The Crawling Singer

Kraft quickly weighed the pros and cons of the front door and the kitchen, then dashed toward the entrance.

The water came up to his knees, slowing him down considerably. The door, which should have been only two breaths away, took several times longer to reach.

His shoulder slammed into the closed door. The entrance, which he had expected to be ajar, didn't budge; Kraft himself was knocked back two steps. A few splashes landed in his mouth. They tasted briny and fishy. It was seawater.

Wenden Port had never suffered such a terrible seawater flood. Even if one had occurred, it would have been confined mostly to the harbor and the Salt Tide District. If the water had reached this depth at the inn where he was staying, not even half the rooftops in the Salt Tide District would still be above water.

A crash came from upstairs as a room door broke apart and fell. The spreading light illuminated the entire second-floor corridor. Reflected off the water below, it lit up the whole lobby, allowing Kraft to see the entrance in front of him.

There was no bolt on the inside, but he refused to believe it and rammed the door again. This time, he heard a metallic clink mixed in with the impact. The lock sprang loose from the wooden panel, then fell back into place. The door had been locked from the outside.

He could now be fairly certain that he'd been moved in his sleep to somewhere similar, yet different. This was clearly an inn closed for business while its owner was away.

But knowing that did nothing to help him now. The light at the foot of the stairs was rapidly growing brighter. The thing had picked up speed and was heading this way, its wet, viscous body making a heavy, nauseating sound as it moved.

It had abandoned its disguise. It advanced down the corridor without trying to hide, boneless, fleshy limbs slapping and stretching. There was more than one. They made a succession of overlapping, wet, sticky sounds as they slapped against the floor.

Hard, angular structures on top of them bit into the wooden boards and the mixed timber-and-stone walls with every impact, smashing and pinning whatever they touched. They pierced through, their impacts ringing out without pause. Bone structures that should have been contained within its body had punched through muscle and mucous membranes, forming appendages that helped it walk and grip.

All that softness was an illusion, meant to hide the predatory parts within—the side of it warped by malice.

It was making its own sound now, no longer trying to conceal it.

Its screech mingled countless voices, too many to distinguish. It seemed to have multiple vocal organs vibrating, a mass of writhing throats murmuring in tiny, low voices, rising and falling without end.

Resonating and amplifying, they formed a gloomy song across several pitches, like a choir. It held a pattern beyond ordinary understanding, its sound waves passing through the air to reach every creature capable of hearing.

The song defied human notions of melody. After every low or high passage, it always veered into the least suitable continuation, lacking any conductor to coordinate the competing parts. It was like a divided will, each fragment granted its own mouth.

An uncontrollable irritation welled up from deep within him, clawing at his consciousness. He wanted to draw his sword on the spot and split the source of the sound open, hack it to pieces, destroy it by any means he could think of. He couldn't endure another second of the noise.

Kraft clutched his head, feeling the compulsion he hadn't experienced in a long time flare up again, trying to force him to carry out a thought that wasn't his—to put an end to the sound.

He pressed his knuckles against the weak spots on either side of his skull, using pain to suppress this irrational impulse. His mind was filled with anger and the din of its babbling voices. It took all his energy to resist the interference, leaving him unable to think about anything else.

The blasphemous song was drawing nearer, and the light came with it, growing brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding.

It poured down from the second floor, flowing across the surface and through the depths of the water, as if it had gained substance and could move through liquid. It spread through the briny seawater and surged toward Kraft.

The glowing liquid, the flowing light, gathered in the clear water into something like a glossy, oily film. It brought to mind the grease that clung stubbornly to water's surface, a sign of deteriorating water quality, followed by a greasy stink and rot.

The white, once gentle and pure, was now marred by uneven colors. Different shades of white blended into a mottled mass. Gray-white rolled up from within like a gaping wound, or like a fissure-shaped maw opening beneath smooth skin.

Sensing that its target had nowhere to run, it no longer bothered to conceal itself. It unfurled at leisure, slowly making its way down the corridor toward the stairs.

The intricate, discordant noise still echoed, traveling along the eardrum and the chain of auditory bones into his skull, carrying vibrations that threw his sensors into confusion.

Kraft let go of his head and used the table beside him to straighten up. He drew his longsword and wedged it into the crack in the door, trying to pry it open.

At his grandfather's insistence, the craftsman who made the sword had used the finest materials and forged it with repeated blows. Its sharp edge could cut through leather armor, and if its longevity wasn't a concern, it could even hold its own against metal.

But evidently, the sword hadn't been designed to double as a crowbar, nor could it chop through an iron lock in such a narrow gap. Kraft's full weight bent the blade into a broad arc. It was nearing its elastic limit, yet the door still wouldn't budge.

He felt there was no way to escape, unless the owner had built another door somewhere. He could suggest that in his next life. Still, as the saying went, "When faced with a beast, confront it and meet its gaze... that way, you can die with dignity."

