After fishing the keys out of the pockets of the two police officers, triumphant grins spread across the faces of several gang members.
After years of butting heads with the police department, this was the first time they had won so decisively.
With the keys in hand, they unlocked the prison’s heavy iron gate with ease.
Stepping inside, a wave of suffocating oppression hit them. The interior was pitch black—so dark they couldn’t see their own hands in front of their faces. It felt as though the boundless darkness itself would swallow them whole.
The gang members couldn’t help but grumble. One of them raised his voice and shouted, “A prison this huge in Morbius City, and they can’t even be bothered to install a single lamp? Talk about cheap!”
Fortunately, Manville had a decent memory. He recalled seeing the officers use an oil lamp near the cell blocks on a previous visit. He quickly made his way to the front desk and began fumbling through the clutter.
Finally, in an obscure, dusty corner, his fingers brushed against a lighter and a lamp.
Manville carefully lit the oil lamp. The feeble flame flickered unsteadily in the oppressive dark, barely illuminating a small circle around them. It was just enough for the group to see the path beneath their feet as they pressed deeper into the prison.
“Still… don’t you think it’s a little too quiet in here?”
Manville frowned, a glint of caution flickering in his eyes. He glanced around. The cells that had held dozens of inmates during his last visit were now completely empty.
“The last time I was here, there were at least fifty or sixty prisoners. Now there’s not a sound.”
Manville muttered under his breath.
Just then, the veteran enforcer—the one who had survived countless gang shootouts—twitched his hooked nose and furrowed his brow.
“I smell something strange. Rotting flesh… stale blood. Someone definitely died in here, and it’s been at least three days. If what Manville says is true, there are probably piles of bodies in here. Stacks of corpses breed disease. I don’t recommend going any further without precautions.”
“My advice is to fall back first, find some wet burlap, resupply our ammo, and then continue.”
Another member chimed in agreement.
This was wisdom passed down from the old ancestors. They said that even three thousand years ago, people knew that mass death brought plague, and that holding damp cloth over your mouth and nose reduced the risk of sickness.
No one in the group argued. The logic was sound.
Manville’s crew hadn’t gone very far in the first place, so they retreated quickly. Outside, they “borrowed” a stack of coarse burlap fabric. Everyone folded the cloth into thick pads, soaked them, and pressed them firmly over their noses and mouths before cautiously venturing back inside.
Using the keys taken from the officers, Manville unlocked the inner door and stepped into the previous cell block. The floor felt sticky underfoot, and he shivered involuntarily.
“What the… this stuff is like glue.”
An overpowering stench of decay and iron assaulted his senses—even the wet cloth couldn’t block it entirely.
Fighting back waves of nausea, Manville lowered the oil lamp toward the source of the foul odor. What he saw wasn’t an intact human body. It was a scattered mess of torn fabric, numerous scalps still attached to long hanks of hair, and a heap of bone fragments from some unrecognizable creature.
“Urgh—”
Manville had been involved in plenty of underworld business and had seen his fair share of corpses. But this scene made his stomach churn violently. He nearly vomited on the spot.
The other gang members crowded around to look. Those with weaker constitutions took one glance at the carnage, screamed, and fled back outside.
Even the tougher ones—like the veteran of multiple gang wars—couldn’t help but furrow his brow in disgust.
“Brutal doesn’t even cover it,” Manville said through gritted teeth. “You’d have to be a lunatic to do this.”
“No…”
The veteran member stepped forward, crouched down, and carefully prodded the debris on the floor with his fingertip.
Manville felt a grudging respect. I can barely stand to look at it, and this guy’s touching it with his bare hands.
“I don’t think a person did this. Tell me, Manville… have you ever owned a dog?”
The veteran looked up.
Manville shook his head with a bitter smile. “A family like mine couldn’t afford a dog. We were lucky just to keep ourselves fed.”
“I used to live up north. Plenty of trained hunting dogs there. These bite marks… they look like the work of a large hound.”
He pointed at the fragments on the ground.
“Isn’t it normal for a prison to have hounds?” Manville reasoned. “Those cops love parading their mangy mutts around. Maybe they used knives to scalp these guys and then let the dogs finish them off.”
“No. That doesn’t explain this.”
The veteran rummaged through the mess until he found a skull cap still attached to its scalp. He lifted the greasy, blood-soaked length of hair and frowned deeply.
