The Amiss of Flesh

When TCOSA soldiers see a battlefield that is too peaceful, too clean, or too still, they say something to each other.

Amiss

It's not an adjective. It's not a description. A title.

According to legend, the Amiss emerges from wet ditches or crawls up from stone fissures after blood has already been spilled. It is unbiased. Survivors are not left behind. It leaves behind hollows rather than corpses.

A hollow only appears to be a body at first glance. As you get closer, you'll notice that the jaw is unhinged in silence, the eyes are excessively wide, and the skin is too stretched. There are no organs inside the chest cavity, just a smooth spiral of meat that pulses as though it were still alive. When you touch it, the flesh separates into ribbons that naturally twist and curl, resembling worms that are tasting the air.

According to witnesses, the Amiss does not use a sword or claw to kill. It just reorganizes. Soldiers claim that they have seen their friends laugh one minute and then collapse inside out the next, with muscles snaking backward through their mouths like bloody ropes and bones unraveling. As it moves, the flesh hums, causing a low vibration that echoes through the spine.

It is not supported by any Calyra records. No priest will give it a name. However, the word persists: Amiss. The term itself is a curse that is transmitted like a warning.

There is no smoke from campfires when the Amiss emerges. Horses run until their backs break. Furthermore, it is already too late if you are unfortunate enough to hear the hum. Because what follows is replacement, not death.

The motionless hollows continue to blink, move, and shamble ahead as though they are living things. Even though their faces are recognizable, when they smile, their lips gape too much. The final things they said before the Amiss touched them are repeated in halting bits.

And occasionally, but infrequently, they respond when you call their name.

However, you will join them if you follow them, hold their hand, and think that they can be saved in some way.

Additionally, the following patrol will murmur the news when they discover your body.

Amiss