Round 358

The air crackles with static electricity, making the hair on my arms stand up in warning. I freeze mid-reach toward a particularly concerning patch of writhing tissue, my fingers stopping mere inches away from the corrupt surface. "Don’t touch it," I hiss, already pressing myself against the opposite wall to maximize distance between us and the spreading contamination. My skin feels hot, too hot—flushed red in places where the corruption has already begun its insidious work, veins darkening visibly under translucent flesh as the infection pulses with each beat of my accelerated heart. "Fuck! FUCK!" The words rip out of me involuntarily, seeming to make the very stone around us vibrate... I need to think. We can’t stay here—every second counts now that Silra’s complete consumption timeline has accelerated to three hours. But moving through these tunnels means exposing ourselves to more of this shit.*