Edrin woke to pressure before pain.
The stone beneath him was cold and uneven, faintly warm in places where it shouldn't have been, as if the dungeon held heat the way a body did. When he tried to draw a full breath, something inside his chest resisted—not sharply, not violently—just enough to make him stop halfway.
"Okay… okay," he whispered, more to hear his own voice than to calm himself. It came out rough, lower than he expected. "That's… fine. That's fine."
His right hand closed around metal by instinct.
The blade was still there.
That came first. Relief followed a heartbeat later—quick, shaky, immediately shoved down. He didn't let himself breathe easier. Breathing easier was how people panicked later.
He shifted his weight to stand.
The motion was precise. Or it should have been.
Years of schooling had drilled posture into him—center low, weight aligned, movement economical. His body began the motion and then… slipped. Not violently. Just enough. His shoulder scraped the wall and pain snapped bright behind his eyes before dulling too fast.
Edrin blinked. "No. That's not—"
He stopped himself and stayed down.
The corridor around him came into focus slowly. Narrow, familiar in shape, wrong in detail. Stone ribs pushed through the walls where cut blocks should have been. The floor dipped in places that forced his foot to choose angles. Moisture clung to surfaces like residue, not water.
The dungeon had changed.
That thought landed cleanly, without panic. This wasn't disorientation. This was structure failing.
Before the mission, Edrin Hale had been easy to read. Slightly taller than average. Lean, trained, balanced. Dark hair kept short because it was practical, not because anyone told him to. Brown eyes that instructors liked to call "focused," which had always sounded better than "serious."
Promising, they'd said.
Someone with a future.
Now, as he pushed himself upright more carefully, his body felt… off. Like a harness pulled too tight in places and loose in others. His breathing settled into a slow rhythm he hadn't chosen. His shoulders refused to drop.
"Okay," he said again, quieter. "Okay, Edrin. You're alive. That's… that's a start."
A strange sensation crawled up his spine—not fear, not pain. More like realizing a step was missing after your foot was already moving.
Baseline Collapse Detected.
The words surfaced without sound, sharp and clinical, then vanished.
He stared at the empty air where they'd been. "That's not funny," he muttered. "I don't need… hallucinations. I really don't."
Shock, he told himself. Aftereffects. People talked about worse.
He tested his hands. Grip strength was there. Too much, actually—his fingers locked around the hilt harder than he meant to.
"Easy," he told them, flexing his fingers like they might listen. "You're fine. I'm fine."
Training said: stand, orient, move.
Instinct said: don't rush.
That alone made his stomach twist.
=== === ===
Something scraped further down the corridor.
Not footsteps. Too uneven. Too wrong.
Edrin drew the blade close to his torso, edge low, elbow tucked the way his school had drilled into him until it hurt. The knife felt lighter than it should have. Or maybe his arms were just… not reporting things right.
"Peripheral," he whispered. "One thing. Probably."
He needed to say it out loud. Silence made everything heavier.
The creature slid into view.
It was roughly human-sized but had no clean outline. Bone fused into stone, tissue stretched thin over shapes that hadn't decided what they were supposed to be. One limb dragged, thicker than the others, ending in a blunt, chipped mass. Pale skin clung to darker material beneath, pulsing weakly.
No face. No eyes he could recognize.
"Yeah," Edrin breathed. "Of course."
Pressure-spawned fauna.
It reacted to movement with sudden, jerking violence.
Edrin stepped in.
He did exactly what he'd been taught. Angle right. Timing clean.
And nearly died for it.
The creature didn't recoil. It collapsed forward instead, weight coming down fast and wrong. His blade hit resistance where there should have been air. Something slammed into his ribs and the world narrowed hard.
"Too—slow—!" he gasped.
Training shattered.
He moved closer than he ever would have before, accepting the burn along his arm as he forced the blade in by strength instead of precision. He twisted, felt something give, and tore the knife free with a sound that made his stomach lurch.
The creature collapsed, movements degrading into useless spasms before going still.
Edrin stumbled back and caught himself against the wall.
Blood ran down his arm. Not fast. Just… steady.
He waited for the familiar feeling—the clean certainty, the I did it right.
It didn't come.
Instead his hands shook, sharp and sudden, then stopped without his permission.
Residual Adaptation Reinforced.
Edrin stared at his fingers. "I didn't do anything different," he said, almost defensively. "I didn't. I messed up."
The words didn't help.
=== === ===
He moved because standing still made the corridor feel like it was leaning in.
The next threat came as motion, not sound.
Small. Too many.
Structural vermin poured from cracks along the floor—elongated bodies, too many joints, translucent shells that showed pale organs shifting inside. They skittered in bursts, drawn to heat and movement.
"Oh, come on," Edrin muttered. "One at a time. Please?"
They didn't listen.
"Don't let them surround you," he told himself quickly, voice tight. "You know this. You know this."
He backed into a narrower stretch of corridor, forcing them into front angles. The blade moved in short, ugly arcs. No finesse. No breathing room. One of them caught his calf—sharp pain, then a burning numbness that spread faster than it should have.
That scared him.
"Why does that not hurt more?" he whispered, almost angry.
The vermin scattered once enough of them stopped moving.
Edrin leaned against the wall, chest heaving. His breathing slowed on its own, settling into a pace that felt imposed, not chosen.
Combat Pattern Disrupted.New Response Loop Forming.
"No," he said softly, shaking his head. "No, no, no. I'm not… changing. I'm just… adjusting. That's it. Temporary."
The dungeon didn't argue.
=== === ===
He found a stretch of corridor that felt less hostile—not safe, just quieter. He sat with his back to the wall, blade across his knees, and looked down at himself.
Paler skin. Veins standing out. His eyes reflected less light in the dimness. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.
Someone who'd stayed too long.
"If I leave now," he said, voice barely above a whisper, "I won't make it ten steps. That's just… facts."
The thought didn't scare him the way it should have. That scared him more.
He wiped the blade clean. The blood didn't stop completely.
Psychological Drift Trending.
Edrin swallowed. "Yeah," he murmured. "I figured."
He pushed himself to his feet, heart steady in a way that felt unfamiliar, and moved deeper into the dungeon—because staying still felt worse.