Forward they marched, feverish in their travel under the red sky. The fog eventually dissipated; Chase expected to finally see the roof of the cavern and get some idea of the real size of the landscape. As the fog vanished, the shepherd was left blindsided as he was met with fiery, blood-red sky. It glowed almost a perfect crimson, like the sun itself burned with a ceaseless, madness-inducing rage. He half expected to see a blood moon somewhere up there, complimenting the deranged world with its mocking presence.
"We're underground." Everest breathed, staring up into the bloodied atmosphere. "We're... underground, right?"
Chase opened his mouth to say something, but words couldn't form. Their destination, the giant mountains of bone and gore, were already close, but a nearby hill had captured their interest. Taking a quick turn in their travels, curiosity gripped them both to see the top. The ground began to elevate, bending upwards into a lumpy hill riddled with boils and rashes. The fog had moved, descending down from the sky to touch the fleshy ground, christening the land with its gentle clouds. They surrounded the two like layered breaths, puffing up from the maws within the biome. The world seemed to shift as they traveled, like a cooing lover swaying on the mattress, her breathing and faint movements twisting the Omnihive to life.
The husky gagged as she trekked up the hill, flinching every time her paws pushed against the stringy floor. She trudged along with heaving breaths, the heat doing a number on her red-stained coat. "I'll never be clean again. Well... heh, at least we won't go hungry." She joked. "Plenty of meat around."
"You're insane if you think I'm biting into any of this." Chase let a chuckle slip but was still held down by the uncertainty in his mind. A small flicker of static whistled in his mind, weak enough that he was able to ignore it. Even though it didn't leave any pain, Chase swore for a moment it sounded different. Despite its faint screeching, the static had almost bent itself into syllables, coming a hair's close to forming words. He pushed away the thoughts, but one question lingered: Did the static just try speaking to him?
"We're dogs, Chase. We eat gross stuff all the time." Laughed his companion.
"I think this is... a little over the line."
They came to a rest atop the hill, stopping with widened astonishment at the view before them. The elevated land raised them just high enough to gaze out at the Omnihive's body.
Everything felt like a dream, a mythical, unsettling dream neither of them could wake from. They sat in silence, both staring out into the horizon as their expressions went blank. The canvas of the realm before them stretched far out, spreading putrid life into dense forests of dogtrees and red rivers that sliced through the land's skin, resembling veins within the flesh from afar. The Omnihive seemed endless, a somber world of soulless design, yet it sang a demoralizing harmony that all the wind and trees joined in with. Chase felt his heart drop, but that rush of fear never came, instead fading into bland dejection. He could feel his motivation slipping away, his body slowing and his mind losing its grip on reality. A feeling of complete hopelessness befell him, the dog staring out as if he were mourning the death of a family.
Everest was mirroring his expression to near perfection, her body deflated under the filth slathered in her fur. Heartbreak wept from her face, the piercing heat becoming a second thought with the little flickers of hope dying away. She dejectedly sat down on the wet surface, on the verge of tears yet her face remained dry. Neither Chase nor Everest moved for a long time, their hearts and minds isolated, both enraptured by the view as if they were watching a red sunset. None of them had been feeling such powerful drives of emotion until now, as if the realm itself had forced it out of them.
Gentle chimes played in Chase's head, methodically tapping their notes slowly and thoughtfully, producing a simple, yet meaningful song in the darkness. The Omnihive bellowed, producing an echoing groan that spanned for miles, yet also flawlessly harmonizing with his music. One by one, agonizing memories dragged up from his subconscious, he was helpless to stop even one of them. Lowering himself onto his belly, Chase gazed out as his soul was crushed under the weight of despair.
"It's my fault." He said, voice broken of all emotion. "I was the one who... shot her. I didn't listen to Rocky, didn't listen to Zuma, and every warning Cyrus gave me went over my head."
"You did what you could." Everest said absently. "Hey... you know that jacket? The one that the guards took off me after we got transferred?"
The shepherd slowly met her gaze, listening with a mournful expression.
"It belonged to a dog named Dwayne, he helped me escape the ski lounge." She explained. "It was probably the one thing I had left, my only link to when times were better. I couldn't save him, I couldn't save any of them..."
"Well, at least you didn't end up sabotaging the whole situation."
