Before the two pursuers could even register the eerie, glowing eyes that had appeared before them, their movents halted with a gurgled gasp.
Two thick shadow tendrils burst through their chests, piercing flesh and bone. Blood spilled from their mouths as their bodies trembled before collapsing to the floor, lifeless.
Don wasted no ti. His eyes darted toward the hole Donald had jumped into, narrowing as he tapped into his shadow sense to scan the space below.
The entire room and the hole were enveloped in darkness, giving him the perfect environnt to send tendrils down into the depths.
———
Down in the hole, Donald groaned in pain, his entire body aching from the fall, which strangely wasn't as hard as he thought.
He rolled onto his back, clutching his side before slowly trying to sit up. "Where am I?" he muttered, his voice shaky.
His hands fumbled in his pocket for his phone, desperate for a light source to see where he'd landed. As he struggled, a rancid, pungent sll hit his nose, causing his face to twist in disgust.
Finally managing to pull his phone out, Donald held it up, trying to steady himself by reaching out to the nearest wall for support. His hand made contact, but the surface felt soft and sticky.
A cold shiver ran down his spine as dread settled in his gut. 'What is this?' His fingers clung to the wall, and with a deep breath, he activated his phone's flashlight, pointing it toward his hand.
"Ahh!" he scread, jerking his hand away from the wall.
The light revealed a sight that nearly made him retch—he had been holding onto a grotesque, fleshy surface made from a horrific combination of vines and human tissue.
Eyes blinked sporadically within the mass, a pulsating heart squirted dark fluid, and twitching, severed legs seed to spasm uncontrollably from various sections of the wall.
Donald's jaw trembled as he backed away, retracting his hand from the nightmare in front of him. A slimy, sticky red substance clung to his skin, trailing between him and the wall as he desperately tried to wipe it off.
Gasping for air, he pointed the flashlight downward. His stomach tightened at the sight beneath him.
The ground was just as grotesque—a writhing mass of detached hands, twitching and flailing about as if they still had so life in them.
His heart pounded. 'What is this place?' Donald thought in sheer terror. But before he could even process the situation, the detached hands suddenly latched onto his legs. He let out another scream, trying to kick them off, but their grip tightened as they began to pull him down.
"Ahh!" he cried out, thrashing against the hold, but it was futile. The hands were relentless, their cold fingers digging into his skin as they dragged him deeper into the hellish floor. Panic set in, his mind a ss as he fought desperately to break free.
Out of nowhere, sothing cool wrapped around his waist, pulling him upward with imnse force. "Ahhh!" Donald scread, convinced it was another vine grabbing hold of him. He reached for his waist in a panic but felt… nothing.
Before he could question it, **Uff!** Donald's body slamd into sothing soft, knocking the wind out of him. He couldn't see, but in reality, he had been thrown against one of the fleshy pods dangling from the ceiling of the room Don was in.
Don didn't waste any ti after pulling Donald out of the hole. He yanked him away from the center of the room, though not with much care. **Thud.** Donald hit the ground with a grunt, the impact sending pain shooting through his body.
"Argh!" he groaned, curling up as he tried to catch his breath.
Before Donald could get up, the room suddenly lit up with a **click**. Don had used a tendril to flip the light switch on, and in the instant the room was bathed in light, Don disappeared back into the shadows.
Donald sat up slowly, his entire body aching from the rough treatnt. His bruises throbbed, and his muscles scread in protest, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins kept him alert.
He forced himself to look up—and what he saw made his blood run cold.
The two people that had been chasing him now lay dead, their bodies slumped against the floor. Both had gaping, bloody holes in their chests, and their blank eyes stared at nothing. Donald's stomach churned at the sight, but he barely had ti to process it before—
**Bam.** A loud crash from behind him made him flinch.
He jerked forward, whipping around to see what had caused the noise. One of the hanging pods had fallen to the ground, the fleshy mass quivering as it broke open.
