-Alexei Sokolov:
The air was heavy with the stench of decay and sulfur, an acrid tang that burned my throat.
Before us, the house loomed like a cursed sentinel, its rotting wood crawling with ivy that pulsed as if alive.
Yet it wasn't the house that held our attention—it was the grotesque horrors that surrounded it.
A frog, the size of a two-story building, perched on the shattered remnants of a fountain.
Its pustule-covered skin oozed a slimy, yellowish liquid that sizzled and hissed as it dripped onto the stone beneath it.
Each of its movements caused waves of the substance to spatter, eating away at the ground like acid.
Its eyes, bulging and bloodshot, locked onto us, and its wide mouth opened to release a guttural croak that reverberated through my chest like an earthquake.
To its left, an enormous spider moved with a sickening grace, its long, jagged legs puncturing the earth with each step.
