The creature followed Harith, jerking, and trembling. Its mouth unhinged—distending until its gaping maw scraped the ceiling, teeth like crooked bones cracking as it lunged.
Harith didn't even think.
He ran... faster.
His blood-slicked shoes slapped against the floor, every step echoing like gunfire in the silence. The creature behind him roared—a hollow, wet sound, like wind through a grave—but faster, louder.
He could hear it crawling, scuttling after him with limbs that didn't match its shape, claws skittering across walls and ceiling as if gravity had forgotten to apply to it.
The corridor blurred around him. Doors melted into the walls. Lights exploded into sparks as he passed beneath them. And all the while, the knife pulsed in his hand like a second heart, vibrating with every thud of his footsteps.
"You opened the temple," a voice hissed, low and raspy—impossible to tell if it came from the creature or his own head. "You bled it. You woke us."
