The scream of steel against steel was a constant, deafening din. Raw, hollow cries tore from throats, only to be cut short by the wet thud of blades meeting flesh.

  The stench of blood was a thick, metallic fog. But the true horror wasn't the dying, it was the rising. Bodies dropped, and in a profound challenge to nature, they rose again. Their purpose was singular… to feed. Not on flesh and bone, but on the life force of the living.

  Standing amidst the carnage, Alex watched in horror as wisps of blue light were ripped from the chests of falling soldiers, sucked into the gaping maws of their former comrades.

  ‘It's a dream,’ he told himself. ‘It has to be.’ But the terror felt incredibly real.

  He trembled, his heart hammering a frantic drum in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but the screams and the stench of rotten flesh forced them open again. His concentration shattered against the onslaught.

  ‘It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.’

  He fought for a grip on himself. His mind screamed Dream, but the warm, blood-tainted breeze washing over him screamed Reality.

  He stood on a hilltop. The field that stretched before him was painted in crimson mud. The sky was blotted out by a wall of thick, black smoke, an impenetrable shadow that swallowed the sun. This smoke wasn't born from fire. It was a living, breathing entity. A sheer wall of inky blackness that stretched from the ground to the eastern sky, rolling forward like a tide.

  A howl resonated from its depths. Another, and then another. A chorus of suffering that vibrated through his feet.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Heavy, ground-shaking footsteps approached.

  Alex froze, his breath caught in his throat. Trails of deep crimson light pulsed within the black inky smoke. Something was emerging and it was nothing close to human.

  Alex’s gaze froze as he stared… the creature’s body was a pale, unraveling corpse. Where organs should have been, snarled knots of dark, fibrous tendrils spilled out. Its head was a smooth, bald dome, a featureless face and where eyes should have been… only two wavering crimson lights burned deep within the skull like hateful embers. Its mouth split the face from nose to jaw, lined with needle-like teeth.

  “Move, kid!”

  A voice shattered his daze.

  Suddenly, Alex wasn't standing still. His legs were pumping, carrying him toward the advancing horror.

  ‘What… when did I…?’

  His body moved on its own. His right arm felt unnaturally heavy. He looked down. and in his hand, he gripped a long, double-edged sword, its tip nearly scraping the ground.

  “We can’t let them pass here!”

  The shout came from a man running beside him. His plate armor, once ceremonially white, was dented and stained crimson. He ran with the heavy, ground-eating stride of a man with nowhere left to retreat.

  Alex couldn't process it. There was no time for thought. The line of steel crashed into the advancing horror, and the world dissolved into violence.

  *****

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Clang.

  The jarring impact of his black sword meeting a snapping crimson tendril. There was no clean cut, only a sickening vibration that numbed his arm, as if he’d struck solid rock. The creature didn’t scream, it hissed, a sound like steam escaping a corpse.

  *****

  Flash.

  The man in white armor was gone. Replaced by a cloud of shimmering, screaming vapor. A dark tendril retracted from the empty space, pulsing with stolen light. The soul, devoured in an instant. A cold void of terror echoed in Alex’s gut.

  *****

  Retreat.

  He stumbled backward, swinging his sword in a wild, panicked arc to keep a twitching, pale-faced horror at bay. Its needle-teeth clicked in a frantic rhythm, its eyeless crimson gaze burning into him. The stench of the grave choked him.

  *****

  Silence.

  A symphony of despair. The cries of men around him were systematically silenced, not by death, but by erasure. One by one, their light was snuffed out. They were losing. Badly.

  *****

  Alex swung the black sword again. It felt extremely heavy, a burden of steel. It bit into a creature’s shoulder, but instead of blood, a thick, shadowy substance wept from the wound. Some of it splattered into Alex’s mouth. It tasted like ash.

  The thing didn’t flinch. Its mouth opened wider in a silent, clicking shriek.

  Crack.

  Alex groaned as tendrils whipped around his body, crushing his ribs. His armor was the only thing keeping him from being snapped in half as it lifted him off the ground. It stared at him with its featureless face, void of emotion mixed with a flicker of amusement. It brought him closer, inhaling deeply.

  Alex felt his strength draining away. His vision faded at the edges. He was being sucked dry, like a battery drained of its charge.

  “Help… me…” His whisper was lost in the chaos. Everyone around him was either a corpse or about to become one. This was it. Erasure.

  And then.

  A sound that didn’t belong, a low, resonant hum grew from a whisper to a roar. A light, pure and blindingly white, erupted from behind their crumbling lines. It washed over the battlefield in a silent wave, a cleansing energy. The effect was instantaneous.

  The creatures recoiled, their crimson lights flickering wildly. The inky smoke screamed, writhing away from the radiance. The tendrils withered. The clicking jaws fell silent. In moments, the horrifying forms unraveled, dissolving into nothingness.

  Alex fell and landed in a pool of blood, his own? Someone else’s? It didn't matter. He lay there, weak, his breathing a shallow rasp. His body felt disconnected from the neck down, paralyzed. The only thing working were his eyes.

  He stared up at the open sky. It was blue now, bright and clear. Birds circled above. Hundreds of them.

  ‘Wish I could fly,’ Alex thought.

  As the shapes descended, their forms were now clear. They weren't songbirds. They were vultures.

  ‘Of course,’ Alex scoffed internally. ’I’m dinner.’

  One by one, the massive birds landed. They tore at the flesh of the fallen around him, fighting over body parts. Alex lay still, praying they wouldn't notice him.

  Alas.

  A vulture turned its head. It stood at least two meters tall, its feathers oily black, its hooked beak stained red. Bright brown eyes locked onto Alex and It hopped closer.

  “Damn it,” Alex whispered through gritted teeth. “There’s no end to it, is there?”

  Just as the bird lunged, a shout broke the air.

  “Hey!”

  The vulture screeched and scattered into the sky, its flock following in a frenzy of flapping wings.

  “A survivor!”

  Footsteps pounded the earth. A shadow fell over Alex, blocking the sun. A face appeared above him, painted with grime, etched with exhaustion, but alive. The man’s eyes held a flicker of unwavering resolve.

  “Hey, stay with us, son. You’re safe now.”

  ‘Safe.’

  The concept felt foreign. But the voice sounded like the truth.

  And as the world dimmed, Alex let the darkness take him. Not as an end, but as a retreat.

  What will not Change:

  1. Plot

  2. Characters

  3. Major story events

  What I will focus on:

  1. prose polish,

  2. tightening pacing

  3. cleaning up sentences

  4. Improving readability.