… Simun and Cedrik, the men I asked to take the first watch just in case, are dead… You all heard the rumbling and felt the tremors; it was not an earthquake or anything of that kind… We saw some marks on the ground, as if something large had run through the tunnel. We don't know what it is, but if Pavyl is to be believed, it did not only kill Brucen and the others, but also Simun and Cedrik."

"Maybe he knows!" Ollen perked up and winced as soon as his back left the chair he was sitting on. Ollen pointed at the stranger who had been dragged in by Mureno right before everything had started to go downhill. Merco, who was closest to the man who was silently whispering to himself and caressing his engorged stomach, knelt down to him and gently slapped his cheek to get his attention.

"Hey… Hey, you… Did you hear that?" Merco asked, and the stranger looked at him with wide eyes as if he had just been woken from a deep slumber. "What happened to you?"

"Stop that," Jinas scoffed, "Rein and Raman tried that already; he's not gonna talk. Whatever happened to him made him go mad."

Raman cleared his throat and looked around him again.

"As I was saying… Something is killing our friends; we need to fortify this area and hope someone will come."

"What about Eeron and the rest? You send them out there; our doctor is down in the mine!" Someone shouted.

"Whatever did this came from the mines. If it took out Simun and Cedrik, it has already killed Rein, Henning, and Leof, too. The ones outside the mine might still be alive, but we don't know," Raman grunted. "The best we can do now is to try to stay safe."

"Tell that to Cedrik and Simun!" Denko yelled out, "You send them out there!"

"Because I thought it would be for the best if we had someone on watch, I did not want them to die!" Raman yelled back. While he did his best to hide it, he was feeling guilty over his decision. Had he foreseen this, he would have ordered them all to leave the mine, but at this moment it no longer felt like an option, as the thing that had killed Cedrik and Simun was now prowling in the forest.

"You know what?" Denko shouted, "Maybe you all are fine with waiting here, but I'm not… I know it's still dark out there, but I will walk to the visitors centre myself and tell them you're all gone mad!"

"I'll come with you," Jinas said, "I'm not gonna stay here either."

"Please… It will be very dangerous out there… People have died!" Raman pleaded, but Denko and Jinas were not having it as they stepped outside the mess hall and began to make their way towards the entrance, bothering only to take some of their belonging with them. The air inside the mine was just as tense as the foreboding cold outside of it, and Raman could see the people around him being unsure about his whole plan.

"I'm not sure if fortifying this place will do much, but I think we should give it a shot," Pavyl finally said and took his chair. "I saw what that thing can do, and I don't want to end up like Brucen and that man over there… But we're gonna need more than thicker walls here."

"Agreed, but what? The people who went outside to get the guns are still out there; we have only shovels and pickaxes in here!" Antoon added.

"We'll figure something out…" Raman said and followed Pavyl, grabbing another chair and bringing it with him. Slowly, more people joined them, and they began to build a wall next to the plywood that separated the mess hall from the rest of the mine. Raman tried to think if there were any other ways inside the mess hall, remembering that on the other side of the room, there was another wall that covered an entrance to a natural cavern, and one above the kitchen, which had a tunnel leading to the outside. The tables and chairs in the mess hall, along with some beds and mattresses where used to make the makeshift cover. While Merco was busy with the stranger, trying to get him to answer anything, everyone else armed themselves with anything they could get their hands on. Some took shovels, while others could only find a frying pan and the like. When Antoon returned from his lodgings, everyone was surprised to see that he had a pistol with him.

"I know I'm not supposed to have this.." He muttered in shame, "But it makes me feel safe…"

"You know what, I think we can give you a pass tonight," Pavyl replied and chuckled nervously. A gun would make all of them feel a little bit safer, even though there was only one.

"Do you know how to shoot it?" Raman asked, slightly disappointed to see that Antoon was breaking the rules, but at the same time, he was glad that there was at least one actual weapon.

"Yup… I was in the army," Antoon nodded, "… But I've mostly shot at targets… Nothing else… If Leof comes back, he can have this; he's hunted polar bears, you know?"

"I've hunted too," Ollen said, "A long time ago, with my father… So, maybe I'll just keep to my skillet…"

The sound of hail hitting against the mountain wall and the ground echoed even into the mine. It was a steady drumming sound that sounded. Not unusual for this time of year, yet not something men trapped in the mine wanted to hear either.

"I'm sure Denko and Jinas will come back soon; that hail sounds nasty," Pavyl said, when suddenly, another sound filled the mess hall, a wheeze coming from the far side of the room where Merco was.

"Algy…" the stranger coughed. "M- my name is Algy…"

⛏

The deeper into the cavern the creature took Kippos, the more clearly he could hear the moans, but he cared little for such sounds as he jerked his hips against the monster’s cock, taking it as deep as he could. The large shaft, lubricated by the creature’s goo and Kip’s fluids, slid in with ease, never truly coming out as they marched towards an unknown endpoint. The red glow of the cave painted their bodies in the same tone, and the humidity rose high enough to make Kip sweat hard against the monster. While he enjoyed his complete claiming, the creature paid as little attention to him as Kip paid to the sounds coming from deeper within. It had already claimed him after all, and would keep breeding him until he was done. The cavern opened up and revealed another unexplored part of the mine and the hive the creature had built for itself. The walls were filled with strange pulsing organic material, and it seemed to react as the creature entered its hive with another victim, moving and trembling in an unnatural way. Kippos moaned loudly, feeling another orgasm tremble his body, and the beast allowed another clutch of eggs to enter him, swelling his belly even further. Kip’s skin had turned tight, and long stretch marks ran down his belly, making it look as if he were about to burst from the mere size of the eggs. The monster roared and slid its enormous cock out of Kippos, letting him wall to the fleshy, organic flooring of the cave. Kip now realised that he and the creature were not alone, and when he looked around him, he saw the men who had gone missing down there with him, too. Sulaman, Marli, and Brucen; they were all there, all moaning and whimpering on the ground with bellies as brimming with eggs similar to Kip's. Kip witnessed two men, Sulaman and Marli, who had never gotten along, sitting now side by side, kissing each other and touching themselves in a blissful state. Kip wanted to crawl to them, to share their lust, but his belly was far too large and heavy for him to move at all, allowing him only to let out a desperate whimper. He then noticed a few strange faces in the far corner of the cave, a group of five people, looking the same as the rest of them. One of them, a young man with dark blonde hair, circled his finger around his round belly, looking so very satisfied. The little clothing they still had left on made Kip realise that these people must have been hikers, perhaps even the same ones who had come along with the stranger back in the mine. The creature moved closer to an older man, who eagerly raised his rear far above and let the monster penetrate him, even though he had already been bred much to Kippos’s envy. He witnessed how the creatures lenghty member disappeared inside the older man, making him groan from the pleasure before the creature began to thrust with long and harsh movements into him. Kip managed to move to his side and roll on his belly, feeling the large eggs inside him push against his guts. He watched as the creature fucked the old man and began to jerk his hips against the fleshy ground, sliding his erect member against it and trying to find even a little bit of the same pleasure he had received from the monster’s cock.

