Page 52 of Devoured

But then, behind us, came that terrible scraping sound again—metal dragging against metal, slow and heavy. Accompanied by the groan of stressed steel under massive weight.

“He’s back,”Marion whimpered. “The thing in the iron helmet is back.”

“Just keep moving,”Sela wheezed.

The stairs ended at a door rimmed with organic growth—veins and tendons that moved like muscle. I shoved it open, and we stumbled through.

We were in the cafeteria. Or what had once been the cafeteria.

Now, the tables and chairs were sculpted from human bone—fused and polished, gleaming white in the hellish light. The serving line displayed organs instead of food: hearts still beating in metal trays, lungs inflating and deflating, brains glistening with thought.

The walls were lined with bodies.

Whole bodies. Arms outstretched. Eyes open. Watching us with eternal agony.

Some wore scrubs—patients. Others were faces I didn’t recognize, perhaps staff members who at some point might have been long reported missing. All alive. All aware. All trapped—unable to move, to speak, to die.

“Jesus Christ,”Isaac breathed.

“He’s not here,”Sela said grimly. “No god is here.”

Movement caught my eye. One figure was fresher than the rest—still bleeding. Margaret.

I’d seen her cut in half. But here she was, absorbed into the wall, the living structure feeding on her sorrow. Her eyes locked on me, wide and pleading.

Then we heard it—footsteps. Heavy. Coming from another corridor—not the one we’d just used.

Tobias burst into the room, wild-eyed and alone. His clothes were torn, face scratched like he’d run through thorns. When he saw us, relief broke across his features.

I wish he would die—but in a place like this, strength was in numbers.

“Thank God. You guys didn’t get too far,”he huffed.

“Where’s Dr. Alan?”Marion asked.

Tobias shook his head. “Gone. The corridors—they keep changing. I followed her, but suddenly I was somewhere else. This place is like a maze that doesn’t want to be solved.”

He took in the bone furniture, the living wall of bodies. His face turned green. “What happened here? What did this?”

“The Judge,”I said, though I didn’t know how I knew. The knowledge had just… appeared. “This is his domain. His feeding ground.”

“The who?”Isaac looked at me, confused.

“Something old,”I answered. “Something Varnar and his cult have kept trapped here for centuries. A being that hungers for sacrifices steeped in guilt, sorrow, and pain.”

“How do you know this?”Marion asked.

But before I could reply, the scraping returned—metal dragging metal—louder now. Closer.

“Under the table!”I hissed. “Now!”

Chapter 17

We were hiding beneath the bone tables, pressing ourselves flat against the floor. The space was cramped—Isaac’s broken leg jutted out at an awkward angle, and Marion was shaking so hard the whole table vibrated above us.

She grabbed my arm, her nails digging in. “Oh God, oh God, he’s coming. Zahra, he’s—”

“Look at me,”I whispered, trying to keep her grounded. “Just look at me.”