Abandoned By Infinity

A loud thud marked the swift landing of the bridge, and the four men marched through it, their actions exuding more discipline than before, all save for the green-eyed one who remained as unbothered as ever.

Whilst they passed, the portcullis closed behind them enclosing them in temporary darkness whilst a secondary one opened before them.

"Hmm!"

Mr. Edward could not help but hum, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at the beautiful yet haunting bastion, and its denizens who moved before him.

It was busy, the streets that is, a cleared surface of eldritch white rocks, teeming with denizens in combative clothing, even the mongers who sold on the side of the avenue.

It appeared that dressing for fashion was far from the norm, the beautiful red-eyed men and women donning pitch black armor or raiment including but not limited to treated leather and or animal pelts.

Even in this tenebrous avenue, there was still an unspoken feeling of foreboding, so that even the denizens of this place spoke with an unusual whisper in their tones as though threatened by an unknown uncertainty.

Carriage's men-drawn contraptions, amid the busy avenues, were of the majority as a prime method of transportation, their interior concealed sometimes by a veil most likely made out of some kind of linen.

Of what was not pulled by brawny bare chested men was occupied by a large beast which would horrify the viewer if seen for the first time, but Mr. Edward, in his awe, did not falter, the four men around him being both the source of his reassurance and his only fear.

The beast themselves seemed prehistoric, chimerical abominations about the size of a horse but more robust.

Reminiscent of some aquatic-based entity, they had webbed feet, their claws gleaming even in the blackness of the place.

They were hairy but damp, courtesy of the ever-present drizzle that left a damp and cold feeling in the air and the stony ground.

If Mr. Edward was to voice an opinion, he would say that they shared a close resemblance to dogs or wolves.

They also seemed to be of different kinds, each one more distinct than the last, some even possessing some vestigial qualities that spoke of the presence of breeding amidst their kind.

For luminescence were several burly obelisks seemingly made of damp wood lined among the streets like some kind of arcane street light.

The denizens seemed to have utilized the illuminative qualities of the fungi to their advantage, purposely growing them on these obelisks, but unlike the ones he had observed at his former residence, these fungi or the fungi found in the obelisks were completely red, giving the street a crimson hue.

The architecture compelled Mr. Edward to second guess his earlier suppositions, which consisted of the fact that these people were primitive; how could he still entertain such a notion when he could only watch in awe as these people tumbled and overthrew his concepts of beautiful structures?

Though similar in style, one in the far distance stood out, its magnificence enough to describe that of the other structures around it.

Looming above all buildings in this ominous space, it seemed like a forsaken relic of elder gods, a jagged silhouette clawing at the heavens with the cold, towering ambition of Cologne Cathedral which he had spied in some of his many trips to the German nation.

But where Cologne's grandeur stirred awe, this structure evoked only a nameless dread, its worn stones whispering of forgotten rites and silent, patient horrors etched into its blacked walls.

These walls, like the rest around it, were so black that they seemed to draw him in for a moment with patches of red fungi here and there; its grand visage was a sight to behold.

"ጥȞԐT Ȟ⩃٧Ԑ ⩃𐑮𐑮/٧ԐD!"

A singular, sudden shout in that strange and unknown language drew Mr. Edward to a monger in the distance who looked upwards with a look of both fear and worry on his face.

The people around looked rattled as well, as were the men who escorted him.

Stopping in their tracks, they looked into the abyss hovering quietly above them, their attentive and defensive postures rousing a feeling of apprehension within Mr. Edward.

It was at this moment that he heard it, a sudden sound that seemed to confirm the horrors of the denizens yet simultaneously left him in the dark.

"Tang!"

"Tang!"

"Tang!"

The sonorous ringing of a distant bell slightly overwhelmed him, and the denizens seemed to share his sentiment; the elders, children, and disabled people scurried toward nearby buildings to seek shelter.

The denizens who sought shelter did not just consist of old or disabled people, it also consisted of people without glowing eyes.