Then, all of a sudden, Kip felt the ground shake as another creature, similar to the first, stepped into the cave, Thio hanging onto its cock. It dropped Thio next to Kip and followed the first beast to breed another one of their victims yet again. Thio whimpered on the ground with tears in his eyes, and Kip managed to roll close to him. Just like him, Thio had been transformed, turned into a bitch in heat for a terrible creature, panting for more. Thio’s belly was not as full as Kip’s, but he had been bred for sure. He then put his hand over Thio’s belly and admired the size of it, feeling the soft pulse of the eggs coming from within. Thio looked at Kip with the same lustful eyes as he had, and Kip leaned to kiss the man he had only seen as a fellow worker. Their tongues twisted together to hide their groans as both men reached to touch the other, stroking each other’s ever-hard cocks as their free hands played with other parts. Their sweat mixed together as they found pleasure in each other, kissing each other deeply and stroking one another. Having Thio’s tongue inside his mouth felt good to Kip, even if it could not compare to the creature’s tendrils, which had filled his mouth and reached his throat, sliding in and out in a feral rhythm. However, the creatures had others to breed, and in their lustful state, all willing mates were welcome, no matter who they were.

“Careful, you might drop one…” Thio moaned and rose to his knees, opening Kip’s legs and pushing his hard, erect member inside. It was no match for the creature’s magnificent member, but his thrusts helped the eggs to push further. Thio’s pregnant belly slammed against Kip’s as he pounded into him, who put his hands over his chest and pressed down hard on his nipples, pinching and twisting them as his moans filled Thio’s wet mouth. When Kip came again, Thio forced him to keep his legs open, spreading him open and hastening his movements, driving his thick member deeper and deeper to keep the eggs safe while Kip’s insides put tender pressure on him. There was not a lot of tightness left in Kip’s hole to squeeze against Thio’s member, but neither of the men seemed to care that they had been transformed only to take in the monster’s meaty member. Their gaping holes had been ruined forever, and only the monsters could ever please them ever again.

Without their knowledge, the second creature had stepped behind them, and with one swift move, it drove its member inside Thio, who was still fucking Kip. Thio cried out when the creature’s cock slammed into him and hit his guts that safeguarded its eggs. The monster did not seem even to notice that Thio had been thrusting into Kip and only wanted to give him more eggs to carry, pressing the two men together before pulling out and slamming against them again and again. The monster’s tendrils spread out of its back and found both men, filling their holes and following it’s cocks pace as Thio was bred once again. Kip gurgled against one of the members as another entered his rear and pushed in next to Thio’s far smaller cock, while Thio’s moans were silenced by the third one when his hole was spread wide open by the large member that pounded into him mercilessly. Thio rocked helplessly back and forth on top of Kip, loving every second of it as did Kip. The monster withdrew its member and slammed it back again as deep as it could, roaring while a second clutch of eggs began to fill the feeble human. Kip could feel Thio’s belly grow next to his, pressing him down even further, along with Thio’s cock that twitched inside him and released its weak spurt of seed to join the eggs within him. Kip marvelled at the way Thio’s belly grew and how much he could take. While still not as large as his, Thio would be bred again until he reached his fill, and Kip could not wait to witness it, too. Thio moaned in satisfaction when the creature’s tendrils withdrew from his mouth along with its heavy member, dropping on top of Kip and kissing him as soon as the monster freed Kip.

“Oh, how wonderful we look…” Thio groaned, keeping his cock inside Kip so as not to allow any eggs to escape from him. Kip’s eyes watered heavily as his feelings took over him. he thought how absolutely blessed he felt with the eggs filling him, to be bred by such a large cock and a creature that had no boundaries. Thio let out a delightful chuckle, kissing away Kip’s tears as he, too, knew what he was going through. When they looked each other in the eyes, they felt as if their beings were being melted together, that they would soon become one in more than one way. Kip could see himself through Thio’s eyes, and Thio knew exactly what Kippos was thinking. The goo the monster used to make them loosen dripped down between Thio’s cheeks all over Kip, sending that lovingly tingling sensation that he had come to love all over his body. They kissed again, heaving between each kiss and beginning to fuck each other yet again.

This time, not as two separate persons, but as one.

⛏

“Maybe we should turn back?” Jinas shouted through the growing cold, trying to keep his hood over his head while the hailstorm hit against his bare hands hard, making him wish he had taken his hard hat with him. Jinas could barely see the man walking in front of him, still determined to find the visitor centre.

“And die like the rest of them? No way! We’re doing something! We will find help!” Denko yelled back angrily, just as tired as Jinas was.

Jinas turned to look behind him but could no longer see the lights coming from the mine’s entrance. They were in pitch black with only a compass and a small map to guide them through the woods. At first, Jinas had been on board with the idea of getting out of the mine as soon as possible, especially since people had disappeared and died there, but right now, he wished he were still inside with a warm drink in his hands. The thawing ice, along with the rain and hail, had made the stretch from the mine to the base of the mountain treacherous, but while the canopy gave them little cover from the storm, both men had already stumbled on their way down and were drenched in cold sludge that felt like it was burning against their skin through their clothes instead of freezing them. The slippery roots of the trees stuck out from the ground, making it harder to walk even in the forest, while the small branches lashed against the two men. There had once been a better route to the town used to carry supplies and machinery to the mine, but it was no longer well-maintained and took longer to walk as it swirled around the mountainside. The people still inside the mine did not have time, and that’s why Denko and Jinas had decided to find the visitor centre first. There, they could find not only help, but an emergency phone to call for more rescuers to help the rest of the workers. An idea that had sounded more than good just before the hail began to rain from the sky.

While the two hurried through the forest, a root caught Jinas by his rubber boot, and he fell down against a hard rock, hitting his head against it and sending a painful ringing sound inside his brain.

"Denko! Wait!" Jinas shouted and grabbed his head, feeling a trail of warmth run against his palm. In the flicker of his flashlight, Jinas could not see if his hand had been stained by blood or not, but the stinging pain on his temple told him he now had an open wound on his head. ”Denko!" Jinas yelled again, only to see the man in front of him disappear into the bushes. Something large hit Jinas on his left shoulder blade when he got up, perhaps a large hailstone, and he winced from the pain. ”Denko! Wait for me! My head’s bleeding!" he shouted yet again, but Jinas could no longer even see Denko’s flashlight bounce against the large tree trunk.

Swearing and shivering, Jinas hurried to where he had seen Denko the last time. Denko had had the map and the compass, and without him, Jinas could no longer find the visitor centre. To him, it felt like the trees were growing closer, suffocating yet not nearly enough to shelter him from the cold.

"Denko, you idiot! Wait for me!" Jinas yelled with a tone mixed with pleading and anger, but Denko did not reappear, and Jinas was left in the darkness all alone. He then turned around to see where he had fallen, trying to find his footprints and following them back towards where they had come from. They had walked for only half an hour, and the weather had slowed them down, leading Jinas to believe it was better for him to try to find his way back to the mine rather than try to follow Denko. He followed his trail, only to find that the rest of it had disappeared into the mix of mud and rain, giving him little indication of where he should go next.

