The Corrupted Shadow

The garden materialised around Ash like a slow bleed.

He found himself standing on perfectly manicured grass, the blades too uniform, too green. Rose bushes formed concentric circles around him, their blooms fat and obscene. The air reeked of sweetness turned sour—like fruit left to rot in summer heat. Above, a blood-red moon dominated the starless sky, its surface pocked with craters that looked like screaming faces.

His bare feet had sunk into the earth without him noticing. When he tried to lift them, roots erupted from the soil—pale, finger-thick tendrils that wrapped around his ankles like hungry snakes. They squeezed. Tightened. Burrowed under his skin with wet, tearing sounds.

The roses began to bleed.

Not wilt—bleed. Dark crimson oozed from their petals, dripping steadily onto the grass with soft plops. The sound echoed wrong, too loud, like drops hitting hollow metal instead of earth. Each bloom split open along its centre, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth that gnashed at the air.

Ash yanked against the roots. They held firm, pulsing with his heartbeat. More sprouted from the ground, climbing his legs, threading through his clothes. One pierced his thigh. He felt it worm deeper, following his veins upward.

The hedges began to breathe.

In and out, in and out, their leaves rustling with each exhale. The sound grew louder, became a wheeze, then a rattle. Black sap leaked from the branches, pooling at their bases. The smell hit him—decay, infection, something fundamentally wrong.

The crimson moon pulsed once.

The garden floor cracked.

Not gradually—all at once, spider-webbing outward from where he stood. The fractures glowed orange like heated metal. Steam hissed up through the gaps, carrying the stench of rot.

Ash felt the ground tilt.

He pitched forward as the earth gave way beneath him, the roots finally snapping. The fall lasted forever—wind shrieking past his ears, the red moon growing smaller above him. He crashed into liquid that wasn't water.

It was thick. Metallic. Warm as body temperature.

Blood. An ocean of it.

He sank fast, the weight pulling him down. Things moved in the depths—soft shapes that brushed against his legs with too many limbs. Something with teeth grazed his shoulder. He kicked frantically, broke the surface, gasped—

And found himself suspended upside down.

His arms hung toward the blood-sea below. Gravity had flipped. The crimson moon now sat beneath him like a reflection, but when he looked closer, he saw the tear along its edge. A jagged wound that leaked something darker than night.

The darkness reached for him.

It moved like smoke but felt solid when it touched his foot—cold fingers made of shadow, probing, searching. Where it made contact, his skin went numb, then began to dissolve. He watched his toes disappear into the creeping void.

The last thing he saw was his own reflection in the moon's surface—but the face looking back wasn't his.

It was screaming.

____

Pain came first.

Not the sharp crack of the dream breaking—this was different. Dull. Constant. It throbbed through Ash's skull like a heartbeat made of razors. His mouth tasted of copper and dirt.

He tried to move his hand to his head.

Couldn't.

Something cold encircled his wrist. Metal. Heavy. When he pulled, it held firm, and the movement sent fire shooting up his arm. His other hand—same thing. Both arms stretched wide, locked in place.

The darkness around him swayed gently. Back and forth. Back and forth. Wood creaked somewhere beneath him. Above him. Around him. The sound was rhythmic, hypnotic, like being inside the belly of some massive animal.

Ash's mind felt thick, wrapped in cotton. The explosion. The carriage spinning through the air. Marina's scream cutting off—

Where was Marina?

He tried to call out. His voice caught against something hard pressed over his mouth. Not cloth. Metal. Fine links that dug into his lips when he tried to speak. The sound that came out was muffled, broken.

His left eye felt wrong. Swollen shut. When he tried to force it open, pain exploded through his skull like someone driving a spike through bone. He gasped, the sound catching in his throat.

Through his right eye, he could make out shapes in the darkness. Two figures on either side of him. Close enough to touch if his arms had been free. They were bound the same way he was—arms stretched wide, backs against what felt like wooden planks.

One of them was breathing. Quick, shallow gasps that spoke of barely controlled panic. The other hung limp, head tilted at an angle that didn't look natural.

Ash's vision began to adjust. Thin strips of pale light leaked through gaps in the wooden walls. Moonlight. Not the crimson monster from his dream—this was soft, clean, the kind of light that should have been comforting.

It wasn't.

The breathing prisoner turned their head slightly, and Ash caught a glimpse of their face. Or what should have been their face. The same chain mesh covered their features, but underneath—

He forced himself to look away.

The swaying continued. Regular. Measured. They were moving, but not fast. A wagon, maybe. Or a cart. The kind of thing that could carry cargo over long distances without drawing attention.

Cargo.

That's what they were now.

Ash tested his bonds again, more carefully this time. The shackles were solid iron, thick enough that he couldn't feel any give when he pulled. They were attached to something behind him—part of the wooden structure, maybe bolted into the frame.

His shoulders ached from the position. How long had he been unconscious? His clothes were different—rough fabric instead of the traveling clothes he'd worn in the carriage. Someone had changed him. Someone had moved him here.

The wagon hit a bump. All three bodies swayed forward, then back. The chains clinked softly. The unconscious prisoner's head lolled to one side, and for a moment, Ash saw beneath their mask.

Empty sockets. Dark holes where eyes should have been. The flesh around them was torn, ragged, like they'd been clawed out.

This time, Ash couldn't stop the scream that tore from his throat. It echoed off the wooden walls, desperate and broken, filtered through the chain mesh into something that barely sounded human.

He screamed until his throat burned. Until his voice cracked and failed.

The wagon kept rolling. The unconscious prisoner swayed with the motion, those empty sockets seeming to stare at nothing and everything.

No one answered his cries.

Outside, the moonlight filtered through the trees, beautiful and serene, illuminating a world that had become a nightmare.