Chapter 19: Nature Forms
The city wasn't just in chaos - it was being digested alive.
Blood didn't simply stain the streets; it moved with a terrible purpose, thick rivers of it oozing between cobblestones like the veins of some dying beast.
Bodies lay twisted in angles that would make a contortionist wince, limbs bent backwards at joints never meant to bend.
The air hung heavy with the stench of iron and something far worse - a thick, vegetal rot that coated Menma's tongue like spoiled honey, making every breath a battle against nausea.
Screams formed a grotesque symphony around them. Some cut off with wet finality, others dissolved into gurgling pleas that somehow hurt worse than the sudden silences.
The decapitated Nature Form at Menma's feet spasmed violently, its vine-like limbs thrashing against the cobblestones before finally going still.
Thick green sludge, too viscous to be called blood, pulsed from its severed neck in rhythm with its dying tremors.
That final gurgling rattle wasn't just death throes - it was a beacon.
From every shadow they came. Shattered windows vomited forth their twisted forms. Alley mouths disgorged pulsing, root-knotted horrors.
Even beneath overturned market carts, the cobblestones heaved as something burrowed upward. Their flower-heads gaped obscenely, dripping acid that hissed and spat against stone like angry serpents.
Most disturbing was how they moved - not with a predator's calculated grace, but with the desperate, erratic energy of prey fleeing something unimaginable.