For a moment, my eyes scanned the surroundings with a silent curiosity. It was strange — or maybe unsettling — that I didn’t feel any revulsion, fear, or even discomfort.

In fact, I realized those emotions no longer seemed to belong to me. Instead, there was only a cold, analytical interest in the place Victor and I had just arrived at. The landscape around us was distorted, as if the very world had fallen out of sync with reality.

And yet, I watched everything with growing attentiveness. At this point, even I began to question whether my mind was still intact. But honestly... trying to apply human logic to an anomaly is, in itself, illogical.

Of course, the same couldn’t be said for Victor, who walked beside me wearing an expression of constant disgust mixed with fatigue. His face was stuck in a permanent grimace, as if the very air around us tasted of rust and rot.

Every step he took was marked by visible repulsion, as if his feet were touching something vile — and, to be fair, they were. The ground beneath us was no longer soil, stone, or earth... but a shapeless mass of living flesh, warm to the touch, sticky with a kind of organic slime that clung to the soles of our boots.

Black veins slithered between folds of muscular tissue, and with every dull thud, the entire space seemed to breathe with its own rhythm. Victor’s reaction was understandable. Any sane living being would easily mistake this place for a grotesque, living version of hell itself.

Still, amidst the intrusive thoughts needling into my mind like splinters, I heard Victor’s voice next to me, loaded with exhaustion and sarcasm: “I’m definitely not paid enough for this... seriously, I need to quit this job like yesterday” He let out a long, theatrical sigh, running a hand through his hair as if that might lighten the weight of it all.

Classic Victor, if you ask me. Always acting like he’s one step away from quitting... but somehow, he never does. That’s when I found myself wondering about it. Something about that strange consistency bothered me — like Victor was forcing himself to stay in the organization.

But why? Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe something personal. A debt from the past. A promise he refuses to break. Whatever the reason, it must be strong enough for him to risk his life without hesitation. And the strangest part is, despite all the time we’ve spent together, I realized I know very little about him. In truth... almost nothing.

As I was still lost in thought, I felt Althea tighten her grip on my arm. She nestled closer against me, the warmth of her body standing out against the cold breeze passing through the trees around us.

When I turned to her, I noticed her expression — a mix of displeasure and thinly veiled poutiness, her lips subtly downturned, brows slightly furrowed: (Why the pouty face?)

As my thoughts echoed into Althea’s mind, she simply snuggled even closer to me, like she was seeking comfort in my warmth: “I am a pure being, dear sister” she said with the same ease someone would use to state the sky is blue — like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

But honestly... considering everything Althea has told me — and made no effort to hide — her words were, at best, questionable. Even so, without access to the storm of doubt churning in my head, she continued in that same sweet tone: “My inner nature is tied to purity, love... and passion. But places like this...” she wrinkled her nose ever so slightly: “... they irritate my skin. It’s nothing serious, just a subtle discomfort. You don’t need to worry about me, dear sister”

Well... truth be told, I wasn’t as worried as she made it sound. Still, I could understand, at least partially, what she meant. I too was starting to feel a strange discomfort — a kind of irritation, as if invisible bugs were buzzing around me, landing and taking off again, over and over.

It was oddly specific — like ants crawling beneath my skin, or the phantom memory of bites that never happened. Not enough to trigger full alarm, but uncomfortable enough to keep me on edge.

Victor — who had stayed silent while I spoke with Althea — finally broke the silence with a restrained groan and a less-than-healthy look: “Sorry to interrupt your bonding time, but can we please focus on getting out of here before I puke up everything I’ve eaten in the past month?”

He clutched his stomach, face pale and sweating. Judging by his expression, he wasn’t exaggerating. Maybe it really was time to pick up the pace.

I listened to Victor’s words closely, absorbing each syllable, but... honestly? How exactly were we supposed to get out of here? I mean, everything around us looked like it had been ripped straight out of a nightmare — like we’d crossed some invisible threshold and fallen into a different dimension made of pulsing flesh and twisted tissue.

A living world, breathing unevenly around us. Unsure of what to say or do, my eyes instinctively turned to Althea, who stood quietly beside me. Of all of us, she seemed to understand what was going on — or at least faked it very convincingly. Without me saying a word, she appeared to understand exactly what my gaze meant.

Her eyes met mine briefly, and then she tilted her head slightly, as if weighing something. She stayed like that for a few seconds, before a mischievous smile slowly stretched across her face — soft at first, then unmistakably bold.

“I want a reward for helping” she said, in that slightly teasing tone of hers, as if amused by her own nerve.

Honestly... I had to admit: it’s almost unbelievable how, even in a situation like this, she can still spout that kind of nonsense so naturally. And somehow, that even helped me relax a bit.

“Seriously, I’ve got to hand it to you... it’s amazing how you still manage to say this crap even now” said Victor beside me, raising an eyebrow with a slight smirk of disbelief.

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one thinking it. I simply nodded in response to Althea, silently acknowledging her words. Before she could say anything else, I slowly raised my hand toward her head.