Think, J, think, Jinas told himself, smacking his head with his hand. When he hit the still-pouring wound on his head, the pain seemed to bring a memory of a forest survival lesson into his mind. Shelter and wait, shelter and wait, Jinas repeated in his mind. I need to build a shelter and wait for the rescue. He took a few low-hanging branches and twisted them together, and covered them with anything he could find to make a small makeshift canopy before sitting underneath it. There was still water coming through the branches, but the hailstones could no longer reach him, hitting against the soft cover and bouncing into the ground. Jinas pulled his hands into his coat and pressed them against his armpits to warm them up. The coldness of them made him wince again, but he knew enough that keeping himself warm was what he was supposed to do. The sudden change in weather, along with the stumbling, had wet his clothes, making them stick against his skin, numbing his limbs, and making his whole body shiver. While the blood coming from his head gelled, the stinging pain remained, making it hard for Jinas to think about anything. The wood around him was too wet and cold to be used to make a fire, but the small pack of matches he found in his pocket made Jinas still grin wildly. He took one of them and lit it, cradling it in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the whole world. He had about fifteen matches, and after burning three, Jinas realised that they burned too quickly to be of any real use to him. The little warmth he got from them also made him recognise how cold he truly was. Would Denko realise that he had gone missing? Did he even care to turn around? How long would it take for Denkot to reach the visitor centre? Would the rescuers find him? The first light of the dawn had to be a mere hour away, as this night had felt like it had lasted a lifetime already. Jinas took his flashlight into his hands, turning it on and off in changing bursts. Three shorts, three longs, three shorts, Jinas told himself, praying Denko, or anybody, would see them. The flashlights given to the miners had been cheap ones, and one could easily hear the rattling batteries inside as the lights flickered in an uneven blast. It had been a pure miracle that it had not broken when Jinas had stumbled down against the rocks. Still, to his relief, it looked like his flashlight had been just recently switched with a set of new ones, and while his did not have a very bright light, it would last long.

"Denko! I’m here!" Jinas screamed when he thought he heard a sound of someone moving in the forest, but no one came to him, and he was just as alone as he had been before. When the shiver in his hand got too strong, he switched the flashlight to his other hand and hid the other hand back into his coat to warm it up. The continuous blasts of short and long flashes hit against the trees and bushes near Jinas’s shelter, even though there was nobody to answer his calls. Jinas had always wished he had a little bit more excitement in his life, even daydreaming about a group of men trying to rob a store while he was in there, where he would be a hero and outwit them and save everyone in the store. His fantasy had different variations; in one, he would get badly wounded but still prevail and be treated as a hero, maybe even get a medal or something. In the second one, he would simply be a victim like the rest of the shoppers, only to be saved by a freak accident. Daydreaming about those kinds of things had been a good way to pass the time and cope with his current job, but right now he wished he had a lot less thrill in his life, to be back with either Denko or in the mines, anywhere else than in here.

“You got your fun now, didn’t you?” Jinas chuckled to himself with a slight grin on his face, while his rigid thumb flipped the switch of his flashlight at a steady pace.

An ominous, loud groan made Jinas’s skin shiver even more. It was deep and coming from somewhere close. He turned his flashlight off and listened as sounds of wood cracking began to echo around him in the drumming rain, and he could feel the trunk against his back jut forward. Just as Jinas realised what was happening, the groan got louder. As soon as Jinas was back on his two feet, the tree behind him let out its last roar, toppling over Jinas and crushing him beneath it.

⛏

"Damnit! Work, you shitass radio! Work!" Lauron shouted and slammed his fist against the hard metal box, while Gyrbert watched over him, rifle in hand. Lauron had managed to turn the radio on, but no matter how many times he tried to hail the Black Bellmouth Centre, their calls were only returning static.

"I'm pretty sure that's not gonna help," Gyrbert said, but it was not like he could blame the man for acting this way. They all had seen the creature that had charged from the mine; they barely managed to dodge out of its way as it rushed into the forest. Eeron had tried to shoot it, but while a bullet had hit it, it did not seem to mind it at all, and when Eeron had loaded his rifle for a second shot, Gyrbert had stopped the man, yelling that he might accidentally hit their friend if he shot again.

"DID YOU SEE WHAT IT WAS DOING TO HIM!?" Eeron had shouted, and Gyrbert could only nod as an answer. They all had seen and heard it, and Gyrbert could not get Thio's moans out of his head even though the hail was raining hard on the plywood shack the trio had holed into. Neither could he forget the pure bliss on Thio's face, even though he had seen it only briefly before slamming against the ground to take cover. The creature was doing something terrible to Thio and had most likely done the same for so many others.

"Smacking the radio will not help if we want to get out of here," Eeron said, looking out of a small window, nervously twisting the second rifle in his hands, fearing that the creature would return for them. "The weather is getting really bad," he added, "It won't be easy for the rangers to get in here by the road or the forest if those winds don't calm down."

Lauron slammed his fist on the radio again. "I'm not gonna wait here so that thing can… Can…" his words turned to sobs, "If it ever gets me, I want to be shot… I don't want to end up like Thio and that stranger! I don't! You saw their guts!"

"You don't know what it was doing to him…" Gyrbert tried to console Lauron, knowing full well that his lies did not carry far, "You saw those… Tentacles… It was piercing him like a kebab with them, like some animals do with their tails to their prey…"

"You know damn well what it was doing! It was fucking him, Gyr! And Thio liked it!" Lauron shouted, "Thio is not like that!" Lauron, if anyone had known that, Gyrbert thought. He and Thio were childhood friends, and had Gyrbert seen his best mate under that monster, he too might have been fuming. The image of the creature's member flashed in Gyrbert's mind, the way it was lodged into a man much smaller than it, pounding into a gut that had already been swollen by something. The thought made Gyrbert shiver, and he shook his head, trying to focus on the last task they had promised to do before returning to the mine.

"… Maybe we should not go back?" Eeron said, clearly thinking about the same thing they all were. "We have the weapons, and we could take the road."

"It would take us six hours to reach the city," Gyrbert interjected, "And look at the weather, do you remember what the road's like? That rain and hail have made the road more unstable than it already is."

"We can't leave the others," Lauron said, this time not hitting the radio for once, "We can't let that thing do what it did to Thio to them."

"We can't…" Eeron grumbled, "But maybe we should."

A brief moment of silence fell over the trio as they thought about what to do. They were all right and wrong at the same time. The others would need these weapons, but so would they if they wanted to get out of this mountain alive, without being taken by that very same monster. While the road back to the city would be treacherous, most likely even deadly, none of them wanted to go to the visitor lodge through the forest where the creature could have ample opportunities to ambush them.

"Maybe we should get them too?" Gyrbert asked carefully.

"Then that thing would be after us for sure… Raman is not going to leave. Some will think it's safer to be inside," Lauron replied, "… but it isn't… It got Thio down there…"

"If we go, only us, then that thing might stay here where there is more prey for it to… Take…" Eeron considered, "With our rifles, we could stave it off. What time is it even?"

Gyrbert took a glance at his watch, which ticked slowly towards three. "About two in the morning, but I think my watch might be broken; it showed two the last time I looked at it, too," he replied back and Eeron let out a melancholic sigh.

