I'm rotting inside
My flesh turns to dust
Once, it never had to introduce itself. Once, all of Beqanna knew of the Chamber's monstrous king. Once, it felt like it ruled the world.
It had its taste of power. It was a tyrant, a weapon of chaos and disarray. It held two kingdoms simultaneously and began a legacy. Many quivered under its deadened stare, but that was decades ago. This world is practically new. Beqanna has long since forgotten the mass murderer and the sins it had committed. It's starting anew in a sense, but it wants to return to how it once was when the fears of Beqanna were held in its palm.
It has forgotten how to socialize in the time away when the maggots were feeding on its limp corpse in the forest. Nothing but bones had been left and yet it still came back to life and it still has its memories. It remembers Morbid Reason, One, Crimea, and Starlace. It remembers its time as a king, but it fails to remember how to hold a steady conversation. With a building hunger all it wants to do is eat, to kill, but the welcoming party is growing and barricading it in.
Aletheia doesn't move underneath its lips even as Thorunn arrives with concerned eyes. It spares her a lasting glance while its muzzle lifts away from the girl's body. There was a connection when skin and skin met. Like desperate fingers reaching for its soul Aletheia's body tried to keep it pressed against her. A brief glance allows their eyes to meet before it returns its attention to Thorunn. "You never asked." A line of drool slips through a torn chasm in its mouth with a grubby maggot following close behind.
It wants to find Thorunn underneath its touch, to feel her heartbeat and feed on her discomfort, but its finds itself tethered to Aletheia still without even realizing it. Its chest is leaning against her side as she peers up at it and returns its question without an answer. A brow lifts as the tickle of magic threads through its rotted body. Is she the reason it can feel another slab of flesh slough off and hit the ground, or was that just a part of its deathly cycle?
A third member arrives, but this is a male driven by his curiosity. His mannerisms are far kinder than it anticipated. An archaic tongue slips across its chapped lips in amusement. "You ask so sweetly," it chides with a low, grating chuckle. When it blinks it realizes that they are all staring in wonder, in confusion, in concern. A breeze navigates from the mountains and dances through the hanging strips of skin on its body. "Such curious children," it begins as a shrug ripples through its shoulders, "I'm Infection."
The infection that will soon plague Beqanna once more.
infection