- Corrupted Land

They had been lucky with the weather.

Favourable winds and an absence of rain had resulted in them having a quick and easy time on their journey.

Nevertheless, the journey still took them an entire month to complete.

They first saw the island while they were still a couple of days away.

It was an unnerving sight, the type that twists your stomach and pulls it out through your mouth.

It looked as though the island itself was alive.

It could have been because of the motion of the boat, or a result of the distance, but the island seemed to rhythmically contract and relax much like a heart or lungs.

As they got closer, other anatomic features became revealed.

Large veins of corruption ran through the island, supplying power to both it and its denizens. They were visible under the skin of the island, a skin that was easily blemished with outbreaks of spots that revealed putrid fluids.

Vile creatures also inhabited the island, announcing their presence with an orchestra of visceral, guttural sounds.

As they got even closer, they saw the creators of such sounds.

Some creatures flew overhead, their fat bodies and buzzing wings, reminiscent of an oversized, plague-ridden insect.

Some sprinted around on four limbs, their mouths dripping with their foul saliva.

Some slithered along, leaving a path of secreted goo in their wake.

As they ventured even closer, they spotted the human inhabitants of the island.

'Human seems like too loose a descriptor for them,' Marcus thought as he stood on the deck. They would arrive within a matter of hours.

Despite them being skin covered bipedals who looked exactly like humans, they emanated an aura that gave Marcus an uncanny valley sort of feeling.

Their skin was ridden with injury and disease. Flesh rotted on different parts of their body. Their movements indicated an unnatural level of strength, as the floor buckled with every step they took.

Their bodies were mutated beyond what Marcus thought could be real. Where they should have normal limbs, they instead had much larger muscles and claws instead of hands, designed for combat.

They gathered on the shore in a small group, prepared for the group to arrive.

'They knew we were coming,' he thought, the words of his dream ringing in his ears.

"Listen up. We're going to be fighting as soon as we touch down, so get prepared."

"Fighting?" the pilot, who's name ended up being Ismar, asked in a worried tone.

"Yeah. Fighting. Don't worry, you can turn the ship around at any time. Just know that the world will end if you do."

He swallowed and took a deep breath before responding. "Okay. Guess I don't really have a good choice then, huh."

As the vessel drew closer, the creatures on the shore grew evermore restless, eager for their enemies to come to them.

Just before the boat touched shore, Marcus lifted the four of them into the air.

Once they landed, Marcus launched a wave of fire at the creatures, while Tess launched shadow tendrils out of her body.

Both attacks rapidly advanced on their foes, before fading out of existence in an instant.

"Huh?"

"What?"

Giving them barely any time to react, a pack of creatures raced forward.

Marcus drew a blade in a reverse grip and slashed at the nearest beast that leapt at him. It landed and didn't get back up, its internal parts leaking out of its side.

He flipped the blade and stabbed forward, piercing a second beast in the chest. He used his foot to free the blade and, flipping the grip back, drove the blade through the cranium of the beast.

Given a second to assess the situation, Marcus glanced at the others.

Roxy had dashed forward to assist Tess and Marcus, filling their blind spots with her dual daggers.

Elanor hung back, providing support by shouting warnings forward.

An attack from the left snapped him back to focus.

He dodged low to the left, under the beast's swipe, while raising the dagger to cut the beast's underbelly.

At the same time, another beast attacked him from the right, unseen by him. By the time he noticed, it was too late. The attack would kill him.

But it never connected.

A body appeared between man and beast, taking the attack instead. A vision of long, black hair flashed before his eyes, before the body it belonged to fell back.

"Tess? What? Why?"

Marcus caught her as she fell and laid her onto the ground.

Her chest was torn open and waves of blood rushed out. Her breath became raspy, a result of the claw reaching her lungs.

She struggled out words as Marcus rose and slashed the throat of the beast.

"I... I pro... I promised... promised them."

"Don't waste your breath," he said, crouching back down to her side. "Just hold on."

She shook her head. "I... I'm sorry." She coughed up a pool of blood. "Finish this."

"I will. I promise," he said, looking around for danger.

The beasts were all but gone now.

Elanor stepped forward and took Tess's weapons, filling the gap that her death had caused.

As if waiting for a timed trigger, the mutant creatures charged.

Their speed and strength was surprising. They arrived at the group in an instant.

Elanor was caught unprepared. One of the creatures slammed an arm through her, and tore her organs from her body. The life vanished from her eyes before they realised what had happened.

Similarly caught, Roxy survived through her close-quarters training and nothing else. She dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a blow to the torso by sacrificing an arm. She lashed back with a dagger, but the attack was too weak to do anything but scratch the creature.

Angered by her retaliation, the creature slashed at her and ripped out her throat. Her face became a permanent fixture of shock, as her life flowed out of her throat along with her blood.

'We didn't lose,' Marcus thought, 'we were massacred.'

He dropped to his knees, his mind and body giving into a feeling of futility.

The creature in front of him raised an arm, preparing to finish him off.

It stopped before striking, as though it was ordered not to kill him.

It reversed the arm and struck him with a blunt blow that knocked him unconscious.