Mort followed the call of his god.
He used every shred of life still clinging to the blood coating him. Already his monstrous form wavered—shriveling a little more with each beat of his heart. So he shaped his body with practiced ease, cutting away the dead sacred blood before it could weigh him down.
His god guided him—mind, body, soul—pulling him forward like a puppeteer with a thousand invisible threads. That connection fed him just enough power to keep flying. The village of Tepe shrank rapidly beneath him. Mort did not look back.
He whispered a final farewell to the miserable life he had lived there.
A farewell without grief.
He reveled in the rhythm of his wings. In the way the air caught him, held him, kept him aloft along with the fleshy pod clutched in his clawed feet. Though he knew the lift was more divinity than his own effort, he still flapped, as if to convince himself he was the one soaring.
Time blurred. Eventually, his body could continue no longer.
He crashed onto a jagged mountainside, collapsing into a puddle of fetid ichor. The reeking fluid clung to him, tendrils of corruption trying to burrow into his flesh. Mort growled, and with a surge of will, burned it away. His power pulsed, purging every hint of decay.
The mountain was familiar.
The whispers of his god were relentless, flooding his mind with hunger and affection. They tugged at his soul, wrapped around his exhausted body like a cocoon of shadow, easing his aches with their dark blessing.
Mort turned toward the open, gaping mouth of the mountain cave—
a tenebrous maw that breathed cold air and hunger.
But he froze.
Behind him, the living mass quivered. The pod pulsed with thick, wet rhythm. His god shivered with delight as the being within it stirred.
Then Mort felt it.
A bond—warm, electric—blooming in his chest.
Thoughts not his own spilled into his mind.
Memories.
A girl battered by life, bruised in spirit as much as flesh.
Bitterness swallowed in silence.
A child held in her arms—a boy—far more fragile than she, loved with a desperate, aching tenderness.
Mort trembled at every image. He felt her pain, her fury, her hopes. He felt everything transferred through the growing bond.
He dropped to his knees, gasping.
Something inside his sternum shifted—swelling, crawling.
A pressure built.
Then pain.
A spike of liquid agony pierced through bone. His chest writhed as the substance inside him moved like a many-legged insect struggling to break free.
The mountain echoed with the sound of bones crackling, snapping, shifting out of place.
Animals fled the peak in silence.
Even the wind seemed to retreat.
Only Mort's wails—raw, guttural, unending—dragged through the night.
A final evolution was taking place.
The misery was an easy price to pay—at least for someone who had known nothing but pain. To Mort, agony was familiar, almost comforting. And the relief that followed… that was an addiction stronger than any torment. He would endure anything for that wave of release—the warm, washing flood of bliss as each bone snapped, twisted, shattered, and then reformed into tender new flesh.
His god no longer whispered.
It fed him.
Power poured into him without restraint, filling every vein, every nerve, every shifting fragment of his demi-divine body. Nothing was left to chance. Nothing to mortal flesh.
Deep within the mountain, Itzcamazotz laughed.
The sound made the stone tremble. Dust spilled from the jagged ceiling like falling ash. The long years of starvation, self-imprisonment, and festering corruption were finally reaching an end. Soon, the sweet taste of vital blood would no longer be a rare pleasure. Soon, life would flow freely to him—unceasing, abundant, his to devour.
Saliva dripped from his long, quivering tongue. It slid down the grotesque slope of his face, keeping the endless swarm of insects that lived in his pit from crawling over his eyes and snout. Those that dared were scooped into his mouth with delighted smacks, their gooey innards and brittle shells crushed between jagged teeth.
The rest of the swarm that infested his thin, black-furred body, feasting on his corrupted blood. Swelled with each drop they consumed. Those that grew too bold were seized in clawed fingers and flung into his maw with a lazy contempt.
Tonight, Itzcamazotz was in an unusually giddy mood.
The full moon shone with the cold blessing of fate.
He had beaten back the foolish light god.
He had slain an irritating chosen before his future could unfold.
He had corrupted that chosen's unborn child—twisting the fragile life inside the womb long before it breathed air.
He wheezed, choking on laughter.
The way the boy venerated him—to Itzcamazotz it was delicious. The devotion, the worship, the awe-struck obedience. Mort had become a perfect vessel, shaped lovingly in his image. The child would inherit all the traits of the swarm, all the corruption that had kept Itzcamazotz anchored to this plane.
The few mortals he'd managed to warp using nothing more than the smallest of his fleas and ticks had sustained him thus far. A pitiful scrap of influence—but enough to survive.
Yet this would not be forever.
He wanted more.
He wanted the mortal plane to speak his name in fear and worship.
To adore his terrible, powerful form.
To offer themselves willingly to his endless hunger.
He dragged his long tongue over one of his pitch-black eyeballs, moistening it. The orb gleamed with growing greed.
His rebirth was close.
The life's blood of all beings would soon be his.
Renata tore her assailant apart.
A wet squelch followed by the slap of mangled flesh echoed in the cold silent night. Her body rippled, half-solid and half-liquid, as she flowed out from the pod. She still dreamed—nightmares pressing against her mind, grinding down any stray spark of rebellion, compelling obedience with relentless weight.
She groaned on the slime-slick soil, twisting and writhing. Hooked nails scraped through rock and packed earth with effortless penetration. Her limbs spasmed. Her back arched. Every movement was instinct, not understanding.
Then—
With a violent jolt of will—
Her eyes snapped open.
Two crimson spheres stared out with newborn malice. Hunger surged first, instinctive and ravenous, as her gaze drifted upward to the full moon's glow. Its light was the only gentle thing in the desolate place.
Renata tried to speak. Her lips parted, trembling as she attempted to form sound—but her throat refused to obey. No words emerged. Only a strangled rasp.
Confusion engulfed her.
She was lost.
Alone.
Everything around her was too loud, too bright, too strange. Her thoughts were tangled threads. Her own emotions were jagged shards she did not yet know how to hold.
A pressure swelled inside her chest.
Frustration tightened her small face, making her crimson eyes well with tears.
The reaction was instinctive.
Her distressed cries wavered like the soft, broken mewls of a newborn kitten—sounds that might have drawn pity from any human heart…
If she had not been covered in writhing worms of blood.
They squirmed over her tiny form, devouring the fleshy remains of the pod she'd emerged from. Tendrils remained attached to her stomach like umbilical cords, pumping corrupted nutrients into her rapidly changing body.
Her development accelerated with frightening speed.
In moments, the small toddler grew into a young girl—still childlike, but far more complete. Hunger faded to a manageable ache as the last of the pod was consumed.
She stood unsteadily, then tore the clinging tendrils from her abdomen one by one. She popped each into her mouth with absent-minded, instinctive hunger.
The little girl lifted her head at last.
Large red eyes, bright as polished rubies, glimmered with an eerie innocence. Her hair—black as the mountain's shadow—fell in a long, heavy sheet that dragged behind her. Pale skin reflected the moon's gentle light like porcelain touched by frost.
She blinked slowly.
Breathing softly.
Newly born.
Newly alive.
And utterly unknown to herself.