The three silently looked at each other.

  “What the hell is wrong with this place…” Gareth muttered and used his hand to wipe his face.

  Relyn just looked at him with the corner of his eyes, but kept his mouth closed. He was also terrified.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s leave, but before…” Milen spoke and started to fiddle through his bag and pulled a piece of cloth and a herb out from it.

  “Relyn boy… come here, let me take a look at you,”

  “We need to get out of there, no time for that,” Relyn said, and shook his head.

  “Oh, believe me son, there’s nothing that I want more than getting out of here. But you ain’t walking much like that” Milen replied, and struggled to walk towards Relyn.

  Relyn looked at own body and realized he really might not make it far, looking again at Milen, he nodded.

  “Good. Now sit before you fall over and make my job harder,”

  He dropped to one knee and soon Milen crouched beside him, moving with a surprising precision despite his missing hand.

  "You’re good at this," Relyn said, watching Milen press the herb to the wound while holding the cloth between his teeth.

  After only a couple of minutes, Milen was done with the major wounds and used his teeth to tighten the last knot.

  “Better be. You don’t last long out here if you can’t take care of yourself.” He chuckled.

  Looking at Milen’s leg, Relyn went through his own bag and tried to get something similar as to what Milen had just used on him.

  “Let me,” Relyn said, grabbing the supplies.

  Milen glanced at him for a moment but agreed, leaning against a rock to stretch out his injured leg.

  He didn’t have the other man’s ability, but Relyn had done that a couple of times to himself when he got into some dire situations in the past, so dealing with an injury like that wasn't something he wouldn’t be able to do.

  “Thank you, Relyn boy. Now… let’s move,” Milen said, with his leg feeling somewhat better, he started to move.

  The group continued their path, leaving the beast’s body behind them.

  Not long afterwards, Milen’s voice spoke up again.

  “That hound. It wasn’t normal. Too close to the rift’s entry. And there’s also that scream… something’s not right about this place.”

  Relyn just continued moving, his mind was too much of a mess to think about that now.

  “They should have a way to estimate the rift’s danger. It's not supposed to be like this, they sent us into something much worse than a normal expedition.” Milen continued.

  As they made their steps back and turned into a corner, they saw the path ahead widening a little, everything they had already seen before, except that this time, there at a corner, there was a crawler crouched down.

  The three stopped at their steps. They knew well that this person was not supposed to be there.

  The others should avoid taking the same paths, and this guy was clearly not there the first they walked through this place.

  “Hey friend… what are you doing here?” Milen called out.

  The man didn’t say a word, nor moved. He just stayed there, crouched and looking at a wall.

  “Damn. What’s wrong with this shit head?” Gareth moved forward, closer to the man.

  “Hey! You deaf or something?”

  Relyn and Milen moved closer as well, and when they were close enough, they noticed his pupils were wide and his lips were blue.

  He had tears running down his cheeks, and kept whispering the same thing over and over again.

  “We don’t belong… We don’t belong… We don’t belong…”

  “Shit,” Milen muttered under his breath and almost fell to the ground.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Relyn snapped and walked forward, trying his best to keep his distance from the crawler.

  “We don’t belong… We don’t belong…”

  Milen and Gareth soon followed him.

  They walked for a few minutes before everything went cold.

  The air that wasn’t very easy to breathe in the first place got even worse, and a faint, tapping sound reached their ears.

  The three turned their gazes to the path behind them. Coincidentally, they were close to the bifurcation they found earlier.

  Where before they had just seen a slim path, now there was a figure there standing in the dark, a small humanoid shape. Its face couldn't clearly be seen, but its deep blue eyes glowed through the darkness.

  It stepped closer, and the light revealed its mess of hair which hid his face.

  Its head spun and tweaked in an unnatural way, twisting as if trying to break free from itself. Despite the contortions, its glowing blue eyes remained locked on them.

