Terror choked his veins, but there was no clear reason why. All was calm, his clanmates sleeping peacefully nearby. He could see faint light from the cave’s entrance. Morning was coming.
He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, and then he understood.
He was in horrible, horrible pain.
Hope tried to stand, but couldn’t bear to move his stomach at all: it felt like it was about to burst.
He was going to be sick. He prayed he was going to be sick.
The guardian dragged himself outside, doubled over in absolute agony.
He hardly made it out of the cave’s mouth before he had to stop. He couldn’t breathe. He inhaled in strangled gasps, but he wasn’t getting any air. He couldn’t speak—he couldn’t call for help.
He was at once white hot and freezing. He began to convulse. It felt as if something within him was writhing, attempting to fight its way out.
It filled his stomach. It reached his throat.
He retched, and everything within tore its way out to splatter onto the barren ground.
Hope collapsed; too exhausted to care he’d fallen directly into his own sick. He took his first proper breath – ragged though it was – in ages. His misted, weary eyes shut as he just lay there, slowly recovering.
And then
He felt something move.
The guardian bolted upright at the horrific realization something had slithered against his face. His movement was enough to obscure his vision with spots and have him reeling. He swayed on the spot, fighting vertigo until he was able to see once more.
Solid blackness covered the ground before him. And it was moving.
It began to split, arms, legs, and mouths sprouting from where it had pulled apart.
Raw, visceral fear took hold of him, and he turned to flee – but the motion was too much.
It was light when he awoke, his jaw throbbing from where it had hit the stone when he fell.
When memories of what he’d last seen came back, he looked about in a panic, but there was nothing. No hint of the horrendous entity. Not even a speck of black on the ground.
He rushed to the cave to check on his clanmates, but none were worse for wear; they all were still sleeping peacefully.
It was all a dream, he wanted to convince himself. None of it had been real, surely.
But he was a doctor, a logical man. Surely he wouldn’t have remembered a fever dream so clearly? Nor such visceral pain.
Even if that had been possible, one particular fact would keep him from letting himself slip into blissful ignorance.