Mr. Edward, with his keen attention to detail even in such a rowdy situation, noticed that the streets were now only teeming with denizens who possessed glowing red irises, a jolt assaulting his system anytime his eyes met their frenzied gaze.

"Ziiiiiii!"

Whilst the sepulchral bell rang, Mr. Edwards immediately noticed something. Sliding down the uncountable number of sinuous ropes from the abyss above were people, women to be exact, leaving behind a zipping sound in their wake.

They did not use their hands; no, their hands were occupied, grasping what seemed to be barbed spears as their forms faced upward in anticipation.

With their hands occupied, they latched onto the ropes with their thighs.

It was an uncommon sight, one could even call it unseen, with the only vague similarity Mr. Edward could think of being modern raid teams sliding down from their choppers above.

Unfortunately, these people were anything but modern at least not in the sense that he knew or could comprehend at the moment with what little information was revealed before him.

A fortunate aspect of this situation was that Mr. Edward now knew the significance or at least had some vague idea of the uses of the ropes that had once served as a mystery to him.

They seemed to be used as a sort of exit and entryway to this abyss painting or at least revealing a new faucet of discovery to Mr. Edward.

This place, this void-ridden bastion of unspoken dread, was not of the surface world but seemed to be a humongous opening in the earth.

It was no wonder it was so dark, and the ominous reality that one could not even spy a glimmer of illumination from above spoke of its abysmal depths.

But the depth of this place was irrelevant to the current situation as Mr. Edward drew his attention once more to the women who seemed to have stopped themselves halfway through their glide as though waiting for something.

And so they waited.

And waited.

And waited—until Mr. Edward, even with his temperament, felt his patience grow thin.

It was then that he heard and saw them at the same time.

"Shrieke!!"

It sounded, no, it was a nightmarish cry strangely akin to the wail of a wounded banshee.

This cry brought Mr. Edwards full attention to the indistinct shadowy figures of aberrations falling from the abyss.

Following the appearance of these entities came cries of joy and excitement from the women above as they yelled in their unknown tongues. "⩤Ԑ Ᏽ⍥ጥ Ϟᒻ/&/⍥ռ'Ϟ!"

"Whoosh!"

After their shout, the women cast their spears with no hesitation, an onslaught as they pierced and wounded the aberrations before they even hit the ground, the haunting cries of the beasts confirming their harrowing accuracy.

In a single gruesome moment, loud bangs could be heard as the aberrations hit the ground with a force strong enough to flatten bone, a few of such beasts landing only a few meters from their present location.

They were surrounded by them.

It was then, only in the dim red hue of the place that Mr. Edward saw it in all its detail.

He was immediately afraid not only because these beasts, though wounded, had somehow survived such a suicidal fall.

Or because they looked even more vicious than the tamed large dogs he had seen just now.

No, it was because of the immeasurable amount of hostility and killing intent they emitted, a feeling which Mr. Edward would soon come to know too well.

The creature was not hard to describe, as even in his fear, Mr. Edward could fully make sense of it—not in how it existed but in all physical aspects.

Many had landed around them, but in truth, it appeared that only three of the beasts had chosen Mr. Edward's group.

Except for the shriek these creatures had uttered before, they made no more sound—not because they could not, but because they did not want to—an unsettling silence born of a honed predator stalking its prey, seeking openings in their group.

This aberrations were grotesque amalgamations of natural and unnatural horrors, their malformed physique exuding a disturbing sense of warped purpose.

As the sound of battle commenced in the distance, Mr. Edward observed the beasts in front of them, never turning away from them lest they attacked.

They stood hunched, their colossal frame draped in a sleek layer of shimmering black fur that clung only to its smaller, spindly hind legs, hideous limbs that seemed poorly matched for the monstrous bulk they supported.

These legs webbed like some remnant of a forgotten amphibian, glistened with an oily sheen as though perpetually damp with primordial ichor.

Their arms, however, were a mockery of natural symmetry, wholly oversized and rippling with sinewy alien strength.

