Chapter 56: Shard

AJ’s POV

It was gross, mainly. That was really the only word for it. Gross. And it put up a resistance, especially the further in I forced my hand. It did have the texture of a rotting apple. Like when it’s brown and mushy, but still apple in shape. As though it had been rotting from the inside out.

But it got to feeling more organic and solid the further in I went. It also had an ethereal quality to it. The shard wasn’t all that huge in size. To use an odd descriptor, it was about the size of me, if I curled up into a tight ball. Only, as I forced more of my arm in, I reached a point where I’d have thought I’d be at the center at least.

I forced deeper because it felt like things were honestly do-or-die. If this really was a portal, I had expected it to suck me in. Instead, it just felt like I was elbow deep in a rotting carcass. A carcass which got less rotting the deeper I reached.