"Me?"
I gasped in shock as the face staring back at me turned out to be my own.
BAM!
I stumbled backward hard and collapsed on my butt, then immediately scrambled away from it in pure panic. It was Artemis—ME. But how was that even possible? And WHY?
I tried to stand up, but just before I could calm myself down enough to think clearly, I caught sight of my hand.
Bones.
Nothing but bones.
"Eh?" I chuckled dryly, the sound hollow and wrong. I had to be dreaming. There was just no way this was real. No way ANY of this could be real.
"Haah... haah... haaa," my breathing came in ragged gasps as panic set in badly. I looked down at my legs and saw the same thing—bones where flesh should be. I reached up to feel my face but found only skeletal structure beneath my trembling fingers.
Something was wrong. Something was VERY wrong here.
"The stone," I muttered as I realized I still had it clutched in my hand. Could it have something to do with this? That skeleton I saw earlier—I remembered clearly that back then there was still skin on me, I was still normal. Could this transformation have happened because I touched the stone?
"Fuck," I cursed under my breath.
"Ugh," a pained groan cut through my thoughts, and I looked up to find the seated version of me stirring awake.
I took an instinctive step backward.
"Run," it said weakly, and I frowned in confusion as blood rushed out of its mouth in a dark stream.
"Run, don't let it take you," it urged while trying to stand, but then skeletal hands shot out from the bone piles surrounding us and grabbed it tightly, holding it in place. "Run, Jake, RUNNNNNN!"
It was instantly dragged down into the ground by those skeletal hands, disappearing beneath the surface.
"Fuck, FUCK!" I scrambled to my feet in horror, tripped over the scattered bones but recovered almost instantly, and then started running as fast as my legs would carry me.
WHOOM!
"ARGH!" Something grabbed onto my leg and I tripped hard, tumbling over the pile of bones in a chaotic roll until momentum finally stopped me.
But just as I tried to get up, I realized something that made my blood run cold. "The stone, why am I still holding it?!" I was absolutely sure I had thrown it away moments ago, so why was it still clutched in my hand?
As soon as I noticed it, I tried to throw it again—well, TRIED being the correct word because something strange happened. "This is nuts," I chuckled dryly at the absurdity. My fist wouldn't open. It was as though my fingers were glued shut with the rock trapped inside.
GRRRRRRRR!
I heard creaking and groaning sounds coming from behind me and looked back quickly. At first there was nothing visible, just the endless piles of bones. I frowned and looked closer, squinting in the dim light.
All of a sudden—CREEAAAAK!
Skeletal hands burst out from the pile like something from a nightmare.
"Damn it!" I cursed and started running again, my heart pounding.
GRRRRRR!
This time the sound came from directly in front of me. I glanced back over my shoulder in growing terror. "I'm dead, so dead," I thought desperately, then forced myself to keep running forward while ignoring the hands that were reaching out from the piles on both sides, their bony fingers grasping at empty air where I had just been.
CREAK! CREAK! CREAK!
I saw a skull burst out of the pile ahead, its head cranking to the side at an unnatural angle before it adjusted itself and locked onto me with empty eye sockets. Then a hand burst out next to it and the skull began thrashing about violently, trying to pull itself free. Numerous others started doing the same all around me, and when I looked back I could see full skeletons already on their feet, shambling after me with jerky movements.
I jumped up and stomped hard on one of the skulls in my path, crushing it beneath my foot, then landed on another and another in quick succession. However, before I could leap again, a hand reached out and grabbed my ankle with surprising strength.
With that momentum completely disrupted, I tripped forward and collapsed face-first into the bones. "Oh crap," I muttered as I tilted my head to find a skull gazing straight at me from inches away, its jaw hanging open.
I tried to stand but something instantly grasped my leg with an iron grip, then grabbed my other leg before I could react. Before I could even understand what was happening, another hand seized one of my arms, then the other, and all of a sudden I was completely restrained and unable to move.
I was trapped.
And then... something appeared.
I couldn't describe it properly. I just couldn't put into words what I was seeing hovering above me, but it was something beyond the ordinary. Something that defied normal comprehension. Something absolutely HORRIFIC that made every instinct in my body scream in terror.
"Interesting... He will do~"
The voice that spoke those words didn't come from any mouth or throat, but seemed to echo directly inside my skull.