Immediately after waking us up, without even letting out a roar, he returned to the corridor through which he came, where he remained standing, directing his gaze towards the deepest parts of the cave.
Once my mind regained its clarity, a hint of curiosity was born in me about the reason for his actions, so, leaning against the wall, I got up from where I was sitting. However, despite my interest in knowing what had so disturbed him that he did not put on the armor that always covered him, I did not dare to be the first to follow him.
I, therefore, prepared to wait in silence for the others around me to get over the confusion in their heads generated by this abrupt situation and come out after their boss.
While they were deciding what to do, I forced my ears to ignore the noise coming from them in order to focus on the strange sound echoing in the distance outside the room, one that, among the few memories I have of it, I remember hearing in my dream.
That was the cry of a baby.
Why? How? And, Where does it come from? All of these I wondered, for although I have experienced firsthand that it is possible for children to be born in this place, its tone, frequency, and volume seemed too foreign to me, different from what I used to hear.
‘No, I’m wrong. In fact, I think I know this kind of voice’
Having listened to it with my eyes closed, an event naturally flowed into my head. It was the moment in which one of the children, when they could still be classified as babies, fell out of his crib and hurt his eye.
It was a cry of pain.
Of course, it wasn’t quite the same, but the two were similar enough to be comparable.
‘‘…’’
Alarms went off in my head. Not because I sensed danger coming but because the situation itself began to take on a chilling air.
‘I must get out of here’
I thought as I opened my eyes to follow the group that had already begun to move.
The first part of them had already left the room, located at the sides or behind their boss, while the rest of them were still hesitating about what they should do since not having received any order, so their actions were governed only by their lacking brains, yet without paying much attention to those idiots, I walked to join the others who were outside.
At the same time that I got into a position that would allow me to run backward at the slightest sign of danger, the idea formed in my head to use the men around me as meat shields should it become necessary.
Fortunately, such fears were unfounded, for by taking advantage of a gap between the large bodies in front of me, I was able to see in the same direction as the giant did, and it was then that I realized that whatever was making that noise had not yet reached this point.
Still, I had no desire to meet up with the thing, so I planned to head for the exit in preparation in case it was necessary to flee into the woods. However, as no one else besides me showed any signs of backing down, including the guys who had already exited the room, I had to stay.
After all, with only my small body, it would be impossible to move the huge rock blocking the entrance.
Then, reluctantly, I continued to look ahead.
‘‘…’’
Despite waiting a while, with agitated breathing due to nervousness, nothing came, but the crying had become louder, showing that the thing which caused it was getting closer.
However, just because my eyes did not see what that was, it did not mean that nothing had appeared, for an absurd thought arose in my mind. It was the compassion, one that urged me to delve deeper in search of the origin of the sound, to comfort the poor suffering soul.
It was not intense since the instant I noticed such strangeness, I managed to appease it, but the simple fact that something was influencing my cognition filled my heart with uneasiness.
The atmosphere felt tense, with a heavy air almost palpable, or at least it was for me, for as I turned my head, I could see that the rest of the idiots seemed rapt, showing expressions of uneasiness, apparently wanting to walk forward, but not daring to do so, for the giant in front was still not moving.
For a brief moment, I diverted my attention to these suicidal fools, thinking how easily swayed they were. However, while I was distracted by them, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something approaching.
It was a semi-transparent reddish mist, which would have gone unnoticed in the darkness if not for the strange way it moved. It advanced, imitating the movement of a wave, just as if it were a viscous liquid that was slowly filling the interior of the corridor.
At first, I thought about backing away since I thought that was what the giant had run away from, but when I saw his indifferent face, I realized I was wrong. So, after frowning with annoyance, I decided to stay a little longer as I tensed my leg muscles in preparation to run.
I was ready for whatever came along, or so I thought until that thing actually showed up.
Ultimately, even though I am not fully now, I still possess much of the most basic essence of being human, namely the fear of the unknown as well as the loss of rationality in the face of it. After all, although I planned to run away, when the time came to do it, I only shuddered heavily before taking a few steps backward while holding my head with both hands.
My mind was dulled when I saw that what was approaching, bringing with it a noisy cry, was a mass of flesh full of throbbing blisters, which was slowly merging with the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, to transform them into something similar to it, where red and blue veins, writhing as if they were alive, ran through them covered by a thin layer of shiny skin.
Nevertheless, while it was sufficiently aberrant to create a lifelong trauma for me, what really horrified me was something else.
My staggering backward movement was because the instant I saw that, the baby sounds I previously heard turned into low whispers that penetrated my head and seemed to proceed at ear level.
As if hundreds of young women were talking to me at the same time, combining their voices into one or separating them into several indistinct ones, but which planted in me the strong urge to get closer to them, to go deeper into that greasy and wet place to relieve the pain that tormented them.
Although rationality prevented me from doing so, it was being eroded by the high-pitched noise, so I pressed as hard as I could my eyes and ears to silence it, but even so, it did not stop.
During my struggle against the mental invasion, I faintly heard something different from the noise that overwhelmed me. Those were not female voices but hoarse screams and grunts that echoed in the remaining part of the rock walls.
But in spite of that, I did not look at what happened, for I ignored it all, forgetting the danger I was in until I got used to the sound attack.
When I managed to do so, I opened my eyes to witness the gruesome scene before me. Where the floor would be inside that fleshy monster, blood flowed from the bodies of several men and boys who, until recently, slept in the same room as me but now lay dead.
Moreover, their deaths were far from normal, for it seemed as if they had been cut through by blades starting from their stomachs and going through their entire bodies, from their limbs, including each of their fingers, to their eyes and ears.
None of them were spared that fate. However, instead of their wounds being torn, these were ripped out, although that is something I only realized when in the dripping gashes, I saw blood and fragments of bone moving to merge with the mass of flesh that formed on their bellies.
Perhaps motivated by morbid curiosity, I stood there watching how those thin lines were gradually consuming the body of the victims and becoming deeper until finally molding the figure of a baby, who, when was completed and as if trying to declare that its birth was genuine, started to cry.
It was then that I reacted and remembered where I was. So, after seeing that no one else was alive around me, I ran in the opposite direction of the things that pretended to be innocent newborns, ignoring the dizziness and the urge to vomit that soon appeared.