"It feels like it's been two all night…"

Gyrbert thought how true Eeron's words rang. It felt like they had been trapped in this situation for longer than the night should last, and it was not going to get any better any time soon.

"Maybe we should leave then?" Lauron said quietly, and the other two men could not help but agree with him.

"Denko and Jinas had the right idea," Gyrbert agreed, and quietly, they all began to collect their things, grabbing whatever old extra clothes they could find with them, even taking some of the mouldy blankets to shelter themselves from the hailstorm. They had two rifles and one flare gun with them. Lauron stepped outside and pointed the flare gun straight up, shooting a flare to mark the mine. In this storm, it would not do them much good even if there was somebody to see it, but all three agreed it was the least they could do to signal for help. The moment Gyrbert was about to walk outside the shack to join the other two men, he heard a voice coming from the radio behind him.

"This is Black Bellmouth Centre. What is your status, Bleakfall 1? Over." A woman's voice came over the static on the radio.

Gyrbert looked at the two men who were already walking towards the road they had decided to take their chances on, before turning back to look at the radio, which buzzed silently in the corner, waiting for them to pick up the transmitter. Gyrbert stepped out of the shack, closing the door behind him, and joined Eeron and Lauron, not saying a word about the call as they began their journey down the road. Believing the rangers would not get there in time to save anyone, leaving behind those who were still holding up in the mine below.

⛏

Chapter 4

“… But no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t let me go…” Algy sobbed into his hands while the rest of the group listened carefully, equally horrified by the story. The uneasiness was palpable inside the mine when Algy finally finished his story.“I can hear it… Something… Calling me… Like I need it as much as it needs me… Don’t let it get me!"

“Hush… It’s alright; you will be safe with us,” Pavyl comforted the stranger, both knowing too well there was little they could do to help. The barricades were still up, but they had no way of knowing if the monster was still roaming around. With trembling hands, Algy brushed his overfilled belly, eyes wide from fear.

“C-can you take these out? I don’t want them inside me…” He pleaded.

“I don’t know, Algy…” Pavyl answered honestly, “Rein is the only one who knows anything about medical stuff, but he’s not even a doctor, and this… You’ll need a hospital… A surgery for this…” The unnatural way Algy’s stomach extended made Pavyl feel nauseous, and while Algy must have known it, most likely feeling even greater disgust towards his current state, Pavyl hid it as best he could to support the desperate man. There were only ten workers left alive as far as Pavyl knew. Rein, Leof, and Henning had gone down the mine, never returning. Jinas and Denko had left to find help on their own. And even Gyrbert, along with his group, had gone missing on the surface. It was hard to believe that anyone in any of the three groups had managed to call for help, and as such, the men in the mines were left to fend for themselves. Merco and Uril kept watch, while the others had huddled together to hear what Algy had to say. Only Raman and Gregur had decided to go to rest.

“It… It put them there one by one… Can’t you take them out the same way?” Algy begged.

“I-I’m not gonna do that… Can’t you see how big those things are? Pulling them out would rip your insides!” Pavyl replied back, stuttering with embarrassment at the thought of reaching into the man’s guts through his ass. “Listen, we don’t know how it was even possible for it to… To do that to you… You need medical help!!”

“Please… Drug me… Anything! Cut them while I’m awake; I just want to be rid of them! I can feel it… That thing… It’s changing me… Please help me! I feel like I’m losing myself!”

“I’m sorry, man… We can’t do anything. If we were to cut into you, you would bleed to death. Is that what you want?” Pavyl asked. The man could only whimper and shake his head as an answer. Pavyl didn’t like to think about what he would have done if the same thing had happened to him. He might have been crazy enough to try to cut them out himself. What had happened to Algy and possibly to all the others who had met the creature was not right, and even thinking about it made Pavyl’s skin crawl.

“What time is it?” Pavyl turned to look at Ollen, who was sitting behind him.

“Uh… Three in the morning… Why?”

“I don’t know… But it feels like this nightmare would feel a little bit better in the daylight…” Pavyl answered, turning back to Algy, who was constantly shifting between unconsciousness and horrified existence. Nodding off and stirred back awake, only to realise that his nightmare had actually been true.

“Do you think that creature can’t stand it? The light, I mean?” Ollen asked, shivering almost as much as Algy.

“I don’t know… It’s an animal, right? It might be nocturnal…” As soon as those words escaped from Pavyl’s lips, the light in the room began to flicker, turning back on only for a brief moment before plunging the whole mess hall into the pitch dark.

"Goddammit and all of his whores!" Antoon shouted, “It’s the generator or something- get the lamps! I’m not going to sit in the dark while something out there hunts us !”

“Fuck-ridicilous-king… What are the chances that the generator decides to blow up in the night like this?” Uril grunted, “This whole fucking mine is a mess…”

People stumbled around, finding flashlights, headlights, and storm lanterns to light the room. Little by little, the sharp blue lights began to flood the room again, making everything look twice as frightening as it already had been.

“When does the emergency generator kick in?” Ollen asked with a hopeful tone in his voice.

“That was the emergency generator,” Merco answered. “We’ve been using it to power the mine for the last two months… We were supposed to get a new one next week… And before you ask, no, I’m not going to go up, or down, there to fix it. I’m not leaving this room, no matter what! I’d rather use the old calcium carbide lamps we got shoved away before going anywhere.”

Pavyl nodded to himself, not too keen to go anywhere either, not until daybreak, which was still hours away, if not more. The storm was still blowing outside the mine, unkind and unrelenting in its force, making Pavyl hope it would be enough to keep the creature away, even if the mine was the only place nearby where it might have taken cover from it.

“We got water!” Hurding shouted by the makeshift barricade, and Pavyl saw how the light made the water rushing underneath the plywood glimmer in the darkness, dancing as more rushed in steadily.

“Without the generator, there is no pump,” Merco stated. “Put the mine is deep… It can suck in a lot; we only need to channel it away from the hall if we want to keep our feet dry.”

“With what? All the sandbags are down in the mine,” Antoon refuted.

“We still have some here… There are cement sacks and our own bags; we should use those.” Uriel waved his hand and went to pick up his old gym bag, filling it with whatever he could find to make it heavier, and plopping it straight into the water. “We can use almost anything- towels, clothing- it will help to keep the water away.” If not for anything else, Pavyl was glad to see how well they had come together to solve any problems that had arisen since the beginning of the night. While the anxiety and the uncertainty made them all be on edge, easily snapping at each other, they mostly managed to stay civil and calm. Raman had done a good job at keeping them collected, even if some of them, like Jinas and Denko, had decided to leave. Being in a bigger group felt much safer to Pavyl than travelling outside, and that safety was only fractured by the sound of loud knocks coming from the other side of the plywood wall that kept them safe from the creature.

"Hello? Are you still there? Let us in!” Leof yelled.

“God damn… They are still alive…” Antoon muttered, “Move the barricade, let them in!”

People worked fast, even though they were scared out of their minds, and soon there was a small path through the wall of furniture to the doorway. The trio who had gone down to look for others were brought in, and the wall behind was closed off again. Leof, Rein, and Henning all looked just as exhausted and scared as the rest of them felt.