“There are no knife marks. The scalp wasn’t cut off. Judging by the fractures, the head was bitten clean off the body. I can’t imagine any dog, not even the largest breed, having the jaw strength to bite a human head off in one go like this.”
The veteran member suddenly felt his blood run cold. He had reached a terrifying conclusion.
“We need to get out of here, right now. There’s a monster in here!”
Manville wanted to believe it was just paranoia.
But no sooner had the words left the veteran’s mouth than a faint, rustling sound echoed from the far end of the corridor. It was followed by a high-pitched, terrified shriek from one of the other members—then a single gunshot and a muzzle flash that died as quickly as it appeared.
Whatever could make a grown man scream like that was beyond imagining. Manville had almost convinced himself the veteran was trying to scare him, but hearing that eerie scene unfold and seeing the terror on the faces around him left no room for doubt.
They scrambled to escape through the iron gate, but a long, dark silhouette suddenly dropped down in front of them.
“A snake?”
Instinctively, Manville grabbed the creature’s head, intending to fling it aside. But it wouldn’t budge. It was as if the snake was nailed to the air. No matter how hard he yanked, it remained perfectly still.
“What the hell…?”
The veteran beside him was staring blankly at the ceiling, too petrified to speak.
Still gripping the snake’s head, Manville followed the man’s gaze upward.
He froze.
What in God’s name is that thing?!
By the faint, wavering glow of the oil lamp, Manville could just make out the shape clinging to the ceiling. It was an elongated, lizard-like creature—but massive in scale.
It had two heads. One was human, but it hung limp and lifeless, devoid of any expression. The other resembled a hound’s head, but it was twice the size of any dog Manville had ever seen.
Its spine was lined with jagged spikes of unknown origin. Around the base of those spikes, metal plates were haphazardly embedded in its flesh, and foul, dark blood seeped from the open wounds.
Behind it stretched a tail, long and impossibly slender, drooping several meters down toward the floor.
“Wait… the tail.”
Manville’s gaze traveled down the length of that thin tail, all the way to… his own hand.
There was no doubt about it. The “snake” he was holding was this monster’s tail.
Manville swallowed hard.
Haah… think we can talk this out?
A sickening, wet crunching sound came from above, sharp and unmistakable. It was the sound of feeding.
The noise jolted the men below from their daze. This was the perfect moment—the predator was engrossed in its meal, distracted. It was their only chance to slip away.
“Hey… can everyone still run?” Manville whispered urgently, his eyes scanning the group.
The gang members nodded frantically.
“On the count of three, we make a break for it!”
Manville took a deep breath, ready to count down.
But before he could utter a single number, one of the men in the back—completely broken by fear—lost his nerve. He bolted like a wild horse toward the open exit.
Seeing that, Manville abandoned the count. He yelled, “Go! Go! Go!”
The group surged forward, sprinting desperately toward the door.
Behind them, the monster continued gnawing on the unfortunate soul it had caught, its attention fully absorbed by the fresh meat. It didn’t seem to notice the fleeing figures below.
“Arghhh!”
Suddenly, a scream cut through the air ahead.
Manville’s head snapped forward. A massive silhouette, as imposing as a small mountain, had appeared out of nowhere, blocking their escape route.
Manville raised the lamp, the light revealing another gargantuan creature.
“Hey now… this isn’t the kind of place you come and go as you please.”
The giant thing spoke.
Unlike the mindless eater behind them, this creature’s human head was fully conscious and alert.
A huge hand shot out, effortlessly seizing the lead runner by the throat and hoisting him into the air. The gang member thrashed and kicked, legs flailing uselessly.
“Shoot it! Open fire!” Manville shouted, his mind racing.
Guns seemed like the only answer—a way to hurt the beast and save their comrade.
But the veteran member grabbed his arm, holding him back.
“Don’t shoot! There’s another one behind us. Gunfire will draw it right to us, and then we’re really trapped.”
Manville’s blood ran cold. The man was right.
If this thing in front of them could still be reasoned with using human words, maybe… just maybe they could negotiate.
“We have no quarrel with you! Why block our way?” Manville forced the words out, fighting to keep his voice steady.
The massive creature tilted its human head, the hand gripping the gang member’s neck pausing mid-crush. It seemed to be thinking—or perhaps just savoring the power of holding a life in its palm.