When my fingers touched her soft hair, I began to gently stroke it, like she was a puppy — feeling the strands glide between my fingers as her expression melted into something like surprise and comfort. Althea blinked multiple times, her face twisted in visible confusion, as if she were trying to process something too strange to comprehend.

But then, suddenly, her expression completely changed — her eyes widened, pupils turning into shimmering heart shapes, and a thin stream of drool began to trickle from the corner of her mouth. A strange sound — somewhere between a moan and a sigh — escaped her lips, as if she were overtaken by a mix of shock and absolute bliss.

I started to feel like something wasn’t quite right, so I quickly pulled my hand away. Her eyes went blank, staring at the ceiling, while a strange and unsettling smile stretched across her face.

Her expression was almost otherworldly, like she was stuck between two realities. But it only lasted a few seconds. She blinked, looked away, and let out a dry cough — like the whole thing had been some fleeting hallucination.

“Thanks for the reward, dear sister” Althea said, a small smile on her lips. Then she raised her hand and pointed toward the end of the hallway, where the light flickered faintly.

“Anyway, even though this anomaly has overlapped two realities, the traits of the world we were in before are still present” she explained, voice calm but firm.

“So, we didn’t actually move — we were just merged with this other reality. Once we reach the elevator, we’ll probably be able to leave this fusion without much trouble”

Honestly, escaping seemed a lot easier than I’d imagined at first. In a way, it felt anticlimactic — no dramatic tension or anything. But really, I couldn’t complain.

This place gave me a strange kind of discomfort — something I couldn’t fully describe, like the air itself was wrong. The sooner we got out, the better for all of us.

Following Althea’s guidance, we moved down the dark hallway, where the walls, ceiling, and floor pulsed as if they were made entirely of living flesh. The warm, damp texture seemed to swallow the sound of our hurried footsteps, and the air was thick with a faint metallic scent, like fresh blood.

The lighting was dim, casting uneasy shadows that danced across the uneven surface of the corridor that stretched endlessly ahead of us. Then, at some undefined point, a strange muffled sound echoed from behind — a hissing, erratic noise, like something slithering through the guts of that place, breaking the heavy silence.

It wasn’t a soft sound — far from it. It was grotesque, guttural, like something being torn apart from the inside. If I had to compare it to anything, I’d say it sounded like flesh being violently ripped, tendons tearing under strain. A wet, sickening crack that turned your stomach.

Instinctively, we turned toward the wall. And then... it appeared. Not a subtle entrance, not something you could ignore or misinterpret. It was sudden. Violent. Grotesque. The wall itself writhed, as if alive, making room for something to emerge. A tear in reality, spitting out something that should never have escaped.

A grotesque being tore through the fleshy wall as if it were old paper. Dozens of writhing tentacles extended from its misshapen body, each one slick, twitching, and coated in a viscous fluid that dripped to the floor with nauseating splats.

Its form blended with the environment — as if it was a part of this organic world, made of the same red, throbbing flesh soaked in blood. Scarlet fluid oozed from its body endlessly, forming puddles with each erratic step.

But its most disturbing feature was its impossible anatomy. The creature's "mouth" was where its genitals should’ve been — though it was obvious this abomination had never held a trace of humanity.

From there, its body opened into a grotesque gash stretching all the way to what should’ve been its head. Inside that cavity were rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, gleaming — as if waiting eagerly to shred something. Or someone.

I barely had time to process what I was seeing before — out of nowhere — a spike of dense, smoking shadows pierced the creature with a sharp crack.

Victor and I stood still for a few seconds, silent, watching the thing hang in the air, pinned like an insect on a needle. But the relief was brief. With a sickening sound, it started to writhe again — and not just that one.

More began to appear, as if space itself were vomiting horrors: crawling from the floor, oozing from the walls, dropping from the ceiling, and even tearing out of each other.

The whole environment warped into a pulsing nightmare of raw flesh and decay. Everything around us throbbed like it was alive — a true grotesque hell, where every breath tasted like metal and stank of rotting meat.

Even behind us, along the path we were supposed to take, chaos spread. Victor and I didn’t exchange a single word — we just turned and ran. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was instinct. I knew, with unsettling certainty, that fighting was useless.

Those things... they couldn’t die. I realized it when I looked at them with my “Eyes” There was no light in them, no soul, no fragment of life. They were empty. Empty of everything that makes a creature alive. Just flesh... moving for no reason except a perversion of logic.

Knowing that, running became our only option. And that’s exactly what we did — as fast as our bodies allowed, while the creatures chased us with blind hunger, their grotesque forms slamming into each other in the suffocating corridor.

The stench of rotten blood and mold clung to our clothes, our lungs — even breathing became a punishment. Our footsteps echoed down the narrow tunnel, mingling with the distorted growls growing louder behind us. The space seemed to shrink with each step, as if the very environment conspired to swallow us whole — along with the abominations that followed.