The Beginning

Chapter 10

Sam gulped, her eyes widening. "The UnderReality? How..."

"That's what I'm wondering too," Riley said. She tried to sound calm, but she was just as petrified as Sam, but she composed herself for the good of her friend. The sound of someone getting slaughtered echoed around the valley, followed by a shriek of pain and a cry for help. Riley's legs felt like jelly, and she had trouble walking. She decided to stay as still as possible, in case if any creatures were near her.

A low growl resounded from the ball, sending shivers up Riley's spine. The screeches seem to be getting closer, but she didn't know where they were coming from. Then Carlos grabbed her arm, pointed up, and whispered, "Look."

There were a bunch of tendrils on one side of a cliff. Attached to those tendrils, there were so many bodies of people that just hung loosely from their necks. Their skin was boiling constantly, their eyes just gaping holes of flesh. Whatever was in the place, it was clearly deadly.

Sam closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths. "Why are there bodies just hanging there? What killed them?"

Carlos shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe people? I mean, if they were starting to starve, then they might have killed them in order to eat them. That's cannibalism for you."

"No, people didn't kill them, but I know exactly what did," a voice interjected behind them.

Raven was standing there, her clothes tattered and ripped, and her skin covered in ash. But her eyes were still bright. "Hi, guys. I'm so glad to see you alive."

Riley hugged her. "Same here. I thought you were dead!"

Sam came up behind her. "How did you find us?"

"Apparently, he sent us all down here, and I was pretty close by. I figured that you might be here."

Carlos smiled. "Well, you found us. Now explain what killed these people," he said.

Raven started walking toward the cliff, which surprisingly was not that far away. Riley followed her, and she heard Carlos and Sam behind her. Raven pointed to some deep gashes that Riley thought might have been made by some really sharp instruments. As she looked closer, she realized that all the gashes ended in a rounded, sharp point. She recoiled. "Those aren't marks that are made by sharp things."

Carlos peered at them. "Those are claw marks. But they're too small to be made by them. What were they made by?"

The growls that Riley heard earlier got even closer, and she slowly turned around, not wanting to see what was behind them.

Three Catwings were stalking up the hill behind them, standing exactly where Riley was before. Their fur shimmered in the hazy light, and each Catwing had unsettling eyes, staring at them. They glanced at each other and snickered unpleasantly. Their fur began to shimmer, and they disappeared from view.

Carlos stared at the spot where they were, dumbfounded. "Where did they go?"

The bodies began to shift, and Riley leaped back. They came unstuck from the tendrils, their jaws dislocated but somehow still moving. One after the other, they came unstuck, standing behind the first body. Two eyes appeared in the holes of the Contaminite, worming their way through the flesh until they sat unevenly in the holes. Until now, Riley never realized how ugly the Contaminated were.

Their faces were covered in scaly skin, and their eyes were disproportionate to the rest of their face. They had incredibly small noses that were the shape of a cat's nose, and their teeth were sharp and shiny. When they grinned, their smile stretched quite literally from ear to ear. But the thing that unsettled Riley the most was the way they walked. They oozed, creeping along the ground like slime. She has never seen something so horrible.