"Because it needs you afraid," the half-man whispered. "It feeds on fear. It shapes the valley with it. You were meant to trust them… then lose them. To soften you."
His bark-fused arm twitched, roots tightening around it as though punishing him for speaking.
"You think you escaped into this cavern?" the Transforming-man hissed. "You didn't escape. You arrived—right on time. The entire valley bends itself to funnel prey into this place."
He shook his head. "That can't be true. I argued with them. I saved them. I—"
"You saved no one," the half-man said sharply. "You followed a trail it wrote for you. It knew every step you would take."
The cavern let out a low groan, a sound almost… satisfied.
The half-man swallowed hard, voice cracking into something thin and exhausted. "Listen. This place—this heart beneath the valley—it's not a creature. It's not a god. It's a curse." His eyes lifted, bright with a terrible understanding.
"A cycle," the man said. "A hunt. It builds lies from its soil and hangs them in front of wanderers like lanterns. It gives you companions. Dangers. Hope. Loss. It makes you run where it wants you to run—until you reach here. This chamber. This ending."
The roots tightened around his ribs, as though reminding him he wouldn't last long.
"I was like you," he whispered. "Dragged through its maze of stories. Shown people who never existed. Given choices that were never mine. And when I reached this place…"
He looked down at the bark crawling over his chest.
"…it ate the rest of me."
The cavern pulsed—an immense, slow heartbeat rolling through the stone.
"You were meant to die here," the half-man said. "Not quickly. Not mercifully. You were meant to feed it. To be turned into a tale for the next wanderer."
He felt the pulse in his corrupted leg sync with that heartbeat, as if responding to a master's call.
He clawed at his thigh. "Then why tell me this? Why warn me?" The half-man's face twisted—not with pain, but with defiance.
"Because the valley thinks I'm already gone," he whispered. "Because parts of me it doesn't control still remember being human."
A violent tremor shook the chamber. Roots snapped taut.
"It truly believes that we are just meant to be a nutrient for its survival. But the more it thinks it has control the less control it truly has."
lifting his hand shakily the cavern began to shake the heart trembled fighting for control. It was to late the wood around it meant to protect it, was now being used to destroy it.
Like an iron maiden, spikes pierced at it from within. The wood trembled walls formed to cover the heart, then fell just as fast. Spikes pierced into the bloody chamber over... and over... and over. Sap spilled out like a water geyser. He looked up at the trembling man the more attacks he commanded the more the infection spread.
The Transforming-man let out a scream his torso and arm were now almost completely petrified. "I have done all I can to save you from this cycle, now you must be the one to finish it."
A spear of wood was formed beside him. As he took it, the bottom snapped.
The trembling husk of the half-man finally went still, his mind devoured, his body claimed. Only the echoes of his warning hung in the cavern's thick, pulsing air.
The spear was incomplete but sufficient.
The massive heart at the center of the chamber convulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then it roared back to life.
Not with sound—but with force, a violent blast of pressure that hurled him backward. The cavern walls shimmered like wet skin, veins glowing brighter, twitching as if trying to repair themselves. Splintered roots writhed across the floor, clawing desperately toward the wound the old man's rebellion had carved.
It wasn't dying.
Not yet.
It was fighting.
The ground buckled. The pulse in his corrupted leg seized him with white-hot pain, locking his muscles, dragging him a step—another step—toward the heart as if summoning its wayward organ back home.
He dug his heels in, teeth clenched.
"No," he snarled through the pain. "Not this time."
Roots lashed outward like grasping limbs, slamming into his ribs, knocking him to the ground. The spear skittered away across the stone.
He crawled after it.
A root looped around his ankle and yanked him back. He clawed at the stone, nails splitting, breath ragged. The cavern's heartbeat hammered through his skull, drowning out thought, drowning out fear.
The valley wanted him dead. Wanted him finished. A second root coiled around his wrist and dragged his arm away from the heart
He reached, fingertips brushing the spear's broken shaft.
Closer.
Closer—
He seized it.
The cavern reacted instantly—roots tightening, the heart pulsing faster, its glow throbbing frantically. It pulled on him with everything it had left.
He pushed back.
He drove the spear into the ground, anchoring himself as the roots hauled on his limbs. He staggered upright, dragging the weapon with him. The spear vibrated, humming with a strange resonance—like it wanted the fight just as badly as he did.
He lifted it high. The heart saw him coming. And screamed.
Another wave of pressure. Pure force. It hit him like a collapsing wall. The spear almost flew from his hand. His vision blurred, ribs cracking under the invisible assault. The roots whipped into a frenzy, lashing, stabbing.
He coughed blood and kept walking. Every step felt like wading through the tear of the world itself. He reached the base of the great heart. There a small green sphere, no larger than a fist—the only part of the heart still beating cleanly. Vibrant. Alive. Powerful. The true core.
He screamed and plunged the spear deep—not at the flesh, not at the pulsing tendrils, but straight into that luminous knot.
The spear struck with a sound like cracking stone. The core lurched, and then—dislodged. It rolled out of the torn cavity like an eye slipping from a socket. Without it the cavern collapsed.
Light poured out in blinding green arcs, ripping through the walls in jagged streaks. The roots spasmed, releasing him. The heartbeat stuttered—fast, then slow, then frantic.
Then silent. Everything folded into itself the walls shrank, veins faded.
The colossal chamber crumbled like wet paper in flame. The heart shriveled into knotted pulp, collapsing around where the core had been. His hand reached out grabbing the core. The floor vanished beneath him—and the world dropped away.
He plunged into darkness so absolute it felt like falling into a mouth.
Before succumbing to this darkness he heard a noise almost monotone, electronic, and mechanical.
{Congratulations performer you have cleared the story.}
{You have cleare...}
{You have been awarde-}
(You have ranke...}