Chapter 017 - The Journal of Worms

# Chapter 17: The Journal of Worms It began with a passing report, spoken in the shadowed corner of the apothecary’s ruined shop. A villager, his face pinched and pale, recounted the tale with a distracted edge: a travelling bard, unfamiliar to these cursed streets, had come through days prior. He bought a drink from Cedar, the town’s muddled apothecarist, and was last seen heading toward the tavern, where he was meant to play at the festival—though by whose commission or invitation, the local could not say. It was recited like a half-remembered story from before the rot set in, the thread trailing off into silence. Inside the shop, the party’s unease deepened. Steve, fidgeting by the counter, watched Cedar with eyes sharp with suspicion. Again and again, the young man’s hand strayed to the same spot at his midriff, fingers fluttering beneath his apron as if confirming the existence of something concealed—or perhaps the absence of it. The gesture wore at the nerves, grinding them as thin and raw as old twine. Lyra drifted behind the counter, drawn by disorder. The till lay open, greedy and empty, the wood stained dark where ink had spilled. A quill rolled precariously near the edge, abandoned mid-thought. Across the counterscape, someone had tried, half-hysterical, to inscribe words directly into the grain. On the floor, the chaos was worse: eight sheets of paper scattered amid blots and footprints, each bearing frenzied, near-illegible scrawls that spoke only of distress or madness. A plan came together, swift and silent. Steve caught Graxen’s eye with a deliberate gesture—a tilt of her head and a flick of two fingers, weighted with mischief. In his broad hands, Graxen accepted a small glass vial, the contents gifted by Cedar himself not so long ago and now—by Steve’s design—repurposed. Graxen stumbled forward with affected clumsiness and, with a flourish, upended the potion over Cedar’s shirt. The apothecarist recoiled in alarm at the growing stain, concern overriding confusion. Muttering apologies, he excused himself and disappeared through a narrow door, intent on changing his clothes. Lyra murmured soft words beneath her breath—her shape rippled and blurred, fading to transparency before she ghosted silently after him. In the cramped back chamber, Cedar peeled away his soiled top. The air thickened with something more than the scent of herbs and mildew. Lyra—unseen but unprepared—stared as he revealed a wound that was less a scar than a profanation: a ragged, gaping hole eaten into his chest, alive with writhing, pale maggots. The flesh at the wound's border was purpled and half-dissolved. With each shallow breath, the maggots churned, feeding on the ruined meat. A leather-bound journal, warped and stained, was thrust into the waistband of his trousers; even from across the room, it seemed to pulse faintly, as if hungering. Horror warring with purpose, Lyra withdrew—her feet whispering on the warped floorboards—then returned, visible now, to the main room. She leaned toward Qwimby, voice barely above a tremble. “Get the journal if you can,” she breathed, quiet but urgent. Below, Steve’s mind spun to crisis. She drew a deep breath—then let loose a scream, shrill and childish, the sound of a tantrum in full bloom. The wail cut through the house like a branding iron. Upstairs, Cedar jerked. Without bothering to redress, he scrambled for the landing. His panic made him careless. Too fast, eyes blurred with confusion or terror, he misjudged the top step. One foot, then another—his body pitched forward, colliding with the banister. Cedar tumbled down the steps, neck twisting at a grotesque angle, the last ragged gasp driven from his lungs as bone shattered. He landed sprawled at the base, motionless. Silence claimed the house for a heartbeat—sharp, total, unwelcome. Qwimby moved first, slipping deftly across warped planks to the corpse. He searched briefly—then freed the journal from its makeshift refuge, slipping it into his palm. As he rose, something inside Cedar’s body convulsed. From the puckered wound, and from beneath the eyelids and lips, a tide of pustulent maggots burst forth, cascading onto the wooden floor in a writhing, glistening mass. Qwimby staggered back, journal clutched tight. He opened it with hands that trembled—only to find the pages blank. Line after line, margin to margin, nothing but pale emptiness. He felt a chill curl up his spine: not merely the expected disappointment or confusion, but a growing sense of déjà vu, as if this moment—crime, theft, horror—was playing out again exactly as before, locked in an unseen cycle he could not remember. Steve, shaken but resolute, seized upon a new idea. She grabbed a nearby jar and attempted to coax one of the maggots inside. Her hands slipped on the greasy glass; the jar shattered to the floor, shards biting deeply into her palms. Blood welled through her fingers, red and vivid as the wound in Cedar’s chest. Graxen and Lyra, urging Steve to stillness, looked on in dismay. Then Lyra’s voice, tight with dread: “They’re on you, Steve.” Maggots had begun climbing her legs in swarming masses—yet when she peered downward, her skin seemed bare. She patted her calves, frantic. “I don’t see anything—what are you all talking about?” “They’re real,” Lyra said, eyes wide. “Trust me.” Qwimby grabbed a battered waterskin and tried to wash the maggots away, but his aim was wild—the arc missed her entirely, splashing harmlessly against a broken chair. Anger and frustration tangled in his features. Graxen stepped in without a word, pinching a maggot between the steel digits of his gauntlet and squeezing until it snapped; bright purple ichor oozed across his palm. None of them spoke, caught in the thick hush between horror and confusion. At the back of the room, Ellette drew a design in the air. Uttering words of power through clenched teeth, she summoned her Arcane Eye, sending her consciousness spiraling out into unseen corners. Something—only she could see—unfurled in her mind’s vision, and her face went ashen, mouth falling open in a silent moan of horror. When the spell faded, Ellette’s eyes darted from face to face, unwilling or unable to speak of what she had witnessed. At that same instant, a strange clarity invaded both Qwimby and Lyra. Their eyes unfocused; distant music, off-kilter and discordant, drifted through their thoughts. Through a veil not quite sight but not wholly illusion, they looked upon the world transformed. The street beyond the door was no longer empty or merely rain-washed, but a grisly tableau. Corpses—of people, of animals, of things they could not properly name—hung flayed along every wall. Blood painted letters, words, strange looping designs across windows and doors. The song grew fainter, trailing off into the silence left after slaughter. Qwimby gasped, steadying himself against the wall. The vision faded, replaced by the iron-stained shadow of the present. He glanced down at the blank journal, hand trembling. Lyra reached for it, prying apart its swollen cover. Within, new horrors waited. Lines overlapped in cramped, desperate script—“Help” written again and again, the plea carving furrows deep into every page. In the margins, between the looping calligraphy, Lyra found childish drawings—worms, or things that might once have been worms, given faces at once disturbingly human and bizarre. Their eyes leered, smiling with witless hunger. Lyra snapped the book shut, shivering. Around them, the shop held its breath. The abandoned counter and pillaged till, the spattered ink and desperate writing, each marked the descent of a mind into panic—and now, that madness was left to the care of those who remained. The maggots continued their slow, unhindered passage across the dead floorboards, searching for some new flesh to spoil, as silence closed once more over the little shop and all its gathered secrets.