Ludwig’s group pushed forward, deeper into the choking embrace of the forested island. Every step seemed to sink them into a world less concerned with time and more preoccupied with suffocation. The thorny branches above interwove into a ceiling that choked out the sky, and the vines below slithered and tangled around roots like veins around diseased bone. Mist clung to the ground in heavy tendrils, making it harder to tell what was air and what was mold creeping toward their lungs.
The Vampire Hunters were doing their best to maintain a sense of formation, barking hushed commands and trying to keep some rhythm to their movement. But the weight of the place was pressing on them. The trees here didn’t just loom—they leered. The earth didn’t just breathe—it pulsed. The mist wasn’t just dense—it felt sentient.
And worst of all were the two sailors. Terrified. Jittering. They walked with stiff limbs, eyes darting at every rustle and shadow, like men expecting a whisper to become a scream at any moment. The Vampire Hunters tried to keep them in line, but they were unraveling by the minute.
Ludwig didn’t speak. His steps were silent. His shoulders squared. His grip on the chained Durandal remained relaxed but constant. His eyes, bright in the gloom, were scanning—not erratically, but methodically. They flicked left, then right, then up, then paused on a twitch of leaf, then moved again. His face betrayed nothing. But tension radiated off him, invisible to those who couldn’t feel the way the air trembled.
“C’mon man, you’re giving me the creeps…” the Vampire Hunter walking beside him whispered under his breath. His voice was too light, trying to pass off his unease as banter. “Blink for crying out loud.”
Ludwig didn’t take his eyes off the forest.
“Shut up,” he said, his tone flat as iron. “I think there’s something up ahead.”
The words fell hard into the silence. Ludwig’s fingers curled slightly around the shaft of his one handed scythe. The chain along his wrist shifted with a faint rattle, like it sensed the tension in its wielder’s soul.
Though he worried for a moment that these Vampire Hunters would take note of Durandal, and perhaps by some unfortunate luck it might link him down the line to ‘Ludwig’ that was something he needed to worry about later.
Then came the sound.
Breathing. Low. Strained. Wet and gurgling like someone drowning slowly on dry land.
The hunter next to Ludwig jerked his head up. His hand tightened around the torch he carried, knuckles whitening. He turned his head, trying not to look panicked as he slowly shifted the light around their immediate area.
“I… I don’t see anything.”
“It’s next to your foot,” Ludwig murmured, voice so calm it might have been mistaken for indifference—until one noticed how still he had become, how focused his stare had locked on the thick mass of vines near their feet.
The Vampire Hunter stiffened instantly. Every muscle in his body pulled tight, like strings yanked on a puppet. He swallowed hard, his breath now audible.
He looked down.
All he saw was a thicket of unnatural flowers—roses and blossoms that shimmered in colors no sunlight had ever touched—and a mound of interwoven vines. Large. Wet. Uncomfortably organic. It wasn’t just a cluster of plants—it had shape. It had volume.
“What do you mean?” the hunter whispered, his torch beginning to tremble slightly in his hand.
“Listen,” Ludwig said again, his voice quieter now. “The breathing. It’s coming from that pile.”
A second Vampire Hunter approached, the older one carrying the falchion. His steps were slow, eyes narrowed against the oppressive fog. “Why are we stopped?” he asked, annoyance creeping into his voice.
The first hunter pointed shakily. “This man… uh, Davon, right? He said there’s something in there.”
The falchion-wielder didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he cocked his head slightly and held up a hand. “Quiet,” he ordered. The group obeyed.
And in that stillness, they all heard it.
A voice. Weak. Strangled. But unmistakably human.
“M…othe…r…”
It wasn’t a cry. It wasn’t even a whisper. It was the last rasp of a breath that didn’t belong in a living throat.
“Well, that’s definitely not an animal,” Ludwig muttered as he took a cautious step forward and lowered himself toward the vine pile. He reached out, gently pinching one of the thicker strands between two fingers.
It pulsed.
A soft, rhythmic throb. Warm and slick.
It responded to his touch like a muscle, or a vein.
The falchion-wielder stepped closer and placed a firm hand on Ludwig’s shoulder. “Sir Davon, with all due respect,” he said, voice low but firm, “we don’t know what that is. And I don’t like this thing where you just do whatever you want. Let the professionals handle it.”
Ludwig stared at him for a moment. Then, calmly, he nodded and stood back up.
“Sure.”
He took three measured steps backward, spun Durandal to a backhanded grip, and crossed his arms over his chest. Ready for anything in case the professional messes up.
“Be my guest.” He coldly added.
The hunter crouched low and pulled aside a layer of the vines, muttering something about rookies and nobles under his breath.
The vine tore apart with a sickening squelch. Something black, and sludge like spready all over the Hunter’s clothes, but he didn’t care much for that, his eyes were locked onto something far more visceral than some mere leather.
Only then did they see it.
The face of a man, or what remained of it. Skin stretched taut over bone. Mouth frozen in a permanent scream, jaw wide enough that the joints had fractured. His eyes were gone—completely hollowed—and from each socket, thick thorned vines spilled outward like grotesque tears, curling into flowers crowned with red and violet petals.
His ears were similarly impaled. Roots burst through them like worms, threading in and out of his skull and burrowing deep into the earth. His nose had collapsed inward, and even that had begun to sprout veins of ivy and spore.
As for the rest—he had no legs. His lower body was nothing but bark and blackened roots, cracked and warped like tree stumps forced into the shape of limbs. His torso was caved in. Sunken. The skin like dried leather. Yet from somewhere within that mummified chest, Ludwig still heard it.
A heartbeat. Barely there.
And yet again, it spoke, “Mother…”
The word ‘Mother’ dripped from his lips like honey, sticky and saccharine. Painfully Euphoric, and completely unnatural.
One of the sailors made the mistake of stepping closer. Just close enough to see clearly.
He didn’t scream. His body betrayed him first.
He retched, doubling over violently as bile splashed onto the bone-dust beneath him. His stomach convulsed a second time, but he had nothing left to give. His eyes were locked wide open, unable to look away from the grotesque crown of roses that bloomed from a dead man’s skull.
“Goodness’ sake… that’s Jorak,” whispered the first Vampire Hunter, eyes locking on a small nameplate still clinging to the man’s collar.
The second hunter stared, blinking as if trying to force the scene into a more understandable shape.
“What the hell happened here? Why is he like this?”
Ludwig’s eyes gleamed faintly—a light only he could see.
[Inspect]
Name: Jorak Tull
Title: Aspiring Vampire Hunter
Level: 1 {💀}
HP: 1/1 {💀}
Status Effects: {Mortification} {Blissful Agony} {Rose Mother’s Curse}
He scanned each of the status effects in silence, parsing their meaning with growing intensity. His brows tightened slowly as he read.
Then a voice cut through the silence. Too loud. Too… wrong.
“Mother… mother, what are you doing here?”
Every head turned.
It was the other sailor—the one who hadn’t vomited. He had drifted further behind the group without notice. Now he stood alone, barely visible through the mist. His arms hung limp at his sides. His head tilted slightly to one shoulder.
His voice was strange. Slurred, distant. Like someone speaking in their sleep.
“Vick!” one of the hunters called out, voice sharp.
He turned to the third Vampire Hunter, who had lagged behind with the sailor. “What’s going on back there?”
But no answer came.
Only the sounds.
First a squelch.
Then a sickening twist, like flesh tearing through flesh.
A soundless breeze moving the grass.
Then… silence.
The mist thickened between them.
And something in it had moved.