Waking up Arsanguir and continued to scream. His eyes were closed, the light of the sun bleaching through his eyelids. His skin still swirling and writhing with the leeches from his dream.
Opening his eyes, Arsanguir's mind stuttered. The feeling of leeches on his skin dissipating, his scream fading away. He was curled up in the dragon's embrace, the magnificent beast still asleep. The earth rumbling with each heaving breath.
Standing up carefully, Arsanguir slipped away from the beast's grasp. He made it down to the river, filling up his waterskin Arsanguir took a big swig. Emptying it in less time it took to fill it up, Arsanguir looking up at the clear rose tinted sky basked in the light of the rising sun.
Laying there Arsanguir thought about the Behel fox from yesterday, his face lit up with an idea. The Behel fox was known to be very elusive and difficult to track. It's mastery over the illusive and unknown power of true transfiguration it almost impossible to find or kill. Running over to where the body of the fox lay, Arsanguir smiled widely not believing his luck. Asanguir started dissecting the animal, ensuring that he didn't cause any damage to any parts he could sell. This time Arsanguir decided to keep all parts of the animal including the digestive track. Not knowing the properties of the animals organs, Arsanguir didn't want to leave anything behind.
On the creature's right side Arsanguir found a green crystal underneath its lung. The crystal was shaped like the fox's heart it was a deep green on the outside with a green glow emanating from its center. Stashing the dissected fox into his pendant, Arsanguir admired the heart shaped crystal in his hand, examining the object from different angles. It's glistening surface and glowing depths tantalising his curiosity. Entranced in the green abyss Arsanguir's mind faded into a trance.
Arsanguir was falling.
Not in the physical sense—there was no sensation of wind, no rushing toward an inevitable impact—but a slow, sinking dread as his mind plummeted deeper into itself. It felt as if his very soul was being kneaded, pulled and pushed by unseen hands into a undefined reality. His name, Arsanguir, his purpose, all the fragments of his waking life, began to dissolve, replaced by the overwhelming presence of this twisted existence.
The sky loomed above him, a sticky swirling yellow mass, a stain in the fabric of time and space. It wasn't a sky at all, it seemed like the wound of some forgotten god, bleeding its putrid essence into the world. Arsanguir felt the weight of it pressing down on him, oppressive and unnatural, filling the air with the stench of rot and something older—a decay that whispered of millennia, of ancient things long dead but never truly gone.
The ground beneath him was not solid; it pulsed like living flesh, a grotesque parody of life. Each step was a struggle, as if the earth itself resented him, shifting and writhing like a living entity in its final throes. His boots engulfed by the soft, undulating mass, and with every movement, Arsanguir felt the world tremble beneath him, exhaling shallow, wheezing breaths that echoed in his ears.
Ahead, the fog rolled in like a tide, thick and poisonous, a barrier that seemed to conceal the horrors lurking beyond. Shadows moved within it—slithering, lumbering forms that defied any logical anatomy. Arsanguir's breath quickened, though the air was thick and foul, stinging his lungs. He pressed forward, his eyes darting between the hidden forms, hoping—praying that they wouldn't notice him.
But in this world, in this nightmare, nothing went unnoticed. Eyes, countless amalgamations of eyes, emerged from the writhing bodies of the creatures themselves. They watched him with a terrible intelligence, their gaze sharp, invasive, primal and worst of all glistening. Arsanguir could never have feel them probing his mind, stirring his forgotten fears, and warping them into grotesque shapes that clung to the edges of his vision.
He stumbled forward, his heartbeat pounding louder with every step. In the distance, colossal figures rose against the horizon, their forms too alien, too enormous to comprehend. Tentacles, claws, and bone-like spires jutted from their bodies in a chaotic jumble, as though they had no true form but were constantly mutating, writhing. They were the lords of this place—ancient, unfathomable beings whose existence was an affront to the very concept of life. One of them let out a low, rumbling growl that shook the ground beneath Arsanguir's feet, resonating deep in his chest like the roar of some primordial beast.
But the longer he moved through the nightmare, the more Arsanguir began to understand that fear alone did not govern this place. He had feared these creatures, their grotesque forms, the darkness and decay, and the ever-present sense of being watched. But as he ventured deeper into this twisted landscape, he noticed that the creatures, for all their terrifying appearances, did not attack him. They moved in ways that suggested they were not only driven by malice, but by an ancient, alien rhythm—something beyond his understanding.
Arsanguir's steps slowed as he let the unease settle, the pulse of the ground no longer a shock but a pattern, a malevolent heartbeat of the nightmare itself. The air was thick, and the stench of rot persisted, yet the creatures drifted around him, their shapes twisting and contorting, but never touching him. They were horrors, yes, but they were also part of this world, and he, an intruder, was somehow being tolerated.
