Reincarnated as an Apocalyptic Catalyst-Chapter 108: The Drowned

So far so good. There was pretty much nothing going on in town, which was a huge part of why things were going well. We had gotten a bit cavalier with our lookout of the undead, as it had been well over 4 hours of walking, while Vance and I would periodically take the time to team up and scavenge nearby structures for any provisions. We still took it all seriously, but even in our situation, when you run into absolutely no opposition, there was a seemingly infinite source of flesh-eating undead just the night before.

However, all good things must come to an end, and the end of our good time had come in the form of some rather elastic ground. That might not be the best way to describe it, but while we continued as a group, it seemed like the cobblestone road beneath us began to bow and bend under our weight. One by one we became more aware of the strange phenomena that were occurring.

"I don’t think the road is supposed to move like this," Vance muttered, giving a little bounce to verify that the movement was in response to their weight.

"Don’t fucking bonce on it, good lord. Let’s just spread out a bit, keep all the weight from centralizing on any specific area." Lucian gestured that they move to different areas of the road. Nythera, being the most uptight of any of us, started to work her way toward the edge of the street, but when no one else immediately started following orders, she got nervous about being left alone–which made sense, if you were a squishy healer, every shadow and gust of wind could appear to be a deadly ambush.

"Ronan, please go with Nyhera, keep her safe. Vance, you aren’t going to listen regardless, so just do whatever, wherever, but keep in mind that I really don’t trust this–"

"Ah, shit—!"

The world collapsed beneath my feet, and I had just enough time to see the rotted street crumbling like brittle paper before I plummeted into absolute darkness. Within seconds, cold, stagnant water swallowed me whole, sending my body into shock. I sank fast, my body thrown into an icy abyss that shouldn’t have existed in the middle of a road.

Panic shot through me as the water closed over my head. It was disturbingly thick, absolutely foul, and filled with god knows what. My limbs thrashed wildly as I struggled to resurface, but something tangled around my legs.

I kicked in an attempt to dislodge myself but was hopelessly tangled. I grasped at my ankle to free myself, only to find out that I was tangled in a mass of dead bodies. Thankfully they were dead-dead and not undead, but still,l it was a horrifying concept. I thrashed a bit more, a calculated move on my part, and eventually found myself free and breaking through the surface just in time to hear a second, heavier splash. Chunk after chunk of cobblestone fell down around me, and I narrowly avoided being brained by sheer dumb luck alone.

I tried to make my way to any sort of shore to get out of this disgusting pool of filth, but it was as though wherever I had ended up, was devoid of light. I looked up to try and see how far I fell, but only the abyss stared back. I knew it was daytime, a rough estimation put it at maybe noon, or early afternoon, but looking up, it might as well have been midnight. I was broken out of my thoughts by significantly larger splashes, preceded only by several broken screams of surprise.

Vance, then another, Nythera based on the tone. Then, no scream this time but still a hell of a splash... Ronan—however, if I knew him, the bastard probably walked in willingly.

"Fuck— what is this—?" I coughed out, my voice echoing in the enclosed, putrid cavern. Somewhere above, I could hear stone still shifting, the remnants of the street collapsing behind us.

As the smell kicked in, I didn’t want to believe it, but I thought I knew exactly where we were. The city had a sewer system because despite all of this fantasy bullshit, of course, it had plumbing.

"Lucian!" Nythera’s voice was frantic, splashing toward me through the black water. "Where—where are we?"

Vance hacked and spat out something that I refused to think about. "Gods-damned sewer, obviously."

I wiped my face, blinking through the thick, foul liquid clinging to my skin. "Fan-fucking-tastic. Really, just when I thought today couldn’t get worse—boom." I gestured to the filth surrounding us. "Instant downgrade."

"At least we survived," Nythera murmured, though she sounded like she wanted to vomit.

We all made our way onto solid ground after a bit of splashing and blind exploration.

Ronan, still eerily calm, was already scanning the tunnel walls, hands pressed against the ancient stone. "The structural integrity is compromised. More collapses may occur."

Vance let out a strangled groan. "For once, I’d love it if you lied to us, Ronan."

I tried to get my footing, but the water was deeper than I wanted it to be—far deeper. It lapped at my waist, clinging to my clothes with an icy, suffocating grip. The chill was enough to send a slow, crawling shudder through my spine, but that wasn’t what unsettled me the most. No, it was the way the water moved.

There was a current, but it wasn’t natural. It didn’t follow the expected rhythm of an underground water system. It wasn’t flowing in one direction, nor did it feel like the simple back-and-forth sway of a flooded cavern. No, this was something else.

Something deep in the tunnel ahead had stirred, and the water rippled outward, displacing itself as something massive had just adjusted its weight.

I froze, my breath catching in my throat. That wasn’t us.

The others felt it too. Nythera stiffened, her grip tightening around her staff, her knuckles pale against the wood and Vance’s stance changed, his usual lazy posture gone, his hand already on the hilt of his sword.

Then it came, a low wet, and horribly unnatural noise.

It didn’t echo like normal sounds in a tunnel should have. Instead, it felt soaked into the water itself, reverberating through the surface, a sickly, gurgling vibration that slithered against my skin. It wasn’t a moan, nor was it a growl—it was something in between, something that had never belonged to a creature meant to live.

Then came another ripple, this one closer, then another, there were just too many.

I felt something press against my leg beneath the water, not debris, not floating wreckage, something alive. Or at least, something that used to be.

A slow, suffocating realization settled over me, thick as the filth in the air. We weren’t alone.

Vance’s voice broke the silence, barely above a whisper. "Tell me that was one of you."

I didn’t take my eyes off the black expanse ahead. "Wish I could."

The silence was so thick it felt unnatural washed over us, like the tunnel itself was holding its breath.

Then—

The first one rose.

The water broke in a sickening, sloshing wave, spilling over the surface as something pale and swollen pushed itself upright. Its movements weren’t jerky like the undead we’d fought before. There was no stiff, mechanical animation. No predictable, puppeteered stumble.

No. This thing moved like something that had spent too long beneath the surface.

Its head lolled at an unnatural angle, its jaw hanging slack, revealing blackened gums and jagged, water-logged teeth. Patches of its bloated, gray skin peeled away in the current, bits of it floating on the surface like oil on water. Its eye sockets were hollow, but something moved inside, shifting like trapped liquid, a faint, bioluminescent glow pulsating from within.

The very air changed.

The temperature dropped further, turning from an uncomfortable chill to something deeper—something primal.

Then the second one surfaced.

And then the third.

More of them rose in tandem like they had been waiting for us to step into their domain. Some of them stood half-submerged, their elongated fingers twitching beneath the surface, while others moved in ways they shouldn’t have been able to—slithering forward, torsos bending too far back as if gravity didn’t apply to them the same way anymore.

My stomach twisted.

These things were different.

And then I saw it.

The closest one tilted its head toward us.

It breached the surface like a corpse dragged from the depths, its pale, waterlogged flesh barely clinging to its bloated form. The skin sloughed away in pieces, revealing the twisted sinew beneath. Its eyes were glassy, unseeing, but it turned its head toward us.

It wasn’t breathing. It didn’t need to, and it sure as hell wasn’t alone.

More of them rose from the depths, their limbs unnaturally elongated, their joints twisted at unnatural angles. Some of them moved through the water on all fours, others slithered beneath the surface, barely visible beneath the thick, black sludge.

Vance inhaled sharply. "I fucking hate water undead."

"Yeah?" I muttered, drawing my blade. "Well, I think we’re about to have a real bad time, then." ƒrēenovelkiss.com

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