"You kidding? I feel like I was from the beginning." The husky scoffed, looking off into the meat-strewn forest. "I was such a brat to Jake, never listened to reason or logic. I just... did what I wanted to do. Maybe the consequences aren't too clear but... I really feel like things could've been different if I'd been better."
"Everest, don't say that." Chase said reassuringly. "You were young, we all were. You weren't equipped to deal with what happened, and neither was I." He shook his head, looking off across the land. "Now the only thing we need to focus on now is..."
His voice trailed off; his train of thought slipped away as Chase spotted something off in the distance. Everest noted he stopped talking, giving him a confused look only to realize where he was looking, and turning her head in the same direction. Her eyes narrowed, vision focusing on a moving shadow.
"What... is that?" She asked.
Something was crawling in the distance, walking on all fours through the bloodied hellscape. Neither of them could spy any fine details on the creature, noting only its pink, stringy body, the serpentine tail worming in the air behind it, and what resembled fur that masked its head, a stark contrast to the rest of the body. The creature had its head low, positioned as if it were sniffing the ground. Its tail danced with anticipation, following after it as the animal approached one of the dogtrees.
"Chase, what is that?" Everest repeated her question, tilting her head. "Is it some kind of native animal?"
The shepherd didn't respond, his face widened with sheer, absolute horror. He froze entirely for a split second, the fur on his back standing on end, dozens of nightmares and visions all returning at once. "We need to get out of the open," he quaked, jumping into a panic. "We need- we need to hide!"
"Hide where? And besides, it's all the way out there, I doubt it even sees us."
The distant creature suddenly broke into a run, disappearing into the shadows of the dogtrees.
"See? It's already gone," Everest pointed. "What are you so afraid of?"
"Everest, that's one of them!" The shepherd snapped through gritted teeth; his head flattened with anxiety.
"One of what?"
The ground suddenly shifted underneath them, churning with gagging moans with another puff of fog entering the air. Both dogs stumbled as the floor moved, fresh red liquid squeezing out of the spongy material to keep the ground moist. Emerging like a storm from the forest, a horrid sound echoed through the Omnihive; layered roars of feral animals, all screeching over one another with their multiple, conjoined voices. The sound was disorienting, clawing into their ears and shoving blades into their eardrums. It only echoed for a few seconds, but it felt like hours as its call lifted above the trees, sending its war cry through every crevice of the realm.
A roar Chase knew all too well. "Time to go." He said quickly, grabbing Everest in his teeth and yanking her along. The husky fidgeted out of his grip quickly but was immensely unnerved and unable to smoothen her fur. They slid down the beefy hill and ran to the mountains, appearing before a circular opening in its dripping side. It was overgrown with tight biomass in front, yet weak enough that someone could push their way through. It was about to be another claustrophobe's worst nightmare, just bit enough for them to enter, tight enough to be an unpleasant experience. Another narrow tunnel, great. Chase almost groaned aloud upon seeing it, how many tight corridors was he supposed to see in a day?
"Dutch, we're at... what looks like some kind of tunnel entrance. We followed your directions to the letter." He said into his collar, double-checking Everest was behind him.
"Those are the aorta tunnels." Replied the executive.
Chase blinked, registering what he just said. "I- ...I'm sorry, the fucking what?"
"It's a large network of veins that lead into the inner workings of the Omnihive." Dutch said matter-of-factly. "It's quite expansive, and I do mean... expansive. We tried mapping out all the routes, but there's so many miles of tunnels in so many directions we just gave up trying. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them led to the center of the Earth. I'm one hundred percent sure that one of the passages leads straight into the Omnihive Nexus, then you'll be able to seize whatever it is they're protecting."
"Okay, first of all," Everest chimed in, leaning down to Chase's microphone. "How do you honestly expect us to accomplish this?" Dutch started to say something but she cut him off, the husky growing defiant at the pressurizing situation. "You want us to crawl through a giant maze of passages for something we may or may not be able to do?"
"Do I need to send someone else?" Dutch growled through the radio static.
"No, we'll-" Chase sighed. "We'll get through this, and I'll make sure to survive so I can shoot you through the skull when I get back."
"I would love to see you try."
"You testing me?" The shepherd hissed.
Everest held out her paw to him, an exasperated look dragging her down. "Chase, stop. As awful as he is, we technically need him."
"Whatever." Chase waved it off, clicking his radio on mute. "I'll turn him back on if we get lost."
