SHUF!
As the inhumane pulse of strength urged Trodden to race forward and ram against the iron bars before him which beqome clearer as his right eye changed, becoming tainted with a golden tint, he roared!
BANG!
The bars rang, the floor quaking in genuine fright from the power released from Trodden's body!
The creatures that had prowled silently outside of his cell before he turned to screeching uncontrollably in the wake of his dug up emotion, growled, attracting the young man to use his transcendent sight to finally see what they were despite the obscuring cover of the darkness!
...!
Trodden froze for a moment.
What he had suspected to perhaps be foul monsters captured from a distant evil forest and kept here for entertainment were....
Naught but man!
They were feral men and women with distorted figures, made ugly by actual wooden features; a small branch growing from the forehead one, an entire arm as a wilted tree on another.
These mindless monsters walked on all fours, their joints having adjusted to moving in this manner over time, as their bodies adopted shapes like that of insects in their movement!
They donned crude and torn tunics or shirts, worn out linothorax armours complete with batterrd high conrinthian helmets that no longer served any purpose other than to cover their sensitive limbs, or nothing at all.
Trodden's vision which had once again taken to showing these figures as dark, moving husks with the area of their right eye socket showing a brown-coloured ball that floated within.
The right eyes.
It was the same as he had seen last time!
Would this quell his raging emotion for good?
Nay!
Trodden heaved in deep breaths and grabbed the bars to the cells with both hands!
He exerted his newfound strength to its limit, attempting to pry open the bars as he grit his teeth, sweat sliding off his mortal flesh that brimmed with stolen strength!
Trodden heaved, his muscles bulging to engage with the effort!
Yet... the bars refused to open up!
This single outcome enraged the boy further as the pain he was experiencing led him to almost turn feral, growling from within the cell as he once again tried to open enough space for himself to pass through, only to fail again!
'Am I truly bound to wait for certain death to come for me tomorrow? Nay! What is this strength for then?!' he thought as he jammed his head between the bars where it did not fit in its entirety!
He pushed through, the cold metal licking the sides of his head as he soldiered on, the rusty bars scraping his now hard skin without leaving any marks!
Soon, after applying much strength, Trodden's head passed through and he inched ahead, bringing the rest of his body, starting from the chest!
A nasty growl sounded as now, the man-beasts which had a clear target launched themselves at him with carnal glee!
The first to reach Trodden opened its mouth to reveal rotten teeth and a wretched smell that made the world several times more cruel for the young man who he smelt it!
The profoundly yellow teeth bit Trodden in his face, the man-beast that had leapt upon him using all its force to dig into Trodden's bone and flesh!
The hardened skin on Trodden defended only superficially, as a moment later, blood spewed from his nose and cheeks where the teeth reached and drew flesh from!
For the strength of this creature eclipsed his own!
The man-beast pulled and tore off the flesh it had bitten, leaving facial muscles that had nested under Trodden's skin to show as the boy emitted an deafening howl of agony!
The pain!
The pain...!
Trodden bled profusely as he screeched, trying to bring the rest of his body outside of the bars so he could defend himself!
As if to mock his effort, the rest of the man-beasts drew in and bit every part of his head they could, even up to his neck!
Others gripped Trodden's body behind the bars with their hands that ended in rough, wooden fingers that penetrated his flesh and drew him closer to the bars!
Disgusting noises of ripping flesh resounded as Trodden's body quivered while upon his face, an expression of despair, as if he had lost his soul appeared.
He felt his innards drip from his body, the sensation on his flesh burning with an irritating itch as truly, the scythe of death felt close!
Trodden's mouth opened like a cave as he screamed with tears bleeding from his ducts!
He gnashed his teeth, his burning rage dwindling, overshadowed by this humiliating end!
Then...
'Find... the Bringing...' his mother's voice echoed in his mind.
What was this?
Why did this voice torment him with meaningless nonsense that spewed with the crippling sentiment of his mother?!
Especially now, when it was more than likely that he was about to die!
What was the Bringing?!
Trodden suddenly threw up blood as his body jerked, his bloody liver pulled out by one of the man-beasts as it then messily threw it in its mouth!
Trodden's eyes rolled, his mind turning blank.
His torso was torn, the ribcage peeking out of his chest, entrails hanging out as they were pulled out and fed on almost instantly!
His right lung was exposed, marks and ruptures visible as the chaos ensued over his body!
Yet...
As all this continued, the man-beasts feeding on Trodden relentlessly, pulling on his body violently, trying to bring it over to the other side...
The young man's right eye rolled back from in the socket, bringing with it a ravenous HUNGER!
The brown coloured orbs floating in the heads of the man-beasts became tantalising for Trodden and the sheer need to taste them on his tongue again brought his mind back from the depths of empty thought!
