Random Merchant’s POV
I was a merchant from another kingdom, here in the kingdom of Milham to do some trades. The goods and products here were top-notch, as expected—exquisite fabrics, spices that tingled your nose, and artifacts that could fetch a high price back home.
Night had fallen, and with a carriage loaded with expensive goods, I couldn’t risk heading back. The thought of getting stopped by bandits sent a chill through me. Just imagining those bastards stripping me of everything I’d worked for, or worse—cutting me down right there and leaving me to rot—was enough to keep me indoors. So, I rented a room at a nearby inn and paid extra to keep my carriage and wares under guard.
But that night was anything but ordinary. I thought it’d be quiet, uneventful even—nothing to worry about. I was just about to drift off when I heard it: a rumbling of footsteps, faint at first, then growing louder, echoing off the stone streets outside.
At first, I ignored it, thinking it was just some late-night drunks or maybe the knights making their rounds. But then, the sound grew, a frantic stomping, like a beast was charging through the city. The walls of my room trembled, rattling my nerves. I rushed to the window, heart pounding, and looked outside… only to see a massive, surging crowd spilling down the streets, a river of bodies.
“What the fuck?” I breathed, eyes widening as I spotted my carriage—my livelihood—being crushed beneath their relentless march. The wooden wheels splintered, the frame buckled, and the goods I’d spent all day bartering for were scattered and trampled like trash. I leapt from the bed and bolted out of my room, but as soon as I stepped into the street, the crowd swallowed me whole. Bodies pressed in from all sides, and I felt like I was being dragged under a crashing wave.
“Wait! Fuck! My carriage! Don’t trample my carriage!” I screamed, my voice drowned out by the roar of the crowd. I shoved my way through, but there were too many, their shoulders and backs slamming into me.
The pressure built, and I stumbled. When I hit the ground, I saw it—my face inches from a body, twisted and lifeless, smeared with dirt and blood. His features were flattened, crushed beyond recognition, stamped into the ground by countless feet.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!” I shrieked, scrabbling against the cobblestones, trying to claw my way out. But it was already too late. The horde pressed down on me, stomping me into the dirt. My lungs burned, my bones cracked under the weight. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight back. The darkness closed in, smothering me.
Before I knew it, I was dead.
***
Random Adventurer’s POV
“This is sickening,” I muttered, my voice hollow as I looked out at the carnage left behind. Corpses littered the road, twisted and broken. Just an hour ago, this street had been a river of people, an unstoppable flood surging towards who knows where. Now, the aftermath was laid bare—bodies, mangled and left in the mud like discarded trash. Blood stained the cobblestones, pooling in the cracks.
“Hey, he’s still alive!” one of the other adventurers shouted, his voice cutting through the eerie silence.
I turned and saw the man, gasping for air, wrapped in a torn red hooded cloak—the same as the others from the mob. He was sprawled out, covered in dirt and blood, his face bruised and swollen. That meant he was one of them. Maybe he had tripped in that stampede, and his own comrades had walked right over him.
“What are you people?” I snarled, my fingers tightening around the man’s collar, dragging him closer until I could see the whites of his wild, frantic eyes. His breath came in ragged gasps, like a dying animal. “Why are you doing all this? Do you have any idea how many people you’ve killed?! Huh?!”
“Kekeke…” He let out a rasping, unhinged laugh, his lips twisting into a grotesque grin. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth, staining his teeth a sickly crimson. “The darkness… it’s coming. That’s why we’re all headed to where it will rise. Our lord… he’s finally going to awaken after so long. He’ll reclaim his glory.”
“What?” I spat, disbelief making my voice crack, my grip on his collar tightening as if I could shake sense into him.
“You don’t understand… you can’t even begin to fathom the importance of this day,” he wheezed, each word gurgling through the blood bubbling in his throat. “It’s coming… The day is coming! Kekeke! We’ve come so far, sacrificed so much for this moment.”
This guy… he was completely gone. His eyes rolled back, pupils darting as if he was seeing some twisted nightmare only he could understand. No… it was more than madness. He was dying, and yet, he reveled in it. It was like he welcomed death.
“Our lord… I want to see you… I want to bask in your glory… in the darkness you’ll bring to us…”
His eyes went slack, the life draining from them like a candle snuffed out in a gust of wind.
“In the shadows, we find truth, and in the darkness, we are reborn. The world will bow to our will, for we are the harbingers of the Eclipse, where light meets its end and our power begins.”
The words spilled from his mouth with a chilling, mechanical precision, as if they had been seared into his mind. Then, without warning, his head exploded—like a ripe melon crushed underfoot—sending shards of bone, fragments of skull, brains, flesh, blood, and even a stray eyeball splattering across the alleyway in a visceral spray.
***
Gabrielle’s POV
I went back to the room where Angelica was confined. But when I reached the door, a suffocating silence greeted me, thick and oppressive. I pushed the door open
“What…?”
Angelica’s bloodied form lay sprawled on the cold floor, her body drenched in a dark pool that spread like a macabre shadow. The side of her head was blown apart—raw, jagged flesh where her skull should have been. The air reeked of iron and death. My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat. Was this the same thing that happened when those fanatics made their heads explode? Was she dead too?
I dropped to my knees beside her, and pressed two fingers to her neck. I felt the faint, fluttering beat of her pulse. She was alive… barely.
It looked like she’d somehow stopped the explosion, but not without a devastating cost. Her left eye was nothing more than a hollow cavity, the flesh around it charred and mangled, leaving a gruesome wound where her eye should have been. Blood seeped from the gash, soaking into the fabric of her clothes. But she was breathing, raggedly, like a flickering flame in the dark.