He flashed a faint smile to the husky, who returned it with an annoyed shaking of the head. Although she desperately tried to hold a straight face, a smile of her own was sneaking across her face. Looking back toward the opening in the landscape, dispensing out a small river of blood and bodily fluid, both dogs knew with grimace what they had to do. "We're better off in close quarters anyway," Chase said, climbing up to it. "Can't let something spot us from across from miles away."
The passage didn't actually end up being the worst thing in the world, as the narrowness of the tunnel only included the entrance. Chase and Everest squeezed through the small opening, the red sky disappearing as they officially infiltrated the aorta tunnel network. The cave opened up slightly, providing more freedom to move around as they climbed through, but the ceiling was still uncomfortably low. The inside of the tunnel was almost perfectly smooth, rounded at the edges with such sloppy texture it was almost impossible to keep balance. It was like trying to walk in a sealed waterslide, only the current wasn't flowing in any particular direction, only sitting in rotting puddles of soaked fluid. Red droplets rained down from every small orifice above them, the stream of liquid never ending. There was a giant pile of loose meat slathered in the corner, splattered on the floor like it was dislodged from somewhere and left to fester in the heat. Chase scanned it with his eyes, noting the impressive size of the pile.
"Well this is cozy." Chase looked around the giant vein, squinting his eyes through the darkness. He had to shake himself off, already becoming coated in liquid red.
"Never thought I'd die in a giant blood maze." Everest said behind him, tugging her paw free from the tight entry passage. "God, it's hot in here."
"We need to do something about your fur." The shepherd turned around, concern in his voice. "I literally felt the temperature spike when we came in here, you won't survive."
The husky stiffened, stepping back against the puckered "You are not touching my coat."
"Your tail, your coat, which is it?" Chase argued. "You're going to die in here if we don't find a way to keep you cool."
"I'm fine!"
"No, you're not." The shepherd stepped forward, cornering her. "You can't brave heat like this. If we find something sharp, I can probably cut it down."
"Cut my- oh hell no!" Everest bristled her fur, lips curling to reveal her teeth. "Look, we're in enough shit as is right now, but I'm keeping my fur!"
"Everest, you can't-"
A piercing scream echoed through the tunnel network, catching both dogs off guard. It soared through the corridors and blasted them like a speeding truck, bouncing through the underground maze. Then another one sounded, following after it in unison like it were responding to its call. "We need to move." Chase tensed up, turning to the dark corridor. "Can't stay in one place for too long, let's move!"
"Wait," Everest stopped him, her paws shaking with unease. "Not that way!"
"What do you mean? We have no other way to go!"
The husky paced back and forth, a foreboding feeling of dread overcoming her. Unable to stop herself, panic completely overpowered her, spiking her movements and clouding all rational thought. Before Chase could protest, Everest grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the pile of festering meat. Ignoring all primal fears and anxieties, she shoved her entire muzzle into the clump, dividing it with a sickening wheeze. Burying her body into the red biomass, Everest yanked Chase underneath with her, pulling the shepherd close as the heated gore closed in around them.
Chase kicked with alarm. "What are you- mph!?" He was promptly silenced as a husky's paw clamped over his mouth. She held him tightly, both animals overclocked with alarm and confusion within their wet cage. Everest didn't have the fullest idea of why her instinct resulted to such measures, but she could only pray it would work. Just one small slit in the meat was the only peephole they had to see out. They held one another in place for a few seconds, Chase filled with too much disbelief that he was actually in the situation to fight back. He blinked his eyes as rancid blood dripped down his forehead, and he braced himself to jump free.
Until he saw it.
Four elongated, skinned limbs crawled into view, appearing from the right side. The creature's body was haphazardly held together, a crude painting of anatomic horror held together with wrapping intestine. Its body was so tall it went right up to the ceiling of the tunnel, the massive creature having to crouch slightly to scamper through. Its feet were tipped with razor-like claws of solid bone, permanently unsheathed and scratching along the soft floor. Its entire body bled out a trail of crimson with every step it made, exposed inner organs churning and gurgling with digesting material. A low growl was heard, the creature turning around as it meticulously scanned the area, emitting a choking hiss through its bared fangs.
Everest watched it move through the slit in the hiding place, her mind locking up with fear as all coherent thoughts deafened out. She couldn't see Chase's expression, assuming he was just as terrified, if not even more so. The shepherd eyed the creature, eyes widened with terror as he pleaded to himself over and over that it was just a horrible dream. But it wasn't, this was no nightmare like the thousands he had already. It was real.
