The Breach door shuddered as Kane touched it.
It wasn't made of metal.
It was something alive — a membrane stretched thin, veined with twitching, dark-red tendrils.
At his touch, it parted — and a cold wind blew out.
Not air.
Something deeper.
It smelled of burned teeth and wet iron.
Kane stepped through.
---
He was nowhere.
The world had peeled away.
Above him stretched a sky of black glass, cracked and spiderwebbed, leaking faint streams of colorless mist.
Beneath his boots — no floor, only the suggestion of weight.
There was no sound.
No movement.
No life.
Only the Rot pulsing in his veins — humming louder, hotter.
Something waited here.
Something ancient.
Something that had worn Kane's soul like a glove since the accident.
It had bided its time.
Now it spoke.
---
Not aloud.
Inside his head.
A thousand voices overlapping, grinding against each other like wet stone.
> "Kane.
Little fractured Kane.
You opened the door.
Now, we can speak properly."
He staggered back.
"Show yourself!" he barked, knife raised.
The Rot laughed — a sound that made his teeth itch.
A shape slithered into existence before him.
Not a creature.
A mass — shifting, warping, constantly shedding and regrowing limbs, heads, mouths.
It wore fragments of faces he almost recognized — old friends, dead strangers, twisted into new forms.
It leaned forward.
> "We are the Whisper Rot.
The hunger beneath all things.
You are ours now — and we are yours.
Shall we bargain, Kane?
Shall we make you more?"
---
Kane's throat was dry.
"What kind of bargain?" he managed.
The thing smiled — a hundred mouths splitting open.
> "Simple.
We give you power.
Real power.
Enough to hunt what comes.
Enough to survive.
You give us... small things.
Memory.
Flesh.
Choices."
The shape blurred — now it was his mother's face, smiling horribly.
> "A little more each time.
A little less of you left.
Until the world ends.
Or until you do."
---
Kane gritted his teeth.
He knew the cost.
He'd already felt it — the black veins threading deeper under his skin, the way his heartbeat sounded wrong now, like it was ticking instead of pulsing.
The Rot wasn't lying.
It would consume him.
But if he refused...
The Riftborn horrors would tear him apart.
Or worse — they'd bleed into the world.
Cities would fall.
People would become things.
The Rot offered survival.
At a terrible, inevitable price.
---
He lowered the Boneglass knife slightly.
"...What power?" he asked.
The Whisper Rot shivered with glee.
> "Strength beyond flesh.
Senses that pierce the veil.
Hunger that devours monsters.
The birthright of the Meridian.
All yours.
In time.
With each choice."
It stretched out a hand — or something approximating a hand — woven from shadow and writhing veins.
> "Shake, Kane.
Seal the pact.
Hunt the dark.
Or die forgotten."
---
Kane hesitated.
The black sky trembled.
In the distance, he heard it — the sound of something colossal, dragging itself through dimensions, getting closer.
He was running out of time.
He thought of the people outside.
The living.
The ones who still had time.
He thought of himself — broken, alone, already half-monster.
Maybe this was always who he was meant to be.
Kane reached out.
And shook the Rot's hand.
---
The world exploded.
The black sky shattered.
The Rot poured into him — not just in his veins, but into his mind, his bones, his soul.
It whispered its name over and over, until it was burned into him:
Whisper Rot. Whisper Rot. Whisper Rot.
Kane screamed — but not in pain.
In power.
He rose to his feet.
His shadow split into dozens, each moving differently.
His heartbeat thudded once — then fell silent.
He didn't need it anymore.
Not fully.
The Rot coiled comfortably inside his ribs.
Waiting.
Laughing.
Feeding.
---
The Breach door reappeared before him.
It swung open without a sound.
And Kane — no longer fully human — stepped back into the broken world.
The hunt had truly begun.
And now, he was the most dangerous monster on the field.