Donald's breath caught in his throat as the contents of the pod were revealed. His disgust deepened as he laid eyes on a grotesque creature—a deford child-like figure, part human, part plant.
Its body was a mix of sinewy vines and malford limbs, its skin sickly and pale. Most unsettling of all were its eyes, barely developed, yet they stared directly at Donald with a disturbing awareness.
Donald's stomach heaved, and his legs trembled as he scrambled to his feet, his instincts screaming at him to run. 'No, no, no.' His mind was racing, trying to make sense of the horror in front of him, but there was no logic to it.
The creature's twisted face turned toward him, its undeveloped eyes locking onto his with unsettling intensity. That was all it took for Donald to snap out of his daze.
He bolted, his body fueled by pure terror as he sprinted toward the door.
"Get out of here!" Donald yelled to himself, his voice shaky and breathless. He didn't care about finding another way out anymore. After what he had just seen, going back the way he ca seed like the only option.
Donald soon reached the door leading back into the main hall, his heart still pounding in his chest.
As he pushed the door open, he was t with a sight that froze him in place. The benches had been stacked into a massive pile, the flas growing around them, casting eerie shadows across the room.
More unsettling, the churchgoers were walking directly into the fire.
He stood there, horrified, as they willingly let the flas consu them. Their faces remained expressionless, but their bodies writhed in agony as the fire burned through their clothes, their skin blistering and cracking. Yet none of them made any attempt to escape the flas. It was as if they wanted to burn.
The sll of burning flesh filled the air, making Donald gag.
His mind scread for him to run, but his legs refused to move, frozen in the sheer madness of the scene before him.
**Bang!**
Suddenly, the front doors of the church were thrown open with such force that they slamd against the walls. Don ca charging through, his face uncharacteristically worried, yelling, "Donald!"
Donald snapped out of his trance at the sound of Don's voice. His eyes locked onto him, and for the first ti, he felt a genuine wave of relief. "Don!" he shouted back, his voice shaky.
"Co on, quick!" Don urged, waving him over.
Donald didn't need to be told twice. His green eyes glowed for a mont, his legs tapping in that rhythmic way again. In a flash, he broke into a sprint, covering the distance between him and Don almost instantly—only to collide with the door fra with a solid **thud**.
"Argh!" Donald groaned, stumbling forward and clutching his shoulder in pain.
Don raised an eyebrow but he didn't address it. 'That must be his power,' Don thought. 'No control, though… that explains why he said it wouldn't be of use earlier.'
Without hesitation, Don grabbed Donald by the hand, pulling him to his feet. "Co on!" he urged, dragging him out of the church.
Once Donald got on his feet, they sprinted across the road, with Donald practically diving into the bushes on the other side, desperate to put as much distance between himself and that nightmare of a building.
But even after jumping into the bushes, his legs kept moving, propelled by sheer terror, until Don's voice called out to him.
"Donald, stop! We're safe now!"
Donald finally ca to a halt, stumbling against a nearby tree. He placed his hand on the rough bark, panting heavily as he dropped to the ground, his back leaning against the tree trunk.
Sweat poured down his face, mixing with the strange, sticky substance still clinging to his clothes from that disgusting room below the church. But at that mont, he didn't care. He was just happy to be alive.
"What the hell was that?" he muttered, his voice barely a whisper.
Don crouched beside him, his face feigning concern. "What happened in there, Donald? What did you see?"
Donald gulped, wiping the sweat from his brow as he tried to find the words. "I… I don't know how to describe it," he stamred. "But… fuck, man… it was… we need to get out of here."
Don nodded, maintaining the facade of concern. He knew that Donald had been through sothing traumatic, and while Don had seen most of it himself, it was important to play along.
"Alright," Don agreed, his voice calm but urgent. "Let's get moving. We'll co out near Uptown Eastend. I'll call Winter to et us there."
He gave Donald a quick glance, noticing the gri and muck all over him before adding. "And I'll tell her to bring you a change of clothes…"
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