The creature lowered its neck to sniff the ground, bringing its head into view of the peephole. Chase already knew what he was going to see yet couldn't prepare himself to witness it again. Just as he expected, and much to Everest's horror, the animal was wearing the face of a dog. A Doberman to be exact, the stained skin messily sliced and peeled from its victim and slid over the monster's head. Once belonging to an elegant animal, now brutally flayed and taken for a vile trophy. The tentacles that kept the mask attached to the head could be seen moving underneath the peeled skin, keeping the jaw intact and even moving the ears as if they were alive.
The ferox warrior bared its teeth, flicking its spearheaded tail around as it hunted for the prey it heard. It even came mere inches close to discovering the hiding dogs, bringing the nose of the mask right up to the clump of meat and inhaling deeply, its drooling fangs pressed right up against the peephole. Snarling breaths puffed into the hiding spot, washing over the terrified dogs as they shook for their lives. Leaning away from the clump of meat, the warrior paused for a few seconds, as if it were rethinking its own strategy. With a final snarl of agitation, the ferox scampered over to the left, squeezing itself through the tight passageway to emerge outside.
Everest began to stick her nose out. "What the hell was..."
"Not yet!" Chase hissed, pulling her back in with a jerk.
As silent as creeping mice, three entirely new ferox warriors appeared from the darkness, following after the first. They were identical to one another, but all wearing different dog masks sadistically peeled off their victims. One was a Dalmatian; the white fur of the mask stained a bright red from the exposure to the Omnihive. The second was wearing a barely held together head of a pitbull, requiring dozens of squirming tentacles to keep the skin peels from falling off. The third had gruesomely stretched the face of a sheepdog over its head, clumps of fur struggling to keep attached to the dying skin.
The leader paused before the exit, bellowing before leaving through it. The other two bumped into one another, prompting them both to suddenly snarl loudly and flare their tentacles. They circled each other with ritualistic aggression, jaws were snapped, claws were swiped, and tails were shot forward in spearing motions. The tunnel was filled with roars and deafening screeches as the animals clashed, until the anger died down and they separated. Preening their tentacles for a moment, the two followed after the first, pushing through the crevice until their tails disappeared in.
Now it was Chase who peeked out, staring at the tunnel the monsters had disappeared in with fearful awe. His entire body had been stained red, slathered in the rotting stench of filthy meat. "Holy shit..."
"What were those?!" Everest wiggled herself free, pushing the meat apart and rising up a blood-soaked husky. "Are they... are they what attacked your tower?"
Chase thought for a moment through his labored breathing. "No..." he said. "Feroxmalis was much bigger, and it walked on two legs... eventually, at least." He turned to her, face stained with haunting memories. "I remember it mutating more and more over time, changing its appearance and physical might, but I'm starting to wonder if that's not something they traditionally do. It could've been a symptom of the isolated environment, being away from the Omnihive forced it to evolve to suit its needs. These ones are much smaller and... thinner, maybe what's what they're always supposed to look like?"
"It didn't look small to me..." Everest said, trauma flashing in her eyes.
"Well, the size won't mean anything," Chase flattened his ears. "Doesn't matter if it's the size of a truck or a fucking mouse, those things are lethal. And I have a strong feeling that those aren't the only one's here, if the outside is Hell, then we just wandered into the darkest pits of the abyss."
Everest shook herself off, giving him a weary smile and walking past him. "Well... nowhere to go but forward."
"So eager to walk right into the maw of death," Chase rolled his eyes. "Just don't make any noise and they shouldn't be attracted to us."
As the dogs traveled into the expansive network of tunnels, fiercely locked in their mission to the Omnihive Nexus, they were oblivious to the near thousands of creatures scampering through the miles of tunnels and corridors. Hunting, fighting, waiting, listening, some roared and ran into the darkness to seize their prey, while others lied in wait for it to pass by. The ferox warriors were awakened, claws and teeth sharpened, their flayed masks dripping a glistening red down their pulsing bodies. Hundreds of victims, innocent souls doomed by the Archline Foundation to venture into the Omnihive, every last one skinned and worn on the head of a ferox warrior.
The Omnihive bellowed with low, echoed laughter, and the creatures gleefully laughed alongside it.