Sezel and Vesta skidded to a halt just in the nick of time, the soles of their boots scraping harshly against the cracked pavement. Something had fallen from the sky, slamming into the ground just ahead of them with a concussive force that felt as if a meteorite had struck the earth. A thick, choking cloud of dust and debris erupted from the point of impact.
Sezel's eyes were wide, his heart hammering a frantic, wild rhythm against his ribs. Beside him, Vesta was frozen, her body locked in a state of instantaneous, paralyzing shock.
As the dust cloud slowly began to settle, the horrors that it had concealed came into view. It wasn't a rock. It was a body. The corpse of the muscular man, his eyes wide with a final, eternal shock, his impressive muscles now just so much dead, broken meat. His body was pinned to the ground by a long, stick-like formation, a construct of withered vines and dead wilderness, all of it entangled and hardened by some unseen force.
