Rita groaned, dust falling from her hair as she pushed a chunk of stone off her leg. Beside her, Ron coughed and forced himself upright, brushing dirt from his armor. The air was thick with smoke and the faint sound of dripping water echoed somewhere in the distance.
"You okay?" Ron asked, his voice strained.
"Y-Yeah… I think so," Rita muttered, clutching her broken staff. "Where's everyone else?"
They looked around — the tunnel that once stretched behind them was now a heap of collapsed stone. The path forward was barely visible, shrouded in darkness except for a few dying embers flickering on the ground.
Rita raised her staff and whispered a chant, summoning a weak flame — but the light barely lasted a second before sputtering out. The crystal at its tip was cracked.
"Great…" she muttered. "I can't even keep a fire spell up."
They pressed on, walking carefully through the dim light. The silence felt unnatural. Even the monsters they'd been fighting moments ago were gone.
Then, Rita's foot hit something soft.
She froze. "What… what was that?"
She tried again to light her staff — flickers of fire flashed, casting faint shadows. What she saw made her blood run cold.
It was an arm. Human. Torn clean from the shoulder, with the palm missing entirely.
Rita stumbled back, gasping.
"R-Ron…" she stammered, pointing ahead.
Ron squinted and stepped forward, raising his shield. The flickering firelight revealed more — three mangled bodies sprawled across the floor. He crouched down, and when he turned one over, his stomach tightened.
It was one of the adventurers they met at the dungeon entrance.
Their faces were twisted in agony, eyes wide, skin pale and drained — as if something had pulled the life right out of them. The ground beneath them was stained black, and the smell… it wasn't blood. It was burnt flesh and decay.
"This… this doesn't make sense," Ron whispered. "There's no sign of a struggle. No blood trail. Nothing."
Rita shook her head, trembling. "Ron, we shouldn't be here. Whatever did this… it may still be around
He nodded slowly, gripping his sword tighter. "You're right. We find the others and we get out. Keep close."
They took a cautious step forward — and then a faint noise broke the silence.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
It was coming from ahead, just beyond the corpses.
Rita's voice quivered. "Is that… water?"
Ron listened carefully. The sound was too thick, too heavy to be water. It was slower… almost like something was oozing from the ceiling.
He looked up.
In the dim flicker of Rita's dying flame, he caught sight of something strange and mutilated crawling along the ceiling — moving toward them.
"Run," he whispered.
Rita blinked. "What—"
"RUN!"