While the emotions that spawned from his rage towards his mother's murder had been trampled, his lust for flesh was not.
Trodden growled inhumanely and used the immense pull from the man-beasts to pull out in one motion his torso which had lost much of the flesh that kept it from passing through the bars!
And truly, he slipped through, the excessive blood yet to turn sticky acting as a lubricant!
The man-beasts leapt over him, their prey now free from bondage for them to freely rip apart.
The moment, he was free, Trodden's face turned ugly as he jammed his hand with all his might towards the face of one of the man-beasts!
He spoke no words, and had no thoughts as he acted purely out of raw instinct!
As the many teeth dug into him, his fingers sank into the right socket of one of the man-beasts, breaking the bone as he pulled out its right eye!
The creature screeched in pain, but Trodden ignored and threw the 'delectable' eye in his mouth and ground it with his molars!
'Ah...' Trodden thought as he felt the fluid and soft flesh slide down his throat.
A wave of strength tore through his body, along with it coming a burning sensation that ran through his blood and flesh!
The young man felt as if molten steel had been poured into his mortal container as he screeched loudly in terrible pain!
However, along with this unbearable pain akin to his body burning in a furnace, flesh bubbled from every part of his body that had been ripped apart, regrowing even as the man-beasts kept feeding on him!
Trodden's senses were emboldened once more even as the pain tore through his nerves!
Even in this state, he realised that all hope was not lost. His lost flesh returned, along with the muscles and he could even feel the bone regrowing!
His lost entrails sprung back within his lower abdomen in abundance as skin hurriedly emerged to contain them!
Trodden's vision focused.
He began to notice the other changes that came with him feeding on the eye of the man-beast.
His skin turned tougher than it already was, gaining a slight wrinkle of rigidity to it, his strength being magnified many a fold over what it had been!
Trodden leapt up and threw his fist at the man-beast whose eye he had gouged out!
The moment his knuckles dug into the man-beast's head, he felt once more that he was about to take a life!
For in his fist, lay a little less than double the amount of strength he had possessed when he had demolished the head of the short soldier earlier!
The reverberation of cracks forming on bone as he punched made the young man feel strangely alive.
He roared as he saw blood rain, his animalistic cry mirroring that of the monsters that surrounded him!
His lust for the slimy flesh in the eye grew and as his foes leapt over him and tried to tear him apart, his skin and muscle turning harder and immediately starting to regrow when clawed up, Trodden grunted as he let himself drown in this pit, in this Endless spiral of carnal desire, tactlessly flinging his arm to kill the man-beasts that barely had half a mind to back away from this threat and deal with it in a smart manner.
Yet, this lack of thought on their part was what led Trodden to prevail over the mass of those who had failed to assimilate the strength granted to them by a false god.
Sorrowful tears leaked from Trodden's eyes, as sadly, this strength to prevail came not from the love of his mother, but from an inborn lust...
***
"What do you think? How will we fare in the next battle against the Firebred? Lord Balgruum's soul visibly wanes with each defeat. The last war where we fell miserably drove him to seek a woman to create more of his spawn," one of the soldiers aired his view to the others as they sat by the fire.
Even though they all basked in its light, they gave it a rather disdained glare when their eyes met its glow.
For the bits of heat it produced was a symbol of their enemy.
"Do we have any right to question the lord's faith and spirit? Better we focus our minds on keeping him alive. He must not be allowed to fall. For the Hold's sake," a familiar woman with a tall build said, her aged face giving off a barely concealed sense of loyalty and self-preservation.
Silence pervaded for a few moments before another of these eleven that remained awake in the barracks and chatted by the fire spoke.
"So Baris lost his life to a slave plagued by some form of curse? Ha! Fitting end for the greedy thief. Was getting on my nerves."
"T'was but a battle amongst worms. Unsightly and pathetic," the tall woman said, guffaws echoing from the soldiers afterwards.
Clops of sheltered feet sounded through a narrow corridor behind the group, moving eerily slow but carrying an immense weight.
The seasoned senses of the soldiers quickly caught on to this, their collective eyes turning to the source of the sound.
It came from the large block mass that housed tormented souls imprisoned as their sentence on top of gruesome torture.
Had one of these escaped?
The tall woman stood, along with the others, her eyes squinting to obtain a better view.
While they weren't the ones on duty, it would not serve them well to have one of the prisoners escape or worse...
What met her eyeballs was a bloody body that donned a heavily worn linothorax armour and a rusted corinthian helmet that oozed of age and torment with its golden hued make crumpled.
Deadly eyes filled with nothing but hurt and lust met her own from the cross-shaped space on the helmet... and she immediately knew, that what she had called a worm had blossomed into a frightful monster that had come to haunt her life...