Round 353

The pulsing hum intensified, vibrating through stone and flesh alike as the walls' coordinated breathing ceased completely. The air crackled with static charge, and Silra felt it—the corruption's tendrils slithering up her skin like living shadows responding to Halie's touch. She recoiled instinctively, slamming her back against the opposite tunnel wall hard enough for the impact to echo. Her exposed skin had taken on an unsettling crimson hue now, veins tracing dark patterns beneath translucent flesh as the corruption pulsed visibly with each beat of her accelerated heart.

"Fuck! FUCK!" The words tore from her throat in a harsh whisper that seemed to make the very stone around them vibrate. "You've accelerated it—felt it take another goddamn step inside me when you touched me." The admission came out strangled, frustration and fear warring for dominance in her voice as she glared at Halie across the narrow space separating them.