“W-we saw bodybags outside… What happened?” Rein managed to ask between his huffs.

“Simun and Cedrik… That thing killed them when it ran from the mine… You saw it, too, right?” Pavyl answered with a question of his own.

“We did… We found Sulaman… He’s dead too… We tried to get away with a cart, but the creature returned, and we had to hide from it… It took Sulaman’s body and went back deeper into the mine… Then the lights went out, and we ran in the darkness as quickly as we could after that… ”

Pavyl took a moment, hesitating to ask what was on his mind, before speaking out. “Was he… You know?”

“Like that man over there? Yes…” Rein pointed at Algy, who was mumbling again on his own.

“He spoke to us… Told us what happened… He says his name is Algy; he was a-… Is a hiker.” Ollen joined the conversation, stuttering when he was reminded of Algy’s story.

“If it’s anything like what Leof saw, then I don’t want to know more,” Rein stated, sitting on a chair and wiping off the sweat from his forehead. Leof sat next to him, shuddering as he remembered Thio and his blissful moans.

“That thing lays its eggs inside people,” Antoon said, “But not for long if it dares to come anywhere near this!” The gun in Antoon’s hands shone like a beacon of hope against the little lights lighting the room, but Pavyl wondered if it would be any use against such a creature.

“Lauron, Eeron, and Gyrbert are still on the surface… If they are still alive, I mean. They might have used the radio. How about you guys?”

“Well, we’d better hope they got it to work… The one in the mines is busted; that thing did a good number on the Steigers’ shack.” Rein replied, “Is Raman still running this thing?”

“Yes, but he’s sleeping right now…”

“Good, I could not stand his ‘See-How-Right-I-Was’ look right now…” Rein muttered, grinning as he remembered the conversation he and Raman had had before he had ventured into the mine.

In shared silence, they all waited as there was not much else to do, and Pavyl could swear it felt like the air in the mine was getting heavier and hotter, but he brushed it off as related to the air pressure changes due to the storm. Algy no longer talked with them, and Rein attended to him to the best of his abilities, giving him more medicine as soon as it looked like the man was about to panic again. There were even a few laughs and chuckles shared by the men when some of them began to play cards to pass the time. It was not the light, joyful kind of laughter, but laughter still. When Pavyl asked for the time again, only about half an hour had passed. The booming sounds of the hailstorm seemed to ease up as time went by, only to be picked up again by a stroke of bad luck that seemed to have no end. Pavyl wished that there would be another heavy knock at the door, that the forest rangers had heard them somehow and come to rescue them. Then again, Pavyl had to think about how much help two or even five of them would come here. While the creature had not yet reappeared, Pavyl believed it would attack again if someone were out there. He tried to think of it as another animal, hoping it would only look for easy prey, and the thin plywood walls and the furniture barricade would be enough to keep it away from them until they’d figure out a way out of here. More workers would arrive in two days by small bus if the road were safe enough, but Pavyl knew none of them wanted to wait here for so long. As soon as the storm was gone and Raman was up, Pavyl wanted to propose another plan rather than wait. They all could go through the forest to the visitor centre in full daylight; as far as he knew, the monster had not attacked them when they were in a large group like this. Maybe they could even take torches with them. If that creature were truly an animal, then it might be afraid of fire. Antoon’s gun would hopefully keep it away if it did not kill it, but all of those things would still have to wait, just like they had to wait in the mines.

⛏

Pavyl and all the others sat up immediately the moment a loud groan came from the far side of the room, filling the sombre silence with its unkind tone. Rein rushed back to Algy’s side, who was sweating profusely, squirming against his mattress with ever-growing cries.

“Are you in pain? Do you hear me, Algy?” Rein demanded to know, but Algy pushed him away from him, continuing his groaning, shivering when he twisted himself onto his knees and tried to get up.

"N-No!” he screamed when anyone tried to go closer to him, ”No! It’s coming!” The men looking at him did not move at all as they watched him scream and heave against the mattress.

“No!” Algy shouted again, “I’m not ready!" The blanket fell to the ground, and every man in the room could witness what was happening when Algy’s naked rear rose to the air. The gooey fluid had stained the mattress below the man, dripping between his legs as one of the eggs was pushing out, fleshy and unfathomably big for someone of Algy’s size. The egg made Algy’s hole stretch bigger than it should ever be, slowly pushing past his rim to reveal more of its horrifying size, while the man who had been forced to carry it cried from the pain and desperation, clawing at the mattress hard enough to rip the old fabric into shreds.

"No! I’m worthy of them!” Algy screamed with a deafening voice that felt like he was being torn open from the inside.

“S-stop him…” Ollen squeaked, unable to do anything himself, as did the other men next to him. The visceral sight in front of them had frozen them in place, and they only stared at the man whom they had known for less than a few hours, if even that. Ollen tried to cover his ears, but Algy’s voice was too loud, piercing through his hands and echoing in his head when the first egg dropped onto the mattress. It was soft, yet bigger than the man’s fists and glistening from the mix of blood and goo. Algy’s cries turned even higher when another egg began to make its way through his gut, pushing past his rim and joining the first one on the floor. Algy squirmed, trying to stay on his fours, howling and sobbing when more of the eggs moved inside him, steadily beginning to empty him despite his feeble protests. His noises had even made Raman and Gregur wake up, but even they were unable to do anything to the man as more eggs poured out of him, bouncing against the mattress, yet not making any difference in the size of his belly, which was still just as large as it had been when he had stumbled into the mine. Algy’s throaty screams were only stopped by the brief moments he had to wheeze for air, continuing as soon as there was any air to use. The man’s legs shivered while he fought to keep himself propped up; that was the only position that allowed him to dispatch the eggs, even if a painful one, and it looked like he was fighting against his body to keep the eggs inside.

“Help him!” Ollen tried to yell over the screams again, “You need to help him!” Yet there was no help coming for the man, but the constant screams of pain and a wall of staring eyes of men unable to comprehend Algy’s situation. When the last egg dropped out of Algy, there was nothing left but a gaping hole that still leaked from the creature’s fluids. Algy dropped to the ground, drooling and eyes empty from the strain, and in the next second, his face turned to wax as all expressions other than one of horror left him. Algy’s whole body jerked one final time before his final breath left his lungs. The silence he left behind was almost as unbearable as the torturous crying. Only the wide-eyed look on Rein’s face betrayed the shock his mind was going through when he crouched over the body and checked for a pulse. Without even needing to say anything, all of them knew that Algy was dead. Rein pulled a blue glove over his hand and took one of the eggs, examining it almost as if nothing had happened. There were fifteen in total, and it was easy to deduce that they were no longer viable. While the workers did not know how much they had grown inside Algy, Rein could feel the fleshy shell hardening in his hands and see the colour slowly draining from them one by one.

“These are dead too…” Rein said quietly.

“W-what happened to him…? Why did the eggs come out?” Henning shivered, not daring to step any closer than he already was.

" ′The egg sack abandonment’,” Uril perked up from his seat, “Maybe it’s that? Some insects do that when they are starved or stressed.”