  ‘This is the thing I felt earlier! How can a monster like this even exist…’

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Relyn’s pupils shrank as the adrenaline went through his body once again. But unlike before, when it had fueled him with strength, the rush now only brought dread. He sweated from almost every pore of his body.

  “What... what is that?” Milen’s voice trembled.

  A chill ran down Relyn’s spine as he stared at it. He didn’t know what this was, but he felt it.

  “Keep moving,” Relyn whispered through gritted teeth.

  "Why move? We’re dying here. This is The Punishment, can’t you see?" Gareth fell to his knees, shaking his head. His voice cracked, and he let out a bitter laugh.

  “Get up, you fucking coward!” Relyn spoke and took another step.

  "Gareth, we’re leaving! Get up!" Milen stepped toward Gareth, grabbing his arm.

  "Stop! Don’t touch me!” Gareth screamed and his voice was now desperate.

  He got free from Milen’s grip and dropped again to the ground.

  Milen stirred. He took a shaky step backward, then another, his survival instincts and experience beat his fear.

  “Fools! Two fools! Show mercy upon me, O you Wrathful. This land has defied your Sacred Will, yet I beseech Your…” Gareth spoke and began to chant a prayer and pressed his forehead hard against the ground.

  Relyn began moving too, keeping himself close to Milen, and the sound of Gareth’s chant grew lower until it eventually faded as they moved away from the place.

  Their eyes were fixed on the faint light of the rift’s distant entrance.

  They were finally getting close.

  After the silence, Relyn heard footsteps again, scratches and noises. It all came from his back, seemingly approaching them.

  “Do you hear that?” Relyn asked, unsure if this was his fear or exhaustion taking its toll on him.

  “Yes,” Milen answered and his voice was shaky.

  “Don’t look back, there’s no point in that,” Milen continued after a moment.

  “If we are to die here, let's keep our pants clean for the afterlife,” he said, with a weak grin on his face.

  Their legs felt heavy and their bodies were drained from fear and exhaustion. But they didn’t stop.

  After what felt like an eternity, the air was no longer so oppressive, and the rift’s entrance became clear.

  The first thing Relyn saw after stepping out of the Rift, was a small camp, where only two soldiers were in.

  The sun hung high in the sky and the air was refreshing again.

  When the two of them left, Relyn immediately looked behind to see if anything would come out of there to follow them, but nothing came.

  As soon as the soldiers saw them walking out of the rift, they immediately got up and ran towards them.

  “Hey! Are you alright?!” one of the soldiers called looking at them.

  “Merley?” Relyn murmured, recognizing the soldier he had met the other day.

  “What happened there?” Merley asked in a hurry..

  “We have people in there! Gareth! He’s close to a Harrow. It’s a fucking Harrow!. We need to get him out, now!” Milen was urgent..

  Merley’s expression darkened.

  “Did you hear me?!” Milen barked, grabbing the soldier by the shoulder.

  “We have to go with backup now if we want to get him out alive. He’s a damn fool, but he’s human!” Milen continued in a frenzy.

  Merley shook his head slowly

  “Go inside,” He said, pointing toward the gates of the nearby settlement.

  “What are you talking about?” Milen demanded, scanning the area for other crawlers from their expedition.

  “What about the others?” Milen asked.

  “There are no others,” Merley said grimly.

  “We’ve been monitoring the spheres. Your group was the only one still alive.” He finished speaking.

  “That’s not right! We’ve just seen a man from another group when we were coming back. He’s still there! And there’s also Gareth!”

  Merley gave him a weird look, glanced down at something on the table, then looked back up.

  “Your group is the only group alive. Everyone died over three hours ago.”

  Milen’s mouth opened as if to protest, but the words didn't come.

  “We’re evacuating. The order came from the capital hours ago. This territory is lost.” Merley continued.

  Relyn’s vision blurred further. The adrenaline that had kept him going was drained away, leaving only pain and exhaustion.

  “There has to be a way. Everyone will lose-”

  Words of their conversation started fading to Relyn’s ears as his knees collapsed to the ground, his body finally gave up and his consciousness faded away.