Romero: Echoes Of The Void

Chapter 11: Flames of the Abyss

Darkness swallowed everything.

John's breath came in short, sharp bursts as he ran, his boots pounding against the scorched black ground. The air was thick with smoke, choking his lungs, burning his throat. Around him, a hellish landscape stretched endlessly—cracked obsidian earth, rivers of molten darkness, and flames. Black flames.

They danced across the sky like living things, writhing and twisting, casting eerie shadows over the ruined world. There was no sun, no stars—only an oppressive crimson glow that pulsed like a dying heartbeat.

But none of that mattered right now.

Because they were behind him.

The Void Wanderers.

John didn't dare look back. He could hear them—inhuman screeches that shattered the silence, the sound of something monstrous tearing through the air. His legs burned, his heart pounded, but he pushed forward, weaving between jagged spires of black stone, each one cracked and pulsing with a faint, eerie glow.

Where the hell am I?

This place… it wasn't Romero. It wasn't Earth. It felt like something entirely different, something ancient and wrong.

The ground trembled beneath him. A sharp gust of wind, colder than death itself, brushed against his back.

Too close.

A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision—he saw them.

Figures made of shifting shadows, their hollow eyes gleaming with unnatural hunger. Their forms were unstable, constantly shifting between solid and mist, like something caught between existence and oblivion.

One of them lunged.

John barely ducked in time, rolling forward as a clawed hand sliced through the air where his head had been. He landed hard, the impact jolting through his body, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.

A deep, guttural voice echoed through the air, layered and distorted, like a chorus of whispers speaking in unison.

"You cannot run, child of the abyss."

John gritted his teeth.

His body moved on instinct, dodging between the stone pillars, each step calculated, each breath steady. His mind screamed at him to fight, but against what? The landscape itself felt hostile, the very air pressing down on him like it wanted to consume him.

Another screech.

This time, he wasn't fast enough.

A shadowy tendril lashed out, wrapping around his ankle like a vice.

John crashed onto the scorched earth with a grunt, the heat searing his skin through his clothes. He twisted, kicking desperately, but the tendril held firm, its touch sending ice-cold agony up his leg.

The Void Wanderers closed in.

One of them stepped forward, its form solidifying. It had no face—just an endless void where its features should have been. But somehow, John knew it was looking at him.

Mocking him.

"The flames call to you, but you run."

John struggled harder, his hands clawing at the ground for anything to hold onto.

"You belong to the abyss. To him."

The name pressed against the edges of his mind, distant yet familiar.

A memory? A warning?

No.

Something more.

The black flames surged, twisting, forming shapes in the air—shapes that resembled something almost human. A throne made of obsidian rose in the distance, barely visible through the thick, suffocating smoke. A figure sat atop it, waiting. Watching.

And then, in a voice that shook the very foundations of this nightmare world—

"Come to me."

John's body went rigid.

His vision blurred. The world around him cracked and distorted like shattered glass. The flames screamed, the ground trembled, and the shadows laughed.

No.

NO.

With a surge of sheer defiance, John roared and yanked his leg free. The moment he did, the entire world seemed to collapse inward—shadows swirling, flames surging higher, the voice calling to him one last time—

And then—

John's eyes snapped open.

His body jerked upright, breath ragged, chest heaving.

His room. He was back in his room at the inn. The warm glow of the enchanted lanterns flickered gently, casting soft light over the lavish furniture. No black flames. No endless abyss.

Just him.

Drenched in sweat.

His hands were trembling, his entire body still buzzing with the remnants of adrenaline. He could still feel the icy grip of the Void Wanderer's tendril around his ankle.

Slowly, he forced himself to breathe.

It was a dream.

No. Not just a dream.

Something more.

John ran a hand through his spiky black hair, his cold black eyes narrowing. That voice. The figure on the throne. The Chaos God.

It wasn't the first time he had felt that presence.

And he had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be the last.