The darkness down in the lower decks was suffocating, thick with the stench of oil, blood, and the reek of burnt flesh. The lights had gone out hours ago, flickering and failing one by one, as if the Conqueror itself—our warship, our home—was gasping for breath, drowning in its own madness. The walls groaned as if the ship were in pain, or maybe it was just the twisted souls within. I didn't know anymore. I barely remembered a time before the screams.

My name is Karnus. I was a deck serf, nothing special, one of thousands. Born to the ship, bred to serve the World Eaters. We didn't ask questions. We fixed what broke, cleaned the bloodstains off the decks, and prayed we stayed unnoticed. On most days, that was enough to survive.

But now? Now survival was a dream, a distant hope that had been bled out of us. Ever since he changed—since Angron, our master, our Primarch, ascended into something… worse—nothing made sense anymore. The ship wasn't just a vessel of war; it was a prison. For us. For him. For all of us. The World Eaters, the demigods who had once been unstoppable warriors, were now crazed beasts, their minds shattered by the Butcher's Nails embedded in their skulls. And Angron? Angron was no longer the Primarch I had heard stories about. He was a monster, a daemon of the warp, and his rage echoed through the ship like a storm that never ended.

The walls of the Conqueror had always been loud with the noise of war. The constant hum of engines, the thrum of weapons, the distant thunder of bombardments. But now the noise had changed. Now, it was the sound of madness. The howling of the damned. Every corridor, every chamber, reeked of blood and fear, and the World Eaters, once cold and disciplined, now roamed the decks like wild animals, hunting anything that moved.

Down here, in the lower decks, it was worse. We were forgotten, the dregs of the ship, the serfs who weren't worth a second glance. We did our work in the shadows, and the Astartes rarely came down to our level unless they needed something fixed. But since Angron's ascension, they came more often, and when they did, they didn't come to talk. They came to kill. For sport, for the thrill of it. For no reason at all.

I had seen it happen. I had seen them tear through groups of us, their chainaxes revving with a deafening roar, their eyes glazed over with that… hunger. I don't know if they even realized what they were doing anymore. Or if they cared.

I had been lucky so far. Luckier than most. The section of the lower decks where I worked had been mostly untouched, a dark and forgotten corner of the ship where the serfs could hide. We had made ourselves small, quiet, invisible. We whispered to each other in the dark, our voices trembling as we spoke of the horrors we had seen, of the madness that had consumed our masters. Some of the serfs thought Angron's ascension was a blessing, that he had become a god, that we were living in the presence of something divine.

But I didn't believe that. I had seen Angron, just once, after his ascension. I had seen him tear through his own warriors, his own sons, in a fit of blind rage. I had seen him rip the ship apart with his bare hands, tearing through bulkheads and decks as if they were paper. I had seen the look in his eyes—a look of pure, unfiltered hatred, not just for his enemies, but for everything, for everyone. He wasn't a god. He was a nightmare.

I wasn't alone down here. There were others, dozens of us, huddled together in the shadows. We tried to keep out of sight, out of the paths the World Eaters took when they went on their blood hunts. We stayed quiet, always quiet, because if they heard us, if they found us… we were dead.

The lights flickered again, casting long shadows across the walls. I gripped the metal railing in front of me, my heart pounding in my chest. We were deep in the belly of the Conqueror, far from the command decks where the Astartes ruled, far from the battles raging outside. But it didn't feel safe. It hadn't felt safe in days.

"What do you think will happen when we reach Terra?" whispered Renka, a fellow serf, crouched beside me. Her face was gaunt, hollow, eyes sunken from lack of sleep. None of us had slept much. How could we?

I didn't answer her. I didn't know what would happen. Terra was the final destination, the heart of the Imperium, the Emperor's throne. But what did it matter? The World Eaters didn't care about victory or strategy anymore. They cared about slaughter, about feeding the endless rage that burned in their blood.

"Do you think they'll even notice us?" Renka asked again, her voice shaky. "Down here? When it all… when it all goes to hell?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but the sound of distant footsteps cut me off. Heavy, thunderous, like the pounding of a war drum. My heart leapt into my throat. They were coming. The Astartes.

We shrank further into the shadows, pressing ourselves against the cold metal of the walls, holding our breath. The footsteps grew louder, closer. I could feel the vibrations through the deck plates. And then, from the darkened corridor ahead, a figure emerged.

It was one of them. One of the World Eaters. His armor was red, slick with blood, his helmet dented and scarred. His chainaxe was revving, the teeth spinning slowly, as if he was savoring the moment before the kill. His eyes, glowing behind the visor, swept the corridor, searching for prey.

I clenched my fists, praying to the Emperor that he would pass by, that he wouldn't notice us. But my prayers were in vain. He stopped, turning his head slowly in our direction. He had smelled us. The scent of fear, of weakness. I could hear Renka's breath quickening beside me, could feel the terror radiating off of her.

The World Eater stepped forward, the chainaxe whirring to life, the sound deafening in the confined space. He raised the weapon, and for a moment, I thought this was it. This was how I was going to die, torn apart by one of the monsters I had spent my life serving.

But then, something else happened. Something worse.

A scream echoed through the ship. Not the scream of a man, or even of a warrior, but something… unholy. A roar of pure rage and agony, a sound that made my blood run cold. The World Eater stopped in his tracks, his head snapping upward, as if he had heard it too.

And then the ship shook. Violently. The walls trembled, the ceiling groaned, and for a moment, I thought the whole thing was going to come apart. Another roar, louder this time, reverberated through the decks. I knew that sound. We all did.

It was him. Angron.

The World Eater hesitated for a moment, his grip on the chainaxe tightening, his body trembling with barely contained fury. And then, without a word, he turned and sprinted back down the corridor, toward the source of the noise. Toward Angron.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, my body shaking. Renka was crying silently beside me, her face buried in her hands. I didn't try to comfort her. I couldn't. Because I knew what that roar meant. Angron was loose again, somewhere on the ship, tearing through anything and everything in his path.

And there was no escape from him.

We were trapped, rats in a maze, with no way out. The World Eaters would hunt us down, Angron would tear the ship apart, and we would die, one way or another. It was only a matter of time.

Down here, in the darkness, there were no gods, no mercy. Only blood, and madness, and the endless hunger for death.

I didn't know how long I would last. But I knew this: the Conqueror had become a tomb, and it was only a matter of time before it buried us all.