“Or maybe it’s because the dawn is coming, maybe the sun-…?” Hurding tried to add, but Leof turned to him and shouted at him before he could finish his sentence.

“Bugs? Daylight? Do you hear yourselves? This thing is not a bug or a damn vampire! A man just gave birth to a bunch of eggs right before our eyes and died. What do you think is going to happen to us if it finds us?!” Leof huffed, his hands around his head.

“I don’t think this is the time to discuss semantics… We need to get that body and those eggs away from here… Maybe burn them to make sure… I don’t know...” Raman said.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea, make a fire in a coal mine! Great thinking, Raman!” Leof snarled back, knowing full well that Raman was not suggesting such a thing. If they had been on the edge before, then by now they had flown past it and were making their way towards the ground at high speeds. The feeling of feeble safety had long gone, and leaving the mine was on everyone’s mind, even if they did not dare to say it out loud. While the weather outside was still bad, the option of staying inside was coming to an end with a rumbling that the group first thought to be the sound of thunder getting closer.

And closer.

The ground trembled again before anyone had time to realise what was happening. One of the creatures burst through the cheap plywood covering the opposite side of the main tunnel, finding its way in through the natural cavern behind it. Ollen covered his ears again when screams filled the mess hall again, followed by the gunshots that missed the creature as the man shooting them shivered from the fear. Ollen stumbled to the ground when someone bumped into him, and he crawled towards the barricade, hopelessly looking for anything to put between him and the creature that was on a rampage. Mureno flew past him, hitting the wall and falling lifelessly to the ground with blood pouring from his mouth, looking at him with empty eyes that looked as if they were blaming him for his sudden death. More shots were fired, and someone tried to attack the monster with a pickaxe. The creature screeched when it got hit, snapping Antoon between its jaws and snapping its other attacker in half with its tendrils, which sprayed the poor man’s blood everywhere. When Ollen glanced behind him, he saw many others on the ground, some still barely gasping for breath, while the creature’s claws had ripped apart others. The ground trembled with another weight, and the second monster smashed through the barricade, almost stepping on Ollen and sending sharp pieces of ripped wood all around.

"Another one!" Someone shouted, but was quickly silenced with a choir of gurgling joining the other sounds of massacre. Ollen saw the open hole in the wall and began to crawl as fast as he could, almost reaching it before a pair of claws pushed against his shoulder, tearing the skin through the clothes and making him join the screams of pain. One of the monsters was on him, its long tongue licking almost as if it were excited. It opened its jaws and got ready to sink its teeth into Ollen before Uril rushed towards it with a hammer in his hands and slammed it against its skull. The impact made a sharp, cracking sound, and the monster turned to Uril, lashing towards him, who barely managed to dodge the attack before bringing his hammer down the second time. The creature’s grip on Ollen loosened, and he crawled from under it, pulling himself by the broken furniture past the hole and into the tunnel. Ollen heard Uril’s shrieks, almost deciding to turn back to help him before he was grabbed by someone else. Bloodied and wounded, Raman stood by Ollen, pulling him with him towards the entrance of the mine, only for Rein to run past them. The second creature slammed into him through the barely standing part of the wall and snarled when it brought the man to the ground, standing over him and revealing its heavy member to its next screaming victim. Raman turned Ollen around him, now pulling the young man with him deeper into the mine, with the helpless cries and unnatural shrieks echoing against the tunnel walls. The panic and the burning in Ollen’s lungs wanted him to stop, but Raman made sure they’d keep on running as long as they could. With tears filling his eyes, Ollen followed Raman deeper into the mine. Crying and panting as the noises behind them slowly turned into muffled shrieks until there was nothing left but the sound of their shared panicked breathing and the crackling gravel beneath their feet to guide them forward.

⛏

The air inside the mine was getting stiffer when Ollen and Raman finally felt safe enough to catch their breath, huddling together behind a large mining machine. The long run had made Ollen's guts cramp, and the pile in his mouth tasted bitter against his dry tongue. One of the creatures had roamed down after their massacre, but had not been able to find the two, even though Ollen's heart had beaten so hard against his chest that he was certain it would break through his ribcage. The creature had returned to the tunnel, but neither of the two was sure if it was still safe enough to move. Here, in the thin space between the two-ton digger and the freshly cut cave wall, they could rest for a while, although it would not shelter them forever. They had no food, no water, one flashlight, and a tiny lighter with them. They needed to get back up, but by the sounds of it, one of the creatures was still in the tunnel, still looking for the survivors.

"It's kinda funny…" Ollen broke the silence, turning the silver lighter in his hands nervously.

"Hm? What is?" Raman turned to him. There was a large gash running across Raman's face where one of the creatures had clawed at him. The blood had congealed over the place where his right eye used to be. It looked like it hurt a lot more than the man let on, but Ollen did not want to ask.

"This lighter is all I have left of my dad… Everything else was sold… And now I'm going to die in here as he did…"

"Your father did not die here…" Raman objected.

"He got the black lung from here; this mine killed him, and no one can tell me otherwise. They didn't even pay for that… And don't even dare to lie to me about getting out of here alive. The entrance to the mine could be on the moon from where we're standing!" Ollen snapped back, raising his hand and almost throwing the lighter away before putting it back into his pocket.

"Listen… Kid… Ollen… I won't lie to you, we might not make it out of here alive, but we have to try. The mine's entrance is not the only way in; most of the mine leads to natural caverns, and I'm pretty sure those monsters use them to get around. We only need to find the closest one, preferably one too small to fit them in and get out of here."

"Then what? Do you know where we can find one like that? How do we know it will lead outside?"

"Steiger's shack had a map of the area. We should try to find it."

"Oh yes, we only need to climb back up two levels' worth of distance and then find a map in a smashed-up shack."

Raman turned to look at the gravel beneath them. The uneven ground was not an optimal place to come up with a plan, but Ollen could see there was still something burning inside Raman, something that saw all hope was not yet in vain.

"I think I can remember one, but it's in the next section… We need to go down." Raman stated, lifting his head and looking at Ollen with bright light in his only working eye. "We can get out of here."

"… And what then? Get caught by those things when we're in the open? Why are you so damn keen on getting me out of here? It's hopeless!"

"Because while I might be old, you still have your whole life ahead of you! If I could, I would sacrifice myself to those monsters so everyone still alive could get out of here, but I can't." Raman huffed, falling into a brief silence before adding, "But you… You, I can still help out even if my life were on the line…"

Raman's head swung to the left when they both heard the sound of boots hitting against the gravel, followed by loud breathing. Raman turned his flashlight carefully towards the sound, and soon they saw Pavyl appear in the spotlight, wide-eyed and with a missing hand cut just above his wrist that had been tied with a belt.

"Pavyl! Here!" Ollen shouted, trying to get the man's attention. It looked as if he could not even hear him. Pavyl looked around, his pale face drained of all of its colour, and began to run again deeper into the mine, disappearing for good.

"Pavyl!" Raman tried to shout, but was answered only by the echoing steps that got further and further away by the moment.

"Should we go get him?" Ollen asked, remembering how Raman had promised to save everyone.

