You spin around quickly and begin to back yourself down the hall, putting your torch and shield between you and the creature.

Seeing it up close, your understanding of it simultaneously goes up and down. It's made of meat and eyes and a muscle-like fiber. Its segments look like bones, but they're not--cartilage, maybe. You're not a doctor but you know that bones don't pulse. It squeezes... liquid, or air or something through its fibers, and as they inflate or deflate the... uh... meatier segments twitch. At the end of its body, the fibers burst free, writhing through the air like tendrils.

Even its intentional movements are stiff but sudden. It follows you as you back away, jerking around like a jumping spider or an old stop motion animation.

"S-Stay back," you tell it. "I don't wanna have to hurt you but I will. S... Say something if you understand."

It continues to march after you. Its tautest fibers vibrate, creating a... an uncomfortable noise, like someone hissing the off notes of a guitar. The hissing becomes more of a hum and a more cringe inducing tone; it makes your skin crawl.

"SAY SOMETHING!," you shout, your anxiety building as the monster continues to inch toward you.

It falls silent, and then

in a very clear, adult male voice

in a tone that reminds you of a medicine commercial

you hear it say


"I have a right to know."


"E... Ec-fucking-scuse me?!," you blurt out.

"I have a right to know," it repeats,

in the exact same cadence.

Same tone.

Same volume and clarity.

Like a recording, but crystal clear.

"I have a right to know," it says again. This time it's louder, but... it doesn't sound any more strained or emotional, just bigger, as though it simply turned up the volume of the same stock line.

"I have a right to know," adds a voice behind you.

A woman's voice this time. Younger, she speaks it with a more offended tone.

"I have a right to know," repeats the first in his specific way. "I have a right to know," agrees the second in hers. Like two actors rehearsing their lines with entirely different stage directions.

You twist in place, shield one way and torch the other, struggling to keep an eye on both creatures at once.

"I have a right to know," she says louder, almost right in your ear. As you turn to scare her back with the torch, you hear the other, male "I have a right to know" closing in on you from the opposite side. You almost throw yourself into the water whirling back around with the torch.

They're trying to fake you out.

They're using tactics, working like god damn pack hunters.

You can reach one of the cell doors, but these things can squeeze into the cracks of the walls--you'd just be staving off the inevitable. You start trying to put together a plan to break out from between these two and make for one of the exits--

when a muffled "I have a right to know" in the ceiling distracts you.

Just for a moment.

An instant.

The male lunges, and this time he commits. You swing your torch with everything you have, burning a great slash across several segments and a couple of his eyes. His partner slams one of her limbs into you from the side--not with immense force, but enough to take advantage of you being overextended.

You stumble, dropping your torch in the water as you hit the floor.

You hold up your shield as you fumble, crawling backward through the sludge toward the wall to protect your back, but the monster's reach is very long and their frame is very wide. It looms, one slender limb on either side as it stalks after you.

The male creature flails, flames spreading quickly across its body... but it never screams. No whimpers. Just the exact

same

"I have a right to know."

"I have a right to know. I have a right to know. I have a right to know. I have a right to know. I have a right to know."

One right after the other. Panicked.

But it sounds no different at all. He doesn't enunciate the words any more rapidly, he just... doesn't stop repeating it.

The female slams down with what you estimate is her face or upper body; you tighten your grip on your shield, meeting it. You try to watch both arms but you can only manage one; the other slinks in, between you and your shield, splashed sludge hitting your face as thin tendrils erupt from an end segment. It comes at you from the side, barely in your peripheral--

going for your ear.

You scream. Sitting waist deep in dark water with your back literally to the wall, all reason and planning gives way to overwhelming fear. You struggle to get up, you kick, you flail. You cover your ears as best you can as more tendrils from more ends of the monster come reaching, its long limbs caging you in as it towers above you.

It settles for one of your nasal cavities.

You scream louder, fighting harder than you've ever fought in your life as you feel the cold fibers pushing at your nostrils.

It doesn't last long;

there's a pop as the burrowing fibers swell too large for the inside of your face

and a sharp pain as they force their way into your skull at high velocity. It takes a decent amount of force to break through the brain casing.

You remember that, from when you were a kid. Reading about how mummies are made. You don't really suspect these things are about to mummify you, that's just the last thought lucky enough to fire off in the chaos.



Mummies.



You die almost as soon as the tendrils get inside your brain.

You wake up with a tremendous headache, but it passes quickly.

It's about 10 am.