The Aftermath of Madness clung to them like the grime that coated their skin. Izari and Lorian stumbled into the makeshift chamber.
Cassia and Rona, tending to their own injuries. Their eyes, already wide with exhaustion, stretched further as they took in the newcomers' condition. Izari was a mess. Black ichor matted his hair, and one hand trembled as he rubbed it against his forehead. Cassia rushed to his side, "Izari, what happened?" He didn't respond, just leaned against the wall, his eyes glazed over. "They can't die."
Lorian, forced a grin, but it cracked and crumbled around the edges. "We ran into more of them on our way back." More of the mutated horrors that infested the underbelly of Machine City.
The underground felt different now. The air, already stale and recycled, had thickened, becoming heavy with a palpable dread. The metal walls seemed to pulse with a faint, unnerving rhythm, less like inert machinery and more like...a living organism.
Rona noticed it first. The rust patterns, no longer random corrosion, but intricate, almost deliberate designs etched into the metal. Then the symbols, crude but undeniably present, were carved into the walls as if by desperate hands. And finally, the most disturbing: veins of black fluid, thick as syrup, seeping from cracks in the ceiling, dripping into the stagnant pools on the floor.
Cassia, barely able to stand, shuddered. "We need to get out of here."
Izari finally spoke, his voice raspy and distant. "No. We can't go back up. Those things are still out there."
Rona still trembling with pain wiped a streak of the black fluid from his cheek, his face tightening. "How many?" he asked, glancing towards Lorian.
Lorian shrugged. "Not enough to matter," he repeated, though the phrase lacked its usual conviction.
Elsewhere, in a section of the tunnels that felt strangely clean, almost sterile, The Seer was stood, his tall, gaunt frame framed by the flickering light of a makeshift altar. He stood beside a large, open pit – a gaping maw filled with tangled corpses, bodies discarded like broken machines. His hands were folded neatly behind his back. He cut his hand and let his blood which despite being crimson, had a green hue trickle onto the bodies. He slowly went on his knees, his eyes growing desperate as nothing seemed to happen to the bodies.
He closed his eyes in silent prayer before suddenly opening them. Something or someone was calling him.
Cautiously he got up and and began walking towards the source of the noise.
Whatever it was it was calling him by his name, his real name he had never told anyone. This could only mean one thing.
Rapture.
He control his excitement as he stumbled through the tunnels following the voice. Finally it was time.
His time.
He abruptly stopped when he saw it, the red chasm, the portal.
He slowly inched towards it before suddenly stopping.
The voice told him not yet, he need to go back.
He opened his mouth to protest but something in the air guide him back whispering only one word.
"Look."
Down in the pit, the bodies began to twitch.
Back in the tunnels, Izari's group moved deeper, driven by desperation and the faint hope of finding an exit. But the further they went, the more grotesquely corrupted the environment became.
The walls were covered in growths, not just rust, but something organic, pulsating, spreading like a disease. Machines fused with flesh, bone welded to steel, circuitry intertwined with sinew.
The air hummed with an unnatural vibration, a low resonant frequency that threatened to crack their teeth. A distant heartbeat echoed through the tunnels, slow and weighty.
Cassia gripped Rona's arm, her knuckles white. "This place… it's alive."
Lorian sighed with a weary resignation. "Great. As if we didn't have enough problems."
Izari stopped suddenly, his hand raised, silencing them. His eyes narrowed at something ahead.
A massive, gaping wound in the earth, leading downward. A chasm filled with a deep red glow, an infernal light that cast long, dancing shadows on the warped metal walls.
Something called to them from below. A whisper that wasn't a voice, a presence that wasn't human. An ancient, hungry thing, drawing them in.
Rona swallowed hard, a primal fear gripping him. He knew this place, though he'd never been here. He knew, instinctively, that whatever lay ahead, in that pulsating, crimson abyss, was worse than the aberrants, worse than the Seer, worse than anything they'd ever faced. It was the source of the madness, the rot beneath Machine City.
But they had no choice. They were trapped between the horrors above and the abyss below.
With a slow, shaky breath, he stepped forward, drawn by the irresistible pull of the darkness, the others following close behind. The whispers grew louder, promising power, offering oblivion. The descent had begun.