Chapter 8: Escape Among Carrion
The protective circle cracked, snapping like thin glass.
The Glawackus let out a triumphant howl — a sound that echoed through the beams of the library like the herald of certain death.
Caleb knew: if he stayed, he would be torn apart like the others.
Quickly grabbing his grandmother’s journal and the ritual dagger, he hurled himself through one of the side windows, bursting through the shards and crashing heavily onto the soaked ground.
The city was no longer his.
Eastbury decayed before his eyes: houses warped into pulsating masses of flesh and twisted wood; lampposts weeping bloody wires; streets blanketed in a viscous fog that seemed alive, stretching out invisible tendrils to seize him.
The corrupted townsfolk advanced — staggering figures with hollow eyes, whispering indecipherable verses in unison, invoking the forest’s hunger.
Caleb ran.
He weaved through disfigured alleys, leapt over broken fences, vaulted over corpses fused to the earth.
Each breath seared his lungs, the stench of decay clinging to his throat like mud.
Behind him, the sound:
The Glawackus’s claws scraping the asphalt, drawing ever closer.
Caleb knew he had to find another place — a sanctuary untouched by the corruption, where he could attempt to raise a new circle, complete the ritual, and destroy the source of the hunger before it spread beyond Eastbury.
But the forest was vast.
The corruption, deep.
And time, cruel.
In the distance, through the mist, Caleb spotted the old train station — abandoned, forgotten, perhaps still free of the rot.
With the last of his strength, he ran toward it.
Behind him, the living city screamed.
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