"Yes… But I'm not sure if we can stop him… He's not himself…"

A loud shriek pierced through the thickening air, coming from the direction Pavyl ran into. Raman looked as if he was ready to jump into action, settling back down almost as quickly as he had gotten up.

"If he's gotten hurt, we should go to help him, but if the creatures got him…" Raman waited to hear if there was any other sound coming from the same direction, but none came. "If we leave now, then those things might be busy with… With…" Raman paused again for a brief moment. "… With those they got to… With just two of us, we might have change to escape unnoticed, but we need to be quick about it."

"… But what if they get us… What then? I don't want to turn into an egg carrier…" Ollen whispered.

"Neither do I, Ol, but if things come to that… Then we figure out something… We will fight. Back in the mess hall, it looked like those who fought the hardest were killed… I think…" Raman got up and squeezed through the small gap between the digger and the cave wall, waving his hand at Ollen to follow him.

"D-Do you think there is anyone else left other than us and maybe Pavyl?" Ollen asked.

"I don't know how many of us those things got… We saw Rein; he might still be alive. Antoon is dead, so are Hurding, Merco and Mureno… For everyone else? I don't know... Let's go check on Pavyl. I don't think a monster got to him, and the way down is in the same direction."

Ollen left the safety of the digger, slowly following Raman to go further down the mining tunnel in the hopes of finding another way out of it.

⛏

Leof whimpered in the corner of the infirmary while one of the monsters, whose shape had become a watery blur, slammed its body against the steel door frame, trying to get to him. It was too big to pass through the doorframe, but the way the whole wall was groaning and bending, it would not take long for it to get inside. Just like the other men had felt before, he, too, did not want to surrender to the beast. He had seen what those eggs had done to Algy, and now he could hear one of his former friends moaning in pleasure underneath the monster that was trying to have him, too. It all had been too much: the blood, the screams, even the moans Henning was making now outside the room. Leof felt like he was losing his mind. He pulled his hair in desperation, begging voices to stop and tried to push his back even further against the cold metal wall. Leof was trapped, and the only way to escape was either through the monster or by clawing his way through the rock and sediment, an impossible task to ever fulfil, even if Leof had more time. The metal frame shifted, bending more and more with each slam. The creature would get to him before too long. Leof reached for the metal table next to him, slamming his palm against it in an attempt to find anything to protect himself with. When a scalpel dropped from the table almost as a gift next to Leof's trembling feet, he stared at it, knowing it would be too little to protect himself from the monster.

But it could be used for something else.

Leof glanced at the creature through his tear-filled eyes one last time before taking the scalpel into his hand. Turning it and tested the sharpness with his thumb, making himself bleed. He wished he were at home, resting peacefully in his bed, but while he could not have that, the monster would not have him either.

And soon after, the monster stopped its thrashing and took Henning with it to find its next victim.

⛏

"Where did he go?" Ollen whispered as he and Raman walked in the darkness. Using the dingy flashlight felt dangerous, but walking around without it was even more so. Ollen had never been this deep into the mine, yet he knew well enough that there were man-sized holes here where the crew had taken samples and done some other things. Some of those holes were far deeper than was safe, and now he and Raman both feared that Pavyl might have fallen through an ill-placed metal cover in his panic. Raman nudged Ollen quietly and flashed the dim light against the gravel, revealing a trail of blood.

And there was a lot of it.

"The man had no arm left…" Raman said, taking Ollen by the arm and leading him deeper into the mine. "He might have bled out already…" Raman's words did little to comfort Ollen. Neither had he put a lot of trust in the man's plan, but if his unsaid theory that fighting back would bring a quick death instead of getting bred by one of those things was right, then there was not much to lose in trying to find a way out instead of taking one's life right away. Regardless, Ollen still had some sense of self-preservation left and the sounds they made unnerved him. No matter how carefully they tried to walk, a rock hit against a rock and the stone walls seemed like they had been made to carry sound. Even breathing here felt like it carried against the rock. The sound also meant safety as the creatures were far too large to sneak around and attack them without them hearing anything, but while they were loud, they were also very fast, which made Ollen constantly glance around to look for suitable hiding places.

"Oh, no…" Raman whispered, and Ollen whipped his head right back in the direction they were walking. There, in the pale spotlight of their flashlight, Pavyl sat against the tunnel wall, paler than ever before, while his ragged breathing made his chest jump up and down. Raman knelt next to him, carefully placing his hand over Pavyl's shoulder.

"Hey… can you hear me?" He asked, but the man's eyes only stared into the distance. Raman pressed Pavyl's shoulder harder, but he did not even flinch. "Pavyl… It's okay… Those things can't get you now…" Raman lied while Ollen watched. Pavyl's skin had turned to a wax-like material, and the cold sweat beads on it multiplied every second while most of the colour on his face drained slowly away with the spreading blood stain next to him. Ollen could smell the mixed stench of blood and soiled clothes, which made him cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve. Raman was not as sensitive, or if he was, he did not show it. He stood by Pavyl's side, taking his bloodstained hand into his and whispering softly to him, comforting him and promising that soon this nightmare would end. Whether Pavyl heard it or not, Ollen did not know, but Raman's gesture still took him aback. It might not have been smart, as they were in great danger here in the open, but it was the right thing to do. Pavyl did not answer Raman as the light in his eyes faded away, and soon his breathing stopped. The sudden jerk Pavyl made spooked both men, and there were two more groans before his lifeless body stilled.

"We should go…" Raman whispered, wiping away the tears that had gathered on his lashes.

"It… It feels wrong to just leave him here like that… I know there are others in the mess hall, but… I don't know…" Ollen shivered. "What if those things will still use his body for their eggs?"

Raman took Ollen's hand, accidentally staining it with Pavyl's blood too. "There is no time, and I don't think those things will bother with the dead… They all will be buried as soon as we get some help." Ollen nodded, and they began to make their way again towards the lower level, leaving behind Pavyl and all the rest of their fellow dead workers.

"Those things… They are not coming after us, are they?" Ollen said quietly, clinging to Raman's hand.

"You might be right… They got many of us; I'm sure they are busy doing what they do with the survivors…" There was a grim tone in Raman's voice when he mentioned the survivors, and Ollen could not blame him for it. They both were thinking about what might be happening to those taken by the monsters right now as much as they were thinking about escaping the mine.

"Maybe we should turn back… If those things are busy with the others…"

"Ol…" Raman sighed, "I don't think going back up would be any safer than being here. Those creatures might still be in the mess hall. I know you're scared and so am I, but believe me when I say that this is the safest way for us to get out." Ollen nodded to Raman, and they walked in silence after that.

The further they walked, the more they realised there was something terribly wrong in the air inside the mine. The air hung like a wet cloth around them, and the rock wept with them. The mines had always felt warm the deeper one got, but this was different. The hot, humid air was unnatural and even Raman began to doubt his plan until they came to a small tunnel Raman believed would lead outside. The long crevice ran almost all the way to the ceiling like an ugly scar wide enough for one man to pass through while slightly crouching. Helped by the pale light coming from the flashlight, Ollen noticed that someone had set a line of old oil lamps further down the natural cavern walls. The sight comforted him as he believed it meant someone had actually explored the area. Raman squeezed into the crevice first. After three long steps, the cavern opened into a slightly wider tunnel, and he turned to wave Ollen to follow him, who looked hesitant.