The situation was a little different, but the principle was the same.

The Otherworld Soul's upbringing had made him unafraid of ghosts and gods. He firmly believed that anything alive would eventually die. Except whales—he didn't know what other creature could survive a sword through a vital spot.

And as the descendant of a long-trained skull-splitter, he was no less familiar with a sword than with pen and ink. The family's third generation still had plenty of bloodlust left in it.

He gave up on thinking of a way to escape and focused the last of his energy on making the more sensible choice.

The irritation stirred up by the maddening noise and the courage born from fear of the unknown pushed to its limit mingled together, giving him a little of the resolve to burn his bridges. He was certain there was only one choice.

Kraft straightened and drew a long, deep breath. The cold, damp air flooded his lungs, cooling both body and mind.

Freed from the pressure, the sword sprang back into shape, still wedged in the crack. It vibrated with a metallic hum.

"It wasn't made to deal with wood."

He gripped the hilt tightly, calming the faint tremor in his palms, and pulled the longsword out of the crack with his other hand. Its familiar balance reassured him.

The Kraft of this world had imagined countless times what his first real battle would be like. He'd enjoyed hacking away with training swords, day after day for more than a decade, hoping to win enough glory on the battlefield to make his name last for generations.

He still remembered being fourteen, when his body had finally grown enough to wield a standard weapon. Old Wood had handed him this specially made sword, without a trace of a smile on his face. That look had left Kraft baffled.

["I hadn't wanted to give it to you..."]

At the time, Kraft had been so delighted to receive the long-coveted gift that he'd wanted to rush outside and draw it for a test swing. His confusion over his grandfather's words and expression soon slipped from his mind.

From then on, he'd used the sword day after day, caring for it meticulously until it felt like an extension of his arm. He knew it better than his own arm.

Now, for some reason, the memory came back to him. He understood the contradiction in Old Wood's eyes, and the second half of the sentence, hidden behind his gray-white beard, no longer seemed unclear.

[...but I was afraid you'd need it one day.]

Well, this was that day. The only regret was that enemies never let you ease into things, and they didn't follow the chivalrous code of a knightly duel.

He'd thought he'd start with a mounted charge in full armor against infantry. He hadn't expected his first time to be such a high-difficulty challenge: fighting an unknown creature without armor, under terrible conditions, with no attendants to help him.

But it wasn't all bad. An optimist might say that against an animal with a massive physical advantage—especially one that could kill you with a single slap, armor or no armor—staying mobile wasn't necessarily worse than wearing plate.

That claim was questionable, and only marginally more credible than sliding beneath a tiger. But credibility wasn't what he needed right now. He just needed a little reassurance before facing the light at the top of the stairs.

For the first time that night, he didn't retreat. He advanced toward the thing.

With his life in danger, his mind was more focused than ever. Muscle memory guided his movements, making them crisp and powerful. Both hands on the sword, he steadily pressed forward through the water.

He marshaled his thoughts, forcing himself to remember the positions of the tables and chairs despite the frenzied shrieking. The light spilling through the room happened to help him see. The entire lobby took shape in his mind as a three-dimensional space he could use to his advantage.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but as his rationality brought his awareness back under control, his body grew stronger. And the strength of his body, in turn, encouraged his will to resist.

Kraft fixed his gaze on the stairs, forcing himself to adapt to the sensation. He had to be able to face the thing.

The filthy white light spread farther, and the distorted, overlapping sounds drew closer. The malicious presence crawled onto the upper stairs, its pliable body stretching downward. It was an unnatural thing beyond description.

After assailing his hearing, it now inflicted terrible torment on Kraft's vision. Just looking at it made him feel wretched.

It was a tentacle-like appendage growing from a massive body. It had no suckers. Its uneven, deathly pale skin was covered with tightly packed grooves, and glowing lumps of various sizes were scattered across it, clustering in bunches around the raised parts.

It hung stiffly down, its tip twitching and curling.

In contrast, branches as fine and dense as hair writhed wildly across its skin, showing an energy entirely at odds with the main appendage. They struggled and reached in every direction, as if conscious, grasping for anything they could latch onto.

As the limb appeared, the screaming song reached a new crescendo. The sound came from worm-eaten holes in the thicker, longer tendril branches. They spewed white, glowing slime along with blasts of air, like some alien flute playing a tune.

And these weren't even the most unbearable of its foul organs.

As several branches contracted, they forced out what looked like exceptionally sharp, pale-yellow bone. Such things filled the lengthwise, slit-like mouths of its branches. As they swayed, they bit mercilessly into the surrounding tissue, pulling it into the Cyst Cavity to chew. All around them were the severed remains of their own kind.

From the broken ends of its branches, new white buds of flesh grew visibly fast, filling the gaps and sustaining this incomprehensible feast.

Even the deepest nightmares of humankind had never shown anything so terrifyingly chaotic.