He wasn't here to escape. He was here to understand.
A cold sensation rising up his sternum jolted him back to reality. Arsanguir lay helpless, his body a raw, open wound exposed to the dim light that flickered from the dragon's bloody scales. His skin, peeled back like a fragile veil, left his ribs cracked and splayed apart, every nerve screaming, every inch of him ablaze with agony. Consciousness clung to him like a curse. Every moment stretched, torturous and endless, seared into his mind as he stared into the dragon's cold, yellow eyes. They watched him—not with hatred, but with an unsettling curiosity, a predator inspecting its prey, knowing it held complete control.
The first claw came down, a slow, deliberate movement as the dragon pierced his chest. Arsanguir's scream tore from his throat, raw and ragged, but no sound escaped in the suffocating space. His lungs collapsed, shredded beneath the dragon's touch, the fragile sacs crushed as easily as one might crush paper. He felt everything—every fiber, every cell, each moment of his body being undone from the inside. His chest heaved, desperate for air that no longer came, the pain so intense it blurred the edges of his vision, turning the world into a haze of red.
The dragon coughed into the gaping wound, the black viscous fluid filled his cavity burning like liquid fire. His body jerked involuntarily as the substance crept through his body. Solidifying, forming new lungs that expanded with a searing, unnatural darkness. Arsanguir gasped, the air slicing through his throat like blades, each breath a fresh wave of agony as the new organs burned within him. The strength they gave was a twisted gift—one he didn't want, one that felt foreign, alien, as if his body were being rewritten with every gasp.
The dragon's claws descended again, and Arsanguir felt them hook into his liver, tearing it free with a sickening wet rip. The world swam, his mind barely able to process the level of torment as more of him was stripped away. His intestines followed, dragged out of him like coiled ropes, each tug sending shockwaves of white-hot pain up his spine. He wanted to vomit, to writhe, but his body no longer obeyed. He was a spectator to his own destruction, forced to endure as the dragon remade him.
The new organs slithered into place, dark and malevolent, pulsing with a power that was not his own. They throbbed, unnatural rhythms beating within him, filling the spaces where his human essence had once been. They were wrong—twisted shapes of muscle and sinew, their surfaces slick with a viscous substance that burned his insides. Each piece that replaced his human parts felt like a violation, his body no longer his, a vessel for something dark and incomprehensible.
But through it all, the dragon left his heart. It still beat, frantic and weak, the last reminder of who Arsanguir had been. He felt it, fluttering beneath his exposed chest like a trapped bird, terrified, desperate. The dragon's gaze lingered on it now, its eyes narrowing as though savoring the final moment. Arsanguir could feel the weight of its anticipation, the inevitable end inching closer.
The dragon's claws pierced deeper, wrapping around his heart. The dragon gripped and tugged lightly, teasing Arsanguir's end, gaining a sick pleasure from tormenting the being. Arsanguir's mind shattered under the pressure—sharp, unbearable, every beat a scream of protest as the claws tightened. He thought it would explode, that his heart would simply burst from the pain, but instead, the dragon held it, squeezing with slow, deliberate cruelty. His pulse pounded in his ears, the sound deafening, yet all he could focus on was the excruciating pressure, the sensation of his heart being crushed, its last remnants of life force dwindling away.
The dragon pulled. Arsanguir felt his heart tear free, the connection to life snapping in an instant. Darkness flooded his vision, warm and invasive, yet his consciousness clung on, trapped in the moment as the dragon held his heart aloft. He could still feel it, even outside his body—its desperate, feeble beats slowing, fading. His vision blurred as tears streamed down his face, the pain almost unbearable, but worse than the physical agony was the hollow emptiness that followed.
Then came the dragon's last cough. Arsanguir watched, trembling, as his heart swelled, growing larger, formless, rippling at the surface. It pulsed again, but not with the rhythm of life. It throbbed with power, dark and terrible, sending tremors of energy through the air.
The dragon lowered it back into his chest. Arsanguir's body convulsed, his bones knitting together, ribs locking into place as the heart took root. The pain, once sharp, became an all-encompassing, burning wave that surged through his veins. He felt it spreading, his new heart's pulse filling every corner of his being, warping him from the inside. The final piece of his humanity had been torn away, replaced with something far darker.
His body no longer screamed, no longer burned with pain. Now, it pulsed with a power that was his to wield—but not his own.
Arsanguir sighed as the dragon sat back and admired it's toy, closing his eyes he felt his skin close up, healing covering up his organs once more.