Spooktober 2025: Sting

Previous Part Spooktober 2025: Barrow   I didnt stop running until long after the trees had returned. As I slowed, the rustling of the alpine forest greeted me, the moon filtering through the branches giving the illusion of a path. My lungs burned, each breath dragging in the autumn air as I tried to forget what I had seen.   I realized that I had no idea which direction I had come from. Mountains loomed above the trees, ever patient with my struggle.   Next Section Spooktober 2025: Broods   The staff's glow quieted, but the bruise on my chest pulsed with real pain now, each breath a pain that blurred thought. I leaned against a tree, fingers pressed to the spot in the center of the bruise where the puncture wound sat.   Something pressed back from beneath my skin.   I quickly tore open my vest, seeing that the bruise had spread to nearly double the size I remembered, and in the center, something was rising slightly, as if my panicked breaths were pushing something outward. I stumbled to the ground, hands scrabbling at my chest in panic   Not again, oh please, not this again   The thought wasn't mine, I dont think, as a searing stab echoed through my chest and flickers of memory returned, white light shining through cracks in a panel of stained glass. A circle of robed figures standing over someone. A buzzing dagger that was not a dagger in my hand. A sting sharp and precise and a pulsing as the dagger left something behind. The robed figures chanting words in a language I did not know.   The pain got even worse, and for an impossible moment I heard it —the buzzing, the low endless hum of wings beating in my chest. Then a loud SNAP, and silence.   The forest swayed around me, the sharp edges of the trees softening in the breeze, the list thing I saw was the staff on the ground next to me, broken cleanly in two, the wolves now never being able to catch the eagles they were chasing.   Next Section Spooktober 2025: Doom