"You're sure this will lead outside?" Ollen asked, examining the entrance. "Have you gone through before?"

"I'm not completely sure, but sure enough…" Raman replied, "I used to survey the maps to pass time, and…" Raman paused, looking into the distance as he remembered the time before. Looking at those maps when there was nothing else to do had felt little more favourable than anything else, but now that laze work might save their lives. Back then, Raman would have done almost anything to have something else to do. Now that time felt like it had happened years ago, and he would have given anything to be in that moment rather than in here where even yesterday felt like a distant dream. Raman's thoughts were soon interrupted by a familiar booming sound that was coming their way quicker than either of the men would have liked.

"Hurry!" Raman shouted and leaned back into the crevice to reach for Ollen's hand. Ollen quickly realised what was coming for them, and dived into it, taking Raman's hand, who pulled him towards himself. The heavy running got closer and closer, until they were right next to the hole the two had disappeared into. By then, Ollen was already on the other side with Raman, glad that the creature was too large to fit in. A second or two later, Ollen would have been a goner, and he shivered at the thought. Raman turned the flashlight towards the monster to finally see what it actually looked like. It screeched horribly at them and tried to push its fleshy snout inside the crevice, making both men jump back. It looked so unnatural, like a large bear which had been skinned, yet was still somehow very much alive. The creature slammed its body against the rock wall, which did not yield under the force, much to their fortune.

"Let's go…" Raman said quietly, "We'd better be outside before it realises there is another way in…"

Ollen looked at the monster one final time, feeling hatred and disgust towards it brew inside him. Those things had taken so much already; they had done unspeakable things to his co-workers, some of whom he might even have called friends. While the monster's bellowing was horrifying and making the blood in Ollen's veins freeze, he couldn't help but pick up a small rock from the ground and throw it at it. The creature let out a high-pitched screech, which Ollen took as a sign of pain. It was not enough to make it pay for what it and the other one had done to them, but it would be all the vengeance he could get. Ollen turned around with a slight wry grin on his lips when suddenly his eyes widened, and he looked to the ground as he felt something slimy squirm against it. The monster had managed to slither one of its tendrils inside the tunnel and was now snaring its next prey.

"Raman!" Was all Ollen managed to shriek out before slamming against the ground so hard he busted his lip. Raman turned around quickly and saw how Ollen clawed the stone with his hands, trying to stop the creature from dragging him back into the main tunnel. Raman dropped the flashlight and hit the ground, grabbing Ollen by his arms and trying to prop his legs against the opening. Ollen cried as he was stretched, begging Raman to get him out as he felt another tendril snatch onto his ankle and pull him even harder towards itself.

"I got you!" Raman shouted, "Just hang on!" Raman's locked legs began to slip as the creature pulled more. Ollen's fingers dug deep into his skin, making him bleed as the boy begged and cried. Raman did not want to let go of Ollen, praying in his head that his hold would be strong, and that the creature would lose its grip first.

But then, for a brief moment, Raman's grip loosened, and Ollen slid from his arms.

Raman witnessed in horror as Ollen disappeared back into the crevice, screaming while the monster grabbed a better hold and then took off deeper into the mine. Raman's breathing paused, and he could only look into the darkness for a while. When he came to his senses, Raman slammed his fists against the stone, yelling at the monster to bring Ollen back, knowing his shouts would do little to help him as Ollen's echoing cries faded away. He cursed himself for failing to get the young man to safety, for thinking about following through with his plan alone. Going after Ollen would not end well for him. What could he even do against such creatures? They would take him too if he went back. Raman looked at the ground and saw the marks Ollen's nails had left not only on his arms but on the ground. His head was thumping, and the deep scratches in his arms hurt so much it was hard for him to focus on anything. He feared what was happening to Ollen and hoped that he would be fighting so that the monster would not take his body, but Raman could not be sure if it even worked. The creature had taken Ollen with it instead of killing him, and that made Raman's skin crawl.

Raman steadied his breathing and stood up. He reached for one of the old oil lamps still hanging on the wall and snapped it off from a rotten rope to have at least something he could use as a weapon. Raman looked behind him, feeling a soft breeze coming through somewhere deeper within. The way to the outside was there, and they could have made it. Raman cursed himself again for stopping to take a look at the creature, for not pulling Ollen with him as soon as they had entered the crevice. Pulling himself together, Raman crouched down and squeezed back into the tunnel he and Ollen had come from.

He had made a promise, and he aimed to keep it.

⛏

The air inside the nest had made the ceiling drip with moistness as more people had been brought in to be bred. One of the monsters strolled around the nest as if looking for someone to fill again, but the people they had brought in were already filled to a brim with their eggs, and those who had been carried there before the night had started had already melted into the fleshy walls, leaving behind only a large, swollen sack of eggs. Thio and Kippos were still on top of each other, slowly turning into a one plumpy mass. Rein moaned against a wall; his egg-filled belly was as large as it could be, and he no longer felt any fear towards his captors as he had before his breeding. If he had been able to, he would have raised his bare ass and begged to be bred again. The man he had once been was long gone now, replaced by a willing toy for the monster's use as they wanted to, similarly to Henning and so many others. The creatures had even managed to find Denko, who had tried to reach the visitor centre with Jinas. The blissful groans inside the nest were like a choir of the damned. Rein saw as the monster turned Denko around and mounted him again, jealous at the sight. Rein managed to concentrate enough to wonder how many the monsters had gotten and how many were still hiding in the mines. As his thoughts wandered off and on from the infinite pleasure bellowing inside him, Rein barely even remembered the terror he had felt when one of the monsters had come on top of him and began to spread the gooey liquid on him that had made him indifferent at first, and pleading for more the second its tip had penetrated him deeply. He pitied those who had decided to fight instead of surrender, as now there was nothing left of them to feel. No greater purpose in life than Rein and those who had chosen just as wisely. The eggs he held inside him were everything he had ever needed. He had to keep them safe and warm until they were ready to come out. Otherwise he would face the same fate as poor Algy, who had been too far from the nest, too cold to carry them. That's why he had died. It would not happen to Rein. He would be better. He would take good care of the eggs inside him, and once they would come out, he would offer his body to the monsters again and again until the end of time.

Rein felt the eggs inside him move, or perhaps he himself moved; nonetheless, the slight movement pressed his body just right, and Rein moaned again. It was hard for him to see his legs over his swollen belly and even harder to feel them as he had been taken more times than he could count anymore. Both monsters had had their way with him. The immense pleasure took over his mind, and Rein shivered as his achy back arched and he came hard. Had he been in any reasonable state, he would have been horrified by his state and disgusted by the smell inside the nest that was a mix of rot and burned matches that had hung heavy in the humid air. The faint reddish light inside the cavern was almost a hellish view, and the rising heat made the air ripple when looked at from a downward angle.

But Rein cared little about such sights anymore. His thoughts were lost in his ecstasy and in the need to protect the eggs inside him that was even more heartrending than his lust. Rein did not even notice the heavy steps of the second creature as it returned back to the nest with another victim in tow.

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