RE: Monarch

It was slow going. The air itself was heavy, vile, exceeding the mundane stench of waste and decay. The rounded walls swam, their aperture widening and tightening with seemingly no pattern. Pushing through it all felt like forcing my way through a physical barrier, sometimes requiring such effort that my vision darkened, unconsciousness little more than a single misstep away.

Nightmares lurked at every turn and ambush point. Distant voices of loved ones wailed out in agony, the cacophony overlapping, offset and dissonant, wheezing like a lung riddled with holes.

Mutilated hands reached from the muck for our legs, our boots, tattered skin sloughing off as they tried to drag whoever they could get a hold on towards the muck.

Sometimes entire people rose from the sludge, begging for clemency even as they advanced, toying with the heartstrings of anyone whose attention they could capture, buying enough time to close distance. Some threw themselves forward, attempting to bite. Others attempted to jam their fetid fingers into eyes, mouths, anything they could feasibly reach that wasn't armored.

So far, only one man had been blinded, another badly mauled. The only saving grace preventing further casualties was that the wretches never showed up in greater numbers.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard my mother crying for help, choking on blood.

I stabbed a nearby wretch and flung it away, panting from the effort, watching as it sank beneath the oily surface.

"Is this still the right way?" Mari asked.

"According to the blueprints, it's a straight shot. We haven't altered course," Maya said. She was leaning on her staff more than usual, using it for support. "Unless we somehow missed the tunnel."