Author's Note: Words in ALL CAPS reflect emotional weight and urge. Every character speaks differently, so let their pain or power shape the emphasis.
(Einar's Notes, Entry Unknown:
"It was never my blood on Death's blade.
Only theirs.
Death came for ME last.")
Tunde couldn't breathe.
He collapsed—hard—into the dry grass, the brittle blades snapping beneath him like thin bones.
The sunlit field stretched wide—and felt too still.
But still—no air.
His lungs didn't just burn—
They screamed.
It felt like he had a key but no lock.
A scream with no mouth.
Untying a knot with no nails.
He looked up and gasped, his soaked hoodie falling off his head.
But nothing came.
His mouth opened and closed—his chest heaving—in sync
like a fish flung onto dry land.
He clawed at his throat, but there was a little slime on his hands.
Fingers scraped skin.
He slammed his fist into his chest once, twice, desperate.
"I no fit breathe—FUCK—I go die!"
Still—nothing.
Only the whistle of the wind, brushing through the tall grass, as if it didn't care he was dying.
No air. No answer.
With a heavy thud, he collapsed onto his back.
One hand—slick with a little blob of slime—reached toward the sky.
His face twisted upward, blank and broken, like a dying ghoul frozen mid-scream.
And then, through the blur—
His bloodshot eyes caught a glimpse of it.
The sun.
Cracked.
Fractured like a shattered mirror, bleeding light in strange, broken rays.
Even through the pain.
Even through the panic.
His voice followed, broken and desperate:
"Na dream be this? . Please—abeg—someone—save—me..."
Then—
a voice.
Firm. Calm.
Not spoken, but poured into him—
like water from a deep, echoing well.
"No."
"But we will be their nightmare."
"Now... breathe, child."
Air rammed into his lungs like a reverse sneeze.
His chest swelled—painfully, violently—like it might burst.
It felt like coming back to life.
His thoughts cleared, jagged and sharp, like glass cutting through fog.
He rolled onto his side, gasping—each breath dragging through his throat like sandpaper.
"What the actual fuck... ah—my chest," he muttered.
Finally catching a moment of relief, he sat up, coughing slightly. His sore lungs finally stabilised; no more screaming lungs, just the strange open field.
Questions flooded his mind as his eyes darted around as if looking for answers.
He still wondered if he was in a dream or if any of this was real
He put his hands on his head as his mouth dropped like a broken hatch
"Ah. Be like say I don enter evil forest o" he muttered while turning frantically.
Well, it was the only logical conclusion—
He'd seen it a hundred times in supernatural films back on Earth.
But this?
This wasn't fiction.
And in truth, he had no explanation.
His overworked heart picked up again—erratic, frantic.
Because he wasn't just alone.
He'd lost his only lifeline.
His phone—
The same phone he'd used to fake his own death.
The one thing tethering him to home…
gone.
And that meant something even worse.
"M-my mummy…"
His eyes widened.
He scrambled to his feet, looking around like the phone might suddenly materialise from the grass.
Nothing.
No way to call.
No way to know if she was safe.
No way to know anything.
"Where is this—abeg…"
He cradled his head in his slimy palms.
"Omo... I no fit even call my mama. God, what kind of day is this?"
He started scratching his scalp, fingers wild—
like something inside was trying to break out.
"AHHHHH—fuck that madman!"
Blades of grass burst into the air as he thrashed and kicked the ground, like a cornered animal unravelling in real time.
"YOU FOOL!" A voice bellowed—sharp, thunderous, and nowhere.
Tunde froze.
Eyes wide.
Breath caught halfway through a curse.
Very slowly, he turned his head, his expression blank—
His face was peppered with crushed leaves and dirt, like he'd been dragged through a jungle by a predator.
"...Who be that?" he muttered, as if asking the wind for directions.
"Leave now. Run, if you must—before it becomes real, child."
The voice slid through the air like fog—close but nowhere.
A thick, paralysing dread sank into Tunde's chest.
He gulped hard.
Still frozen in place, he slowly bent at the knees, like someone preparing to tiptoe through a minefield.
"God, abeg... now I'm hearing spirits?"
"What if it chases me, too?" he said, already tired at the though of it.
The thought cracked through his panic like thunder through stillness.
But what Tunde didn't know
Hesitation was his first mistake.
Plop.
A thick glob of slime dripped onto his hoodie.
Right on the shoulder.
Before another thought could form—
A towering shadow cast the shape of a curved beak, stretching a meter in front of him.
Then…
The ground beneath his feet shifted.
It wasn't ground.
It was rising.
By the time he realized it, the sun was gone.
Swallowed.
Like him.
Tunde didn't scream.
He couldn't.
Then it hit him—
A foul, rotting stench flooded his nose like a tidal wave of death.
He winced—
But before he could even raise a hand to cover his face...
He was already inside the mouth of the beast.
And the beak began to close.
Not fast—
slow. Purposeful. Like a coffin lid.
"RUN!" the unknown voice bellowed again.
This time, Tunde didn't hesitate.
His legs exploded forward—
bone-tired, burning —
But moving like a bullet.
One hand reached out, as if he could grab hope from the air.
Behind him—
The sound of cracking bones, like gears grinding through meat.
He hit the first step.
But the beak was already half shut. The roof of its mouth was almost at head level
Second step.
There was no time for a third.
He threw himself forward—
One last desperate leap.
But his foot slipped—
caught the slime.
Fuck—no!"
He pitched forward—
sliding through mud and ooze, staining his clothes—
into the light at the end of death's tunnel.
The momentum carried him—surprisingly far—
But not far enough.
He reached the beak—
Clawed at it—
Pulled with everything he had left.
SNAP.
A sickening thud followed—
As Tunde slammed into the ground shoulder-first.
It was like crashing into a wall made of bone and stone.
He let out a strangled cry, clutching his shoulder—
pain exploding through him in waves.
He writhed.
Swore through gritted teeth.
Each breath was sharp and broken.
Then he saw it.
A monstrous, tortoise-like abomination—
It's massive obsidian shell cracked and pulsing,
birthing black, harpoon-tipped tendrils
that floated around it—waiting.
Hunting.
Tunde, caked in black mud and grime like a forgotten WW2 soldier,
sat motionless beneath the soft, fleshy underside of its neck.
Frozen.
Its neck shifted—
slowly, deliberately, like something swallowing whole.
Then its jaw moved.
A grinding, guttural chew.
CRRNNKK.
The sound of bones turning to dust rippled through the air—
dry and brittle.
Tunde didn't move.
Couldn't.
He was still.
Until—
His shoe slipped off.
And landed with a soft, wet plop.
Tunde looked down.
His legs were gone.
Just like that.