The scales that armored them were dark and glinting, bearing similarities to polished obsidian riddled with veins of sickly green light that pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

Their posture and movement faintly resemble that of a gorilla yet they looked more agile, more powerful.

The webbing between their elongated fingers bore holes like shredded silk, wet and glistening, and at the end of these monstrous appendages, were claws.

Claws of unnatural brilliance razor-sharp talons of pure silver, their metallic gleam stark against the darkness of the beast's flesh.

Their torso bent forward, looming, the curvature of its spine exaggerated to a horrifying degree.

From these gnarled backs sprung fan-like fins, their semi-translucent membranes pulsating faintly with a ghastly, bioluminescence.

The light they emitted was not constant, but a flickering white glow that moved as though alive.

"What is with those glowing fins?" Mr. Edward thought to himself, feeling a great discomfort from observing that part of their bodies.

The fin seemed more like an organic antenna, thrumming, its exact uses eluding the man.

Sometimes, the glow would intensify, rippling through the fin like the breath of a cosmic storm.

Nevertheless, their heads were the true apex of their nightmarish form, a twisted convergence of bat-like and skeletal horrors.

The upper half of their face bore an uncanny resemblance to a giant bat, with oversized, hollow eyes that glowed in haunting hues of pale blue as if capturing and anticipating the death or possible death of its prey.

Their auricles stretched upward, unnaturally elongated, twitching at inaudible frequencies as though attuned to the whispers of some malevolent entity.

But below this almost recognizably animalistic visage was a lower jaw that denied all reason a grotesque skeletal mask that bulged unnaturally.

The teeth, if they could be called such, jutted outward in spiraling, jagged formations, resembling bone-white thorns, or shattered glass.

Each tooth was curved and needle-like, pointing outward in a chaotic fashion that made the very idea of the entity closing its maw an incomprehensible mystery.

Their maws gaped slightly, exposing a dark void lined with flickering tendrils of phosphorescent flesh as if the true depths of their anatomy defied mortal comprehension.

The beasts remained partly motionless their forms ready to pounce, the tension almost palpable.

And in his fear, Mr. Edward felt a trace of excitement at what secrets were held in the genetics of such a monstrosity.

-----

At the same time, above the underground caves and the land that lay above that underground cave, even above the sky itself were ever-churning expanses of shadowy clouds, where the firmament seemed to writhe in agony, a plane removed from mortal comprehension.

Here, the sky was not a sky but a ceaseless abyss, a tapestry of blackened vapor and luminous cracks, from which emanated a strange, maddening hum of elusive energies.

At the heart of this spectral desolation lay a being without name, for its essence defied the confinement of mortal language.

It was not a creature, not a man, nor a beast, but an amalgamation of shifting forms a spiraling lattice of eyes, mouths, and tendrils that emerged and dissolved in a rhythm that mocked the notion of time.

Its body shimmered with iridescent hues that belonged to no spectrum, its presence suffused with a weight that bent the very fabric of existence.

This entity, vast and eternal, stirred. It did not awaken, for it had never truly slept, nor did it slumber as mortals understood the word.

It was different.

Its awareness was constant and all-encompassing, an unfathomable gaze that stretched across countless dimensions.

Yet, within the abyss of its eternal cognition, there arose a peculiar sensation, a weariness not of body, for it had none, but of consciousness.

It was bored.

So much so that it prepared to shut down once again, to enter a state between sleep and consciousness.

But then, as though roused by some unseen force, the being's multitude of eyes turned downward, piercing through the veils of existence.

The tendrils of its awareness stretched and coiled, descending through layers of the cosmos like a predator scenting blood. It saw the mortal plane below—a realm of light and shadow, of fleeting lives and fragile hopes.

And the it saw him, Mr. Edward that is a simple man in the confines of the body of a young child.

At that moment, its existence trembled with excitement as it said. "It has caught another one, ohh how long it has been since I fed."

Saying this the being leaned closer, or rather, its essence condensed upon this point of interest, the distance between them collapsing like a dying star.

"How shall I reveal myself this time?" It mused mischievously.